I had a few odds and ends in the fridge, including a tub of cremini mushrooms that I’d originally bought to make this garlic butter roasted mushroom recipe from Smitten Kitchen.  Instead of making the recipe as is, I decided to use it as inspiration for this pasta dish.  I want all of you health enthusiasts to note that there is no butter in this dish at all.  So there.

Oh, but there are two tablespoons of duck fat. Yeah.

Also, as my gift to you (and Josh…mostly Josh), I’m going to leave you with this inexplicable, time-honored internet meme:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIyixC9NsLI

Related posts:

1. Mushroom Ragout, from the “Keep Going Til It Tastes Good” Cooking School
2. Salsa + Spaghetti = Salsagetti
3. Garlic-Mushroom Chicken: Drive away those pesky vegetarian vampires

First, I get the world’s attention with irresistible bacon comfort filled baked mac& cheese.  Then I up the ante with a sophisticated, spring-friendly chicken, spinach and leek concoction.  And now I’m sealing the deal with this sassy chorizo, garlic and broccoli  mac and cheese.  It’s just a little taste of what my reign will be like: a macaroni in every pot.

Well, a penne anyway.  Or a rigatoni.  Maybe shells.  Or spirals.

Chorizo Mac and Cheese
Serves 2 really big portions, 3 regular portions or 4 side portions.

3 c. penne, par cooked.
2 c. broccoli florets
1/4 lb Spanish chorizo, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 c. almonds, ground finely
1.5 c. milk
2 tbsp butter
3/4lb sharp white cheddar
hard sheep’s cheese, like Ewephoria, for grating
dash salt
1 tbsp pepper
few dashes of hot sauce

Cook penne according to package directions, adding in the broccoli in the last two minutes of cooking.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Add chorizo to a medium skillet over medium heat.  Cook until warmed through and the oil starts to leak out, about 2 minutes.  Add in onion and garlic and let cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent.  Set aside.

Drain pasta and broccoli.  Set aside.  In the pasta pot, melt 2 tablespoons of butter.  Add in two tablespoons of the ground almonds and stir into a rough roux.  Add in the milk, salt, pepper, hot sauce and all but a couple ounces of the cheddar and stir together until the cheese has melted.  Fold in the rest of the ground almonds, the chorizo mixture, pasta and broccoli.

Spray two personal-sized oven-safe gratin dishes with baking spray (or several smaller ones or one big one).  Spoon mac&cheese equally into the dishes.  Top each with half the leftover cheddar and then grate a big of the hard sheep’s cheese over them as well.  Cover with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes.  Remove the foil and continue baking for another 10.  Replace the foil and let cool for 10-15 minutes.

Related posts:

1. Meal in a pot: baked mac and cheese
2. Beef Pesto Pasta
3. Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Well, I guess that’s where Lunasa comes in.  Luna-what-a? you ask.  Lunasa.  It’s a new-ish farmer’s market in Ann Arbor that we’re trying out for the winter.  From their website,

“Lunasa (loo-nah-sah) is an annual Celtic harvest celebration traditionally begun in August. Getting back to our roots and supporting local farmers and craftspeople is something we feel good about doing, for us personally, our families, our neighbors, and our local communities. Come celebrate with us!”

The market itself is kind of an interesting idea: it’s a cross between a membership club and a farmer’s market.  They do have “open house” days where anyone can stop by and shop around but for the most part, you have to purchase a membership to join and regularly shop.  At $40 a year, we weren’t sure if it would be worth it but figured we could give it a shot at least for this year.  And as a market-addict, I’ll apparently do almost anything for my fix….I said almost.  The money from the membership goes towards things like the rent for the building the market is hosted in and I mentally just chalked it up to a small price to pay to support local food producers.  With the membership, you get access to the online catalog of food producers and their wares, ranging from locally-raised beef, chicken, pork and lamb to homemade soap.  There are two ordering periods a month, over several days, and then two pickup/market days a month where you can stop, pick up your goodies, meet the people behind them and have a chance to shop for anything else you suddenly thought of at that moment while looking at the delicious fresh-baked offerings of Mill Pond Bread, especially the challah…oh and the sweet potato rolls…I mean–I imagine.  I imagine it might happen like that.

