Roasted Green Beans

Roasting vegetables has become one of my favorite methods to make an awesome, easy side dish. I made green beans the other day to show Shelby that they aren't always canned and nasty. I don't think I entirely convinced her, but I love them.


Ingredients:

• 1-2 handfuls of fresh green beans (or as many as you want to make)
  
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Parmesan cheese
  

Method:

• Cut the ends off the green beans, and cut in half, if they're long. You want them to be 1-2 inches long.
• Place green beans into a bowl, add olive oil, salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese and mix together.
  
• Put a piece of wax paper onto a rimmed baking sheet, and pour the seasoned green beans on top.
• Cook for 10-12 mins at 400F or until slightly crispy.

Voila! An easy, instant side dish. Works great for asparagus too.

"Smorgasbord" Pasta

I generally end up making a pasta every now and again to use up all the food I have in my fridge that's about to go bad (especially vegetables). This is no such exception. I've discovered the joys of using canned pasta sauce, and sautee-ing a bunch of vegetables (and sometimes adding wine too) to make it taste even better. I really don't think there's a way to mess up pasta.


Ingredients:

• 1 lb rotini pasta
• 6-8 slices turkey bacon, cooked and cut into pieces
• 2-3 chicken breast filets/tenderloins, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
  
• 1/2 yellow onion, chopped
  
• 1 pkg mushrooms, sliced
• 1 can alfredo sauce (I used Sun Dried Tomato Alfredo by D'Angelo)
• 1 cup red wine
• Olive oil
• Salt, pepper, and shredded Parmesan cheese, to taste
  

Method:

• Cook the bacon, and then the chicken by saute, and set aside.
• Boil the pasta until al dente, drain.
• Saute the garlic, mushrooms, and onions until they begin to brown, then add the red wine and let it cook out.
• Pour in the sauce, and let it heat up. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• Put the drained pasta in the pot, and stir in the sauce, bacon, and chicken. Serve with the Parmesan cheese.

See how easy it is? And tasty it sounds? It turned out great.

Mature Veal Polpette (AKA Meatballs)

I came home today and had an incredible craving for meatballs. So, I decided to make some of my favorite ones, which my mom has made before from a Rachael Ray cookbook. They're very very good, simple, and have a little surprise inside. So...win? I'm calling them "Mature Veal", because I couldn't get veal, so I went with just plain ole beef.


Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground veal (in this case, I had to just use plain hamburger...which is good too)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 egg
• 1/2 - 2/3 cup Italian-style bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
  
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
  
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Olive oil
• Pine nuts and raisins (enough for each meatball, about a half a handful of each)
  

Method:

• Mix the meat in a bowl together with everything minus the pine nut and raisin (the surprise(s) in the middle!!) with a nice drizzle of olive oil.
  
• Roll the meatballs to the desired size (I think they're better a little smaller, about 1.5 inches diameter). Place one pine nut and one raisin in the middle, and place on a rimmed cookie sheet.
• Bake at 400F for 10 mins (or until cooked through).
  

I served these with a can of "Caramalized Onion" Marinara Sauce (by D'Angelos I think...), which may or may not be discontinued at this point. It was really really good, and easy to add to it. I know the recipe in the 365: No Repeats Book has a great Tomato and Basil sauce to go with it...so if you want to make it homemade over spaghetti, look there.

Brined Pork Chops with Butternut Squash Risotto

First we'll start with the pork chops. I made an orange brine c/o Alton Brown, which was my first attempt at brining meat. It worked really really well, and I've used it another time since (and will continue to do so and experiment...). It's a very easy technique, and does a good job adding enough flavor to the meat that you don't have to do anything else but cook it.


Ingredients:

• 1 quart vegetable stock
  
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp black peppercorns (I've always just cracked a lot of pepper)
• 2 bay leaves
  
• 1 quart orange juice, chilled
  
• 2 quarts ice water
  

Method:

• Bring 2 cups of the stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, and bay leaves to a boil. Stir to dissolve sugar and salt.
• Add remaining stock, orange juice, and ice water and pour into a large enough container (like...big. He recommends a 2 gallon bucket. I used a rubbermaid cake container).
• After the mixture has cooled (he says below 40F), add the meat and place in the fridge.
• Let brine between 8 and 48 hours.
• Remove, pat dry with paper towels, and cook as desired.

This time, I cooked the pork over a charcoal grill until it was done. It was so yummy!


Now for one of my favorites, the butternut squash risotto! I basically follow the same recipe for all of my risottos, and I just change the ingredients. So I've just included a reduced summary below, using the crawfish and saffron risotto as a guideline.

Ingredients: (same as before, with the following exceptions)

• 1 butternut squash, roasted (see below) and cut into ~1 inch cubes
  
• OMIT asparagus
• 12 sage leaves, chopped
  

Method:

• Follow the same directions for the risotto as before, adding some of the squash into the chicken stock, and the sage leaves at the end with the butter and parmesan.
  
• To roast the butternut squash, cut in half and remove the seeds (core). Drizzle the inside of each half with olive oil, and place face down on a pan.
• Bake at 400F, at least 30-45 mins. You'll be able to tell when it's done, when the squash is soft (I like it to be a little browned, also).
• Let it cool off, then cut it into the 1 inch cubes. Then, you can start the risotto!

