Mini Shell Pasta with Smoked Bacon and Peas

We've passed the middle of winter and fresh, local food is becoming thin on the ground. (Ok, I did manage to buy onions and turnips and cabbage and sweet potatoes and honey at the farmer's market the other day - I even passed on the apples and kale - so we haven't hit rock bottom just yet.) Still, it's time to start feeding ourselves from our own larder.

If you look back at my October canning round-up, you can see some of the food Jeff and I managed to put up this year. We also have a freezer stocked with asparagus, edamame, frozen greens, pumpkin puree, roasted peppers, oven-dried tomatoes, and other goodies. We're starting to arrange our menus around these items, trying to enjoy the bounty we worked hard to preserve. This recipe used up our frozen peas and a few handfuls of leftover baby spinach. Frozen greens would work really nicely in here, too - I just had some fresh stuff on hand that needed a job.

This is a great dinner for a weeknight because it came together so quickly and effortlessly. I was shocked at how little work went into it - the ingredients were prepped and my kitchen was cleaned up in no time at all. It's not the healthiest dish, but it's hearty and satisfying - and what is life without a creamy bacon sauce once in awhile?

Mini Shell Pasta with a Creamy Smoked Bacon and Pea Sauce
Slightly adapted from Jamie's Food Revolution.

3 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped
1 lb mini shell pasta
1 tbsp olive oil (optional)
2 c frozen peas
1 c baby spinach (or 1/2 c frozen greens)
2 tbsp creme fraiche
1/2 lemon
6 oz Parmesan cheese

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta according to the package directions.

Heat a large, high-sided pan over medium-high heat. Add the bacon and cook until crispy. Add the peas and cook a minute or two, until heated through.

 

 Add the spinach and stir until slightly wilted. Add the creme fraiche, stirring well, then add salt and pepper to taste. 

Drain the pasta, reserving about 1 c of the cooking water. Return the pasta to its pot, then pour the bacon mixture over it, stirring well to coat the pasta in the sauce. If the sauce needs to be thinned out, add some of the pasta water. When the pasta is coated, squeeze the lemon half onto it and sprinkle with Parmesan. Toss well to combine and serve.

Farm Fridays: Spinach Leek Frittata

Oops. I forgot to take a picture of this week's share. No big deal, though - it was essentially the same as last week's. Just add a pound of spinach and exchange the leeks for some hakurei turnips.

I was sad to learn that the strong storms yesterday brought hail to the Chesterfield farm, where most of the spring produce is planted. Much of the spring harvest was damaged or lost, including tens of thousands of heads of lettuce. While I hate to see things go to waste, I have to admit that I'm not that bummed about this. I'm already tired of lettuce (why in the world did I start buying it from the farmers market knowing I would be inundated by the CSA?). If there had been, say, a tomato crop failure, then I would be upset. Mother nature can have my lettuce.

Spinach wasn't on the list of affected crops, so I'm guessing we're going to see a lot of that in the next few weeks. I've already taken home five pounds of it. When I did my meal planning this morning, I made sure that every day of the week included plenty of spinach. This recipe is one I cooked up a few days ago, with last week's spinach and leeks. It's a tasty frittata packed with crusty French bread crumbs and Gruyere cheese. A large slice of this on my plate with a generous side salad (because we have to use that lettuce and arugula somehow) made me feel like I was eating at a trendy bistro.

Enjoy the holiday weekend!

Spinach Leek Frittata
From the Rolling Prairie Cookbook.

1 tbsp butter
2 large leeks, thinly sliced and well rinsed (I soak them in a large bowl of water for a while after I cut them, to loosen the grit)
3/4 lb spinach, washed and chopped
1 tbsp fresh oregano
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 c skim milk
4 oz Gruyere cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 c French bread, cut into 1/4" cubes

Preheat oven to 350°F. Melt the butter in a large cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Add the leeks and saute 4-5 minutes until softened.

Add the oregano and the spinach (I had to do it in batches, stirring to wilt it down and then adding more - it seems like the spinach will never fit that small pan, but I got all of it in there). Remove from the heat. 

In a medium bowl, beat together the eggs, milk, cheese, salt and pepper. Stir the bread cubes into the spinach and leek mixture, then pour the egg mixture over the top (you may want to stir it a bit to spread everything around evenly).

Put the skillet into the oven and bake 45-55 minutes, until the egg has set and the top is golden brown.

Cannellini Bean Stew

This is one of my most epic creations.

