Spaghetti Squash with Herbs December 28, 2008

This was served with the most macho of meats - elk steaks sauteed with BEER to balance out the girly squash.

Spaghetti  squash is really, really tasty. However, many people would not agree with my opinion on the matter. I came up with this recipe to entice my roommate to enjoy this vegetable as much as I do, and it worked! It’s a little long on the prep side, but this dish can be both the starch and veggie side dish, plus it looks fantastic, without too much effort. If you want to serve 4 people, I would use the whole squash and double everything else, but for two people, this is a perfect amount. The recipe calls for fresh rosemary because I have rosemary growing in my backyard. Used dried if you need to do a substitution.

The only problem is hacking the damned squash in half, really.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 Spaghetti Squash, cooked
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced into thin matchsticks
• 3 cloves garlic, very finely chopped
• 1 tsp fresh rosemary (or 1/2 tsp dried)
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 1 tsp dried basil
• sea salt
• pepper
• 2 roma tomatoes/3 campari tomatoes, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp of butter/1 tsp white truffle oil (OMG, so fancy!!)

Method:

Cut the squash in half length-wise, and cook on high in the microwave for about 10 to 12 minutes, or until it’s nicely done and good and soft.  While this is happening you can cut up your bell pepper, garlic, tomato and fresh rosemary.

When the squash is done, use a fork to scrape out the flesh, which will come out in fine strands like… well… spaghetti. Hence the name.

Take a large, non-stick frying pan, and put a bit of cooking spray in and turn it onto medium low. Now saute the garlic, and then add the bell pepper when the garlic starts to soften up.

Once the pepper is mostly cooked, turn up the heat to medium, and dump in the cooked squash and the herbs, and add salt and pepper to taste. Once everything is good and hot and the bell pepper is totally cooked, stir in the fresh tomato and add the butter, or remove from the heat and drizzle the truffle oil over everything before serving it.

YUM!

Sage and Stilton Scones December 23, 2008

Ah… leftover cheese. I’m sure we’ve all seen this after a big Christmas party – there’s always a bit of cheese left over, and you probably aren’t feeling like just eating the stuff straight. We did a big Christmas BBQ at work, and we had quite a bit of Stilton (which is a blue cheese) left over on the cheese plate. So I took it home and came up with this recipe to use it all up, since it’s not the kind of cheese you can sit around and eat absolute mounds of. 

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup stilton or other blue cheese, very finely crumbled
• 1 tsp ground sage
• 3 tbsp liquid egg white 
• 1 cup skim milk
• 2 and 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup cold butter/margarine 

Method:

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and sage. 

Cut in your butter with a fork or a pastry blender. I used a fork because I was using margarine, but if you’re using butter, cut it into small cubes first. I also recommend you make the investment in the pastry blender if you want to bake a lot with butter – it’s a half moon shaped series of wires (sort of like a very firm wisk) attached to a handle. ANYHOW…

In a separate bowl, stir together the egg whites (which you purchase in a carton! How wasteful!) and skim milk.

Dump the crumbled cheese onto the flour mixture, then pour the mix and egg white mixture in. Stir up with a fork until the whole thing starts to stick together into a ball of ragged looking dough.

Dump the dough out onto your counter, (add a bit of flour to your counter if it seems to be sticking – mine didn’t need any though), and knead the dough 10 times. 

Flatten the dough into a rectangle, about 7 by 10 inches (I eyeballed this, don’t get out a ruler or anything!) and shape the edges so they’re even. 

Get out a good knife, and cut the dough into six squares, then cut each square in half on the diagonal. 

Place your scones onto a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil, shiny side down, and bake for 20 minutes. The stilton might melt and run out a bit, which is why you put the scones on foil – it keeps clean-up easy!

These are nice because they have a good sharp flavour, but you could really use any kind of leftover cheese to make them. If you were going to use something like swiss or cheddar, I would increase the cheese to one cup though. 

