My 15-Day Reboot, Part 1

I'm on a 15-day "reboot" right now, and day 3 is drawing to a close.  The decision to do this was inspired by my recent viewing of Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  For those of you who haven't already seen it (and if you haven't, you should!  Find it on Netflix or check it out of the library!), the film follows a guy named Joe, who suffers from obesity and an autoimmune disorder and embarks upon a 60-day juice fast in an attempt to cure himself of both conditions.  The fast is a success, you see him lose weight as the film is being made, and about halfway through he inspires a random stranger, who is also obese and suffering from the same autoimmune disease, to do the 60-day juice fast. 

Since the film was completed, Joe has started this whole "reboot" concept - learn more on the Reboot Your Life website - which encourages people to embrace healthy eating and lifestyle changes by committing to a "reboot" in which they consume nothing but fruits and vegetables (as in no beans, no nuts, no grains), often in juice form only, so that the body can benefit from daily megadoses of phytonutrients.  I've been intrigued by the idea since watching the film, and I decided before running the Columbia Marathon that the second half of March would be the best time to give it a try, since I'm taking the rest of the month off from running and I just might benefit in ways I don't expect.  Last week I loaded up on protein (soy milk, cashews, big spoonfuls of peanut butter) because my sore muscles needed it right after the race.  Friday night Steve and I went to a St. Pat's pub crawl in the Vista, and my reboot started Saturday morning.  The "Classic Reboot" that I'm doing consists of 5 days of juicing plus eating fresh fruits and vegetables, 5 days of juice only and 5 days of juice plus eating.  I'm making up my own meal plans as I go and consuming however much I want while staying within the parameters of the reboot.

Since I went vegan a couple of months ago, I don't feel like I'm suffering as much as if I ate a lot of meat (or a lot of processed junk), but here and there it's been hard to deal with the hunger pangs.  As a runner - and as one who recently trained for and ran a marathon - I'm not used to letting myself go hungry.  I eat healthy snacks, but as a rule, as soon as I notice that I'm hungry, I take care of it.  At work this past weekend (days 1 and 2), I found myself having to gulp down extra water between juices, fruit snacks and meals in order to trick myself into thinking I was full.  Today I was off from work, so it wasn't so hard to poke my head in the fridge and see what I could snack on (like carrots) and to move around at my own relaxed pace, which I don't always get to do at work.  I'm thankful that I'll be off at least two of the five days of the juice fast, because I have a feeling that it's going to be rough.

Anyway, the Vegetarian Times must have caught wind of the fact that I bought four kabocha squash (similar to acorn squash) at Rosewood Market this morning, because this recipe showed up in my Facebook feed after I got home.  As soon as I saw it, I knew what I'd be making for dinner.  I mostly followed the recipe  but substituted fresh ginger, Rasam powder (a type of curry powder available in Indian grocery stores) and cayenne for the sherry and left the skin on the squash because it's perfectly edible and a colossal pain in the ass to peel when it's raw.  I found that by bringing it to a boil and then reducing the heat, rather than just bringing it to a simmer, it cooked even faster and was ready to go in the blender even before I was done getting everything together for the salad. 

The salad was simple: a couple of handfuls of spinach (one for each of us), about two ears' worth of baked husk-on corn, cut from the cob after cooling, one big, ripe tomato and one avocado.  Just arranged everything on two plates and poured over a dressing made of one tablespoon of lime juice, two tablespoons of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.  Yumminess!  Plus I made a double batch of the soup, so there will be plenty more to enjoy during the next couple of days before the juice fast begins!

One nice thing about still being able to consume things like sweet potatoes and winter squash, the usual way or in juice form, is that they provide a little extra bulk and natural sugar, so you don't feel completely deprived.  I've felt pretty okay today, but my fingers are crossed that I'll make it through the juice fast without killing anyone...

Eggplant Tapenade Pasta

After nearly a month of cooking up a storm and forgetting to post about it, the Clock-Racing Gourmet is back!  This past Saturday I ran my first marathon in four years, the inaugural Columbia Marathon, and crossed the finish line after 3:46:26 of nonstop running.  Hells yeah!

My pre-race meal was at the Good Life Cafe, a place I never would have considered back when I still thought that you had to eat a giant mound of pasta - which they don't serve - on race night.  I had their Mediterranean wrap with a big kale salad on the side and their (sugar-free) strawberry shortcake smoothie for dessert.  The wrap - made of flaxseed? - included an eggplant tapenade spread that I really liked.  After the marathon, Steve and I went to Mezza, the new Lebanese place on Gervais (for those of you who live in Columbia).  Now that I'm vegan, the most obvious choice of lunch plate was their falafel wrap with tabouli and baba ghanouj on the side.  So, having had pureed eggplant two meals in a row, I found myself on a roll and wanting to try my hand at eggplant tapenade.  I'd seen recipes before but never gotten around to it.  I knew I had to for the same reason I would no longer consider buying pesto at the supermarket: it's easy to find, but I'd really rather make it myself so that it won't want for flavor.  I mentioned the idea to Steve, and a lovely eggplant and some Roma tomatoes showed up in the fridge shortly afterward.

After perusing a few recipes, I decided that this one was the most straightforward.  I skipped the balsamic vinegar and agave nectar and substituted half a yellow onion (since it really doesn't matter if it's going in the oven first).  I also spaced out and forgot to add the garlic.  Oh, well - next time.

The result?  Truth be told, it came out a lot like baba ghanouj.  Maybe it's because I just hit the Food Processor button and let it go until it was smooth, but I suppose I had looked forward to something a little chunkier.  Flavorwise, it came out well despite the omission of garlic.  I waited until the food processor step to add about three tablespoons of lemon juice, maybe a teaspoon of salt and about 15-20 turns of fresh ground black pepper.  I also threw most of the fresh parsley into the mix because I got a little carried away, snipping it in the backyard, so I had a lot more than a couple of tablespoons to work with.  The shreds that I used for a garnish are but a tiny fraction of what I used altogether.

I mixed this into some orzo pasta because, expecting a chunkier result, I was afraid that if I used bigger or longer pasta, the tapenade would all find its way to the bottom of our plates without really adorning the pasta.  I needn't have worried, so next time I just might use some linguine instead.  I served this over a bed of fresh spinach because I was too lazy to make a salad.  Once it was all plated up, I drizzled a little more olive oil and lemon juice over the top (paying special attention to the visible spinach leaves) and added a little more fresh ground pepper.  Fabulous!

