Gnocchi with Marinara Sauce

We had lots of tomatoes and lots of potatoes accumulating from our Farmer's Box, and we needed something to do with them. The tomatoes were of the plum variety, which are pretty much good for tomato sauce and not much else. We also had two egg yolks, and a quick google search indicated that you could add egg yolks to gnocchi. So I thought it would be fun to make our own gnocchi with the potatoes and make Marcella Hazan's classic sauce. The gnocchi is also adapted from Marcella Hazan, and I'll mention how we differed as I go through. Both recipes can be found in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, by Marcella Hazan. This book has quite a bit of information on cooking.

First, start your sauce. That takes a while to cook. We made the Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter, which according to Marcella, is "the simplest of all sauces to make, and none has a purer, more irresistibly sweet tomato taste." It's the recommended sauce for the gnocchi, but more on that at the end. Marcella says to use fresh, naturally and fully ripened, plum tomatoes when available. You can also use canned. If using fresh, start with 2 pounds, and if using canned use 2 cups cut up, with their juice. When using fresh tomatoes, you need to peel them. Bring a pot of water to boil. Then, cut a cross over the stem of your tomato, like so:

Once the water is boiling, plunge your tomato into the boiling water using a slotted spoon or ladle, hold it there for about a minute, then pull it out. When it's cooled enough that you can stand to touch the tomato, peel off the skin. It should come off pretty easily, but if not you have the cuts in the cross where you can start peeling. Quarter the tomatoes and put them in the saucepan, or dump the canned tomatoes right in. Add five tablespoons butter, one medium onion, cut in half, and salt to taste. Marcella says if it's not salty enough on it's own, it's not salty enough to go with pasta. Cook, uncovered, for at least 45 minutes. Marcella says never to cook sauce in a covered pot because it won't be flavorful. Sauce cooks by evaporation. Stir from time to time, mashing any tomato chunks with a spoon. Once it was done, we ran the immersion blender through it, because I love my immersion blender. Here is the final product:

While the sauce is simmering (we simmered for an hour and a half), make the gnocchi. If you're concerned about timing, wait until the sauce is done. It's better to have sauce waiting for gnocchi than gnocchi waiting for sauce. To make the gnocchi, first peel 1.5 pounds of potatoes. According to Marcella, the choice of potato is "critical." You can't use a baking potato or a new potato. Quoth Marcella: "The only reliable potato for gnocchi is the more or less round, common kind known as a 'boiling' potato." Marcella says to boil the potatoes in their skins, but we peeled ours first. Cook until tender, but don't prick them too much or they will get waterlogged. You really do want them tender; ours were a bit underdone and we had some large potato chunks in a few of our gnocchi. Marcella says to puree through a food mill, but we don't have one of those, so I mashed them roughly with a potato masher and then used the immersion blender. You want it very smooth.

Once the potatoes are mashed, turn them out onto a work surface dusted with flour. Ideally, you have a beautiful granite countertop for this. We don't, so we used our hard-to-clean countertop before realizing that a wooden cutting board was the better choice. Add about a cup of flour to the mixture. It will be done with the flour/potato mixture is soft and smooth but still slightly sticky. At this point, we added two egg yolks and a tablespoon of ricotta. Here is what Marcella says about adding an egg: "Some people do use eggs because the dough becomes easier to handle, but that method, which is called alla parigina, 'Paris style,' results in a tougher, more rubbery product." I thought ours were fine. Since we used egg yolks and ricotta, we needed another half-cup of flour.

When the dough is the right consistency, add more flour to your work surface, split the dough up into 2-4 parts, and roll each part into a snake-like roll about an inch in diameter. Slice the roll into pieces about 3/4"-1" long. Once it's cut into pieces, you have to shape the gnocchi. Well, you don't actually have to, but you should, since "they will cook more evenly and hold sauce more successfully." To shape it, take a fork and hold it so the fork is at about a 45 degree angle with the counter. Roll your little slices along the concave side with your index finger. This was a little tricky, but this is how the gnocchi looked before and after cooking:

After it's shaped, it's ready for cooking. Bring a pot of water to a boil, add salt. Before you cook all the gnocchi, test it out with 2-3. Ten seconds after they have floated to the surface, take them out and taste them. If it tastes like raw flour, add a few seconds to the cooking time, if they are nearly dissolved, subtract a few seconds. We added a few seconds. Drop in about two dozen, and when they float to the surface, remember what you decided to do after the test batch. When they are done, scoop them out and add the next batch. Now they are ready to be sauced and eaten! Of course, you will want to add Parmesan cheese.

