Clear the Fridge Pasta Salad

There comes a time in life when you get the call.  The call from a neighbor asking inviting you over for a cookout. Well, not one to ever show up empty-handed, I asked if he wanted me to bring anything. He said no. I said, that's not an option, please choose between mac & cheese or pasta salad. He went with the salad. So naturally I made six hundred pounds. It was pretty tasty and will make a solid addition to any cookout, picnic or pot luck. If you don't like Basalmic vinaigrette, feel free to swap in Italian or any dressing like that. I suppose you could even go totally wild and use ranch or Caesar dressing for a real gastric bludgeon. As always, if you try it, let me know what you think unless you don't like it. Then I don't want to hear about it. As always, notes are in blue.

Clear the Fridge Pasta Salad

Ingredients

• 2 lbs elbow macaroni
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 1 cup shredded carrot 
• 1 cup roasted red/orange/yellow pepper, chopped (feel free to use jarred roasted peppers if you don't want th extra work)
• 1 can black olives, drained and halved
• 3 ounces green olives, halved
• 1 jar (12 ounces) marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
• 1 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 6 ounces mozzarella cheese, cut into small cubes
• 6 ounces pepperoni, diced
• 1-1/2 cups Basalmic vinaigrette dressing (we originally used a from scratch recipe then realized the bottled stuff was fine, Start with 1 cup of the dressing, then adjust to taste if you want more)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Cook pasta according to directions, but stop and drain a minute before the suggested time. 
2. In a big foil pan, throw in everything and toss the living shit out of it.
3. Give it a taste. If you want more dressing or salt and pepper, add it. If you want less, you're screwed.I guess you can add more of everything else?

Good Times!

Shells with Bell Peppers and Feta

     If I ever lose my copy of Taste of Home Everyday Light Meals, I'm hosed. I am constantly digging through this recipe book for recipes and ideas. We really liked this recipe. It's super easy to put together and leaves plenty of room for personal interpretation. It's also fairly healthy. This is one of those meals that is perfect for the middle of a busy week. As a bonus, it's good cold, too! As always, any notes or changes are in blue.

Shells with Bell Peppers and Feta
via Taste of Home Everyday Light Meals

Ingredients

• 2-1/4 cups uncooked penne (we used 5 cups of medium shells)
• 3/4 cup chopped onion 
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup chopped sweet red pepper
• 1 cup chopped green pepper
• 1/4 cup sliced ripe black olives (you bet. Ripe from the can.)
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (I never understand measurements like this. 1/8 teaspoon? Really? Why not hold the jar of cayenne next to the bowl and call it a day? I used a full teaspoon)
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

Directions

1. Cook and drain pasta according to package directions (It's important to use the right package for directions. You don't want to accidentally cook your pasta according to the directions on a package of suppositories). 
2. In a nonstick skillet, sautee onion in oil for 1-1/2 minutes. Add garlic; cook 30 seconds longer.
3. Add the peppers; cook and stir for 2-3 minutes or until vegetables are tender.
4. Stir in olives, oregano, salt, and cayenne. Add water; cook and stir until mixture comes to a boil. Stir pasta into skillet. Remove from heat. Stir in cheese. 

Slow Cooker Spanish-Style Couscous

     I'm still on the fence about slow-cooker recipes that require you to do cooking outside of the slow-cooker. I just want to chuck everything in there and forget about it. I'll make exceptions for ground meat. Nobody wants slow cooked ground meat. That just sounds nasty. After this recipe, I'll also make an exception for couscous, because it takes almost no time to make. The Wife and I really enjoyed this recipe. We tinkered with the ingredients and came up with a winner. It was simple and with a switch to turkey, a healthy meal. As always, any notes and changes are in blue.

Slow Cooker Spanish-Style Couscous
via Crock-Pot Quick & Easy Recipes

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef (we had a bunch of ground turkey patties in the freezer, so we used 1.5 pounds of those instead)
• 1 can (14 ounces) beef broth (I don't keep cans of broth on hand. I just filled an empty can with water and dissolved a beef bouillon cube in it)
• 1 green bell pepper, cut into 1/2 inch pieces (you should know by now The Wife doesn't like green peppers, so we went with red instead)
• 1/2 cup pimiento stuffed green olives, sliced
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
•  1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon Pilsen Latino Seasoning from the Spice House
• 1-1/3 cup water (this is for the couscous. DON'T put it in the slow cooker!)
• 1 cup uncooked couscous (we found a really good roasted garlic and olive oil couscous at ALDI)

Directions

1. Brown meat in a large skillet over medium-high heat, stirring to break up meat (I've never seen a recipe tell you to break up the meat before. Are there people out there just chucking a big wad of meat in the pan and hoping for the best?) Drain fat.
2. Combine broth, bell pepper, olives, onion, garlic, cumin, thyme and meat in slow-cooker. Cover; cook on LOW 5 hours or until bell pepper is tender. 
3. Bring water to a boil over high heat in a small saucepan. Stir in couscous. Cover; remove from heat. Let stand 5 minutes. Fluff with fork (don't forget to take the cover off before fluffing or you may encounter some difficulties). Spoon couscous onto plates; top with beef mixture (use a slotted spoon for getting the beef mixture out. There's going to be a fair amount of liquid left in the slow cooker).

