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! [....]
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
These udon noodles with ponzu and brown butter sauce are one of my favorite recent creations. It’s amazingly simple and takes almost no effort to throw together. There are certain words that I really don’t like to use to describe food; they’re overused and cliche. But sometimes, there’s just no other appropriate way to describe something. So I’m going to break one of my own unwritten rules and come out and say it – unctuous. That’s the only way that I can describe these fat, slippery noodles that are lightly coated in a buttery, citrusy sauce. The ponzu and brown butter sauce is incredibly rich and fills your mouth with a rounded flavor. Red peppers and green onions add color to the dish as well as pierce through the richness of the sauce to make the dish seem light on the palate. The noodles themselves are so rich that you don’t need much steak in this dish, but it does deserve a special mention. A quick marinade of sesame oil, ponzu, and ginger imparts tons of flavor. A quick kiss by a hot pan will cook the steak perfectly, making it so tender that you barely need to chew it. [....]
January is National Soup Month. January 24th is about the time when most people start losing focus on their New Year’s resolutions to eat better. I love soups and find that they provide a tasty and nutritious meal without a lot of work. So when Foodbuzz sent out a call for proposals for the January 24, 24, 24 event, I knew exactly what I wanted to do – a world tour of soups. (A soup Olympics, if you’re eagerly anticipating the games next month.)
That’s right: I’m presenting you with six soups, one representing each (populated) continent. Each soup is hearty enough to be a meal and can be made quickly and easily as long as you have stock on hand. And to keep everyone happy, two of them are vegan. They also all freeze well, which is good considering I now have enough soup to feed a small country.
(Six recipes with photos makes the just about the longest blog post ever, so I’m cutting it off here. Please click through to read more!)
I’ll admit that the first time I heard of a potato taco, I wasn’t impressed. It sounded like a dense, heavy, carb-fest. Then at the Foodbuzz festival last November I had the opportunity to try a potato and chorizo taco from tacolicious. My mind was changed – they were one of the highlights of the street food fare and I’ve been anxious to try them again ever since. When I saw that my local grocery store started selling their own house-made tortillas, I knew that the time had come to try making these at home.
For something that’s whipped easily up in 15 minutes, these are phenomenal. The potatoes are mild and really let the flavor of the chorizo shine through – you don’t really taste “potato” at all. What I really love about these though are all of the contrasting textures – soft potato, chewy chorizo, and creamy avocado. There’s not really much more to say about them than that – they’re very simple with bright flavors and a fresh feel. I don’t know what more you can ask for in a quick meal. [....]
