This is super simple pasta. I first came across the recipe in like, 1997 or 1998 on, of all places, the 4AD mailing list. I know, wacky! I couldn’t find the original recipe when I set out to recreate it but what I could remember was: cottage cheese, milk, diced tomatoes, hazelnuts and tarragon. And I remembered thinking, huh, cottage cheese and pasta? But, it was quite tasty. You could also, of course, probably use ricotta.

So, here’s how I have been recreating this around the house lately. This dish also works excellently as a work lunch. In fact, that has been its purpose for us. I just pop it into containers and when it’s reheated in the microwave at work, the sauce is all creamy and good.

To eat right away, you probably want to toss the cottage cheese and everything in the hot pan, after you’ve drained the pasta, and then all the pasta back in. Heat gently over low heat.

Oh and if you see this and this was basically your idea and you posted the recipe to 4AD-L about 10 years ago, let me know and I’ll give you credit! So, everyone dig out your Cocteau Twins 12-inches and make some pasta!

Rigatoni with Hazelnuts, Tarragon and Tomatoes
1 lb rigatoni (more than rigatoni will work here)
1/3 cup toasted hazelnuts, chopped roughly (I add to a plastic bag and beat with a rolling pin)
1 container (16 oz) cottage cheese (either low fat or regular fat — no fat free)
1/2 cup low fat milk (I have used both fat-free and 2% here)
1 1/2 - 2 tbsp fresh tarragon leaves, chopped
1/3 - 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
2 tomatoes, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 shakes green Tabasco sauce
Salt & Pepper

Combine the hazelnuts through the Tabasco. Mix to combine. Add salt & pepper to taste. Cook your pasta in boiling, salted water. Drain and combine with the sauce. Pack up for lunches during the week, or warm gently on the stovetop for supper.

Awesome!

Here’s a super, tasty soup recipe, especially if your weather is crappy (like ours has been). Or, if there are some sniffles and complaints of sore throats around the house. Oh and last weekend, when it was uh 80 degrees and sunny out, I took the flannel sheets off the bed. Note to self: the flannel sheets stay in the bed until June. Grr.

Ah, hey, I don’t want to scare anyone that’s heading this way in say, uh 2 weeks or so, but it we had hail, rain and uh, snow this weekend. But, I bet in a couple of weeks the weather will be B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L! Really! Sure it will!

Okay, back to the food. This recipe is from the Shoalwater Restaurant and it is really good. I found it online a couple of days ago and couldn’t wait to try it. The lime and the ginger and fish sauce are just a fabulous combination. I altered the amounts a little bit to accommodate a whole can of coconut milk and I added some veggies that I needed to use up. Hooray!

Asian Chicken and Coconut Soup
Adapted from a recipe by Shoalwater restaurant
1 tbsp canola oil
1 small onion, diced
1 cup diced carrots
12 medium shitake mushrooms, sliced
1 large garlic clove, minced
3 cups Chicken Stock
1 lime, juice and finely chopped zest
4 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp ginger, minced
1/2 tsp roasted chili paste
1 14 oz can coconut milk
1/2 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into small cubes
1 cup cooked brown rice
Garnish: Fresh cilantro, chopped

Add oil to a large soup pot and add chicken and brown briefly, 2-3 minutes. Remove and cover with foil until ready to use. To the hot pan, add the onion, garlic, carrots, chili paste and shitake mushrooms. Saute over medium heat until soft, about 6-7 minutes.

Add the stock, lime zest and juice, fish sauce, and ginger and simmer for 5 minutes or so. Add the coconut milk and chicken. Simmer for about 4-5 more minutes.

To serve, add about 1/4 cup of cooked rice to each bowl and ladle the hot soup over the rice. Garnish with cilantro.

This will serve about 4-5 bowls so there will be leftovers. Excellent.

This is a reader recipe in the current issue of Everyday Food. I didn’t change that much — I just opted to cook it in a slightly less hot oven (down from the original recipe’s 475 degrees for 60 minutes) and I added an onion in the cavity and broth/carrot/onion half on the bottom of the pan, as I tend to burn roasting pans without some liquid down there. And once you add broth, you might as well add some veggies.

