Pretty Poblanos

A couple years ago I had made a chicken enchilada recipe from an issue of Cooking Light.  This recipe called for a green chili sauce, made with anaheims.  But really, any mildy hot green chili will work just fine.  So this time, I’m used all of my little poblanos to make this delicious sauce and used it for beef enchiladas.  I made a double recipe of the sauce because it should freeze nicely so I can use it again for some other delectable Mexican cooking experiment.

You start by roasting the poblanos.  I use the broiler, but however you like to do it is just fine.  Roast them, then stick them in a bowl covered in foil or plastic and let them sit in their own steam for a while so the skins loosen.  Remove the skins, tops and the bulk of the seeds.

Roasted Poblanos

The sauce is made of the usual suspect.  Peppers, onions, garlic, some spices and chicken stock.

Roasted Chile Sauce

While the sauce is coming together, or if you’re not into multitasking, after the sauce is done, cook up the beef mixture.

Beef Mixture

Because I was up to my elbows in beef and sauce, I didn’t get any photos of the assembly process.  You know how it goes though.  Coat the tortilla with sauce (the poblano chile sauce in this case), spoon in about 3 tbsp of the beef mixture, then roll and place seem side down in the dish.  End it with the cheese.  Every enchilada needs a gooey cheese coating.

Assembled Enchiladas

These were pretty good overall.  Need some added spiciness and I would switch out the cheddar for monteray jack.  In all honesty, I wanted to use jack cheese, but I forgot to buy it at the store, and I had a block of cheddar on hand.  What can I say, laziness is the mother of invention…or something like that.

I’m debating weather or not to add a photo of a serving of these.  What the heck.  It looks like its pre-digested, as do all of my enchiladas.  But that’s normal right?  My helpful hubby suggested that it would look classier if I put a piece of parsley on top.  He’s so smart, too bad we have no parsley on hand.  BLAST!

Forgive them, they know not how they look

Recipe for the sauce and the enchiladas after the break.

Roasted Poblano Chile Sauce (adapted from Cooking Light)

6  Poblano chiles

1  tbsp  canola oil

2  cups  chopped onion

2  garlic cloves, minced

1  tbsp  all-purpose flour

1  tsp ground coriander

1/2  tsp  salt

12 oz fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth

1 tbsp honey

Preheat Broiler.  Place chiles on a foil-lined baking sheet; broil 7 minutes on each side, until they are slightly charred and blistery looking. Place in a large bowl and seal tightly with plastic wrap or foil. Let stand 5-10 minutes. Peel and discard skins. Remove and discard seeds and tops, they should pull right out.  Chop chiles to measure 3/4 cup.

Heat canola oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Sauté onion in oil for 5 minutes or until tender. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Stir in flour; cook 1 minute. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer 15 minutes allowing the mixture to reduce, stirring occasionally. Using an immersion blender, blend the mixture until smooth (Alternatively, transfer chile mixture to a blender in batches and blend until smooth.  Be sure to place a kitchen towel over the blender to prevent splattering).  Once blended add the honey and stir to incorporate.  Taste at this point and add additional honey or salt if either is lacking.

Enchilada Ingredients

1 recipe Roasted Poblano Chile Sauce (above)

1.5 pounds ground beef

1 small can diced green chilies, the hot variety if you want more heat (I recommend it)

1 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

3 tsp Adobo spice blend (if you don’t have this, use a mix of coriander and cumin)

2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (omit if you don’t want the added spice)

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 cup diced tomatoes (canned or fresh), drained of juice

1/4 cup tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 ½ cup shredded cheese, Monteray Jack recommended (sharp cheddar, or colby jack are fine too)

corn tortillas (I used 11 6-in tortillas)

In a large skillet, sauté beef and diced onion, once cooked, drain excess fat from the beef.  Add the garlic, green chilies spices, salt and pepper.  Stir and cook until fully incorporated.  Add diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and tomato paste.  Cook for 10 minutes on medium-low heat until the liquids have reduced.

To assemble:

Coat each tortilla in the roasted poblano chili sauce.  Add ~3 tbsp of the beef mixture.  Roll up and place seam side down in a 9×13 baking dish.  Continue until the beef is used up.  Pour the remaining poblano sauce down over the enchiladas in the baking dish.  Distribute the shredded cheese evenly over the top of the enchiladas.

