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My parents, siblings, and our kids all get together for special occasions, or whenever our little brother is in town from Arizona. We all have standing contributions toward dinner, and my sister Carolyn's is pupus (Hawaiian for appetizers). She brings a big tray of veggies and dip and is always kind enough to leave the leftovers. We snack on them the next day and for dinner I usually incorporate them into an easy pasta dish.
Pupu Pasta
1 box orrechiete pasta, cooked (reserve 1/4 cup cooking water)
3 cups raw cut up veggies (I used grape tomatoes, baby carrots, cauliflower and broccoli)
2 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp. butter
4 chicken Italian sausages
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
Begin by sauteeing the sausages in the olive oil and butter until they're browned; throw in the garlic and cook for 30 seconds more, then add the veggies and cook for about 3 minutes. Take out the sausages and cut them in slices, then add them back into the pan. Add the 1/4 cup cooking water and cover the pan, letting the veggies steam a little until they're tender but still with a decent bite to them. Break up the tomatoes so they help make the sauce.
Add the pasta and heat til everything's piping hot, then add parmesan, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste.
Janet's Notes: This is a really loose recipe because it varies with whatever veggies and meat you have, so feel free to adapt it to suit your taste.
Still working my way through a large Zip-Loc bag of frozen cooked quinoa. So far I've made quinoa pizza and a quinoa stuffed artichoke in my quest to work more of this high-protein grain into my vegetarian daughter's diet.
Today I went on a hunt for a homemade granola recipe. I like granola, but hate when it's teeth-shatteringly crunchy and I have to take a break from chewing because my jaw is killing me. As usual, I looked at about 20 recipes on the Internet, used the ideas I liked, changed most of the ingredients, and came up with this.
Granola with Quinoa
1/2 cup each sliced almonds, raw pumpkin seeds, and dried cranberries
1 cup cooked quinoa
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup corn syrup
2 cups oats (I used equal parts steel cut and rolled oats)
4 Tbsp. butter
4 Tbsp. canola oil
1 tsp. kosher salt
Melt butter and add oil. Mix in all other ingredients. Pile onto a greased baking sheet and spread out, leaving some clumps. Bake at 275 degrees for 20 minutes, stir, and bake another 10 minutes. Keep doing this (it may take a couple more 10-minute intervals) until it's golden brown. Cool on baking sheet.
Serve this as a cereal with milk, or as a yogurt topping, which my kids love. Or be like my son Sean and eat it straight out of the bag because you're a teenager and you are perpetually starving. And stay tuned for tomorrow's post about a super delicious recipe using this super delicious granola.
I have a big bag of frozen cooked quinoa left over from my quinoa pizza, and it falls out of the freezer every time I open the door. One day I walked into the kitchen to see Max, 8, shoving it back in as hard as he could, desperately, saying to himself, "Where does it go?!" I know the feeling.
Today I saw the best looking artichoke and my brain's light bulb turned on. The result: a very simple and far from groundbreaking way to make a stuffed artichoke. Healthy, though, and tasty too.
Quinoa Stuffed Artichoke
1 large artichoke
1/2 cup cooked quinoa
3 Tbsp. diced onion
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp. fresh basil, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbsp. fresh grated Parmesan
Cook the artichoke in boiling salted water til tender. Cool, then hollow out, discarding the fuzzy choke. Heat a little olive oil in your skillet and saute the onion and garlic until soft, then add quinoa, basil, and salt and pepper. Pile it all in the artichoke, then sprinkle cheese on top and broil until it's melted.
Janet's Notes: Infinitely variable. It might be good with some tomato, and next time I'll try some chopped raw pumpkin seeds to give a little more substance. It was a good simple side dish and could easily be a main course for people that aren't my children.
Fresh fish is delicious but what do you do with the leftovers? Warming it up results in a tough, dry piece of yuck so in my house it usually sits in the frig for 2 weeks (Why do I save it in the first place? Catholic guilt, I guess.) before becoming $10 per pound garbage.
I still had several pieces of grilled fish after my ahi sandwich meal, and decided to create a high-falutin' tuna cake. Here's how to do it: chop up a mirepoix, or "holy trinity"--for you non-foodies, this is a combination of onions, celery, and carrots, to equal about 1/2 cup. Mix them in a bowl with 4 filets of flaked cooked fish, 2 Tsp. dried oregano, 2 tsp. dried basil, (though fresh would have been better), 1/4 tsp. cayenne, and salt and pepper to taste.
For the binder, melt 2 Tbsp. butter in a pot, then add an equal amount of flour--this makes a roux (You learned two new French words today!), and cook it for a couple of minutes to get the raw taste out of the flour. Add about 1 cup of skim milk and whisk til thickened, adding salt and pepper to taste, then stir it half this sauce into the fish mixture. Keep the rest for later.
Form the fish into patties, whatever size you want, and dip them into a plate filled with Panko Japanese bread crumbs--find these in your Asian section and then use them for everything breaded. They are far superior to the bread crumbs in those cardboard canisters.
Saute the fish cakes in a little olive oil until browned. Back to that reserved white sauce: thin it with a little more milk and serve the fish patties with the sauce poured over the fish.
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