Category: Main Dishes

Spaghetti Squash with Sundried Tomatoes and Olives

I love the idea of spaghetti squash, but I find it doesn’t have quite enough flavour on its own.  As my friend Meredyth says, sundried tomatoes make everything better.  I feel the same way about olives.  This easy recipe isn’t shy on taste, and it is super healthy and all-vegetable.  And  nut.  Okay, and olives are actually a fruit . . . but you get the point.

What you need:

1 spaghetti squash

6 sundried tomatoes

1 lemon, juice and zest

2 tablespoons olive oil (optional)

1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped basil

1/2 clove garlic, finely diced

about a dozen kalamata olives

1/4 cup lightly toasted pine nuts

What you do:

1.  Cut the squash in half, scoop the seeds out and place cut-side down on a baking sheet.  Bake at 400F for about 40 minutes.

2.  While the squash is baking toast the pine nuts.

3.  When the squash is cooked, remove it from the oven and let it sit for about 10 minutes, until it is cool enough to handle.

4.  Combine the lemon juice and zest, olive oil, basil, sundried tomatoes, olives, garlic and basil.

5.  Remove the squash from the shells by scraping with a fork.  Add the other ingredients to the squash.

Ready, easy and yummy!

Mushroom, Turkey and Hot Italian Sausage Lasagna, lactose-free

Lasagna is such a great dish for a dinner party – throw it in the oven before the guests arrive and you’ve got time to do a few last-minute things, and then sit down and relax a little while dinner cooks.

This recipe can be made lactose-free or lactose-full, depending on which way you lean.  For me soy and lactose-free cheese are revolutionary.  For cheesy/dairy people, just substitute with the real thing.  One product I never use is soy cheese; they don’t taste very good, and they stick to your teeth like melted plastic might.  Ick!  Instead I use lactose-free L’Ancetre cheeses, which tastes fabulous!

What you need:

1 recipe homemade pasta OR store-bought lasagna noodles

1 recipe Turkey & Hot Italian Sausage Tomato Sauce

1 recipe mushroom cream sauce

2-3 cups mozzarella cheese

What you do:

You have prepared all of your ingredients, and are now ready to put the lasagna together!  I used a 9×11 deep-dish pan for this recipe.  My homemade noodles were quite thin, so I was able to do 4 layers of pasta; if you are using store-bought noodles you might not be able to fit that many layer into your pan.  If this is the case you could assemble it in two pans, or save the extra sauce for another use.  (You can use the mushrooms to stuff some crepes!  And the tomato sauce could be served over pasta!)

1.  Spread a little tomato sauce on the bottom of the pan, about 1/3 of it.

2.  Lay out the noodles on top of the sauce.  If you are using homemade pasta you don’t need to cook it first.

3.  Now add a layer of the mushroom sauce, about half of it, then put some more noodles on top.  (Or, if you’re really into your cheese, you can add some extra mozzarella on top of the mushroom sauce.)

4.  Add another third of the tomato sauce, then more noodles.

5.  Now add the remaining mushroom sauce, then another layer of noodles.

6.  Final layer: the last of the tomato sauce.  The mozzarella cheese will go on half way through the baking.

So now you’ve got:

tomato, noodle, mushroom

noodle, tomato, noodle,

mushroom, noodle, tomato

7.  Cover the lasagna with foil and bake for 30 minutes at 350F.

8.  Remove the foil and sprinkle on the cheese.  Bake for another 30 minutes, then check to see if it has browned.  If not, then pop on the broiler for a minute, watching carefully so it doesn’t burn, until it’s browning and bubbly.

9.  Remove the lasagna from the oven and let it rest for about 20 minutes before cutting.  Letting it rest helps the pieces will stay together when you serve them.

Butternut Squash and Roasted Garlic Ravioli or deconstructed ravioli

I was so excited to use my pasta machine and ravioli press, so I came up with this recipe for the filling.  I’m in love with the filling!  But. . .

In the end I realized that I’m not very good at rolling the pasta into rectangles, and that it’s hard to seal the ravioli properly.  So I ended up with a few tortellini that lost their filling.  After making a bunch of difficult and misshapen ravioli I gave up and made a sort of deconstructed ravioli dish – I just put some hot filling on the plate, then topped it with some long strands of pasta, salt and pepper and a bit of butter.  Same amazing flavour, way less work!  You could just make the filling and use some store-bought pasta – much much simpler!