Oh and I doubled the curry paste because, dude, that is good. Extra for dipping seemed like a given. And the best part? With only two if us, there’s roast chicken for lunch the next day!

Remember to check it after the first 20-30 minutes and cover it up as needed. The curry paste/honey will burn. A little is good, smoke billowing from your oven is bad. I covered after the first 25 minutes, then uncovered for the last 10 minutes of oven time. My chicken got a pretty dark but all was completely fine under the skin — moist and tasty! But, if I could back and do it again, I probably would have not uncovered it so long at the end — so, there’s a lesson for you.

Thai Curried Roast Chicken
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
2 tbsp red curry paste
2 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp honey
2 tsp roasted chili paste
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 5-6 pound chicken
1 onion, halved
2-3 carrots, chopped into 2-inch pieces
salt & pepper
1-2 cups chicken broth
limes

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Add the cilantro through the garlic in a food processor and combine. Divide curry mixture in half and set one of the halves aside, to be used as a dipping sauce. You can also just mix in a bowl if you like.

Rinse and pat dry your chicken (inside and out). Salt and pepper it generously.

Place one onion half inside the cavity and tie the legs together. Loosen the skin over the breast meat and run some of the curry paste under there. Then, slather the rest of the paste over the chicken and put on an oiled rack set in a roasting pan. Add 1 cup of stock to the bottom of the pan to prevent burning. Add veggies if you wish.

Roast for about 30 minutes, then cover with foil so the top doesn’t get too dark. Roast 45 - 60 minutes more, checking a few times to see if you need to add more stock to the bottom of the pan or adjust the foil for optimal browning/non-burning.

When white meat is 165 and dark meat at least 170, remove from the oven and let rest for about 10 - 15 minutes before carving.

Serve with lime wedges and coconut rice. We also had some sauteed green beans on the side which were really, really good. Also, bring out the unused half of the curry past for a dipping sauce. Mmm!

I cannot believe I’ve only made risotto a handful of times this winter! That is crazy because I luuurve risotto. Maybe the weather is turning all crappy again to inspire me to make more risotto?

Anyway, this is the latest risotto experiment — sort of a Spanish-inspired theme. I’ve just started eating cauliflower and I am trying to throw it into as many dishes as possible. Cauliflower in 2007/2008 is like the spinach of 1995.

I think cauliflower is the last vegetable I have left to develop a liking for…er, okay, wait, still not crazy about beets. And I have tried…but that’s a different story.

So, cauliflower is very good roasted, which is how this recipe starts. Roasting is always a good place to start. After the roasting, there is sauteing, stirring, melting and then eating.

Cauliflower Risotto with Saffron, Pancetta and Manchego
1 head of cauliflower, cut into 2-inch-wide florets
2 tbsp + 1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
1/4 cup pancetta cubes
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large sprig of rosemary, leaves removed and chopped
1 pinch saffron threads
1 cup arborio rice
1/2 cup of white wine
4 cups chicken stock, simmering
1/2 cup manchego cheese, grated (you can also sub different cheeses — Parmesan, feta, gruyere, goat cheese, I think they’d all work just fine)
Garnish: more chopped rosemary, grilled shrimp

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Toss cauliflower with oil, parmesan, some salt and pepper in a large bowl. Spread evenly on a baking pan and roast in upper third of oven, stirring occasionally, until golden, 25 to 30 minutes. Set aside.

Now, heat up a big pot and add the remaining olive oil and the pancetta cubes, onion and garlic. Cook for about 2-3 minutes and add the rosemary and saffron.

Next comes the rice. Add that to the pot and stir to coat in the oil and pancetta-y goodness. Add the wine and stir until it is mostly absorbed. Then, start adding the simmering broth (about 1/3 a cup at a time), stirring, adding more when the liquid in the risotto pot is almost absorbed.

When you’ve gone through about half the broth, add the cauliflower (do not forget the golden Parmesan bits!) and continue to add more broth as it cooks. On your last addition of broth, add the cheese. And stir while it melts. Taste and salt and pepper as needed.

Serve in bowls with more chopped parsley duh, I meant rosemary, as a garnish and grilled shrimp on the side if desired. And really, who doesn’t desire grilled shrimp on the side?

