Pasta shells with yogurt sauce, peas, and chile

When Andrew and I were in Turkey over the summer, we tried a traditional dish called manti, which consists of a ravioli-like dumplings filled with meat and topped with yogurt and spices. I loved it - the yogurt sauce was creamy and tangy and paired well with the dumplings. Yogurt and pasta may seem like an odd combination at first, but it is commonly found in certain Middle Eastern cuisines, and it's not that far off from the yogurt rice eaten in India.

This recipe came from Jerusalem - it's not the same dish I tried in Turkey, but it's in the same family. Here, the sauce includes yogurt, feta cheese, and pureed peas. The pasta is tossed with more peas and basil, and topped with pine nuts that have been cooked in a spicy chile oil. The pine nuts and chile oil really make this dish - the nuts add texture and the chile add another dimension of flavor. The chile oil is very spicy though, so cut down on the chile flakes if you are sensitive to heat!

A note on the Jerusalem cookbook - this book is by Yotam Ottolenghi, the author of Plenty. You may remember me talking about how much I love Plenty, and Jerusalem is just as good (although fyi - it's not vegetarian). I love the big flavors and creative combinations of ingredients in Ottolenghi's recipes and his cookbooks are always a good source of inspiration. I definitely highly recommend this one.

Pasta with roasted broccoli, olives, and Pecorino

My shopping habits at the farmers' market have changed quite a bit over the last two years. Two years ago, I would eagerly buy anything I hadn't tried before - heirloom tomatoes! fresh shell beans! celery root! - because I was so excited by all the variety. Now, I've tried almost everything at least once, and I know what I like best and what's most convenient for the amount of time I have available for cooking. I know that celery root just isn't my favorite, fresh shell beans are kind of a pain, and that while heirloom tomatoes are fantastic, regular tomatoes are pretty great too and are a lot better for my budget. This year, I've also found myself enjoying broccoli much more than I used to. In 2010, I posted about how broccoli is kind of boring,  but I feel differently now. I love the way broccoli soaks up sauce and the texture it has after being stir-fried or roasted.

For dinner tonight, I decided to make a pasta salad of sorts, combining rotini with roasted broccoli and shallots, garlic, olives, and pecorino cheese. It was a tasty and enjoyable meal, definitely far from boring!

Moroccan spaghetti

I might have a slight obsession with cookbooks. I just counted my cookbooks for the first time, and I have 54. That's not too many...is it? True, they no longer fit in the bookcase, but that doesn't mean it's an excessive number. It just means the bookcase is too small. Anyway, in all seriousness, even though I love cookbooks and have 10 more on my Amazon wish list, I almost never buy those wish list books for myself. The cookbooks I buy myself are usually from yard sales or the library book sale, and cost around $2 each. Usually these are books that I hadn't heard of before, but end up loving after flipping through them. And it's hard to beat such bargains! A perfect example is The Accidental Vegetarian, which I picked up at the Somerville library book sale a couple weeks ago. As soon as I got home, I went through it cover to cover and tagged about 10 recipes right away. This Moroccan spaghetti was particularly appealing to me because with the exception of the herbs, it uses all pantry ingredients. Perfect for that time before the summer produce really hits the farmers' market shelves.

This recipe jazzes up a basic tomato sauce with cinnamon, cumin, turmeric, parsley, cilantro, and mint. Chickpeas and almonds bulk up the dish and add protein. It's a pretty simple recipe that makes a nice change from the standard weeknight spaghetti dinner. I can't wait to try more recipes from this book, especially with all the great local produce that is going to be arriving soon!

Orzo with shrimp, red peppers, and mushrooms

I feel like I've been seeing orzo recipes everywhere lately. On the blogs, there was this one and this one, and my cousin served an orzo dish when I was at her place last week. So I decided to join the club and cook an orzo recipe for dinner last night. Mediterranean flavors work so well with orzo, so I went in that direction - why mess with something good, right? When I cook pasta, I usually bulk it up with lots of vegetables, and this time I used red peppers and mushrooms. With shrimp, olives, basil, feta cheese, and a generous amount of lemon juice, this recipe is healthy and packed with flavor. I'm so glad we had a lot of leftovers - I can't wait to eat this for lunch tomorrow!

