mmmmmm....pasta.....

One of my favorite comfort foods is a pasta dish paired with a good cold beer or a nice bottle of red wine, depending on the weather. I'm really working hard to incorporate more fresh veggies into our diet and eat a little less meat. I checked my newly favorite recipe site, and found her Mom's recipe for Pasta Primavera. It had all my favorite things , what I wanted(pasta and a little cheese) and what I needed (veggies and less salt). This was a big hit on all sides! Really tasty, and by using whole grain rotini, I felt even better about our healthy meal. Add an ice cold beer and some fresh fruit, and I was a happy CKS.

Mom's Pasta Primavera Recipe

Ingredients:

4 cups of mixed vegetables, for example:
1 carrot, peeled and cut into 2x1/2-inch strips
1 medium zucchini, sliced into 1/4-inch slices
1/2 small eggplant, sliced into 1/4-inch slices
1/2 red onion, sliced into 1/4-inch slices
1/2 bell pepper, any color, cut into thin strips

3 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning or herbes de Provence
A sprinkling of garlic salt
1/4 cup of spaghetti, marinara, or tomato sauce
1 pint of cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 pound pasta (use rice pasta for wheat-free version)
Grated Parmesan (optional)

Method:

1 Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil (for your pasta).

2 Heat oil in a large skillet on medium high heat. Add the vegetables, stir to coat with oil. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring only occasionally, until vegetables are just cooked. Turn off heat, but let pan stay on the burner.

3 While you are cooking the vegetables, add the dry pasta to the boiling water and follow the cooking instructions for the pasta. You want to time it so that the pasta is done soon after the vegetables.

4 Add a 1/4 cup of the spaghetti, marinara, or tomato sauce to the vegetables, along with 1/4 cup of water to thin the sauce. If you are using a prepared spaghetti or marinara sauce, you don't need to add much seasoning, just a 1/2 teaspoon of Italian seasoning or herbes de Provence, a few sprinkles of garlic salt, and salt and pepper to taste. If you are using a plain tomato sauce, you might want to start out cooking the vegetables by cooking a minced clove of garlic first, and then adding the vegetables, and then add a bit more of the seasoning (to taste). Spaghetti and marinara sauce are already seasoned.

5 Once the pasta is ready - cooked but still a bit firm, or al dente - drain the pasta and put it directly into the skillet with the vegetables. Adjust seasoning. Add more sauce if needed. Gently mix in the cherry tomatoes.

Serves 4. Serve with some freshly grated Parmesan, if you like. A little bit of chopped fresh basil would go nicely with this as well.

Brunch 'n Munch

One of my favorite childhood memories is breakfast/brunch on weekend mornings. My mom would make waffles or pancakes, and to mix it up she'd sometimes make what I always called Lazy Man Pancakes (the technical term is Dutch Babies). It's a fabulous pancake that poofs up in the pan when it's cooked, and it tastes excellent with plain yogurt and jam, or just good old fashioned maple syrup. No need to add butter as the pancake already has enough.

I made these for Matt on Saturday morning using my mom's recipe and it was the best yet. It was an emotional experience digging through those recipe cards in her handwriting, but it was also very special to have my mom with me as I cooked my hubby's birthday breakfast.

I hope you enjoy these pancakes as much as I did and always will.

Lazy Man Pancakes (also known as Dutch Babies)
Karin Mesmer and Grandma Elizabeth

1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1 1/2 cups milk
6 eggs
6 tablespoons butter
generous pinch nutmeg

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Melt the butter and pour into a large (9"x13") pan and swirl to coat the bottom surface. In a large bowl beat the flour and milk until smooth Add the eggs and nutmeg and continue beating until smooth. Pour into buttered dish and bake approximately 20 minutes. Do not open the oven door, but check in oven windowand remove pancake when it poufs up and begins to brown. Serve immediately with plain yogurt, berry jam, and maple syrup. Best served on warm plates.

Special note from Mom: This recipe can be cut in half or thirds. Use an 8"x11" pan for 1 cup and 4 eggs, or an 8"x8" pan for 3/4 cup and 3 eggs.

