Pasta with Butternut Squash

Few recipes that are this easy taste this good.



Ingredients

• 1/2lb cooked spaghetti
  
• 1lb butternut squash (a small butternut squash), peeled and cubed, (seeds removed)
  
• 1 medium yellow onions, peeled and bisected orthogonally. Or whatever.
  
• ~4oz ripe tomatoes, washed
  
• 3 stalks celery, washed
  
• olive oil
  
• water
  
• salt
  
• 1.5tsp dry rubbed sage
  
• black pepper
  
• parmesan cheese
  
• 5 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped (or else pancetta)
  

Place the squash, onion, tomatoes (whole, if you please), and celery in a casserole dish. Toss with olive oil, and place in a 350-400 degree oven until the squash is just tender, about 45 minutes at 350 or 30 minutes at 400 (maybe - check with a fork). While they're going, start water boiling for the pasta. When the vegetables are done, puree them in a food processor and taste, adding salt as needed. This recipe takes a lot of salt. Add the sage and about 1/2c water and continue to puree until mostly smooth. Meanwhile, make sure that the pasta is cooking. Pour the squash sauce into a pan and add some water until it's just a little liquidy. Set to high heat and cover, letting cook for 5 minutes or so while you drain the pasta. Then take the sauce off the heat (provided it's thick enough - otherwise just uncover and cook until it's done) and pour the pasta in, tossing to coat. Grate a lot of black pepper into it and sprinkle with parmesan (maybe as much as 1/2c?) and bacon / pancetta. Serve. Thoughts: WHY have we never done this before? This will probably become a go-to recipe. It's fairly healthy (lots of vegetables, not too much fat - I used "center cut" low fat bacon) and it's really good. Disaster Index: 1/10

Pasta with Brussels Sprouts and Kale

I made this recipe up.

Ingredients

• 1 pint of brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved. That is how I would describe the quantity. I would guess I had 20 sprouts, but it may depend on the size.
  
• small bunch of kale - 6-8 leaves, stems removed, torn to bite-size
  
• 2 cloves garlic
  
• 1 small onion, chopped
  
• olive oil
  
• balsamic vinegar
  
• 2tsp brown sugar
  
• 1/2c chicken stock (or veg)
  
• parmesan, salt and pepper to taste
  
• 1lb pasta of your choice - I used rotini.
  

Set some water boiling for pasta. In a pot, add the onion and sprouts, and give a generous amount of olive oil. Saute on low for 5 minutes or so, until the onions are soft, and then add the chicken stock, the garlic, and the kale and cover. Simmer on medium heat, adding extra water as necessary, until the brussels sprouts are tender. Took mine about 10 minutes. When this is complete, add the brown sugar and balsamic vinegar. I added probably 2 tbsp balsamic, but possibly as much as 4 tbsp. You have to add it, stir the veg, and taste it. When the pasta is done, spoon the pasta in with the vegetables and add the parmesan. I actually also added just a LITTLE cream cheese, though a small amount of actual cream would also be good here (neither is necessary, though). Over very low heat, stir the pasta and veg together to combine and melt the cheese somewhat in the process, then adjust the balsamic / salt to taste.

Thoughts: this was really good, even though it might sound a little strange. I think this recipe would be great with pine nuts, following in the vein of Claire's suggestion. I would definitely make this again. I don't have too much more to say about it. The brussels sprouts are just the right size for bite-sized pasta like rotini, and the balsamic and chicken stock really gives it a bright and savory flavor.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Luo Bo Gao

Radish cakes!

Ingredients

• 1 large daikon radish
  
• maybe 1/4c dried mushrooms
  
• 3oz ground pork
  
• 3 scallions
  
• soy sauce, salt
  
• rice flour
  

Peel and grate the daikon radish finely (it actually wouldn't grate on the "fine" side of my box grater, so I went with the normal side - this will work fine). Boil some water, and pour it over the dried mushrooms to rehydrate. with a little sesame oil or neutral oil, start the ground pork cooking in a pot. Cook until just brown. Then fish out the dried mushrooms from the water (reserving the mushroom liquid) and chop coarsely. Add to the pork along with the scallions, chopped. Cook a little longer and then transfer to another bowl.

In the bowl in which you cooked the pork, add the daikon and the reserved water from the mushrooms. If there isn't much water, you may need to add a little more (or add a little soy sauce) until the daikon is moist but not drowning in liquid. I don't really have a good rule of thumb for this - you kind of have to experiment. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and add the pork / scallions / mushrooms and combine. Now add rice flour to the mixture until you get something resembling a pretty thick batter. For 1 daikon, I used about 1-2c rice flour. The first time I made this, I actually added more water so I could add more rice flour. This was a good idea - if the pieces of things in the batter are pretty big, adding quite a bit of rice flour will help your luo bo gao with internal consistency. On the other hand, too much might make for gluey radish cakes. You have to experiment, but if you can get 1.5c rice flour into your batter, I think you're in good shape.

