Easy Pasta with No-Cook Tomato Sauce

This is a recipe that was made over the summer. It is a delicious, easy and relatively cheap dish that is really nice presented in a big bowl and served family style. It is originally from Fine Cooking September 2007.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. of your favorite pasta
• 2 lb. ripe tomatoes (about 3-4 large), cored and cut into 1/2 inch dice
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup roughly chopped fresh flat leaf parsley or basil or both
• 1 Tbs. coarsely chopped fresh thyme
• 1 tsp. minced garlic
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
• pinch crushed red pepper flakes

Direction:

Combine all of the ingredients, except the pasta, in a non-reactive bowl large enough to hold the tomatoes and the cooked pasta; mix well. Let the sauce sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes and up to 3 hours.

Toss the sauce with just-cooked pasta. Mixing the warm pasta into the room temperature tomatoes brings out great flavor. Serve with salt and pepper.

We also had a few bowls around the table of extra toppings that people may want. Here are some of the things that we came up with but get creative:

• feta cheese
• goat cheese
• mozzarella cheese
• parmigiano-reggiano cheese
• really any cheese…
• pesto
• vegetable
• Tapenade (1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olives, 1/4 cup pitted green olives, 1/4 cup pitted oil cured black olives, 3 Tbs. extra vigin olive oil, 1 tsp. finely grated lemon zest, 1 tsp minced rosemary – all in a food processor until roughly chopped)

Serves 4-6 people

Shirley’s Squash Souffle

Amanda, this one is for you.  This recipe is  part of our Chanukah tradition.  Amanda has been asking me to make this on a variety of occasions, but I could not find the recipe and was a little embarrassed to call and ask for it again .  Today it turned up between the pages of one of my favorite cookbooks so here it is before I misplace it again.   Thank you, Shirley.

1 10oz package of frozen squash defrosted

3 eggs

1/2 cup flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups  milk

1/2 stick of margerine

1 teaspoon of vanilla

Defrost the package of squash and mix with the remaining ingredients.  Pour into a greased souffle dish and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees uncovered.

Roasted Broccoli with Tomatoes

This is a great recipe that I cooked a couple of weeks ago. It is easy and tastes great. It is based off a recipe from the Foodnetwork.

Ingredients:

• 2 bunches broccoli cut into florets
• 1 medium shallot, roughly chopped
• 1 pint tomatoes (cherry, grape, etc.)
• 3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
• Add broccoli, shallots, tomatoes, garlic, red pepper flakes and olive oil into a large bowl.
• Sprinkle with salt and pepper
• Toss to coat and spread onto a large baking sheet.
• Roast until the stems are tender-crisp and golden brown, about 18 minutes.

Tuscan Vegetable Soup

1 (15 oz) can of canellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 large onion, diced about 1 C
2 carrots, diced about 1/2 C
1 small zucchini, diced (about 1 and 1/2 C)
2 stalks celery, diced about 1/2C
1 clove garlic minced
1 tablespoon chopped thyme
2 teaspoon chopped sage
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 reaspoon black pepper
32 oz chicken broth
1 (14 oz) can diced tomato
2 C chopped spinach leaves
1/3 C grated parmesan

In a small bowl mash half of the beans with the back of a spoon and set aside.

Heat oil in a large soup pot over med high heat. Add the onions, carrots, celery, zucchini, garlic, thyme, sage, 12/teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and cook stirring occasionally until the vegetables are tender about 5 minutes.

Add broth and tomatoes with the juice and bring to a boil. Add the mashed and whole beans and the spinach leaves and cook until the spinach is wilted about 3 minutes.

Serve with Parmesan, if desired.

Crispy Potatoes

12- 15 baby red or yellow potatoes

2 3/4 tsp kosher salt

1/2 cup virgin olive oil

Wash and put potatoes in a large saucepan and cover with at least an inch of water.  Add 2 tsp of kosher salt to the water.  Bring water to a boil, reduce to simmer and cook the potatoes until they are completely tender and can be easily pierced with a fork.  Don’t overcook though.  Cooking time will be 30 or 35 minutes.

Remove potatoes from the water and let them drain for about 2 minutes.  Flatten each potato to a thickness of about 1/2 inch.  It is ok if they break a little.

Preheat oven to 450. Cover a large rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and top with parchment paper. (I’ve skipped the parchment paper and it is fine)  Transfer the potatoes carefully to baking sheet.

Sprinkle potatoes with 3/4 tsp of salt and and pour olive oil over them, gently lifting potatoes to be sure oil goes underneath them.  Roast until crisp and brown about 30 minutes.  There won’t be leftovers!!!!