Cranberry Jello Salad

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving Feasts. We were invited to spend the day with friends and the hostess covered the gammet of traditional Turkey Day treats from the 20 pound organic free range turkey to loaded mashed potatoes and gravy, candied sweet potatoes, relish tray, green bean casserole, steamed broccoli, fresh rolls and a lovely selection of appetizers including a made from scratch homemade cheese ball. Delicious! I will have to get the recipe from her and see if she minds me posting it on the blog.

My contribution to the meal was embarassingly simple but a favorite nonetheless - my mother's Cranberry Jello Salad. It is the ultimate potluck dish as it does not have to be kept warm, can be made ahead of time, and preserves and travels well.

Cranberry Jello Salad
From my mother's Recipe Box

6 ounce package Raspberry Jello
2 Cups Hot Water
1 Cup Cold Water
1 small can mandarin oranges drained
1 small can crushed pineapple drained
1 can whole berry cranberry sauce
1 cup chopped walnuts

Dissolve Jello in 2 cups hot water. Once dissolved, add Cold water and stir. Add remaining four ingredients and stir thoroughly. It's easier if you stir the cranberry sauce before adding it so that it doesn't clump together. Cover with saran wrap and refrigerate until set.

A Swedish Thursday dinner

Well, I'm going to be the very occasional contributor to Cooking Kama Sutras and don't hold your breath over that I'll post a recipe I've never tried before.

Although I do like to cook, I'm much more inclined to bake the cookies, the cakes and the breads than try to figure out what to cook for dinner. My mother laughed at me when I proclaimed as a high-schooler I would marry someone who cooked for me. Well, I did marry someone who cooks for me, albeit not as often as we would like since we have two picky toddlers to fed as well.

But one of our tried and true meals involve Swedish pancakes (or yes, they look like little crepes) and the kids love them and usually there's always milk, egg and flour at home. Make enough pancakes and you'll get full, I promise. The trick is to learn when to flip the pancakes, just when they get golden brown on the bottom and solid on the top. The trial-and-error-ones are my personal favorite when I munch while cooking ... I use a cast iron skillet for silver dollar pancakes and a thin spatula to flip the pancakes.

Swedish Pancakes

1 1/8 cups of flour (2 1/2 dl)
2 1/2 cups of milk (6 dl)
3 eggs
4 oz of margarine (30-50 g)

Mix the flour and half the milk to an even batter with a wire whisk in a large mixing bowl. Add rest of milk, then stir in the eggs.

Melt the margarine in the pancake skillet, pour the melted butter into the pancake batter and have a paper towel handy to wipe off the melted butter from the side of the pan. (By pouring melted butter into the batter, there's no need to re-grease the pan between each pouring of batter.)

Keep the heat from med-high to medium, pour about a tablespoon per silver dollar pancake (otherwise about half cup of batter for a big pancake).

When the surface is solid (light brown), turn over and brown the other side.

Whisk the batter between each round to prevent the flour from sinking to the bottom.

Keep warm by placing under a paper towel until there's enough to serve, or if you are the mom, keep feeding the kid(s) as soon as the pancakes leave the skillet.

Enjoy with favorite jam (lingonberries, raspberries, blueberry) or applesauce or whatever strikes your fancy.

Keep any leftovers in refrigerator covered under plastic wrap. Leftovers can be reheated for 20-30 seconds in microwave or eaten cold. Excellent to pack in sack-lunches.


Part of the traditional Swedish Thursday menu is split pea soup followed by pancakes. I've yet to convince my family that this combination is a great meal, but I do enjoy my pea soup which I always make during the holiday season when there's leftover ham.

Swedish-style Yellow Pea Soup

2 cups dried yellow peas
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
3 tsp salt
1 tsp marjoram or thyme
Optional: 1 lb pork ribs or ham (cubed)

Rinse peas in a colander, pick out any peas that looked damaged, and then soak overnight in 5 cups of water a big stock pot. Discard water.

Pour 2 quarts of water over peas. Cook together with onion, salt, marjoram or thyme and ham on low heat for about 1 1/2 hours or until shells of peas split.

Serve warm, garnish with sweet mustard if so desired. Then eat your pancakes.