Bake at 350F for 25 minutes.  Cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Exhibit B

Exhibits C and D

And Finally…

Life is good.

My First Harvest!

And the winner is…….Broccoli!!

I'm Gonna Eat YOU!!!

After all of our heartache and toil dealing with the bunnies and their lust for our broccoli, it turns out that our broccoli will be the first thing to make it from our garden to our dinner plates.

I’ve had trouble with my broccoli quickly turning from this:

pretty, edible broccoli

To this, in a matter of a day:

Flowering, inedible broccoli

One cannot properly enjoy broccoli once it has gone to flower…duh.  So I got out early this morning, chopped the head off and let it hang out in my fridge until dinner time.

the violence

What shall I do with my bounty?  I certainly know that my favorite way to prepare broccoli is to roast it with a bit of olive oil until it gets a little brown and crusty.  Fabulous.  It seem a bit fancy to eat alongside our sloppy joes, but I don’t care.  It came from our garden and it deserves to be made fancy!

Get in my BELLY!

What a rewarding experience, and there’s just so many more goodies to come!  Its only a matter of days until we’ll have zucchini coming out of our ears.  Rolls up your car windows, the zucchini are coming…

This meal has been on the docket for quite a while, but I got kind of out of the cooking mood earlier this week.  I’m kind of glad it waited until tonight because it turned out to be the perfect night for a warm, comforting meal.  I’m not sure if you heard, but Kansas got about 37 inches of rain tonight.  OK, I exaggerate, but we got almost 5, and that’s a LOT.  This kind of downpour requires creamy, starchy, comforty food.

It also gave me the perfect opportunity to test out the new rice cooking method I’ve been excited about trying.  I’ve admitted before that I absolutely stink at making rice.  STINK.  I just can’t get it right.  So when I read this post about preparing rice in the oven, I thought, Perfect!  A fool-proof method!  Well, just leave it to this fool to screw it up.  To much liquid I’m presuming.  But luckily, the casserole preparation saved my somewhat wet rice.  And no-one will ever know…

I would classify this dish as relatively simple, but it does have a lot of ingredients so it takes a bit of preparation.  Once you get the rice in the oven, shred some cheese, steam some broccoli, saute a cut-up chicken breast with an onion, smoosh some crackers and…you got all that??  I know, it sounds ridiculous, but its not too terrible, I promise.

OK, so like I said, shred some cheese and smoosh some crackers (or make your husband do it with his giant paws).

And get the broccoli going.  I chop it up into large chunks, then once its steamed, chop it into little chunks.  And just because I’m always saying we don’t eat enough green stuff…look at this green stuff!

And cut the chicken into bite sized chunks.  I just used one chicken breast because its apparently from the largest chicken in the world.  I mean seriously, this thing was at least a D-cup.

And last but not least, the sauce to hold it all together.  Sure I could have probably made a proper white sauce, but its Friday night and haven’t I done enough prep work for this casserole already?  Greg snapped a photo of me in all of my shameful glory.  Opening a can of condensed soup.  Well, you know what? It makes the casserole taste good, so who cares darn it!

So once everything is prepped, just dump it all together, stir it up, and top it with the crushed crackers (or breadcrumbs).  I just combined it all in the dutch oven I used to cook the rice.

Bake for 20 minutes, then serve it up!  A big steaming bowl of this casserole, a good TV show and a thunderstorm.  Could you ask for a better Friday night?  OK, could you ask for a better Friday night if you’re totally old and lame like me?

Prep Ranking: #2 – Weeknight Fare
Tastiness Grade: 8/10, a little bland, but totally yummy and comforting!

Recipe after the jump.  Enjoy on a rainy night with your favorite show!