A note about sauce: my preferred sauce for gnocchi is either a bolognese or classic butter and cheese. This sauce was too watery, so it didn't really stick to the gnocchi.

Vegetarian Enchiladas

This week, we had green tomatoes in our farmer's box. Last time I got green tomatoes in the box, I made a green tomato and swiss chard gratin. There are very few recipes that I don't finish, but this was one of them (oddly, the other one of recent memory also had swiss chard, so I might just hate swiss chard). When I saw green tomatoes on the list this time, I thought, "oh, crap. What am I going to do with them?" Additionally, we get four ears of corn every week. We are up to our eyeballs in corn. We have a bunch frozen in the freezer, and yet it just keeps coming. So I wanted something that would make use of both things. Googling recipes for green tomatoes I found that you could make enchilada sauce with them, so we went in that direction.

Enchilada Sauce

Ingredients

• Olive Oil
• Medium Onion, diced
• Garlic, minced
• Approximately 2 lbs green tomatoes, quartered
• 4 Peppers, roughly chopped (we used bull's horn peppers, because we had a lot from our box. They were mildly spicy, so this had some heat. You can use whatever combo of peppers you want.)
• Half a bunch of cilantro, destemmed
• 1.5 teaspoons Salt
• <0.25 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1.5 teaspoons cumin
• Juice of one lime
• 4 cups broth (we used veggie bouillon, since I've not yet made broth this year. You can use chicken, as well)

Steps

1. Put all ingredients from tomatoes to lime juice in a blender and puree. This may take multiple batches.
   
   
   
   
   
2. In a medium/large stockpot, heat the olive oil and saute the garlic and onions until fragrant.
3. Add the pureed tomato mixture and chicken broth into the pot and bring to a boil. Once it's reached a boil, lower the heat. Let simmer uncovered until it's at the thickness you want. We simmered for an hour and a half, or so. Stir occasionally and give it a taste every so often. If it's too sour, you can add some sugar. We didn't, since enchilada sauce tends to a be on the tart side. Once it's done, feel free to blend further. I used an immersion blender, because any time you get to use an immersion blender it's a good day. You can also put in in the regular blender, but you have to be careful about steam and overflow.

The finished product. Ours turned into a red sauce, even though we used green tomatoes, because the peppers were red.

Now, on to the enchiladas!

Corn, Black Bean, and Spinach Enchiladas

Ingredients

• Olive Oil
• Half an onion, diced
• Garlic, minced
• One can black beans
• 2 ears corn, shucked
• Half a bag of frozen, chopped spinach
• Cumin
• Juice from half a lime
• Corn tortillas
• Green Tomato Enchilada Sauce (see above)
• Shredded cheese (we used the Mexican cheese blend from Trader Joe's)

Steps

1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit.
2. Saute onion and garlic in olive oil in a large frying pan until fragrant. Add the black beans, corn, spinach, and cumin. Once cooked, add the lime juice.
3. Pour a small amount of the sauce on the bottom of a square baking dish.
4. Fill the tortillas with the filling, and then roll the tortilla. Place it seam down in the baking dish. Continue until the dish is filled.
5. Pour more enchilada sauce over the tortillas until they are covered. Sprinkle with shredded cheese.
6. Bake 15-20 minutes, until the cheese is golden brown.

The finished product! Garnish with avocado, diced tomato, and sour cream (we used low-fat Greek yogurt, since it's tangy).

Note: You will have lots of extra sauce. You can just freeze the leftovers for later. We also had some leftover filling, since our baking dish only held six enchiladas.

Banana Bread at High Altitude

As promised, here is a post on baking at high altitude. Baking, unlike most cooking, is chemistry. You have to get the proportions right, and there's not much room for error. Ideally, you'd do everything by weight, but if you use measuring cups you have to level them off with a knife. There's also not much room for improvisation, and many people don't like that aspect of baking. I do, because if you get everything right, you know what you're going to get. I don't make my own recipes, but it's easy to follow the ones that I use. Since the air pressure is lower at high altitude, the chemical processes that occur are affected, so there are certain changes you have to make. I use the King Arthur Flour Guide, and just go with the changes they advise. I've not had a problem. My only caveat would be that with cookies, just use the lowest cooking time listed, and then check in. Remember, you can always cook things for longer, but you can't uncook them.

Here is a loaf of banana bread that I made this weekend, using the guide. It was very, very moist (mostly because I undercooked it slightly; I didn't have a toothpick to test for doneness so I went by sight).

I used a Mark Bittman recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, although I modified it slightly. His calls for coconut or other dried fruit, but whenever I see that in a recipe I mentally replace it with chocolate chips. He also calls for nuts, but Carl doesn't like them. For add-ins like nuts, chocolate chips, etc. you can add however much you'd like. I also added cinnamon. Ingredients listed have not been adjusted for altitude.

