Part of cooking well, like dressing well, is knowing when to edit.  There is a point where the dish is close to being just right and you can either just trust that it is good, or you can keep adding to it and potentially ruin it.  I think this is a particular danger with vegetarian food.  Without the protein anchor, sometimes it might feel like you need to keep adding layers of flavor to make up for what is “missing”.  Too many layers of flavor is my main critique of Seattle’s vegetarian restaurants and why I almost never frequent them.

A dish doesn’t have to have a whiz! bang! pop! to be lovely.  I first got this idea from Tracy and her Angel Hair Pasta with Arugula and Lemon.  Every so often a dish sticks in my overstuffed brain and lately it has been this one.  As we were driving back from our decadent weekend in Walla Walla, I started dreaming of superfine pasta stuffed to the gills with arugula.  I had recently bought some angel hair in a lovely package and we were lucky enough to visit a goat cheese farm while in Walla Walla and had purchased some delightful mild feta.  I decided that, rather than make Tracy’s dish to the letter, I would just riff on it.

As it turns out, my dish is not much like hers.  That is what you get when you don’t actually consult a recipe you are trying to riff on!  But we loved this light and sunny pasta and it came together in no time.  I put some small cherry tomatoes in the oven to roast, got my pasta going, then satuéed shallots and red pepper flakes in a bit of olive oil.  I grated in the zest of a Meyer lemon and then waited for the pasta to cook.  Once it was just shy of al dente, I scooped it into the pan with the shallots and added lemon juice, lots of arugula, small cubes of feta, and the roasted tomatoes.  I used the pasta cooking water to loosen the sauce.  As I was tossing it all together, my mind was saying, “Olives! Pine Nuts! Parmesan!”, but I was able to edit and keep it simple.

One Year Ago:  Brown Sugar Pound Cake (I’ve probably made this cake more than any other)
Two Years Ago:  Zucchini and Olive Salad
Three Years Ago:  Ricotta Calzones with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe

Pasta with Lemon, Arugula, and Roasted Tomatoes
Dana Treat Original (but thanks Tracy for the inspiration)
Serves 2-3

My noodles were actually more like a cross between angel hair and spaghetti, so I’m suggesting you use spaghettini in the recipe below (it’s a thinner spaghetti).

Olive oil
20 small cherry tomatoes
Kosher or sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 large shallot, finely diced
½ tsp. red pepper flakes
Zest and juice of 1 Meyer lemon
4 ounces feta cheese, cut into small cubes
4 ounces arugula, plus more for garnish
8 ounces spaghettini

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.  Place the tomatoes on a small baking sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Roast in the oven until they soften, brown in spots, and start to collapse a bit, about 20 minutes.  Set aside.

Meanwhile, place a large skillet over medium heat.  Drizzle in just enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan, then add the shallots, red pepper flakes, and a large pinch of salt.  Sauté, stirring frequently, until the shallots soften and start to brown in spots, about 5 minutes.  Grate in the lemon zest and turn off the heat.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to boil, then add the pasta.  Cook according the package directions until just al dente.  Taste it to make sure.  Using tongs, transfer the pasta to the skillet with the shallots.  Turn the heat to low and stir to coat the pasta with the shallots and pepper flakes.  Ladle in some pasta cooking water to loosen the sauce.  Add half of the arugula and keep tossing the pasta so that the arugula wilts.  Add the other half of the arugula along with the lemon juice, feta cheese, and the tomatoes.  Add more cooking water if the pasta seems too dry.  (You can also use olive oil if you prefer.)  Toss carefully.  Serve each portion topped with more of the arugula.

Hi.  It’s nice to be back here again.  Talking about food.  Including a recipe.  Thanks for your patience.  I misplaced my blogging mojo but I seem to have found it again.  Phew.  Now please pardon me while I jump up on my high horse for a moment.

The title of this post is one of the things I hate hearing most when it comes to vegetarian food.  “You won’t miss the meat!”  I see it in print, I hear it come out of chefs’ mouths and it makes me crazy.  I will say it to anyone who asks, I say it in my classes, and I’ve said it here, but the way to approach a switch to the vegetarian diet or even a vegetarian meal is not about substituting.  You can’t take a plate with a steak, baked potato, and green beans, and then just swap out the steak for tofu.  The vegetarian diet requires a shift in thinking – no longer being so hung up on protein and envisioning your plate differently.

For the people who embrace this philosophy, our way of eating can be exhilarating.  So many choices!  So much delicious food!  New cuisines!  But the bulk of our country, even though the message is coming through louder and clearer that we need to reduce our meat intake for a variety of reasons, still sees vegetarian food as boring or needs to find a way to substitute for the lack of meat.  There are all  kinds of fake meat out there and people are choking it down hoping it will taste like what they really want to eat, or it will give them the protein they are terrified they won’t get if they don’t have meat.  And here is where I must remind you that I am not trying to convert anyone.  As I always say, my own husband eats meat.  I just want to help people find their way to a delicious dinner (and breakfast, lunch and a treat).

Thud.  That was me sliding off my high horse.  Now, I don’t use a lot of fake meat.  Why?  Because I never liked meat.  I haven’t had it in 25 years.  Meat’s flavor and texture is not something I am trying to replace in my food.  This is a reason that I never have in the past, and never will in the future buy a Tofurkey.  But sometimes you pause.  I’ve been a bit obsessed with making orecchiete with broccoli rabe and sausage recently.  Maybe this is my body’s cry for protein.  Who knows.  But, of course, I have been unable to find broccoli rabe when I need it.  So I persevered and bought something I never had before – Field Roast Italian Sausages – and kept it really simple.

