IHCC: Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina Casserole

This week's theme at I Heart Cooking Clubs is "Kid at Heart." I immediately knew which Giada recipe I was going to make. Why? Because the word "pastina" was in the title.

Pastina, to me, is quintessential kid food. It's tiny and cute. And it was one of my favorites when I was a child. My favorite Campbell's soup was, by far, chicken and stars. I just loved the itty bitty stars floating in there, and how they practically melted on my tongue. My mom used to make me pastina boiled in her chicken soup when I was sick. The restorative powers of the soup and the fun bits of pasta always made me feel at least a little better.

There's something about the texture that tiny pasta creates that I just love. I remember, when I was an early teen, discovering couscous. I had it for the first time in the Moroccan restaurant at Epcot Center. It was a revelation to me--a dish made solely of tiny pasta? And used in place of the (in my eyes, disgusting) mashed potatoes you see so often in America? Sign me up! I've been a couscous aficionado ever since.

This recipe was so promising. I mean, how can you go wrong with tiny pasta, cubes of chicken, mozzarella cheese, and breadcrumbs? You can't, really. But this recipe tried hard. It really turned out to be no more than the sum of its parts. Pastina? Check. Tomatoes? Check. Mozzarella? Yup, that's what's sticking to the roof of my mouth. Chicken? Uh-huh. But, there was just so unifying element that brought it all together. Instead, you just felt like you were eating a bowl of little pasta, tomatoes, chicken, cheese, and breadcrumbs. Nothing special. Kind of bland. Oh well.

Here's the recipe. I will say this--the bland flavors probably make this great kid food. I can see a picky four-year-old loving it. It's the adults who will be kind of disappointed.

Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina Casserole

from Everyday Pasta by Giada DeLaurentiis

1 cup pastina pasta (or any small pasta)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup cubed chicken breast (1-inch cubes)
1/2 cup diced onion (about 1/2 a small onion)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1 tablespoon butter, plus more for buttering the baking dish

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until just tender, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Drain pasta into a large mixing bowl.

Meanwhile, put the olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium heat. Add the chicken and cook for 3 minutes. Add the onions and garlic, stirring to combine, and cook until the onions are soft and the chicken is cooked through, about 5 minutes more. Put the chicken mixture into the bowl with the cooked pasta. Add the canned tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, parsley, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine.

Place the mixture in a buttered 8 by 8 by 2-inch baking dish. In a small bowl mix together the bread crumbs and the Parmesan cheese. Sprinkle over the top of the pasta mixture. Dot the top with small bits of butter. Bake until the top is golden brown, about 30 minutes.

Serves 4

Cost: $1.65 per serving

Udon-Shiitake Stir-Fry with Sake and Ginger

As you can probably tell from my post about Homemade Lo Mein, I love Asian noodle dishes. I love lo mein. I love pad thai. I love rice noodles. I love udon noodles, in all their incarnations, from a soupy bowl full of veggies and broth, to a savory saute with a sauce. So, when I found the recipe for Udon-Shiitake Stir-Fry with Sake and Ginger in Vegan Planet, I knew I had to make it.

I hit noodle gold with this recipe. The sauce is sweet from the shiitake and agave, yet earthy from the mushrooms and sesame oil. The shiitakes are silky and a little meaty while the udon noodles are wonderfully chewy. At the end of each mouthful, the ginger lends a bracing bite.

These noodles were as good as any I can get at an Asian restaurant in my area. And the recipe is so fast to make that it is on the table before take-out could possibly be. I know these noodles will become a regular in my household.

Udon-Shiitake Stir-Fry with Sake and Ginger

adapted from Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson

12 oz udon noodles

2 tsp. sesame oil

3 Tbs. sake

3 Tbs. tamari or other soy sauce

2 Tbs. agave syrup

2 Tbs. vegetable oil

2 shallots, finely chopped

8 oz fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, and caps thinly sliced

1 Tbs peeled and minced fresh ginger

1. Cook the udon noodles according to package directions. Drain and toss with sesame oil. Set aside.

2. In a small bowl, combine the sake, tamari, and agave until well blended. Set aside.

3. Heat the oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add teh shallots, mushrooms, and ginger, and stir-fry until the mushrooms are tender, about 3 minutes.

4. Stir in the sake mixture and udon noodles, and cook, stirring, until heated through, 3 to 5 minutes. Serve hot.

This says it serves 4. In my house, it only served 2. We didn't have any sides or salad, so perhaps that is why.