Ingredients

• 8 Tbsps (1 stick) butter
• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 0.5 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 tsp salt (n.b. Despite what I said above about having to be incredibly precise or your baked goods won't come out correctly, I generally don't put as much salt in as most recipes call for. For this, I used slightly under a teaspoon)
• 1.5 tsps baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon (probably could have upped this amount, as it wasn't very cinnamon-y)
• 0.75 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 very ripe bananas
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1.25 cups chocolate chips

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease your loaf pan.
2. Mix together the dry ingredients. With a hand mixer, a whisk, or in the food processor, cream the butter and beat in the eggs and bananas. Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients; stir just enough to combine (it’s okay if there are lumps). Gently fold in the vanilla and the chocolate chips.
3. Pour batter into pan, and bake for 45-60 minutes. Test with a toothpick to make sure it comes out clean (although the undercooked bread was still tasty). Let cool for 10-15 minutes, and then pop it out of the pan.

Stir-Fry Chicken and Long Beans

This is a quick, easy, delicious recipe from my childhood friend's mother.

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground chicken (ground chicken is sometimes difficult to find; you can ask the butcher to grind it for you)
• lots of garlic
• 1 red onion
• 1 red pepper
• 1 bunch long beans, diced (make sure that they're not sad and limp looking. If you have an Asian grocery store nearby, they probably have good bunches)
• 1/2 bunch cilantro, leaves primarily, chopped (I don't care for cilantro, so I usually leave it out if I make it myself)
• lime juice (1-2 limes)
• nampla (fish sauce) to taste

Chop onion, red pepper, and garlic. Stir fry until soft. Add ground chicken. Cook until no longer pink. Add the diced long beans. Cook about 1-2 minutes until soft. Add cilantro, lime juice, and nampla.

Serve over rice.

Spaghetti Squash with Shrimp Scampi

I think I've mentioned this, but it is squash season. That's basically all you can get at the Boulder Farmer's Market at this point in the season. And while I like squash, sometimes you need to do something different with it. Enter spaghetti squash with shrimp scampi.

Ingredients
Spaghetti Squash
Shrimp (number of shrimp depends on the size)
Cherry Tomatoes, halved
Garlic
Butter/Olive oil
Lemon
Artichoke hearts (optional)
Parmesan Cheese

First, roast your spaghetti squash. Pre-heat the oven to 425-450 degrees F. Poke some holes in it with a knife and stick the whole thing in the oven on a baking sheet covered in tinfoil and let it roast for about an hour. The skin should be easy to pierce when it's done. Take it out, cut it in half, and fork out the insides so that it looks like noodles.

To make the shrimp scampi, sautee your shrimp in garlic and butter (I also added some olive oil) until they turn pink. When they're done, remove from the heat, and squeeze the juice of your lemon over the shrimp. Toss the squash and tomatoes in with the shrimp and the sauce. You can also add the artichoke hearts now, if you're using them. It's now ready to eat. Add lots of Parmesan cheese, and you have a squash dish that isn't too squash-y. We had it with a side of crusty bread, but this dish is Paleo (if you use olive oil instead of butter)/Gluten free without it.

Stuffed Delicata Squash

Fall is here, and so are squash. Carl an I got a delicata squash from the farmer's market the other day. I had heard you could eat the skin (not that you can't in a regular squash, but the delicata skin is supposed to be actually tasty), so we decided to get one and try it. We stuffed it with a wild rice stuffing.

Ingredients
Delicata Squash
For the Stuffing
Wild Rice
Broth or Water
Celery
Carrots
Leeks (or onions, or shallots, or...)
Garlic
Pine Nuts

Assembly Instruction
To assemble, you'll want to cook the wild rice stuffing separately before putting it in the squash. Wild rice takes about an hour to prepare, so plan accordingly.
1. Put olive oil in the bottom of a pot, enough to cover the bottom. Add garlic and leeks, and sautee until the leeks are soft. Add the celery and carrots, and continue stirring until they are soft. Add the rice, stir to coat in olive oil, and then follow the instructions on the wild rice package for how much to use and how much to cook.
2. Once the rice is about half-way done, you can pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees F and start prepping the squash. To do that, cut the squash in half and remove the seeds.
3. About five minutes before the rice is done, stir in the pine nuts. When the rice is done cooking, portion it into the squash. You may have leftovers that don't fit in the squash, that's fine. You can serve it on the side or save it for later.
4. Bake squash for 25-30 minutes. It'll be done when it's easily piercable with a fork or knife.