This week was our third time at the Lunasa market, our second time ordering in advance.  It was pretty packed since it was also an Open House day.  I liked it; I like the bustle-y nature of a marketplace.  Now that I’ve had time to properly digest the Lunasa “experience,” I’ve decided the following things:

Pros

• Online shopping.  No hassle, no hustling, no trying to peer over someone’s shoulder, no maneuvering around a large cart the size of a Buick.  Just lounge on my couch, fire up my laptop, log in and go through the offerings.  Looove that.  I also enjoy the “add to favorites” option, because that’s how I most easily assemble a list that I can regularly go back to.  This time, we purchased Italian and Polish sausages from Steinhauser Farms, nitrite-free bacon from Ernst, fresh mozzarella from Four Corners Creamery, arugula and broccoli from Goetz farm and some ready-made soup from the Making Thyme Kitchen.

• It’s indoors.  I love markets.  I do not love temperatures below 60F.  I very much appreciate being able to shop indoors through the winter.
• It accepts credit cards!  I rarely carry cash unless I have advance notice.  And sometimes you just run out.  But Lunasa accepts credit cards–both for your online order and if you just pick up something extra on Market Day.
• I’ve found local vendors I had no idea existed, and I’m relatively local-centric and a regular at several farmer’s markets between Ann Arbor and Detroit.  And I love that!  And since Lunasa has a smaller crowd, you’ve got a bit more time to chat with the vendors.  It’s nice.
• I get to support local producers.  I’m not one of those people who needs everything they cook to be grown within spitting distance; I love globalization because frankly, I’ll kill you if I don’t get my daily chocolate.  But I do really enjoy having food made close to home–it often tastes better, it’s more environmentally friendly and it helps the local economy–and we all benefit from that.

Cons

• I’ll be honest.  The name.  I can’t remember it half the time and it does nothing to explain what it really is.  Sounds kind of like an Ambien-esque sleeping pill and not a local market.
• Only open twice a month.  Which is both a pro and a con, but requires more planning on my part.
• $25 fee if you can’t pick up your goods on market day!!  OMG. (Edit: I’ve just been notified that the fee no longer applies at all.  So yay!)
  
• If you’re used to shopping at Meijer or Kroger, it may seem a bit pricey.  In some ways, it is a bit pricey.  I’m not feeding a family of four from this market every day, that’s for sure. But for high-quality, local food, it’s not too bad.

So that’s my take on it so far.  We’ll see how the year goes.  If you’re at all interested, I recommend checking it out on the Lunasa website.

Having said that, on to the recipe!  This fancified mac-and-cheese was inspired by a trip to Zingerman’s Roadhouse on Monday and made with mostly locally-sourced food and, most importantly, was yummy in the tummy.  It’s also a really easy, excellent recipe for two and easy to adjust if you want to make more.  (Items with an asterisk were from the Lunasa market, Needle Lane farm, Calder Dairy or my garden.)

Lunasa Market Mac & Cheese
Serves 2-3.

1/2 pound penne or similar pasta, cooked according to package directions
2 links sweet Italian sausage* (or hot), casing removed
1 small onion*, diced
4 cloves garlic*, chopped (drop it to 2-3 if you’re not a fan)
4 tablespoons butter*, divided
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
1 tbsp dried basil*
1 c. milk*
4oz comte cheese or similar hard, flavorful, good-melting cheese (like gruyère), plus extra to grate over the top
3oz fresh mozzarella*
4 c. fresh arugula*
hot sauce*, to taste (try my homemade stuff!)

Melt two tablespoons of the butter with two tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Crumble in sausage and cook until no longer pink.  Leaving the heat on but turned down a bit, scoop out the sausage and let drain on paper towels.

Put onion, garlic and dried basil in pan and sauté until soft and delicious, about 7-8 minutes.  Add in last two tablespoons of butter and two tablespoons flour, mixing thoroughly into a roux.

Pour in milk, add in cheeses and let melt together, stirring constantly to incorporate.  Add in salt and pepper and a splash or two of hot sauce to your liking.