Now that winter's over in SC, I'm already at work on my spring/summer vegetable garden.  I look forward to blogging in the upcoming months about recipes made with the fruit and veggies of my backyard labor! 

Spicy Spinach and Artichoke Pasta

Okay, so the previous post wasn't the last of 2011 because I made my pre-race pasta dinner tonight instead of going out.

Usually I go out for a pasta dinner the night before a race, but the last time I did so I found myself thinking when it was served, "Hmm...$10.95 for something I could have made at home."  I won't name the restaurant, since we do generally enjoy it when we go, but their vegetarian options are somewhat limited and that night's selection didn't quite justify paying for one plate what I would have paid for the groceries had I made it myself.  It was Steve's $10.95, not mine, but still.  It's the principle of the thing. 

So, between wanting something similar tonight (without having to put hole-free clothes on, go out, wait to be seated and then wait to be served) and Steve having to work, we ended up staying in (Steve works from the house) and I whipped up a batch of - you guessed it -

Spicy Spinach and Artichoke Pasta:
Half a package of whole wheat linguine (I used Alma's)
2 tbsp olive oil
3-4 oz chopped baby spinach
1 15-oz can artichoke hearts, quartered, plus half the brine
14 oz Dei Fratelli crushed tomatoes (or whatever kind you've got)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp dried Italian herbs
sea salt to taste
fresh-ground black pepper to taste
crushed red pepper to taste

Cook the pasta according to the package directions.  Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat.  Add spinach and stir often until more than a little wilted, about 5 minutes.  Add remaining ingredients, cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until flavors have blended.
***
Easy peasy.  It came out great and I'm still wearing a sweater with a hole in it, yay!

Until 2012...

Hot Vegetable Salad

Well, I made it through all 21 days (23 days, actually) of the vegan kickstart.  I was pretty pleased with that, since I was really only trying to see how long I could last without cheese.  And now I know.

Now that I'm back to being a regular old vegetarian, I decided to attempt a knockoff of California Dreaming's Hot Vegetable Salad.  Mind you, I've never tried it; I was planning to order it at my office's holiday luncheon in 2009 but ended up spending that day at home sick.  Anyhoo, we've had a bunch of produce in the fridge for the past week and I was starting to fret about what to do with all of it when, somehow, I was reminded of this salad.  Mine's not exactly the same (I didn't have any green beans or hearts of palm on hand), but that's all right because the recipe lends itself well to adaptations.

Hot Vegetable Salad:
(Serves two)
1 tbsp Earth Balance
4 tbsp olive oil, divided
1 yellow squash, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
1 orange bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 can artichoke hearts, drained and halved
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste
6-7 ounces fresh spinach leaves
1 vine-ripened tomato, diced
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp shredded Asiago cheese
1 tbsp shredded Parmesan cheese

Heat Earth Balance and 1 tbsp olive oil in nonstick pan over medium heat.  Add squash, peppers and garlic and saute until peppers begin to soften, about 5 minutes.  Add artichokes, salt, pepper and thyme and continue to cook until peppers and squash are tender but not mushy, another 3-5 minutes.  Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, combine salt, pepper, lemon juice and remaining olive oil in a bowl.  Add the dressing to the spinach leaves and tomato and toss well.  Place the spinach and tomato on two 9-inch plates, cover each bed of spinach with half of the cooked vegetables and top each salad with equal amounts of Parmesan and Asiago.
***
Did I mention that it's equally tasty and easy to put together?  This is easily one of my shortest blog posts that actually contained a recipe!

Give this a try whenever you have a bunch of veggies you don't have any ideas for.  Maybe even use some of your veggies in the salad and some in a soup recipe on a soup-and-salad night!  If you happen to have veggies (hot or cold) left over from the salad, maybe use them in a wrap the next day with a little more cheese (and/or some drained and rinsed chickpeas or cannellini beans).  So many possibilities!

Have a great week, and hopefully I'll see some you (in the Columbia area) at the Ray Tanner Home Run next week!

Basmati Rice with Peas and Spinach Kootu

Before I go into detail about tonight's dinner, I have an unhappy update about my garden: about three weeks ago, following a short proliferation period, my yellow squash plants, zucchini plant and cucumber vine all fell prey to a powdery mold blight.  Steve did a Google search to learn more about it and found that spraying milk on the leaves helps to inhibit growth/reproduction of the mold, but it was already too late for the yellow squash, which were laid to rest in the compost bin last week.  The leaves on the cucumber look terrible, but the plant is still producing (for now), and the jury's still out on the zucchini although it appears to be making a comeback.  Lesson learned: don't encourage mold growth on members of the squash family by planting them too close together.  The "oh, screw it, it'll work out" approach worked well enough last summer, when I was mostly growing upright pepper plants, but I now know to space squashes exactly as far apart as the plant tag says (four to six feet).  Oh, well - all the more reason to expand the size of the raised bed next summer.

I've cooked a time or two since the last post and managed to use up pretty much everything in the fridge with the lunch I made on Sunday - and then a bag of spinach showed up in the fridge after I got home from work last night. What to do, what to do...

Spinach Kootu:
1/2 cup yellow split peas
1/4 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp canola oil
1 dried red chili pepper
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp urad dal
1/4 cup chopped onion (I had some in the freezer)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
10 oz. chopped spinach (original recipe calls for frozen, but what the hey)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt or to taste

Boil 2 cups of water, add the split peas and turmeric and cook on medium heat (covered) until they are completely softened (up to 45 minutes).

Heat oil over medium heat in a saucepan big enough for all the chopped fresh spinach (a smaller one is okay if you're using frozen).  When it's hot, stir in the red chili pepper, mustard seeds and urad dal.  Cook until the mustard seeds burst and the urad dal is golden brown.  Slightly reduce the heat, if needed, so that these ingredients don't burn.

Add onion and garlic and stir-fry for one or two minutes.

Add spinach to the saucepan along with split peas and one cup of water (cooking water is fine).  Add the cumin and salt and stir well to blend.

Cover and simmer over low heat for a few more minutes, until the spinach has at least wilted and all the ingredients are blended.

