Pasta Cooked in Red Wine

Inspired by Rachael Ray on Iron Chef last night (Battle Cranberry,) and with a request to make my famous meatballs, I tried something new tonight: spaghetti boiled in red wine instead of water.

The resulting pasta was pretty tasty even without any sauce, but definitely had a "different" taste. James ate this purple pasta with normal tomato sauce, meatballs, and Parmesan cheese, and it was fantastic.

Not wanting wine to go to waste, I used the residual boiled red wine to make a garlic butter sauce. The sauce didn't mix well with the meatballs (very different flavors), but went well with the pasta alone.

Ingredients:

1 bottle red wine (I used a cheap-ish Cabernet)

2 cups water

16 oz uncooked spaghetti (1/2 box)

*Use less water if you are not cooking the whole box.

Sauce:

1/2 stick butter

2-3 cloves garlic, diced

1/2 cup reserved boiled red wine from cooking pasta

Salt to taste

Bring wine and water to boil in a large saucepan, salting lightly as you normally would for pasta sauce. Cook pasta according to directions on box, stirring frequently. The sugar in the red wine makes the pasta stickier and easily gets stuck to the bottom of the pan if you space out and forget to stir (as, of course, I did). When you drain the pasta, reserve at least a half a cup of wine for the sauce.

While the pasta is cooking, peel and dice the garlic. Melt 1/2 stick of butter in a large saucepan. Add garlic and cook on low heat, stirring almost constantly or the garlic will burn. The butter will be boiling and foaming. Add a little olive oil if you need more liquid. Cook until mixture just begins to brown - no more, or it will burn.

Add 1/2 cup of wine and mix well. The sauce will thicken quickly, as the wine now has starch from the cooked pasta. Add pasta, mixing until covered. Continue cooking on low until sauce is thickened to your liking. Remove from heat.

Serve to your most adventurous friends - this recipe is fun, but I wouldn't recommend it for picky eaters!

Pumpkin Pie Martini

Happy Halloween everyone! The holiday in my neighborhood was weakened by pouring rain and gale-force winds this year. While bored waiting around for trick-or-treaters to come to our door, we accidentally came up with this fantastic martini recipe. Enjoy!

4 shots Bailey's Irish Creme

2 shots pumpkin vodka

3 T pumpkin purée

1 t honey

1/2 t pumpkin pie spice 

2 ice cubes

Put all ingredients in blender and blend well. Makes 2 martinis.

Apple Nut Cake

I was craving an apple fritter on a lovely autumn Sunday and couldn't bring myself to drive 20 minutes away to my favorite apple orchard (http://www.pattersonfarm.com/) when I knew I had all the ingredients and talent to make an apple cake at home.

I know this sounds crazy, but when I was 8 years old I won Best in Show in a baking contest (against adults!) with an apple nut cake. Hoping to recreate this awesome cake, I ransacked my kitchen (which admittedly still has a few boxes from moving 6 months ago) and could not for the life of me find my old award-winning recipe.

A little research found a similar recipe in my Southern Living Cookbook. Adapted to be very slightly healthier, this recipe was delicious and definitely put me in the mood for cooler weather and colorful leaves. It has quickly become a favorite in my house and I have already been asked to make it again.

Ingredients

½ cup (one stick) butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 t vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 t baking soda
½ t salt
2 t cinnamon
½ t nutmeg
4 apples*
1 cup walnuts, chopped

*A note on choosing apples for baking: I like to use a 50-50 mix of green Granny Smith apples and tart red apples. For this recipe I used Fuji as my red apples, but Gala, Pink Lady, Melrose, and Jonagold all have a similar tart flavor. NEVER use Red Delicious apples for baking; they do not have enough flavor and your baked goods will be terribly boring.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Peel and cut up four apples. This should give you about four cups of apple pieces.

Stir together butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Sift together both types of flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg until well blended. Slowly add dry ingredients to above wet ingredients, stirring until mixed well. Fold in apples and walnuts. The resulting mixture will be VERY thick, resembling cookie dough.

Spread dough into a non-stick or greased glass 13 x 9 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow cake to cool on a wire rack.

This cake is best served warm, and I swear the taste got even better the next day as the moisture from the apples permeated the cake.

References:

"Chunky Apple Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting." Southern Living Cookbook. Birmingham, Alabama: Oxmoor House, 2006. 154.

http://www.food.com/recipe/apple-nut-cake-60893

Rosemary Buttermilk Biscuits

Today I realized that somehow, despite snow and freezing temperatures over the last few months, my rosemary plant from last summer is not only still alive, but thriving. I was already planning on making soup for dinner tonight, so I started searching through my cookbooks for a simple biscuit recipe that would use up some of the rosemary. These biscuits were fantastic, and I have a feeling I will be making them often in the future.

Ingredients:

2 ½ T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 t ground black pepper
1-2 T diced fresh rosemary (use half as much if dried)
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 t baking powder
½ t salt
½ t baking soda
2 T cold butter
¾ cup buttermilk*

*If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, you can substitute milk and vinegar at the ratio of 1 cup milk to 1 tablespoon white vinegar. For this recipe, I combined ¾ cup milk with ¾ teaspoon of white vinegar.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Heat olive oil in a frying pan. Add garlic, pepper, and rosemary and sauté for a few minutes, stirring often and being careful not to burn the garlic. Remove from heat.

