Pawsta salad.

No, there are no paws in this salad, I'm just weird.

Today for lunch I made a variant of my ever-popular orzo salad.

I usually make this salad with plenty of Kalamata olives, feta cheese, and salad-worthy veggies I have lying around. Sliced grape tomatoes, a little onion, some bell pepper, and cucumber are all good things. Like I said, this was a variant. Today I had olives, onion, and tomato, and just a small chunk of feta left to disperse amongst the other good stuffs.

There are four different components to this salad:

The Orzo! (If you are feeling particularly hungry, boil about 1 cup of dry orzo) (It is a small pasta, so it'll only take about 5 minutes-ish, take some and chew on a couple to make sure it's cooked enough for your liking.)

The Veggies! (As previously mentioned, salad worthy veggies are all good choices.)

The Dressing! (Today I did something different. Usually I take a moderate spoonful of sour cream along with some pitted olives and feta and blend until they make a kind of yummy paste. Today, I used about 1-2 tablespoons (tbsp) of this good meyer lemon and kaffir lime spread (mayonnaise) I bought at Meijer on a whim, a small dash of Annie's Green Goddess dressing, and about 3-5 tbsp of sour cream. Also, S&P!)

And

Salad Greens! (I like to chop up my greens because they will fit in my mouth better, and it looks better too!)

Words to the Wise: if you're going to put raw onion in this salad, don't put more than half a medium bulb! The spiciness will overpower all the other flavors except for the cutting saltiness of the olives. Browning said onion is probably the best route to take if you want to have that special something extra.

Ravioli for the lazy.

It was lunch time again. Something simple and something that wouldn't take a lot of time in preparation was in order. But ravioli? Yes, ravioli.

Making ravioli by hand... for yourself... for one meal....is a bitch. It just is. You have to make the pasta (which can be difficult for those virgin-pasta-makers out there), create (and sometimes cook the stuffing), portion out the stuffing onto the pasta sheets, then glue them together, cut, and cook. It's a big task. Imagine what it would be like to be the pasta maker at Italian restaurants that serve different kinds of pastas, especially raviolis.

I had taken an internship at one such Italian restaurant in my home town the summer of 2009. It was a good learning experience. It taught me 'get out of this field as soon as possible'. We did have multiple kinds of raviolis and they had different shapes and fillings. They were all delicious, but mass production was an arduous task. (Luckily we had one sole pasta maker and that was all he did for the most part.)

Anyways, back to the present; for lunch: Trio of mushrooms stuffed agnolotti with broccoli, sauteed mushrooms and onions, a tomato and bean sauce, with Morel and Leek Monterrey cheese.

How to do it:

1. Buy the raviolis at the store! Cook them! They have pre-made pastas which can create one big meal or a side dish for maybe three (depending on appetite). I think Buitoni makes decent stuff. They produce raviolis and noodles and easy stuff to make a meal with. BUT, they are not like dried pastas. If you buy them, either use them or freeze them within a week of bad things will happen! Ooooooooo! ::pasta ghost::.

2. Making the sauce. I used chunky garden tomato sauce after I had sauteed some button mushrooms and onions in butter with a little S&P, then I cut up some broccoli heads into slices and added those in as well as the previously mentioned sauce. THEN I ADDED A BIG SPOONFUL OF HUMMUS?! That's right, I did just that. Hummus is pretty much it's own ingredient. It has garliciness, it had acid from lemon juice, it has savory and bitter flavor from the tahini. It's pretty much good to eat traditionally or in any chili, sauce, or soup. Ta da!

3. Add it all together and devour!

Polenta and the chamber of tastiness.

Lunch for today was similar to yesterday's. There was starch, there was cheese, there was the frozen peas, there was the sauteed onion. The big difference was the POLENTA. Polenta is peasant food originating in Italy. It's pretty much grits except not made with hominy. You can get large 5 lb bags of 'polenta' at large grocery stores for cheap, they are under the alias of 'Corn meal'. That's what it is folks. Corn meal. It's pretty much extremely cheap and equally extremely versatile. You can eat it runnier like a soup or thicker like a ...well...thick polenta. You can bake it, you can fry it and make tasty pseudo-mozzarella sticks (which I've totally done before, they are to die for). You can add anything you might add on top of a pizza to polenta: cheeses, tomatoes, olives, bell pepper, onion, garlic, mushrooms... and on, and on, and on. I think the only exception to this rule is pineapple, I have yet to see pineapple polenta. It might be gross. :\

Water on the boil in preparation to make an Om nom nom experience.

When I make polenta, I usually reckon the amount of water you use it close to how much polenta you'll get. I simmer the polenta for a couple minutes after I add the meal just to expand all the starches and make sure it's cooked properly. You know you've added too much meal if it gets SUPER thick and it's not glooping (this can be fixed by added more water). It totally gloops, watch out for that and keep stirring it. When you cook polenta, be sure to use a whisk when stirring in the meal to prevent lumps. Also be sure to keep a spatula close at hand to keep it from possibly sticking to the bottom of the pan.

At culinary school, a friend of mine made a three cheese polenta. He used Gorgonzola, Parmesan, and Romano cheeses. He also put in a couple dashes of heavy cream and butter for flavor. Needless to say, it was tasty but extremely ...uh...extreme. Such that you can only have so much of it and before you know it, you can't eat another bite of it.

I usually add a splash of heavy cream of half-n-half to mine to make it taste smoother. I had bought some Monterrey Jack with leek and morels at the store, so I thought that would be tasty. I also added a couple blobs of cream cheese (I am a huge fan of the savory usage of cream cheese!).

Like any other food, season polenta!