Fold in arugula, cooked sausage and pasta, making sure to get everything good and covered in the cheese sauce.  Grate more comte over the top and place under the broiler to brown.  Eat.  mmm.

Related posts:

1. Crêpes! And other goodies from Detroit's Eastern Market
2. A Morning at the Market
3. Baked Macaroni and Cheese

These meatballs were the one gastronomical high point of my week, and that’s sad.  The meatballs aren’t sad; they’re fantastic.  What’s sad is that I have yet to follow them up with anything as delicious.  To make it up to you, and to my poor, poor belly, I think I will make some barbecue this weekend and post all the mouth-watering photos that I can.  That’s my gift to you.  Or it will be.  If I do it.

Anyway, I can’t really remember but I’m pretty sure I made these on Monday, before my week went completely to crap.  I really love meatballs.  I’m intrigued by them.  Not the “Why the hell would you do that?” kind of fascination that I have with meatloaf, oddly enough, but a simple curious adoration (I’ll do anything for meatballs but I won’t do that?).  In fact, if you recall, my previous iteration of this blog was chickenmeatballs.wordpress.com.  It’s one of my food goals to master the art of meatball making (along with icing, pulled pork, chocolate turtles, pancakes, biscuits and a few thousand other things—luckily, I think I’ve got the chocolate chip cookie down).  Well, this week I think I moved a tiny bit closer to my goal of meatball perfection. 

I really wanted to make meatballs on Monday. I don’t know why.  But I was driven to.  The planets were in alignment.  They are shaped like giant meatballs!  Clearly a sign.  Clearly.  So the problem I usually have with meatballs is the consistency–mine often fall apart and I use mostly beef or chicken and they’re ok but it usually ends up being more of a meat sauce than a meat ball. More of a gathering and less of a par-tay.  And while I had ground beef and pork on hand this time, and I thought ahead and grated my onions and garlic in the food processor and I had an egg and all this stuff, I lacked something to hold everything together and absorb the extra grease.  Usually recipes call for breadcrumbs or crackers or something.  I didn’t have any of those.  But I figured I’d try something else, something that I knew was a common thickening agent in Indian food (and I knew this because I’m currently reading a book on the evolution of Indian food that I will write about later, when I’ve finished this last chapter–fabulous book though) and it mentions that ground almonds are commonly used to thicken up dishes.

Ground almonds, hmm?

I didn’t have any almonds.

I did have pecans though, because I made another batch of turtles this last week.

Ground pecans, you say.

The devil you say!

What’s that you say?

Who’m I talking to?  I don’t know.  Let’s just move on.

Indeed, I ground up a half cup of pecans and added that to my meatball mixture.  And it seemed to work.  They took shape nicely, they held together, the flavor was great–the pecans were barely noticeable but still gave it a bit of something.  I mean, clearly this needs to be tested again (and again and again until I’m full) but this first time worked out beautifully.

Doing all that, I was too lazy to then make sauce from scratch (well, not too lazy, but I didn’t have any tomatoes to use) so I decided to jazz up my favorite canned sauce by adding some spinach, some cream cheese and roasted some poblano peppers in the oven at 400F for about 25 minutes until blistered, peeling and seeding them and then pureeing them in the processor and adding them to the sauce.  Gave the sauce delicious tang.  Two forks up.

Now That’s a Meatball Meatballs
Makes about 10 large meatballs

1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
4oz shredded parmigiano regianno
1/2 onion, grated
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 c. pecans ground
1 1/2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp pepper
1 large tbsp dried oregano
2 tsp chipotle
1 large egg

Preheat oven to 400F.

Put all ingredients in a large bowl and mix together with a fork until everything, especially the almonds, is fully incorporated.  Using a regular-sized ice cream scoop, scoop out portions of meatballs and lay on a cookie sheet that has been covered with tin foil and baking spray.

Bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes or until just done.  Add to sauce to finish for another 2-3 minutes.