I wish I could somehow post the smell of this fragrant home-grown rosemary.

Combine flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl. Stir with a fork until mixed well so that you do not end up with chunks of nasty baking soda surprise in your baked goods (something my grandma was known for, unfortunately). Cut in cold butter using a pastry cutter or a fork. This is easier if you cut the butter into small cubes first. Add oil and spices from pan and mix well, again using pastry cutter or a fork.

Add buttermilk and mix well until dough forms a ball. Move dough to a lightly floured surface and slice into 8 equal pieces with a sharp knife. Form each piece into a rough ball and arrange on a non-stick baking sheet. Brush tops with olive oil.

Bake at 425 degrees for 12-15 minutes, or until brown on top. These biscuits go well with my Herbed Carrot Soup.

References:
The Moosewood Collective. “Biscuits à la Focaccia.” Moosewood Restaurant New Classics. New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2001. 392. Print.

Herbed Carrot Soup

This recipe originally came from The Moosewood Cookbook, a cookbook that was my introduction to vegetarian cooking. My older siblings brought home this cookbook when I was in elementary school, and we all immediately fell in love with these flavorful recipes from the Moosewood Restaurant, a vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, New York. Since then, Moosewood has released several more cookbooks and the entire collection remains a family favorite.

This particular recipe has been altered slightly from the original and is something I make at least once a month. It is a very simple recipe to make, especially since I recently bought an awesome new Ninja blender that can puree this entire recipe at once.

Ingredients:

6 cups vegetable broth
2 lbs carrots
1 T butter or oil
1 cup diced onion
1 ½ t salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ t thyme
½ t marjoram
1 t basil
1 T lemon juice
1 ½ cups coconut milk

Bring vegetable broth and carrots to a boil in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Simmer for 20-30 minutes to soften carrots. When carrots are close to being done, heat oil in a frying pan and sauté onions for 5 minutes. Add garlic and herbs and cook for a few more minutes. Stir in lemon juice and remove from heat.

Combine carrots and herb-onion mixture in a blender or food processor with some broth and blend until smooth, working in small batches as your blender allows. Repeat until all ingredients have been blended. I find it is easiest to use a slotted spoon to make sure all carrots have been removed to the blender.

Return blended mixture to pan. Add coconut milk and continue to heat on low for a few minutes, stirring often to avoid burning. This recipe makes at least six servings and goes well with my rosemary buttermilk biscuits.

References:
Katzen, Mollie. “Herbed Carrot Soup.” The New Moosewood Cookbook. Berkeley, California: Ten Speed Press, 2000. 23. Print.

Pumpkin Soup

Two things take over my taste buds this time of year - the desire for a warm, comforting bowl of soup, and the desire for PUMPKIN-FLAVORED EVERYTHING. Today I combined those two desires in this delicious pumpkin soup. This recipe is non-dairy, but real milk or half-and-half could easily be substituted for the coconut milk that I used. I do, however, think the coconut milk added a flavor that would be missed if you used cow's milk.

Ingredients:

4 cups vegetable broth
1 cup carrots, chopped
1 15-oz can pumpkin
1 can (1 3/4 cups) coconut milk
1 t cinnamon
1 t ginger
1 t salt
1/2 t black pepper
1 bay leaf

2 cups water
Fresh sage for garnish

Combine broth, carrots, pumpkin, coconut milk, carrots and spices (except sage) in large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for at least an hour, stirring often to prevent burning. If you are using regular milk, save it and wait until close to the end of cooking to add it.

After an hour has passed, remove the bay leaf and discard. DO NOT FORGET TO REMOVE THE BAY LEAF. You do not want it blended in with your soup. Strain carrots from soup and add carrots to blender with 2 cups of water. Blend until smooth. Add carrot mixture back to the rest of the soup. If you are using regular milk, this is a good time to add the milk. Heat until just bubbling, then remove from heat. 

Serve garnished with diced fresh sage and with fresh, crusty bread on the side. I found beer bread went perfectly with this recipe. I only wish I had some pumpkin beer for making the beer bread, but alas, we drank it all recently during a particularly bad Browns game.

References:
http://www.againstallgrain.com/2011/11/01/paleo-and-scd-pumpkin-soup/

Dairy-Free Berry Gelato

This recipe has been a favorite of mine the last few weeks. I always crave ice cream when I don't feel well (I'm sure some of you can relate), but since we think dairy might be causing my migraines, ice cream is an unfortunate no-no. I started munching on frozen berries as an alternative, and eventually this recipe was born.

Ingredients:

2 cups frozen berries (I prefer raspberries)
1/2 cup vanilla almond milk
1 T flaxseed oil

Combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Eat immediately. I must admit, I've been known to remove the blade and eat this directly from the food processor (unplugged, of course).

You can leave out the flaxseed oil if you don't have it, but I find it adds something to the flavor that definitely wasn't there when I was just using berries and almond milk. I think it adds that creamy, fatty flavor that real ice cream has.