Spicy Udon Soup

Despite the summer-like weather, I made some spicy udon noodle soup this afternoon. A few days ago I saw this recipe on Foodgawker, and knew right away that I wanted to give it a try.   It is definitely a keeper, with endless variations. 

First, in a large sauce pan I sauteed garlic, ginger, and an onion in vegetable and sesame oils.

After a few minutes, I added in diced bell pepper and mushrooms.  This recipe is very versatile, so you could add really anything that you want here.  I bet bamboo shoots, green onion, and bok choy would all be awesome additions or substitutions. 

After a few more minutes, I added in vegetable broth (canned, this time) soy sauce, and lime juice.  Bring on the sodium!

Next I added some miso and chili garlic sauce.  Sriracha would work well too, but all of my sriracha is at work.  I let that boil for a few minutes and then dropped in an egg and scrambled it up in the broth with a fork. If you've never done this before, it is a great way to add a little protein to soup, and is great with ramen. Finally I added in the noodles. Udon noodles are an Asian variety of thick wheat noodles.  I was able to find some at my local Giant.  They either don't take long to cook, or come precooked.  I'm not sure.  I let the soup boil for just a few minutes, and then ladled myself a bowl.  Yum. 

Butternut Squash Pasta

At work we used to have a lunch club.  Every other week, someone would bring in a dish for the group to eat.  The cook rotated, so everyone got to enjoy new recipes and someone else's cooking.  My coworker Sarah Catherine brought in this butternut squash pasta. It was so good that I later asked her for the recipe so that I could make it myself. The recipe can be found here. 

The first step in making this pasta dish is to roast the butternut squash.  Cutting up the squash was probably the most difficult part of making this dish.  I lined a baking sheet with foil to minimize my clean-up and then tossed the cubed butternut squash with rosemary, salt, and pepper.  I baked the squash in the oven for about 45 minutes. 

While that cooked, I started on the sauce that would eventually pull the dish together.  First, I sauteed some scallions in olive oil while also preparing pasta according to the package. Hopefully I don't have to explain how to do that...

The next step is a little more complicated though.  Because I don't have a double boiler, I made my own contraption out of a frying pan on top of a sauce pan. The point of a double boiler is to avoid direct heat.  By putting water in the sauce pan, the frying pan receives indirect heat, reducing the risk of burning your sauce. I started off with a combination of salt and flour.

Then I added milk and stirred until the sauce started to thicken.  The flour helps with that process.  Next I added provolone cheese to the mixture. 

Once that was melted, I transferred my sauce to a sauce pan... 

...and stirred in the cooked pasta. At this point, the pasta was essentially macaroni and cheese.

Then I transferred everything to a oven-safe baking dish and topped the pasta with the butternut squash and scallions.  The final touch was to add some parmesan cheese.  You can never have enough cheese, right?

I baked the dish in the oven for about ten minutes, or until the parmesan cheese on top was melted.  Judging by this picture, I probably could have left it in the oven for a few more minutes.  But, alas, I was hungry and it smelled amazing.  I couldn't help myself, so I took it out and dug in. 

This dish is indulgent and delicious.  The recipe suggests adding bacon as well.  You can't go wrong with bacon, so I'm sure that is a great addition.  I'm so glad my coworker introduced me to butternut squash pasta!

Gnocchi

In my limited experience, gnocchi is typically served in fancy Italian restaurants with a creamy sauce.  Many people think that because of this, gnocchi is expensive and difficult to make.  That couldn't be farther from the truth.  Gnocchi is made from just three ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen:  potatoes, flour, and eggs.  This recipe, which made enough for 6 or 8 servings, cost under 5 dollars to make.

The first step in making gnocchi is to peel potatoes.  The number of potatoes depends on how much gnocchi you want to make.

Next, cut the potatoes into chunks and boil them, as if you were making mashed potatoes. The smaller you cut the potatoes, the faster they will cook. 

Then, mash the potatoes.  I went old school and used a fork, but a potato masher or ricer would work well too. 

Once the potatoes are sufficiently mashed, the next step is to form a dough.  To do so, mix the mashed potatoes with flour and egg.  Again, this recipe is easily adaptable to large quantities, so the amount of flour and number of eggs depends on how many mouths you want to feed. 

I mixed up my dough on the counter using my hands.  This seemed to be the easiest method. As you can see, two potatoes makes a lot of dough.  Once the dough is formed, roll it out into long skinny rods.   The gnocchi expands a little while cooking, so make the rods slightly smaller than your intended gnocchi thickness. 

Cut the rod into sections that are a little less than an inch long.  Then, to get the special gnocchi shape, gently press a fork into the dough forming ridges. 

The gnocchi are now ready to be cooked.  Start a pot of water boiling on the stove and prepare an ice bath for the gnocchi. 

In small batches, toss the gnocchi into the boiling water.  They cook remarkably fast, in just a few minutes.  Once they float to the surface they are cooked.  Place them into the ice bath to prevent further cooking.