Good canned tomatoes simmered down with some onion and garlic, sliced rounds of sausage (without their plastic casings) sautéed in a pan, ear-shaped noodles in salty water boiled away, and mozzarella cheese grated.  A heavy foil-covered pan went into the oven and 30 minutes later we had a hearty and tasty dinner.  It’s good to be back here.  Thanks again for all the support.

(Because I haven’t posted a recipe in a while, there is a big backlog of what I was writing about one, two, and three years ago.  I will pick my favorites and highlight them in a separate post today or tomorrow.)

Baked Orecchiete with (Veg) Sausage and Tomato Basil Sauce
Dana Treat Original
Serves 6-8

Field roast is sold in links of 4, I only used 3 of them in this dish.  I’ve also made this same dish with a more penne shaped pasta and it worked great as well.  A 28-ounce can of tomatoes will be enough sauce for this dish but it is a bit dry.  If you like your pasta saucier, add another 14-ounce can.  Finally, you may wonder why I would suggest you buy canned whole tomatoes and then purée them rather than just buy puréed tomatoes.  I once read that the lesser quality tomatoes end up in diced and puréed cans because you can’t see their imperfections.  For this reason, this article said, it’s best to buy the whole ones, so that is what I do.

Olive oil
1 small onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. dried basil
½ tsp. dried oregano
28-ounce can whole tomatoes
3 links Field Roast vegetarian sausage, Italian style
1 pound orecchiete pasta
2 cups mozzarella cheese, grated, divided
½ cup fresh basil leaves, slivered, plus extra whole leaves for garnish
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.  Have a 9×13-inch baking dish handy.

Place a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Drizzle in just enough olive oil to coat the bottom, then add the onion and a large pinch of salt.  Stir and allow to cook until starting to soften, about 5 minutes.  Add the garlic and the dried herbs.  Cook for another 3 minutes.  Meanwhile purée the tomatoes.  If you have an immersion blender, you can stick the wand directly into the can – just be careful.  Otherwise, pour the can into a blender and blend until smooth.  (If you want to do neither of those things, you can crush the tomatoes with your hands as you add them to the pot, the sauce will be chunkier.)  Carefully pour the tomatoes into the saucepan (they will splatter), give the sauce a good stir, and turn the heat down to medium low.  Allow to simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until thickened.  Set aside.

Heat a medium non-stick sauté pan over medium heat.  Add the slices of sausage and allow to cook, turning occasionally, until the slices are browned.  Set aside.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Pour in the pasta and allow to cook until just shy of al dente.  (The pasta will continue to cook once it goes in the oven, so be sure to undercook it a bit.)  Drain well and return to the pot.  Pour in the sauce and toss to coat well.  Stir in the sausage and the basil.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Spoon half of the pasta into the dish.  Sprinkle on half the mozzarella.  Spoon the other half of of the pasta and top with the remaining cheese.  Cover the dish with foil and place in the oven.  Bake for 25 minutes, remove the foil and bake for another five minutes.  Allow to sit for five minutes or so before serving.

Randy and I have sort of a don’t ask/don’t tell approach to my cookbook collection.  As in, don’t ask me if I have bought any new ones lately and I don’t tell you.  Sometimes eyebrows are raised.  Sometimes mental measurements are taken on the diminishing space on the “overflow” shelf.  Sometimes heads shake.  As in, no, no, no, not another one.

But here is the thing.  I am kind of a girly girl.  I like to dress up and I like nice things.  I could very easily be collecting shoes or purses or expensive perfumes.  Instead I collect cookbooks.  Relatively inexpensive and something I use every day.  Whenever he starts to comment I remind him, oh so gently, that his life is greatly enriched by the fact that we are surrounded by so many wonderful books with so many wonderful recipes and so much of the wonderful food I make comes from these wonderful books.

Tonight our dinner came from one of my newest acquisitions – Purple Citrus & Sweet Perfume.  The book was written by the chef of an Eastern Mediterranean restaurant in London’s Mayfair neighborhood.  In bookstores, I pick up Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cookbooks all the time – those are the cuisines I miss most from our year in London and is difficult to find decent restaurants in Seattle.  Most of the books I peruse have too many meat dishes for me to buy them.  Although this book has a meat and poultry chapter, as well as one for fish, there are still so many tempting recipes for me to try in those pages.  And not just mezze.

I tell you this because the book happened to be sitting near us as we ate and Randy put down his fork (put down his fork!), picked up the book (picked up a cookbook!), and started reading through the recipes, voicing aloud the ones that sounded good to him (!!!).  In other words, this dish was that good.  If you know Randy, and if you read here often enough you probably feel like you do, unsolicited praise means a dish is out of sight.  Actually picking up a book and requesting dishes to be made out of it it is unheard of.

This pilaf is the third thing I have made out of the book (the soup I made last night is next up on the blog), and all have been incredible.  And in need of serious tweaking.  I’m not sure if this is the result of a restaurant chef writing a home cookbook or if something happened when the British measurements got transcribed into American ones, but if I didn’t know a thing or two about cooking, I probably would have thrown the book across the kitchen in frustration.  Of course, I am far from an expert about this kind of cuisine, but I do know that 1½ cups of rice and 3 ounces of pasta will need much more than 2 cups of liquid to turn out all right.

So, I’ve tweaked.  And I’m giving you the tweaked recipe.  I changed the proportions, I used spaghetti instead of vermicelli (angel hair is what I normally use but my little market up the street didn’t have it and what’s more, we both liked the thicker strands of pasta in there).  I added spice where there was none and some additional shallots.  This dish is probably meant to be a side dish along side some lamb or chicken.  We ate it as a main course alongside the previously mentioned soup and some perfect steamed green beans.  The author says it is street food, Turkish-style.  Both Randy and I say it is food we could eat everyday and be completely happy.

