Saturday, February 21, 2009

Leftover Soup

Next up in Easy Recipes I Like:

Pappa al Pomodoro

At its simplest, this is an easy, cheap, delicious soup and a good way to use that stale bread that you'd otherwise throw out. If you wanna get fancy, it's a catchall for all your leftover bits and pieces. The basic recipe comes from my semester abroad in Italy; the variations are whatever I ate the night before.

-Stale Italian bread, sliced thin
-olive oil
-butter
-onion
-garlic
-chopped herbs (marjoram, oregano, parsley, basil, whatever)
-chicken broth
-canned tomatoes
-salt & pepper to taste
-pinch o' cayenne (optional. but then isn't everything?)
-grated parmeggiano or romano cheese.

1) Chop the onion fine and saute it in oil and butter til it's translucent. Add the garlic and saute til it smells good.

2) Rip the bread into small pieces and add it to the pot. Swirl it around until it's soaked up lots of oil and garlic.

3) If you've got crushed or diced tomatoes, pour them straight into the pot. If they're whole, chop them up first. Add a cup or two of chicken broth, the herbs, and cayenne.

4) Let it cook, stirring occasionally, until everything's nice and mushy. Add the cheese and S&P to taste. To smooth it out, put in in the blender or a food processor, put it through a potato ricer, use an immersion blender, or try a potato masher. Or just eat it lumpy; that's good too.

Variations:
After blending, add:
-cooked pasta (for extra carbs)
-cooked rice (ditto)
-cooked ground beef/lamb/turkey/pork/whatever
-cooked sausage or little meatballs
-leftover meat, chopped up
-the juices from said leftover meat
-spinach
-white beans
-other veggies
-and/or whatever else you need to get out of the fridge

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

What I ate yesterday

I'm unemployed. It's cold out. I'm bored. Hence, I cook. In an effort to keep track of some of the more delicious things I've made (let's be honest, who reads this thing but me?) here's the first in a series of tasty things I've made.


Iranian Pasta

Probably not Iranian at all, but vaguely Middle-Eastern, and "Iranian Pasta" sounds good. You don't like it, get your own blog.

2 cloves garlic
1 small onion
1/3 pound lamb
garam masala*
half a zucchini
half an eggplant
half a cucumber
plain yogurt
feta cheese
1/2 box of spaghetti or any other pasta
cayenne pepper to taste

1) Chop the onion and garlic very fine and saute for a minute in olive oil. Add the lamb, a generous amount of garam masala, and some salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the lamb is no longer pink. urn off the heat and let sit until you've finished everything else.

2) While the lamb is cooking, put the pasta on to boil.

3) Also while the lamb is cooking, slice the eggplant thin, salt it, and set it aside. Slice the zucchini thin, salt it, and grill it. I used a George Foreman oiled with olive oil; a real grill or probably even a hot skillet or toaster oven would work. When the zucchini's done, grill the eggplant the same way. Chop it all up into chunks.

4) Peel the cucumber and chop it into small pieces.

5) When the pasta's tender, drain it and put it in the serving bowl. Add a few dollops of plain yogurt, a handful of feta, the veggies, and the lamb. Mix it all up until the pasta's coated with the sauce. If you want more sauce, add more yogurt. Add cayenne and salt to taste.


*Garam masala is (roughly):
1 tbsp cardamom seeds
1 2-inch stick cinnamon
1 tsp cumin seeds
3/4 tsp black peppercorns
1/4 of a nutmeg
1 tsp cloves

Grind it all together in a (clean!!) coffee grinder until smooth. Or just buy a packet at the store.

And they say we don't have an "American Cuisine"

Not sure if this site makes me hungry or nauseous.
http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

Saturday, February 7, 2009

another site

This guy's a hoot:
www.thegutsygourmet.net