As I mentioned above, you can eat the peel. Carl didn't like it. I found it pretty bland. It definitely didn't add anything to the dish, for me.

Cabbage Soup

Cold weather is upon us here in Boston, which means soup. I actually made this soup the day before Sandy came to Boston, as I still had quite a bit of cabbage left from my Farmer's box. This cabbage was huge. I wish I had a picture. It was actually half of a head of cabbage, and it weighed in at 5 lb 14 oz, making the entire cabbage ~12 lbs. Craziness. So, with all this cabbage I needed to do something. I called my mom, and she told me to e-mail my aunt for the recipe for my great-grandmother's cabbage soup. Here it is. I'm transcribing it from a handwritten recipe, so I'll try to leave the idiosyncrasies in. I think it was written down by my grandmother, based on the bizarre underlining, but it's legible so I'm not sure.

1 large head cabbage (4 or 5 lbs) (n.b. my pot could only hold 4 lbs)
4 or 5 medium boiling potatoes
1 pint heavy sour cream
3 sour salt chips, which is called sour salt (can only be bought in a Jewish store) (n.b. Despite living in Brookline, which is home to quite a few Jews, I couldn't find sour salt. The internet told me it was citric acid, so I just used a lemon)
6 very large size onions
1 tablespoon or more salt (to taste) (6-8 qt size pot)

Shred cabbage with knife (not fine) and put into large pot with (more than to cover) water

While that is boiling peel potatoes and insert right in pot in quarters

While this is boiling brown onions VERY brown (n.b. this is excessively underlined) with LOTS (n.b. again, very underlined) of butter and when real brown pour in the sour cream (something illegible) and on LOW FLAME (n.b. again, underlined, you don't want to curdle the sour cream) mix all liquid.

These are my onions. They're pretty brown, but I got bored. Getting your onions really brown takes quite a while. I think this was after 30 minutes.

Merge together very well until no liquid in pan.

Pour back into soup. Not a high flame (or cream will curdle), but low simmer. (Scrape all brown from pan and pour into soup). Remove the potatoes and smash and insert in soup.

Add sour salt to taste (one nice size or 2 small ones) just to give it a little tart and cook one hour.

All in all about 2 hours of cooking time.

My soup. I toasted some rye break to go with it.

Quick and Easy Dinner

This is one of my favorite go-to recipes for a quick, easy dinner: Stir Fried Sesame Shrimp and Spinach. No pictures, because I was hungry. It's easily adaptable for one person; I'll take one serving of frozen shrimp and then enough spinach to fill the frying pan that I'm using. It will cook down. I like to keep frozen shrimp on hand (not pre-cooked, preferably peeled by EZ peel is also fine) because they cook quickly and they're easy to prepare. It doesn't seem like a pantry staple, but there have been numerous nights where I'll just take out some frozen shrimp and whip something up. Even if I don't take them out to defrost, if I run some hot water over it takes care of it. I don't use ginger with it, since I use a ginger infused stir-fry oil, but if I have some I'll toss it in. I also don't put the chili flakes in, since I'm not a huge fan of spicy food. It's good plain, but also good with rice, which you can just make in the rice cooker. Today I added some broccoli to up the veggie content, which I got from the new Brookline winter Farmer's Market.

Pickles

One of the farmers at the BU Farmer's Market does a CSA. I don't get a season share, since I live alone, but I'll do the week-by-week. A while back, I got a bunch of pickling cucumbers. I also have pickling spices, because I'm a weird impulse shopper and I bought them back when I lived in Irvine. I had six cucumbers, which I quartered to make 24 pickles.

I made a sort of dill-half sour combo, which turned out pretty well. This is what I did for the six cucumbers.

6 pickling cucumbers
5 cups water
1/8 cup white vinegar
1/8 cup salt--many recipes call for pickling salt, but regular salt will do. I used salt with no iodine or caking agents, as that can make the brine cloudy.
1/2 tsp pickling spice
4-5 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
Couple sprigs of dill


Boil water, salt, and vinegar. Quarter cucumbers, place in a jar. I used a storage jar that I had lying around. Pour mixture in jar, add spices, garlic, and dill sprigs. Put in refrigerator and let sit overnight. Eat delicious pickles.

Seriously, this was so easy and they turned out really well. I had no idea it would be this easy.