Related posts:

1. Linguine with Lemon, Swiss Chard and Chicken Meatballs
2. Hate Mondays, love lasagna and other similarities between me and Garfield
3. Pasta!

uh yes please

I picked out glasses yesterday afternoon.  Prescription sunglasses, to be precise.  I can’t really tell you what they look like though.  I’m not even really sure.  That’s the problem with having to try on glasses when you don’t wear contacts and are otherwise mostly blind.  But hey, in about 3-4 weeks when they come in, maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised!  Or horrified.  We’ll see.  Ha.  We’ll see.  Get it?  Yeah.

So after that, I walked down to Kerrytown and waited for Josh to pick me up.  It’s after five at this point.  Then we have to go get the dog because yes, my dog goes to doggy daycare once a week so he can run around and socialize like the wild beast that he is.  Of course, to get him, we have to drive through all the construction down on Main Street by Stadium and then once we’ve got him, we have to stop at the bank.  And then drive through rush-hour traffic through town because there’s no way we’re hitting I-94 at this hour and by the time we get home, settled, mail on the table, shoes off the feet, bathroom break taken care of, dog fed, etc, etc, etc, we’re looking at almost 7pm and time to make dinner and I’m starving.  I also have a lot of freelance work to do—videos to edit, DVDs to burn, that sort of thing–and don’t want to be on my feet all night cooking.  And then there’s that nagging little voice that says, “Screw cooking; order a pizza from Aubree’s.  With breadsticks.  Don’t forget my breadsticks.”

But no.  I persevered.  I was going to make dinner, damnit, not spend $30 on pizza.  Besides, I had tons of pasta (thank you, Costco) and some ground beef we’d picked up from the farmer’s market on Saturday and some other stuff here and there, I could probably put something together.  Oh and some frozen bread, because Josh has this thing where we can’t have pasta without some sort of garlic bread and he likes this Alexia frozen garlic baguette stuff and we had one left.  And in the fridge I had a bunch of fresh basil leftover from making the red pepper cannellini bean dip and a nub of parmigiano reggiano and on the counter was a quart of cherry tomatoes leftover from I don’t even remember what–maybe antipasto skewers–and of course, there’s always garlic and olive oil and…yeah.  Yeah I think we can do this.

The resulting concoction was this pasta, which is kind of a pesto-beef penne.  I didn’t want to make a red sauce because..well, sometimes you just get bored with red sauce.  Plus, I didn’t want it to overpower the flavor of the beef, which I really wanted to taste because we hadn’t bought meat from this vendor before and I really want to know how good it is.  And I didn’t want to make a real pesto because I wanted something lighter than that, with less olive oil.  So I made sort of a pesto-inspired pan-sauce and it worked out really well.  The flavor of the basil stood out and just behind that was the parm and the grassy flavor of the beef plus the garlic and the sweetness of the tomatoes and a pinch of heat from red pepper flakes.  It was light and tasty and just a really good pick-me-up after a long day, especially because it only took as long as boiling water and cooking the pasta.

For Josh’s bread, I figured if I’m going to use frozen, pre-baked garlic bread, I might as well dress it up a bit and tie in a bit of the flavor from the pasta into it as well, so I topped it with the basil-parm mixture before putting it in the oven.  It worked out very well–dressed it up a bit, so to speak.  If I was making garlic bread from scratch, I would halve a baguette lengthwise, slather it with butter and then sprinkle the basil mixture on top before baking it.

Pesto-Beef Penne, more or less
serves 4

Basil-Parmigiano Mix
2 c. basil
4 oz parmigiano regianno
2 tbsp olive oil

Pasta
1 pound penne, cooked according to package directions
1/2 c. pasta water reserved after cooking penne
1 cup cherry tomatoes
1 tbsp each olive oil and butter
2 tsps salt, divided
2 tsps pepper, divided
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 c. chicken stock or water
1 quart cremini mushrooms, sliced
1 clove garlic, smashed
1 pound ground beef
1 tsp red pepper flake (adjust to your taste)

1.  Put basil, parm and olive oil in a food processor and blend until coarse and crumbly.  Set aside (smear a little on bread if you like).