Chicken, Broccoli and Rice Casserole (serves 4-6)

Oven Rice, adapted from The Wednesday Chef

1.5 cups Rice (I used some plain-old Uncle Ben’s medium grained white rice, but the original recipe calls for long-grained rice)
2 Tbsp Olive Oil or Butter (or a combination of both)
~2-2 1/4 cups Chicken Stock (or water)
1/2 tsp salt – if you use Chicken Stock, omit the salt

In a heavy, oven safe pot (with a tight fitting lid), heat the oil/butter over medium heat and then add the rice.  Stir the rice and cook over medium-high heat until slightly translucent and “nutty” smelling.  Add the water/chicken stock and heat until boiling.  Stir once, then put the lid on and transfer the pot to an oven, preheated to 350F.  Cook for 13 minutes.  Remove the pot from the oven, but do not remove the lid.  Let sit on the counter for 5 minutes.  Then, remove the lid and fluff with a fork.

While the rice is cooking…prepare the rest of the ingredients:

1 large or 2 medium Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts, cut into bite-sized chunks
1 medium Onion, diced
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 large crown Broccoli, cut into large chunks
1/2 cup shredded Cheese, I used a combo of Cheddar and Monteray Jack
1 can condensed Cream of Chicken Soup
about 1/3 of a sleeve (~8-10) buttery crackers, crushed in a zip-top bag

In a skillet, saute the chicken and onion in the olive oil.  Salt and pepper lightly.  Do NOT add too much salt, remember that the cheese, condensed soup and cracker crumbs all contain salt too!  It isn’t crucial to cook the chicken all the way through as it will bake in the oven later.

Separately, steam the broccoli.  Once its just fork tender, chop it into small chunks.

Once the rice is done and fluffed, add the sauteed chicken and onion, the steamed broccoli, the shredded cheese, and the condensed soup.  Stir together to thoroughly mix all the ingredients.  Smooth out the top, then sprinkle the crushed cracker crumbs over the top.

Bake for 20 minutes at 350F.

]]> http://doctordomestic.com/2009/05/15/chicken-broccoli-and-rice-casserolemmmm-comforty/feed/ 0 http://doctordomestic.com/2009/05/12/buffalo-turkey-burgers/ http://doctordomestic.com/2009/05/12/buffalo-turkey-burgers/#comments Wed, 13 May 2009 00:22:48 +0000 Becky http://doctordomestic.com/?p=585

To be completely honest, this is take #2 of Buffalo Turkey Burgers.  The first attempt was not very tasty and I didn’t really think it worthy of publishing. They weren’t a catastrophy, just nothing to write home about.  Turns out, the less work I actually do, the better!

My first attempt at these was ruined by my home-made “buffalo wing sauce”.  I’ve heard over and over – buffalo wing sauce is just hot sauce and butter.  Hot sauce and butter…simple, no?  Well, it didn’t work so well in practice.  I tried my favorite Cholula in equal parts with butter.  It didn’t taste…bad…but it just wasn’t right.  And somehow, even with all that spiciness, it imparted nearly no flavor to the burgers.  So although they didn’t taste bad, they just weren’t very good.

I promised myself I’d pick up some real buffalo wing-sauce next time we went to our favorite local (OK, nation-wide) hot-wing restaurant.  Can you guess where its from?  I’ll never tell.  And to my delight, it isn’t actually full of sugar or high-fructose-corn-syrup as I’d feared.  Just sodium, to be expected.

The burgers are very simple, I didn’t fancy them up with a lot of ingredients.  I used grated onion to get strong onion flavor without crispy chunks of onion in the burger.  The other main flavoring, as it traditionally accompanies buffalo wings, is blue cheese.  Gosh we love blue cheese around here!

Once the burgers are done, just top them with as much wing sauce as your mouth can handle.  This can of course be done with a grilled chicken breast to make an at-home version of these “spicy chicken sandwiches” like the ones my husband frequently pays about $7 for at restaurants.

And because I’ve been feeling SOOOO guilty about the lack of anything green on our plates, I made a side of roasted asparagus.  Is it bad that I’m already sick of steamed asparagus this year?  I love roasted asparagus.  Simply roast it at 450F for about 15 minutes with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Just turn them once about half-way through cooking.

And the verdict on Buffalo Turkey Burgers take #2?  Delicious.  Definitely a keeper!

Prep Ranking: #2 – Weeknight Fare
Tastiness Grade: 9/10

Buffalo Turkey Burgers (4 burgers)

1 lb ground turkey
1/4 cup blue cheese crumbles (I prefer Gorganzola, its easy to find)
1/2 onion, grated
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp salt
olive oil for cooking
Buffalo Chicken Wing Sauce, your favorite brand, as much as you’d like!

