Ricotta & Spinach Stuffed Shells

for one...

A couple of weekends ago, I had the luxury of spending quite a bit of time playing in the kitchen and took full advantage of it by making several dishes. This was my first time making stuffed shells and for the life of me, I can't figure out why I've never made these before given just how easy they were. What I really like about this dish is the that you can make up a whole batch and eat them right away, or you can do like I did: freeze them individually so you can pull out as many or as few as you want on a day that you just don't feel like cooking.

Ricotta & Spinach Stuffed Shells

for a crowd...

Ingredients:

1 Tbs. olive oil

1 shallot, minced

6 ounces spinach (I used fresh, but you could always use frozen/defrosted)

1 tsp. lemon pepper

1/2 tsp. garlic powder (go ahead... you know you want to use fresh)

1 tsp. dried basil

pinch of nutmeg

salt & pepper to taste

15 ounces ricotta cheese (I used part-skim instead of whole milk ricotta)

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

18-24 jumbo shells, cooked shy of al dente and tossed in olive oil to prevent sticking  (different brands of pasta make different size "jumbo" shells)

Directions:

In a saute pan over medium-low heat, cook the shallot in olive oil until slightly softened, about 2-3 minutes. Stir in the spinach and all spices, continuing to cook until the spinach has wilted and most of the moisture has cooked out, about 6-8 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, combine the cheeses and the cooled spinach mixture. Fill each of the shells with the cheese mixture. Once all of the shells are stuffed, you've got a couple of options...

Option #1: Cover the bottom of a glass baking dish with your favorite marinara and nestle the stuffed shells down into the sauce. Drizzle on some olive oil , cover tightly with foil, and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes before removing the foil and baking for another 10 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and bubbly.

Or, Option #2 (what I did): Spread out the stuffed shells on a lightly oiled baking sheet and place them into the freezer until they are frozen solid, about 2 hours. Once they're frozen, you can transfer them to a freezer bag and not worry about them sticking together. When you're ready to eat them, you can pull out as many as you want (bake up a big pan to feed a crowd, or pull out a few and bake in an individual casserole dish for one) and follow the directions in Option #1, although you'll need to add to the cooking time if they're frozen.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

I really like the classic Italian biscotti cookie, but I don't make them very often. Why, you ask? Essentially, I'm just too lazy. It's not that they're difficult to make, it's more so because they're time consuming what with the whole twice baking thing and my attention span (when it comes to baking) usually doesn't allow for something that takes longer than, say, 20 minutes. So saying, I found this recipe on one of my favorite food blogs (Closet Cooking) and really liked the fact that it's sort of a scaled down version; it only makes one log which translates into about 12 cookies. Yes, you still need to bake them twice- otherwise, they wouldn't be called biscotti- but hey, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make every once in awhile. And of course, I had to tweak them ever so slightly... I swapped out the pistachios for almonds, and used plain ol' vegetable oil instead of olive oil. Now, if only I'd had some dried cherries on hand... oh, well. Next time, eh?  ;)

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

Ingredients:
1 cup AP flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
6 Tbs. sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
splash of vanilla extract
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients. (In this case, the sugar counts as a "dry" ingredient.) Stir in the remaining ingredients until just combined. Pour the dough onto a baking sheet and, using slightly damp hands (it helps to combat the stickiness of the dough, trust me), form it into a log about 8 inches long and about 2 inches wide. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes then allow the log to cool on a wire rack for 35-40 minutes.

Drop the oven temperature to 325 degrees.

Once fully cooled, use a serrated knife to slice the log into 1/2 inch cookies. Place the cookies cut-side down on the baking sheet and bake at 325 degrees for 10 minutes, flip them over, and bake on the other side for another 10 minutes. Allow the biscotti (twice-baked cookies) to cool on a wire rack then pour yourself a strong cup of coffee and dig in.

Enjoy!

*Cook's note: These aren't overly sweet cookies so you may want to use milk chocolate or even semi-sweet chocolate instead of the dark that I used. *I* happen to like the fact that these turned out deeply chocolatey without being terribly sweet, but I can see where the addition of dried fruit (like cherries, prunes, or even apricots) would make for an interesting contrast in flavor.