First Cookbook Lovers Unite: Open-Face Veggie Sandwiches

I recently started a new blogging group for people who love their printed cookbooks as much as I do. Cookbook Lovers Unite will have a theme every other week to make a recipe from a cookbook and then blog about and share. The first theme is "Your First Love." I wanted to hear what books started the obsession for other cookbook addicts.

My first cookbook love wasn't the first cookbook I ever owned. It wasn't even the second or third. Just as your first love isn't necessarily your first date, it took a few books before I found the one that started it all.

The Horn of the Moon Cookbook started it all for me. I'm not sure why. It's such an unassuming book. The cover is a drawing. There are no pictures in the book at all--just some line drawings and text. The author is not a celebrity. No one was promoting the book in a magazine, on a display in front of the store, or with a show on The Food Network. Nope, it was just a regular old book on a used bookstore shelf, and somehow it caught my attention.

It was the weekend of October 18-20, 2002 when I found the book. I know the date because it was my one-year anniversary with my boyfriend (now my husband). We had gone up to Vermont to see a concert, and stayed with friends who lived in Burlington. While we were wandering in downtown Burlington, in the bitter, biting wind, we ducked into a used bookstore. While browsing, I spied The Horn of the Moon, and something drew me to it. I bought it, after consulting with my boyfriend, not knowing that it would change me.

I read the cookbook cover to cover in the following months, marking recipes I wanted to try to make. This was no small step for me. I come from a family that doesn't like to cook. That's putting it nicely. My mother CAN cook--and what she makes she makes quite well--but she hates the process. My grandmothers? Don't make me laugh. At my wedding shower, everyone gave me a recipe card with a special dish from her kitchen. I don't have one from my Grandma because she couldn't think of a single thing that she cooks--she just orders take out or (more likely) goes to a restaurant. So, I wasn't from the cooks. But, I was determined to try, and this book was going to be my gateway.

These open-face sandwiches were my first foray into the cooking world. Kurt and I made them over and over and over again. We were so proud of our accomplishment. (Looking back, of course, this is an incredibly simple recipe, but we were just beginners.) To this day, the smell of broccoli and thyme sauteing reminds me of our tiny, crammed apartment in Somerville, MA. It reminds me of cozy meals around our tiny table, of cooking in a galley kitchen so cramped that we could barely work back-to-back. It reminds me of brisk November days, walking the half mile to the grocery store, and then walking back carrying the bags, and how warm my cheeks would feel when I got back into the apartment and turned on the stove. This recipe reminds me of the early days of living together, and learning to cook together.

It's amazing to me that this one innocent-looking book sparked the cookbook collection that I have now--that the 200-plus cookbooks in my house all sprang from that one impulse buy in Vermont.

Here's to beginnings--of a lifelong love of cookbooks, of a relationship that is now nine years old, and of a new blogging group where we can share the joy of the printed cookbook.

Broccoli Mushroom Sandwich with Three Cheeses

adapted from Horn of the Moon Cookbook by Ginny Callan

1 Tbs olive oil

2 cups chopped broccoli

1/2 tsp dried thyme

2 cups sliced mushrooms

1/4 tsp salt

4 slices rye bread

1 1/2 cups crumbled blue cheese (I use much less)

8 small slices mozzarella cheese

8 small slices cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 375.

Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add oil, then broccoli and thyme. Cook 2 to 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and salt and cook until just barely tender. Remove from heat and drain any excess juices.

Place bread on a cookie sheet. Top each piece of bread with the broccoli-mushroom mixture. Spread the blue cheese over, followed by slices of mozzarella, and then cheddar. Bake for 10 minutes. Serve open-face.

Makes 4 servings.

Cost: $2.61 per sandwich

Chicken and Rice "Stoup"

People have very strong opinions about Rachael Ray. I've heard it all--she's annoying, her recipes lower our standards for food, she's just cashing in, etc, etc, etc. Well, I'll tell you this. The woman knows how to get dinner on the table in 30 minutes, and when you are a new mom, that is invaluable. Over the last nine months, I have fallen in love with Ms. Ray's recipes and cooking/writing style. For quick meals, she uses very little processed ingredients--from the recipes I've picked (and there have been a lot of them since Jasper was born), the most packaged ingredients I've used are canned broth and some frozen veggies. Not bad at all. And the recipes really deliver--of the many I have tried, we have only disliked one and had one complete disaster (which was not the recipe's fault--it was cook's error). I will openly admit that I own almost every Rachael Ray cookbook, and I will further state that they are used more than any other single author on my shelves at the moment (which says a lot, considering that I have close to 200 cookbooks on those shelves).