One Year Ago:  Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Cream Frosting
Two Years Ago:  Mixed Berry Spoon Cake

Pilaf with Vermicelli, Chickpeas, Apricots, and Pistachios
Adapted from Purple Citrus & Sweet Perfume
Serves 4-6

I have a large spice cabinet and I actually have something called Turkish spice mix, bought at a farmers’ market.  This dish needs something so, assuming you do not have Turkish spice, you can add pinches of cumin, coriander, even a bit of curry.  Fennel would be fine too.  And lots of black pepper. 

2 tbsp. unsalted butter
4 shallots, thinly sliced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of saffron
2 tsp. Turkish spice mix
3 ounces vermicelli pasta (or angel hair or spaghetti), broken into 1-inch lengths
1½ cups Arborio rice
1 cup cooked chickpeas (I used canned)
½ cup chopped dried apricots
4 cups vegetable stock or water
½ cup coarsely chopped pistachios
Chopped parsley for garnish (optional)

Heat a large saucepan over medium heat.  Melt the butter, then add the shallots and a large pinch of salt.  Sauté, stirring frequently, until starting to turn golden, about 4 minutes.  Stir in saffron and the spices.  Add the vermicelli and stir continuously until the pasta starts to turn golden.  It burns easily so be careful.  Add the rice, chickpeas, and apricots and stir to coat the rice with the fat and the spices.  Pour in stock (or water) and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer and cover with a lid.  Cook over low heat for 20 minutes.  Check for water a couple of times as you might need to add more.

When the rice is tender, add the pistachios and turn off the heat.  Cover the saucepan with a clean kitchen towel and replace the lid.  Let stand for 15 to 20 minutes – this will allow the the rice to cook further and become more fluffy.

One more thought:  My dish was not particularly fluffy.  I didn’t mind, it was stick to your ribs hearty which is nice for a main course.  Arborio rice, the one that was called for in this recipe and which is also used to make risotto, is starchy and heavier than a basmati.  I imagine that if you use basmati or jasmine, you will end up with a fluffier pilaf.  Let me know if you try?

By the time you read this post, I will be long gone.  It’s the end of August and that means, every other year, that we are in Sun Valley with my parents.  This is a sweet trip for me.  I have been going to that lovely mountain town since I was 11 years old.  When I was younger, it was hot days and cold nights, hours spent at the pool, horse back riding, river rafting, time spent with camp friends, and teenage boys who were my crushes.  Nowadays it is hot days and cold nights, hours spent at the pool, going on slides at the playground, splashing in the town fountain, time spent with my family, and very young boys who are my children.  My life has changed plenty, Sun Valley is mostly the same.

Leaving town means leaving a refrigerator and that means doing your very best to make sure that refrigerator is next to empty.  I had some goodies to use up and I came up with a truly delicious pasta to do so.  I see posts like this frequently and I wonder, why on earth would I make your dish?  I am never going to have those same odds and ends on hand.  But this is a dish worth shopping for.  As Spencer, my four-year-old, is fond of saying, “For reals life.”

Orecchiette with Roasted Tomatoes and Corn
Dana Treat Original
Serves 3-4

The inspiration for this dish was ingredients on hand, plus a long-ago cut out recipe for a pasta with Brie cheese to make it creamy.  It is best to remove the rind in this dish.  If you Brie is super soft, just pop it in the freezer for about 10 minutes and it will slice right off.  I also had a blue cheese in the refrigerator and I contemplated using that in the pasta instead of the Brie.  Finally, the “stuff” to pasta ratio is high here – you could bulk up the pasta to feed more people and leave the “stuff” the same.

2 cups cherry tomatoes
Olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 large shallot, finely diced
1 tbsp. fresh thyme leaves
1½ cups fresh corn kernels (from 1 large cob)
2 ounces Brie cheese, rind removed, cut into ½-inch cubes
½ cup fresh basil leaves, torn
8 ounces orecchiette

Preheat the oven to 400ºF.  Place the cherry tomatoes on a small baking sheet and drizzle with a bit of olive oil.  Sprinkle with a pinch of kosher salt and a few grinds of pepper and, using your hands, mix well.  Pop in the oven and roast for 20 minutes.  Remove and scrape into a large bowl.

Meanwhile, heat a medium skillet over medium heat.  Pour in just enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan and add the shallots along with a large pinch of salt.  Sauté, stirring frequently, until soft, about 4 minutes.  Stir in the thyme, followed by the corn.  Continue to cook until fragrant and the corn is soft, about another 3 minutes.  Remove and scrape the corn mixture into the same bowl with the tomatoes.  Put the cheese and the basil in there as well.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil.  Pour in the orecchiette and cook until al dente, according to the package directions.  Taste to make sure.  Using a slotted spoon, scoop the pasta into the bowl with the other ingredients.  Stir gently, adding some of the pasta water if it seems to dry.

I moved from Italy to California where I am trying to colonize the locals. My husband has already been assimilated and happily consumes copious amounts of olive oil (the good stuff) and aceto balsamico tradizionale.

It seems fitting that an Italian won a great coffee maker, does it not?  Francesca, I will be sending you an email!

It seems these days that social media is a common topic.  People like to talk about the pros and cons of things like Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, etc.  I have very specific uses for Facebook and Twitter.  Keeping up with far-flung friends (Facebook), directing people to my blog, networking in the Seattle food community, and getting answers to cooking and dining questions (Twitter), and making sure I get as many birthday wishes as possible (both).  If you have ever felt down on a birthday, then you probably aren’t on Facebook or Twitter.  Yesterday was my 41st (bummer), on a Tuesday (bummer), and it was raining (double bummer).  If that doesn’t sound depressing, then I don’t know what does.  But through the magic of the internet, I got so much love and attention that my little Leo heart was full.