...And since this clearly isn't dinner all by itself, I made a rice and peas dish that can be made anytime (at our house) using pantry, fridge and freezer staples.

Basmati Rice with Green Peas:
2 cups basmati rice
2 tbsp Earth Balance
3-4 shakes of cinnamon (or 4-5 small pieces of stick cinnamon)
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp cashews, coarsely chopped
2 whole cloves
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp ground cardamom (or two whole cardamom pods)
1/2 tsp salt or to taste
1/2 cup frozen peas (or 1 cup if you like more), heated in microwave for 1 to 2 minutes

Rinse rice well and get 3 cups of water boiling while completing the next step.  (Cookbook says 4 but I always get a better result using a 1.5:1 water: white rice ratio.)

In a saucepan with a tight-fitting lid (i.e. one you can cook rice in), heat the Earth Balance (or butter, ghee, oil or whatever) over medium heat.  When it's hot, add the cinnamon, bay leaves and cashews.  Cook until the cashews turn golden brown.

Add the rice to the mix along with the cloves, turmeric, cardamom and salt.  Stir well and toast the ingredients for another minute or two.

Pour in the boiling water, stir, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, covered, for about 15 minutes.  The rice should be fluffy and all the water should be gone.

Stir in the cooked green peas (drain them first if necessary) and serve.
***
The nice thing about the rice recipe in particular is that, after serving Steve and myself, there was enough for two big leftover portions for later in the week.  I'm always glad to have leftovers when my work schedule's unpredictable, because it means I won't have to make do with the items on the largely non-vegetarian menu at the hospital cafeteria. 

Another happy discovery I made about the spinach recipe is the meaty flavor you get when you cook spinach with cumin.  Steve suggested that I figure out how to bring back the tuna bacon spinach pasta recipe, vegetarian style.  Be looking for it sometime in the near future!

Zucchini gyros and spinach and yellow squash salad

I was originally going to pick up some mushrooms for the gyro recipe, but I still had the zucchini picked last week and no ideas.  Plus, it seemed like there would be protein enough in the feta cheese and tzatziki sauce (yogurt, finely diced cucumber, dill, salt and white pepper), so I chopped up the zucchini instead and sauteed it in olive oil and then seasoned it as heavily as I could with the last bit of Cavender's All-Purpose Greek Seasoning that I had.  You can't see the zucchini in the photo, but it's on the pita beneath the tzatziki.  The tomato that went on this is the first one we've used from the backyard this year! 

I was all over this recipe from the July issue of Food and Wine when I saw that it called for yellow squash, but I had just enough spinach in the fridge for two side salads and figured I'd use that rather than go to the store for the Little Gem lettuce or (more likely) hearts of romaine.  I just used canola for the toasted walnuts because that's what I had, and the dressing I made was my usual Greek-style vinaigrette (salt, pepper, dried Italian herbs, lemon juice and olive oil).  As it turned out, Steve didn't want the squash on his salad, so I reserved a little bit of the chopped tomato for his salad. 

So, by using one zucchini, one cucumber, one yellow squash and the last of the spinach for tonight's dinner, I'm now down to two squash and one head of broccoli in the fridge!  There's also plenty of leftover tzatziki in the fridge, so I'll probably either make pitas with it again tomorrow or enjoy it as a topping or side dish for an Indian dish or something else that's warm and heavy on spices.

Until next time...sow what you reap, and reap what you sow!

Cleaning out the fridge two meals in a row

When I woke up yesterday morning and poured my customary glass of orange juice, I couldn't help but notice the accumulation in the produce drawer:

Luckily, yesterday was a day off (my typical work "week" now being mostly long weekends), so I decided to cook for both lunch and dinner.

For lunch, the zucchini "moussaka" dish from the July 2004 issue of Food and Wine.  They don't seem to have the recipe on their website anymore, so here's a link to one of the times I made it last summer.

Ingredients from the backyard: three yellow squash (instead of zucchini), one green pepper (instead of the onion I didn't have), parsley and mint.

From the store: two tomatoes, a can of chickpeas, a can of tomato sauce (instead of tomato paste), 3/4 cup dry couscous and the rest of the seasonings (garlic, etc.).

The nice thing about this recipe is that it's so easy: I got started around 12:30, including chopping, and it was done and ready to eat by 1:00.  Steve had some as well, and I got to enjoy the leftovers today for lunch.

Later, after a few pages of the book I'm reading and a nice, long nap, dinner time was suddenly around the corner.  No problem - I've got this!

Dinner was spinach risotto-stuffed red peppers and an Al Amir-style salad on the side.

From the store: two large red bell peppers (99 cents each at Bi-Lo), spinach, arborio rice, parmesan...pretty much everything for the peppers.  For the salad: tomato, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

From the backyard: cucumbers, parsley and mint for the salad.

For those who don't live in the Columbia area, Al Amir is a Mediterranean restaurant that serves a salad that's pretty much like tabbouleh minus the bulghur wheat.  It's a very cool, refreshing summer salad that's easy to make and delicious - especially if you're using fresh, sweet cucumbers from the backyard or fresh from a local farm.

And here's what we ended up with!

So, while I did make a sizeable dent in the produce selection pictured above, I still have one zucchini, one yellow squash and some of the spinach in the fridge, plus the head of broccoli that Steve picked up when he went grocery shopping at the end of the day.  So, in the next day or two I'll figure out what I'm going to do with them...

Stay cool, everybody.  If you live in Columbia city limits and get any significant rainfall (like on Monday night), do me a favor and send those storm clouds to the northeast after a few minutes.  We could use an inch or three up here!

Back in the kitchen

...after nearly a month of not blogging and hardly cooking.  It's not that I didn't cook at all, but on the rare occasions that I did, I simply replayed favorites like the sweet potato spinach praram and pasta salad or just made a plain Greek-style spinach and feta salad.  The rest of the time, when I wasn't up for making anything, it was either frozen dinners or chips and hummus.  Clinicals are over, and I've had a little more time to cook this week.  That's a good thing, because I'm back to having a lot to work with and not a lot of time before it goes bad. 

Bring on the Indian (-style) food.

Yesterday I dispensed with a couple of carrots and a big bunch of cilantro by making something like chickpea soondal but with carrots and cilantro and no coconut.  Easy peasy.  I was afraid that the big bunch of cilantro I had would be too much for two chopped carrots and one can of chickpeas, but it actually came together really well and the leftovers were just as good in today's lunch.  I cooked up just enough brown rice to mix with both of the generous helpings I got from it.