Red wine and bread on the side is also quite nice! Oh, hell, get a plate of green olives too…

I had so much fun with the other day’s WCC meal, that I made another crockpot dish a couple of nights later. Really, any excuse to use my smoked paprika.

Chicken Paprikash w/ Sour Cream
Adapted from a recipe on Epicurious.com
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp sweet paprika
1/2 tbsp smoked paprika
2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
2.75 - 3 lb pounds chicken pieces — legs, thighs, breasts (all bone in, skin on and ready for business)
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp + 2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup cup chicken stock or low-sodium chicken broth
1 can artichoke hearts in water, drained and quartered
1/3 cup sour cream (use full fat, low fat could curdle)
Fresh dill, chopped, for garnish

Add the 1 teaspoon oil to a heavy skillet and add the onions and paprikas and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Cook until onions soften and paprika smells really good — about 4-5 minutes over medium heat. Spread mixture evenly over bottom of insert.

Rub garlic halves over chicken then throw the garlic in the crock pot. Sprinkle chicken with pepper and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt. In the same pan used for the onions, heat the remaining olive oil until hot but not smoking (over moderately high heat).

Add chicken pieces and brown, turning occasionally, until golden, about 6 minutes. Transfer to slow cooker (do not clean pan), layering chicken on top of onion mixture.

In same saucepan over high heat, bring stock and artichoke hearts to simmer, scraping up browned bits from bottom of pan.

Pour over chicken in slow cooker, cover, and cook on low until chicken is tender but not falling off bone, 5 to 6 hours. Mine was good in about 5 hours. Remove the chicken to a platter and cover with foil. If there looks like there is a lot of chicken fat on the surface, try to skim some out.

Turn the crockpot off. If you are kind of nervous, stir a little sauce into the sour cream to bring it up in temperature a bit. I am not ashamed to admit that I did this. Then, stir the warmed up sour cream into sauce. Combine well. Pour over the chicken. Garnish with dill and serve.

You can also put the chicken on a bed of spinach noodles and serve everything individually in bowls. Leftovers make a great lunch, as this makes at least 4 - 6 servings.

Weekend Cookbook Challenge is being hosted by La Mia Cucina this month and the theme is…pressure cookers (which I am scared of), crockpots (which I love) and Dutch ovens (which I also love, but I use pretty frequently already).

So, crockpot it is! And the cookbook I used was Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson. This is also the only crockpot cookbook that I have. Typically, I just get crockpot recipes off that Internet thing.

Oh and Happy Saint Patrick’s Day — now, here’s a Mexican recipe!

Pinto Picadillio
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium-size yellow onion, chopped
1 small red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp cumin
3 cups slow-cooked* or two 15.5-ounce cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed
One 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
One 4-ounce can diced green chiles, drained
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and chopped
1 cup vegetable stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups cooked long-grain white or brown rice
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup sliced black olives, drained
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves (originally it called for parsley)
handful of chopped green onions
2 tbsp slivered almonds, toasted

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, bell pepper and cumin. Saute until softened, about 5 minutes.

Transfer the vegetables to a 3 1/2- to 4-quart slow cooker. Add the garlic, beans, tomatoes, chiles, apples, and stock; season with salt and pepper, cover, and cook on Low for 6 to 8 hours.

About 10 minutes before serving, stir in the rice, raisins, olives, cilantro, green onions and almonds. In addition to a dinner right out of the crockpot, this makes a great lunch. Add some cheese, sour cream and chips. You know you want to…

* Cooking dried beans in your crockpot is easy! And fun. But kind of boring. Anyway, soak your beans overnight, then, drain put into your crockpot and cover with water (I covered by about 3 inches). Add an onion, halved and a few cloves of garlic, cracked open.

Cook on low for about 8 hours. Mmmm….beans. And, the nice thing is, I just drained out my beans, measured 3 cups out and then just used the crockpot to cook the Pinto Picadillio.

Thanks again to La Mia Cucina for hosting!

If you are like us, you have tons of bananas on your kitchen counter top. Maybe you have one of those nifty banana hangers, but you still have lots of bananas. What can you do with tons of bananas (well, 3)? Make banana bread! Especially if you go to the store and buy more bananas because you think you are out, only to come home and see that there are five, hanging right there and looking at you all accusatory-like.