Repeat this process until the dough has all become gnocchi. Two potatoes create a lot of pasta. The gnocchi do freeze well, so feel free to make extra for later.  

Does the simplicity of this recipe surprise you?  Will you still spend $20 at a restaurant for a plate of potatoes and flour?  I don't think I will...

Here I served the gnocchi in a homemade pesto sauce--recipe coming soon!

Multigrain Pasta Salad

A couple of months ago, my mom gave me this bag of mixed grains from Trader Joe's.  It contains couscous, orzo, baby garbonzo beans, and quinoa.  You might have noticed by now that I don't eat a lot of pasta, or carbs in general.  It took me a while to get around to it, but eventually I made a pasta salad out of it. 

 

Here are the vegetables that I used in the salad: eggplant, red onion, and green bell pepper.

 

I chopped them up and roasted them in the oven until lightly browned.  

 

I also used some fresh herbs from my dad's garden and my own mini garden on the stoop: basil, oregano, rosemary, and more basil. The herbs were not roasted, but only minced.

While the vegetables were roasting, I cooked the pasta mixture, as specified on the package.  Basically, I boiled it for a few minutes.

 After everything was done cooking, I simply mixed everything together to form the salad. You could add a little olive oil and balsalmic dressing, but I thought the vegetables and fresh herbs gave the dish plenty of taste. This pasta salad can be eaten warm, at room temperature, or cold.  It would be a great healthy dish to take to a picnic or potluck!

Butternut squash ravioli

The recipe for this butternut squash ravioli came from Kim Barnouin's vegan cookbook: Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook.  Check out some of her other recipes here. I should preface this entry with a few things:

1. I had never had butternut squash ravioli before making this recipe.
2. I had never made ravioli before making this recipe.
3. I modified the recipe in order to use ingredients I already had, which eliminated its vegan-ness.

For those reasons, I took pictures of the process (almost) every step of the way.   The first step was to make dough for the ravioli.  This was a simple dough made of flour, salt, and water.  It look a LOT of kneading for the dough to become smooth.  I wasn't sure if this was because I got the flour-water ratio wrong, or not.  After far too long, the dough finally stayed together:

 

After letting the dough raise for twenty minutes, the next step was to roll the dough out very thin.  The goal was 1/16th inch thickness. Using my French rolling pin, I was able to achieve this. Do you know the difference between a French rolling pin and a traditional rolling pin? Comment below if you do!

After the dough was sufficiently thin, I cut it into 3 inch squares.   The picture below is of half of the dough.  I had to do two batches since one half of the dough took up my entire counter space...

 Next up is the filling.  The main in ingredient was (surprise, surprise) butternut squash.  I used frozen squash that came pre-cut.  This picture shows a mixture of two brands--one organic, and one conventional.  Can you tell the difference?

 

I couldn't.  They both appeared to be about the same color.  One variety was just cut into slightly larger chunks.  I let the squash thaw on the counter and then combined it with butter using a fork.  The recipe suggests using a food processor, and I would follow its advice. 

Once the squash and butter were combined, I added the remaining ingredients for the filling: Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and bread crumbs. 

 

Finally it was time to put everything together. On each piece of dough, I piled about a tablespoon of the filling. Then, using a trick my friend taught me while making dumplings, I dipped my finger in water and ran it around the edges of the dough.  (That's why the edges are shiny.) Next, I folded the raviolis into a variety of shapes, using the wet edges to seal the dough.

The traditional shape suggested by the recipe was a triangle.  To make a triangle, you simply fold the square wrapper in half diagonally.

It is also possible to get a little more creative, though, and come up with more interesting shapes.  Here are a few that I learned from making dumplings.  It is possible to make any shape that you wish, as long as the edges are sealed.  This prevents the filling from leaking out in the cooking process.

Speaking of the cooking process....the ravioli cook in a pot of boiling water for approximately 5 minutes.  Because there is no meat in these ravioli, there is no need to worry about under cooking the filling.  Once the dough is done, so is the filling. 

While the ravioli are cooking is a perfect time to prepare the sauce.  The recipe suggests a sage sauce.  I had never cooked with fresh sage before, but bought some from the grocery store:

The sauce was very easy to make.  I simply melted butter in a skillet. Note, this is only half of the recommended amount of butter.  I couldn't bring myself to use an entire stick of butter for sauce.

And then added chopped sage.

Once the sauce was nicely combined, I simply poured it over the ravioli.  Voila! You may have been able to guess by the amount of butter (or margarine if you are creating this recipe as a vegan) and cheese (or vegan cheese) in this dish that it is very rich.  Butternut squash itself has a creamy consistency.  Once you add butter and cheese, the combination melts in your mouth. These ravioli, while a little time consuming to make, were well worth it.

 

When I ate the ravioli as leftovers the next night, I opted for a tomato sauce in lieu of the rich sage sauce.  This worked equally well with the butternut squash filling.