Garden Pasta

This is one of the easiest dishes in the entire history of Casual Kitchen. It takes just 15 minutes to prepare, and with its simple and suprisingly powerful fresh garden flavors, this recipe is one the best I've featured so far this year.

Not only that, but you can make this dish for a total cost of about $1.50. A buck fifty!

I know I keep harping on this, but the idea that "healthy food has to be expensive" is nothing more than a ludicrous fiction. Yes, you can eat healthy, delicious meals at home with simple, easy to obtain ingredients--and you do not have to spend a lot of time or money.

Make this incredible recipe and you'll see exactly what I mean.
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Garden Pasta

Ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, pressed or finely minced
About 1 cup grated carrot (one medium to large carrot)
About 1 cup grated zucchini (a smallish zucchini will suffice)
About 1/2 pound linguine, fettucine or spaghetti
Black pepper to taste
Optional: parmesan cheese to taste

Directions:
1) Cook pasta according to directions. While pasta is cooking, mince/press the garlic and grate the carrot and zucchini (use the coarsest holes in a simple hand grater).

2) Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a large, non stick pan. Add the garlic, saute for 1 minute. Add the grated carrot and zucchini and saute for 3-4 minutes.

3) Drain pasta, and while still hot, combine with the sauteed carrot, zucchini and garlic. Add a few shakes of black pepper and serve with optional parmesan cheese.

Serves 3. Can be easily doubled.
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Finally, a quick itemization of the key cost components of this dish:

1/2 pound pasta: 50-75c
1 carrot: 20c
small zucchini: 50c
garlic cloves: 10c
Total cost: $1.30-1.55, or around 50c a serving.


Related Posts:
The 25 Best Laughably Cheap Recipes at Casual Kitchen
Five Laughably Easy Timesaving Tips in the Kitchen
Eight Tips to Make Cooking At Home Laughably Cheap
Glossary of Casual Kitchen Memes

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Greek Pasta with Spinach, Olives, Tomatoes and White Beans

I'd like to share with you today yet another extremely easy and healthy pasta recipe. You'll love it: it takes only 20-25 minutes to make, it conveniently combines all four food groups in a single pot, and at about $1.75 per serving, it's laughably cheap too.

It's always a pleasure to find a simple, honest and dependable recipe like this. Dinner doesn't have to be so complicated all the time.
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Greek Pasta with Spinach, Olives, Tomatoes and White Beans

Ingredients:
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped coarsely
3-4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
3 (14.5 ounce) cans plain diced tomatoes
1 (14.5 ounce) can small white beans, rinsed well and drained
1 cup olives, pitted (canned okay)
black pepper to taste
About 4-5 ounces (about 4 cups) fresh spinach
1 lb penne or other similar pasta

1/2 to 3/4 cup (3-4 ounces) crumbled or cubed feta cheese

Directions:
1) Saute onion and garlic in olive oil in a large pan over medium-high heat for 4-5 minutes, until tender.
2) Add tomatoes, olives and beans, bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes while the pasta cooks.
3) Add the spinach to the sauce, combine well, and continue simmering for 1-2 minutes. Let spinach wilt a bit, but not too much.
4) Place cooked pasta into shallow plates or bowls, add sauce on top of the pasta. Crumble feta cheese on top.

Serves 5-6.
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Four brief recipe notes:
1) The prep time for this meal should be about 10 minutes, followed by cooking time of about 15 minutes. And to think people claim they don't have time to cook healthy, inexpensive food at home.

2) The nice thing about feta cheese, besides it's innate Greekishness, is that it's one of the more reasonably priced cheeses out there. However, if you don't like feta, you're in luck, because you can make an "extreme frugal" version of this dish--something befitting even the Frugal Fu blog--by leaving out the feta entirely. Doing this can get the recipe cost down as low as $1.20-$1.30 per serving.

3) There are a number of variations of this recipe floating around on the internet (incidentally, the last two of those three look suspiciously identical), but my recipe above is Casual Kitchen's official, scientifically tested version. Feel free to borrow and adapt it to your whims. It's fun to look over similar versions of the same recipe and think about which ones might taste better or worse, and why. This exercise can also be a great source of potential recipe modification ideas.

