Spicy Garlic Pasta

This pasta will punch you in the face with flavour. I learned to make it from a special woman named Jane Porter. It's a longtime favourite in her family, and now it's a staple in mine.

It's so simple, it's laughable. This is how you make it.

Ingredients

Equal parts:

• Chopped anchovies
• Diced banana peppers
• Finely diced garlic
• Olive oil

Parmesan

Pasta noodles (we usually use spaghetti or linguini)

Instructions

Combine the first four ingredients in a frying pan and simmer on very low heat for approximately 20 minutes.

Cook your noodles.

Once all is cooked, combine and add generous helpings of parmesan. Portion into pasta bowls and sprinkle with more parmesan and salt (if necessary).

Next, eat it with your mouth! Enjoy.

Miraculous Vegan Macaroni and Cheese

I'm spending the week in Calgary with my sister and love-of-my-life nephew, Matthew—and both have major milk allergies. We were looking for something quick and easy to make one night, and Jennie pulled out this recipe.

Now, mac 'n' cheese is probably tops on my most-favourite comfort foods list (see deluxe mac 'n cheese recipe, below), so I was a little doubtful about my sister's vegan take on things. But if you've got cheese-loathing people in your mix, this is a seriously great (and easy!) recipe—totally cheesy deliciousness, sans fromage. My mom's got a gluten allergy, so we used rice pasta here - and still just as delicious.


Miraculous Vegan Macaroni and Cheese recipe
Adapted from RecipeZaar

1 1/2 cups plain soymilk
1 cup water
1/3 cup tamari or soy sauce
1 1/2 cups nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon salt
3 ounces firm tofu
3/4 cup canola oil
1 1/2 lbs macaroni noodles
2 teaspoons mustard (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cook pasta in salted boiling water until al dente.

Toss all of the ingredients (sans pasta) in a blender (liquid and powdered) and blend until smooth.

Once pasta is cooked, drain and put it in the baking pan pour the cheese sauce over the pasta.

Bake at 350°F until the top of the pasta looks slightly browned and crispy—about 15 minutes.

Baked Rigatoni with Broccoli and Gorgonzola

I’ve known my dear friends Shelley and Christina for over 20 years—from back in high school when Shelley wore her signature fringed suede jacket, and Christina and I shared a grade-10 love of Sarah McLachlan (and sadly, copped much of her style then too.) Christina’s now the bass player in a Weakerthans-esque band named Man Missile and Shelley’s just days away from dropping a kid (but I’m fairly certain she’s hung on to that fringed jacket ), but one thing hasn’t changed: whenever we get together, a lot of food is going to get et. Calories be damned. There’s usually banana boats.

Shelley’s been a vegetarian for as long as I’ve known her, so she has a decent recipe collection. This one’s a go-to of hers, and it’s kind of a deluxe mac ‘n’ cheese, from a cookbook that I’m now thinking I’ll track down myself: Vegetarian Planet: 350 Big-Flavor recipes for out-of-this-world food every day. (Besides this recipe, for example, it includes one for technicolour antipasto and another for black-out chocolate pudding. Enough said.)

As far as this one goes, I love any recipe that includes gorgonzola. Or cheese, really. And it’s super quick to put together – no fussing with a roux to thicken the sauce, because you’re using already-thick ricotta. Shelley freestyles with some portabello mushrooms.

I recommend following up with a good old-fashioned banana boat: open one up, scoop out a bit of the insides and stuff it with chocolate chips, peanut butter, caramel sauce – whatever can amp up the calorie count. Wrap in tinfoil, stick in the oven (or campfire, if you’ve got one available) til gushy. Eat with dear friends.

Baked Rigatoni with Broccoli and Gorgonzola recipe
Adapted from Vegetarian Planet: 350 Big-Flavor recipes for out-of-this-world food every day (Harvard Common Press, 1997)
by Didi Emmons

8 oz dried rigatoni
2 tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
½ bunch broccoli, cut into florets (about 4 cups)
2 portabello mushrooms
1 1/3 cups ricotta cheese, whole milk or park-skim
3 oz italian or wiconsin gorgonzola or silton (about ½ cup)
salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste
2 tomatoes, each cut into 8 wedges (cherry tomatoes would be nice too)
1 cup grated parmesan or asiago

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta, and boil, stirring occasionally, until it is just tender. Drain the pasta, rinse it well with cold water.

In a large skillet, combine the olive oil and garlic over low heat. Saute the garlic for 2 minutes or until the garlic releases its aroma (do not let it brown). Add the mushrooms and stir fry three to four minutes,until they let their juices out and start to brown. Turn up the heat and add the broccoli and 1 cup of water. Cook the broccoli, uncovered for 3 minutes or until most of the water is evaporated.

Add the ricotta cheese and the gorgonzola. Stir the sauce until it is near smooth, and season it with salt and pepper.

In a bowl, combine the pasta, the cheese broccoli sauce, the tomatoes and 2/3 cup of the parmesan or asiago cheese. Add more salt and pepper to taste, if necessary. (At this point you can refrigerate themixture for baking later.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Spoon the mixture into a 9-by-13 inch casserole dish. Sprinkle the remaining parmesan cheese over the casserole. Bake the casserole, uncovered, for 10 to 15 minutes (or a little longer if the mixture has been refrigerated). Spoon the contents on to plates, and serve.