Now you might be wondering why I cooked on my birthday.  Did I mention that it was my 41st, on a Tuesday, and it was raining?  Plus, my brother is fond of saying that the best vegetarian restaurant in Seattle is actually my house.  Would I be the most arrogant person in the world if I said that I agree?  I’m not saying the best food in the city can be eaten here – far from it – but if you are going to take me out for veg food, I’d rather eat my cooking.  Plus, I like to cook.

Sometimes I feel like I should only post grand recipes here.  Like blow your socks off things that I have spent hours in the kitchen making.  Never mind that I don’t make things like that all that often (unless we are talking dessert) and that the truth is, I am a huge fan of simple dishes.   If something tastes great and doesn’t take a lot of effort, I will sing its praises.  From the feedback I get about my recipes here and requests for upcoming classes, I would say that many of you are wanting more and more “weeknight” type recipes.  So here you go.

I know much of America thinks that we vegetarians eat only pasta and salad.  It is true that I eat a lot of salad but the last pasta recipe I posted was way back in February.  I do crave it in the summer when fresh and light sounds just right and I want to keep cooking time to a minimum.  Here, lots of fresh herbs were pureed with some olive oil and garlic – think pesto without the nuts or cheese.  I tossed warm pasta with that mixture and then stirred in cherry tomato halves and Kalamata olive quarters.  The whole dish got a healthy sprinkling of Pecorino cheese which is truly a favorite of mine.  It took about 15 minutes start to finish and the dish can sit for hours before serving.  Pretty perfect weeknight meal – even for a birthday.

Two Years Ago: Indian Spiced Chickpea Salad with Yogurt and Herbs
Three Years Ago: Creamy Eggplant with Peas

Penne with Cherry Tomatoes, Olives, and Pecorino
Adapted from Food & Wine
Serves 6

1 pound penne
½ cup olive oil
1 cup basil leaves
½ cup flat-leaf parsley leaves
2 garlic cloves, sliced
2 tsp. coarsely chopped thyme leaves
2 tsp. coarsely chopped marjoram leaves
Kosher salt
1 pound cherry tomatoes, halved
1/3 cup Kalamata olives, pitted and quartered
1 cup coarsely grated Pecorino cheese (about 3 ounces)
Freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Add the penne and cook according to package directions until the pasta is just al dente.  Drain and allow to cool slightly.

Place the herbs, garlic, and olive oil in the bowl of a mini food processor or the jar of a blender and purée.  Stir in a large pinch of salt and scrape the purée into a large pasta bowl.  Pour in the pasta and toss well to coat, you may need to add a bit of olive oil if the pasta seems to dry.  Stir in the tomatoes and olives and let stand at room temperature for at least 10 minutes for the flavors to develop.  Just before serving, add the Pecorino and season to taste with pepper.  Toss well.   (Can be made up to 2 hours ahead.)

I will admit, lasagne is not as pretty on day two.  This one in particular because it has some broccoli in it and that vibrant green fades to dull army yuck after a night in the refrigerator.  Still, this was a big hit at Saturday’s yoga retreat and I got multiple requests for the recipe.  Lasagne is not something I make often but it is the perfect thing to make when you need to feed a lot of people.  The tricky thing for me is finding a recipe that isn’t a total gut bomb.  I knew these yogis would be hungry after a two hour hot yoga class (I certainly was) but no one wants to undo all that good-for-your-body yoga with a bad-for-your-body lasagne.

Many lasagne recipes use a béchamel sauce (which is a cream sauce with a roux base) and while those certainly taste good, they are not the healthiest.  I try to avoid that type of lasagne but what you are often left with are the boring lasagnes or the “super quick” ones that rely on lots of cheese and bottled sauce.  I thought this was a really good version.  The filling is quick-sautéed red bell peppers mixed with steamed broccoli and ricotta.  Broccoli might sound weird in a ricotta filling but I thought it was terrific.

Make no mistake. You are not going to find this dish at a wellness spa.  But here is a good example of how I like to eat.  There is regular ricotta, regular mozzarella, and regular Parmesan in there – I find the low fat versions of those things to be disgusting.  I just used a lighter hand with the cheese.  I doubled this recipe and I had way too much broccoli, so I am adjusting the recipe below.  I have never had success with those no boil lasagne noodles, but I bought mine at Whole Foods this time (their brand, super inexpensive) and they became meltingly tender in the oven.  The sauce here was a star.  I’m a big fan of sundried tomatoes in general but had never used them in a sauce.  Turns out they lend a smokiness and depth to an otherwise simple sauce.

All in all, this was a wonderful dish.  One I would make for gatherings big and small.

Lasagne Previously on Dana Treat: Lasagne with Eggplant and Chard
One Year Ago: Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
Two Years Ago: Mushroom Enchiladas

Red, White, and Green Lasagne
Adapted from Gourmet
Serves 8

I assembled the entire lasagne the day before and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.  I baked it for an additional 20 minutes or so.

