The missing recipes

Since I’m new to blogging, I thought that there may be a way to “link” the recipes I’ve mentioned in previous posts. Somehow. But I can’t figure it out so I guess I’ll just have to post them here.

Five days ago I mentioned Pasta Roma soup. My friend Jan sent it to me with her notes, and I added some as well. I hope that it's not too confusing, but I'll try to locate a different format in the future.

OLIVE GARDEN’S PASTA ROMA SOUP (Recipe Tried)

Excellent. Quick. Colorful. Tasty/Special enough for Company.

This soup recipe has been archived on the net for a long time (1997?), and thought I would give it a try. The original source is listed as The Olive Garden, so thought I couldn’t go wrong. I served the soup with Avocado, Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato sandwiches for a light dinner and ate it alone for a light lunch. Those Olive Garden soft Breadsticks would also be great alongside; but the Olive Garden already figured that out. Here goes….

Janet’s additions/changes in blue
Vicci’s additions/changes in red

2 (16 oz) cans garbanzo beans, drained

6 slices bacon, cooked, drained, and chopped (turkey bacon!)

1/3 cup olive oil (1 tablespoon, used with a nonstick saucepot)

¾ cup diced onions

1 cup diced celery (approx. 2 ribs) (or ½ teaspoon ground celery seed)

¼ tspn. minced garlic (2 cloves, minced)

1 cup julienned carrots (make certain finished lengths of carrots are no longer than 2” so they fit onto a soup spoon when eating. I made the carrots into 2” matchsticks) (I cut mine into 1” lengths)

1½ cups drained diced canned tomatoes (I used Hunt’s Diced in Sauce (1)14.5 oz. can)

1 qt. chicken broth (I used (1) Swanson’s 99% fat-free)

½ tspn. freshly ground black pepper

1/8 tspn. ground rosemary (I used 1/8 tspn. fresh; also have subbed minced fresh basil)

2 T. chopped fresh parsley

½ cup miniature pasta dry bowties, cooked (I could not find miniature pasta anything, so I used ¾ cup regular-sized Farfalle; I’ve also subbed regular sized Rotini) (I used acini de pepe, or however you spell it! Ditalini would be a good choice, or orzo, or tiny shells.)

Add beans to food processor and process using on/off pulse until beans are well mashed. Scrape down sides as necessary. Reserve. (I had to puree my garbanzos with a cup of chicken broth to make smooth)

Heat oil in a Dutch oven. Add carrots, onions, celery, and garlic and sauté for 5 minutes on medium heat.

The original recipe never says, but somewhere in here, cook the pasta al dente, drain, and hold aside until ready to use.

Not me! I added the pasta (*) and cooked in the soup.

Add remaining ingredients except pasta and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer (* add pasta) and cook stirring occasionally for 20 minutes. Keep warm. Add pasta to finished soup and serve immediately.

Optional: Grated Parmegiano Reggiano as garnish on top.

Yields. 4 servings. (6)

Cooks Notes:

1. I initially thought the chicken broth made the soup too salty (990 mg), and I was going to try to water it down; but once the soup stayed overnight and the flavors married, it was fine.

Cooks Notes:

I added 2/3 cup frozen chopped spinach during the last 5 minutes of cooking (did not need to thaw)

Original Source: Olive Garden

Archived at: http://www.recipegoldmine.com/ccoOLI/o54.html

(also @ recipelink.com)

version 1, 2/3/07

Next, the pizza sauce mentioned on 2/5:

* Exported from MasterCook *

Pizza Sauce
Servings: 8

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
2 teaspoons olive oil
3 large garlic cloves -- minced
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1 teaspoon dried oregano -- crumbled
1 teaspoon dried basil -- crumbled
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup tomato sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste

In olive oil, saute garlic and onion over low-medium heat until tender. Add dried oregano through black pepper and stir for another minute. Add tomato sauce and tomato paste, mix well, and cook at a simmer, stirring often, for 10 minutes. Cool before using.

Yield:
"1 cup"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Per serving: 26 Calories (kcal); 1g Total Fat; (38% calories from fat); 1g Protein; 4g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 269mg Sodium
Food Exchanges: 0 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 1/2 Vegetable; 0 Fruit; 0 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates

Now, I was certain that the biryani recipe was here somewhere! Oh well, I'll try again tomorrow.

Can it get any colder?!

When I walked downstairs this morning, the indoor/outdoor thermometer read -2.2˚. Happy Monday!

I immediately checked to make certain the pipes in the kitchen had not frozen (they were fine), then I went to the basement to see if the water line into the house had frozen (nope). Life is good. :)

Having mixed the dry ingredients for Banana-Oat Bran muffins the night before, I turned on the oven and left for a bit while it (and the room) came to temperature.

I didn’t do as much baking over the past weekend as I had planned. It was just too cold in that kitchen to stand around, kneading dough and measuring out ingredients.

