Pasta and Veggies

That title could mean anything.  And over time it will, as this is a match made in heaven.  Tonight I figured I would do a pasta dish since I always have it on hand, and I didn't have a lot of time.  I decided to mix it up and do a baked pasta, probably because I am craving fall weather and warm comfort foods.  Anyway, I had some farmer's market and garden veggies that needed using, so I made a variation on a common theme in my house.

ROASTED VEGGIE BAKED PASTA

-1 box short pasta (I used rotini)

-1 large bell pepper, diced (I used yellow)

-1 zucchini, diced

-1 onion, diced

-2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped

-4 cloves garlic, minced

-1/2 cup frozen peas

-1/4 cup fresh herbs, chopped (I had basil, parsley, and oregano)

-1 tbsp. dried herbs du provence

-1 tsp. dried red chili flake

-salt, pepper

-12 oz. shredded cheese (I used a mix of mozzarella and pecorino romano)

-1/3 cup bread crumbs

-2 tbsp. shredded pecorino romano

-olive oil

-Preheat the oven to 425.  Arrange the peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, and garlic on a baking sheet.  Toss with olive oil, and add the dried herbs, salt, and pepper.  Roast for 12-15 minutes, until tender.

-In the meantime, cook the pasta until al dente.  Drain and set aside.

-Mix together the bread crumbs and 2 tbsp. shredded cheese.  Stir in a tbsp. or two of the olive oil.  Set aside.

-When the veggies and pasta are done, toss them together in a large bowl.  Add the shredded cheese, frozen peas (no need to defrost), and fresh herbs.  Stir to combine. 

-Transfer mixture to a large baking dish.  Top with the breadcrumb mixture.

-Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until browned on the top.  Serve.

This will serve a least 5 people, so needless to say, I have a lot of leftovers I am very excited to eat for lunch this week.

This recipe is so easy to tweak.  It's great with mushrooms, squash from any season, artichokes, and spinach.  I've also made it with fontina cheese, which is really tasty and melts perfectly in this dish.  The recipe can cater to just about anyone's vegetable preferences.  I highly recommend giving this a try, but maybe wait until the air starts to get cool, and it will be that much more appetizing when it comes out of the oven piping hot.

Lack of Time + Leftovers

Yesterday was a busy day.  I had work til 5pm, plans to play tennis with a friend at 6pm, and dinner to cook after that.  Boboli pizza crust to the rescue!  I swear by these things.  They taste great, they're versatile, and they are quick.  I try to keep one in the fridge all the time.  Anyway, I also had a whole mess of cherry tomatoes, onion, herbs, and mozzarella sitting in a bowl in the fridge.  If you checked out my last post, you will see that this was leftover filling from the stuffed pepper recipe.  I didn't know what to do with it so I packaged it up, and then it dawned on me to put it on the Boboli crust, cheese and all.  I also had eggplant fresh from the garden, so I (actually Mark, while I was at work) roasted that up so we could put that on the pizza as well.  A little sprinkle of extra cheese and some fresh herbs topped it off.

LEFTOVER CHERRY TOMATO AND ROASTED EGGPLANT PIZZA

-Boboli pizza crust (or something similar)

-cherry tomato mixture (see last post's link)

-8 oz. can tomato sauce

-1 large eggplant, diced

-breadcrumbs

-olive oil

-shredded mozzarella

-assorted chopped herbs (I used basil, parsley, and oregano)

-Preheat the oven to 425.

-Toss the diced eggplant in olive oil, and then in the breadcrumbs.  Spread out on a cookie sheet and roast for 10-12 minutes, until tender.

-Rub some olive oil over the pizza crust.  Spread tomato sauce out over the crust.

-Top the crust with the cherry tomato mixture and the roasted eggplant.

-Sprinkle the shredded mozzarella over the top.

-Cook for 10-12 minutes, or until the top of the pizza is golden brown.

-Remove from the oven and immediately top with the chopped herbs.  Serve.

As you can see this is quick, and a great way to use leftovers.  This works with pretty much any vegetable you have on hand, whether it's leftover, fresh, or even canned.  Go crazy!  If you like what you're putting on the pizza crust, you'll like it even more this way.  A couple of my favorite variations:

-Roasted squash, onion, and bell pepper pizza.

-Roasted tomato, onion, and artichoke pizza.