One final question: after taking a quick look at the the three recipes above, will someone please tell me where in the world you can find a 19-ounce can of beans?
Related Posts:
Pasta Puttanesca
How to Make Risotto
Farfalle with Mushrooms and Gorgonzola Cheese
Six Secrets to Save You from Cooking Burnout

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by linking to me, subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.

My personal photographer:

Pasta with Tuna, Olives and Roasted Red Peppers

Today's recipe is easy, scalable and inexpensive to make, and it's quite a bit fancier than many typical low-rent pasta dishes. Better still, it's a fully balanced meal, with protein, complex carbs and veggies all rolled into one recipe.

Most of these ingredients can be easily kept on hand in your pantry at all times, which makes this recipe perfect for a last-minute dinner when you don't have much time to cook.

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Pasta with Tuna, Olives and Roasted Red Peppers
(modified from 365 Ways to Cook Pasta)

Ingredients:
3-4 Tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, cut into thin lengthwise strips
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 7-ounce jar roasted red peppers, drained and cut into thin strips
1 6.5-ounce can tuna, drained
3-4 Tablespoons black olives, chopped coarsely
1 pound pasta (most any type will do)
3-4 Tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped coarsely

Directions:
1) Cook pasta according to directions.
2) Meanwhile, saute onions in oil on medium-high heat until they begin to brown and caramelize, about 5-7 minutes. Add garlic, saute for another 1-2 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and saute another 1-2 minutes just to heat through. Toss with pasta and serve at once.

Serves 4-5, can be easily doubled.
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Two brief recipe notes:
1) The recipe specifies that you slice the onions into "thin lengthwise strips." You can reduce your defenseless onion to strips in seconds by cutting the onion in half and running the knife across each half like this:

2) Don't underestimate the culinary importance of giving the onions a good browning in the oil as shown in the picture below. When I want to caramelize onions (as opposed to simply sauteeing them), I'll use a higher heat setting under the burner--usually medium high as opposed to just medium. This caramelization gives the onions a slightly sweet taste, adding an extra depth of flavor to the entire dish. Enjoy!

Related Posts:
How to Make Risotto
Pasta Puttanesca
Applications of the 80/20 Rule to Diet, Food and Cooking
How to Create Your Own Original Pasta Salad Recipes Using the Pasta Salad Permutator




How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

Here's an easy-to-make pasta sauce that's healthier, cheaper and better-tasting than anything you can buy in the grocery store.

It's low in sodium, it's vegetarian, and the roasted red peppers give the sauce an interesting depth of flavor you won't find in regular old tomato sauce.

Best of all, you can make this recipe in 25 minutes flat, and you'll have enough sauce to equal three jars of the store-bought stuff. I love recipes like this. It's almost unfair that a sauce this good can be this easy to make.

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Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

Ingredients:
4-5 Tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons dried basil
1 teaspoon black pepper (more or less to taste)

2 28-ounce cans whole peeled tomatoes, chopped coarsely
12-14 ounce can roasted red peppers, chopped
2 cups water

Directions:
1) Heat oil in a large non-stick pan, then add onions, garlic and spices. Saute on medium heat for about five minutes. Add tomatoes, roasted red peppers and water. Bring to a boil, turn heat down to medium low and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.

2) Puree roughly 3/4 of the sauce in a blender or a food processor. Add back to the pan and simmer for another 5 minutes. Serve over the pasta of your choice.

Makes about 2 1/2 quarts of sauce (about 80 ounces by volume).
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Related Posts:
How to Make Risotto
Pasta Puttanesca
The Dinner Party: 10 Tips to Make Cooking for Company Fun and Easy
How to Modify a Recipe: The Six Rules

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by linking to me, subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.

Sauteed Penne with Broccoli and Chickpeas

Today's recipe is a healthy pasta salad that is sauteed, giving it an interesting depth of flavor not often found in your everyday pasta salad dishes.

It was both laughably cheap and laughably easy to make: it took me about 30 minutes from start to finish the very first time I made it--and I could have handled the prep work with the broccoli far more efficiently. Thus with a bit of practice, you could potentially get this entire dish made in around 20 minutes.