Combine the turkey, blue cheese crumbles, onion, salt and pepper in a mixing bowl.  Mix thouroughly and form into 4 patties.  Try to get the cheese to the interior of the burger as much as possible so it doesn’t melt out or burn.  Saute over medium heat in a drizzle of olive oil.  It will take 6-8 minutes per side.

Once burgers are cooked, place on a hearty bun and drizzle with as much buffalo wing sauce as you’d like.  Top with lettuce and/or an onion slice.

I came upon this recipe from “Pithy and Cleaver” in my handy Google Reader and decided immediately I had to try it.  I just looked so simple and good!  And who can’t use another recipe for chicken?

This weekend at the farmer’s market I happened to stop by a booth that was selling fresh, natural chicken.  Normally I wouldn’t buy chicken like this strictly because of the price.  We just don’t have the budget to splurge on local, organic meat.  Although I’ve read enough books to make me quite leery of mass produced meat, but if that’s what you can afford, that’s what you can afford.  So I splurged and got the chicken.  And for 4 nice chicken thighs it was a bit over $7.  If you put that in the context of how much we’d spend going out to eat, pretty much anywhere, even fast food, we’d spend more than that for a meal for 2.  So all in all, not a bad buy.

The recipe itself is quite light, so you shouldn’t feel bad about using chicken with the skin still on.  The sauce consists of citrus juice, zest, honey and some spices.

The recipe only calls for the zest of the orange, not the lime.  But I didn’t notice that until after I’d made the sauce.  Oh well, it certainly didn’t hurt anything!  Simply coat the chicken with the sauce in an oven-safe baking dish.  Bake 35-45 minutes at 425F, until the meat is done.  Unfortunately I think I overcooked mine.  Its way to easy to overcook chicken!

I really can’t cook meat without my probe thermometer anymore.  Be sure to take your chicken’s temperature before you dig in.  Cook to ~165-170F.  You may read that you should cook chicken to 180F.  That’s applicable if you’d also like to be able to use your chicken to floss your teeth with after dinner.

I just served it up with a side of mashed potatoes.  I asked Greg if he wanted some steamed broccoli on the side.  Why do I even ask that?  Do I enjoy seeing that look of disgust on my husband’s face?  I just get to feeling so guilty about the lack of green veggies on our plates.  I may just start photo-shopping in a serving of broccoli here and there to give the appearance that we’re not such terrible people.

Click the above link for the recipe.

Prep Ranking: #2 – Weeknight Fare
Tastiness Grade: 7.5/10 – great flavor, a bit over done and not a lot of meat on the chicken thighs!

Today started out innocently enough.  I had bought a few pounds of strawberries  with the idea of making strawberry jam.  I’ve tried my hand a few times at canning with mixed success.  So I decided to use the VERY FIRST recipe in my Ball “Complete Book of Home Preserving”.  Its the first recipe in the chapter called “getting started”.  As in, if you can’t get this down, please put down your canning pot and step away from the kitchen.  Well, I was feeling pretty good about myself.  I’m no beginner, I’ve done this whole canning thing at least 4 times.  And I have all of these strawberries…so I’ll double the recipe   No problem.  My husband goes through lots of strawberry jam, so I thought it was a fabulous idea.  Less work, more jam…right?

I was wrong.  Very, very wrong.  Tragically wrong.

First things first.  When canning, cleanliness is probably the most important thing.  I always wash my new (or previously used) canning jars, lids and rings in hot soapy water before use.  Get this done first thing and just set the jars aside to dry on a clean drying towel.  Don’t take the time to dry them because you’ll just be putting them in the canning pot to heat before use anyway.

Cleaning the Gear

Here’s the ultra simple (single) recipe from the Ball Home Preserving book:

7 cups granulated sugar
8 cups whole strawberries (5 cups crushed)
4 Tbsp lemon juice
1 package (1.75 oz) regular powdered fruit pectin

Next, I started preparing the strawberries. Wash under running water, remove leaves, stems and hulls, and them chop them and half and put them in a pie dish.  Crush with a potato masher, then transfer the mashed strawberries to a liquid measuring cup.  Measure out 5 cups into a LARGE stainless steel pan.  And on this point, I am more serious than I have ever been.  You want to only fill the pot about half way max, including the volume of the sugar which you have yet to add.  Don’t push it, or you’ll be sorry.