Fruit and Cream Oatmeal

Some people consider breakfast the most important meal of the day. I used to get packaged oatmeal with fruit flavors, but now I try to eat local and minimally processed food, so I just buy a box of any kind of plain, instant oatmeal (ok, so I mainly started buying it to try and lower my cholesterol with the soluble fiber). I buy instant because I don't really have time in the morning to spend 30 minutes making Irish oatmeal. Now, I know you can make a giant batch and then portion it out and reheat it, but I don't really trust how that will turn out. Also, I like to cook the fruit with the oatmeal so that the fruit juice permeates the entire bowl of oatmeal. This way you get fruit flavor in every bite. So without further ado, here is how I make my fruit and cream oatmeal.

Ingredients:
Oatmeal (I use some form of instant, generally. Right now I have Instant Irish and Trader Joe's instant steel cut, which takes a little bit longer to cook, at 8 min. When I use that, I just start the water boiling, add the oatmeal, and make my lunch while it cooks.)
Any kind of fruit (good choices include peaches, blueberries, strawberries)
Butter, half & half, some type of sweetener (I use honey or maple syrup, depending on the fruit), cinnamon, all to taste

Cook the oatmeal according to the directions on the package. I don't microwave, because I usually just end up with a mess, and as I mentioned above, I like to put the oatmeal and the fruit in the boiling water at the same time to get a consistent fruit flavor. When it's done, just spoon it into a bowl, and add the toppings to taste.

Zuppa di Lentils and Pastina

This morning was another rainy morning in Boston. Since it's the middle of July, however, temperatures were in the 80s by 9 AM. The rain did remind me of a soup I've been meaning to write up, though. I made it in late March, when by all accounts it should be spring. Boston weather is variable, to be euphemistic about it, so it was another cold, gray day. Perfect for soup. I adapted the recipe from the back of the box containing the pastina, which are teeny-tiny pearl noodles. Mine happen to be shaped like stars! I made this for myself, and had enough to last two days. The nice thing about soups is you can easily change the amount to suit your needs.


Ingredients
1/4 cup pastina
Olive Oil
1 onion, chopped
Rosemary, to taste (I used dried, and I also threw in some of my dried Fines Herbes, which is a combination of thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary, marjoram, and basil. Use whatever you have.)
Garlic, minced
1/2 lb. lentils
2 carrots, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
Salt and Pepper, to taste

Preparation
1. Heat the oil in the pot you're going to use to cook the soup. Add the onion and garlic, and saute.
2. Add water, lentils, and everything else but the pastina. The amount of water depends on how you like your soup. The amount called for in the recipe is 6 cups. Lentils and pastina both absorb a lot of water (the pastina, especially) so you may want to check on it and add more water if necessary. As you can see by the picture, I like my soup with very little broth. Bring the water to a boil, and cook until the lentils are soft.
3. Add the pastina, and cook until that's soft, about 6 min.

Farmers Markets - Santa Monica

There are many kinds of Farmers Markets - those that basically only sell produce that the farmers  bring to the market to ones that have additional stalls selling food made from farm produce, stalls that are preparing food to eat,  handcrafted items for sale and then the "farmers markets"  that have little food and seem more like craft fairs.  I go to Farmers Markets to buy food.  I have been labeled a "peasant woman" with her cart going from stall to stall examining the produce to find the best products to buy.  I find the label a compliment and reference to my Italian roots.  Although I go to the Farmer's Market year round, my favorite time is in the summer.   I overbuy and the end result is that even though it is hot, I spend more time in the kitchen than most people want even in the dead of winter, never mind the heat of summer.

The market I frequent the most is the Wednesday  Farmers Market in Santa Monica, CA.  It is the biggest market in Los Angeles and possibly the biggest in the U.S.  It is four city blocks long.  I have been going for over 25 years.  What I find amazing is that in spite of being so large the first time I went I couldn't find it because the roads were blocked off.   Many of the chefs from the best restaurants in town come to this market.  I have been known to surreptitiously follow them  to see which farmers they frequent.  I was extremely pleased to find out that their favorite stands happened to be my favorites, too.  This is also the market that is featured on Good Food, a favorite radio program.

When my daughter was little I would try to get her to come with me.  I think it's a great way to introduce children to fresh produce and the great tastes. You let them pick out what they want and ideally get them involved in turning their choices into meals. The colors of the food are great and the farmers will always let you taste what they have.  Unfortunately, my daughter did not consider it a quality way of spending time.  Yet now as an adult she makes a point of going to Farmers Markets in the cities where she lives.  So clearly it is something worthwhile doing.

At these markets I have been introduced to foods that I have never seen and ideas on how to cook them. I remember years ago buying green almonds before they formed shells. Another shopper asked me what I was going to do with them.  I told her I had no idea.  She asked me why, then, did I buy them?  I said for one dollar it was worth experimenting. (http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-marketwatch-20110415,0,4732448.story)   I have found foods that I have loved that I would never have tried (persimmons, japanese cucumbers, a large variety of eggplants)and I have reaffirmed that their are certain foods that are still not my favorites but I do eat them (brussel sprouts, cabbage, fava beans).