It was a quick, delicious and healthy meal, perfect for an evening when you don't have a lot of time to cook.
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Sauteed Penne with Broccoli and Chickpeas

3 cups broccoli, cut up into smallish florets
2 Tablespoons salt (for the boiling water)
1 pound penne
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 15 ounce can chickpeas, drained and well-rinsed
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (more or less, to taste)
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice (more or less, to taste)

1) Add salt to a large pot of water and bring to a boil. Briefly blanch the broccoli for 1-2 minutes, until tender but still crunchy. Using a slotted spoon, remove the broccoli from the boiling water and set broccoli aside (but save the water).

2) Bring the water that the broccoli was cooking in back to a boil and use it to cook the penne until al dente, according to the package directions. Drain well, and briefly rinse the pasta in cold water.

3) Heat the olive oil in a large, deep, non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Add the penne and red pepper flakes, and saute for 1 minute, stirring frequently. Add the chickpeas and broccoli florets and saute for about 4-5 minutes, stirring frequently, until the ingredients are lightly browned in places and the pasta is fully heated through.

4) Remove from heat, add the lemon juice, then toss and serve immediately.

Serves 4-5.
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This recipe gave us an unexpected bonus: an excellent opportunity to apply some recipe modification skills.

The original name of this recipe was Sauteed Penne with Cauliflower and Chickpeas. Unfortunately, after seeing the cauliflower inventory in our grocery store's produce section (they were $3.99 per head and, judging by their pathetic size, not exactly in season), I knew I had a problem.

But I wasn't going to let this minor obstacle crush my spirit. Instead, I asked myself what would be a good substitute for mild-tasting vegetable like cauliflower? All I had to do was wander around in the produce aisle for a couple of minutes until I saw enormous, healthy-looking broccoli bunches selling for less than a third of the price of the stunted cauliflower nearby. Bingo.


It isn't rocket science, obviously, but basic ingredient substitutions like this are classic examples of simple recipe modification. Today's substitution also enabled me to make this recipe at a higher quality and a much lower cost than if I had been stubborn and kept the recipe as is.

Here, basically any firm vegetable will do, as long as it can survive a little bit of browning in a saute pan. Green beans, peas, even chunks of firm (and probably best unpeeled) eggplant would do nicely in this recipe. In fact any of these substitutions also provide a nice dash of welcome color that was missing from the recipe in its orginal, anemic form.

One extra comment on spicing: we prefer our food spicy, so we actually used a heaping teaspoon of red pepper flakes, as you can see below:

If you want less spicy dish, obviously add less red pepper. But if you want a much less spicy dish, then wait until the very end to add the red pepper flakes (add in with the lemon juice). The longer the red pepper gets sauteed in the oil along with everything else, the more it has a chance to infuse the entire dish with heat.

And in the picture below, that's real live steam coming off our dinner. No photographic dirty tricks here.


Related Posts:
How to Modify a Recipe: The Six Rules
How to Modify a Recipe: Granola Before and After
Thai Pasta Salad
How to Create Your Own Original Pasta Salad Recipes Using the Pasta Salad Permutator

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! Another way you can support me is by submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.

How to Make an Arrabbiata Sauce

This spicy and delicious sauce can be made in a few bare minutes, making it a classic heavy rotation recipe for us here at Casual Kitchen. An arrabbiata sauce (often mistakenly spelled arrabiata) can be served with practically any kind of pasta, although it goes particularly well with penne to make the classic Italian dish penne all'arrabbiata.

The word arrabbiata means "angry" (or even better, "enraged") in English. But that's about the opposite of how you'll feel after you make this preposterously easy, yet distinctive, sauce.
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Arrabbiata Sauce
(modified from 365 Ways to Cook Pasta*)

1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 teaspoons crushed dried (hot) red pepper (note: if you want a milder sauce with just a hint of heat, use 1 teaspoon. For a more meaningfully spicy sauce, go with 2 teaspoons)

1 28 ounce can whole peeled tomatoes (see modifications below)
Fresh parsley for garnish
Salt to taste (optional)

1) Heat oil in a non-stick pan over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and red pepper. Saute, stirring until garlic turns golden.