Olive oil
2 large red bell peppers, chopped
15 ounces ricotta cheese
1 pound broccoli, cut into florets
1 box dry no-boil lasagne noodles (you won’t need all the noodles)
8 ounces mozzarella, grated
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Rich Winter Tomato Sauce (recipe follows)

Put a large skillet over medium heat.  Add just enough olive oil to coat the bottom and then add the peppers and a large pinch of salt.  Sauté, stirring occasionally, until peppers are crisp-tender, about 7 minutes.  Allow to cool slightly.  Put the ricotta into a large bowl and stir in the peppers.  Steam the broccoli until crisp-tender, about 3 to 5 minutes.  Allow to cool slightly, then give it a rough chop.  Stir into ricotta mixture and season to taste with pepper and salt.

Preheat oven to 375ºF.

Pour 1 cup tomato sauce into a baking dish, 13 by 9 by 2 inches, and line the bottom with lasagne sheets, not overlapping.  Drop about 1½ cups ricotta mixture by spoonfuls onto pasta and gently spread with back of a spoon.  Sprinkle ¼ of the mozzarella and ¼ of the Parmesan over ricotta mixture.  Make two more layers in the same way, beginning and ending with pasta.  Spread remaining sauce over pasta (you may have a bit left over), making sure the pasta is completely covered, and sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan.

Cover dish tightly with foil, tenting slightly to prevent foil from touching top layer, and bake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes.  Remove foil and bake lasagne 10 minutes more, or until top is bubbling.  Let lasagne stand 5 minutes before serving.

Rich Winter Tomato Sauce
Makes about 3 cups

The recipe instructs you to use a food mill to purée the sauce but I don’t have one.  I used my handheld immersion blender.  It was fairly chunky but I liked that.

½ cup packed dried tomatoes (not packed in oil)
1 cup boiling water
1 large onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp. butter
28-ounce can whole tomatoes with juice
1 tsp. sugar

In a small bowl soak dried tomatoes in boiling water 30 minutes and drain.  While tomatoes are soaking, heat a saucepan over medium-low heat.  Add butter and when melted, add onion and a large pinch of salt.  Once soft, about 5 minutes, add the garlic and stir another 3 minutes.  Pour in the tomatoes and the sugar and another pinch of salt and cook, stirring often to break up the tomatoes, until thickened, about 30 minutes.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Use an immersion blender, a food mill, or a traditional blender to purée sauce.

I’ve discovered the most amazing thing.  Did you know there is this place called a library?  And they let you borrow books for free?

I’m kidding, of course.  Sort of.  I mean, I know about the library – my kids are big fans.  I hear people talking about how they take cookbooks out of the library and I just, well, I never had until last week.  For reasons too boring to explain, I found myself post-yoga at a small neighborhood library with some time to kill.  I headed straight for the cookbook section and was delighted to find some really interesting books.  One in particular was The Zuni Café Cookbook.  If you like to cook, you probably have that book.  Maybe you are surprised that I don’t.  It is a book I have picked up time and time again and have almost bought on many occasions.  Something always stops me.  This, I figured, was a perfect solution.  I would borrow it for three weeks and if I loved it, I would buy it.

It became clear pretty quickly that I will not be buying this book.  Oh, it is lovely and the food all sounds homey and comforting and amazing.  The recipes are thorough, clearly written, and it is clearly a person – a lover of food – writing them.  It is also incredibly heavy on the meat and there are anchovies in fully half of the more veg dishes.  Plus gallons and gallons of olive oil.  I know that restaurants tend to have a heavy hand with the olive oil.  I have nothing against olive oil and I use it all the time.  But sparingly.  Yes, it’s heart healthy but it is still a fat.

I wanted to make something from the book before returning it and this pasta spoke to me.  I liked that she suggested you use between 4 and 8 pinches of crushed red pepper flakes.  Yes, I love my spice!  But at its heart, this is a restaurant dish.  The kind that looks great and different on the menu, the kind that comes and the first few bites are absolutely delicious, and then you notice the puddle of olive oil under your noodles and you realize that you are not going to feel super well that night.

I tried to lighten this up and did a decent job.  Rather than add tablespoons of olive oil three separate times (she suggests ¾ of a cup all together), I added it only in the beginning and then used water to keep the vegetables from sticking too much.  I tossed the whole thing together with pasta water, lots of it – probably a full cup when all was said and done – which kept things moist.  Maybe I should have been a tad less stingy and added a bit at the end.  Anyway, what I took away from this dish is that the tri-color homemade fettucine at my farmers’ market is delicious, it is worth hauling out the food processor to grind up your bread crumbs so you have crumbs rather than croutons garnishing your dish, and I think I’ll make just the vegetables as a side dish soon.  And back to the library I go!

One Year Ago: Soba Noodles with Vegetables, Crispy Tofu, and Sesame Seeds
Two Years Ago: My tried and true Guacamole

Pasta with Spicy Broccoli and Cauliflower
Adapted from The Zuni Café Cookbook
Serves 6

I’m writing out the recipe with the changes I made.  Even though I did not make them this way, I am including Rogers’ instructions for making the bread crumbs.

About 1 cup fresh, soft bread crumbs (optional)
Olive oil
12 ounces broccoli, trimmed with a few inches of stem intact
12 ounces cauliflower, stem end trimmed flush
Salt
1 generous tablespoon capers, rinsed, dried and roughly chopped
1 pound penne or fettucine
6 small garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. fennel seeds
4 to 8 pinches dried chili flakes
¼ cup Kalamata olives, seeded and roughly chopped

If using bread crumbs, preheat the oven to 425ºF.

Toss the bread crumbs with 2 teaspoons of olive oil, spread on a baking sheet and bake for about 5 minutes, until golden.  Set aside.

Slice the broccoli and cauliflower about 1/8 inch thick, and generally lengthwise.  Most of the slices will break apart as you cut them, yielding a pile of smooth stem pieces, tiny green  broccoli buds, loose cauliflower crumbs, and a few deliciate slabs with stem and flower both.  Don’t worry if the slices are of uneven thickness.