One day, Jeff came home for lunch and there weren't enough leftovers in the fridge to go around.  I generously offered them to him, and scrounged around the kitchen for my own lunch. I found some tomatoes, spinach, and a few cups of leftover cannellini beans. And then the magic happened.

I really didn't know what I was going to make. I just started putting ingredients together in an order that made sense. First, onions sauteed in olive oil. Then, herbs and garlic were stirred in until fragrant. Then, chopped tomatoes joined the party. So far, it was just a lovely fresh tomato sauce. Then I added the beans and let them stew in the mixture, absorbing some of the juice from the tomatoes. Finally, I added in some spinach and let it cook down. Presto! Cannellini bean stew.

What makes it truly awesome is the health factor. I've been using myfooddiary to track my calories and nutrient intakes. What I like about the site is that, when it breaks down your meals, it shades the boxes green or red to let you know what elements of the meal are good or bad for you. A lunch without enough protein or too much sugar will have those boxes shaded red. A lunch with a lot of fiber and iron will have those shaded green. This was the first meal I'd ever cooked that was green across the board. One serving (which I figured was about a quarter of the recipe) has a third of my daily values of iron and vitamin C, more than a full day's worth of vitamin A, and 14 grams of fiber. There is a negligible amount of saturated fat (less than a gram) and no cholesterol. And the percentages of calories from fat, carbs and protein are nicely balanced (20/60/20).

I am not surprised that I could reach around my kitchen, grab ingredients and make something tasty. I do this a lot from leftovers. This dish turned out prettier than most (I make ugly but delicious scrambled egg dishes on a regular basis). But what really floored me is that I could throw together something so healthy, with so little effort on my part. I guess it comes from having a kitchen stocked with healthy ingredients. I need to remember this every time I go to the grocery store - sticking to my list for that one hour will make sure I stick to my diet for the rest of the week. And, perhaps, lead to more epic lunch creations.

Cannellini Bean Stew
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced (you could mince them, if you prefer - I was just being a little lazy)
2 tbsp assorted fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano, parsley, sage)
15 oz can diced tomatoes, with liquid (if you have fresh tomatoes on hand, dice up two large ones)
1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar
3-4 c cooked cannellini beans
4 c spinach, washed and chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Heat a large saucepan over medium high heat. Add the olive oil to the pan and swirl to coat. Add the onions and cook, stirring frequently, 4-5 minutes, until softened. Add the garlic and chopped herbs and stir around for about a minute, until everything is fragrant.

Add the tomatoes and vinegar and stir to combine. Simmer for 4-5 minutes, to let all the flavors blend together. (While it was simmering, I took a potato masher and mashed down some of the larger chunks of tomato, to make the mixture more saucy. It worked beautifully.) Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste.

Add the beans to the pan and cook for 3-4 minutes, until heated through. Taste and season again, if necessary.

Add the spinach and stir until it is wilted down and combined with the sauce. Serve with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, or just enjoy it on its own!

Pizza with Roasted Peppers, Spinach and Smoked Mozzarella

Today I am launching the new redesign of my blog! One of my resolutions this year was to improve the blog, and with improvement comes increasing professionalization. Jeff got me business cards and my own domain name and I decided to spring for some photo editing software (I'm sure you're shocked to learn that up until now all my photos have been unedited - well, all but two or three, which I applied poor fixes using the software that came with my camera). Now I've switched to a more streamlined blogger template that better matches my business cards. Let me know what you think! I still have some tweaking to do, so I'd love to hear your feedback!

Now, about this pizza. I have been working on improving my pizza making technique as well, and it has certainly paid off. The key is preheating the pizza stone. As soon as the crust touches the hot stone it starts bubbling and cooking through. I have a small pizza stone, so I'm not willing to try my luck sliding a pie on using a pizza peel, but I've found that taking a little time to assemble it doesn't make much difference in the final product (I do try to make sure my ingredients are prepped and ready to go - I wouldn't recommend wandering around the kitchen grabbing things for fifteen minutes while the dough is on the stone, but the five minutes it too me to assemble and photograph the pie was ok). What's lovely about this method is that the crust, rolled thin, gets nice and crispy on the bottom - a feature that had eluded me when I tried other methods. If you can resist eating it right away, it gets even crispier if you remove it from the oven and let it rest on the stone for a few minutes (I have a hard time with waiting, frequently burning the roof of my mouth on my pizza). 