2) Put the whole tomatoes into a food processor or a blender and pulse briefly until smooth. Add to the garlic, hot pepper and oil mixture.

3) Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20-25 minutes. Serve over the pasta of your choice.

Makes enough sauce for approximately 4-5 servings. Can be easily doubled or tripled.
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This is the type of simple elegant sauce that can cause Italian food purists to wax rhapsodic. Although Casual Kitchen is perhaps more likely to rhapsodize over Chocolate Mousse or food-wonk concepts like applying the 80/20 Principle to cooking, we will happily admit that there is truly something arresting about a simple, delicious sauce like this.

All the better that it's healthy, inexpensive and--best of all--ridiculously easy to make.

And if you really want to wow your audience, you can take this sauce up to heavenly heights by using fresh (preferably garden- or locally-grown) tomatoes, preferably pressed through a strainer or a food mill (this strips out the tomato seeds, which can offend the sensibilities of many Italian sauce purists).

The last time I made this dish was in a quadruple batch for a 20-person family reunion dinner. Obviously for a group that big, one has to go for expedience, and straining fresh tomatoes is out of the question. But this sauce, even when made with canned tomatoes, still tastes divine. And best of all, because this sauce scales well and tastes even better the next day, it's simply perfect for dinner parties. Enjoy!

Related Posts:
Pasta Puttanesca
Italian Sausage and Tortellini Soup
The Dinner Party: 10 Tips to Make Cooking for Company Fun and Easy
How to Apply the 80/20 Rule to Cooking

How to Create Your Own Original Pasta Salad Recipes Using The Pasta Salad Permutator

All this talk about summer pasta salad recipes over the past couple of weeks has given me the idea to take the pasta salad concept a step further.

Sure, it's great to publish your favorite pasta salads recipes on your blog, but what if I could create a tool that would help my readers create original pasta salads of their own? It would be the equivalent of Choose Your Own Adventure for pasta salads!

That's exactly what I created for today's article. Let me introduce to you the Pasta Salad Permutator. With the Permutator's unpatented six-step process, you can have the basic tools and building blocks to compose your own original pasta salad recipes.

How to Use the Pasta Salad Permutator:
Step 1) First, start with the sauce base, the basic chassis of your pasta salad. Most pasta salads sauces fall into these fundamental categories:

olive oil-based
lemon juice-based
vinegar-based (red wine vinegar, white, cider, balsamic, etc)
mayonnaise-based (shudder)
asian-style or other sauces (tamari, hoisin, soy sauce, oyster sauce, tahini, etc)

Choose any one, or employ a combination of two or more.

Step 2) Then, add your vegetable inputs. Here is a partial list of choices ranging from common to the not-so-common:

peppers (red, green, yellow, orange)
onions (and red onions)
tomatoes (cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, green, plum, etc)
carrots
celery
broccoli
mushrooms
snow peas
olives (various kinds)
garlic
scallions
capers
sundried tomatoes, etc.

You can limit your choices to a few or several of these, depending on various factors. What seems interesting to you on that day? What's in season? What's reasonably priced? Which items might go well together? You get the idea.

Keep in mind, there's no need to constrain choices to veggies here. How about considering some fruits too?

mandarin oranges
pineapple
various dried fruits
apple or pear chunks, etc.

Step 3) Now, move on to your protein inputs. There are obvious choices, such as:

beef
chicken
various types of cheeses
beans
lentils

...and so on. But you can also consider less obvious choices, like:

seafood (shrimp, salmon pieces, crabmeat, etc)
various types of nuts
eggs
grains (bulgur, cooked wild rice, barley, etc)
very firm tofu

There are no limits here! Choose just one or several, again basing your decision on your budget, your dietary restrictions, or what sounds interesting to you.

Step 4) Next, consider adding some leafy greens to invigorate your recipe!

Fresh parsley, basil, mint, dill, spinach or rosemary are all fragrant, interesting and healthy possibilities. You can also consider more sturdy greens like kale and swiss chard here, but keep in mind that tough leafy greens like these should probably be blanched in boiling water briefly before adding.