2.  In a large skillet over medium high heat, melt butter into the olive oil.  When the butter’s foam subsides, add in cherry tomatoes.  Sprinkle with 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper and oregano.  Let cook, stirring occasionally, for 4-5 minutes.  Add in mushrooms and garlic and continue cooking for another 3-4 minutes.  Add a bit of chicken stock or water if more moisture is needed to keep things from sticking.

3.  Add in the ground beef, cutting into small pieces.  Sprinkle with remaining salt and pepper and red pepper flake.  Cook until browned.

4.  Spoon half of the basil mixture into the beef and stir together.  Stir the remaining basil mixture into the cooked pasta and then add the pasta to the pan with the beef.  Stir in the reserved pasta water, combining all elements in the pan thoroughly.

Serve and eat with bread   Can’t have pasta without bread, after all.

Related posts:

1. Beef Pesto Pasta
2. Meal For One: Black and Green Pasta
3. Pasta!

I have been busy doing one thing, however: reading.  One article I found today on the NY Times that I really enjoyed was all about…well, people like me.  You know.  Those people.  The ones who take pictures of every meal they eat.  The ones who fuss over lighting and crostini placement.  The ones who tweet their tastings, like “Just ate fugu from amateur chef…think I’m dying…bye cruel world.”  The ones who blog about their gastronomic adventures, posting picture after picture as though anybody else cares….cough…

Hey!  Who wants to see pictures of my dinner?

Just kidding.  Except I’m not.  I mean, there are pictures all through this post.  I do love pictures of food.  I like taking pictures of my own food, obviously, and of the food I get at restaurants.  I don’t do a great job but I try.  I often post these things on my Flickr account.  I also love looking at pictures of other people’s food.  It gives me ideas.  It makes me hungry.  I like talking about food.  I like sharing food.  I feel like food is a tie that binds.  It’s important.  Maybe not to everyone.  But hey, it’s something I use to nourish my body, so I want it to be good and hey, honey, if you gotta eat, better eat well.  Or as I like to say, if you are what you eat then I am delicious.

Speaking of the d word,  the inspiration for this came from a recipe I saved from the Good Mood Food Blog, which was a pasta with arugula, parmesan and slices of avocado on top.  Light, healthy, tasty.  I at first thought, hey I’ll make that, but then I decided to go further and make an avocado sauce instead of just using slices.  Then I thought, wow, this would be an easy five-ingredient meal (pasta, arugula, parmesan, avocado and lime—not counting salt, pepper or olive oil) but then as I was going along, I made it a bit more complicated by adding more spice and flavor, most notably, garlic, roasted serrano pepper and a sprinkling of crunchy roasted ham bits.

I wasn’t sure about it at first.  It looked pretty.  It was extremely creamy–wonderfully so.  And I do love avocados.  A bit too spicy for me.  Josh, however, loved it, which cemented my decision to post it here and let you decide for yourself.  One of the nice things about this is that it’s very quick (takes about as long as it takes to boil pasta), and it’s very easy (all you need is a pot and a food processor, chopper or old-fashioned mortar and pestle), easy to scale (more people?  add more of the ingredients) and easy to customize (put things in, take things out, whatever sounds good).  It’s more of a guideline than a recipe.  More of a general idea.  Inspiration, really.  And you know those are my favorite types of recipes.

Some notes:

• If you want this recipe to be vegetarian, leave out the ham.  If you want it to be vegan, leave out the cheese.
• I roasted the ham for about 10 minutes at 400F to make it crunchy in order to sprinkle on top.  It was just thinly sliced deli ham–you can use that, or fry up some bacon, prosciutto or pancetta.
• If you like food really spicy, use one whole serrano pepper.  If you like food kind of to pretty spicy, seed the pepper first.  If you don’t like heat, leave the pepper out entirely.
• If you don’t have a lime, use lemon.  It’s there to brighten the flavor but mostly to keep the avocado from oxidizing and turning brown.
• I used olive oil to help make the “sauce” creamier and to thin it out a bit.  I know, it seems weird to add fat to fat, but it’s actually the same thing I do with my guacamole–and at least it’s “healthy” fat.  However, you can use a bit of chicken or veggie stock if you prefer.
• Some good alternatives to add in here would be mushrooms, broccoli, spinach if you don’t like arugula, sliced red onion, etc.  This serves a giant portion of noodles for two.  If you are going to serve it as a side, say along-side some grilled chicken, then it would easily serve 4.
• You may notice the lack of salt in this recipe.  That’s because the parmesan is salty enough that you find you won’t need it.