Macaroni and cheese with silken tofu, carrots, and broccoli

Have you ever tried silken tofu? I first learned about it from Mark Bittman, who used it in a pudding recipe for the New York Times. Unlike the tofu that you may be more familiar with, silken tofu has a soft, smooth texture like custard and can be used as a dairy substitute. Bittman's recipe made me very curious to try it, but I'm not a huge fan of pudding, so I never got around to it. Then recently, Emily of A Cambridge Story used it to make a pasta casserole with alfredo sauce. When I saw her recipe, I knew that I wanted to do something similar to create a healthier version of mac 'n cheese (maybe healthified mac 'n cheese will become a whole category on this blog. I've already got this one). The sauce in this recipe is made of silken tofu, carrots, garlic and some smoked Gouda cheese. That's it. No butter, no milk, no cream. The tofu really gives it a velvety smooth texture that just feels creamy, and the carrots give it some good cheesy color. The smoked Gouda adds tons of flavor - Andrew even thought there was bacon in this dish. I have to admit that I get a big kick out of sneaky uses for vegetables and healthy ingredients, so I really had fun with this =).

Do you have any tricks for sneaking vegetables or other healthy ingredients into recipes?

(Do you like the new dishes that I got for Christmas? They are technically French onion soup bowls but I think they were perfect for this recipe!)

Butternut squash and hazelnut lasagna

The last two recipes I posted were healthy, low-fat, and packed with veggies, perfect for the week after Thanksgiving. But now I think it's time to talk about something a bit more decadent, don't you? After all, the holidays are coming up (sooner than I'd like to admit), and it is time for menu planning! If you are looking for a holiday-worthy vegetarian main course, this lasagna is perfect - definitely worthy of serving to guests. I brought it to a lasagna bake-off party (what a great party theme, huh?), and it was a hit. It is a nice change from a typical lasagna with tomato sauce, and the squash and hazelnuts make a great flavor and texture combination. And with a generous amount of cheese and creamy sauce, lasagna doesn't get much better than this!

Butternut squash and hazelnut lasagna
Adapted from Epicurious
Makes one 9 x 13-inch lasagna

For filling:
1 large onion, chopped
3 tbs unsalted butter
3 lbs. butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
2 tbs chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
6 tsp chopped fresh sage
1 cup chopped hazelnuts, toasted

For sauce:
1 tsp minced garlic
3 tbs unsalted butter
5 tbs all-purpose flour
5 cups milk
1 bay leaf
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp white pepper

For assembling lasagna:
1/2 lb. fresh mozzarella, coarsely grated (2 cups)
3 oz. finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (1 cup)
16 (7- by 3 1/2-inch) sheets of no-boil lasagna noodles (1/2 lb)

Make filling:

Melt butter in a deep, heavy 12-inch skillet over moderate heat. Add onion and cook until softened and golden, about 10 minutes. Add squash, garlic, salt, and white pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes. Cover pan and cook until squash is tender, about 5-7 minutes longer. Remove filling mixture from heat and stir in parsley, sage, and nuts. Add additional salt to taste if necessary, then cool filling.

While filling cooks, make sauce:
Melt butter in a 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Whisk in flour and cook mixture, whisking, 3 minutes. Slowly pour in milk, whisking. Add bay leaf and bring sauce to a boil, whisking constantly, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, whisking occasionally. Stir in salt and white pepper and remove sauce from heat. Discard bay leaf. 

Assemble lasagna:

Preheat oven to 425 deg F and butter a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Mix cheeses together. Spread 1/2 cup sauce in the baking dish and cover with 4 pasta sheets. Spread 2/3 cup sauce over the noodles, top with one third of the filling, then sprinkle with a heaping 1/2 cup cheese. Repeat this layering 2 more times, beginning with pasta sheets and ending with cheese. Top with the remaining 4 pasta sheets, remaining sauce, and remaining cheese. Tightly cover the baking dish with buttered foil and bake lasagna in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes. Remove foil and continue baking until lasagna is golden and bubbling, 10 to 15 minutes more. Let lasagna stand 15 to 20 minutes before serving.

Pasta with cabbage and potatoes

Okay, I hope you're ready for a recipe full of carbs! I normally wouldn't put pasta and potatoes together in the same dish, but the New York marathon is coming up this weekend, so I figured something carb-heavy was appropriate in honor of those running. Personally, I know I'll never reach the level of athleticism of a marathon runner, but the carbo-loading part? That I can handle =).

This recipe is another one from the November issue of Food & Wine which I've been cooking a lot from lately. It's described as "peasant food" - simple, tasty, and filling. The pasta is tossed with steamed cabbage and potatoes, and a sauce that is flavored with garlic, rosemary, thyme, and cheese. It's a nice rustic dish that is perfect comfort food for colder weather.