Summer Tomatoes

Between my own garden and the farmer's market, Sunday was a great day for vegetables. The farmer's market yielded cherry tomatoes, onions, chard, green beans, sweet bell peppers, and watermelon. My garden gave me these guys: 

Between my two veggie sources, I had a bunch of bell peppers and tomatoes.  So tonight I figured I would try my best to use both of them.  The result?  Peppers stuffed with cherry tomatoes and couscous with tomato dressing and chard.  You can see the original recipe I based the stuffed peppers on here.  I followed it for the most part, but I did use some additional herbs since I had not only basil, but parsley and oregano in my garden.  I also upped the cooking time to 25 minutes to ensure that the peppers were tender.  Finally, I added some of the dressing I made for the couscous over the top of the cooked dish.  Speaking of couscous...

COUSCOUS WITH TOMATO VINAIGRETTE AND CHARD

-1 cup couscous (I used whole wheat)

-1 1/4 cups water

-3-4 stalks chard, chopped

-a few basil leaves

-2 garlic cloves

-1 tomato, chopped (I used a Ramapo)

-mustard

-red wine vinegar

-extra virgin olive oil

-First, saute the chard in a bit of olive oil until tender.  Set aside.

-Bring the water to a gentle boil.  Add the couscous and stir to combine, then turn the heat off and cover the pot.  Let sit for 5 minutes.

-In the meantime, prep your viniagrette.  Add the garlic cloves, basil, red wine vinegar, mustard, and tomato to a blender.  Blend until smooth.  While the blender is running, stream in the olive oil.  *A quick note: I am terrible with measurements.  Just add this stuff by eye; you're going to want about 1 1/4 cups of this total.

-Take the lid off the couscous and fluff it up with a spoon.  Mix together the couscous, the cooked chard, and 1 cup of the vinagrette (remember to use the extra 1/4 cup of the vinagrette over the top of the roasted peppers when you take them out of the oven).  Serve!

This meal was really tasty, healthy, and gave me lunch to bring to work tomorrow.  The dressing for the couscous has such awesome flavor, thanks to a whole, freshly picked, raw tomato blended in.  The peppers were a little bit decadent with the mozzarella melted in.  This dish would be great for a party too.  It would be really easy to get more peppers and filling, and simply put them in a bigger baking dish so as to not increase the cooking time.  And most importantly, it is high tomato season!  There is nothing better than a freshly picked Jersey tomato.  If there's a time to use them, it is now.

Beans and Sweet Potatoes

As I was perusing the recipe section of the New York Times, I came across a recipe for Refried Black Bean Soft Tacos.  It caught my eye because I love refried beans, but they are usually super bad for you when you get them at a restaurant.  It's not unusual for refried beans to be made with some kind of animal fat.  So when I read through the recipe and discovered that they were fried in just 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, I was pleasantly surprised.  That and the fact it used so few ingredients sold me.  You can find the original recipe here.  I made a few small changes, such as adding a couple of minced garlic cloves when i put in the spices, adding some fresh cilantro just before the beans were done, and I also skipped the last two items (which weren't integral to the beans anyway).  Anyway, these beans came out so good I couldn't believe it, and it took practically no effort.  This recipe is definitely a keeper.  One important note: buy no salt added black beans if at all possible, since you need the bean liquid for this recipe.  You can't rinse them.

I went a little crazy with the garnishes for the tacos.  On the table I put out the soft flour tortillas, freshly chopped ramapo tomatoes from my garden (these are so good they deserve their own post), chopped cilantro, sliced scallions, shredded cheddar, and last but not least, the leftover peppers and onions (reheated in a skillet) from the Shrimp Fajitas I made the other night.  They might have been tastier this time around.  

As if this wasn't enough food!  I had sweet potatoes in the fridge that needed to be used, so I went for my old sweet stand-by: Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes.  This is a side dish that really gives you a bang for your buck, since sweet potatoes are typically cheap, and they are chock full of nutrients.  On top of that, it's easy.

CHIPOTLE MASHED SWEET POTATOES

-sweet potatoes (about 1 per person should do it, and leave you some leftovers)

-vegetable stock

-pureed chipotle peppers, to taste

-Cut the sweet potatoes into uniformly sized cubes.  You can leave the skin on or take it off, it's up to you.  

-Put the cubes into a large pot of cold water, enough to cover them.  Bring the pot up to a gentle boil.  Cook the potatoes for 10-ish minutes, or until a fork goes easily through the pieces.

-Drain the potatoes, and toss them back into the hot pot. 

-Get your electric hand mixer ready.  If you cooked your potatoes in something cast iron, leave them there.  If not, transfer the potatoes into a glass or ceramic bowl (just make sure it can stand up to the mixer). 

-Add a splash of vegetable stock to the potatoes, and spoon in as much pureed chipotle peppers as you can handle (these suckers are spicy).  You can either buy a jar of pureed chipotles, or you can just use a small can of whole chipotles in adobo (go with Goya) and minced them up really finely.

