Image courtesy of www.joanne-eatswellwithothers.com

The internet is a great source for all things foodie, and we’re constantly bookmarking, starring, and emailing intriguing recipes, food porn, and inspiration. Here’s a selection of clippings we think are worth checking out.

Happy American Thanksgiving!  Means even MORE pumpkin… biscuits, savoury scones, a chiffon pie, and what looks to be a clear winner: baked pumpkin puddings.

Citrus isn’t my favourite, but something about this lemon vanilla cake makes me want it. Right now.

Raisins aren’t my favourite either, but I can only imagine how great these toasted raisin biscuits smell when they’re in the pan.

These little fig-anise swirls are listed as fall cookies, but I think they should grace every Christmas cookie plate.

Dan Dan noodles can be found at an array of restaurants here in Vancouver, from your traditional Chinese place to hip Japanese izakayas. Enjoying them as I do, I was happy to see my friend Sara shared her recipe.

Image courtesy of www.joythebaker.com

The internet is a great source for all things foodie, and we’re constantly bookmarking, starring, and emailing intriguing recipes, food porn, and inspiration. Here’s a selection of clippings we think are worth checking out.

Waking up to these lemon raspberry rolls on a sunny Sunday morning would not be too shabby.

I know we’ve been enjoying late summer sun and warm temperatures, but I couldn’t help start drooling over these very Fall-appropriate roasted carrot and ricotta gnocchi.

Same thing goes for these bread and cheese meatballs. You’re sure to please the vegetarians in your life.

And again, it’s time for tomatoes. Think about making this Southeast Asian tomato salad for dinner tonight. Or, if you want some indulgence, roll up your shirtsleeves and make some biscuit dough for a tomato cobbler.

Image courtesy of www.food52.com

The internet is a great source for all things foodie, and we’re constantly bookmarking, starring, and emailing intriguing recipes, food porn, and inspiration. Here’s a selection of clippings we think are worth checking out.

Here’s a recipe for baking sheet macaroni and cheese. The type of dish you make and savour… and then ask whomever to clean the pan after. Dish fairies if you must.

I don’t care if Mexican pasta sounds silly. I’m all for what looks to be a poblano chile pesto with spaghetti.

Swirly bread with cilantro? Yeah, I can see that smothered in like, lime butter. I’m so there.

Kaiserschmarrn? Something delicious you eat for breakfast.

Shamefully, I don’t enjoy drinking alone.  This means that I often end up with half-full wine bottles sitting on my counter at the end of the night pleading for me not to empty their contents down the drain. If there’s room, I’ll freeze the wine in ice cube trays. And then forget about them, of course. Jeremy’s quick sausage pasta jogged my memory. Veg, cheese and supper is done.  Wine is a key ingredient to many meat-based pasta sauces, and leftover sips should always be considered for such uses. Some might argue that you should drink the wine instead, but at least in this case, pasta tipsiness is just as good.

Dining Companion: The Killing

Sausage and Broccolini Pasta
Serves 1.

Pasta for 1 (~100 g)
Half a bunch of broccolini, chopped
1/3 cup of red wine
1 Italian sausage link (sweet or hot; pork, chicken or turkey)
olive oil
1 clove of garlic, minced
pinch (or more) of dried chilis
Grated parmigianno or pecorino cheese
Salt and pepper
Handful of torn fresh basil

Heat a non-stick pan over medium. Swirl about a teaspoon or so of olive oil in pan.  When oil is hot, remove casing from sausage, add to pan and break up into small pieces with the back of a wooden spoon.  Cook and stir until sausage is no longer pink.  Drain fat, leaving about a teaspoon.  Add garlic and chilis to pan and cook until fragrant. Add wine, reduce heat to medium low and stir to pick up any brown bits from pan. Continue to simmer until wine is reduced by about half. Remove from heat if pasta is not yet ready.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in salted water until al dente. Add broccolini during the last minute or so of cooking. Drain, reserving about 1/4 cup of pasta water.  Add pasta and broccolini to pan and return to medium heat. Stir until pasta is well coated and slowly add the pasta water until a light sauce has come together. Add basil. Season with salt and pepper and add cheese once plated.