What then? Well, you wait for three of them to get all dark and past their prime, and then you laugh wickedly as you mash them up in a little bowl. Ma-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Victory is mine!

Er, okay then. The topping for this bread is inspired by my favorite scone at Bakery Bar — the fennel seed and raisin scone. If you don’t like fennel seeds, you should probably not use them here…

This is a pretty standard banana bread recipe. I typically replace the oil with apple sauce when I make any quick breads. If you are not into that sort of thing, just use the same amount of vegetable or canola oil for the apple sauce listed below.

Banana Bread with a Brown Sugar & Fennel Crust
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup apple sauce
3 bananas, very ripe, mashed
2 tbsp sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup walnuts
2 tbsp golden raisins
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp fennel seeds
Non-stick canola oil spray

Set oven to 350 degrees and spray a loaf pan with no-stick spray. In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar and fennel seeds. Set aside.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Beat sugar and eggs with a mixer until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.

Add apple sauce, mashed bananas, sour cream and vanilla. Mix until combined.

Fold in dry ingredients and nuts. Pour into your loaf pan and sprinkle with the raisins.

Top with the brown sugar and fennel mixture and give the top a quick spray with canola oil.

Bake for about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Check after 45 minutes. Use a toothpick or knife. You want it to come out fairly clean. If not, back in for a few more minutes. Mine ending up baking for about 55 minutes. You will be greatly tempted not to, but let it cool about 30 minutes before slicing.

So, you might notice that some of the raisins got all dark. The first time this happened to me I was all sad, thinking I had burnt the raisins. Well, don’t worry! Even though they get a little toasty, they taste just fine!

This is a great winter meal! It’s still Winter, right? The brussels sprouts are plentiful and the pasta is, well, always a good idea when it’s cold out. I found this recipe on Epicurious a couple of months ago and we just got around to trying it recently. I changed a few things — added garlic, lemon and red pepper flakes.

Fettuccine with Brussels Sprouts and Pine Nuts
Recipe adapted from Gourmet Magazine

3/4 lb Brussels sprouts, trimmed
1/2 lb dried egg fettuccine
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
3 tbsp pine nuts
1-3 cloves garlic, minced (if they’re huge, use 1 or 2, normal sized, use 2 or 3 — of course, adjust this to your taste, we love garlic, we used 3)
Zest from 1 lemon
Grated Parmesan cheese
Optional: red pepper flakes

Slice Brussels sprouts in a food processor fitted with slicing disk. Or, just slice them manually, with a knife and a cutting board. I opted for that technique. Mostly because I was too lazy to find my slicer disc.

Cook fettuccine in a pasta pot of boiling salted water (3 tablespoons salt for 6 quarts water) until al dente.

Meanwhile, heat butter and oil in a large heavy skillet over medium heat until foam subsides, then cook pine nuts, stirring, until golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Add Brussels sprouts, lemon zest, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, then sauté over medium-high heat until tender and lightly browned, about 4 minutes.

Reserve 1/2 cup pasta-cooking water, then drain pasta and add to skillet, tossing with enough reserved water to moisten. Sprinkle with some Parmesan and freshly ground black pepper. Taste and adjust any seasonings. Serve with extra Parmesan cheese on the side.

***

I think I like Jamie Oliver’s new show. I saw the winter vegetables one the other day and although I am not a big cabbage fan, I wanted to make everything, even though two of the three dishes were mainly cabbage-based. But he’s very, uh, rustic on this one. The first time I caught it (a couple of weeks ago), he seemed like a cooking woodchuck, dressed like Adam from Northern Exposure… and I like his little theme song at the end too!

And then, right afterwards…it’s Sandra Lee. How is that back-to-back combination even possible without the world imploding upon itself?

Now this is one of the ultimate comfort foods, ever. I actually tried to make a chicken pot pie before — maybe 5 years ago — and it was a complete disaster. Flavorless, too much work and just kind of meh. It’s taken me 5 years to want to attempt another one. Wow, am I glad I did! This chicken pot pie is anything but meh…it is awesome!