On Saturday I made Chili, using ground turkey and “burger crumbles” (Morningstar Farms brand). It was very good. Served alongside was light sour cream, shredded Cabot 50% Less Fat Jalapeno Cheddar, and diced avocado. I decided not to make the cornbread, so I steamed corn tortillas to eat with the chili.

The windows in the kitchen were rattling as arctic winds blew, but we ate our dinner in our warm, cozy dining room. It’s a nice room, but we hardly ever use it since there’s a table in the kitchen and the dining room table is a huge 7’ long thing. However, there is a gas fireplace there and I just can’t resist turning it on while we eat. Unfortunately, the thermostat is also in that room, and when the gas stove is on, the furnace isn’t. The second floor, where the bedrooms and bathroom are, was a nippy 55˚ when we retired that evening… I love my new flannel sheets!

On Sunday I ventured outside to fill the birdfeeder and melt a hole in the ice for the goldfish. The ice was very thick, and this took a long time, and I really didn’t enjoy being out there in the single-digit wind chills. For some reason, Spooky wanted out twice, and I just can’t no to the cat, so I also went out with him. It actually took more time to put on all of my outdoor clothing layers than it took for us to go out for a romp around the back patio/ yard. So I spent the rest of the day in the living room, gas fireplace blasting. Dinner was pizza, which required a half-hour preheat of the oven. Yay! Warm kitchen! I had made pizza dough last week and froze half, then actually remembered to remove it from the freezer on Saturday evening. Yesterday’s Pizza DuJour was more traditional than usual (Thai pizza, etc.). I found a good recipe for pizza sauce and “tweaked” it a little, then piled on lowfat cheddar, diced Boca Italian sausage, mushrooms, onions, chopped sautéed spinach, and orange bell peppers. The some grated Parmesan on top.

The pizza sauce recipe is really simple and quick. When I started to read ingredient labels at the grocery store (sometimes I really do believe that “ignorance is bliss”—now I hardly buy any prepared food items because of what the ingredient list reveals!), I found that commercial pizza sauces contained corn syrup, lots of salt, and some unpronounceable things. Not what I want to be eating. So this pizza sauce tasted better than anything else I have bought, and it’s a snap to put together.

Which brings us to today. To keep the oven cranking out heat, I made a couple of loaves of 5-Grain bread, and a loaf of Black Bread. That recipe has been hanging around in my “to try” file for months. However, I will have to find something to eat it with as it’s a type of bread with which I am unfamiliar. On vacation last year I had a wonderful sandwich with featured grilled shrimp and a wonderfully nutty Swiss cheese on black bread, but I am having difficulty in remembering the rest of the ingredients. I’ll have to improvise. ;)

I had a craving for chicken biryani , so I made that for dinner. It's a Madhur Jaffrey recipe that I tweaked a little.

I served the biryani with stir-fried cauliflower with black mustard seed and cumin seed. Very good, a nice dinner for a cold night.

So, did you ever see an unlabelled container of something in your freezer, which has been there for months, and realize that you no longer knew what was in it? I really do try to label things, but sometimes I think “well, I don’t have to because I’ll remember this”. Right. I found a few of those containers while searching for my bag of caraway seeds today. One, I am certain, is coconut milk. The other, maybe crushed pineapple? I should thaw them all and create a meal from them!

Mid-Winter Crazies...

Yesterday I realized just how the mid-winter crazies can affect me. Here is a photo of our Groundhog Day dinner:

Look! Little ground-turkey groundhogs in mashed potato “snow”! This year, the official little rodent did not see his shadow, so no gravy was required… I made the mistake of splitting the broccoli crowns. I should have steamed them whole so that they would have stood upright. Live and learn. Jack is so patient with his budding lunatic!

Yesterday, before I began sculpting in ground turkey, we took a walk through our woods. It was gorgeous! The snow had been coming down all day and about 5” had settled in. The snowflakes were huge and wet and stuck to even the smallest branches. If I had not been concerned about taking my new camera out in the weather, I would have been able to snap some beautiful photos. I did, earlier in the day, take a few photos around the house when I walked down the driveway to get the mail.

Forward one day.

With the weather forecast to be the coldest we have seen in many years, this is my weekend to cook some hearty comfort food. Since our wonderful 142-year-old farmhouse lacks a heated kitchen (I wonder just what was going through the previous owners’ minds when they did this), I also like to keep the stove going just to maintain a comfortable temperature in that room as I cook.

The first thing to come to mind is chili. And cornbread, too. Also soup. What else for the oven? chocolate-chip banana bread, oven-fried chicken. I am going to make up for those 3 months in the summer when I do not turn the oven on at all (and that reason is lack of air conditioning).

The sky is clear blue with only a few wispy little clouds scattered around, and when I walked outside to fill the birdfeeder this morning the air temperature didn’t feel too bad, but then the wind blew and the frigid air took my breath away. The thermometer says 21˚, but that’s not including the wind chill. Even so, the high for the next few days are forecasted to be in the mid-teens, so I cleaned our cross country skis and boots, and wiped the cobwebs off of the poles, so we will head out after lunch.