While any toppings will do, this is a particularly awesome combination. Jeff had a hard time believing that there was no bacon on the pizza - the smokiness of the mozzarella brings a real meatiness to the table. The earthiness of the spinach is balanced by the sweetness of the roasted peppers, and it's all brought together by the beautiful acidity of the sauce.

The sauce I used is home-canned Tomato Basil Simmer Sauce from Better Homes and Gardens. It tastes like concentrated summer. The peppers were also home-roasted and frozen. That was one of the best preserving projects I undertook last summer. I still have more than a quart of frozen pepper strips. I'm looking forward to devise more delicious ways to use them up. I'm also looking forward to posting directions for various preserving projects this coming summer, so more people can experience the delights of a slice of August in the middle of March!

Pizza with Roasted Peppers, Spinach and Smoked Mozzarella
dough:
2 c bread flour
2 tbsp dried basil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 oz instant yeast (1 package)
3/4 c hot water (115-120°F)
1 tbsp olive oil

toppings:
2/3 c tomato sauce
1/3 c roasted red peppers, thinly sliced
2-3 oz smoked mozzarella (I used a wedge of cheese, which I sliced thin and then cut into squares. Shredded cheese would work just as well, but I wanted a more rustic, artisan look)
several handfuls baby spinach (it cooks down in the oven, so be liberal)

Combine the flour, basil, salt, sugar and yeast in a large bowl. Add the water and 1 tbsp olive oil and stir until the dough comes together. Turn out on a lightly floured counter and knead for about 7-9 minutes, until smooth and elastic.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with a damp kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place for about an hour. Meanwhile, place your pizza stone in the oven and preheat to 475°F.

When the rising is done, divide the dough in half (a dough scraper is perfect for this). If you don't want to make two pizzas, put the extra ball of dough in a container in the fridge for a few days, or the freezer for a few weeks. Place your other ball of dough on a lightly floured counter and roll out into a thin circle (or roundish blob, like mine - I try to roll it a bit larger than I want the finished pizza, because it inevitably shrinks when I pick it up).

Remove the piping hot pizza stone from the oven and place on the stove top. Quickly arrange your dough on the stone. Spread tomato sauce on top with the back of a spoon.

 Arrange your cheese and pepper slices over the sauce. Try to get even coverage.

Toss a few handfuls of baby spinach on top (no chopping necessary!).

Return to the oven for 6-10 minutes, until it reaches your desired level of doneness. Let cool on the pizza stone for a minute or two, slice and enjoy! 

Sausage and Spinach Hand Pies

Move over Hot Pockets! There's a new pastry-wrapped meat creation in town!

To be honest, I've never (to my present knowledge) eaten a Hot Pocket, but I still feel secure in my contention that this is far superior.

Wrap anything in flaky pastry and I'm on board. These puppies are good hot out of the oven (not too hot, though, or you'll burn your mouth on some spinach!) or at room temperature for lunch the next day. I've been in class until 12:30 most days lately, so my lunch tends to be eaten in the car on the long drive home. This is a great driving lunch because it only requires one hand (unlike some of the things I've attempted to eat on the way home . . . good thing Route 1 has tons of traffic lights!).

One thing I am changing from the original recipe is the egg wash - for some reason it called for watering down the egg wash. I think that's why our hand pies didn't turn a lovely shade of golden brown on top. Also, the original called for far too much Parmesan cheese on top, so I cut it down. Finally, next time I would roll out my dough more carefully, endeavoring to make actual circles. The odd shapes caused some problems when they were folded over and the edges didn't meet. (I can get away with this while making pie dough because I cut off the unruly edges!)

Sausage and Spinach Hand Pies
Adapted from Cooking Light April 2011.

olive oil cooking spray
2/3 c red potatoes, diced (the recipe says to peel them, but I might not bother next time since I like the skins)
1/3 c red bell pepper, diced
1/3 c yellow onion, diced
2 links Italian sausage, casings removed (I used local Simply Grazin' sausage that I bought at Whole Foods)
3 c baby spinach
2 tbsp fresh basil, finely chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 single pie crust (you could use a store bought crust as the recipe suggests, but I don't see the point since they're so easy to make fresh - the recipe I use is here)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated

Preheat oven to 400° F.

Heat a medium nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat the pan with cooking spray (please remove it from the burner before doing so!). Add potatoes, bell pepper and onion to the pan and cook 4 minutes, until onion begins to brown, stirring frequently.

Add the sausage and cook 4 more minutes, breaking up the meat as you stir. Stir in spinach and cook 2 minutes, until wilted. Stir in basil, salt and red pepper. Remove from heat.