The weather has been getting brisk here in New England, so I decided to make a Chicken and Rice "Stoup" recipe, from 365: No Repeats. "Stoup," for those not well-versed in Rachael Ray-speak, is somewhere between a soup and a stew. This one was warm, and comforting, with perfect seasonings. And, it was super easy to make. Very little active time was involved, so that dinner could get on the table and the baby could be entertained all at once. This recipe is a keeper. I'm sure it will grace my table throughout the cold weather season.

Chicken and Rice Stoup
adapted from Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats

2 cups chicken stock
3 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbs unsalted butter
1 1/2 to 2 lbs chicken breast tenders, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 medium leeks, cut lengthwise and then sliced into half-moons
1 bay leaf
1 cup carrots, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
3 tsp. dried thyme
6 cups chicken stock (I used Swanson)
1 1/2 cups white rice

Heat a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add olive oil and butter. When butter melts, add the chicken to the pan and saute until lightly golden on both sides, about 4 minutes.

Add leeks, bay leaf, carrots, celery, and thyme. Cook for about 3 minutes, until the leeks wilt down.

Add all 6 cups of stock and bring to a boil. Stir in the rice and cook until rice is just tender, 15 to 18 minutes. (There was no instruction in the original recipe for the cover to be on or off, so I left it off. It worked fine this way.) Adjust salt and pepper seasoning to taste.

Serves: about 6

Note: If you have leftovers, the rice will absorb all the liquid, giving you a "chicken and rice" meal, with no "stoup." This was fine with me--it was still delicious--but, if you want the soup consistency, have another can of broth on hand to thin it out when you reheat.

Cost: $2.69 per serving

Homemade Lo Mein

Lo mein is one of my favorite foods. Kind of strange, I know. It's among the lowliest of Americanized Chinese food dishes. It's generally an afterthought on the Chinese buffet tables, or one of those slightly-cold, very greasy dishes that you get at the mall food court. But, I love good lo mein.

I suppose one of the reasons I like the noodle dish so much is that it is connected, over and over again, to fond memories for me. When I think of lo mein, I think of Mother's Day at my Aunt Fran's house. We would all sit around and take an hour to decide what we were ordering from the Chinese take out place. My grandfather would hold court, tallying up what everything would cost, so that we could get the most expensive item possible (boneless spare ribs) for free. Back then--or maybe it's more of a Long Island thing--if you ordered "x" amount, you would get an egg roll free, this amount, and you would get wonton soup, etc, all the way up to the coveted boneless spare ribs. We ordered more food than we ever needed, and probably spent a good deal more than the boneless spare ribs would have cost, but getting it for free made Grandpa happy.

Lo mein also brings me back to my first apartment off campus, and the year I met my husband. There was a decent Chinese restaurant around the corner called Chef Chang's. My husband (well, boyfriend at the time) and I would often drop into Chang's for lunches--you couldn't beat the $5.95 luncheon specials. The one I ordered was always the chicken lo mein, an egg roll, and a cup of hot and sour soup. To this day, picturing that dining room in my head brings me back to the feeling of lazy Saturday afternoons with no responsibilities except to maybe get home early enough on Sunday night to write a quick paper or two.

When I found the recipe that forms the base for my homemade lo mein, I knew I had to try it. After all, I'm kind of a lo mein addict. It turned out perfectly--exactly what I had been searching for. As a bonus, this recipe costs less than a dollar per serving--though it could be more, depending on what you add to it. This recipe is so fast and so easy that we made it almost every week during the first few months after my son was born. And, so, this lo mein joins the memory pantheon. I'm sure, when I taste this dish years from now, that it will bring me back to Jasper's newborn days. It will remind me of the sleepless weeks when we were struggling to get Jasper to gain weight. It will remind me of my seemingly permanent station in the rocking chair, nursing, then sitting together while Jasper slept and I watched the Food Network (or read, if I could get an arm free to hold the book). Jasper will most likely come to remember this meal as "when Mommy was in a big rush." Let the lo mein memories continue.

Homemade Lo Mein

Serves about 4, depending on additions

Base:

3 Tbs. olive oil

2 Tbs sesame oil

2 cups shredded cabbage from a bag

1/2 cup chopped green onion

8 oz. angel hair pasta

4 Tbs. soy sauce

Optional additions:

handfuls of bean sprouts (in my house, this one isn't an option--it's a staple)

any and all veggies you want to use (I've found that 1/2 a bag of the frozen stir-fry veggies works very well.)

cooked chicken, shredded (I only do this when I have some that I have to use up)

1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain.

2. Heat oil and sesame oil in skillet. Add any "heartier" veggies that you plan to use--broccoli, carrots, etc. If you are using frozen veggies, throw them in now. Sautee until just slightly cooked.