Once you have all of the strawberries in the pot, add the lemon juice (its OK to use bottled) and the package of powdered pectin.  Now a note on the pectin.  I’ve never used it before, so the experience was new to me.  I ended up having major issues with something burning to the bottom of the pan.  I’m thinking that the pectin was to blame for this.  It formed a solid black layer on the bottom of the pan that my poor husband later spent about 45 minutes cleaning with S.O.S. pads.  I don’t know if the use of liquid pectin would solve this issue.  I’d be happy to hear suggestions/tips on this issue.

Bring this mixture to a boil, then add the sugar.  You knew that jam was sugary right?  Like, mostly sugar.

Sugar Added

And here’s where it all went down hill.  The directions were deceptively simple.  “Stir in the sugar and bring the mixture to a boil.  Boil for 1 minute, then remove from the heat and skim the foam off the top.”  Straight forward, no problem.

Well, what the directions don’t mention is that once the sugar is integrated and the mixture starts to boil, the volume expands immensely and QUICKLY.  It all happened before I knew it. Here’s a play by play of the 30 seconds that ruined our morning.  My poor husband (who is plagued by the moment with terrible allergies) was relaxing on the couch watching TV.

Me: Greg? I think I need some…OH GOD!

Greg: What, what’s happening??

Me: OH MY GOD…OH MY GOD!!! GET IN HERE, NOW! (its rare that I need to use caps lock and bold all at once)

Greg scampers into the kitchen as I am lifting the pot with about 20 pounds of boiling over, molten jam from the stove to the sink.  The boiling jam of course runs all over my hands during the transfer and slops a good portion of it onto our floor, rug and cabinets.  I apologize profusely for not having more photos of this disaster, but as you can imagine, taking photos was not really on the forefront of my mind at this point.  Here’s the floor between the stove and sink.

At this point, I took about 4 seconds to evaluate the damage and come up with a new plan of action.  I shoved my poor husband (in shock at this point) aside and grabbed my next largest sauce pan (and another little sauce pan to use as a ladle) from the cabinet.  I transferred a sensible volume of the boiling jam from the boiled over pot to the new pot and put it back on the stove.  I may have destroyed our kitchen and a $200 pot, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste the jam too. And here is the aforementioned black crap stuck to the bottom of the pan.  Poor Greg was literally sweating by the time he finished cleaning this pot to a gleaming shine.

I proceeded to boil the jam and can it as if the rest of our kitchen wasn’t on fire.  Once the first small batch was done, I poured the second batch into the sauce pan, boiled that and canned it too.  So in the end, I got 8 pints of preserved strawberry jam

Strawberry Jam

The strawberry solids appear to have settled to the top, so when they are first opened to use, a good stir should fix that problem.  The jam did set though, whatever pectin didn’t burn to the bottom of our pan seems to have done its job.

Greg is pretty much done with my canning hobby at this point.  But I’m not.  Every time I can something, I learn something, so I can only assume it will get easier at some point!

Lessons learned today:

• Do not double canning recipes, especially jams, unless you have a sauce pan the size of a kiddie pool.
• Once sugar is added to something, boiling it causes the volume to increase by leaps and bounds.
• Powdered pectin very well may burn to the bottom of your pan. I need to read up on how to fix this issue.

And here is my disclaimer on canning: If you want to preserve food, please get yourself a good cookbook dedicated to canning, I really like the Ball book mentioned above, and follow the directions carefully.  Obviously preserving food can be frought with issues and you must pay attention to cleanliness, acidity of the food, altitude and many other issues.  Read up on it!

Herb and Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast

I came upon the recipe that inspired this in my latest “Cooking Light” magazine issue. Indeed it may not be quite the “lightest” dinner ever.  Chicken – good, herbs – good, goat cheese – eh…But you know what?  Goat cheese is certainly better than stuffing it with cheddar or fontina (which I have done and loved), so if you want a stuffed chicken breast, this probably is still on the “light” side.  And hey, speaking of “light side”, I did have a light side dish.  What’s healthier than steamed asparagus?