Overall (as you can see at the top) the meal turned out great. My friend and I served it with a spinach/goat cheese/raspberry vinaigrette salad and a piece of roasted garlic loaf. This risotto is definitely one of my favorites, and I've made it many many times. This pairing worked great also. Definitely recommend it.

Hoisin-Soy Creamy Saffron Stir Fry Noodles

As I was contemplating dinner this evening, one of my friends mentioned sushi, which lead to an unbeatable craving for it. Since I was trying to save money and didn't go out to get it, I decided to modify some of my leftover to get a similar flavor profile and quench my hunger. So these are the same noodles as before, with a few additions.

Ingredients:

• Leftover "Noodles with a Creamy Asparagus and Saffron Sauce"
  
• 1-2 chicken breast filets, sliced
  
• Olive oil
  
• Soy and hoisin sauce, to taste
  

Method:

• Reheat the leftover noodles in a wok over low heat.
• Drizzle some olive oil into a pan, and heat over medium heat. Add soy sauce and chicken and cook until chicken begins to brown.
• Add chicken to reheated noodles, and mix in soy sauce and a little hoisin sauce (or teriyaki) until the noodles become a nice brown color and the flavor is there.

That's it! An easy and tasty way to revamp leftovers.

Noodles with a Creamy Asparagus and Saffron Sauce

Every month, my co-workers and I get together to watch a movie based on a book we have all (supposedly) read that month. It's our little "Book & Movie Club". For May, we read Seven Years in Tibet, and I hosted the movie viewing under an Asian food theme. Since I had just gotten my saffron from Mom, and had leftover asparagus from my risotto, I decided to cook this recipe I found from a Wok & Stir Fry cookbook.


Ingredients:

• 10-12 stalks of asparagus
• 1 pinch of saffron
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp white wine
• 1 cup heavy cream
• grated rind and juice of 1/2 lemon
• 4 oz peas
• 12 oz somen noodles
• salt, pepper, and "Fines Herbes", to taste
• grated Parmesan cheese
  

Method:

• Cut off tips from asparagus, slice the remaining spears into short rounds
• Steep saffron in 2 tbsp boiling water
• Melt butter in a small pan, add shallots, and cook over low heat until transparent, ~3 mins
• Add white wine, cream, and saffron infusion and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for ~5 mins or until sauce thickens.
• Add grated lemon rind and jice, season with salt and pepper.
• Boil lightly salted water in a large pot. Blanch asparagus tips in water, then remove and add to sauce. Cook peas and remaining asparagus in the water until just tender, and add these to sauce also.
• Cook somen noodles in boiling water until tender. Drain and place into a wok.
• Pour sauce over the top of the noodles and toss. Add Fines Herbes and more salt/pepper as needed. Sprinkle with Parmesan and serve.
  

Overall, I think it turned out well. I got a number of compliments. The sauce was interesting, but good. I did learn, though, that somen noodles are a total mess to drain (they stick to EVERYTHING). So perhaps I'll try it with something different next time, maybe rice.

Crawfish and Asparagus Saffron Risotto

After my trip home this past weekend, I brought back a lot of crawfish (thanks Mom and Dad!!). So what to do with so much crawfish in your freezer, one might ask. Since I love risotto, and I love crawfish, I decided to merge these two loves together into an awesome recipe. I got the idea to add asparagus from Food Network, but basically made the risotto the same as I usually do (which, I realize I've never posted about before, so I guess this will be the introduction to it).


Ingredients:

• 1-2 lbs crawfish, peeled and cleaned
• 10 stalks asparagus, roasted (see below) and cut into ~1/2 inch pieces
  
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup water
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 pinches saffron
  
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cups arborio rice
• 1 cup white wine
  
• 1 tbsp butter
  
• 1 cup parmesan cheese
  
• Salt and pepper, to taste
  

Method:

• First, heat up the crawfish to warm, and roast the asparagus (cut into pieces, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper, and bake 10-12 mins at 400F).
  
• Place chicken stock and water in a medium pot, heat to boiling and then cover and reduce to low. (I like to put one or two pieces of whatever I am making the risotto out of into the chicken stock for added flavor - for this recipe 2-3 pieces of crawfish. Also, I put some saffron into the stock also).
  
• While the stock heats up, put the olive oil in a large saucepan and cook over medium heat.
  
• Once the oil starts to ripple, add saffron, garlic, and onions and cook until transparent, about 2 mins.
• Add the rice, and let toast about 2 mins.
• Pour in the white wine and let cook down.
• Slowly ladle in the chicken stock, just covering the rice, and let cook down. Repeat about 3-4 times, or until the stock is gone (estimated 18 mins). The rice should be very tender at this point; if not, add more stock/water.
• During the last 3 mins or so of cook time, add in the crawfish, asparagus, butter, and parmesan cheese. Stir and serve!

Overall I think it turned out very well, except the crawfish was so spicy it kinda drowned out the other flavors. I will have to experiment to see how to get good crawfish that isn't overpoweringly-spicy.