Autumn Cauliflower Soup September 15, 2008

Ah! No posts for a while… Turns out the carpets in my apartment were being replaced, so I had to move all my furniture into the non carpeted areas of my house… The thing is, most of my place is carpeted, so you can see where this went.
Madness ensued.
It didn’t help that I also decided to paint my living room… Anyhow this is a soup I was planning to make for the better part of a week. It’s a nice, rich soup (similar to Mulligatawny, sort of?) that is good for two reasons: 1 – it’s like a creamy soup with none of the cream, so it’s healthy and 2 – if you use vegetable stock, this is a vegan friendly dish. Oh boy!
It’s also got the benefit of looking totally rotten when you’re making it, so you can gross out whomever you want to eventually feed it to. He he he.

Autumn Cauliflower Soup:
1 leek, thinly sliced white and light green part only
2 cloves garlic
cooking spray
1 tsp curry powder (I may have used as much as 1.5, I always just guesstimate…)
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 tsp olive oil
4 cups hot stock – I used chicken (use vegetable for a vegan friendly recipe)
1 head cauliflower, roughly chopped
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 tsp nutmeg (the secret ingredient!)

1. Sauté leek and garlic with cooking spray until translucent, but not browned in a large stock pot.
2. Add olive oil, curry powder and turmeric, and cook for about 1 minute more until spices are fragrant. Yum!
3. Add your hot stock and cauliflower, some salt and pepper to taste. Now, to use the technical cooking term, boil the ever loving crap out of that, keep the lid on the pot so all the stock doesn’t evaporate. Give it 20 minutes or so.
4. Mash up your cauliflower with a potato masher. If it gets crumbly and looks like brains, it’s done. Gross!
5. Whip out your trusty immersion blender and puree the soup until it’s thick and creamy.
6. Add a bit more salt if desired, and stir in the nutmeg.
7. Heat through and serve with crusty bread. Note: this soup is really thick and the bubbles tend to pop rather explosively. I warned you.

OPTIONAL: Top with crumbled prosciutto ham! Simply pan fry some slices of prosciutto until it’s crispy, and then crumble it over the top of your soup. This makes it un-vegan, but I love prosciutto.

Broccoli and Two Cheese Dinner Fritata August 24, 2008

Necessity is the mother of invention, and the bastard father of most of my recipies. If you ever find yourself needing to use up some old broccoli, or a carton of eggs, this is a nice easy way to do it.

Ingedients:

10 eggs
3 medium heads broccoli
Salt
Pepper
1 large, ripe tomato
1 cup shredded cheese (Chedder, Swiss)
Thinly sliced soft cheese (Brie, Camembert)

Materials:

1 12″ springform pan
Cookie sheet
Tin foil
Cooking spray

Method:

Chop and wash you broccoli, then place into a bowl with a very small amount of water and microwave for 5 minutes to partially cook it.
Slice your tomato up thinly (1/8″), and cut your soft cheese to match. Try for 6 slices of tomato and 5 of cheese.
Next, wrap the outside of your springform pan with tinfoil, and spray the inside with non-stick cooking spray. Also, set your oven to 350.
Crack ten(!) eggs into a large mixing cup and stir in shredded cheese and salt and pepper to taste.
Take your broccoli out of the microwave and drain it if needed.

Now, plop that steamed broccoli into the greased pan, and spread out so it covers the bottom.
Now, pour the egg mixture on top.
Finally, arrange the tomato and soft cheese on top of the broccoli.
Gently place pan onto cookie sheet, and then put the cookie sheet into the oven.
Bake until a toothpick comes out clean – about an hour. Then broil for a couple of minutes to brown the top.

Once that’s done, let it sit on the counter for a couple of minutes and release the springform pan. You should have a lovely, firm fritata.

Slice up and enjoy. Feeds four. Serve with ketchup if you’d like. I don’t mind, I love ketchup.

Variations:
Add/substitute:
Thinly sliced and sauted leeks
Mushroom (also cooked)
Bell pepper
Ground chicken

Note: 10 eggs sounds like a lot, but it is divided by 4 – so it’s less than a typical 3 egg omelette, and with a lot more veggies in it!