3. Add cabbage and green onion and saute for about 5 minutes more.

4. Add pasta, and soy sauce, and, if you are using them, the bean sprouts and chicken. Toss so that the pasta gets completely coated in the oil and soy sauce, and so that veggies are distributed evenly.

Enjoy.

Summer in a Bowl

There are some things that can only be enjoyed during the summer. Corn on the cob. Fresh, sweet, juicy peaches that have been picked from the tree that day. Heirloom watermelons with sherbet orange flesh. And tomatoes. Real, vine-ripened tomatoes, still sun-warm when you bite into them. In my case, a rainbow of heirlooms, ranging from the tart and tangy green zebra to the mellow and sweet yellow "peach."

This dish is about summer. It's about the freshest ingredients, used at the height of ripeness--and almost no embellishment. And yet, somehow, with so little cooking and so few ingredients, it will be the best meal you eat all season. This is the dish you dream about in the darkest days of January, when the snow is falling, and summer seems like it will never come.

I came across this recipe in Moosewood Cooks at Home, one of my go-to cookbooks. It's so simple that you really don't need a recipe at all. Boil some pasta. Throw chopped super-fresh super-ripe tomatoes into a food processor. Add garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a few fresh basil leaves into a food processor. Whirl it up until it's smooth. Chop up some extra tomatoes for garnish. Cube some fresh mozzarella cheese. Drain the pasta. Put it in a bowl. Toss it with the mozzarella while the pasta is still piping hot. This creates gooey strands of cheese throughout the dish. Toss with the pureed sauce and chopped tomatoes. Serve, preferably with some nice crusty bread, and maybe a light green salad. That's it. But, it's perfect. The season, captured in a bowl.

You can find the recipe here, or feel free to improvise. I have submitted this entry to Grow Your Own #45. Be sure to check out the round-up there, to see what other bloggers have made using produce from their own gardens and farms.

Slow Cooker Sloppy Joes

On Monday night, I came home from work with some energy. Given that I am currently 38 weeks pregnant, this is a rather rare thing lately. So, I sat down with Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker, and tried to find a recipe to make.

See, the night before, we had been gifted with a new slow cooker. We didn't need to be gifted with it--Sara, are you reading this? It appears that our old one had an accident when we left it at Kurt's college reunion, and this was a replacement. Nevertheless, since we had it (however much it was unnecessary to replace it!), I figured we would take it for a spin.

I chose a recipe that was completely out of character for our household--Sloppy Joes. I don't think we have any fundamental issues with Sloppy Joes. It's just one of those recipes that we've never thought of making before. For some reason, on Monday night, they sounded good. So, when Kurt got home from work, we decided on a simple dinner, and went shopping for ingredients for both dinner and the Sloppy Joes, which would cook overnight in the slow cooker and serve as lunches for the next few days.

A few notes. Our slow cooker is six quarts. This recipe is built for a "medium" cooker, which, in this book, means 3-to-4 quarts. So, we doubled the recipe to make sure that it would fill the bowl enough not to burn. This turned out to be a very wise choice, as it was still only filled about halfway. It cooked well, though, so I'm thinking the empty half of the crock did no harm. My other note is that, when we make this recipe again, we will use ground turkey instead of ground beef. It's just personal preference. But, in recent years, even the leanest ground beef still tastes greasy to me. I love my ground turkey, so I'll definitely make that substitution next time.

The overall reaction was that this is a very good recipe. I love that it doesn't use heavily processed foods. Actually, that is something that I love about the whole book. Most recipes I find for slow cookers are laden with cans of "cream of this soup," and "cream of that," canned vegetables, and other processed foods that I can't see myself using if I were cooking stove-top. This book, in general, avoids that downfall, and this recipe is no exception. I highly recommend the book to health-conscious, but time-pressed people who would like to use their slow cookers to make REAL food.

Here is a link I found to the recipe. Enjoy!

Cottage Pie & Comfort Food

Tonight, it feels like November. It was dark out as I was leaving work. The air had a distinct chill to it. It felt like the kind of night where you want to stay in and make a comforting meal. So, I turned to one that my mom made all the time when I was growing up.

"Cottage Pie," as we called it in our house, had many incarnations throughout my childhood. It started out as the classic beef and mashed potato dish that it is expected to be--the meat sauteed with onions, then simmered with salt, pepper, and beef bouillon. Right before baking, tomato sauce was added to the meat. But, then it morphed. It seems there is someone in our family, who may or may not be me, who hated mashed potatoes. So, the cottage pie was baked without the mashed potatoes, but with American cheese melted on top, for a while. Then, it mutated again, and grew a crescent roll crust, over which the meat was spooned, and then the cheese melted. Eventually, I think it came full circle and the mashed-potato-hater among us agreed to allow them to top the dish once more--though I do believe the layer of cheese remained.