(Addendum: So it's now been several days since I made these cookies, and I have to say that I'm not as impressed with them as I was when they were just an hour out of the oven. The texture is just not quite right; they're not nearly as crisp as they should be even though I've stored them in the same air-tight container I've put previous batches. So, while I do like the flavor, I don't think I'll be using this particular recipe again... instead, I'll probably just use this flavor profile and apply it to one of the other biscotti recipes I've used in the past that I know hold up well.)

Pasta e Fagioli (-ish)

This no-recipe recipe is sort of a pasta e fagioli meets cassoulet meets pasta bake. Basically, I used the flavor profile of the Italian sausage cassoulet I made awhile back but combined it with pasta and turned it into a baked casserole.

Pasta e Fagioli (-ish)

Ingredients:
olive oil
onion, diced
garlic powder (or fresh if you prefer)
dried rosemary, crushed
herbes de Provence
salt & pepper to taste
fire-roasted tomatoes, diced (I had the remains of an open can in the fridge)
hot Italian sausage, pre-cooked and diced (again, leftover in the fridge)
cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
pasta of choice, cooked shy of al dente (I used whole wheat shells)
Parmesan cheese, grated (fresh is best but the stuff in the green can will do)
panko bread crumbs

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a saute pan over medium heat, cook the onion in olive oil until slightly softened, about 3-5 minutes. Stir in all of the spices and tomatoes and continue to cook for another 2-3 minutes before adding the Italian sausage, beans, and pasta. Give a big stir to combine everything before dumping it all into an appropriate sized casserole dish. Top the pasta with the Parmesan and bread crumbs, drizzle on some more olive oil, and bake at 350 degrees until the top is golden brown and nice and crusty.

Enjoy!

(My) Classic Chicken Noodle Soup

Another comfort food classic, you really can't go wrong with good ol' chicken noodle soup...

(My) Classic Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients:
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 ribs of celery, diced
1 bay leaf
1 Tbs. dried parsley
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. dried dill
1 tsp. garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste
6 cups of chicken stock (and yes, I actually used homemade stock)
2 cups of previously cooked chicken, shredded or diced
1 cup of corn (you guessed it- pulled straight from the freezer!)
8 ounces of egg noodles (I like to use the extra broad kind)

Directions:
In a large soup pot over medium heat, saute the vegs and all spices in olive oil until the vegs start to soften, about 8-10 minutes. Stir in the chicken (this is how I cooked mine, and I used mostly dark meat in the soup while saving the white meat for another dish) and corn, then pour in the chicken stock. Bring the soup to a boil over high heat and dump in the noodles before lowering the heat once more to medium and simmering the soup until the noodles are tender, about 6-8 minutes.

Enjoy!

Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers

I think I've mentioned before that I grew up in a household where my mother was home every night and had dinner on the table for the family promptly when dad got home from work. Usually that dinner consisted of good ol' budget-friendly American classics and- at the time, unfortunately for me- that included stuffed peppers.

I hated those nights!

Why, you ask? Well, when my mother made stuffed peppers, it was always the same recipe: green peppers stuffed with a mixture of ground beef and white rice, baked in/topped with tomato sauce. First of all, I despise green peppers. It's only been in recent years that I've been able to use them in my own recipes, mainly as a base flavor component rather than as a main ingredient. Pretty much, when I cook with bell peppers I prefer to use the sweeter and more mellow red, yellow, and orange ones as opposed to the sharper green ones. Also, I'm not a big fan of white rice, generally preferring to use brown rice. The ground beef I could've lived with... if it hadn't been so damn greasy. *shudder* And what could I possibly find objectionable about tomato sauce? Eh. It was always straight up tomato sauce, no spices or herbs added. Actually, come to think of it, I'm fairly certain salt and pepper were the ONLY seasoning added to the entire dish. Really, can you blame me for not being a fan?

So don't think I don't see the irony in the fact that stuffed peppers make a fairly regular appearance on my dinner table some 25 years later (albeit not quite as often as back in the day)... but rest assured that I enjoy the hell out of the seemingly endless variations that do appear these days!

Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:
1 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 small onion, diced
1 small carrot, diced
1/2 zucchini, diced
1/2 yellow squash, diced
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. dried basil
salt & pepper to taste
1 cup vegetable stock
1/4 cup orzo
1 Tbs. parmesan cheese, grated
1 Tbs. goat cheese
2 bell peppers, halved (I used yellow and orange)
1 cup of marinara (plus a couple of halved cherry tomatoes)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a saute pan over medium heat, cook the vegs and spices in olive oil until slightly softened, about 5-7 minutes. Add the stock and raise the heat to bring the mixture to a boil before adding the orzo and reducing the heat once more to medium. Cook the orzo and vegs until the orzo is tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 7-8 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the parmesan and goat cheese.

Meanwhile, pour the marinara on the bottom of an 8"x8"glass baking dish and nestle the pepper halves down into it. Fill the peppers with the orzo and veg mixture, drizzle on some olive oil, then cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil and bake at 375 degrees until the peppers are tender, about 35-45 minutes. Remove the foil and cook for another 10 minutes or until the orzo is lightly browned.

Enjoy!

(Sunday being my only day off this week, I did a bunch of prep work in the kitchen so I could get ahead of my weekday meals. In this case, as I put together the Italian Tortellini Soup I set aside some of the diced vegs used in THAT dish to go into THIS one. Work smarter, not harder... right?)

Italian Tortellini Soup

It's Sunday night and time once more to clean out my crisper drawer; what better way to do that than in a soup, right? Quick and easy to put together, you can really throw any sort of fresh (or frozen, for that matter) vegetable you've got on hand into the pot and let er rip.

Italian Tortellini Soup

Ingredients:
1 Tbs. olive oil
2 links of hot Italian sausage, sliced
1 small onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
1/2 zucchini, diced
1/2 yellow squash, diced
1 pint of cherry tomatoes, diced (you can always use canned tomatoes, but I was cleaning out the crisper drawer, remember?)
1 Tbs. dried parsley
1 Tbs. dried basil
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. dried Italian seasoning
salt & pepper to taste
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock (I actually had open cartons of each in the fridge and used the last of both)
1 (8-ounce) bag of dried tortellini (I had the plain cheese kind in my cabinet)
6 ounces of baby spinach (fresh or frozen- I used fresh that was a little too wilted for a salad)

Directions:
In a large soup pot over medium heat, cook the Italian sausage, vegs, and spices in olive oil until the sausage is mostly cooked through and the vegs are slightly softened, about 6-8 minutes. Add in your stock of choice and bring the soup to a boil before dropping in the pasta, cooking until the tortellini are al dente, about 8-9 minutes. Stir in the spinach just before serving.

Enjoy!

Ethiopian Inspired Lentil & Sweet Potato Stew

Okay, so I admit that I'm not all that familiar with Ethiopian cuisine, but after coming across this recipe on Food.com I'll be doing some research because I fell in love with this stew from the first bite! Incredibly easy to make, I only made a few adjustments to the original recipe and was able to make this dish with ingredients I already had in my pantry.

Ethiopian Inspired Lentil & Sweet Potato Stew

Ingredients:
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 Tbs. garlic powder (yes, the original recipe calls for fresh garlic but I don't keep that in my house)
1 Tbs. fresh ginger, minced (I just grated mine)
2 sweet potatoes, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 Tbs. paprika (sweet or hot, whichever you prefer)
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. dried parsley
1/2 tsp. ground ginger (yes, you really want to add both fresh AND ground)
pinch of nutmeg
1 (6-ounce) can of tomato paste
1/4 cup of lentils
2 cups veggie stock (water is fine)
salt & pepper to taste

Directions:
In a large soup pot over medium heat, saute the onions and sweet potatoes with garlic powder and fresh ginger until the onions are slightly softened, about 4-6 minutes. Add in the red bell pepper and all spices (EXCEPT salt), stirring to coat the vegs in the spices, and cook for another minute or so until the spices get really fragrant. Stir in the lentils, tomato paste, and veg stock, raising the heat to high to bring the stew to a boil before dropping the heat to low. Simmer the stew over low heat until the lentils are tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 25-35 minutes. (Note: You may need to add more liquid if the stew looks like it's getting dry. I actually added about a cup of water to keep things nice and moist.) Once the lentils are soft, go ahead and add salt to taste.

Enjoy!