more recipes from ellie

So I've been trying various recipes from Ellie Krieger's "The Food You Crave", a recent trial was her Pasta Puttanesca, it was easy to put together.

I couldn't find arugula so I put in some sliced red leaf lettuce. Also, I roasted the garlic that needed to go into the sauce.

Her recipe uses whole wheat pasta, which I was happy to find at the gourmet supermarket. This was really flavorful and delicious.

On another night for dinner, I tried her Penne with Roasted Tomatoes, Garlic and White Beans. This was good and FAST! The thing that took the longest was roasting the tomatoes and garlic. I used whole wheat penne and dried basil since I didn't have fresh. The flavors are light and refreshing. The beans give it a little creaminess.

I served the pasta with some fresh peas, pancetta, onions and eringi sauteed in olive oil and pepper.

Now while I would like to say that all of Ellie's recipes are great, I found one that wasn't...the whole wheat pancakes. She says after putting the batter together, "the batter will be lumpy". Um, yeah and there will also be lumps of flour when the pancakes are cooked...blah. Sorry Ellie, but the next time I make this, there will be no lumps.

Okay, so far that one recipe was a bad one, but only because of the lumps. I'm happy with the majority of the ones I have tried. They are easy and best of all you know they are healthy. I'm still inspired to try more recipes from this book.

using more kinoko

Recently on La Fuji Mama, she posted about a creamy pasta that is a favorite in their household.

This reminded me that I hadn't made this recipe in awhile. I also had bought some Italian parsley that I wanted to use up.

Since kinoko (mushrooms) are in season here, I decided to adjust the recipe to accommodate some kinoko.

I lessened the amount of pancetta and added a package of shimeji (tricoloma) & a package of maitake (hen of woods).

We had the pasta with some carrot salad topped with marinated onions.

It was a great Sunday dinner.

trying new recipes

Well, the weather is....still warm (I guess I did jinx myself). The weather people have compared it to mid-August temps during the day...blah. I learned something new the other night, the weather guy said that the wispy clouds are autumn clouds and the fluffy ones are summer clouds. So as you can see from the photo, even the sky is confused as to what season it is...sigh. Oh, and if you see a jet stream and it stays in the sky for a long time, this means it will rain and if it fades quickly the weather will stay sunny....

Yesterday, I was in a procrastinating kind of mood with my bead project, so I decided to eat all day and tried some new recipes.

There was banh mi for lunch. The post on Tamarind and Thyme led me to Viet World Kitchen which gave a recipe for the veggies that go inside of a banh mi. This sandwich reminded me of the sandwiches I've had at Ba-le in Hawaii. I think if I had some fish sauce it would have tasted a little more authentic.

And then these petit mont blancs from one of my cookbooks for a mid-afternoon tea. The topping which is usually a chestnut mixture, is made from sweet potatoes instead. The bottom was a cookie, not the usual cake. The only problem I had was piping (as you can probably tell). Using my tiny food processor, the sweet potato didn't get as smooth as I would have liked it, so when I was piping, bits got stuck in the frosting tip and would blast itself out...I'm lucky it wasn't more messy. These were super easy (aside from the piping) to make and a very nice snack. (the two in the background are for Satoshi)

And then there was Amy's penne alla vodka for dinner. I didn't have vodka in the house, only shochu (which is like sake but made from potatoes or barley and stronger than sake), so I guess mine should be called penne alla shochu. I liked this recipe, it tasted like something I've had in a restaurant before. Too bad I didn't buy more baguettes, so I could mop up the sauce!

I love the internet! All the exchanging of information at my fingertips.

Hope you have a nice weekend, we have ANOTHER 3-day weekend (although Satoshi has to work today)....I guess I better get beading.

UPDATE: I switch out cream with skim milk in the Penne alla Vodka sauce to cut back a little of the calories and sometimes just make the sauce so we can dip bread into it.

the last day of july

Today is the last day of July. The sound of summer, here in Japan, is the screeching/chirping (actually I'm not sure what to call it) sound from the semi (cicada). Now, coming from Hawaii, I'd never seen a bug as big as a cicada (except for the flying cockroaches that we have in Hawaii), or as noisy. Talk about noisy! If you want to sleep in, and are a light sleeper, forgettaboutit! These guys get up at the crack of dawn...

Satoshi says that they live only for a week or so. In that time, according to Cicada Mania, they are mating! Some sound more like a space craft hovering or a sprinkler watering the lawn, some even sound like the milk steamer on an espresso maker! Satoshi says that it is the male cicada that is making the noises--trying to get the attention of the female cicada.

One summer, we had one perched on our glass window and the whole window shook! The photo of the cicada was taken back in 2002.

Changing the subject, I had some leftover penne & farfalle from the party the other day--so, I decided to try a new recipe from "The Silver Spoon": Penne All'Arrabbiata (page 295). It was a really easy recipe.

Here it is: 6 T oil
2 garlic cloves
1/2 fresh chile, seeded and chopped
1 pound 2 oz. canned chopped tomatoes, drained
3 cups penne lisce
1 T chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
salt

Heat the oil in a skillet, add the garlic cloves and chile and cook until the garlic browns, then remove the cloves from the skillet. Add the tomatoes to the pan, season with salt and cook for about 15 minutes. Cook the penne in a large pan of salted, boiling water until al dente, then drain and tip into the skillet. Toss over high heat for a few minutes, then transfer to a warm serving dish, sprinkle with the parsley.

Enjoy!

Notes: Read the recipe thoroughly--I didn't, and didn't drain the tomatoes--talk about dangerous splashing when the tomatoes met up with the heated oil! Yipes...Still, it was really delicious!

Have a nice week!