Another solo dinner dealing with kitchen dregs. Waste not, want not, right? Solo dining on a budget is almost always trying to not overlook what you have despite continually thinking that you don’t have enough to make something delicious. Pasta is a staple, as is chicken broth, and bringing up the rear are frozen peas. In my freezer, I found the last of some cubed butternut squash. In my fridge, some cheddar and salami. Let’s throw them together in mock mac’n'cheese fashion and put them in the oven (a developing theme it appears). Although more goopy than creamy in the end, it all tasted good in my mouth. I should have mixed the diced salami throughout rather than placing it on top — but not because I browned the bits too much, I just would have liked the saltiness throughout.  Tasty, relatively healthy and filling: alright by me.

Dining companion:  Mildred Pierce

Baked Squash Pasta
Serves 1.

100 g short pasta
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup cooked, mashed butternut squash
1/3 cup green peas
3 tablespoons grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon grated parmigianno cheese
1/4 cup diced salami
nutmeg
salt
black pepper
cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Cook pasta until almost al dente, adding peas in the last minute of cooking.
Meanwhile, add broth to squash to thin.  Warm in sauce pan over low heat. Add 2 tablespoons of cheddar to melt. Season with salt to taste and add pinches of nutmeg, cayenne and black pepper. Toss with pasta and place in a greased individual baking dish or large ramekin. Top with remaining cheeses and diced salami.
Bake for 30 minutes, broiling for for a minute or two at the end to brown cheese.

Simple recipes are always loved. But it’s rare that a simple recipe makes you think, Huh? What?! I mean, you can be surprised at how easy a recipe is and what marvelous results it yields despite its ease. But how often are you surprised-surprised by a recipe? One that contains less than five ingredients yet tastes like it’s been cooking all day? And/or is comprised of many ingredients that you can’t put your finger on because they marry so harmoniously?

Enter Marcella Hazan’s famous tomato, onion and butter sauce. Reproduced by many of the big name bloggers, this pasta sauce makes jaws drop and tongues wag. A quick simmer of, wait for it, a can of tomatoes, one onion and some butter, leaves you with one of the most delicious and satisfying red sauces ever.

We’re raised on simple and perfect marinara and pomodoro sauces that usually start with garlic sautéed in olive oil, maybe with some onions, tomatoes and almost always with some form of fresh or dried herbage. That is red sauce.

Sorry, this is red sauce. And shockingly, there’s no garlic, no olive oil, no sautéing. Cut an onion in half, stick it in the saucepan with the tomatoes and the butter, read a few magazine articles, cook some pasta, and then eat the lusciousness that some people say doesn’t even need cheese. I couldn’t be that rebellious but encourage you to try.

Tomato, Onion and Butter Sauce
Adapted from Marcella Hazan

28 oz canned whole peeled tomatoes (the best that you can find, e.g., San Marzano)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste
1 lb of pasta

Put the tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Bring the sauce to a simmer then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard the onion, and add salt to taste. Reduce heat to low while you prepare your pasta.

When I was looking for some salad inspiration, I ran across a crostini recipe by Jamie Oliver that I thought sounded rather unique as it brought together lemon, chilies and fresh mozzarella. To avoid more carbs at a pasta meal, I created a salad that followed a similar theme. Atop greens dressed in a balsamic vinaigrette, I added tomatoes, mozzarella and chopped chilies. I spooned more dressing over the top and then sprinkled with lemon zest.

Pasta pasta pasta. It probably shows up in my posts as often as Mark Bittman. You know I love it. And it’s so easy. And with barely any effort, you can pull off something that’s worthy of guests. This is one of those recipes. And and and, you can spend time with your guests while dinner’s cooking and not worry about being on top of multiple items.

As the only hostess of the house, I worry about that. I want to enjoy a glass of wine with friends with my face to them. I don’t like when all they see for the first part of the evening is my back as I chop, chop or stir, stir. With this gem, the tomatoes go in the oven, and the pasta gets minded a bit. That’s it. I get to catch up while the timer tells me when to take notice. I get to gossip while my apartment quickly fills with the appetizing aroma of garlic baking down with tomatoes.

Tomatoes! One of pasta’s perfect partners and in this dish, they become a sweet mess after the time in the oven. The breadcrumbs balance things out and the cheeses give the necessary salty kick. All that’s left is to sit at the table, pour more Chianti and make a cheesy but classic toast to good food and good friends.