One of the other things that I love about this market are the friendliness of the farmers.  Over the years I have gotten to know a number of them by name and what is even more amazing, they remember my name!  They have given me recipes and taught me many things about farming that I never knew.  Their produce has also convinced me that anything I can grow, they can grow better, and my best cooking is always better when I cook what I bought from them that day.

                                     BBQ FRUIT

Take stone fruit (peaches, plums apricots, nectarines, pluots, etc) and cut them in half.   Remove pits.

Brush with butter and put on grill for approx one minute (or put on hot frying pan) until surface of fruit is caramelized.

Take about 1/2 cup of honey.  Heat with 2-3 sprigs of lavender.  Pour over fruit.  Can serve plain, or with whipped cream or ice cream.

Macaroni and FOUR Cheeses

Instead of studying for my midterm in October (I know, this is way late), I spent 2 hours making macaroni and cheese, since I had some leftover Vermont cheddar from a farmer's market up in Vermont. This recipe is adapted from 100 Best Vegetarian Recipes, by Carol Gelles. The original recipe uses only three cheese, but I added some parmesan. I also substituted the Worcestershire sauce with Sriracha.
Ingredients:
12 ounces macaroni (it calls for elbow; I used shells)
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
3 cups milk
1.5 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded Gouda (smoked is good, too)
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Parmesan cheese (I just sort of grate it in until I feel like there's enough)
Sriracha to taste
Salt to taste
Bread crumbs (optional)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Cook the macaroni until al dente; drain
3. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium-high heat and stir in the flour until absorbed.
4. Using a whisk, stir in the milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to a boil. Make sure to scrape the bottom so that there are no clumps. Stir in the cheeses, sriracha, and salt. Remove from heat and continue stirring until the cheeses are melted. Stir in the cooked macaroni. Pour into a greased baking dish. Sprinkle with bread crumbs.
5. Bake 30-45 minutes or until the top is browned.

A Passover Feast!

For Passover, I try and keep Kosher. As someone of Ashkenazi descent, this means no grains, no rice, no corn, no legumes, and no string beans. Given that everything these days is made with soybean oil and corn syrup, this gets difficult. Why do I do this, since I'm not technically Jewish nor am I ver religious one way or the other? I don't know; I take it as a personal challenge. Luckily, quinoa is not a grain. It is actually a grass, just like wild rice. The first night of Passover, things went really well in my quest to keep Kosher. I made a nice salmon with quinoa and broccoli, so here it is!



Start by cooking the quinoa. This can be done over the stove or in a rice cooker. I used a rice cooker, and then towards the end, I put the broccoli florets in the steamer basket. Make sure you use fresh broccoli, not the old stuff in the back of your vegetable crisper. That's what I did, and it brought the dish down. After the quinoa and broccoli were done, I mixed them together and added some red wine vinegar. Don't forget salt! I sometimes do, and this could have used it.

Now for the salmon. This was the highlight of the meal. I tried a little experiment, and made an impromptu grill on my stove. I have a tortilla warmer, which I heated over a burner and then wrapped the fish in tinfoil and put it on the warmer. You could also do this in the broiler. It should take about 15-20 min for the fish to cook through, depending. I like my salmon a little on the rare side, so I think I had it cooking about 7 min on a side.



I used tinfoil for easy clean up, but it's not necessary. First, I rubbed some olive oil into the fish, and then sprinkled it with salt and pepper. I also sliced up some onion, and sprinkled some minced garlic on, as well as some dried Italian herbs. If you have fresh herbs, those would be better. Since I had some parsley, I also tossed some springs in the package. If you have a lemon, that adds a tangy flavor to the salmon. You can get creative with what you put on the fish. Once I had it seasoned to my liking, I wrapped it up and tossed it on the "grill."

While I was waiting for the fish to cook, I assembled the quinoa and broccoli.

After this meal, my attempts at keeping Kosher became less than successful. Oh, well. There's always next year!

Book Review: "Quick and Easy Tofu Cookbook"

My mom got me this book (by Yukiko Moriyama) for Christmas, and I've been enjoying it. It's a bit dated (who uses the word Oriental anymore?), and some of the recipes are kind of out there, but it's also got some great ones. They are also very quick, and very easy. They don't require much prep work, and most of the ingredients are pantry staples. Heat up some rice in the rice cooker, and get to work on the meal. The rice will probably take longer. All the recipes are illustrated with photos, and all the ingredients are shown in a photo as well. This can be seen in the image below, although it's kind of blurry.