What you need:

1 recipe of homemade pasta

1 smallish butternut squash

sage

3 cloves garlic

optional: a splash of brandy

salt and pepper

butter or olive oil

What you do:

1.  Prepare pasta dough ahead of time; if you refrigerated it, make sure it come out of the fridge at least an hour before you want to roll it so it’s not too firm.

2.  Cut the squash in half and remove seeds.  Place cut side down on a baking pan.  Bake at 375F for 40-45 minutes. Wrap the garlic, in their papery covers, in a small piece of tin foil and place on the same baking sheet.

3.  Test for doneness by inserting a sharp knife into the flesh of the squash, at the thickest part.  If it goes in easily, the squash is done.

4.  Allow squash to cool before making the filling.  Then scoop it out into a bowl and mix in the garlic with a fork, along with a crumbling of sage and some salt and pepper and the optional brandy.  Taste and adjust seasonings.  They will vary according to the size of the squash and your preference.  I could eat a bowl of the filling alone – it’s soooo good!

5.  With a large pot of water on to boil, roll out the dough.  If you have a machine set it to the thinnest possible.  When you have rectangular shapes, place on top of ravioli press and add a dollop of filling.  Place the top layer of dough on it, and press the shapes out.

6.  If you can’t cook the pasta right away, place a cloth on top to keep it from drying out.  Add the pasta to a large pot of boiling water and cook for only a few minutes.

7.  Drain pasta, then plate it and drizzle a little olive oil on top (or a little butter) and some freshly cracked pepper and salt.  Enjoy!

Homemade Pasta

This is a basic pasta recipe that you can use for lasagna, ravioli, spaghetti, and any number of other noodle types.

What you need:

3 cups all-purpose flour

4 large eggs

1 teaspoon salt

up to 4 tablespoon water

What you do:

1.  Place the flour mixed with salt on the clean counter and make a well in the centre.

2.  Add the eggs to the well and mix them up with the fork.  Gradually incorporate some of the flour into the egg until it is combined.  Add a little water at a time as needed.  The dough should not be so sticky that it sticks to the counter, but you should be able to form it into a ball.  Knead for 7-8 minutes.

3.  Let the dough rest under a bowl for about an hour.  Alternately, you can refrigerate it, removing it from the fridge about an hour before you need it so it’s not too firm.

4.  Roll the dough using a pasta machine or rolling-pin and cut into your desired shapes.  If you’re not going to cook it right away, place a towel over the top of the pasta.

5.  Use a large pot to boil water to cook the pasta – it doesn’t need very long, only a minute or two for the thinnest pasta.  Lasagna noodles don’t need to be cooked before assembling your dish.

6.  Dry extra pasta by draping over a coat hook for a few days.

Brown Rice Lentils with Salsa

My mom gave me this recipe many years ago, and it was an old faithful of mine for a long time, especially when I was looking for something economical, healthy, and still yummy.  I’ve modified the original recipe only by adding more veggies.  It’s pretty easy to make!  Most of the time you need for this one is cooking time – you can be done in just over an hour, including 45-50 minutes of cooking time.

What you need:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, chopped

3-4 carrots, chopped

8-10 mushrooms, sliced

1 teaspoon soy sauce

3/4 cup brown lentils, dry

1 cup brown rice

3 cups water or broth

tomato salsa, to serve

What you do:

1.  Heat a large pot to medium heat, and add the chopped onion once the oil is hot.  Let it cook for a few minutes, stirring from time to time, until slightly browned.

2.  Add the garlic, mushrooms and carrot, cooking for a few minutes.

3.  Add soy sauce, lentils, rice and water.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and cook 45 minutes with a lid on.

4.  If it’s still a little watery at the end of the cooking time, just turn the heat up a little and cook it off.

5.  Serve with salsa, and you’re ready to go!

Beef and Chorizo Empanadas

If you’re looking for a savoury appetizer that you can make ahead, you might want to give this a try.   This recipe is an amalgamation of the empanada recipes I found on the internet – I put together all the elements that I thought would work well together.  And how can you go wrong with flavourful meat-filled pastry?

You can make the filling and pastry ahead of time, then assemble and bake them right before you need them.  Alternately, you can make them days or weeks ahead of time, then pop them in the oven right out of the freezer .  This is great for the times when you suddenly need something the serve and don’t have time to do any cooking.

