Pasta with Roasted Garlic and Eggplant

This week, Whitney and I picked out eggplant and cherry tomatoes for our CSA box, which led us to choose this recipe from our Williams-Sonoma pasta cookbook. The yellow cherry tomatoes were very tasty, and on the whole, this was a delicious, nutritious veggie pasta dish.

2 small eggplants (1.5 lb), cut crosswise into 1/2 in. slices
Olive oil
1 head garlic
1 lb cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup fresh basil
1 lb medium-sized pasta (we used rotini)
3 oz fresh mozzarella, cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush both sides of eggplant slices with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Cut garlic head in half crosswise and drizzle both halves with olive oil. Place garlic and eggplant slices on baking sheet, making sure eggplant slices are not touching. Roast until eggplant is browned, 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. Continue to roast garlic until soft and fragrant, about 20 minutes longer. Cut eggplant slices into small pieces.

"No, this isn't right."

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Squeeze garlic pulp from cloves. In a large serving bowl, combine garlic with 4 tbsp oil, mashing and blending well. Stir in tomatoes, basil, 1/2 tsp salt, and pepper to taste. Meanwhile, add 2 tbsp salt and pasta to the water. Cook until al dente and drain, reserving 1/2 cup pasta water. Add pasta to sauce along with eggplant and mozzarella. Toss to combine, and add pasta water as needed to loosen sauce.

We love colorful dishes!

Coffee Cake Muffins by Martha Stewart

Muffins are great for a fast breakfast right? Just grab and go. I enlisted Patrick the Baker to help me make these Martha Stewart coffee cake muffins one evening. I wasn't quite ready to get up at 7am and have freshly baked muffins plus this offered us a great alternative to watching another Law & Order: SVU that night. These muffins are very very tasty. Unfortunately I think Martha called up Paula Deen to help with this one--it has two sticks of butter in it! We'll be making healthy muffins next time. However eat them with a banana and you'll feel better.

Coffee Cake Muffins (makes 12 muffins)

Streusel Topping
1 cup packed dark-brown sugar (we had light in the pantry)
1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Muffins
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sour cream
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs

1. Prepare streusel topping: In a medium bowl, stir together brown sugar, flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon. With a pastry blender or two knives, cut in butter until mixture resembles large coarse crumbs; refrigerate until ready to use.
2. Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare muffins: Butter and flour a 12-cup muffin tin. In a small bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside.
3. Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter, sour cream, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until well combined. With mixer on low, beat flour mixture into butter mixture.
4. Divide half the batter among prepared muffin cups. Top with half the streusel mixture, then remaining batter, and top with streusel. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in pan 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Preparing muffins--half way through placing the first streusel mixture on half the batter.

Muffins just out of the oven. They rise a lot!

Stocking up the freezer

A couple of weeks ago I had lots of vegetables--corn, zucchini, and squash--but no time to cook all of it! So I decided to try my first freezing experiment. Usually when people "put up" their vegetables they do a lot at one time. I didn't have bushels of anything but enough that I didn't want to waste. I ended up with two quarts of each vegetable. Seems like enough of each one to see if this simple freezing works and they taste well at the other end; I'm sure there will be an update at some point! There were several methods I found on the internet but what I did is what I found most across different sites.

To start, bring water to a rapid bowl. Add vegetables and return to a boil. Boil for approximately 3 minutes. After 3 minutes plunge immediately into ice cold water.

Let the vegetables cool and then drain very well. Divide the vegetables into quart-size bags. Remove air and seal. Then freeze.

We used an old school method for removing air from the bag. It's called "Patrick and the straw."

Fresh Thyme

 Patrick and I were browsing the blog posts the other night for ideas on supper this week. Farfalle with Sauteed Mushrooms and Thyme caught our eye. We quickly put mushrooms on the grocery list so we could make our first recipe with our very own homegrown thyme! The thyme has taken a long time to mature but it's finally ready and we couldn't be more thrilled. Here it is:

And the pasta dish turned out great. This was the third time we've made it and each time it gets a little better, like most of the recipes we try.

Buying Couscous in Bulk

Whenever I'm grocery shopping and picking out something basic (cereal, spaghetti sauce, dressings, anything really) I'll often compare the label. I usually focus on the sodium aspect. But of course I take into account everything else--calories, fat, sugars, and fiber. On this particular trip couscous was on my list. Patrick particularly loves the Chicken flavored couscous; I usually opt for the Roasted Garlic and Olive Oil couscous. Prior to this trip I had let couscous fool me! Well no more! Couscous may be healthy but any of the flavored boxes are not. Each one of those flavor packets is basically sodium. Discouraged from my findings I started grabbing 3 boxes of the plain Whole Wheat Couscous. But then it hit me--buy it in bulk! Now I can flavor my own couscous without all the sodium.

Be on the lookout for posts featuring delicious couscous! Do you have any couscous recipes you like? If so pass them along!

Frittata

Forget omelets. Try this wonderful frittata next time you're cooking up a breakfast. And of course serve it with some fresh fruit! The photos you see here are actually a take-two of the recipe. We tried it earlier with prosciutto and arugula and weren't very satisfied with it. We'd still make one more addition (cream!) the next time but overall this was yummy. We swapped in sweet Italian sausage and caramelized onions so that's probably what did it. As with omelets the additions to the frittata can be whatever your heart desires!

We originally saw the recipe for Egg White Frittata with Lox and Arugula from Giada. We decided to explore a little bit and merged her recipe with this Frittata recipe from Alton Brown. And this is what we came up with!

Our Very Own Frittata
Complete with Sweet Italian Sausage and Caramelized Onions

6 eggs (3 egg whites, 3 whole eggs)
3-4 links sweet Italian sausage, casings removed
1 onion, thinly sliced
olive oil
salt and pepper
other desired seasonings for the eggs

The first step is cooking whatever you're putting in the frittata. Here's what we did: in a medium frying pan begin caramelizing onions. (If you're unfamiliar with the method, just google some tips but basically it's a slow sauteing method.) Once the onions have caramelized add the sausage and brown.

Meanwhile beat the eggs. Add in the salt and pepper and whatever seasonings you want. We used a little dried oregano. Add in a little cream if you have it.

Add the egg mixture to the same frying pan with the sausage and onions. Stir to combine the ingredients. Cook for 4 minutes without stirring. Once the eggs look like they are set in the middle take a spatula and push back the outer edges of the egg so the uncooked egg will fill the space and cook.

Both Giada and Alton Brown call for further cooking the oven. But we just recommend flipping the frittata and letting it cook for a few minutes that way. In our first frittata try we cooked it as directed and thought this dried it out a little. We were much happier with the flipped results. To flip the frittata, place an inverted plate directly over the pan. Hold the bottom of the plate and the handle of the pan then flip together and then slide the flipped frittata back into the pan. (Trust me, it's easier than it sounds.)

Serve with a little freshly grated parmesan.

First Dinner in the New Kitchen

Out with the old and in with the new! Here's the first dish from my new kitchen.

Nothing fancy as I was tired from a weekend of moving. The chicken breast was marinated in a Honey Mesquite sauce and grilled. The green beans were sauteed with a little chicken bouillon flavoring. The squash and onions were also sauteed and the secret ingredient here is soy sauce. And Mom sent some of her homemade sourdough rolls!!