Good times!

Spaghetti with Olives and Capers

     We had someone over for dinner last weekend who has started trying his hand at cooking. He seemed to be lacking confidence, so I let him pick a recipe out of a The Essential Pasta Cookbook and I would show him how to make it. He wound up picking this recipe, which is good because it is very simple. It's a good lesson to see that it only takes a few good ingredients to put together a great meal. Granted, I have a hard time relinquishing control in the kitchen. I did let him chop the tomatoes. He did a fine job. We served the pasta with my wife's Zucchini Boats and had a delicious dinner. As always, any changes or notes will be in blue.

Spaghetti with Olives and Capers
via The Essential Pasta Cookbook

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (true story: I tried to explain what "extra virgin" meant regarding olive oil to my wife. I told her that most olive presses are worked by a single virgin. When they want to get the last, choicest drops of oil out, they bring in an extra virgin to work the press. Needless to say, she didn't believe me.)
• 1-1/2 cup fresh white bread crumbs (believe it or not, we didn't have any white bread. We used a scant 3/4 cup of Italian bread crumbs from the cardboard tube.)
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1-1/2 ounce can anchovies, drained and finely chopped, optional (anchovies are never an option for me. I only used a few though, as I wasn't sure how everyone else would like it. They seemed pretty grossed out when I started eating them straight from the can.)
• 10 oz black olives, finely chopped
• 6 Roma tomatoes, peeled and chopped (we still had some tomatoes with basil and garlic we canned last season. We just used a whole quart jar.)
• 2 tablespoons tiny capers (in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit my capers were not tiny. They were simply below average.)
• 1 lb spaghetti

Directions

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a medium frying pan. Add the breadcrumbs and cook, stirring continuously, until golden brown and crispy. Remove from the pan and set aside to cool completely (yeah, totally didn't do that. I took the jar of bread crumbs out of the pantry, took the lid off and poured out the amount I planned on using.)
2. Add the remaining oil to the pan and heat for 1 minute. Add the garlic, anchovies and black olives and cook over medium heat for 30 seconds.  Add the tomatoes and capers and cook for 3 minutes (since I used my own canned tomatoes, I let it cook a little longer than that to get out some of the excess moisture.)
3. Cook the pasta in a large pan of rapidly boiling water until al dente (I went to school with an Al Dente. Nice guy.) Drain and return to the pan. Add the tomato mixture and breadcrumbs and toss to combine. Serve immediately, with herbs as a garnish if you like.

Good times!

Monday Recipe: Spaghetti alla Puttanesca

     Ah, the much maligned anchovy. So few people understand you. When you say anchovy, "EEW! Slimy fish!" or some approximation is normally the response you get. Some misinformed people think pizza is the natural habitat of the anchovy. They turn their head and will not condescend to eat anything with this salty little devil lurking about in it.
     My wife is one of those people. I have tried and tried again to get her to eat an anchovy. It wasn't happening. Then I realized what I was doing wrong. I needed to trick her. I needed to add anchovy to something she is powerless to resist. I laid one across my manly chest. Nothing. Then I realized I'd be better off putting them in some sort of pasta. I'm convinced she loves pasta more than me. I think she loves me because I make pasta for her to eat. Whatever works. I started digging through my Italian cookbooks until I found this little gem in World Food Italy by Linda Doeser. The recipe from the book calls for linguine, we only had spaghetti in the house, so there you go. How can you possibly go wrong with a recipe that literally translated, means "Whore's Style Spaghetti?"

Spaghetti alla Puttanesca
(via World Food Italy by Linda Doeser)

Ingredients

(for the sauce)

• 3 tbsp. olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 10 anchovy fillets, drained and chopped 
• scant 1 cup black olives, pitted and chopped
• 1 tbsp. capers, rinsed
• 1 lb. plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped (we used tomatoes we canned from our garden)
• pinch of cayenne pepper

(remaining ingredients)

• salt
• 14 oz. dried spaghetti
• 2 tbsp. chopped fresh flat-leaf pasta (which I totally forgot to use. Oh well)

Directions

1. Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottom pan. Add garlic and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, for 2 minutes.
2. Add anchovies and mash them with a fork. Add olives, capers and tomatoes and season to taste with cayenne pepper.
3. Cover and let simmer for 25 minutes.
4. While sauce is simmering, bring pot of salted water to boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente. Drain.
5. Spoon sauce over pasta and toss. Garnish with parsley. 

This makes about 4 servings.

Good times!