Year of the Noodle: Week 24

I am overwhelmed by how many pasta salad recipes exist on the Internet.

Apparently if you serve pasta cold, you can put anything in it.  Things you wouldn’t dream of putting into a warm noodle dish.  Things like cucumbers or mayonnaise. Oranges and condensed sweetened milk.  Even dill and tuna can live in harmony in a pasta salad.  Or so the Internet tells me (my gag reflex says otherwise.)

It took a lot of searching to find a pasta salad with no offensive ingredients and no mayo.  And I think I did well.  I tend to think roasted red pepper makes everything good, though.  The consensus at our early Fourth of July barbecue was that a regular mozzarella would have been better than the smoked.  That’s a good thing, seeing as I had a really hard time finding the smoked version.  So instead of hunting all over for smoked mozzarella, just use chunks of regular mozzarella.

Happy Fourth of July!  I hope you enjoy a nice, laid back holiday with lots of sunshine – and no one forces you to eat pasta salad with tuna and dill :)

Grilled Zucchini, Roasted Red Pepper and Smoked Mozzarella Pasta Salad

Year of the Noodle: Week 23

Noodle breakthrough.

We were desperately lacking dried pasta in our pantry (ok, it’s really more of a bookshelf than a pantry but I’ll still call it that.)  No linguini, angel hair, or spaghetti.  For a split second I thought “I guess I have to go to the store.”  And then – breakthrough.  I actually decided it would be easier to make the pasta from scratch than to go to the store and buy it.

Yes!  I have dominated pasta making!  It does not intimidate me!  I am the noodle queen!

Overboard.  I know.  But I was thrilled.  And then I settled down and made whole wheat linguini.

Pea pesto has a nice, even flavor that makes for a quite nice, light dish.  Nothing gourmet about it, but pleasant and easy to eat.  The pasta dough came out very light for a whole wheat pasta – much better than the dried stuff you get at the store.  Ha!  I knew it was better to make it at home :)

Linguini with Pea Pesto

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups (from approximately 1 1/2 pounds peas in pods) fresh pea or a 10-ounce package frozen peas, defrosted
• 1 small garlic clove, minced
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted and cooled (I used toasted almonds)
• 1/2 cup (1 1/8 ounces) finely grated parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon table salt, plus more for pasta water
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 12 ounces dried linguine (or pasta from recipe below)
• Garnish (optional): thinly slivered basil or mint leaves Continue reading »

This plate is lying to you. This is in no way an angel food cake.  But I suppose it is a bit more angelic than most, due to it’s lack of processed sugar.  Well, in the actual cake part at least.  My intention was to make an agave sweetened cake with agave buttercream, but alas, no.  I do not keep on hand ingredients like soy milk powder, or even milk powder, and so the agave buttercream frosting was not meant to be.  I had to use it’s evil twin – buttercream sweetened with confectioner’s sugar.  Ok, so not so much evil.  More like run-of-the mill and a little less impressive.  Whatever.

The cake is a bit spongier than most, but it has a nice flavor and you certainly don’t miss the sugar.  Compared to the cake, the buttercream feels a bit too sweet.  It probably would have been nice with a good lemon glaze instead and some fresh berries on top.  Oh well.  There’s always next time. :)

Agave Sweetened White Cake

Ingredients

• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 cup light agave syrup
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tsp vanilla extract Continue reading »

I made this one up.

Inspired by this recipe, a few snippets of recipes I browsed on the internet, and the contents of my fridge, I decided to throw some stuff together.  I felt a bit weird about it at first – like I was breaking a rule by not following someone else’s recipe to the ‘T’.  But that’s what this whole noodle project is about, right?  Learning how to wing it with ingredients that you have laying around and end up with a delicious dinner?  Well, mission accomplished.

This recipe turned out beautifully.  Not only is it colorful and very visually appealing, but it has really wonderful flavors.  John called it gourmet as he inhaled it (both good signs.)  The recipe below is as close as I could come to writing out what I made.  You may have to make slight adjustments to cooking times and seasoning, but you’ll get the idea.  Yum yum yum.

Farfalle with Roasted Beets, Asparagus and Goat Cheese

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups dried farfalle pasta
• 1 cup rainbow beets, peeled and diced
• 1 cup chopped asparagus
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
• 2 tablespoons crumbled goat cheese
• Balsamic vinegar
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper Continue reading »

Occasionally I make things other than noodles.  Okay, more than occasionally.  All the time.  Particularly baked goods (always a favorite.)  There is usually something chocolaty and delicious hanging around our apartment.  I take pride in that.

Lately I’ve been experimenting with cutting back on sugar and using agave nectar in baked goods.  Late last week I decided to try a sugar-free, gluten-free brownie recipe whose main ingredients were black beans, dark chocolate and espresso powder.  Catastrophe.  I probably should have known that from the ingredient list, but I was trying something.  Brownie fail.

I had to redeem myself somehow.  I’d seen this recipe a while back on another photographer’s website, and I decided to give it a go.  Redemption was mine.  These cookies turned out fantastically, and had nearly all been eaten by the end of the day.  If you (like me) have a thriving mint plant that you aren’t sure how to use, make these cookies.  Delish.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup and 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 kosher salt
• 1/2 cup butter room temperature
• 1/3 dark brown sugar
• 1/3 granulated sugar
• 1 large egg room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 8 oz chocolate chips (I used half dark chocolate chunks and half semi-sweet)
• 1 tablespoon fresh mint leaves, cut into ribbons Continue reading »