Pour the batter into small loaf pans or basically anything you can then put in a steamer. Steam for 40 minutes, being sure to check the water level frequently and replenishing as necessary. When they're done, take them out and cool to room temperature, then chill for at least 2 hours. When you're ready to serve them, turn the "cakes" out and slice them, then fry lightly on a griddle to crisp up the outside. Serve with soy sauce.

Thoughts: The first time we did this, we got the texture more or less correct, which was pretty cool considering I didn't have rice flour (and instead just ground up rice in my coffee grinder - very tricky). But the flavor was a little bland the first time because we used fresh mushrooms. The second time, the flavor was great, but we used WAY too many dried mushrooms and the texture was way off. It's a work in progress. I think next time we'll use fewer dried mushrooms but we'll also use a little bit more rice flour.

Disaster Index: 3/10

Sopa de Ajo

Garlic soup. Who knew?



Ingredients

• Olive oil
  
• 1/4 lb stale bread, cut into 1/2" cubes (we used 1/2 loaf of "french bread" that really didn't have a very thick crust at all)
  
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 1/2tsp Spanish smoked paprika (available through Penzy's)
  
• 4-6c chicken stock (or veg)
  
• poached eggs for each serving
  

In a pot, toss in the bread and drizzle with olive oil. Cook lightly until the bread is lightly brown or you think you're going to damage the pot, whichever comes first. Yeah. Then throw in the garlic, paprika, and maybe a pinch of salt. Toss that around thoroughly, then add the stock. Add enough stock that you don't just have a pile of soggy bread, but there's actually soup. I think that it depends on the density of your bread. Anyway, we used about 6c stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, poach an egg for each serving you're planning. When you're ready to serve, ladle the soup into a bowl. Dust with some additional paprika and black pepper, and top with the poached egg.

This has a great flavor. Simple recipe, but this is really delicious. The one weird thing? Texture. Possibly this is the result of our bread selection, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it makes me wonder two things: (1) are we supposed to make like a panade, or are the pieces of bread supposed to stay mostly whole? (2) are we using too much bread and too little soup? That said, I would definitely make this again. The whole thing was just fantastic. You don't even need to serve it with the egg if you don't want.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Cold Avocado Corn Soup

Ingredients

• 1 fresh or frozen ear of corn, shucked
• 4 cups + 2 tbsp water
• 1 garlic clove, smashed
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1.25 cups chopped white onion
• 2 fresh chilies -- we just grabbed two chilies that looked medium hot (our grocery store doesn't label the chilies) -- I think it was one Serrano and one Jalapeno
• 2 ripe avocados
• 3 tbsp fresh (or bottled, honestly) lime juice
  
• 1/4 cup sour cream

For the cilantro oil:

• 1 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro (we used WAY more and this was not necessary)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt

Roast the corn over your gas stove (or use a grill, if you have one), until kernels are charred in spots, about 4-5 minutes.
Transfer corn to a cutting board, and, when cobs are cool enough, cut the kernels from them. Then cut the cobs into thirds. Don't throw them away.
Chop 1 cup of white onion.
Put the kernels, the cobs, 4 cups water, garlic, salt, and 1/4 cup of the chopped onion in a pot and boil it for about 20 minutes, or until there are 3 cups of liquid remaining. Remove from the heat. Discard the cob sections.
Chop the chiles, discarding only the stems.
In a blender, puree the corn mixture, the chopped chiles, and the rest of the onion (should be 3/4 cup).
Strain this mixture through a fine mesh sieve and into a bowl. Press on the solids to get all the moisture. Discard the solids, and return the remaining broth to the cleaned blender.
Peel and pit and avocado, and add it to the blender. Put in 2 tbsp of lime juice. Blend everything together until smooth.
Transfer soup to another bowl, cover it with plastic, and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

To prepare the cilantro oil:

Puree the cilantro, oil, and salt in the cleaned blender. You'll probably have to scrape the blender down several times. When smooth, remove mixture from blender and strain through a paper towel over a bowl for 15 minutes. Don't press on the solids this time.

To assemble the soup

Peel and pit the remaining avocado. Scoop out small sections with your melon-baller (or use a 1/2 tsp measuring spoon) and toss them with some lime juice.
Whisk the sour cream together with 2 tbsp of water until the mixture is smooth.
Season the soup and ladle it into the bowls. Put some avocado balls in each bowl, and drizzle with cilantro oil and sour cream.

Thoughts: This was pretty easy, all told. The cilantro oil didn't work out as well as we were hoping. I think we used a higher ratio of cilantro:oil than we were supposed to, so it didn't yield a whole lot of oil and the straining process left more solids than it should have. Otherwise, I think everything else was pretty awesome. This recipe says that it's supposed to yield something like six servings, but it doesn't. It yields like, maybe four. So I would go ahead and multiply everything in this recipe by 2. We went through it way too quickly. I also think that it could have used a little more flavor -- I suggest red pepper flakes, and maybe also some sort of cumin? I'm not sure what Dan thinks of this. I'll ask him later.

Disaster Index: 2.5/10