Oven Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Sauce for Wheat Pasta

There was recently a sale on store brand ground wheat pasta at the local Shaws, so Eric and I bought home a few boxes of it.  Now, I've had Pastene ground wheat pasta, and couldn't really tell the difference in texture or flavor.  With Shaws brand, you can -- it's much rougher and the flavor's a bit sweeter.  This isn't a bad thing, although it does disqualify this pasta from having store bought sauce poured over it.  (Store bought sauce is far too sweet for this type of wheat pasta, and I find that the pureed tomato makes the noodles feel a bit slimy.)

However, if you want to get all fancy and start flinging  around the word "artesian" when you invite people over, these are the noodles and this is the sauce for you: a chunky, smoky sauce with a vague tinge of pesto resting on a bed of rustic wheat pasta.

Word to the wise: this was made in the oven in my apartment, so if you don't have a forty year old, rather eccentric oven, you might want to keep an eye on this sauce, or cook it at a slightly lower temperature.

3 red peppers, diced
1/2 cup Romano cheese
2 tomatoes, diced
4 cloves garlic, diced
pesto sauce and/or fresh basil leaves to your taste
pepper to your taste
olive oil

Combine the diced vegetables, cheese, and spices in a ceramic pie plate large enough to accommodate them.  Preheat the oven for 350 degrees for ten minutes. Put the mixture in the oven and bake for an hour at 350 degrees or until the vegetables have browned and are soft enough to shove a fork through.

Pepper and Tomato Soup

Also known as "I lost it at the Farmer's Market today" soup.  Inspired by the tomato based soup recipes in Anna Thompson's Love Soup, as well as a really cool salsafied version of gazpacho I tried at the Cactus Club in Boston a few years back.  It took about thirty minutes to make, and most of that was dicing veggies, so it's an easy soup to satisfy cravings for.

1 yellow or orange bell pepper, diced into medium chunks (green peppers are too sharp tasting, red are too sweet) 

6 large tomatoes, also diced into medium chunks 

1 can red or black beans 

1 small onion, diced to fry

2 cups water

1 tbs lemon juice 

1 1/2 cup olive oil

pepper, garlic powder, ginger, and cilantro to taste

Fry the peppers and onions in olive oil until they soften and brown.  Add the water and lemon juice and let boil while dicing up the tomatoes.  Add the tomatoes, pepper, garlic powder, beans, and cilantro.  Boil for about five more minutes, keep an eye on the tomatoes to be sure they're not beginning to look too much like stewed tomatoes.  

Best with some Italian crusty bread, although pita bread is also a pretty good companion for the soup.  

Burritos with Rice, Peppers, and Pinto Beans

This recipe was born out of last night's demise of my plans to make my friend Jill's recipe for tacos.  Those of you who live in the Boston area probably know this, but Thursday is the worst day to try to go grocery shopping at the Foodmaster chain of grocery stores.  They get their supplies on Friday, so those who shop on Thursday are doomed to frustration if they try to find the simplest of things.  (The simplest of things in this case is heretofore defined as Morningstar Farms "fake hamburger".)  Luckily,  they are not Market Basket and their vegetable selection is usually halfway decent, so I made this instead.    

2-4 lavash wraps / tortillas

Olive oil

rice

1 diced bell pepper of each color: red / orange / yellow / green

1 small onion

Pepper to taste

1 can pinto beans

Habenero or pepper jack cheese (or, if you’d like, the regular cheese you have sitting around with a good dose of hot sauce sloshed onto it)

Cook rice according to the directions on the packet. 

Dice the onion and sauté it in 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil heated in a large frying pan until the pieces are just starting to brown.  Add the peppers and let them cook down until they’re soft.  Drain the water out of the can of pinto beans, but do not rinse them.  (The salt in them will be the only salt you use to flavor this.)  Slowly stir the pinto beans into the  pan.  Fry this mixture for another two minutes or so.

Combine rice and the pepper mixture in the lavash / tortilla shells.  Top with cheese.  

Simple Spaghetti Sauce from Scratch

I "invented" this because no matter how many jars of the stuff I buy, I always seem to run out of spaghetti sauce at the worst times, and peppers and tomatoes are usually a staple in my kitchen. 


I made it this week for my grandmother, in an attempt to convince her that marinara sauces don't have to consist of only pureed tomatoes and a little garlic powder.  It went over well, and I'm about to miss my self imposed posting deadline, so I figured I'd put it up.  


2 bell peppers, one red and one green, diced
4 chopped tomatoes, or one can of stewed tomatoes
5 tbs olive oil
1 clove garlic
black pepper and basil flakes or pesto to taste

Heat up five tablespoons of olive oil in one large skillet.  Sauté the garlic, bell peppers, black pepper, and basil flakes / pesto until the peppers begin to soften.  Add the tomatoes and let simmer for at least twenty minutes.  Goes well with just about any kind of pasta.

Broken Jasmine Risotto

I've been developing this recipe for a couple of weeks -- hence my relative lack of recipe posts.  Hope you like it. If we were being technical, I'd have to admit this is technically just a rice dish because I didn't use proper risotto rice, but it's prepared risotto-style, so whatevs. Blasphemy!


Part I:  Garlic Broth

Boil an entire chopped bulb of garlic in 1 gallon of water.  Add pepper, chili pepper, and cilantro to taste.
Afterwards, portion out into containers filled with servings of 2-3 cups each.  This is a good replacement for chicken stock.

Part II:  Broken Jasmine Risotto

4 cups of Broken Jasmine rice
2 cups olive oil
2-3 cups garlic broth
2 glasses wine
1 chopped green or red bell pepper
1 cup Romano cheese
1-2 cups water (vary the amount according to how creamy or toasted you would like the risotto to be)

Toast the Jasmine rice in the olive oil until the rice starts to puff out slightly, then carefully add the garlic broth. Let simmer until it looks dry, and then add the wine and water.  Stir until the water has mostly evaporated, and then add the romano cheese.

Serve with tomato sauce, fresh chopped tomatoes, Winter Pesto, or fried cubanelle peppers.

Poor Man's Raclette

My friend Nicole used to live in Luxembourg, where she discovered this dish at a popular ski resort.   Later, she moved to London.  When I went to college in the Edinburgh, I used come to London and visit her flat.  We’d usually eat real raclette, which is a variation of fondue using a special type of cheese also called raclette, and where the vegetables and meats are also cooked right in front of you on a raclette griddle.  After one visit I went back to Edinburgh, hit up a vegetable sale at Lidl, and came up with a budget version.  

Poor Man’s Raclette

½ pound raclette (expensive and hard to get in the US) or emmenthal cheese (that’s Swiss cheese to US dwellers, you can also use cheddar)

1 bag small creamer potatoes

3 peppers

2 tomatoes

1 onion

Broccoli, zucchini, or some other easy to fry vegetable

Boil the potatoes until soft.  In separate skillet, fry the onion and peppers until browned.  Add the broccoli / other easy to fry vegetable and sauté.  Add the tomato.