I started this dish by digging out my seldom used and under appreciated Cuisinart mini-prep.  It has become the ugly step-child of the kitchen ever since its big brother entered the picture.  Nonetheless, it works extremely well for small applications like this.  Here, I have combined a few fresh basil leaves, some thyme, black pepper, and about 2 oz plain goat cheese.

Blitz it up with a tiny bit of olive oil to make it slightly more pliable.

Herbed Goat Cheese

Then move on to prepping the chicken.  I used boneless skinless chicken breasts which I then butterflied and pounded out.

Pounded Chicken

A small cast-iron skillet is the perfect meat-pounder if you don’t own a “real” meat pounder.  Its flat, heavy, and has a large surface area.  Just don’t forget the plastic wrap!

Cast-Iron Meat Pounder

Once the chicken is evenly flattened, spread the goat cheese mixture on in an even, thin layer.  Cover only 1/2 or 1/3 of the chicken so that you can fold it over to cover the cheese.

Folded over Chicken

Try to make sure that not too much cheese is going to melt out, although so melting is inevitable.  Luckily, the cheese doesn’t burn if it melts out, just gets oozy.

And after all that fussiness, I needed a super simple side-dish!  Have I ever mentioned how much I love my Farberware Steamer Pot?  I do, I love it.

Steamed Asparagus

And that’s all folks.  It turned out to be too much food, the chicken was very filling!

Perfect Springtime Dinner

Prep Ranking: #2 – Weeknight Fare
Tastiness Grade: 6/10 – the flavor was delicious, however, the chicken was a bit tough by the time it was cooked.

Simple recipe after the break.

Herb Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts* (enough for 2-4, depending on appetite!)

2 large or 4 small boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 oz plain goat cheese
5-6 large basil leaves (or several smaller ones)
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1-2 tsp olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
salt
olive oil for sauteing (about 1 Tbsp)

In a small food processor, combine the basil, thyme*, goat cheese and 1-2 tsp olive oil.  Blend into a smooth paste-like mixture.  Set aside. (Alternatively, if you don’t have a food processor, chop the herbs finely, then just stir them into the cheese and olive oil until it is smooth.)

To prepare the chicken breasts, trim them to remove any excess fat.  Butterfly them – cut parallel to the cutting board, but do not cut into 2 pieces.  Once they are butterflied, cover with a sheet of plastic-wrap.  Pound until they are ~1/2 thick and evenly thick all the way through.

Spread the herb and goat cheese mixture over one half or one third of the chicken breast, in a way so you can fold over the other half to enclose the cheese.

Put the folded chicken breasts into a non-stick saute pan with olive oil pre-heated over medium heat.  Cook until browned on each side and cooked through.  You may want to use a lid to cover the pan to heat the chicken through before the outside burns.

*Whatever herbs you like can be added or substituted.  Fresh oregano, rosemary, parsely, or even cilantro would be great as well.

I read a comment on another blog’s comment thread that prompted me to think about blogging my mistakes as well as my successes.  This could mean a less-than-tasty pasta dish, an undercooked roasted chicken (which I am an expert at making, by the way) or any number of ways to mess up perfectly well-meaning baked goods.  But, I realized it can also mean those disasters which set of fire alarms, ruin cookware, and cause you to have to replace the vent filter over your cook-top.

To sum it up, over-boiling Balsamic vinegar will cause you to (a) set off fire alarms, (b) ruin cookware, and (c) cause you to have to replace the vent filter over your cook-top.  It will also leave a stench in your home, the likes of which you will not soon forget.

It was the 4th of July last year, and we had recently moved into our new (and first) home.  We were absolutely so excited to entertain since we finally had a nice home and furniture consisting of more than a futon and an old crate.  We invited my brother and sister-in-law over for some roasted vegetables and good steaks.  I had big plans to make a fancy topping for the steaks by reducing some Balsamic Vinegar.  So I poured a bunch of vinegar in a sauce pan…and then the door-bell rang.  I got lost in the fun of showing my family around our lovely home and completely forgot about the ticking time-bomb on the stove until the stinking smoke came billowing up the stairs.

Oh shit.

What I found on the stove defied logic.  The seemingly innocent vinegar had turned into a solid, porous structure, very closely resembling pumice rock, except much blacker, stinkier and more menacing.