Tonight I made palak tofu.  The inspiration was actually a frozen dinner that Steve buys sometimes called Mattar Tofu.  It's a vegan version of mattar paneer that uses tofu instead of the cheese.  Well, I just happened to have an unopened bag of spinach and half a block of tofu leftover from the last time I made the praram, so I made the palak tofu using those ingredients plus a few seasonings I always have on hand:

3 tablespoons canola oil
3 dried red chilies, torn into pieces
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 tablespoon ginger paste
9 ounces fresh spinach
1 onion
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon Madras curry powder (medium hot?)
8 ounces extra firm tofu, pressed and sliced into 1-inch squares

Heat the oil over medium-low heat, add the next three ingredients and saute until fragrant (just a few minutes). 

Meanwhile, puree the spinach and onion in a blender or food processor until smooth.  Add to the ginger-garlic mixture in the pan.  Add salt, curry powder and tofu, stir well, cover and cook until onion flavor no longer overwhelms the dish, about 15 minutes.  (Avoid the temptation to over-salt it before it's done; the onion flavor will cook out.)

Serve over rice.

Look who finally cooked again!

I know it's been a while, but new demands on my time (mainly the new job I started a couple of weeks ago) plus school have made it hard for me to spend time on the computer for recreation - or cook as per usual.  So, updates will probably be scant through the end of April, but I appreciate your patience and look forward to being able to both cook and blog again more often!

Truth be told, the next time I cooked after the last post was a massive fail.  I had this idea that a soybean cassoulet might be a really good idea, and it really wasn't.  The first mistake was putting the soybeans in the slow cooker: that alone, on the low setting, took three days, with onions, carrots and rosemary added on the last day, and it really didn't taste good at all.  Luckily it was vegan, because some of it ended up in the compost bin.  That cured me of my momentary fascination with the dried soybean.  For most of the next week or two, I just ate frozen dinners or made simple spinach salads followed by wine and cheese for dinner. 

When it started warming up again and I realized I had some week-old lemons and an untouched package of celery of indeterminate age in the fridge, it seemed like a good time to try out a new pasta salad recipe.  Twisty egg noodles from Wal-Mart, two chopped tomatoes, a tablespoon of capers, chopped celery and onion sauteed in olive oil (just enough to soften them, but not enough to get rid of all their crunch), a dressing made of olive oil, lemon juice, dried Italian herbs and pepper.  Mix it all together, chill for two hours and add shredded or shaved Parmesan to taste (try 1/2 cup to start).

More recently, I reprised the easy vegetarian cassoulet recipe, only I made it vegan by substituting nutritional yeast (2 tablespoons) for the cheese and used veggie base to make the broth.  This recipe took care of some chopped onion left over from another recipe as well as the remaining celery.  Sometimes I'm afraid to do vegan too often, lest my flirtation with veganism cause me to have a B-12 deficiency, but the yeast takes care of that.  Read here for more on that.

And most recently, an untouched bag of baby spinach from Publix inspired a pasta dish based on my favorite spinach salad: whole wheat linguine cooked al dente, 6 ounces (about 2/3 of a bag) chopped fresh spinach cooked in olive oil, juice from half a lemon, a pinch of nutmeg, and crumbled feta and fresh ground pepper added at the end.  Mix it all together, and voila!  This tasted great, but I was chagrined to see the spinach turn brown when I added the lemon juice to the hot pan before it was done cooking.  It also brought back memories of the childhood invisible ink trick - write something in lemon juice, let it dry, then run a hot iron over the piece of paper and watch it turn brown.  Oh, well - next time I'll just drizzle it on at the end like I would with the salad. 

Another reason I haven't knocked myself out to cook as often is that - aside from Steve easing up on the produce purchases and the fact that I never shop if I can help it - they actually have decent food where I work now, and it's easy to think to myself, Self, a bowl of veggie soup is just two bucks downstairs.  But as long as I have raw materials, I'll be doing my best to use them rather than make lunch from cash. 

Until next time...

Simple dishes that last

This post is a two-for to make up for the blog post I didn't do on Sunday. 

Sunday I made...wait for it...beans and rice. 

Pigeon peas and sofrito sauce with brown rice, to be exact.  There wasn't a whole lot to blog about there.  I basically followed the pigeon pea soup recipe from over the summer except that I skipped the butternut squash and plantain and used frozen diced green peppers because that's what I had.  I think I also forgot to use the same amount of Yucateco because it wasn't as spicy as I expected.  Truth be told, this was good except that I wish I'd stirred in some tomato paste once the pigeon peas and sofrito sauce were combined.  It would have added some additional color and flavor variety that was lacking from this dish without the butternut squash from the soup.  Oh, and don't leave the peas soaking in the fridge for a day in a half unless you don't mind them sprouting a teeny bit.

Tonight I'm fueling up for another 13-miler, so I made spinach and artichoke pasta.  This used up the last of a bag of fresh spinach, some leftover canned artichokes and a lemon.  And the last of a small block of Romano cheese.  Mmm...pasta.

8 oz. whole wheat linguine
2 tbsp Earth Balance
2 oz. fresh baby spinach
1/2 can of artichoke hearts, drained
juice of one lemon
1/4 cup freshly grated Romano cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the pasta according to the package directions.  Drain the pasta, lower the heat to medium and stir in the Earth Balance.  As soon as it melts, stir in the spinach and artichoke hearts and cook until the spinach wilts, tossing the ingredients well in order to blend them.  Stir in cheese and add salt and pepper to taste.

Both dishes this week yielded ample leftovers, and since I haven't been hungry for more than a salad most evenings, the leftovers are all getting eaten for lunch.  And since I'm running long first thing tomorrow morning, I'm sure I'll be loving the ready-and-waiting pasta leftovers when lunchtime rolls around!

Vegan Spinach Lasagna

Like the title says, it's vegan.  You've been warned...

This post had to wait a day because it took longer than I expected for this thing to come together.  I'm never, ever hungry past 7:30 p.m., and I realized when this went in the oven that it wouldn't be done until almost 8:00.  So, I let it do its thing and ate hummus and tortilla chips again while a computer handed his competitors' asses to them on Jeopardy.