Pasta Avocado, or Pastocado

3 c. dry penne pasta
2 oz shredded parmesan
1 bunch arugula, cleaned and cut
1 serrano pepper, roasted for 10 minutes, ends cut off (see note)
1 clove garlic, diced
the juice and zest of 1 lime
1 tsp dried oregano
1 avocado, peeled and pitted
2 slices deli ham, roasted until crunchy and crumbled
2 tbsp olive oil
black pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to package directions.  In the last minute of cooking time, add in the arugula to just wilt it.  Drain the pasta and arugula and add back to pot.

In a food processor (or by hand or whatever), combine parmesan, the serrano pepper, garlic, lime juice, lime zest, oregano, black pepper and olive oil and mix until well-blended.  With a spatula, spoon onto pasta, mixing until the pasta is thoroughly coated.  The warm pasta will slightly melt and loosen the sauce.  Add more black pepper to taste.  Spoon into bowls and top with crumbled deli ham.

Eat.  Enjoy.

That’s pretty easy isn’t it?  Easy eats are awesome.

Related posts:

1. Meal For One: Black and Green Pasta
2. Green Goddess Potato Salad…
3. Green Eggs…and some ham

However, as it is, this is a very simple 5 ingredient recipe, not including the salt and pepper.

Green and Black Pasta

2 c. squid ink pasta
2 c. packed fresh baby spinach
1/4 c. milk
1 ounce seasoned soft goat cheese
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Bring a pot of water to a boil; sprinkle in some salt and a bit of olive oil before adding in the pasta.  The olive oil will help keep the egg pasta from sticking together.  In the last 30 seconds of cooking, add in the spinach.  When the pasta is al dente, pour the pasta and spinach into a colander to drain and sprinkle with a bit of olive oil.

Keep the empty pot on the stove over medium heat.  Add in the milk and then the goat cheese, stirring until the cheese has melted completely into the sauce.  Add in the pasta and spinach (or other veggies) and mix thoroughly.  Taste and season with salt and pepper until it’s to your liking; remember, the pasta itself is already a bit salty, as is the goat cheese, so you’ll probably find that all you need is pepper.

Eat!  Lunch.

Related posts:

1. How Green is My Pasta: Penne + Avocado = Pastocado?
2. Monday Night Pantry Pasta Pretty Damn Quick
3. Beef Pesto Pasta

Like…well, every dish I make, this is a fairly flexible recipe.  And by “recipe,” I mean “guideline.”  And by “guideline,” I mean, “loosely affiliated series of ingredients, directions and methods.” 

Mushroom Ragout

olive oil
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large leek, chopped and washed
3 qts of various mushrooms (I used one quart cremini, one quart button and one quart shiitake)

1/2 tbsp dried oregano
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp dried fennel
28-30oz crushed tomatoes or canned tomato sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
1oz creamy goat cheese
1 box rigatoni, cooked according to package directions

Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a good sized skillet over medium high heat.  When the oil is hot, add in the garlic, sautéing for a couple minutes, then add in the leek and oregano and sauté for a few minutes until soft.  Add in mushrooms and a bit of water, stirring thoroughly and letting sit until the mushrooms cook down a bit.  Add in cayenne, cumin and fennel, stir, and let mushrooms cook down for 4-5 more minutes.

Add in tomato sauce and brown sugar.  Cook about 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. At the end of the cooking time, fold in the goat cheese and incorporate well.  Add in rigatoni, mix and serve with a good breadstick or crusty loaf.

It’s a creamy, spicy and filling dish…you won’t even miss the meat, really.  Seriously.  Don’t look at me like that.  Try it.

