Penne with Veggies and Black Beans from the Wonderful Wife

NOTE: This is another guest post from my lovely wife. She's been on a roll using up garden vegetables. This is just a great recipe. I love what she did with it.

     The husband started back to work last week, and I wanted to make a big batch of something he could take to school for lunches. I vaguely remembered making a cold veggie pasta salad last summer that he really liked. I was positive it was in the Everyday Light Meals cookbook, but after going through it page by page, I wasn't able to find it. Huh… So, I went through it again – page by page. And there it was. Why couldn't I find it the first time, you ask? Simple. I made so many alterations to it the first time I made it that I didn't recognize it in the cookbook. I will give you the recipe as it was intended to be made and also my changes. Don’t worry. If it’s delicious my way, it’s probably more delicious when made properly.

Penne with Veggies 'n Black Beans
via Taste of Home Everyday Light Meals

Ingredients

• 10 ounces uncooked penne pasta (Let the substitutions begin! I make this with elbow macaroni. Maybe we were out of penne when I made it the first time, or maybe I felt a veggie pasta salad could only be made with macaroni. Heck, use bow-ties if you want. It’s pasta. It all tastes the same.)
• 1 cup sliced zucchini (I did a combo of zucchini and squash.)
• 1 cup sliced carrots (The first time I made this, I believe I grated the carrots. Worked fine. This time, I didn’t have regular carrots – just baby. So I cut them lengthwise down the middle and then did it again, effectively quartering them.)
• ½ cup fresh mushrooms (No fresh mushrooms in the house. I just omitted them entirely and made up the difference with other veggies. I’ve also used canned mushrooms, but I didn’t sauté them with the other veggies.)
• ½ cup julienned green or sweet red pepper (I used green.)
• 1 garlic clove, minced (I used 1 teaspoon of minced garlic from the jar.)
• 1 tablespoon each minced fresh basil, oregano, and thyme or 1 teaspoon each dried basil, oregano, and thyme (We don’t grown thyme in the herb garden, but we did have fresh basil and oregano, so I used a tablespoon of each, and a teaspoon of dried thyme.)
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 can (15 ounces) black beans, rinsed and drained
• 2/3 cup chopped seeded tomatoes (I prefer to use halved cherry tomatoes.)
• 1/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese (I used 4 oz of cubed mozzarella cheese.)
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

The aforementioned ingredients in no particular order.

Directions

1. Cook pasta according to package directions.
2. Meanwhile, in a large nonstick skillet, sauté the zucchini, carrots, mushrooms (omitted), green pepper, onion, garlic, and seasonings in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until crisp-tender. Stir in the beans.
3. Add drained pasta to vegetable mixture. Add tomatoes and remaining olive oil; toss gently. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and parsley. (Here’s where I really deviate from the recipe. This dish is supposed to be served hot, but my husband said it was even better cold. So, after tossing the tomatoes and olive oil into the pasta mixture, I put the whole thing in the refrigerator for a few hours. In the meantime, I cube up the mozzarella cheese. After the pasta has had time to cool, I take it out and toss in the mozzarella and parsley.)

One serving (1 1/3 cup) equals 315 calories.

Good times!

Summer Garden Chicken Stir Fry guest post from my Wonderful Wife

NOTE: As I am in the classroom for a new school year, my loving wife has picked up a bit of the slack on the Facebook page and the blog. At least until her school year starts. She wrote this post and did all the work on making this meal. She did a fantastic job, and I'm not just saying that so I can continue to sleep inside the house.
   
     As the title of this recipe suggests, this will use up some of your garden’s produce…provided the produce in the recipe is what you grow in your garden. It is also a fairly simple recipe, and that was what I was looking for this past Monday. My husband was working late, and I needed something easy.

Theoretically, this should be easy.

     Unlike my husband, I am not at my best in the kitchen. Want me to teach your child English? Recommend a good book? I can do that, but I’d rather not be evaluated on my culinary skills. So, here is the recipe, and as my husband always does, notes and changes are in blue.

Summer Garden Chicken Stir-fry

via Betty’s Crocker’s The 300 Calorie Cookbook

Ingredients

• 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped (Not going to happen when I am cooking alone. I used 2 teaspoons of minced garlic instead.)
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped gingerroot
• 1 medium onion, cut into thin wedges (I used a red onion. It was all we had and it made for a nice color combo with the other veggies.)
• 1 cup ready-to-eat baby-cut carrots, cut lengthwise in half (I thought they looked too big, so I cut them lengthwise in half a second time…I believe math teachers would refer to this as quartering. I am not a math teacher.)
• 1 cup fat-free chicken broth (I used a cup of home-made chicken broth.)
• 3 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
• 2 to 3 teaspoons of sugar (I used two.)
• 2 cups fresh broccoli florets
• 1 cup (3 oz) sliced fresh mushrooms (I didn’t have any fresh mushrooms. Also, I had half a dozen yellow squash in the refrigerator and more threatening in the garden. So, I made an executive decision and substituted yellow squash for the mushrooms – daring, I know. Like the red onion, I thought the color of the squash added something to the dish, and while I’m never sure my food will taste good, I want it to at least look nice.)
• ½ cup chopped bell pepper, any color (I used green as our peppers haven’t ripened to red yet.)
• 2 teaspoons corn starch (I ended up needing four. See directions for details.)
• Hot cooked brown rice, if desired (White rice worked just as well. It’s important to note that the “if desired” portion of the recipe is not included in the calorie calculations. Without the rice, one serving of this dish is 200 calories.)