Set a large skillet over medium heat.  Add just enough olive oil to coat the bottom and add most of the sliced broccoli and cauliflower, leaving behind the smallest bits on the cutting board (they will burn if you add them too soon).  Cook the vegetables until you see the edges starting to brown, about 3 minutes.  Salt very lightly, add the left behind bits to the pan, and toss and fold gently.  If things are sticking too much to the pan, add a bit of water.  Add the capers and mix gently.  Continue cooking over medium heat for another few minutes, allowing the vegetable to brown gently, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, drop the pasta into 6 quarts of rapidly boiling salted water.  Stir, and cook until al dente.

Once the mass of broccoli and cauliflower has shrunken by about one-third and is largely tender, reduce the heat and add the garlic, fennel, and chili.  Give the vegetables a toss to distribute.  Cook for another few minutes, then add the olives.  Carefully add the pasta to the skillet, using tongs for fettucine or a slotted spoon for penne.  Add the pasta water by ladleful as needed to keep the pasta loose.  Garnish with the toasted bread crumbs if desired.

Sometimes you need to cook for a crowd.  Sometimes that crowd is very mixed – young and old, male and female, picky and not picky.  You catch my drift.  I find it best in those situations to turn to good old macaroni and cheese.

Graham turned six (!) on November 28th (more thoughts on that milestone when I can actually write the post without crying).  We decided to have a party for him the day after Thanksgiving.  I found a very cool activity for the kids to do which happened to be right near our house.  As I was planning this little party, I felt very strongly that I wanted to have everyone (parents included) back to our house for dinner afterward.  And I felt even more strongly that I did not want to serve everyone the pizza fall-back that seems to be inescapable at a kids’ birthday party.

There is nothing wrong with pizza.  In fact, I love pizza and it is a terrific thing to serve to a mixed crowd, but I just got it in my head that I wanted to cook for these friends and family members.  Yes, we had just hosted 16 adults and 4 kids for Thanksgiving.  What can I say?  I got help with the turkey feast and also I am insane.

There was never really any doubt about what I wanted to make for the party but I wanted to change it up.  Since we all had just feasted on turkeys and stuffing and potatoes, I decided to lighten up the mac and cheese quite a bit.  A few years ago, I found a recipe for it using cauliflower in place of some of the milk and cheese.  I thought it turned out really well and I decided to re-visit that idea for Graham’s party.  I love mac and cheese as much as the next person but I always feel like it needs something else.  One note food tends to bore me after a few bites, no matter how delicious those bites are.  I decided to add some mustard for tang and heat, and some smoked paprika for some, well, smokiness.

Now, this is not spa food.  There is butter and there is milk (2% though!), and there is still a pound and a half of cheese here.  BUT.  There is also 2 pounds of pasta.  I made it to serve a large number of people.  Like 24 adults and 10 kids.  Not everyone ate it of course, but most did and I still had a bit left over.  Considering your standard mac and cheese has about a pound of cheese for 12 ounces of pasta, this is substantially lighter.  The cauliflower is virtually undetectable here.  I’m not a big fan of hiding vegetables in my kids’ food.  I want them to recognize vegetables for what they are and choose to eat them, not trick them into it.  But seeing as there is no way in hell that either of them would eat cauliflower willingly, I am glad that they got a little dose with their noodles.

I realize that you may not have many occasions to make such a large portion.  Nor may you have a pan to fit it all in.  I had a couple of large aluminum dishes that I bought for a long-ago catering job and that is what I used.  You can certainly fit all of this into two large baking dishes (like 13×9 or 15×10).  I’m also sure you can cut the recipe in half and just make a more normal sized (though still very generous) portion.  I did not test the recipe that way so I am giving it to you the way I made it.

Mac and Cheese Previously on Dana Treat: Gratinéed Macaroni and Cheese with Tomatoes, Three Cheese Mini-Macs
One Year Ago: Spicy Tomato Jam
Two Years Ago: Seitan Bourguingonne

Healthier Macaroni and Cheese
Dana Treat Original
Serves 20-25

In spite of the name of this dish, I almost never use macaroni when making mac and cheese.  It’s too small and boring for me.  Other short tubular shapes are more interesting.

1 large cauliflower (about 3 pounds), broken into florets
2 lbs. short tubular pasta (I used gemelli)
Olive oil
1 tbsp. Dijon Mustard
½ tsp. smoked paprika
3 cups 2% milk, divided
2 tsp. kosher salt
4 tbsp. (½ stick) unsalted butter
¼ cup flour
½ cup half-and-half
1 lb. extra-sharp Cheddar, grated
½ lb. Gruyère, grated
Panko or breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven to 375ºF with the rack in the middle.

Bring a large pot (at least 8 quart) of salted water to boil.  Add the cauliflower florets and cook until fork tender.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer the cauliflower to a food processor.  Add more water to the pot and then add the pasta.  Cook until al dente, according to package instructions, then drain.  Toss the pasta with a bit of olive oil to keep it from sticking and set aside.

Meanwhile, add the mustard, smoked paprika, and 2 teaspoons of salt, to the food processor.  Pulse until chunky.  Pour in 2 cups of the milk through the feed tube and process until you have a smooth and loose purée, adding a bit more milk if it seems too thick.  You want it like extremely thick cream.

Melt the butter in a large Dutch oven or similar type pot.  Sprinkle in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the flour darkens slightly in color and smells nutty, about 3 minutes.  Pour in the cauliflower purée and stir well.  Slowly pour in the remaining cup of milk and the half-and-half.  Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often, until rich and thick.  Turn off the heat, add both cheeses, and stir until everything is nice and melted.