Related posts:

1. Roasted mushroom spaghetti
2. Meal in a pot: baked mac and cheese
3. Garlic-Mushroom Chicken: Drive away those pesky vegetarian vampires

I think there’s one basic truth in this world that we can all agree upon: macaroni and cheese is freaking awesome.  It’s like pizza-even when it’s bad, it’s still macaroni and cheese.

There’s a de facto rule in my family that every holiday meal must contain at least one pan of baked macaroni and cheese.  To not have it is a sin against God.  And taste.  And delicious flavor.

I do have a go-to recipe for mac-and-cheese that I like to pull out for such meals, and it never fails.  But tonight, I was on my own and I wanted to make something that would a) use up some leftover chicken from last night’s sammiches and 2)have all my carbs, veggies and protein in one pot.

I ended up combining influence from my usual recipe and from this baked penne with cheddar and leeks recipe from Bon Appetit, and threw in a few other things I had on hand.

This is basically what I did:

1/2 pound rigatoni, cooked til al dente
1 leek, chopped and cleaned
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
1 c. mushrooms, chopped (I used cremini)
3 c. fresh baby spinach
1 c. shredded cooked chicken
2 tbsp butter
a bit of water
salt and pepper to taste
2-3 tbsp flour
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp red pepper flake
2 c. milk
10oz shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 400F.

After cooking the pasta, pour out the rigatoni into a colander and put the pot back on the stove over medium heat.  Add in two tablespoons of butter and the leeks and garlic.  Sauté for a few minutes or until soft and deliciousy.  Add in mushrooms and cook a couple minutes more, adding in a tablespoon or two of water if things start to get dry.

Sprinkle in two or three tablespoons of flour  and mix in thoroughly.  Pour in the milk and cook until simmering.  Add in 8oz of cheese and stir until well incorporated.  Add in spinach and chicken, oregano, red pepper flake and salt and pepper to taste.  Stir everything together well and finally add the pasta back in.

Butter or spray a 9×12 baking dish.  Pour in pasta mixture and smooth out.  Top with another 2 ounces of cheese or so.  Bake at 400F for about 20 minutes.  Eat.  Smile.  Eat more.  Take a nap.

Related posts:

1. Baked Macaroni and Cheese
2. Meal For One: Black and Green Pasta
3. Baked Pumpkins: tasty meal in its own adorable bowl

The smug foodie in me (I am writing this on a Mac after all) was also pretty proud of the fact that just about all the produce in this dish was locally grown, too.  The tomatoes, thyme, parsley and basil came from our own deck garden (we live on the third floor of an apartment building, but are lucky enough to have a big long deck which we line with various pots containing leafy and delicious products).  And the peppers, garlic and onion came from our farm share.  Delicious.

Salsa Spaghetti
Serves 2

4oz whole wheat linguine, cooked according to package directions and drained
1 whole chicken breast, cut in half
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
1 pound fresh tomatoes
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1/4 c. fresh parsley
1/4 c. fresh basil
1 small red onion, quartered
2 cloves garlic, smashed
2 Hungarian wax peppers, ends cut off (cut down to one if you prefer less heat, and scrape out the seeds)

Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper and rub with olive oil on both sides.  Broil until cooked through, about 15 minutes, turning once in the middle.  (I like to use a grill pan with a separate top and bottom; I line the bottom with tin foil for easy cleanup and to catch the drippings, put the the grill top over it and lay the chicken on that.  If you don’t have one of those, just line a cookie sheet with tin foil but be careful because the fat from the chicken will pool a bit and if the pan is too close to the heat source, the popping grease will cause you a lot of smoke and heartache.)

Place tomatoes, thyme, parsley, basil, onion, garlic, peppers and about a tablespoon of olive oil in a blender and blend into a chunky purée.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Pour  tomato sauce in with the hot linguine and mix thoroughly.  Plate and top with chicken.

This whole meal takes generally about the time it takes to cook the pasta.  The sauce takes almost no time at all and while getting the pasta ready, I broiled the chicken.  It’s very fast, very light, very fresh and delicious.  And after this meal, you won’t feel guilty about the Edy’s Double Fudge Brownie ice cream you bought for dessert. 

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