Pasta with cauliflower and brussels sprouts

I am loving the latest issue of Food + Wine! It got me really excited about brassicas, of all things. In case you don't know, brassicas are a group of vegetables that include cauliflower, cabbage, and brussels sprouts, among others - they are in full force at the markets right now. These are really not the most exciting vegetables and I usually struggle to find anything even halfway interesting to make with them. But after reading through Food + Wine, I actually went to the market last weekend hoping to get cabbage, and worrying that the brussels sprouts would be gone before I got there. (Side note: I actually had two anxiety dreams last week that involved not being able to get to the farmers' market. How weird am I?...Don't answer that). Anyway, this pasta dish was the first one I made out of all the recipes I tagged in the magazine. It's got nicely browned cauliflower and brussels sprouts, with tons of flavor from garlic, anchovies, rosemary, thyme, and cheese, all topped off with toasted bread crumbs. It was awesome! Hope you're ready for more brassica recipes in the next week or two...

What vegetables do you struggle the most to get excited about? 

Macaroni and cheese with butternut squash

Wow, it has been a very busy few days! Can't complain though - I went to a really amazing conference and got to play with my baby nephew, among other things. The only downside was that I was away from my kitchen for the weekend and haven't had much of a chance to cook in the last week. Needless to say, I was pretty happy to get back into the kitchen today! I had a butternut squash sitting on the counter that was starting to look a bit suspect, so I decided to use it to make this mac 'n cheese recipe that I tagged in Cooking Light recently. I was intrigued by the healthier take on mac 'n cheese that uses butternut squash to add color, flavor, and creaminess. 

I'm so glad I tried this recipe! This twist on mac 'n cheese is really great - the sauce is creamy and cheesy but not too heavy and makes for a very satisfying meal. I'm definitely keeping this one in mind if my future children are picky eaters and I need to sneak vegetables into dinner ;).

Macaroni and cheese with butternut squash

Adapted from Cooking Light

Serves 8

I made a few changes to the recipe - I increased the amount of squash a bit and added more broth to keep the sauce from getting too thick. I used whole wheat pasta to increase the nutritional value a bit, and also decided to use whole milk instead of skim. We already had whole milk in the fridge and it adds less than 15 calories per serving, so why not?

4 cups peeled cubed butternut squash

2 cups fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth (or vegetable broth)

1 1/2 cups whole milk

2 garlic cloves, peeled

1 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 tbs fat-free Greek yogurt

5 oz. Gruyere cheese, shredded

4 oz. pecorino Romano cheese, shredded

1 oz. Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, finely grated, divided

1 pound uncooked pasta (use a ridged pasta shape like shells or cavatappi, whole wheat if you want)

1 tsp olive oil

1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

Cooking spray

2 tbs chopped parsley

Preheat oven to 375 deg F.

Combine squash, broth, milk, and garlic in a medium pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce to a simmer and cook until squash is tender, about 20 minutes, then remove from heat. Add salt, pepper, and Greek yogurt and puree mixture using an immersion blender until smooth (or use a regular blender). Stir in Gruyere, pecorino Romano, and 2 tbs Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. If the cheese does not melt in smoothly, blend sauce again (I usually do this)

While squash is cooking, bring a pot of water to a boil and cook pasta, then drain. Stir together pasta and sauce and spread mixture into a 9 x 13-inch baking dish.

In a small skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add bread crumbs and cook, stirring frequently, until crumbs are golden brown, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in remaining Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Sprinkle bread crumbs over pasta and lightly top with cooking spray.

Bake pasta in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until sauce is bubbly. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Pasta with green beans and sausage gravy

I got some beautiful green beans at the market last week. They were slender and delicate and I couldn't wait to eat them. The only problem was that I couldn't decide what to make...green beans tend to always be a side dish in my house and I really wanted to make a main dish. Curry or stir fry? Nah, as usual I didn't want to rely on an old standby - I wanted to try something new! I poked around at recipes online for a while and starting thinking about combining the beans with pasta and a creamy sauce. I remembered that I had some sausage in the fridge, and then suddenly I had the perfect idea...sausage gravy! For those of you that are unfamiliar, sausage gravy is basically just a standard white sauce using fat from sausage instead of butter. The great thing about it is that the sausage adds so much flavor that you don't really have to worry about additional spices, cheese, or anything like that. Sausage gravy is usually served with biscuits, but I had a feeling that it would make a great pasta sauce, and it certainly did! I was pretty thrilled with how this came out - the green beans and a sprinkling of parsley added nice freshness and color, and it was a simple, flavorful, and filling dinner. If you're on the east coast and are looking for some comfort food to eat when hurricane Irene hits, you should definitely give this a try!