Step 5) We're almost done. Next, add your spices. Here's where things can get really fun. Choose from these categories:

Hot spices: Tabasco, cayenne, chipotle, jalapeno
Mild: black pepper, white pepper, oregano, paprika
More exotic: cumin, curry, nutmeg, massala spices
Other/weird: lemon zest, grated orange peel, fennel seeds, cinnamon

Step 6) Finally, choose your pasta shape, being mindful of the nature of your sauce. A thinner sauce might require a pasta with nooks and crannies that will hold more sauce (e.g., shells, rotini, penne rigati). A thicker sauce, like our Thai Pasta Salad, might need a broad pasta with a lot of surface area, like linguine or fettucine. And of course it's always fun to pick cool-looking shapes for visual appeal (wagon wheels, cavatappi, etc).

Congratulations! Now that you've seen each of the six steps, I'll walk you through a specific example of how I might use the Permutator to create my own original pasta salad recipe:

1) I'll start with hoisin sauce with olive oil for an Asian-style pasta salad.
2) Then add garlic (maybe I'll simmer the garlic in the olive oil for a few minutes, then add in the hoisin sauce) and hmmmm... how about mandarin oranges and dried apricots?
3) Then fresh spinach, and basil for greens.
4) Let's have this salad be meatless, so I'll skip this step.
5) Cayenne or red pepper flakes for spiciness.
6) And for the pasta, let's try rotini.

Presto, I've just created a delicious original Asian pasta salad! I hereby name it: Spicy Singaporean Pasta Salad with Mandarin Oranges and Dried Apricots. How easy was that?

As you can see, this isn't rocket science. Almost all pasta salads have the same six building blocks in common. The Permutator is just a simple tool to help you create some really interesting combinations. Roll some ideas around in your brain while you walk through the six steps and see what original recipes you can invent.

You can make your choice from the specific list of ingredients I have above, or add additional ingredients of your own choosing in each category. Let your mind really go and come up with some crazy, exotic ideas--you might surprise yourself with something truly unique and delicious!

Before I set you free to devise your own pasta salads, I'll take you through one more example:

1) Lemon juice and vinegar as the base.
2) Cucumbers, celery, feta cheese, sundried tomatoes and olives (we're going a bit Greek here)
3) Some chickpeas for protein.
4) Fresh parsley and mint (now leaning more towards Turkey)
2a) Let's back up for another pass at step 2) and add something interesting: pineapple chunks.
5) And now let's get truly interesting with spices: a few dashes of ground cinnamon (to taste) and then add Tabasco (to taste).

Voila: Sweet and Spicy Middle Eastern Salad with Pineapple Chunks. Also--did you notice something unusual about this "pasta" salad? Yep, it doesn't even contain pasta. Don't create a box for yourself and think that any rules have to constrain you. Sometimes the best and most creative recipes manifest when you truly throw out the entire rulebook.

Try out my Permutator and I guarantee you'll come up with some creative and original pasta salads of your own. In fact, I'd love to hear reader submissions of their own pasta salad creations--leave yours in the comments section below! I'll come up with a suitable prize for the best sounding recipe. And heck, just for some extra fun I'll give out a prize for the most revolting recipe too (here's a sample title: Spicy, Curried Wagon Wheels with Mayonnaise, Fennel Seeds and Cilantro).

Let's get going dreaming up those recipes!

Related Posts:
Thai Pasta Salad
Fattoush! A Middle Eastern Salad Recipe
Chickpeas, Pasta and Tomato Salad
How to Tell if a Recipe is Worth Cooking With Five Easy Questions

Penne Pasta Salad

We're still in summer pasta salad mode here at Casual Kitchen, and today I bring you another healthy, easy and inexpensive pasta salad recipe to try. It's been a staple in our kitchen for years.
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Penne Pasta Salad
(modified slightly from 365 Ways to Cook Pasta)

2 lbs fresh plum tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4-1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
4 Tablespoons white vinegar
a dash of salt

1 lb penne (preferably penne rigati)
1 cucumber, pared, halved and sliced
1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped red onions
1/2 cup chopped roasted red bell peppers

1) Combine the chopped tomatoes, olive oil, basil, vinegar and salt and let stand for a few minutes in a large bowl.

