Tag

tomatoes

Freezer Meals Lunch Recipes Quick and Easy Soup

Creamy Tomato Dukkah Spice Soup

written by Ali

This week, I plan to enjoy a creamy tomato dukkah spice soup for lunch for as many days as I can. Oh – and I also added a little bit of preserved lemon. I made a batch of preserved lemons and preserved key limes a few weeks ago. They’ve been happily preserving in the fridge all this time and now it’s time to start making use of them. January is always time to start cleaning out the cupboards and fridge, which also means it’s when I tend to make tomato soup. I look into the pantry and realize I still have dozens of jars of diced tomatoes (and tomato sauce and tuna – but that’s a post for another day). I love how versatile canned diced tomatoes can be. I’m sure this won’t be the only week of soup and sandwich (or soup and salad) for lunch between now and the official start of spring.

The surprise ingredient for this recipe, though, is the dukkah spice. I discovered dukkah at our local Fred Meyer. They have a great section of spices and I’ve been seeing more and more interesting blends show up there. Dukkah is an Egyptian blend of spices that includes some variety of nuts and seeds. The blend I purchased had both flax seeds and sesame seeds, in addition to a number of various savory herbs and some salt. You can make your own blend, as well. Dukkah is often used as a crust for lamb or fish. I’ve still got some albacore tuna lurking in the freezer and I’m thinking it might be really tasty coated in dukkah and pan fried.

In the meantime, there’s creamy tomato dukkah spice soup to brighten up my week. I’ll be serving it on the side of sandwiches this week, as I’m working on using up some wonderful garlic sourdough we bought at the local bakery, as well as a head of lettuce. Not a bad way to start wrapping up the first month of the New Year.

Yum

Creamy Tomato Dukkah Spice Soup

Ingredients

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 16 ounce cans diced tomatoes with juice
2 teaspoons dukkah spice
2 teaspoons finely chopped preserved lemons
Salt to taste

Instructions

Melt the butter and olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Saute the shallots until they are lightly browned.
Add the chicken stock, diced tomatoes and juice, the dukkah spice, and the preserved lemons. Bring to a low boil and simmer for thirty minutes. Taste for salt and add as needed.
Blend in an immersion blender or blender until creamy. Serve immediately or freeze for later.
Serves 4. Enjoy!

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January 22, 2018 0 comment

Lunch Recipes Vegetarian

Pasta in Pesto Cream Sauce

written by Ali

My pasta in pesto cream sauce recipe was created in response to a serious craving I’ve been having lately for Noodles & Company’s Pesto Cavatappi. The problem is, I know darn well that the minute I go and order pesto cavatappi and then actually taste it, I’m going to be disappointed. It will be too salty or too bland or too not what I remember from the many years ago I lived in the Denver area and Noodles & Company opened up in Lakewood and my ex and I would go there for dinner every weekend.

Part of the problem with food memories is that in memory, everything looks so tasty. However, in the past ten years or so, I’ve greatly reduced the amount of sugar and salt in my diet, and I am starting to suspect that what made things tasty before I did this was probably the sugar and salt. Now, the same ingredients make things taste “not right”.

In some cases, my solution has been to create the dish I think I remember, which is what I’ve done with this pasta in pesto cream sauce. I would love for it to have been cavatappi in pesto cream sauce, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find cavatappi noodles anywhere. I settled for orecchiette, though any pasta would be fine.

I had a bit of basil and some tomatoes left in the garden, so it seemed appropriate to finish out the last few days of the official summertime with pesto and tomatoes. I used oyster mushrooms, but any mushroom would work. Though this has a cream sauce, it freezes just fine – when you reheat it, just be sure to give it a good stir before you eat.

Pasta in Pesto Cream Sauce
Serves 4

Pesto Cream Sauce
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
1 cup half and half or heavy cream
Splash white wine (optional)
¼ cup pesto

Pasta and Toppings
½ package pasta (penne, orecchiette, or similar)
1 pint cherry tomatoes
½ pound mushrooms, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh chopped flat leaf parsley
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup parmesan cheese
Salt to taste

Boil water for the pasta in a large pot. Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package.

While the pasta cooks, heat the olive oil in a non-stick or cast iron pan. Add the mushrooms and cook until they are soft. Add the parsley and turn off the heat. Set aside.

To make the cream sauce, melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat. When butter is melted, incorporate the flour a bit at a time, whisking with each addition. When all flour has been incorporated, cook for a minute, whisking the entire time. Add the half and half or cream and continue to whisk and cook over low heat for about 5-7 minutes (or until sauce is thickened). Take the sauce off the heat and add the pesto.

Plate the pasta in four bowls. Add the toppings to each bowl. Pour the cream sauce over each bowl and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Add salt to taste. Enjoy!

September 19, 2016 0 comment

Farmer's Market Lunch Recipes Vegetarian

Pesto, Tomato, and Mozzarella Pasta Salad

written by Ali

I’m humming On the Road Again as I type. This week, I’ve only seen my desk for two days and next week will be the same. What I’ve seen instead are meeting rooms, the Capital Mall in Salem, and one of the most-overpriced hotel rooms I’ve stayed in in a long time. I’ve also seen a lot of my car, listened to four episodes of NPR’s Ask Me Another, one episode of This American Life, and one episode of Radio Lab. In short, I couldn’t wait to get home to see my husband, the dog, the cats, and my comfortable bed. I also couldn’t wait to get home to cook up some of the abundance that’s been developing in my little urban container garden.