What you need:

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 onion, diced finely

1 clove garlic, diced finely

1 carrot, diced finely

1/2 red bell pepper, diced finely

500 g extra lean ground beef

500 g uncooked chorizo, with casings removed

1/4 cup red wine, optional

1 teaspoon cumin

1 & 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika

1 cup chopped green olives

1/2 cup golden raisins

2 teaspoons honey

salt

pepper

hot sauce

1 egg

lime wedges to serve

For the pastry:

2 & 1/4 cups flour

1 & 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 large egg

1/3 cup ice water

1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

What you do:
1.  To make the pastry, blend the cold butter into the flour and salt with a pastry blender or your fingers.  Mix the egg, water and vinegar, and add them to the flour mixture.  Mix with a wooden spoon until combined, then wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

2.  Cook onion in oil until slightly browned, then add peppers, carrots and garlic, cooking for a few minutes.

3.  Cook the beef along with the chorizo, in another pan.  Break it up as it cooks so the meat is in fine pieces.  Drain excess fat, then add to the vegetable mixture.

4.  Add optional wine and simmer  for a few minutes.  Then add cumin, paprika, olives, raisins, honey, pepper and a few dashes of hot sauce.  Simmer until very little liquid remains.

5.  Season to taste – you may want to add more hot sauce, depending on how spicy the chorizo.   Remove from heat to cool before filling pastries. (I cool the filling the day before)

6.  Roll out dough to about half a centimetre thick.  Cut into circles with a cutter or bowl.

7.  Using your finger tip dab a little water along one edge of the rounds.  This will help the pastry stay sealed.

8.  Place the pastry in the palm of one hand, fill it, then lightly pinch it shut.  To  seal you can make a folded edge or close with a fork.

9.  Combine the egg with a little water, then brush onto each pastry.  Poke a few holes with a fork into the top of each pastry.

10.  Bake at 400C for 20-25 minutes, until golden.

11.  Serve hot with lime wedges.  Squeeze a little lime juice on top right before it goes into your mouth!

Rack of Lamb

I’ve never cooked a rack of lamb before, and in trying to do so I realized two things:

1.  It’s so easy

2.  It’s so tasty

So, here’s what I did, borrowing a recipe from Ina Garten that I only slightly modified.

What you need:

1 rack of lamb

2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon fresh rosemary

2 cloves garlic

3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

optional: red wine for deglazing the pan

What you do:

1.  Blend all the ingredients (well, except the lamb!) in  a food processor.  I couldn’t get mine to chop the rosemary very small, and it ended up being great even with some bigger pieces.

2.  Coat the lamb with this mixture, and let sit for about an hour to allow the meat to become infused.

3.  Preheat oven to 450F.  Cook the lamb 20(rare)-25(medium-rare) minutes.  I did 22 minutes and it was perfect.

4.  Cover the lamb with a lid and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

5.  Cut the lamb into individual pieces and plate on the plate.  Quickly deglaze the pan with a little red wine, and use this to drizzle on top of the lamb.

Voila!  Delicious and pretty simple!

Chicken, Corn and Kale Soup

This cold weather is perfect for soup making.  This one’s quite easy, too, an old standby that I created a long time ago out of foods I had on hand.  Kale is packed with vitamin C – and don’t we all need a bit more of that with all the germs flying around these days?  It also provides a lot of iron and calcium, among other nutritional benefits.

What you need:

3-4 chicken thighs, bone-in, skin removed

1-3 whole cloves garlic, skin removed

3 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 can cannellini beans (white kidney beans), drained and rinsed

1 bunch kale, chopped roughly

1 can corn

salt and a generous amount of pepper

optional:  1/2 cup orzo

What you do:

1.  Place a large pot on medium heat, then put the chicken thighs in.  Add the garlic cloves and cook for a few minutes on one side.

2.  Add the broth, bring to a boil, then lower heat and cook for 30 minutes.

3.  Add the beans and cook for 20 more minutes, unless you’re in a big hurry, in which case you can move to step 4.

4.  Cook the pasta in a separate pot and have it ready to add at the end.

5.  Remove the chicken and pull it apart with a fork, so it is shredded rather than chopped.

6.  Put the chicken back in the pot, add the kale, corn, pasta, salt and pepper, and cook until just heated.

Done!  And it’s great for left-overs.

Kim’s Lasagna, Lactose-Free but still cheesy and flavourful!

I’ve been avoiding making lasagna for years because I can’t eat cheese, and a non-cheesy lasagna just doesn’t seem right – but now there are all these great lactose-free cheeses out there, and my whole lactose-intolerant world is changing! I’m not talking about those horrible soy cheeses – I’m talking about real cheese that happens to have no lactose.  It tastes like cheese and melts like cheese – because it IS cheese.  I also added some of my tofu ricotta, which is as creamy as the real thing… try it and see.