2) Cook the pasta. While the pasta is cooking, chop the cucumber, onion, and roasted red bell peppers.

3) Combine everything and mix well. Can serve immediately (while the pasta is still warm), or can serve chilled.

Serves 6.
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Along with last week's Chickpeas, Pasta and Tomato Salad, our Thai Pasta Salad recipe and today's Penne Pasta Salad, Casual Kitchen now offers three simple and delicious summer pasta salad recipes. Try them all and let me know what you think!

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Chickpeas, Pasta and Tomato Salad

The weather in the northeastern US finally started to get warm over the past week or two, and it finally feels like summer might come this year.

And summertime, of course, means it's time to break out some trusty pasta salad recipes. Today's recipe will provide you with a light and nutritious meal that's simply perfect for a hot summer day.
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Chickpeas, Pasta and Tomato Salad
(modified slightly from 365 Ways to Cook Pasta*)

2 cans (14.5 ounces each) chickpeas, drained and well-rinsed
2/3 cup olive oil
5-6 Tablespoons lemon juice
6 Tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
A couple of dashes of salt
1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper (or more to taste)

4 cups pasta (suggest tubetti, elbows, penne rigati or medium shells)
4 cups fresh tomatoes, chopped coarsely
1 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup red onion, chopped

1) Combine the chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, oregano and black pepper in a large bowl. Marinate at room temperature for about 1 hour.

2) Cook the pasta until al dente. While the pasta is cooking, chop the tomatoes, celery and red onion. When the pasta is done, add it and everything else in with the marinated chickpeas. Toss and serve immediately.

Serves 8 easily.
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A few quick recipe notes:
1) The original version of this recipe called for tubetti, which is a tubular-shaped pasta like ditalini, only longer (ditalini is the kind of pasta you typically find in a minestrone soup). Of course we couldn't find tubetti, or anything close, in our grocery store that day, so we just picked the coolest looking pasta they had--cavatappi. But the bottom line is you can choose any of a wide variety of pasta shapes for this salad. Have some fun with it and experiment.


2) Close readers of Casual Kitchen know by now the predictable reasons why we love pasta salads: they're laughably cheap, really easy to make, and very healthy. This particular recipe delivers a balanced mix of protein (from the chickpeas), complex carbohydrates (an efficient source of energy from the pasta), and fiber and antioxidants (from the vegetables and greens) for roughly $1.50 per serving. You can't beat that with a baseball bat.

3) There are plenty of pasta salad recipes out there that go for the easy "wow" factor by blasting your palate with a too-strong vinegar or vinaigrette sauce base. In contrast, this recipe is quieter and more modest. With its simple yet elegant mix of lemon, fresh parsley and black pepper, this salad is just perfect. A keeper. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

* Full disclosure: if you enter Amazon via a link on my blog and buy something, I'll get a small commission on that purchase. Please think of it as my "tip jar"--and thanks so much to those readers out there who support me!





Related Posts:
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How to Rewrite a Recipe: Shells with Artichoke Hearts and Shrimp in Lemon-Oregano Vinaigrette

Today I will share a delicious pasta recipe that needed just a bit of editorial help.

I'm particular about how a recipe is written. It should be straightforward, with the steps written in the same order that they are cooked. But you'd be surprised how many recipes require a round of deciphering before they can be put into use. Today's recipe, which came from the otherwise exceptional 365 Ways to Cook Pasta, was just such an example.


You can see in this picture how the recipe follows the typical, rote format of listing all of the ingredients up top, and then listing all of the cooking instructions after that. Seems reasonable, right? Except on this occasion, it's exactly the worst way to write a recipe.

You see, this pasta dish is really three quick mini-recipes in one. There's an artichoke heart marinade, which you make ahead of time. Then there's the veggies, parsley and olives, which get chopped up and wait in a bowl for everything else. And then there's the shells and shrimp.

To list all the ingredients together, especially when it's a long list of 14 or so items, is pointless. It just adds to the confusion and makes the recipe hard to read.