Pasta salad

I'm sure many of you encountered a pasta salad at some point during the 4th of July holiday weekend. Personally, I really, really don't like pasta salads with mayo, and when I saw the mayo-free version over here, I was inspired to create my own. I had also recently made a tuna salad with fennel and olives, and thought that those flavors would work well with pasta. I added some snap peas for extra crunch and cherry tomatoes for summery juiciness, and finished it off with olive oil, lemon juice, and a lot of herbs. This is a great mayo-free pasta salad full of fresh market vegetables. We enjoyed it for dinner yesterday when the weather was too steamy to consider eating a hot meal, and the leftovers made a delicious lunch.

I was originally planning on using white beans for this salad instead of tuna to make it vegetarian, but I happened to be out of white beans - I think the bean version would be just as good as the tuna, so use whichever one you prefer.

Pasta salad
Serves 4 

Feel free to use whatever herbs you like here. I used basil, lemon basil, oregano, and parsley, but many other herbs would work just as well.

1/2 lb pasta (I used medium shells, but any small to medium sized shape should be fine)
1/2 of a large fennel bulb, thinly sliced with pieces cut into 1-inch lengths
20 cherry tomatoes, sliced
15 kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
10 sugar snap peas, sliced crosswise
1 (5 oz.) can tuna or 1 (15.5 oz.) can white beans, such as cannellini
3 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
Juice of 1/2 lemon, plus more if needed
2 large handfuls of herbs, chopped (some suggestions are basil, oregano, lemon basil, mint, parsley, and dill)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper


Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil, add pasta, and cook until pasta is al dente. Reserve 1 cup of pasta cooking water, then drain pasta and run under cold water until pasta is no longer warm. Transfer pasta to a large bowl and mix with the remaining ingredients. Add salt, pepper, and more lemon juice to taste. Add pasta water if the salad needs moisture.

Orecchiette

Over the weekend, I had dinner with some girlfriends at Barbara Lynch's Sportello. The food was totally delicious and made me want to cook more Italian food, particularly fresh pasta. The entree I had at the restaurant featured orecchiette, which is an "ear-shaped" semolina pasta, and I decided to try making it myself today. I consulted The Silver Spoon for the recipe, and got distracted in the gnocchi section along the way...did you know that there is such a thing as rice gnocchi? Bread gnocchi? Ricotta gnocchi? There are 18 different gnocchi recipes in this book! I can't wait to try some of them.

Anyway, back to the orecchiette. On paper, it's a pretty simple pasta to make - you don't need a pasta roller or any other special tools. The shaping is a little tricky though. I consulted some YouTube videos and watched Italian mothers making it look like the easiest thing ever. Then I attempted in vain to do what they did, gave up quickly and came up with my own way. I ended up with uneven, misshapen orecchiette, but whatever. They tasted good, and it doesn't really matter if they look perfect.

We ate the orecchiette with mushrooms and peas, cooked with a little garlic, pepper, thyme, and parsley, and topped with some olive oil and parmigiano-reggiano. I'm focusing on the pasta here, so I'm not going to give any more details about the sauce/topping. A number of sauces would work well, so play around with the pairings and see what you like.

Spaghetti with zucchini, almonds, and lemon

This dish is something that I've been wanting to make for several months. In the early fall, I got the idea to julienne zucchini lengthwise into long, thin strips and toss them with spaghetti, lemon, nuts, and Parmigiano. I went to the farmers' market all excited to try it out...only to find that zucchini had gone out of season that very week. So I resigned myself to the idea that I'd have to wait until next summer to make the dish.

However...I've recently decided that for the winter, I'm going to expand my definition of local food to include ingredients that are produced regionally - that is, anywhere on the East Coast. This gives me some more variety in vegetables, although I'm still buying as many Massachusetts-produced ingredients as I can. I'm also still buying all my produce and meat from the farmers' market so that I have a connection with the people that grow the food, even if the food is coming from a different part of the East Coast. One of the vendors at the local winter farmers' market sources produce from Florida, and they were selling zucchini this week, so I decided to finally try making this dish!

I was really happy with how this came out - it is a simple but tasty, and I liked the effect of the zucchini and spaghetti being the same shape. Even my zucchini-hating cousin happily ate a big bowl of it for dinner tonight! I'd say this was worth the wait, although I hope my recipe ideas are better timed in the future...