Pasta with Baked Tomato Sauce
Adapted from Nancy Harmon Jenkins via The Wednesday Chef
Serves 4

I’ve made this twice now and made one adjustment my second time around — tossing the tomatoes with olive oil, garlic and seasoning before topping with the breadcrumb mixture.

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound / 2 pints very ripe cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1/3 cup plain dry breadcrumbs
1/4 cup freshly grated parmigiano
2 tablespoons freshly grated pecorino
3 garlic cloves, minced
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 pound pasta
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves, torn

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss tomatoes with one of the minced garlic cloves, a sprinkle of salt, some pepper and 1/3 of the oil. Place tomatoes cut side up in 9 x 13 inch baking dish.

In a small bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, cheeses, and remaining garlic and toss with a fork to mix well. Sprinkle the breadcrumb mixture over the tomatoes, making sure that each cut side is well covered with the crumb mixture. Sprinkle with more salt and pepper. Bake until the tomatoes are cooked through and starting to brown on top, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until al dente. Time the pasta so it finishes cooking about the time the tomatoes are ready to come out of the oven.

When the tomatoes are done, add the basil and stir vigorously to mix everything into a sauce. Drain the pasta and immediately transfer it to the baking dish. Add the remaining olive oil and mix well. Serve at once and grate a little more cheese on top.

Serve alongside a green salad or tender-crisp green beans and broccolini quickly sautéed in olive oil, garlic and chili pepper.

Today’s Special:  Spaghetti all’Amatriciana, La Quercia
My favourite pasta at my favourite place in Vancouver.
I’ve written about the pasta. I’ve written about the place. Having the experience more than once (I think I’m at eight visits with the next already booked) is truly a treat.
I hope I get to have it with you one day.

La Quercia
West 4th & Alma, Vancouver

Another Mark Bittman post. What can I say? I’m a big fan. (How many times have I said this before?)
I could easily turn the Cream part of this blog into a Rhianna & Mark journey a la Julie & Julia, but if you follow along, you know that I do use recipes from other people… occasionally.

Mark’s recipes just go so well with how I like to cook (simple and flexible) that it’s hard for me to lose motivation for trying one of his recipes.  And with fresh ricotta still in my fridge, there was now no holding back on a recipe I’d bookmarked months before.

I’m sure we all have stories of good gnocchi and bad gnocchi.  The good ones use adjectives like pillowy, soft and tender. The bad ones use adjectives like leaden, gluey and chewy.  Traditional potato gnocchi are easy to find on menus but difficult to rate successful.  The bad stories tend to flood the marketplace, often disguised with a too-heavy sauce or under mounds of cheese. I’ve never attempted traditional gnocchi for fear of failing and writing a bad story, but also because the prep load (cooking potatoes…) hasn’t been something that I’ve wanted to carry thus far.

But when I saw Mark’s video for his ricotta gnocchi, I was pretty sure this load would be light enough for me to carry.

These ricotta gnocchi are pretty much the perfect choice for a comfort food fix. Perhaps not as versatile as their potato cousins (I don’t think they’d stand up to baking), but easily just as tasty. After loving my first batch so much (served atop some jarred marinara I had in the fridge), I made another round of ricotta the following weekend and another batch of gnocchi.  With my second batch, I prepared a classic brown butter sauce and played a little bit with substituting about a third of the flour with cornmeal and adding a good dash of nutmeg — the cornmeal doing not much more than adding some colour.

Mark’s servings are a little small, so I would say the recipe is better suited for two generous main course servings or four starters. How’d I get uniform-sized gnocchi? Cookie scoop.

Ricotta Gnocchi
Adapted from Mark Bittman

Watch the video and then read through the recipe to get a sense of what to do. Do start with the minimum amount of flour and build up as you need to.  The test gnocchi is important, but I think you can get away with a little one. I used Mark’s recipe for the brown butter.

Today’s Special: Pecorino versus Parmigiano
Do you have a preference for one or the other for grating on your pasta?
While my heart belonged for a long time to parmigiano, I’ve been stepping out a lot lately with pecorino. Pecorino’s saltiness is much more assertive and it never gets pushed aside by other flavours.  Parmigiano’s lingering hold is that it melts better, highlighting its nutty and butter-like qualities.

Interim solution is to always have both in your fridge.  Grating a healthy dose of both on your piping hot dish of pasta is probably sacrilegious to Italian cuisine.  It tastes really good, however.