Place the cooked pasta in a very large bowl.  Pour the sauce over top and carefully mix until the noodles are completely coated with sauce.  Butter one extra large or two large baking dishes and then pour the coated noodles in.  Sprinkle with either panko or bread crumbs and cover with foil.  Bake for 30 minutes then remove the foil and bake for another 10.  The center of the pan should feel hot.

Whatever else my life may bring in the future, 2010 is going to go down as a banner year for travel.  I went skiing in Sun Valley in February, got a tattoo in Provincetown in May, went copper pot shopping in Paris in June, had a quick weekend getaway in New York City in October (story coming soon), and just spent a week drinking fruity rum cocktails in the Bahamas.

Yes, a few of you actually guessed right.  Which amazes me because I gave very little information.  I could have also told you that I was on an island where people drive on the left side of the road.  I could also have told you that I was just off the coast of Florida but that would have made it too easy.  But yes, ladies and gentlemen – I was in the Bahamas.

It’s better than that actually.  I was at (in?) Atlantis.  As an almost lifelong West Coaster, the Bahamas were never really on my radar.  I was actually not even sure where they were and mistakenly thought they were much farther away than they are.  Which is why, when Randy told me he had won a work incentive trip and we were going for four days, I insisted suggested that we extend.  Atlantis, if you have never had the good fortune to go, is a huge resort.  The kind of place that can house thousands of people at one time, where there are something like 11 pools and over 20 restaurants.  There are palm trees and cocktails everywhere and a spa where you can get a massage to work out the kinks from laying on a beach chair all day.

Atlantis has restaurants from some celebrity chefs.  There is a Nobu, a Mesa Grill, two Jean-Georges restaurants, and a pair of well-regarded steak houses.  There is also a deli, a pizza place, tons of casual pool-side dining and a couple of Italian restaurants.  This will probably not surprise you, but I did not eat well on this trip.  I must admit that my expectations were a little higher than usual.  With chefs of this caliber, there would be some decent veg food, right?  Alas, I ate veggie burgers, poorly dressed salads, and baked potatoes basically the whole time.  My worst meal was at Mesa Grill which is really a shame since the restaurant is beautiful and Randy liked his $55 steak – the one that did not come with any side dishes.

Now, don’t cue the small violins.  I am a lucky lucky woman.  I got a week in the sun with my husband.  A week to read four books and to see the sun which was absent much of this year in Seattle.  A week to meet lots of people Randy has worked with for years, and to spend a morning sailing on a catamaran.  It is just a bummer that the food was so disappointing and so incredibly expensive.  To have been in France and New York this year and to be shocked by the prices tells you how ridiculously high they were.

I dreamed of my cooking.  This pasta is the last thing I made before we left.  I had planned to post about it before taking off but my to-do list got to be too long.  This dish is something that came to me as I was thinking about leeks.  I was planning to make a leek tart for a friend (and in making it, decided to also make it for Thanksgiving this year) and remembered a creamy leek pasta I made long ago.  Rather than track down the recipe, I decided to do it my own way which means adding slightly caramelized chunks of squash and a good dose of red pepper flakes.  And fresh herbs, always fresh herbs.

I made this nice and creamy by using a bit of goat cheese and a lot of pasta cooking water.  I have given the tip about scooping noodles directly out of their water and into the pan with the “sauce” a couple of times, but it is essential to making this dish work right, and lessening your clean-up along the way.

One Year Ago: Holly B’s Gingersnaps, Gianduja Mousse, Maple Roasted Delicata Squash
Two Years Ago: Pumpkin Whoopie Pies, Cranberry-Walnut Braid (which is cooling on my counter right now)

Orecchiette with Creamy Leeks and Winter Squash
Dana Treat Original
Serves 4-6

I used delicata squash because I love it and I love not having to peel it.  Butternut would be a fine substitute, just be sure to peel it.  Orecchiette is my pasta shape choice here because it holds the sauce perfectly, but I sometimes have trouble finding it.  Another small shape would be fine.  I would not use long strands.

1 pound delicata squash, cut in half, seeded, and cut into ¾-inch chunks
Olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
2 large leeks, white and pale green part only, cut in half and thinly sliced
2 tbsp. fresh sage, chopped
1 tbsp. fresh thyme, chopped
¼ cup white wine
½ tsp. red pepper flakes
1 pound orecchiette pasta, or similar shape
2 ounces soft goat cheese, such as Montrachet
¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan, plus additional for garnish
¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped (for garnish)

Preheat the oven to 400ºF.  Place the squash on a small rimmed baking sheet and drizzle lightly with olive oil.  Sprinkle with a pinch of kosher salt and a few grinds of pepper.  Using your hands, mix well.  Place in the oven and roast until lightly browned and caramelized, turning once, about 15 to 17 minutes.  Remove and set aside.

Place a large skillet over medium heat.  Drizzle in just enough olive oil to coat the bottom.  Add the leeks and a pinch of salt and turn the heat to medium-low.  Sauté for several minutes, stirring often, until the leeks soften but do not allow them to brown.  Stir in the sage and thyme.  Cook for another couple of minutes, until fragrant.  Pour in the wine and allow to cook, uncovered, until the wine evaporates.  Turn the heat down to low.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to boil.  Add the pasta and cook until al dente, using the package directions as your guide and tasting to make sure.  Place the pasta pot and the sauté pan on burners right next to one another.