Fruit Cobbler

This, I think, is the best recipe for a fruit cobbler. It is originally from July 2007 Fine Cooking and is a great recipe for whatever type of cobbler you would like to make. I made it a couple times a few summers ago and then the magazine disappeared. I went on a mission to try and find a similar recipe, but nothing was quite like this one. Luckily the magazine reappeared and now I can put the recipe on the blog so I will never loose it again. Enjoy!

First you have to make the dough.

Ingredients:

• 1 and 2/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar or packed light brown sugar
• 1 Tbs. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. table salt
• 6 Tbs. cold unsalted butter, cut into 10 pieces
• 3/4 cup sour cream, chilled

Dough Flavorings:

• 1/2 tsp. finely grated lemon zest
• 3/4 tsp. finely grated orange zest
• 1/4 cup finely ground cornmeal
• 3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup chopped toasted almonds, pecans, walnuts, pistachios or hazelnuts

Preheat the oven 350 degrees. In a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Pulse briefly to blend the ingredients, about 10 seconds. Add the butter pieces and pulse until they are the size of small peas, 5-7 one-second pulses.

Dump the mixture into a large mixing bowl. Add any dough flavorings (1 or 2) if you would like and stir evenly. Add the sour cream and use a rubber spatula to smear the ingredients together until the flour is evenly moistened and the dough begins to form large, soft, moist clumps. Bring the dough together into an 8-inch long log. Divide the log into 10 equal round pieces and refrigerate in a bowl.

Second, you prepare the fruit filling.

Fruit choices:

• 1-inch thick wedge apricots
• blackberries
• blueberries
• 1-inch thick wedge peaches
• 1-inch thick wedge nectarines
• 1-inch thick wedge plums
• 1-inch thick wedge pluots
• raspberries
• strawberries, with the stems removed (cut in half or quarters if they are large)

Filling flavorings (optional)

• 1 and 1/4 tsp. finely grated lemon zest
• 1 tsp. finely grated orange zest
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 2 tsp. minced fresh ginger
• 1/4 tsp. pure almond extract
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Put the fruit of your choice in a large bowl. Toss with 1/2 to 3/4 cup granulated sugar (use more if the fruit is not as ripe), 1 Tsp. all purpose flour (use 2 Tsp. if you are using berries) and a punch of table salt.

If you want to add any of the optional filling flavors, do that now.

 

Third, assemble the cobbler.

Pile the fruit into a baking dish (9 x 13 works best), along with any juices from the fruit mixture. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and arrange them randomly on top of the filling, leaving spaces between the pieces. Don’t flatten the dough, it is important to have larger biscuit-sized pieces. If you would like spring 1 and 1/2 Tsp. demerara sugar, granulated sugar OR turbinado sugar.

Fourth, bake the cobbler.

Bake until the filling is bubbling and the topping is browned, 50-60 minutes. Let sit about 20 minutes to allow the juices to settle.

Stuffed Peppers

Here is my (Jackie’s) recipe for stuffed peppers. I forgot that I used to make these in college, but Eliza reminded me and asked me to put the recipe on the blog. They are pretty easy to make, healthy and great for leftovers too. I think I kind of came up with this recipe from a combo of other recipes so I don’t really have any place to credit it to. I also hope that I have all the measurements correct:

Ingredients:

• 4 green peppers
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup chopped vidalia onion
• 1 lb ground meat (beef or turkey)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 cup of cooked rice
• mozzarella cheese (either a block that you can make thin slices out of or from a presliced package — same brand as the american cheese slices)

Directions:

• Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
• There are two ways to arrange the filling in the peppers. Either you can cut off the tops and have the filling in the entire pepper, or you can cut the tops off, cut the pepper in half length-wise and have the filling sit in each halve of the pepper. Either way works and either way you want to make sure to clean out the inside. I tend to do it the second way, just because it is easier to eat (the other way, you cut into it and the filling falls out everything — however it looks prettier).

• Put your cut peppers (either way you chose) into the boiling water. Boil for about 2-3 minutes so that they get soft and cook through a little bit.

• Drain and set in a baking dish that is lightly oiled or sprayed at the bottom. You may also have to cut a little bit off the bottom of the pepper to get it to stand up.
• Preheat the oven 350 degrees.
• Put the olive oil in a pan to heat up. Add the garlic and the onions. Allow to cook for a few minutes until fragrant.

• Add the ground meat and cook until still a little pink.
• Add salt, pepper, oregano and diced tomatoes. Cook a few more minutes.
• Take the meat off heat and mix in the cooked rice.
• Stuff the peppers with the filling and lay a piece of mozzarella cheese on top.

• Bake in the oven until the cheese is melted. I’m guessing this is about 10 minutes, but I’m not sure. Try it out!

Enjoy!!