Pasta with lentils and kale

Okay, so this is definitely a dish to eat after a night, or weekend or whatever, of excess. You'll feel virtuous just by eating it. And lucky for you (and me), it also tastes good. The flavors are clean and simple, and everything blends together nicely. It's not fancy restaurant food, but it's good, healthy, tasty home cooking. And it has a short list of mostly pantry ingredients, which is great. I'll admit that I was a little skeptical about the recipe at first. I thought that it wouldn't be flavorful enough, so I added a cheese rind to the pot as the lentils cooked. It was a good addition, giving a flavor boost without overpowering the other ingredients. If you're looking for more (and I don't think the recipe really needs it), you could add herbs to the lentil pot or to the finished dish. Just don't go overboard - remember that the strength of this recipe is that you can really taste each individual ingredient.

Pasta with cauliflower and walnut pesto

This post is the first of my two entries for this week's Fall Fest, which features brassicas. Brassicas are a category of vegetable that includes cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, and cabbage, to name a few. Even for a vegetable lover such as myself, it's not exactly the most exciting group...I'll admit that it took me a while to get inspired for this one. But after flipping through several cookbooks, I found this cauliflower pasta recipe, which is a keeper, as well as a few other brassica recipes that I'm looking forward to trying.

The pesto in this dish is made with cilantro, parsley, garlic, and walnuts. It's got a really interesting flavor, much more subtle than I expected. I thought it was a great match for the cauliflower and other vegetables. The recipe calls for fresh bell peppers, but they're no longer in season here, so I had to improvise. I'm determined to continue eating as much local produce as possible through the colder months, so I substituted some roasted red peppers (frozen from the summer) and a carrot. We also stirred in some chickpeas for added protein, but I forgot to add them before Andrew took pictures. I really liked the final dish with these additions - it's a satisfying single-bowl meal, and is good served warm or cold.

Spinach pasta

 
Summer Fest has officially transitioned into Fall Fest, and this week's theme ingredient is spinach. To be honest, I was feeling kind of uninspired about this one - I just didn't really have any idea what to make. Pretty much the only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to make a dish that didn't require removing the spinach stems...I'm kind of lazy about certain things (I just realized the irony of the last statement in a post about homemade pasta, ha). Anyway, I had some time to kill over the weekend, so I eventually decided to incorporate the spinach into some fresh pasta.

I was underwhelmed by how this pasta turned out - the flavor was good but the texture was too soft. Definitely not the best pasta I've made at home. I have a feeling this was my own fault, and not the recipe's - I used more spinach than called for, and I didn't let the pasta dry out enough before cooking. If any of you are expert pasta makers, please share your tips!

A note on pasta making - I use an Atlas hand-crank pasta machine to roll out the dough. Although it is time-consuming, I do enjoy the methodical process of rolling the dough into thinner and thinner sheets. I actually find it kind of relaxing. Kitchenaid also makes a pasta roller/cutter attachment for their stand mixers if you want to speed things up.

Pasta with greens, beans, and garlic bread crumbs

I had such fun going through the Summer Fest recipes last week! I found lots of creative ideas for cooking corn and also came across a bunch of great blogs I hadn't seen before. And now it's already time for the next Summer Fest post - this week's theme is herbs, beans, and greens. It didn't take me long to decide what to make for this one. This recipe is one of our favorites, and I'm excited to share it with you. The pasta here is tossed with beans and greens in a light cheesy sauce (with bacon!), and there are some completely delicious garlic bread crumbs to top it all off. No need for side dishes here - this is a complete meal in itself.

This recipe is from The Best 30-Minute Recipe, which is a cookbook by America's Test Kitchen. As the title suggests, this book focuses on quick recipes, and includes lots of handy shortcuts and tips for saving time, without sacrificing flavor or quality ingredients. The recipes are really good, although they sometimes take a bit longer than 30 minutes (unless you are very efficient in the kitchen, which I'm not).

I made several substitutions to the ingredients here - I used a whole wheat blend rotini instead of spaghetti, red Swiss chard instead of kale, fresh cranberry beans instead of canned cannellini (might as well celebrate the fresh shell beans of summer!), and Swiss cheese instead of fontina (I just realized that I used two "Swiss" ingredients...how random). The Swiss cheese caused a bit of a problem - it got really stringy as it melted and clumped together with the greens, rather than blending smoothly with the sauce. I've made this recipe previously with fontina and parmesan cheese, and didn't have a problem with either of those. If you use Swiss, you might want to try melting it into the broth mixture before tossing with pasta, rather than stirring it in at the end. I'm including the original ingredients as well as with my substitutions in the recipe below, so you can make it however you want.

You can find links the other Summer Fest entries over at Pinch My Salt.