Once the orecchiette is done, use a slotted spoon to scoop the noodles directly from the pot into the sauce pan.  Immediately add the goat cheese, the roasted squash, and the red pepper flakes.  Scoop a ladle-ful of pasta cooking water from the pot into the saucepan, and give everything a good stir.  Add the Parmesan cheese and another ladle-ful of water.  Taste for seasoning.  You may need more water, so just keep adding it until the dish is the consistency that you want.  Garmish servings with additional Parmesan and parsley.

It is early November in Seattle and that means several things.  The loss of daylight savings and therefore the return of the darkness settling in around 4:30pm (and it only gets worse), it means the wind picking up and the rain becoming more steady.  It means piles of wet leaves everywhere that no child would ever want to jump into.  It means starting to prepare myself for a large bird that will take up residence in my oven for the better part of a day.  It means birthday month for my son, my mother, my niece, my best friend, my best friend’s son, two of my kids’ closest friends, and others in my life.  And it means Karen is in town.

Karen and I were both theatre majors  in college.  Being two years ahead of me, I didn’t get to take that  many classes with her and we were never in a production together, but we were very close friends.  Her father was a professor at the college and I got to be very close with her family as well as they invited me over for Passover Seders, and allowed me to store my boxes of stuff at their house each summer.  (As a thank you, I would bring them an incredible luxury each fall.  Starbucks coffee!  It was a delicacy then.  Now, of course, there is a Starbucks in the small Connecticut town.)

Some people say that a theatre major is totally useless.  I would disagree.  Learning how to speak in front of people and the art of self-awareness; learning how to work together with other actors, how to take direction, and how to make friends with another species (the technical crew); learning how to juggle a school schedule while rehearsing until after midnight every night – all those things have actually really helped me in my life.  But I never “did” anything with my major.

Karen is another story.  As she got nearer to graduation, she realized that her real interest lay in casting.  She left college and took a $75/week internship with a casting director in New York.  She worked hard and got offered a real job.  Then she made a move to Los Angeles.  Then she got a very cool job at CBS.  Then she got an even cooler job at CBS which is being the casting director for comedies.  She has had that job for the past ten years or so.

There is a comedy festival in Seattle every year around this time and she has made it up almost every year.  It is such a treat to have her in town and such an interesting marker of our years as friends.  I remember sitting in her hotel room and telling her how my first marriage was falling apart.  We spent election night of 2000 running up to the bar from the comedy club checking on the results and crossing our fingers that it all would turn out all right (which for both of us, it didn’t).  There were years that I was pregnant and years that she was.  There were years I was nursing and years she was pumping.  She first met both of my boys on these November trips.  I have been so grateful that I get to see her at least once a year.

This time, she came in a little earlier than usual and we got last night together.  A night out in a restaurant sounded tempting but what I really wanted was to cook for her and to allow her to relax in our home with our boys.  As I mentioned in my last post, I have been in a bit of rut lately but when I was paging through my latest issue of Food & Wine, this recipe jumped out at me.  When something sticks in my addled brain, as this dish did, I know I need to make it.

What you see here is a mixture of fregola (which is very similar to Israeli couscous) and grated cauliflower all mixed together with a bit of broth, a healthy dose of red pepper flakes, and fresh mint.  It is sitting on a bed of surprisingly fantastic cauliflower purée and topped with oven roasted tomatoes.  I usually find the recipes in Food & Wine to be spot on but there was something missing here.  It was still a delightful dish and I would gladly fill a bowl with that purée and go to town with a spoon.  But the fregola needed something else.  A sprinkling of cumin during the simmer perhaps or an addition of caramelized onions that have been very finely chopped.  Or olives.  Or all three.  Just a bit more flavor to make it really main course material.

One Year Ago: Apple Pie Bars
Two Years Ago: Cowgirl Cookies

Fregola with Minted Cauliflower
Adapted from Food & Wine
Serves 4

In addition to needing more flavor, I thought this dish needed more purée.  The original recipe instructs you to only use half a cauliflower and to grate one of those halves and purée the other.  I think you should purée the ¾ of the cauliflower that you aren’t grating and if you have any left over, you can use it as a side with another dish.

1 head cauliflower
¼ cup plus 2 tbsp. heavy cream
½ cup plus 2 tbsp. water
3 tbsp. unsalted butter
Kosher salt
½ pint grape tomatoes
Olive oil
1½ cups fregola
¾ cup vegetable broth
1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
¼ cup mint leaves, torn

Preheat oven to 350ºF.  Cut the cauliflower in half and cut one of the halves in half again.  Grate one of the quarters on the large holes of a box grater, stopping when you reach the stems; you should have about 1 cup of grated cauliflower that resembles coarsely grated Parmesan.  Finely chop the stems and add to the grated.  Set aside.

Roughly chop the rest of the cauliflower.  Put in in a saucepan along with the cream, water and 2 tablespoons of the butter.  Season with salt.  Cover and cook over moderate heat until the cauliflower is tender and the liquid nearly evaporated, 8 minutes.  If the liquid is gone before the cauliflower is tender, add a bit more water.  Scrape the mixture into a food processor and purée until very smooth.  Wipe out the saucepan and return the purée to it; keep warm.

In a small baking dish or on a small baking sheet, drizzle the tomatoes lightly with olive oil.  Sprinkle with a pinch of salt and mix well.  Roast for about 10 minutes, just until the skins start to burst.

Meanwhile, bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil.  Add the fregola and cook until al dente.  Drain the fregola and return it to the pot.  Add the vegetable broth, crushed red pepper, and the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter and cook over low heat, stirring until the sauce is creamy, adding more liquid if necessary.  Stir in the grated cauliflower and cook until just tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in the mint.

Spoon the cauliflower purée onto plates.  Top with the fregola and roasted tomatoes and serve immediately.