-Mix everything together until the potatoes have reached the texture you like.  You can add more stock if need be.  Serve!

Impromptu Pizza

Well, I intended on whipping up something tasty for dinner tonight, but just as I was getting ready to start my mother gave me a call.  My dad's best friend since childhood was visiting from Hawaii, and they asked Mark and I if we wanted to get some food with them.  We ended up going to the Mad Hatter in Sea Bright, NJ.  I figured i would take this chance to plug them since they make thin crust pizza that is better than anywhere else I've tried.  It's definitely not your standard pizza, as the crust is almost matzoh-like, but it is really tasty, and they are super generous with toppings (I had green pepper, onion, and garlic).  The tomato sauce is excellent, as well, very sweet and just the right amount.  The sauce is very important to me, considering I judge a pizza's success on it more than anything.  So if you're in town, I suggest checking The Mad Hatter out!  They make pizza til 1:15am, so you can't even make an excuse to skip this place.  If nothing else, they have $6 pitchers of beer!

An Excess of Peppers

I suppose I'll get right to it with a recipe for this evening's dinner.  Between my own vegetable garden and our local farmer's market, I had amassed way more peppers than two people could ever need.  There were three colors of sweet peppers (red, yellow wax, and purple), cubanelles, and poblanos in the fridge.  I also had a whole bunch of hot red chilies from my garden.  What to do!  The first thing that came to mind was fajitas, since I knew I had onions and frozen shrimp on hand too.

A word about frozen shrimp.  This is something I usually have.  Whole Foods has great quality domestic frozen shrimp at a consistently low price.  It's not something we eat more than once every two weeks or so, though, given that shrimp has a bit more cholesterol in it than most other things we eat.  It's a tasty treat once in a while, though.

Anyway, this meal was quick, tasty, and filling.  One of these days I'll start taking pictures of my food, but for now, here's the recipe.  It fed two of us, and we still had some peppers and onions leftover for lunch tomorrow.  This is great for a crowd too, since it doesn't take much longer to cook bigger quantities of this stuff.

SHRIMP FAJITAS

-frozen shrimp, peeled, deveined, and defrosted (16 small/medium size shrimp fed us)

-1/3 cup vegetable oil, plus more for pans

-half a lemon's juice

-1 tbsp chili powder, plus some extra

-1 tbsp cumin, plus some extra

-1 tbsp garlic powder, plus some extra

-1 red chili, chopped

-handful of cilantro, chopped

-spoonful of salsa, homemade or store bought (I used tomatillo salsa)

-3-6 assorted peppers, depending on size, seeded and sliced

-1 large onion, sliced

-fresh ground black pepper and salt, for seasoning

-flour tortillas

-Mix the 1/3 cup vegetable oil, lemon juice, spices, red chili, cilantro and salsa in a small bowl.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Add the shrimp and let marinate in the fridge for 10-15 minutes.

-Get a large pan good and hot, and add a couple tablespoons of oil.  Add the sliced peppers and onions and toss in the extra seasonings.  Keep these moving periodically so everything cooks evenly and the spices distribute.  You know they're done when the slices are flexible and browning on the edges, but not yet mushy.  This should take 10-15 minutes or so on medium-high.  Don't forget to season with salt and pepper to taste.

-Get another pan equally hot, add a tablespoon of oil, and then add the shrimp.  Cook them until they are turning pink on the sides, maybe 2-3 minutes.  Flip the shrimp and cook until pink and just firm, another 2 minutes on medium-high.

-Serve these family style.  Put out the shrimp, peppers and onions, tortillas, and any other garnishes you might like right on the table.  Tonight we just stuck with some shredded cheddar cheese, but chopped tomato, fresh cilantro, or some sliced avocado might be nice too.

Welcome!

Welcome to The Hungry Pescetarian!  Here you will find recipes and discussion revolving around all things vegetables, grains, and sea-dwelling creatures (and of course, baked goods, coffee, and the occasional beer).  

A little bit about myself.  I'm a twenty-something living on the Jersey shore.  I am in the process of renovating our almost 100 year old house with my husband.  I have 2 cats, a large vegetable garden, and I like to run.  Most of all, I love to cook and bake, and to eat.  My husband and I follow a pescetarian diet (get it?) and try to eat as local as reasonably possible.  Lucky for us, we are in the midst of farmer's market season in our little town, and it's only a bike ride away.  On top of that, my garden has already yielded much, and is still going strong.

Thanks for visiting.  I hope this blog makes you think, helps you create some great meals and snacks, and is informative.  Any comments are welcome, please let me know what you think!  Enjoy!