Of course even a confused recipe can still taste amazing. And this dish was a real keeper. But just as some of the best recipes come from the most unassuming places, sometimes they, uh, come from the minds of unassuming writers.

Thus this recipe just needed a little editorial surgery. So I rewrote the recipe in three discrete mini-sections, with the ingredients for each process step broken out separately.

I'm curious: do readers out there have the same difficulties that I have reading and processing a recipe like this when it's put together in this traditional, rote format? Seems to me that the more ingredients and the more steps involved, the better it is to write it in a format broken down by process steps.

Take a look at my rescripted version of the recipe below and let me know what you think!


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Shells with Artichoke Hearts and Shrimp in Lemon-Oregano Vinaigrette
(modified from 365 Ways to Cook Pasta)

2 15-ounce cans artichoke hearts, drained and rinsed
3/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (this is a bit less than one lemon)
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest (this is the very outermost skin of the lemon--use a fine grater)
1/2 teaspoon oregano
2-3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

Combine the above ingredients in a medium saucepan. Heat to simmering, then let stand and cool for 30 minutes. You can also refrigerate overnight for a stronger marinade.

1 cup chopped red onion
1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 pint cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes (halved if necessary)
1 cup pitted black olives (either in oil or canned is fine)

Put these ingredients in a extra-large bowl and set aside.
1 pound medium shells
1 pound medium shrimp, shelled and de-veined
Red pepper flakes, to taste (optional)

Cook the shells in plenty of boiling water until al dente; drain.

While the pasta is cooking, heat a few tablespoons of olive oil to medium-high heat in a non-stick pan; add the peeled shrimp, shake in some red pepper flakes, and cook them for 3-4 minutes per side, depending on shrimp size, or until done (do not overcook!) Throw the pasta, shrimp and artichoke marinade sauce into the extra-large bowl (along with the red onion, parsley, tomatoes and olives), toss well, and serve at once.
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As I've done for several other posts on this blog, I've loaded the entire set of photos from the making of this recipe over at flickr for anyone interested in more detail. Have a look!

Thai Pasta Salad

During the hot summer months, we're always on the lookout for healthy and easy-to-make pasta salad dishes. Over the past week it's been so hot that even the mere thought of turning on the oven to cook something makes me break out into a sweat.

That's why today's recipe, Thai Pasta Salad, is simply perfect for this time of year. It's low in fat, yet it also contains a healthy dose of protein, carbs and veggies. You'll have a balanced and complete meal with just this dish alone. After a hot afternoon spent mowing the lawn or playing tennis--or perhaps riding an inadequately air-conditioned bus from your job in New York City?--this dish really satisfies.

Best of all, it involves just a few scant minutes of stove time. And as you'll see below, the mix of spices is a lot more creative and exotic than some boring macaroni salad.

You can also make this recipe vegetarian style, either by leaving the chicken out, or (preferably) replacing it with 12-16 ounces of very firm tofu.

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Thai Pasta Salad

Ingredients:
1 lb chicken breasts, cut into smallish pieces
1 lb box of dried linguine
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
30-40 cilantro leaves (Unfortunately, for those of you who hate cilantro, you're SOL on this recipe--it's too critical an ingredient to leave out)

Directions:
1) Season the chicken pieces with cayenne and/or black pepper. Heat oil in a large non-stick pan and then sear the chicken on high heat for just a few short minutes (certainly cook it through, but try not to overcook the chicken). Set aside.

2) Cook linguine according to directions. While water is boiling/pasta is cooking, make the dressing mixture (see below). Combine pasta with tomato, red pepper, cilantro and dressing mixture. Add the chicken and stir well. Can be served warm or cool.

Dressing Ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
3 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons hoisin sauce*
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon pepper

3) Heat oil in a very small saucepan. Add chopped garlic and red pepper flakes. When the garlic and pepper flakes begin sizzling in the oil, remove from heat and add the remaining dressing ingredients. Set aside.

Serves 4-6

* Hoisin sauce can be found in the Asian food aisle of any major grocery store.
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Related Posts:
Chickpeas, Pasta and Tomato Salad
Penne Pasta Salad
How to Tell if a Recipe is Worth Cooking With Five Easy Questions
Mock Wild Rice: An Insanely Easy To Make Side Dish



Photographs courtesy of Laura L. Perrin.