Directions

1. Heat 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken, garlic, and ginger root; cook and stir 2 to 3 minutes or until chicken is brown.
2. Stir in onion, carrots, ¾ cup of broth, the soy sauce, and sugar. Cover and cook over medium heat 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Stir in broccoli, mushrooms (yellow squash), and bell pepper. Cover and cook about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until chicken is no longer pink in center and vegetables are crisp-tender (I think 5 minutes might have been overkill here. The veggies didn't come out as crisp as I would have liked. My chicken pieces were pretty well-cooked by the time I got to this step, so no worries there.)
4. In small bowl, mix cornstarch and remaining ¼ cup of broth; stir into chicken mixture. Cook, stirring frequently, until sauce is thickened. Serve over rice. (Everything had been going exactly as described until I added the cornstarch. And then…nothing happened. No thickening. In hindsight, this might have been due to the added moisture from the yellow squash. In any case, I simply mixed two more teaspoons of cornstarch with a tablespoon of water and added it to the pan. Thickening occurred – crisis averted.)

Good times!

The Wife's Zucchini Bread

     Like I've told you before, my wife doesn't do much of the cooking in the house. We have an agreement where I do most of the cooking and she cleans up the wreckage. She does, however, have a few recipes in her repertoire.  They are all very good. Her zucchini bread is one of my all-time favorites. She got the recipe from the One Million of the World's Best Recipes CD-ROM. You know what? I'm calling bullshit on that CD. How can there be more than one of the "World's Best" anything? The CD should have one recipe. Even if it was the "World's Best" of each type of food I still can't believe there are a million distinctly different categories of food. I think a more accurate title would have been "One Million Really Good Recipes and Lots of Okay Ones."

Sorry, I seem to have gotten off track.

     Anyway, this bread is fantastic. The wife leaves out the walnuts from this recipe and I think that's a really good call. The bread is such a wonderfully soft consistency, I think the crunchiness of the walnuts would throw it off. As always, any notes or changes are in blue.

The Wife's Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup vegetable oil (we substituted 1/2 cup apple butter in for 1/2 cup of oil. Applesauce would work, too)
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (omitted)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Grease and flour two 8"x4" loaf pans
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs until light and frothy.
3. Mix in oil (and apple butter if you're using it) and sugar.
4. In another bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, salt and nuts (seriously, leave the nuts out. It's so much better. Or don't. I'll never know). Stir into the egg mixture.
5. Divide batter into prepared pans. Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until done (ours took 75 minutes. Fairly close for once!)

Good times!

Zucchini Boats

     I do most of the cooking in the house. This is by design. The wife doesn't approve of my cleaning methods, which consist largely of wiping everything off the counter on to the floor. We have struck a bargain. I cook, she does the bulk of the cleaning apart from my non-stick pan and cast iron skillet. There was an incident years ago in which her enthusiasm with a scouring pad resulted in the untimely demise of my Emeril non-stick egg pan.

     There are times when I insist the wife step up and cook. I have a couple of meals that, even though I am fully capable of cooking them myself, I prefer that she make them. I consider them her recipes. She made them first. It's only right that the onus of cooking them always fall to her. Among these recipes are a wicked good tuna casserole, zucchini bread, potato casserole and zucchini boats. She found the recipe for these zucchini boats on an ancient CD-ROM: "Easy Chef's One Million Recipes." She actually made a couple of modifications (a girl after my own heart); the changes and notes will, as always, be in blue.

Ingredients

• 3 lg. zucchini
• 2 tbsp. onion, minced
• 3 tbsp. butter
• 1 c. soft bread crumbs (she uses an equal amount of dry Italian bread crumbs. You know, the ones in the cardboard tube)
• 1/2 c. tomatoes, cooked and chopped (she just sauteed them in a little olive oil for a few minutes)
• Salt & pepper to taste
• 1/2 lb. Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (she subs in cheeses at a whim. Hardcore. Sometimes she'll use Mozarella. This time she used a 6-cheese Italian mix.)

Directions

1. Cook zucchini in boiling salted water 10 minutes. 
2. Cut in halves and scoop out centers. Mix pulp with remaining ingredients. 

   

   Don't completely gut the zucchini.
   You're just scooping a trench down the middle to hold the filling.

3. Fill zucchini and top with cheese. 
4. Bake in 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. 

These are great served with marinara sauce!

Serves 6.

Good times!