I've made the above recipe, Chinese Style Tofu with Red Pepper Sauce" a few times now, and it's come out great. I do the curry variation, because I really like curry.

Chinese Style Tofu with Red Pepper Sauce, adapted from Quick and Easy Tofu Cookbook



Ingredients (I've halved the recipe, since the original calls for 24 oz tofu, which is a lot for one person):
1 block tofu, cubed
1/4-1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 cup green onion, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper (or 1 fresh red chili pepper)
Oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 tsp curry powder
2 tablespoons cooking wine
1/2 cup stock (bullion cubes are fine)
1 tablespoon cornstarch, dissolved in 1/4 cup water
Peas (the recipe calls for three tablespoons, but I usually put in more)

While you're assembling the dish, put some rice (brown or white) in the rice cooker to serve alongside the tofu.

Take the cubed tofu and dip it into hot water for 30 seconds (I don't know what this step does), and drain well.

Heat the oil in a wok; add ginger, green onions, garlic, and red pepper and stir-fry.

Add the ground beef and stir-fry; add 1/2 tablespoon of soy sauce and reduce heat to medium. Add the curry, the rest of the soy sauce, the wine, and the stock. Bring to a boil. Add cornstarch mixture, and stir. At this point, I also like to squirt some sriracha in, but it's probably not necessary.

Add tofu and peas; simmer until thick.

Serve with rice. This lasted me 2-3 days.

Popcorn!

In Irvine, I had an air popper. When I moved, I didn't want to take it with me, but I still bought real popcorn, and not the microwave stuff. One of my friends makes it by putting it in a paper bag, folding the bag over tight, and putting it in the microwave. I have yet to try that. But I have been making it on the stovetop. The nice thing about this is that nearly every kernel in the pot pops. Even with the air popper, I got a lot of unpopped corn. It only takes about 5 extra minutes (so about 10, total). All you need is a large pot with a lid (the lid is key), and the possibilities for flavors are endless. So far I've made kettle corn (pictured), and savory popcorn with salt, pepper, and dried herbs. Here's the general idea.



1. Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil or butter in a large pot. For kettle corn, I think butter is better; for savory, olive oil.
2. As the butter melts/the oil heats, add your flavoring. For kettle corn, a sprinkling of sugar goes in now. Unfortunately, I haven't quite figured out how to keep the sugar from caramelizing, so you get kind of a burnt taste to the kettle corn.
3. Once the butter is melted/the oil is hot, add a quarter cup of popping corn to the pot and cover it. Shake the pot as much as you can while still keeping it over the heat. It takes a few minutes for the popping to start, and once it does it takes about 2-3 minutes for all the kernels to pop.

Sauce

Previously, I wrote about my pasta dish and how it needed a good sauce. I found one. It's a carbonara. Super simple.

Carbonara Sauce
2 Eggs
Parmesan cheese (grated to taste)
Pepper

In a bowl, beat the eggs and add the cheese and pepper. Mix. Once the pasta is cooked, drain it, then toss the egg mixture in. Mix, but don't let the egg scramble. Don't be concerned about raw egg--the heat from the pasta cooks the egg so that you won't get sick. I used this sauce tonight for a simple pasta dish of tortellini, broccoli, peas, and spinach. I cooked the tortellini, broccoli, and peas together in the same pot, drained it, threw in the spinach, added the sauce, and mixed. The whole thing took about 20 minutes. A perfect dinner for an exciting Friday night of studying for finals.

N.B. Generally a carbonara sauce has pancetta mixed into the pasta. If you don't have pancetta, you can use bacon. I didn't have either, and it turned out fine.

Improvisation

As I've become more experienced in the kitchen, I've been more willing to experiment with cooking sans recipe. Generally I keep it pretty simple, combining flavors that I already know will work. This usually means some sort of stir-fry, or as is the case here, pasta with vegetables.

This is a simple spaghetti dish, made with shrimp, tomatoes, and spinach, which were sautéed in olive oil. I think there were also some fresh english peas in there, but it's hard to tell in the picture and I made it so long ago. They would be a natural addition, though, and frozen english peas are just as good. The finished product is sprinkled with parmesan cheese. I think it was a little heavy on the oil, frankly. I'm really looking for an easy, light cream sauce or white sauce to go with it. Similar to an alfredo, but not necessarily as heavy. I haven't been able to find one yet, but if you know of any let me know!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday which shouldn't surprise anyone, since it is all about food! But in actuality, for me, it is more than that. It is the one holiday that is about getting together to celebrate with each other. There are no expectations about gift-giving, which so many other holidays include. There is no place that you need to go to see anything. And it is a time for me to reflect about how privileged and blessed my life is. As a physician I see so many people whose lives are difficult; whose families have devastating illnesses, who have financial troubles, emotional troubles and so many stresses. I do have my problems, but I always feel that they are solvable and I often say to myself, "there, but for the Grace of God, go I". So every year at Thanksgiving, I give thanks for my many blessings and plan to try to give to others throughout the year who are less fortunate than I. For what goes around, comes around!