Pumice...or is it???

After I got over the initial shock of it, I ran the pan outside and dumped the vinegar stone onto our back patio.  There it remained for weeks, slowly being whittled down by the Summer rains.

I will say that on the up side, this gave my husband ammunition for making fun of me for months.  Lets be honest, he will probably be bringing this one up at our 50th Anniversary.  My brother also viewed the episode as Christmas-in-July as far as getting to poke fun at my stupidity.

This episode qualifies as my most costly kitchen disaster, because not only did I waste food (which I hate) but as I mentioned before, we actually had to replace the entire filter that is installed in the microwave vent hood over the cook-top.  I was told this ran upwards of $30 and had to be special ordered.  The pan was salvaged, but I am weary of using it to this day, because sometimes when I wash it, I still get a brownish film off of it.  Burnt vinegar, the gift that keeps on giving.

I would love to hear that I’m not alone in my catastrophic idiocy in the kitchen.  Any funny stories?

Roasted Vegetable Pasta

As I mentioned in my previous post, my husband just got his wisdom teeth out.  He’s doing fine, sipping down Instant Breakfasts like a champ, however, he’s still off solid foods for at least one more day.  So he told me to go ahead and make a meal that I love that he doesn’t.  I immediately decided on my Roasted Broccoli and Cauliflower Pasta.  I made this one up about a year ago after the raging success of the Summer Squash Spaghetti.  However, the reviews of my new recipe brought me back down to earth and reminded me that I couldn’t just pass any old veggie/pasta dish by my husband and expect him to love it.  I did NOT have carte blanche with noodles and vegetables.

However, I thought the dish was delicious.  Before trying this, I had never experienced the wonders of roasting broccoli and cauliflower.  It is amazing the transformation these vegetables undergo when roasted.  They get slightly brown and caramelized, sweet, nutty, so delicious!

Want to see that transformation close up? Here you go.

Now I know what you’re thinking.  THEY’RE BURNED!!! You MESSED UP!!  But I promise you, dear readers, they are not burned.  They don’t taste burned, they taste delicious!  This is what you want – would I lie to you?  Never.

Lemon Herb Vinaigrette

I pair the roasted vegetables with a vinagrette made with lemon juice and zest, thyme, rosemary, and olive oil.  The lemony brightness goes beautifully with the nutty roasted vegetables.

Zesty!

This is one of the few dishes where I actually prefer whole wheat pasta.  I know I should eat it all the time.  High protein, high fiber, blah blah blah.  But I just don’t like the flavor or texture of it with traditional red or white sauces.  But with this dish, it works perfectly.

So if you’re up for another vegetarian pasta dish, give this one a whirl, especially if you have never tried roasted broccoli and cauliflower.

Dinner for One

Prep Ranking: #2 – Weeknight Fare
Tastiness Grade: 8.5/10

Get the recipe after the break:

Roasted Broccoli and Cauliflower Pasta with Lemon Herb Vinaigrette (3-4 servings)

1 small head broccoli, cut into medium-sized florets
1 small head cauliflower (or half a larger head), cut into medium sized florets
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp ground Black Pepper

3-4 Tbsp Olive Oil
Juice and zest from 1 lemon
2 tsp fresh Thyme leaves
2 tsp fresh Rosemary, chopped finely
1 clove Garlic, grated or finely minced
1/2 tsp Salt
several grinds Black Pepper

1/2 lb whole wheat Penne (or more for more servings), cooked to preferred doneness
grated Parmesan Cheese

Preheat oven to 400F.  Combine the first 5 ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir to coat the vegetables with the oil, salt and pepper.  Spread out on a large baking sheet and roast for 15-20 minutes, or until the vegetables have softened and have taken on a bit of brownness on the edges.

Once roasted, transfer the vegetables to a large cutting board and chop through so the vegetable pieces are smaller.  I don’t prefer to chop them finely before they are roasted because they would take up more oil and burn quickly.

While the vegetables are roasting, assemble the ingredients for the vinaigrette.  Whisk thoroughly to combine.

Once the pasta and vegetables are done, in a large mixing bowl, combine the pasta and vinaigrette, then stir in the chopped roasted vegetables.  Top with grated Parmesan cheese.