I planted four tomato plants this year and three basil plants, two Sweet Basil plants (I’m guessing these are Genovese Basil plants – they are the ones that Trader Joe’s sells) and one Spicy Bush Basil plant. The basil took a while to warm up to the idea of growing, but now that it has, I have a plethora of basil on my hands. In past years, I’ve used my handy Cuisinart to create pesto cubes that I’ve frozen, but one of my Cuisinart parts didn’t survive the move to the new house, and I just haven’t gotten around to try to figure out if I can easily replace the part. So – lots of Basil, no food processor, and a serious longing for pesto. Fortunately, I ran across a recipe for How to Make Pesto Like an Italian Grandmother from 101 Cookbooks (one of my all-time favorite blogs – honestly, probably the first cooking blog I ever read regularly).

I decided last night to make two-days-worth of a simple pasta salad. After a long drive home from Bend, Oregon, I retreated to the garden, harvested several bunches of both the Spicy Bush Basil and the Genovese Basil and started chopping. Hand chopped pesto is a lot easier than I thought it would be. I don’t have a mezzaluna, so used our sharpest kitchen knife and just chopped, chopped, chopped. I skipped the garlic cloves (I had face-to-face meetings with people in the afternoon – didn’t want to offend anyone with raw garlic breath), used a little bit of parmesan cheese and a handful of pine nuts. I chopped and chopped some more. When I was finished, it wasn’t the prettiest pesto ever (basil oxidizes so quickly), but it was the best smelling and tasting basil I’ve ever made. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to creating a pesto that I ate on our honeymoon in Rome – and I have the fondest memories of that pesto: it came from a corner grocery store and we ate it with handmade ravioli in the kitchen of the weird little villa hotel room we were staying at in a tucked away corner of the city.

This is less recipe than more a few suggestions about how to make a very simple, but very delicious meal.

Pesto, Tomato, and Mozzarella Pasta Salad

Dried or fresh pasta
Several handfuls of basil
A handful of pine nuts
Several large pinches of freshly grated parmesan cheese
Tomatoes
Fresh mozzarella (in water, though you could also use regular mozzarella or even more parmesan or another cheese all together)
Olive oil

Boil a pasta of your choice using as much dried pasta as servings you are planning to prepare. I used bow tie pasta since it’s what I had on hand. Chop up a tomato or two. Make the pesto by chopping up basil leaves, adding pine nuts and chopping, adding parmesan and chopping (see Heidi Swanson’s lovely full recipe here). Add the pesto to your pasta. Add tomatoes and cheese. Drizzle with olive oil.

I heated this up for just a minute in the microwave at work, just to take the chill off the pasta and the pesto, but not so long to fully melt the mozzarella.

Enjoy!

July 14, 2016 2 comments

Lunch Recipes Vegetarian

Roasted Tomato and Burrata Pasta Salad

written by Ali

When life gives you half an hour to make your lunch for the week, along with the first of the summer tomatoes and an abundant crop of basil, make Roasted Tomato and Burrata Bow Tie Pasta Salad. So if you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed a number of beach-focused posts this past weekend. One of the greatest parts of living in this part of the PNW is that the beach is only two hours away, and I was fortunate to happen to have a meeting along the coast on Friday, which led to a night’s stay in Bandon, Oregon, a small tourist town along the southern Oregon coast. I ate seafood, picked up rocks and shells, and wandered along the beach. This meant, however, that Saturday was consumed with beach-time and driving, leaving just one day to run errands and cook on Sunday. I also realized, belatedly, that the Vancouver Marathon was happening on Sunday, which meant virtually no parking for the farmer’s market in Vancouver. This gave me a great excuse for going to a different market across the river in Portland – the Montavilla neighborhood market, where I found the first cherry tomatoes of the season. After having also crammed in shopping, a father’s day phone call, and a haircut, I was left with little time to be super kitchen creative.

Thus, bow tie pasta salad with roasted tomatoes, basil and Burrata cheese. Burrata cheese looks like a large round chunk of mozzarella. The difference is that the exterior is very mozzarella like, while the interior is filled with creamy curds that melt very nicely. It’s divine. Burrata was a rarity when we lived in rural Oregon, but here in the Portland area, it’s much easier to find. This recipe comes together very quickly and makes a great lunch dish. It would hold up well for a picnic, too.

Roasted Tomato and Burrata Bow Tie Pasta Salad
Serves 4

8 ounces dried bow tie pasta
15-20 cherry tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic chopped finely
2 balls of burrata
10-15 leaves of basil, torn into bite-size pieces
Salt to taste
Ground pepper to taste
Olive oil to taste

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Put the whole cherry tomatoes on a baking sheet or pie pan and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with the chopped garlic. Roast for 20 minutes or until the tomatoes are wrinkly and soft. Set aside and let cool.

Fill a saucepan about half way with water and bring to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package instructions. Drain the pasta.

Combine the drained pasta, the roasted tomatoes, and basil and toss. Tear the burrata into chunks and add to the pasta/tomato/basil combination. Add a pinch of salt and a few grinds of ground pepper and drizzle a little olive oil over the top.

This can be eaten as is, or left overnight in the fridge and reheated the next day – no more than a minute or two in the microwave.

June 21, 2016 0 comment