To top this wonderful corn-goo off, I sauteed some onions in butter with a little S&P, as well as some peas and french cut beans (from the freezer).

The natural subtle sweetness of the peas and the lightness of the beans matched well with the rich and heavy polenta mouth-feel.

Voila! Polenta is especially good eats if you live in colder climates or during winter. Piping hot polenta will definitely keep your belly warm for a while.

UPDATE: Aug. 10, 2010.
Re-heat/re-eat value:
The amounts of cheese and the thickness of the polenta I made is a definite variable when considering what to do with leftovers. Even the thinnest and runniest polenta will firm up when refrigerated. Polenta can be reheated any way you want, but know that it will not be the same consistency that occurs when eaten freshly made. I microwaved the leftovers later that day for dinner. It was a firm blob. I mashed it up a little and the texture resembled that of scrambled eggs. When heated up it regained some of it's creaminess. It still retained all of it's amazing flavor!

Sunday, August 8.

This afternoon for lunch, I had some of Mrs T's mini pierogies (that is, raviolis stuffed with mostly potato (it's a polish thing)) that I sauteed (with the onion) with a plop of meijer Chunky Garden tomato sauce accompanied by peas (from the freezer), and sauteed onion. On top of it was a sprinkling of that wonderfully authentic sargento cheese. :\

A guy has got to eat, right? When I'm more hungry than snobby (which is most of the time), I like the convenience of throwing things together and having a good 'light'* meal. Although I know that frozen isn't as good as fresh...and yada yada yada; frozen veggies are a crutch for dinners for one. They keep for months at a time, you can buy them for cheap, and it's better than not eating veggies at all.

Canned pasta sauce is completely suitable for college students and the general public. Blanching, seeding, skinning, stewing, and reducing tomatoes just for the sauce of one evening is definitely more than a bit taxing. Oh yeah, and making a butt-load of sauce requires that you have a place to put it all! My family used to can our own tomato sauce, make our own pickles etc. We still have some jars. They're at least 15 years old. xP

Today's Tips for Cooking:

 1. If you can use butter for sauteing, use butter. Butter, although it has a much lower smoke point (the temperature at which the fat breaks down and starts to...duh, smoke. The heat will also cause the fat to eventually start on fire if it's hot enough. Also duh.) than vegetable oil, is much tastier than vegetable oil.

2. Don't walk out of the kitchen when you cook. Especially while sauteing. You want your pan relatively hot for foods to brown and get tasty, so if you leave, things can go south quickly.

3. If you can't do flippy tricks like a pro, just use a wooden spoon (or silicon spatula). Your ego can take a couple hits, right?

4. Season your food! A small pinch of salt and pepper (lovingly termed S&P for those out there that enjoy acronyms) goes a long way. I have a mug filled with a salt and pepper mix right next to the stove with a little spoon that I can use to season things with on the fly without scrambling around looking for the S&P shakers.

*A light meal for me would be a regular-large meal for the normal person. A large meal for me would feed a family of four.

Thursday Mid-afternoon, August 5.

I had bought some banana's. I thought I would eat them. I got lazy. Personally, I have to be in the right mood for bananas...if ya know what I mean. So there were two bananas sitting on my table getting riper and riper, they were covered in brown spots and the idea of making Nanner-bread came into my head. I looked online and found a decent recipe that was simple on Allrecipe.com or something like that.

ORIGINAL LAME RECIPE:

Banana Bread.
Ingredients
    •    2 cups all-purpose flour
    •    1 teaspoon baking soda
    •    1/4 teaspoon salt
    •    1/2 cup butter
    •    3/4 cup brown sugar
    •    2 eggs, beaten
    •    2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas

Directions
    1.    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
    2.    In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
    3.    Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

I had actually gotten through prepping and had almost half way done mixing the wet ingredients when I discovered that there was no way in hell that TWO bananas = 2 1/3 cups mashed bananas. They just don't. There's no way around it. Instead of getting mopey and whiny, I just tweaked things.

My room mate likes to dabble in culinary endeavors, especially baking. When I told her what I did with this recipe, she scoffed and doubted me.

Om nom nom nom nom....

I added about half a cup of shredded sweetened coconut, golden raisins, dried currants, about 2-3 ounces of Frangelico, and then sprinkled some large grain organic cane sugar on top. I took it out of the oven a couple minutes before the recommended time too, I find that it (obviously) retains more moisture that way. It smelled fantastic, turned out gorgeous, and was neither too sweet nor too savory. And I proved my room mate wrong. :P

Wednesday, August 4.

I've been wanting to make veggie-tacos for a while. I don't mean just plain ol' vegetables put in a tortilla shell with sour cream and salsa and calling it a day. I mean taking those spice packets with sodium, cumin, chili powder, and corn starch; the ones where you have to add water and if you use ground beef it turns the grease orange. That stuff. I took half an onion, a medium zucchini, and half of one of those not-quite-ripe roma tomatoes they sell at the huge supermarkets and cut them at around a medium dice and sauteed them.

Then I ripped one of those spice packets open and, sprinkled about 1/2 to 1/4 of the contents in, and added that tiny bit of water that makes all the difference. I took one huge tortilla and placed it in my frying pan, then I laced the bottom with some pre-shredded cheese. Sargento sure does make awesome authentic mexican cheese. :\

'S so goood.

As the cheese started to melt, I opened a can of Amy's organic refried black beans and schmeared some around on top, took a large scoopful of the veggie goodness and plopped it on to the beans. This is my kind of quesadilla. Half of an avocado, some fresh lime juice, habanero salsa, and sour cream on top and shazam. Dinner for one is done!