Easy Pasta Puttanesca Recipe

A well-made puttanesca sauce can be one of the most intensely flavorful of all the types of sauces in Italian cuisine. The recipe I have for you today is quick, inexpensive, and contains easy to find ingredients. The combination of olives, capers, garlic, hot pepper flakes and anchovies (don't panic! See below for more on this critical ingredient), makes for an unforgettable sauce.

Best of all, you'll easily be able to make this dish in 20-25 minutes from start to finish.

Of course this dish takes its name from uh, ladies of the night. Depending on whose history you prefer, either this was a dish prostitutes would offer to entice customers into brothels, or it was an easy and cheap meal that prostitutes could prepare between customers. Let's just leave that subject right there, shall we? Ever since my inappropriate discussion on stiffly beaten egg whites, I've been trying to keep this blog more G-rated.

The entire dish should cost around $7-8 to make and it serves 5-6 easily. That may not quite qualify for laughably cheap, but it's pretty close. Furthermore, this is a dish that scales quite easily, so you can certainly double the recipe for larger dinner groups.

One final comment on anchovies. If you don't like them, fear not. Laura can't even sit in the same room with an anchovy, yet she absolutely loves this dish. Do not leave them out.

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Pasta Puttanesca

Ingredients:
3 28-ounce cans whole plum tomatoes
1/4 cup good quality olive oil
1 heaping teaspoon oregano
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 cup small or medium olives (can use oil-cured olives or canned olives, depending on how "casual" you want to be), drained and rinsed
1/4 cup capers, drained and rinsed
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped or pressed
8 or so anchovy fillets (buy one small tin of anchovies in oil)

Pasta (linguine or fettucine usually works best here)

Directions:
Combine tomatoes in olive oil in a deep pan or large sauce pan. Turn heat up to medium high. Chop up the tomatoes coarsely with the spatula as shown below. [Note: some puttanesca purists will say drain the juices and strain out the seeds, but that is a lot of work and thus Casual Kitchen says just go with the tomatoes and juices as they come out of the can.]

Then, add each of the other ingredients one by one as the sauce comes to a boil.

Once you've added all the ingredients and the sauce is beginning to boil, turn down the heat to medium low. Let the sauce simmer and thicken for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, while you cook the pasta.

Ladle sauce liberally onto pasta and serve immediately!

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First, let's take a quick look at a photo of all the ingredients you'll need.


Notice the seemingly extraneous glass of wine. Although this recipe doesn't include wine as a specific ingredient, we have seen before that a glass of wine serves critical functions for the chef, both as an analgesic and a mood-lifter.

Use the spatula to break up the tomatoes into coarse chunks. You'll probably want to at least quarter every tomato, even the smaller ones. Proceed carefully with this part of the recipe, and do not wear white.


I usually pour the capers into a small strainer and then run cold water over theme to rinse them. After that, you can drop the little guys straight into the pan.


Add each of the other ingredients one by one. In goes the garlic!


If you either loathe or fear anchovies, or if they gross you out in any way, skip the next two pictures. But DO NOT LEAVE THEM OUT OF THIS RECIPE. They are an absolutely critical element of the overall flavor of the sauce. Remember, even though Laura claims she cannot sit in the same room with an anchovy, she still loves this dish.


Chop up the anchovies into smallish pieces, maybe the size of an aspirin tablet or smaller. You'll want them to disintegrate in the boiling sauce.


Okay--anchovy haters may now look again....

Bring the sauce to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes or so, stirring occasionally:


Ladle onto your pasta. A wide/flat pasta like linguine or fettucine works well for this dish, but honestly any type of pasta is fine.


And enjoy!!


Literacy alert! I'll give away a free gift subscription to Casual Kitchen for any person who leaves a comment naming the author and poem that's excerpted in the picture above. :) Good luck!

Related Posts:
Seven Ways to Get Faster at Cooking
Eight Tips to Make Cooking At Home Laughably Cheap: The Economics of Cooking, Part 2