Cut pie dough into four equal portions. Roll each portion into a 5" circle (like I said above, try to get yours rounder than I did!). Spoon about 1/2 c of the potato mixture into the center of each circle, leaving a 1/2" border.

Fold the dough over the mixture until the edges meet. Bring the bottom edge of the dough over the top edge and crimp the edges to form a rim (I did an ugly job of this - it's not as easy as it may sound).

Place hand pies on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Brush with egg white and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake for 18 minutes or until golden brown.

Sausage, Spinach and Ricotta Stuffed Shells

Finally, a recipe good enough to share! I've been cooking consistently this month, but I've either neglected to photograph my recipes or decided they weren't worth it. Tossing shredded carrots and broccoli with store-bought dressing doesn't warrant a blog post (seriously, Bon Appetit?). 

This is a great recipe for this time of year, when you're still craving winter's comfort food, but are trying to shake off some of its heaviness. I found that the spinach took up a lot of space in the filling that might otherwise have been taken up by cheese and sausage. That made for a much lighter shell. I think it's also a good recipe for busy people. Making the shells did take me forever - around two hours - but the recipe makes four dozen, which will last quite a while. And the prep time was my own fault. I took my time and went the long way about prepping some of my ingredients. For example, I used fresh baby spinach where the recipe suggested frozen, which meant I had to spend a good 40 minutes stacking tiny leaves and chopping them up. Halfway through I realized that this is what food processors are for. But really, the rhythmic nature of chopping can be relaxing, so I pushed through to the end. The sausage took a long time, too, because mine refused to crumble. It was a little tricky to get it out of the casing, but then it just sat in the pan, foiling my efforts to break it up. I ended up taking it out of the pan and dicing it, which also took awhile. Next time I'll go for butcher-fresh sausage, rather than the packaged national brand for easier crumbling. 

But despite these hangups, I ended the day with a lovely tray of shells baking in the oven and two more in the freezer for later. I find that stuffed shells freeze very well. I make them in my glass pyrex oven dishes, pop the lid on and freeze the whole thing. They'll just need a few extra minutes in the oven later on. 

And the immediate payoff, apart from a tray of shells for dinner, is a house smelling like sauteed sausage and onions and an oven full of sweet, concentrated tomato sauce (I love what time in the oven does to tomato sauce!) rather than burnt popcorn. That's a definite win.

Sausage, Spinach and Ricotta Stuffed Shells

Adapted slightly from Simply Recipes.

12 oz package of jumbo shells

1 tbsp olive oil

1 large yellow onion, chopped

3/4 lb sweet Italian sausage, casings removed and chopped

2-3 large garlic cloves, minced

1 egg

16 oz ricotta cheese (I think I used 22 oz, because I was trying to get rid of some leftovers, so I ended up with a bit more filling)

10 oz fresh spinach, rinsed well and chopped

1 c grated Parmesan

1 tsp dried basil (or 1 tbsp fresh)

1/4 c plain bread crumbs

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

2 jars tomato sauce

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the shells according to package directions. Drain, rinse in cold water, and set aside.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook about 5 minutes until softened. Add the sausage to the pan and cook about 5 more minutes (until no pink remains). Add the garlic and cook about 30 seconds, until fragrant. Remove from the heat.

In a very large bowl, beat the egg lightly. Then add the ricotta, 1/2 c Parmesan, basil, bread crumbs, salt and pepper. Mix this well, then add the spinach and the sausage mixture. (You could combine all this at once, but I found it easier to work with the cheese mixture first, and then add all the extras. I think that gave me a more even mixture.) 

Spread some sauce in your baking dish (I used about half a jar of sauce for a 9 x 13 dish - my other two baking dishes were smaller, so I adjusted accordingly. The idea is just to give your shells something moist to sit on). Fill each shell with about 1 tbsp of cheese mixture and arrange in the pan (it's hard to judge how much each shell needs. I think 1 tbsp is a good start, and if there's any filling left over, you can go back and add it to any shells that look skimpy). Spread the remaining sauce on top.

  

When you're ready to bake, preheat your oven to 375° F. Cover the pan with foil and bake about 30 minutes, until hot and bubbly (remember to add a few minutes for frozen shells). Remove foil, sprinkle with remaining 1/2 c Parmesan and bake uncovered for 10 more minutes. Let cool slightly before serving.

Like I said earlier in the post, this made about 4 dozen for me, even with some broken shells. If you aren't making this for a large group, just freeze the rest until you need them.