I was a bit skeptical as to how a tweaked version of this recipe would turn out, but I was curious to see exactly what flavor combination would be produced by the ingredients for the tofu ricotta cheese.  Plus I still have a bunch of lasagna noodles left over from the two or three times I've made it over the past year (in a bread loaf pan, which only takes four or five noodles for three layers), I'm not a fan of ricotta cheese, and I was intrigued by the notion that the marinara sauce didn't have to be cooked down for over an hour and the lasagna noodles didn't have to already be cooked as long as the steam was held in.  Suddenly, lasagna seemed to have gotten easier.

Well, the sauce part was easier, and I just used frozen spinach and fresh baby bella mushrooms instead of the more complicated vegetable layer described in the original recipe.  Still, the time got away from me while I was blending the ingredients for the "cheese," thawing packages of frozen spinach, draining them, mixing in a little salt and pepper, then thinly slicing mushrooms and having the time of my life stirring the contents of a brand new can of tahini until I achieved an even consistency.  Think of stirring all the oil back into a deep jar of all-natural peanut butter and multiply that times 5.  No, make that 10.  So, despite having started this thing just after 5:00, it didn't go into the oven until 6:30.  So, tonight was the first opportunity I had to taste the end result while I had any appetite.

The result?...To be honest, I was expecting the "cheese" to be a little funky, but it actually wasn't!  Steve even finished his helping before I finished mine.

I do think that if I use my 9 x 13-inch baking pan again instead of the usual bread loaf pan, I'll make more sauce.  Maybe not the half-gallon used in the original recipe, but more than I did for this lasagna.  I only had two 15-ounce cans of diced tomatoes on hand; one I pureed, the other I left diced because the dice were small.  However, since it took more sauce than usual to cover each layer of veggies, etc., I hardly had any left to cover the top layer of noodles and half expected them to come out uncooked.  Thankfully, the sauce and everything else produced just enough steam (held in by foil) to keep that from happening, but next time I'll at least go up to three 15-ounce cans' worth of tomatoes so that I can have an equal layer of tomato sauce on top to swirl with the cheese mixture.

Off to watch three humans compete in tonight's Jeopardy teen tournament and to enjoy a nice long weekend.  Good night!

Soup and Salad Sunday

Another recipe I've been thinking about and just now getting around to making.  I've been wanting to make something akin to minestrone, but since I didn't have any cannellini beans in the house (they often get used the day I buy them), I made do with a cup or so of dry lentils and some other things on hand.  This was a handy way to get rid of some carrots that have been hanging out in the fridge for over a week as well as one large onion from a bag purchased more recently.   The rest could have been used whenever, and today was as good a day as any.

Lentil soup:
2 tbsp Smart Balance
1 large onion, chopped
2 small carrots, peeled and sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp dried Italian herb mix
1 cup frozen green beans, thawed
4 cups vegetable broth
1 cup green lentils, rinsed and sorted
1 15-ounce can of diced tomatoes

Heat the Smart Balance over medium heat in a 2-3 quart saucepan.  Add carrots and onions and cook until softened, about 3-5 minutes.  Add garlic and herb mix and cook for another 2 minutes.  Add green beans and cook until warmed, another 2-3 minutes.  Add vegetable broth, lentils and tomatoes.  Stir, cover and simmer until lentils have cooked through, about 25-30 minutes.

And today's salad involved an ingredient I'd never used before: radish sprouts purchased at the All-Local Farmer's Market at the end of my 11-mile run yesterday morning! 

I've been meaning to check out City Roots as well, and, having seen their selection on Saturday, I can't wait to stop by their location this week for some more new veggies!

Spinach salad with black olives and radish sprouts:
2-3 handfuls fresh spinach, washed and torn
1 small bag (1 cup?) radish sprouts
1/2 cup sliced black olives, drained
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Assemble the first three ingredients, in order, on two salad plates.  In a small bowl, combine the next three ingredients and pour over the salad.

Good good stuff!  And I'm happy to actually have time to cook when I'm not too tired, like I was all day yesterday.  "Dinner" was me stuffing my face with hummus and spicy blue corn tortilla chips in front of the TV, catching up on 30 Rock and Outsourced.  Yay, Saturday night.

But I've got plenty of leftover soup to enjoy over the next couple of days, and tomorrow Steve and I will be celebrating Valentine's Day at Al's Upstairs!

Enjoy this lovely weather while it lasts!

Spinach and cheddar quesadillas

I've just about used up all of my perishables for the time being and, out of sheer laziness, will probably avoid shopping this week and just get by on what's in the cupboards and freezer.  Last night I couldn't think of another use for the last four flour tortillas or an easier finger food to prepare than quesadillas to nosh on while watching commercials during the Stupid Bowl (yeah, I said it), so away I went. 

By the way, where were all the commercials right around halftime?  It's the only reason some of us tuned in!

four 12" flour tortillas
one 8-ounce block of cheddar cheese, shredded
one 10-ounce package of frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
salt and pepper to taste
pinch of nutmeg

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

Lay two of the tortillas on cookie sheets or slightly larger sheets of aluminum foil.  Cover each tortilla with about one-third of the shredded cheddar and spread evenly.  Place spinach in a bowl and add salt, pepper and nutmeg, mixing with a fork to pull leaves apart and to evenly distribute the seasoning. 

Mix one-third of shredded cheddar with the spinach, stirring with fork to combine.  Add half of the spinach-cheddar mixture to each of the quesadillas-in-progress, spreading evenly with the fork.  Cover the spinach layer with the remaining cheddar cheese and follow with the remaining tortillas.

Bake for 5 minutes, turn over and bake for 5 more minutes.  Slice using a sharp knife and serve.

***
I somewhat rooted for the Steelers this year, but it was clear where the game was headed even after they scored that touchdown right before halftime.  And speaking of halftime - how tired was it that the Black Eyed Peas only sang two of their so-so songs and then performed good songs by other people in between?  (Was will.i.am covering a receding hairline with the plastic headgear?)  And I hate the thought of Slash having financial troubles that could only be relieved by letting Fergie stand next to him and sing "Sweet Child O' Mine" - like any female vocalist can't pull that one off on karaoke night.  I like her singing and all, but...yeesh.  And I guess it's just as well that I wasn't tuned in when Christina Aguilera, whom I also generally like, botched the national anthem.  Burlesque wasn't even that lame.