It’s also a great project for a Saturday or Sunday, it seems like there are a lot of steps, but it goes very quickly. Plus, you can use up lots of vegetables, pretty much add any combination that you have. I subbed frozen lima beans for the peas and added about 4 stalks of cut up (about 1 inch pieces) of asparagus right before I added the flour.

Oh, diced butternut squash would probably be wonderful in this, or maybe even some sweet potato chunks! This is based on a recipe in Gourmet magazine, but that was for a turkey pot pie with a cheddar-biscuit crust, so, really this is much different!

Chicken Pot Pie with a Feta Herb Biscuit Crust
For filling:
1 lb chicken breasts, cut into bit-sized pieces
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 large carrots, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 tsp chopped thyme
1/2 tsp chopped rosemary
3 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 pound mushrooms, trimmed and quartered
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup frozen baby peas, thawed
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 cup fat-free milk
3 tbsp Parmesan cheese

For biscuit crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup feta cheese crumbles
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
6 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/4 cups well-shaken buttermilk
1/4 cup mixed chopped herbs (chives, rosemary, thyme, and sage are good, and although it is not an herb, so are green onions)

Add olive oil to large pot and brown chicken over medium-high heat for about 4-5 minutes until golden. Remove and set aside, leaving any extra oil in pan.

In that pan, add the 3 tablespoons of butter and cook the onion, garlic, carrots, rosemary and thyme with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are almost tender, 10 to 12 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook, uncovered, stirring, until tender, 5 to 7 minutes.

Sprinkle with flour and cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Stir in wine, broth and milk, scraping up any brown bits, and bring to a boil, stirring, then simmer until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes. Stir in chicken pieces, peas, Parmesan and salt and pepper to taste. Reheat over low heat just before topping with biscuit crust.

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pepper into a medium bowl. Add cheeses and herbs and toss to coat.

Blend in butter with a pastry blender or your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add buttermilk and stir just until a dough forms.

Drop biscuit dough onto filling in 8 large mounds, leaving spaces between biscuits. If you have extra biscuit dough, drop them down on a cookie sheet and bake alongside the pie, for about 15 minutes.

Bake until biscuits are puffed and golden brown and filling is bubbling, 35 to 40 minutes.

Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Oh! So good. And besides a wonderful dinner, we will be having tasty lunches this week for sure.

February’s Weekend Cookbook Challenge is hosted by Foodie Chickie this month and she’s chosen Nigella Lawson as the theme. This is awesome as I recently got a Nigella Lawson cookbook. Perfect!

This is a super quick dinner (it’s from Nigella Express) and it was pretty tasty. Something about bacon drippings (or pancetta, I s’pose), wine, rosemary, white beans and tomatoes. Mmm!

Pollo alla Cacciatora
1 tbsp garlic oil
1/2 cup pancetta cubes (alternately, you can the fat from cooking 1 piece of bacon and add a clove or two of garlic)
6 scallions, finely sliced
1 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves
1 pound chicken thigh fillets, each cut into 4 pieces (I used breast meat)
1/2 tsp celery salt
1/2 cup white wine
1 (14-ounce) can chopped tomatoes
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp sugar
1 (14-ounce) can cannellini beans

Nigella writes to put the garlic oil into a pan with the pancetta, sliced scallions and chopped rosemary and fry for a couple of minutes. Now, what I did is use some bacon grease I had in the freezer (instead of the pancetta), about a teaspoon and a half’s worth and sauteed the rosemary and green onions in that. I also added two minced cloves of garlic here. Worked well. But was there really any doubt? No. Not really.

Add the chicken pieces, stirring well, and sprinkle in the celery salt.

Pour in the wine and let it come to a boil before adding the tomatoes, bay leaves and sugar. Put the lid on and let everything simmer for about 20 minutes. Next, drain and add a can of cannellini beans and let it go for an additional 2-3 minutes.

Dish up, grab a spoon and nom-nom-nom-nom-nom.

Next time, I might try dredging the chicken in a little seasoned flour just to see what (if anything) that adds to it. Just because I’m like that.

Thanks again to Foodie Chickie for hosting this month’s event!