To pre-warm us, and provide energy for skiing, I have made soup. My friend Jan sent me a recipe for a copycat version of Olive Garden’s Pasta Roma soup. I love it when she sends me recipes that she has tried because she goes to the trouble to clarify otherwise vague directions, make suggestions, and critique the recipe. The only thing that I did differently was to thicken the soup with arrowroot. Jack (strongly) prefers thicker soups. Along with a couple of slices of that wonderful No-Knead Bread, it makes for a sustaining lunch.

later that afternoon

Well, it was a nice thought. After cleaning the lunch dishes I decided to take a quick trip to the mailbox before we got ourselves outfitted for skiing. If I thought it was cold out earlier, then this was a real shock. So I became the weenie. I decided that nobody should have to venture out into this, and to make my point, I put together a couple of mugs of hot chocolate and asked Jack which he would prefer-- cross-country skiing in a 4F windchill or the more civilized option, hot chocolate inside. The smart man, he came over to my way of thinking!

‘Twas a really, really cold day both outside and inside the old farmhouse! Actually, the afternoon temperatures reached “up” into the low 20’s but I just felt chilled. I had to venture outdoors to fill the birdfeeder, dump used teabags and last nights’ dinner veggie scraps into the compost bin, melt a hole in the goldfish pond, and walk to the mailbox for today’s bills and junk mail. It was snowing and windy so after I returned indoors I decided to make a nice, hearty, spicy stew for lunch.

I make this often, using bits of whatever vegetables I had in the freezer or the refrigerator. Today we ate it with naan (thawed and crisped under the broiler), but usually I thicken it a bit with cornstarch and serve over brown basmati rice.

Curried Chickpeas and Vegetables

1 teaspoon canola oil

1 medium red bell pepper, ¼” dice

1 medium carrot, ¼” dice

1 medium onion, ¼” dice

2 large garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon grated fresh gingerroot

1 tablespoon sweet curry powder (+ some hot, if desired)

¼ teaspoon salt

1 large Roma tomato, ¼” dice

8 ounces light coconut milk

¼ cup vegetable broth

9 ounces cooked chickpeas (or one 15-ounce can, drained and rinsed)

¼ cup frozen peas, thawed

1 tablespoon lemon or lime juice

Drizzle the oil in a large nonstick sauté pan and place over medium-high heat. Add bell pepper and carrot. Cook, stirring often, for 3 minutes. Add onion, cook for another minute, then add garlic, and cook for another minute. Reduce the heat to medium and add gingerroot and curry powder; stir constantly for two minutes. Add salt, tomato, coconut milk, and vegetable broth and heat until almost boiling. Lower heat a bit and add chickpeas and green peas. Simmer for 10 minutes.

This recipe makes two generous servings as a stew, but served over rice would serve 3.

Depending on what’s available, I have made this with spinach (fresh or frozen), cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms, etc. And it can be made into a heartier meal by adding chicken.

Today, instead of fresh gingerroot, I used the “prepared ginger” which I found in a tube in the produce section of the grocery store. I like having the tubed ginger, cilantro, and lemongrass on hand. If I know I will need large quantities of those herbs, I’ll buy fresh, but for day-to-day I keep these in the refrigerator. Once the expiration date has passed, I keep them in the freezer. It really takes only about 15 minutes at room temperature to thaw the tube enough to extract what I need.

I want to note, also, that I use only half of the amount of light coconut milk that is called for in a recipe. The other 4 ounces is either lowfat half & half (which is what I used today) or skim milk. I then mix in ½ teaspoon of coconut extract just before serving. Even light coconut milk contains too much saturated fat for me, and any extra remaining in the can I freeze in ice cube trays then pop into labeled plastic freezer bags for storage.

And, finally, curry. I use Penzey’s Sweet Curry, the flavor of which I love, but I also add a shake or two of their Hot Curry. And, baby, is it ever hot!!! One or two short little shakes will up the spiciness of any curry recipe. You gotta know your limits, and I found mine out quickly!

I need to dig up more oven-prepared dinner recipes. I got caught up in work this afternoon and didn't even think of dinner until 6:30. The kitchen (unheated) was quite "nippy". I cooked some whole wheat penne, soaked dried tomatoes in boiling water, and used onions, garlic, mushrooms, thawed spinach, red wine, canned diced tomatoes, hot red pepper flakes, ricotta, and parmesan to make a "skillet pasta" dish.

It was pretty good for a "thrown together" dish... :) High temperatures for the coming weekend are supposed to be in the teens, so it looks as though I'll be baking. Must make a plan, and a grocery list!

My first blog

I looked out of the kitchen window and saw 6 deer browsing the pine trees in the yard. One was actually standing on his back legs to reach the higher branches!

This should probably be a lot more interesting, but it is late in the evening, I spent the day baking, and I keep forgetting to call Dell to ask them why my laptop keeps overheating and shutting off. I have a feeling that turnoff-time is imminent, so for now I will just say Happy First Blog Post and I will now go eat some (more) biscotti, wrap bread and stick it in the freezer, and plan to return to this tomorrow. :)