On the plus side, the quesadillas were just as tasty and even easier to make than I expected, Steve liked them, and I got to enjoy them again today for lunch!

Until next time...

Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms and Broccoli Risotto

Last night's dinner and today's leftovers.  I bought a package of portabella mushroom caps on impulse at Earth Fare early in the week, and stuffing them just seemed like the thing to do.  The original plan was to make a stuffing mixture out of spinach and breadcrumbs (the incidental ones from when I made my own croutons for our Thanksgiving stuffing), but I made the mistake of adding too much of the nasty Chardonnay from last Friday to dampen the breadcrumbs, and the result was...nasty.  I realized this just as I was getting ready to spoon it onto the mushroom caps and ended up scrapping it and starting over sans breadcrumbs.  It was just as well - I wasn't sure how much stuffing these mushrooms would hold with the gills intact, so I just chopped up the spinach as finely as I could and mixed in a little lemon juice, pepper and feta.

Spinach and Feta-Stuffed Portabellas:
3 Portabella mushrooms, stems intact
1/2 cup fresh spinach, finely chopped
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
pepper to taste
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Remove and finely chop stems from mushrooms.  Combine chopped stems with spinach, olive oil, lemon juice, pepper and about half (1/4 cup) of the feta cheese.  Spoon onto mushrooms, packing it with spoon.  Top mixture with remaining feta cheese, place on greased (or foil-covered) cookie sheet or shallow baking pan in oven for 20 minutes.

The risotto seemed as good a pairing with the mushrooms as any, plus I haven't made it in a while.  This didn't use anything out of the fridge except some veggie base, but it was still an easy side dish to whip up while the mushrooms were in the oven.

Broccoli Risotto:
2 tbsp Smart Balance or Earth Balance
1 cup onion, chopped (I thawed some chopped onion from the freezer)
1 cup arborio rice
3 cups vegetable broth (I used Better than Bouillon vegetable base)
1 cup frozen broccoli florets, thawed
1/2 cup freshly grated Romano cheese
fresh ground pepper

In a 2-quart saucepan, heat the Smart Balance over medium heat.  Add onion and saute until softened, about 3 minutes.  Stir in arborio rice and cook for one minute.  Begin adding hot broth to the rice mixture 1/2 cup at a time, stirring often, until the rice has absorbed that amount of liquid.  Repeat until the rice has absorbed all the broth.  Broccoli may be added at this point or at the same time as the last addition of broth.  Stir in Romano and pepper and serve.

Next up: something to dispense of all the parsley, cilantro, red cabbage and carrots in the bottom drawer...

Spinach and Artichoke Pasta with White Beans

I'd been thinking about making something like this since before my last cold.  Whenever I see spinach and artichoke dip on a restaurant or bar menu, I think, "Mmm, spinach.  Mmm, artichoke hearts.  Cream cheese, mayo, sour cream...blech."  If they just put the spinach, artichokes and some melted Parmesan on some chips and put that in the oven for 10 minutes, I'd be a much bigger fan of the dip (even though it wouldn't really be a dip anymore).  And since we always have a bag of spinach in the fridge and a can or two of artichoke hearts in the cupboard, I finally took it upon myself to give this dish a whirl after a happy little 3-mile run through the neighborhood. 

I was also in the mood for something like a cassoulet, hence the Great Northern beans.

2 tbsp Earth Balance
2 tbsp flour
2 cups milk (2%)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg
8 oz. orzo pasta
6 oz. fresh spinach, rinsed and chopped
1 can artichoke hearts, drained (about 7 artichoke hearts)
1 can (15 oz.) Great Northern Beans, drained
1 cup freshly grated or shredded Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a small saucepan, heat Earth Balance over medium-low heat until melted.  Stir in flour slowly, smoothing out any lumps.  Once it is all combined, gradually stir in the milk until incorporated.  Add salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Simmer, stirring often (don't let it burn on the bottom of the pan) until thickened, about 20 minutes.  Stir in 1/2 cup of Parmesan and stir until melted.

While the sauce is cooking down, cook the orzo according to package directions (about 9 minutes), drain and set aside (covered).

While the sauce and orzo are doing their thing, rinse and chop the spinach, drain and chop the artichoke hearts and drain the can of beans.

When the sauce and orzo are ready, combine them in the pot containing the orzo.  Add the spinach, artichoke hearts and beans and stir well.

Grease a breadloaf-sized baking dish (or use a nonstick pan) and spoon the mixture into the dish.  Top with the remaining Parmesan cheese and bake for 30 minutes.  Let stand 10-15 minutes before serving.

Serves 4

This turned out really well, but I may experiment with it in the future to see if it could be made even better.  I'm wondering if adding salt and pepper to the spinach and wilting it first would have added to the flavor.  Another suggestion that Steve had was to use white wine.  Hmm...we shall see...

Everyone have a great weekend, and I look forward to seeing some of you at Strictly Running in the morning!

Cleaning out the Fridge for Turkey Day

I took ill last weekend and didn't do much cooking for a few days.  So, when I noticed that some zucchini and an onion in the fridge were both looking like they'd seen better days, I decided to make a batch of soup to aid my recovery.

The bowl pictured here is reheated leftovers that I photographed after I started to dig in.  Soups are so often better the next day!

2 tbsp olive oil
2 zucchini, quartered lengthwise and thinly sliced
2 cloves chopped garlic
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 cans (14.5 oz each) chicken broth
1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce
1 can (15 oz.) diced tomatoes
1 can chick peas, drained
1 can navy beans, drained
2 tsp dried Italian herbs
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a 2- or 4-quart saucepan.  Add zucchini and garlic and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add onion and cook until all vegetables are translucent, another 3 to 5 minutes.  Add chicken broth, diced tomatoes and tomato sauce and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer.  Add chick peas, navy beans and herbs, stir well and cover.  Simmer, stirring occasionally, until soup is bubbly, about 20-25 minutes.  Add salt and pepper before serving.

Several days last week I went through some fresh spinach and pita bread by making spinach and feta pitas for lunch.  Just when I thought I'd saved the spinach on hand from spoiling, Steve surprised me with another bag of spinach.  As it turned out, a container of ricotta cheese that Steve had picked up in case we needed to make an emergency lasagna was also nearing its expiration date.  So guess what I did with my Friday afternoon off from work?