And at my house this year, what is going around is a heritage turkey. Everyone has their own recipe for turkey. I have been tweeking mine for years, and have been lifting from many recipes that I have read from a variety of sources over the years. But this is what I have been doing the last few years, and I have no plans to change it.

HERITAGE TURKEY
First you have to buy a heritage turkey(www.heritagefoodsusa.com). This may mean that you have to sell your first born, or at least rent him out as they average $12/lb including shipping. And yes, I know, you can get a turkey for free this time of year. This was pointed out to me by my husband when he saw the charge on our credit card. But I'd rather spend my money on delicious food than other forms of entertainment. And you do have to figure in the amount of time you will spend with this bird. With stuffing, cooking, eating, cleaning, and eating leftovers, it really comes down to less than a $1/person/hour. And really, what else can you do for entertainment at that price????

STUFFING
Ingredients

seasoned corn bread stuffing (I use Mrs. Cubbison's)
Broth (see below)
Butter (NOT margarine)
1 onion/bag
1/2 cup celery/bag
1/2 lb sweet Italian sausage/bag
1-2 eggs/bag

Broth
Take the neck, gizzard and heart. (I throw out the liver because I hate liver.) Throw it in a pot with the tops of the celery, an onion and a couple of carrots, a few garlic cloves and some salt. Put in some water and cook for about an hour to make some broth. You will also use this for gravy, so make sure you don't boil it all away.

Cook the celery and the onion in the butter. Don't brown it, but cook it until it is soft. Add the sausage. Discard the excess grease and then when it is cool enough to handle, add it to the corn bread. Add 1 cup melted butter, broth and mix together. When not too hot, add the eggs until fairly moist.

STUFFING THE TURKEY
This is when it is helpful to know a surgeon. I learned the proper technique to separate layers from going to a lot of Cesarean sections. When you are a pediatrician, there really isn't much to do until the baby is born. So you watch the ob's technique. Now, I've watched quite a few over the years, and I've got to say, Dr. Laurie is the one who is responsible for my expertise with a turkey. She really cares about her patients and tries to minimize trauma to their bodies during surgical procedures. She gently blunts dissects between tissue layers and I always try to emulate her technique. Clearly, it is not nearly as important to do this as well when cooking as during surgery, but why not imitate the best? So Laurie is one more person I give thanks to!
Anyway, I put my stuffing underneath the skin and above the breast meat. This accomplishes 2 things - it keeps the turkey very moist and imparts a delicious flavor to it. I do take incredible care in the separation of the layers and since I make a lot of stuffing I extend the separation and put it in the spaces between the legs and the wings and any where that I can.
I then put celery, onions, carrots, salt, sage, parsley and peppercorns loosely in the cavity.
I grease the turkey completely with olive oil, put it in a roaster with a cover and into an oven at 400 degrees

COOKING
I cook this turkey much faster than recommended for turkeys. It usually takes about 2 to 3 hours for a 20 pound turkey.

I hope that your Thanksgiving is wonderful and that you find much in your life to give thanks for.

Modified Caprese Salad

When I was in Italy four years ago, I ate well. One of the things that I really enjoyed were the Caprese salads with tuna. Italian tuna is packed in olive oil, and oh-so-delicious. Nowadays, you can find oil packed tuna in most markets. When I make this salad, I tend to use spinach as the base for added nutrition. Here is my version of this salad.



Tuna packed in olive oil
Basil
Tomatoes
Fresh mozzarella or burrata cheese
Spinach
Additional olive oil, if desired

The amounts of each ingredient can be varied to suit your needs. I don't really care about the amount of spinach, since it has very few calories. However, the cheese and tuna do, so I like to put in one serving of tuna per person, and whatever is easiest in terms of the cheese. If I'm buying burrata from Trader Joe's, I'll usually put in one large ball, which is four servings. For two people, this is fine. If I'm using tomatoes from my yard, I'll put in as many as I can and supplement if necessary, until it looks like there's the right amount of tomato in there.

Slice tomatoes, slice cheese, chop basil, and break up the tuna. Toss all ingredients in a bowl. Enjoy!