The soup freezes well, so the extras can always be the emergency lunch or dinner when you don't feel like more planning than thawing out a package of soup in the fridge overnight.


(Of course, I buy my peas 'Lars Own Yellow Peas' at IKEA in the food section where you can also find Swedish style mustard.)

Recipes from Vår Kokbok (pancakes) and the packaging of Lars Own Yellow Peas (soup).

Family History of Meat Loaf

With all of the time I have been spending in my kitchen lately, it is slowly transitioning into the central common room of our house as opposed to the living room. Though Don doesn't have the energy to put on an apron and play iron chef during these first few weeks of the move, his curiosity about what new thing we are going to try tonight and the wafting aromas and spices that drift throughout the house have him sniffing around. Last night as he wandered into the kitchen and eyed the ground beef, onion, egg and spice mixture in the bowl on the chopping board, he raised an eyebrow and asked what it was. "I'm making Mini Meat Loaves from Cooking Light," I said without looking up. His silence and blank expression confirmed that he was not impressed. However, I had already anticipated this reaction.

It is no secret that Don is no fan of Meat Loaf. In fact he rather despises it. However, this Cooking Light recipe was unique enough to still have me curious to try it and since Don is not doing the grocery shopping, or the meal planning, or the cooking right now, I decided to screw him and make what I wanted to make! Despite his lack of enthusiasm about the meal and his doubt in its potential, he still hung out with me in the kitchen and kept me company while I cooked, and he even peeled a few potatoes and did a few dishes. We had a glass of wine, talked about our day, critiqued some of the recent recipes we had tried, and I learned all about Don's entire family history when it comes to meat loaf.

When his mom was pregnant with him, she got sick off of meatloaf. Strike number one. Don hated meatloaf growing up because meatloaf in his family consisted solely of ground beef, egg, oatmeal and ketchup. Strike number two. The worst part of meatloaf was the ketchup which was why he was not excited to see the ketchup-dijon glaze on top of the mini loaves I was preparing. Strike number three. However, he did concede that it was possible somewhere out there to make a meatloaf he might actually enjoy because one person in his life had succeeded in doing this before - his previous girlfriend Anne - an impressive feet. He did not know what she put in it, but you can bet it was more than ground beef, egg, oatmeal, and ketchup.

Despite all of the meat loaf baggage Don has been carrying around, apparently since he was in the womb, after just one bite he conceded that the recipe did not suck. He ate his whole helping and said that, though it was not as good as Anne's, he would still be happy to take the leftovers in his lunch the next day. I consider that a success.

I rather liked the mini meat loaves myself. I prefer them much more than the kind you make in a bread pan because each individual loaf has a nice crispy outer edge. It is not one of my all time favorite recipes but for how simple and quick it was to make, I would consider it a great way to use up some ground beef. Be sure to use a good quality dijon mustard like grey poupon because that seems to make or break the recipe. Also, I think that the fresh ground breadcrumbs I used as opposed to the store bought container went a long way for keeping the meat nice and moist in the center. This recipe made quite a mess out of my baking sheet so if you make this you might want to consider laying down a piece of foil first.

It's amazing how the process of cooking a meal can bring people together and bring out new stories. My family never made meat loaf growing up (that I can remember) so this is a new adventure to me. The only time I can remember ever having meat loaf was when Emily made Alton Brown's version of meat loaf for us back at the Lakeside Apartments. And I thought that was quite tasty. But this has me curious. Anyone else have any great family stories to share about their experiences with meatloaf? Lena, does this recipe count as kid friendly?

Mini Meat Loaves

Ingredients

1/2 cup ketchup
1 1/2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 pound ground sirloin
3/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Cooking spray

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400°.

Combine ketchup and mustard, stirring well with a whisk. Reserve 2 1/2 tablespoons ketchup mixture. Combine remaining ketchup mixture, beef, and next 6 ingredients (beef through egg) in a large bowl, stirring to combine.

Divide beef mixture into 4 equal portions. Shape each portion into a 4 x 2 1/2-inch loaf; place loaves on a jelly roll pan coated with cooking spray.

Spread about 2 teaspoons reserved ketchup mixture evenly over each loaf. Bake at 400° for 25 minutes or until done.