When I began making cottage pie in my own kitchen, the ground beef was switched out for ground turkey--I just like it better. The crescent roll crust was abandoned, as was the melted cheese layer. Essentially, I went back to the original recipe, except for the ground turkey aspect.

The thing about this dish is that as it cooks, I can close my eyes and be magically transported back to 8 Marwood Drive. Mike would be getting home from baseball practice. I would finally be finishing my AP U.S. History homework. Mom would whip this together, with something green on the side, and this is what we would eat together. This is the weeknight food of my childhood.

Now that I am 6-7 weeks away from having a baby of my own, I can't help but wonder what foods my child will come to think of as "home." Sure, chicken soup will probably top the list, just as it does for me. But, that is a big production and, at least for me, is associated with holidays and snow days and times when someone in the family was sick. I'm hoping pot roast will top the list--again, as it does for me--but, again, pot roast encompasses the tastes and smells of holidays and extended family gatherings--not of normal weeknight dinners when it is "just us." And so, I wonder what smells and tastes will transport my child, when he or she is in their 20s, back to our kitchen table. Will it be the smell of bread rising? Of garlic sauteing in olive oil? Will it be cinnamon in the middle of summer--not during the holiday season, as it is for most--as the zucchini bread bakes? What will our kitchen smell like in the coming years? And how will that shape the person we are about to raise?

While I contemplate these questions, I will share with you one of the quintessential recipes of my childhood, which, even while I am twenty-eight and far from New York, comforts me on a cold November evening.


Edited to add that I have found the wonderful, heart-warming Family Recipes event, hosted by Shelby, of The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch. While I've been reading through past round-ups, I decided to make my first submission. This recipe seems to fit the bill nicely, tied as it is to my childhood dinners. Hop on over to Shelby's blog to view the roundup after December 1.





Cottage Pie--the original recipe, before it morphed according to family tastes:

1 lb. chopped meat (ground beef or turkey)
1 small onion, chopped
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 lb. potatoes
2 Tbs butter
1/2 cup water
1 beef bouillon cube (or whatever flavor bouillon you have on hand)
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Brown onion and meat. Drain fat. Add salt, pepper, and beef cube that has been dissolved in 1/2 cup water. Cook for about 20 minutes. Add sauce. Bring to full boil.

While the meat is cooking, cook cubed potatoes in water. Mash the potatoes with 2 Tbs butter and salt and pepper. Make sure to taste them before putting them on top).

In a pie dish, put meat mixture on the bottom, and the mashed potatoes over it. Bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown.

Cauliflower Rye Casserole

Spring in New England doesn't always feel like spring. Every now and then, you'll get a glorious, 70-degree day. But, in New England, spring is more about waiting for those days than actually experiencing them. Today was one of the waiting days. It was barely 60 degrees when I got home from work, and it had just started to rain...hard.

The smell of rye bread toasting when I walked through the door was welcome. I knew right away that Kurt had started our dinner, a recipe from Sundays at Moosewood, Cauliflower Rye Casserole.

This recipe is comfort food at its best. The smell of the rye and caraway fill the whole house. The oven stays on throughout the entire preparation, sending gentle heat throughout the kitchen. The dish itself is cheesy and gooey and warms right to the soul.

With the number of new recipes that I try every month, it is rare for one to stand out so much that it becomes an instant classic in the house. The Cauliflower Rye Casserole did just that. Since making it for the first time in February, we've made it at least another three times. The ingredients sound strange, but, put together, they are the perfect blend. If this recipe hadn't come from the Moosewood Collective, I probably wouldn't have trusted it. However, my experience with Moosewood has been to just go with it, because they know what they are doing.

Cauliflower Rye Casserole

adapted from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant

1 cup beer

3 cups rye bread cubes

1 head cauliflower

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

1 1/2 cups grated extra sharp cheddar cheese

4 eggs

1 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds

freshly ground black pepper to taste

Pour the beer and stir and let sit until it becomes flat.

Put bread cubes on baking sheet, and toast in a 300-degree oven until they are crisp, but not browned, about 15 to 20 minutes. When cubes come out of oven, turn oven up to 350 degrees.

Saute the cauliflower in the butter with the caraway seeds until just barely tender. Combine the bread cubes and cauliflower with the grated cheese. Spread the mixture into a greased 3-quart casserole dish.

Mix the eggs, mustard, coriander, and black pepper with the beer, and pour the mixture into the casserole dish.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, until puffed and golden.