Posts under ‘fast’

Linguini with White Clam Sauce

Mar 16th, 2010

by LK.

I remember for a while when I was young, we had linguini with clam sauce fairly often. I don’t know if the traditional dish had a surge of popularity in the 80s-90s or what. A Google search really didn’t provide me with any information on that. Anyway, we ate this stuff a lot when I was a kid. And then it sort of disappeared. To be honest, I totally forgot that it ever existed. Then, a few weeks ago, Shawn and I went out to a seafood restaurant. As we stood up to leave, I saw that one of the people at a table near us was eating a big bowl full of pasta with clams. It looked so good! The memory of white clam sauce came flooding back to me, and I knew that I would be making it in the near future.

When I sat down to try to create my recipe, a funny thing happen. I thought, “But clam sauce comes from a can!” and I got a little confused. Those of you who know me, know that I would never eat sauce from a can, so this really made me laugh. Of course you can buy a canned version of the sauce, but why do that when it’s so easy to make from the simplest ingredients?

Really, this sauce is super simple to make and requires little more than wine, garlic, onion, and parsley. I did use some canned baby clams in their juice but, looking back on it, fish stock would have worked just as well to thin out the sauce. This linguini and clam sauce doesn’t take long to make at all, and the use of fresh ingredients results in a dish that tastes so much better (and so much less salty!!) than anything you can get from a can.

This is a content summary only. To see more detail and get the recipe, click through to read the full post.

Copyright Lauren Keating © 2007-2010. This feed is for personal enjoyment only, and not for publication. Please contact lk@healthy-delicious.com if you are not reading this in a news aggregator, the site you are viewing is guilty of copyright infringement.

Daring Cooks: Beet Risotto

Mar 14th, 2010

by LK.

14 comments

I had to laugh a little when I saw that this month’s Daring Cooks Challenge was risotto. It doesn’t take very much time on this blog to figure out that we love the stuff and I even have a whole categorydedicated to it! I took the opportunity to step a little out of my comfort zone and make a vegetarian meal based around the risotto itself rather than relying on lots of toppings. In fact, this simple and delicious risotto only makes three changes to the standard recipe – the addition of beets and the substitutions of goat cheese for parmesan and red wine for white.

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from Autralian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

In my recent blog survey, an overwhelming number of you asked for more information on how to create your own recipes. Risotto is the perfect place to start! Once you have the basics of making the base down, you can feel free to experiment with add-ins. The rice itself has a very subtle flavor, so just about any other ingredients will work – you can either mix them in, like I did here, for a more uniform flavor or you can serve them on top of the rice and let each individual flavor speak for itself. Pick an ingredient that you want to use, and think about what other flavors work well with it. Those will be the main components of your dish – 2 or 3 should be plenty. Then you can change up the items in the base to go along with those flavors. There are three main areas where you can make changes – the aromatics, the wine, and the cheese. For example, if you’re going for a French theme you might want to use shallots instead of onion and ramps go great with other springtime flavors like peas or asparagus. If you’re using a bold flavor like sliced steak and don’t care about the risotto being a creamy white, you can consider using red wine. And you can use whatever cheese you think will go best with the flavors that you’re using.

For this dish, I took my inspiration from one of my favorite salads – simple greens dressed with beets and crumbled chevre. Since I had an open bottle of pinot noir and I didn’t care about the dish being pristine white so I used that instead of white wine. The flavor of the beets were strong enough that they masked the wine and either would probably have worked just as well. Upon the first taste, I could tell that it needed something – the flavors were kind of muddled and heavy. Lots of freshly ground pepper did the trick! I’ve found that whenever a recipe I’m creating seems too dull, it’s because it needs either more acidity or more spice. Something like a splash of lemon juice, a simple vinaigrette, or some black pepper is usually all you need to perk the flavors right up!

What would flavors would you use in your risotto?

This is a content summary only. To see more detail and get the recipe, click through to read the full post.

Copyright Lauren Keating © 2007-2010. This feed is for personal enjoyment only, and not for publication. Please contact lk@healthy-delicious.com if you are not reading this in a news aggregator, the site you are viewing is guilty of copyright infringement.

Spaghetti with Feta and Capers

Mar 7th, 2010

by LK.

13 comments

Back in December, I had the opportunity to watch a cooking demonstration by the chef from a local Italian restaurant. He made all sorts of wonderful dishes, but the one that impressed me the most was a briny, saucy pasta dish. Looking back I can’t remember if his version actually had feta in it or not, but the idea of a soft, salty cheese with pasta has been in the back of my head ever since. If you follow me on twitter, you’ll know that last week I just did not feel like cooking. At all. I didn’t really feel like eating either. It was simple, delicious recipes like this one that got me through to week – this takes very little effort to make, but the result is impressive.(And don’t worry, I made an awesome grocery list for this week and am back to my normal self!)