Yes, this recipe is a bit of work, or a lot of work.  But it’s soooo good!  There’s the tomato sauce, a ricotta layer, mushrooms, pesto, and a white sauce.  Lots of flavour!

What you need:

1 & 1/2 to 2 recipes of tomato sauce (recipe here!)

tofu spinach ricotta (recipe here!)

1 lb mushrooms, fried

pesto (recipe here!)

9-12 lasagna noodles (I used the no-boil ones for this)

1 cup lactose-free mozzarella, grated

white sauce: -2 tablespoons butter/soy butter

-2 tablespoons flour

-3/4 – 1 cup soy milk (regular if you’re not concerned about lactose)

-1/2 of a  227 gram tub  of soy cream cheese

-salt and pepper

What you do:

1.  To make the white sauce, melt the butter in a small pot. then whisk in the flour.  Cook for about a minute, stirring constantly.  Don’t let it brown!  Very gradually add the soy milk, a little at a time so it boils.  Mix it in so it has no lumps, then add a bit more until it has a runny-pudding consistency.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

2.  You have all the parts ready to assemble the lasagna, so now you just have to build it.  This is the layering I did – of course you can experiment with this to make it your own.  If you are using no-boil noodles you just have to make sure you have enough moisture to cook them, or they will be a little crunchy around the edges. Use a 9×12 pan for this amount of lasagna.

– spread about 1/3 of the tomato sauce on the bottom of the pan, then lay down some noodles

– sprinkle the tofu ricotta. then the mushrooms, then another layer of noodles

– spread on another 1/3 of the tomato sauce, then the pesto, then another layer of noodles

– the final layer consists of the remaining tomato sauce, the white sauce, and the mozzarella cheese

3.  Cover with foil and bake at 350F for 45 minutes.  Remove the foil and bake for about 15 more minutes.  For the last minute I switched to broil so it would brown on top – since real cheese actually browns, I like to take advantage of this feature!

4.  Allow the lasagna to rest for 15 minutes before cutting it.  This will increase the chances that the pieces can be cut and stay together as you serve them.  And it won’t be too hot to eat.

Enjoy!

Note: if you’re one of the many people who can’t eat wheat, try out the brown rice, kamut or quinoa noodles – they’re great!  So great that they are all I usually eat.

Palak “Paneer” aka silken tofu

I’ve had this recipe in draft mode for months because I can’t seem to get a picture that makes it look as appealing as it truly is.  So now I’m going to be okay with the photo, and just let you know that it’s so good – it’s vegan comfort food.

Paneer is a fresh cheese you can make at home with milk and lemon – the silken tofu does a great job of representing the creamy, almost melty texture of paneer.  Tofu will also satisfy your umami cravings – umami is known as the fifth or savoury taste, which is often satisfied by meat.  Tofu also contains the compounds that the taste buds register to satisfy the savoury cravings.  Maybe that’s why this one seems like comfort food to me.

You need:

2 red onions

1 garlic clove

3 small green chillies

2 cm piece of ginger, grated

5 tablespoons vegetable oil (butter if you eat dairy)

500g/2 bunches spinach

1 teaspoon cornstarch or tapioca starch

1 block soft silken tofu (the “paneer”)

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon garam masala

1/4 or more cups plain yogurt

salt to taste

What you do:

1.  This is great served on Brown Basmati Coconut Rice, so you’ll want to start that first.  White rice won’t take as long, so if you’re using that you don’t need to start it yet.

2.  Put onions, garlic, chillies and ginger in food processor or blender.  Process until smooth.  You may need to add a little water.

3.  Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil/butter in a large frying pan, then cook the spices on medium heat until fragrant.  Add the other 3 tablespoons of oil/butter and the onion paste,  cooking for about 10 minutes.

4.  Cook the spinach until wilted and add to the food processor along with the cornstarch and puree it.  Add the spinach, along with about 1/2 teaspoon of salt, to the paste. Bring it to a boil and cook for about two minutes.  At this time have a taste and see if it needs more salt; it probably will.

6.  Cut the tofu into squares and add it to the pan to heat it.  Once it is hot, stir in the yogurt carefully so the tofu doesn’t break too much, and serve right away.

I enjoy this one for leftovers too!

You can substitute the spinach with swiss chard if you like.