Yield

4 servings (serving size: 1 loaf)

Nutritional Information

CALORIES 255(28% from fat); FAT 7.9g (sat 2.8g,mono 3.2g,poly 0.4g); PROTEIN 27.4g; CHOLESTEROL 120mg; CALCIUM 31mg; SODIUM 944mg; FIBER 0.9g; IRON 2.7mg; CARBOHYDRATE 15.7g

Cooking Light, JANUARY 2003

Happy Comfort Food - Curry Squash Soup...the TJ way!

Here's the recipe for my curry squash soup. I have to say I've been making it so long, I just eyeball amounts, so I'm guessing when I write down the amount of squash and whatnot. Thankfully, its really hard to mess up. When in doubt, just make sure you have twice as much squash as apples, and enough broth or water to cover everything while it cooks and you should be fine.

This is the way I make this soup using Trader Joe's Red Curry Sauce. It completely doable using curry paste, just more involved, and I can't remember all the correct amounts right now, so for safety's safe (that's saftey of your tongue) use the sauce. If you're still feeling ambitious, I seem to remember cooking the onions with garlic, ginger, and curry paste, and then adding coconut milk when I added to broth to the soup......good luck. :)

Katy's Curry Squash Soup - the TJ way

1 medium onion, chopped
4 cups butternut squash, chopped (TJ has bags pre-chopped in the produce section...two should do it)
2 cups apple, chopped (Any apple but red delicious or granny smith)
2 cups potato, chopped
4 cups broth or water (I like a half and half mixture myself)
1/2 bottle of TJ's (Trader Joes) Red Curry Sauce
salt and pepper

In a 5 quart pot, saute onions over oil. When onions start to get translucent and soft, add the curry sauce. Cook for 1-2 minutes, so the sauce gets hot and releases its oils. Add squash, apples, enough broth to cover everything, and salt and pepper. Cover and simmer until squash and apples are soft. Blend or mash this together into a creamy consistency. (If you don't have an emulsion blender, blend soup in portions in your countertop blender) Add potatoes. Cover and simmer until potatoes are soft. Serve hot with bread.

The ties that bind

Ok, I admit. I'm a lazy cook. The quicker the better, but not necessarily fast food (though In And Out is right up there when Matt and I are so inclined). As much as I love to cook, I want to be in and out in about 45 minutes. For this reason, I never make my own spaghetti sauce until now. I was tired of all the choices on the shelf and wanted to make my own. Except I didn't know where to look!

When I got engaged, I was thrilled with one of my presents that I still carry with me. A recipe notebook filled with recipes from my 2 cousins, Aunt Sharon, and Grandma Betty. Full of things I never thought of, or dishes that I wondered as a kid "how did they do that?" I love making these dishes, it's a connection that I feel when cooking Grandma's Soup, putting together Sharon's Lasagnae, or the aching temptation over Lisa's Cinnamon Rolls.

Last night, I decided in honor of our blog, to create one of Staci's tempting dishes. It's her famous spaghetti sauce, which I absolutely adore. When mom died last year, she came over with about 10 tupperware dishes full of this wonderful red sauce. The double batch easily makes more than enough to put away and freeze for later, for those nights you're too tired to cook but are trying to save money and don't want to order in.

Here's to you, Staci, and all the other fabulous women in my family that have and continue to teach me how to love and live, especially in the kitchen!

Cousin Staci's Spaghetti Sauce

Seasoning Mix:

1 T instant minced onion (I chopped my own)
1 T parsley flakes
1 T cornstarch
2 t green pepper flakes
1 1/2 t salt
1/4 t instant minced garlic (I crushed one garlic clove)
1 t sugar
3/4 italian seasoning

Sauce:

1 lb lean ground beef or italian sausage
2 (8 oz) cans tomato sauce (I used diced tomatoes)
1 (6 0z) can tomato paste
2 cups water or tomato juice
Seasoning Mix
1 jar spaghetti sauce (for double recipe)

Directions:
Brown meat, drain grease, add tomato sauce, paste, juice/water, and sauce (if making double receipe). Stir in seasoning. Simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Staci's note: I make double recipe and freeze the remaining in "gladware" for easy dinners!