Pretty much the same thing as the zucchini lasagna I last made over the summer, substituting about 8 cups of chopped fresh spinach for the zucchini and yellow squash.  I discovered that it's not a bad idea to nuke the spinach for a minute or two and then drain off the liquid so that it doesn't cook out while the whole thing's in the oven.  Luckily, or because I made it a couple of hours ahead of time, it held together just fine when I cut into it for dinner.  Steve had some for lunch yesterday and enjoyed it too.

It's the home stretch before our 4th annual Thanksgiving at home.  The turkey's thawing in the fridge, and I can't wait to pull it off again!

Chicken l'orange

I got this idea from the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry fails to enjoy himself at the dinner party at home and then learns that their caterer took home some of the Chicken l'orange and apple turnovers that they had paid for.   Since I was expecting eggplant in my Pinckney's stash but got a couple of small yellow squash instead, along with a surprise bag of spinach from Steve, I figured this would be an easy and somewhat unusual way to dispense with those items plus a package of boneless skinless chicken in the freezer.  I did buy some slivered almonds for this purpose as indicated in the recipe I used, but it would have been just as good without.  I also left out the sugar and pineapple juice this recipe called for and skipped the dredging in flour.  OK, here goes:

Chicken l'orange:
4 tbsp Smart Balance
1 package boneless skinless chicken breasts
salt and pepper
1 cup orange juice
1 cup white wine
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup slivered almonds

In a wide, shallow pan, melt the Smart Balance over medium-high (one notch above medium).  Salt and pepper chicken well on both sides.  Add chicken to pan and cook until browned, about 5 minutes on each side. 

Meanwhile, combine the remaining ingredients in a mixing bowl and pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. When chicken is ready, add to a 1.5 inch or deeper baking ban and pour juice/wine mixture over the chicken.  Bake on 325 for 30 minutes, basting occasionally, then raise heat to 350 degrees and bake another 15 minutes.

(Here's where I did something really different from the recipe...)

Remove chicken from baking pan, transfer to a plate, cover with foil and set aside.

Melt 2 tbsp Smart Balance in a small saucepan over medium heat, stir in 2 tbsp of flour and stir will until combined with no lumps.  Pour in pan juices and stir well and often for about 10 minutes or until mixture has a syrup-like consistency.  Put chicken breast pieces on individual plates and spoon over with thickened orange-wine sauce.

Had to do it...it seemed like a needless waste of the pan juices to pour a little bit over the chicken after cooking and call it a night.

Also pictured:

Yellow squash risotto:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 small yellow squash, cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced
2 cups vegetable broth diluted by 1 cup water
1 cup uncooked arborio rice
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
fresh ground pepper

In a 2-quart saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add squash and saute gently until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add arborio rice, stir and saute another two minutes.  Lower heat and begin adding diluted broth, about one cup at a time, to the rice/squash pan and stir often, adding another cup at a time as the liquid is absorbed by the rice.  Once the rice has absorbed all the liquid, remove from heat.  Stir in Parmesan and fresh ground pepper and serve.

And last, but not least:

Sauteed spinach
Pan drippings from chicken l'orange
4 oz. fresh spinach, washed and torn
fresh ground pepper to taste

Once the chicken is in the oven and the risotto is either finished or well on its way, bring the temperature of the chicken juices back up to medium.  Add spinach and sautee until warm, no more than 5 minutes.  Add pepper and serve.

And I cannot tell a lie: I didn't get much sleep Saturday night because of some noisy neighbors at the campground (and the thunderstorm, from which Steve and I were protected by a thin layer of waterproof tent canvas; the neighbors' chatter had something to do with their tent leaking, and they also seemed unaware that tents aren't soundproof).  So, by the time I finished cooking, I was through being hungry and already thinking about going to bed - at 7:30!  So I ended up packing all the chicken and risotto in leftover containers with the amount of sauce that I thought was just enough for the chicken.  Since this left me with some extra sauce, I put that and some of the spinach on a plate (after taking the picture) and mopped up the sauce with a piece of bread.  Based on that limited encounter, I can attest that the chicken and spinach went well together.  The spinach cooked in the pan juices took up a lot of the salt that had been sprinkled on the chicken, and the pungent, slightly sweet sauce provided a nice contrast.  And about a tablespoon of the slivered almonds made it onto my plate as well, so I didn't feel like I was suffering a protein deficit.  Looking forward to the leftovers!

Barcelona Chicken and Spinach Risotto

Friday's dinner. This recipe didn't use up any of my Pinckney's stash from Thursday, but it did take care of a bag of spinach that wasn't long for this world. I also had about half a can of stuffed olives that I had bought for this recipe a while back, plus a small amount of very dry sherry (also bought for this recipe in the winter) and some chicken breast tenders in the freezer.

The Barcelona chicken is a variation on a recipe from the "Espagne" chapter of La cuisine autour de la mediterranee*, and I still don't remember about the spinach risotto (Giada or Emeril?). When I have peppers, the risotto is one of my favorite stuffings for them, but it also makes a great side dish all by itself.

Barcelona chicken (Pollo al Jerez):
2 tbsp olive oil
1 package chicken breast tenders (8 or 9)
2 tbsp flour
1 cup very dry sherry
12-15 pimiento-stuffed green olives
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a wide, shallow saucepan. Salt and pepper the chicken on both sides and add to the pan (work in batches if needed) and cook for 5-7 minutes, until chicken is most of the way cooked. Remove and set aside.
Add flour to the pan and stir carefully to keep lumps from forming. Add sherry and stir well. Bring to a boil for one minute, then reduce to a simmer. Add the chicken back to the pan, along with the olives. Cover and simmer until chicken is cooked, about 8-10 minutes. Remove lid and cook until sauce has thickened, about 3-5 more minutes. When serving, drizzle the sauce over the chicken and olives.

Spinach risotto:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup uncooked arborio rice
3 cups chicken broth (2 cups broth diluted by 1 cup water)
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan
8 oz. fresh spinach, chopped small and steamed in microwave
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add arborio rice and stir to coat.