While you could use your favorite jarred sauce for this to make it even easier, I find that it’s just as easy to make my own. Pasta sauce really is a snap to make and it taste so much better than store-bought! San Marzano tomatoes were on sale, so I used those and I recommend that you do too. I find them to be slightly sweeter and less acidic than other canned tomatoes, resulting in a sauce that tastes like you made it from ripe, summer tomatoes. If you can’t find San Marzano’s (they can be difficult to find and are pretty pricey if they aren’t on sale), feel free to use your favorite brand of peeled plum tomatoes.

I served my sauce on top of spinach linguini. No real reason for that. I don’t think it tastes any different than plain pasta and the nutritional differences are negligible. Honestly, I just like the way that it looks. Green pasta is so much more fun to eat than beige pasta! [....]

Buttermilk Waffles with Sauteed Bananas

Mar 4th, 2010

by LK.

16 comments

Buying Shawn a waffle iron for Christmas may have been one of the best things that I’ve ever done. We’ve wanted one for a while, but were hesitant because people kept telling us that we would never use it and it would ust take up precious cabinet space. Well, guess what? They were all wrong. We’ve been making waffles just about every weekend since we got it.

There’s something about a homemade waffle that just doesn’t compare to the frozen version. If you’ve ever ordered one at a diner you know what I’m talking about – they have that beautiful crispy exterior that gives way to a fluffy, light interior. These buttermilk waffles are perfect for a lazy weekend breakfast, or for a weeknight dinner. I like to make extras, which I reheat in the toaster for weekday breakfasts.

There are so many waffle recipes out there that it can be a little overwhelming. Cornmeal waffles, yeast waffles, chocolate waffles…the options are limitless. But my favorite are these buttermilk waffles, which call for whipped egg whites. They’re the closest that I’ve found to the diner waffles that I love so much. I think the whipped eggs result in an extra light and fluffy center.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk toppings. Syrup is a classic, but I don’t like to use too much since it can be so sweet. For these, I used just a drizzle of real maple syrup and some bananas that I sauteed with a little bit of grand marnier. The creaminess of the bananas was a really nice contrast to the tender-crisp texture of the waffle itself. As another alternative, I really like these waffles topped with a little bit of raspberry preserves. [....]

Risotto with Scallops and Grapefruit

Feb 21st, 2010

by LK.

7 comments

The other day I didn’t have anything planned to make for dinner, so I asked Shawn to pick something up for me to cook. came home to find some beautiful scallops (look at the size of those babies!), arborio rice, pecorino romano, thyme, and peas. It really shouldn’t have surprised me that he bought ingredients for risotto – I’m pretty sure he would be blissfully happy if I made it every day! Plain risotto with scallops seemed kind of boring to me though, so I looked around the kitchen for something else to add. I came across a grapefruit and figured “why not?” I knew that scallops and grapefruit went great together, and even though I was a little nervous about how the flavor would play out in a risotto I figured it was worth a shot.

I shouldn’t have doubted myself. I had forgotten how great lemon zest is in risotto, and the grapefruit acted in the same way. The sharp citrus cuts through the creamy rice and lifts the flavor of the whole dish. I was also nervous about the fruit being to bitter, but the natural sweetness of the scallops – and the little bit of brown butter that I decided to use – provided just the right amount of balance.

Risotto with Scallops and Grapefruit

1Tbs olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, mined
1.5 cups arborio rice
4 oz white wine
5 cups chicken stock, warmed
1/2 cup peas
1/4 cup grated pecorino romano
2 Tbs grapefruit zest
1/2 pound scallops
Juice from 1/2 grapefruit
1 Tbs butter
1/2 grapefruit, supremed (cut into wedges, white parts removed)

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add onions and garlic and cook until soft. Add rice and cook 2 minutes or until heated trhough and nearly translucent. Add the wine and cook until fully absorbed by the rice. Add the broth 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly and allowing nearly all of the broth to absord before adding more. Continue this process until rice is soft and creamy – it should take about 20 minutes, but you may not need all of the broth. Stir in the pecorno romano and the peas. Allow the cheese to melt and the peas to warm. Stir in the grapefruit zest. Cover and keep warm.

Dry the scallops as much as you can with a paper towel. Heat a frying pan over high heat. Add half the scallops and cook for 2 minutes on each side, or until browned and cooked through. Remove from the pan and repeat with remaining scallops. Add butter to the pan – allow it to melt, then continue cooking until it is a golden brown color. Whisk in the grapefruit juice. Bring to a simmer and reduce by half. Add the scallops back into the pan, and toss with the grapefruit glaze. Add the grapefruit wedges and cook until just warmed through.

Spoon the risotto into 4 bowls. Top with the scallops and grapefruit.

Serves 4.
Approx. 560 calories, 14 grams fat, 1.5 grams fiber, 23 grams protein

Posts under ‘fast’

Linguini with White Clam Sauce

Daring Cooks: Beet Risotto

Spaghetti with Feta and Capers

Buttermilk Waffles with Sauteed Bananas

Risotto with Scallops and Grapefruit

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