Beef Marinara

I love simple, tomato-based spaghetti recipes. Nearly everybody likes them, they’re easy to make delicious, you can make them in big quantities for little money, and they taste even better as leftovers. After years of winging it, I’ve found myself coming back again and again to an adaptation of this Red Wine and Rosemary Marinara from Cooking Light.

Ingredients (my way):

  • Olive oil
  • One medium onion, chopped
  • 5 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3/4lb lean ground beef
  • 1 green bell pepper
  • 1 cup red wine, preferably dry
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 2 tsp dried basil
  • 1 tsp dried rosemary
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper (or more, to heat taste)
  • 1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
  • 1 6oz can no-salt-added tomato paste

Directions:
Stir-fry the onion in olive oil until almost clear. Add garlic, stir fry about 45 seconds or until fragrant, then add ground beef. Stir fry until beef is cooked through, then add green pepper and stir fry until pepper is just beginning to soften (it’ll cook the rest of the way as the sauce simmers).

Add the rest of the ingredients, wine through tomato paste. Take it easy on the honey- it adds a nice golden sweetness, but it can be really overpowering. 1tbsp is actually half the amount called for in the original recipe and that’s plenty.

Let it simmer at least 20 minutes, or until it thickens. I recommend letting it simmer for a minimum of an hour to let the flavors really mingle. Serve it over spaghetti or linguine, with red wine, salad and/or garlic bread on the side.

Singapore Mai Fun

curry noodles with shrimp Work’s been very busy for both of us since February began, so we haven’t been cooking a lot and certainly haven’t been blogging. To begin catching up: Singapore Mai Fun, aka curry noodles with shrimp, from Cooking Light. Primary ingredients are shrimp, thin rice noodles, bell pepper, green onion, egg, with peanut oil, garlic, and curry powder for predominant flavors. FYI, “mai fun” refers to a type of rice noodle, but any thin rice noodle will work.

Things I would or did change: We skipped the chicken and used a pound of shrimp in order to make it pescatarian. Definitely make sure you use the peanut oil for cooking – it’s subtle, but contributes deliciously. And be aware of the heat level of the curry powder you use because that will dictate the heat of the whole dish. Also, it came out pretty salty. We forgot to get no-salt-added chicken broth, so that probably didn’t help, but I might consider reducing the amount of salt you add either to the noodle water or the dish itself.

Would I make it again: Definitely. Quick and easy, relatively healthy, and delicious.

Creole Sides

As you can probably tell, last Sunday was Cajun/Creole night, courtesy of Chuck Taggart’s fantastic Gumbo Pages. I was responsible for starch & vegetable, starting with:

Dirty Rice
The recipe starts with a shortcut for homemade chicken stock. You then pan fry uncooked converted rice in a whole lot of butter, add celery, onion, green bell pepper, garlic, and parsley, and cook the whole mixture in the broth. Estimated total time about 2 hours including simmering chicken parts in water for the “stock.”

Changes: I got lazy and just bought a pack of gizzards for the pieces for the broth, which turned out fine.
Would I make it again: Yes- YUM. I’d probably try their suggestion of cooking a whole chicken as the main dish and using the discarded parts to make the “stock.”

The “healthy” side was a Green Bean & Artichoke Casserole
This features green beans and artichoke hearts mixed with onion and garlic, smothered in bread crumbs and parmesan, and baked to delicious.

Changes: I used frozen everything due to a rotten bean snafu at the produce stand, and I would definitely like to try it again with fresh veggies. Also, the recipe calls for Italian bread crumbs and I just bought plain ol’ bread crumbs and added a little thyme. Worked just fine.
Would I make it again: It was a tasty enough dish and went great with gumbo, but I couldn’t see bothering with it in any other context. I like to experience my veggies a little more.

Shrimp & Snow Pea Stir Fry

asian stir fry shrimp snow pea Another simple stir fry, and this time I remembered to take a photo before it was devoured. This time we went for a Chinese-ish Shrimp & Snow Pea Stir Fry with rice from Cooking Light. Main ingredients include shrimp, snow peas, red bell pepper, red onion, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce, and sesame seeds.

Things I would or did change: I went with fresh ginger & garlic over bottled, and was too lazy to toast the sesame seeds (you stir fry everything in sesame oil, so it still tasted fine). It could have used a little more kick, so I might go with more garlic & ginger and/or a spicy element to the sauce.

Would I make this again: Sure, when I’m looking for a simple, healthy stir fry with a little fish. I happen to LOVE snow peas and shrimp, and the color was nice, but the flavor left a little to be desired. It was fine, just not… Exciting. Definitely needed a dump of Sriracha in the end.

Spicy Thai Stir Fry

Asian food is delicious vegan. We had a dinner guest tonight who’s for all intents and purposes temporarily vegan, so I found this recipe for a Spicy Thai stir fry with tofu, red bell pepper, and spinach. Flavor was provided by garlic, ginger, green onions, fresh basil, soy sauce, fresh lime juice, and crushed red pepper. With chopping help it took only about 20/25 minutes.

Helpful additional notes: It’s easy to crush whole peanuts by keeping them in a plastic bag and just banging away on them (on top of the counter) with the bottom of a mason jar. Seriously. Go wild.

Things I would or did change: Nothing to the core recipe at all. I made rice to go with it and I had an eater who’s allergic to peanuts, so I just crushed them up and put them out as a condiment, along with lime wedges and Sriracha. (I made it decently spicy but it’s nice to be able to heat it up as desired.) Also, I cooked it too long due to a rice snafu. Don’t do that – it deserved to be crispier.

Would I make this again: Most definitely. Affordable but still delicious ingredients and mostly healthy, other than frying the veggies in 1/3 cup of olive oil.

Ratatouille

eggplant zucchini onions peppers tomatoes Ratatouille is a French Provençal vegetable stew, recently made famous by an adorable Pixar movie. Since I’m moving toward cooking vegetarian during the week (mostly), and the cold warrants some hearty meals, I thought I’d give this one a try. It also happens to be vegan (until you garnish with cheese).

I used this recipe from Epicurious on Tuesday, January 5, 2010. Key ingredients are eggplant, zucchini, onion, green bell pepper, garlic, tomato, and parsley and the whole process took me about 90 minutes of continuous activity.

Helpful additional notes: To peel tomatoes, cut a small slit in the skin and then throw them in boiling water for a few seconds to a minute. They’re ready as soon as the skin starts to split. Believe it or not, I had never peeled a tomato before.

Things I would or did change: In the winter, when tomatoes are less juicy, I would not fully seed the tomatoes. I had trouble getting them to juice. Leaving all the seeds in would make it difficult to boil down to a stew, so next time I’d compromise by doing a lazy job of seeding them (leaving some in). I also served it with grated cheese as a condiment, which worked really well to make it a little more complex, and a side of baguette for sopping up the juices.

Review: This dish isn’t going to win me any presentation prizes (see that green-grayish lump in the pot above), but it was surprisingly tasty. It calls for salt & pepper at several stages, and don’t skimp on any of them – those simple spices did an incredible job of boosting the flavor of the vegetables.

Would I make it again? Yes, for a veggie-loving crowd.