Meanwhile, bring 3 cups of broth and water to a boil. Lower heat and begin adding, half to 3/4 cup at a time, to the pan containing the rice. Stir often, adding more broth as it is absorbed by the rice. Continue until all broth has been added to the rice. Add Parmesan and pepper and stir well. Check seasoning and add salt if needed. Add steamed spinach and stir until blended.

One word about the diluted broth: I haven't always diluted the broth, but I have found in the past that if you don't do this, or use low-sodium broth, the addition of Parmesan at the end can make the end result a little too salty.

Since it nearly reached 100 degrees on Friday, we weren't exactly starving by the time I started cooking. Any type of chicken will do, but I prefer the boneless, skinless kind for quick meals (and to be sure that it cooked through) and for smaller pieces that you can serve a lot of or just a couple, depending on how hungry you are. All in all, this one turned out really well, and I'm really looking forward to the leftovers!

Veggie Blue Plate Special

Tonight's challenge: use up the last 5 ounces of baby spinach, 2 of the 4 bell peppers in the fridge, the last ear of corn left over from last week, 1 tomato and 1 bunch of scallions. The obvious thing to do was to pretend we don't have any turkey smoked sausage, chicken or fish in the freezer and prepare a 3-veggie plate - tonight's blue plate special. This consisted of an encore presentation of the corn and feta salad plus the following two dishes:

Black-eyed peas, Italian-styleI'm not sure such a thing actually exists, but I pretended it did with my seasoning blend. These are great cooked in chicken broth, bu since I haven't gotten around to buying any yet, a little extra salt worked out just as well.

8 oz. frozen black-eyed peas, thawed
Salt to taste
1 bunch scallions (mostly the white part), thinly sliced
1 vine-ripened tomato, peeled and diced
2 tsp dried Italian herbs
1 tsp crushed red pepper or to taste

Place thawed black-eyed peas in a small (1 qt) saucepan, cover with water and add salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and simmer covered. Peas will take about 20 minutes to cook, but check on them and add water if needed. During the last 5 minutes, add chopped tomato and onion along with Italian herbs and crushed red pepper.


Bell peppers stuffed with spinach risottoDon't really remember where this recipe came from; I'm thinking either Giada De Laurentiis or Emeril. Anyway, I also like to cook some chicken broth into the risotto when I have some, but extra salt was tonight's substitute here as well. I also like to saute some chopped onion in the olive oil before adding the rice, but since tonight's veggie plate featured onions in the other two dishes, I left them out of the risotto.

2 large bell peppers (red, orange or yellow look best with the risotto)
2 tsp olive oil
1 cup arborio rice
3 cups salted water
5 oz baby spinach (can also use 1/2 pkg frozen, thawed), chopped small
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/3 to 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
Fresh ground pepper to taste

Cut two bell peppers in half, remove hats, scoop out seeds and set aside on a shallow baking pan.

In a 1 or 2 qt saucepan, bring salted water to a boil, then reduce heat to medium.

In a separate 2-qt saucepan, eat the oil over medium heat. (Add the onion now, if using; saute for 2-3 minutes or until translucent.) Add rice and stir. Reduce heat to medium-low.

Begin adding salted water (or broth, if using) to the rice 1/2 cup at a time, stirring often. Once all water has been added to the rice and rice has taken on a creamy consistency (should take about 15-20 minutes), stir in the chopped spinach and let it cook for about 3-4 minutes in the hot rice. Add nutmeg and pepper and stir. Add Parmesan cheese and stir until it melts into the rice.

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Use a soup spoon to fill the peppers with the risotto, pressing down in order to stuff the peppers. Sprinkle some more Parmesan over the tops.

Bake peppers in the oven for 20 minutes or until the Parmesan on top of the peppers turns golden brown.


To my credit (I guess), an entire hour has passed since we finished dinner, and Steve hasn't started snacking on boiled peanuts yet! I think I've figured out how we can both have enough to eat without meat being involved!

Tuna, bacon and spinach pasta

The feeling of relief I experienced after using 9 veggies in a single soup-and-salad combo must have moved Steve to go shopping for more, because when I got home late Monday night, guess what new things I found in the fridge?

4 bell peppers (red, orange, yellow, green)
4 vine tomatoes
1 package baby spinach leaves

Which wouldn’t have been such a big deal, except that we already had most of a bag of spinach, an ear of corn, a bunch of scallions and a cucumber that have been in the fridge since before our camping trip.

I was most antsy to get rid of the spinach, since there have been so many instances where we opened the bag of spinach purchased the day before, found that the date on which we were opening it was also the expiration date, and...pew. Or we were able to enjoy it for a day or two after opening it before the cycle of life took another turn. To prevent a recurrence from happening this week, I made the following recipe Tuesday night, based on one from the February 2004 issue of Food and Wine:

Midnight Pasta with Tuna, Pancetta and SpinachWe ate around 8:00, not midnight. The recipe name and ingredients listed in the magazine were based on a theme of arriving late on Friday night for a nice weekend at your vacation home in the Adirondacks (because we all have one of those) and getting by on pantry and freezer staples. I generally find this a handy recipe for when I don't have anything fresh to use up; you just thaw half a package of frozen spinach, dice the pancetta (which can also be frozen) and find the other ingredients in the cupboard. My fresh spinach adaptation involved using about 7-8 ounces of fresh baby spinach, chopped in flat dice and given a few minutes longer to cook than the microwave-thawed spinach would have needed.

8 oz. pasta (linguine is my preference, but I used wheat rotini tonight)
2 tbsp olive oil
4 oz. pancetta, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper, or to taste
6 oz. can of chunk light tuna, drained
7-8 oz. fresh baby spinach, chopped small
1/3 cup dry white wine

Boil enough water to cook the pasta and add the pasta with a little salt. Drain and stir in a tbsp of olive oil if desired.

In a separate saucepan, heat the 2 tbsp olive oil over medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook over medium heat until translucent (don't let it get crispy).

Add the garlic and crushed red papper and cook for 2 more minutes.

Add the tuna and cook another 3-4 minutes.

Add spinach, stir well and cook for 4-5 minutes or until it has wilted.

Add white wine, bring to a boil and cook on high heat for about 3 minutes or until liquid has reduced by more than half.

Spoon the pasta onto individual plates and top with the sauce. If there is extra liquid, spoon some of it directly onto the pasta.


Reference:
Wagner, Steven. "Recipes for a perfect country weekend." Food and Wine, February 2004, p. 105.