Eggplant Parmesan

Eggplant Parmesan is one of my all-time favourite comfort foods (just like baked macaroni). It seems like it should be a complicated thing to make, but it's not really.

Tonight I was inspired by one lonely left-over eggplant and a couple of haggard-looking tomatoes. Here's what I did with them.

Sauce (I learned this from Cristina)
I peeled the tomatoes. (I usually just pour boiling water over them in a bowl, and in one minute the skins begin to split are really easy to peel off.) I chopped them up, threw them into a sauce pan with some butter, fresh basil, chili flakes, half an onion (unchopped), and salt.

I let these ingredients simmer together on medium-low while I prepare the rest of the meal.

Eggplant
I sliced the eggplant up and sprinkled salt on each slice, let them sweat, and dabbed the moisture off with a paper towel. After that, I dusted each piece with flour, coated with egg, and then covered it with bread crumbs. (I use panko crumbs, the Japanese kind, because they fry up so nicely.)

I heated about a inch of canola oil in a frying pan and tested with with crumb or two before putting in the eggplant slices in.

Baking
Once the eggplant is fried and the sauce has simmered for a while (45 minutes?), I poured a layer of the sauce into a casserole and then placed the breaded eggplant in the dish in one layer. I put a bit more sauce on top, and finished it off with a layer of mozzarella and dried oregano and basil.

I put it in the oven at 400 for 30 minutes.

Tonight I was lucky because I had some leftover fresh pasta noodles. A very yummy and filling accompaniment for my eggplant.

Baked Macaroni

Baked macaroni ranks right up there with my all-time favourite comfort foods. There's never a time when I don't feel like eating it. I've made it so many times now that I don't remember how or where I learned this recipe, I just seem to know it in my bones.

Make the topping

• 1.5 to 2 c bread crumbs
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
• 1/2 c grated parmesan
• 3 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1/2 c melted butter
• salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients, adding butter last. Set aside in a bowl.

Make a mornay sauce

• 1/2 c butter
• 1/4 diced onion
• 2tbsp flour
• 1.5 c warm milk
  
• 2 c grated cheddar
• salt to taste

Melt butter and saute onion until translucent. Gradually stir in flour. Let sizzle for a bit. Add milk gradually, whisking all the while. On medium-low heat, whisk once in a while until the sauce thickens. Once thick, turn burner off and add cheddar. Mix until the cheese is melted.

Cook the macaroni

• 2 c macaroni

Boil the macaroni for 6-7 minutes. Should be al dente.

Bake
Layer cooked macaroni and sauce in a buttered casserole dish. Pour in remaining sauce and stir until all pasta is coated. Pour on topping and pat down a bit.

Bake for 35ish minutes at 400ish. I usually keep it covered until the last 5ish minutes.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Gnocchi & Focaccia

I can't stop making gnocchi lately. I love its delicious doughy squishiness. And now that I've figured out that it's pretty easy to make, I'm hooked. This post is all about the meal I ate tonight: potato gnocchi, gorgonzola sauce, and fresh-baked focaccia.

Making the gnocchi

• 4 small russet potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons whipping cream
• 1 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 1/2 cups flour

Steam potatoes until tender, about 12 minutes. Mash 'em well. Once they've cooled off a bit, add the egg, cream, salt, and nutmeg to potatoes; blend well. Then add 1 1/2 cups flour and mix until soft and sightly sticky dough forms, adding more flour tablespoonfuls if dough is too moist.

Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface. Divide dough into 6 equal portions. Roll each dough portion into 3/4-inch-thick rope. Cut rope into 3/4-inch-long pieces. Arrange gnocchi in a single layer on floured baking sheet.

Cook 1/3 of gnocchi in pot of boiling water at a time. Remove when gnocchi rise to surface and are cooked through and tender, about 5 minutes. Using large strainer or slotted spoon, transfer gnocchi to large baking dish; arrange gnocchi in single layer.

To serve, melt butter in skillet over medium heat; add gnocchi and cook until heated through, tossing ofen, about 8 minutes.

Gorgonzola Sauce

• 2 cups cream
• 100-130 g gorgonzola
• 3 tbsp white wine
• 1 tsp cognac or brandy
  
• salt
• white pepper
• nutmeg

Simmer the cream, wine, and brandy for a while (until it thickens). Add salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste. Add cheese last and stir until melted.


I like to drizzle a balsamic reduction on the pasta. It's so yummy.

Focaccia
So far, my forays into breadmaking have ALL been disasterous. I can't help but worry than I'm cursed. Nevertheless, I keep trying to master this most basic of foods.

Tonight's focaccia could be called a success, I suppose. Especially if you contrast it with my breadmaking track record. That said, it still wasn't the most wonderfully delicious focaccia ever. I'm not going to bother posting the recipe. Instead I'm going to ask this blog's vast readership help me out in the focaccia department. Does anyone have a favourite recipe? Does anyone know the secret? If so, post a comment please!