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alaska, Cooking, Italian, Pasta, recipes, salad

Wild Porcini Orzo with Grilled Portobello Caps

June 23, 2014 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

Last year we picked hundreds of pounds of boletes — wild porcini mushrooms. We dried them and have since not consumed many of them; so before we hit mushroom season this summer we decided we better start using these earthy, flavorful morsels.

Wild mushrooms pair well with risotto. I had a half box of Barilla Orzo pasta, which look like grains of rice. I thought the orzo would taste super with portobello and porcini with a hint of lemon and garlic.

Costco sells a four pack of portobello caps for just a few dollars. I lightly marinated them in oil and vinegar then grilled them over high heat and topped them with roasted bell peppers and chèvre. The fresh arugula salad was the perfect accompaniment to the meal with a simple lemon vinaigrette.

This is a quick meal that’s hearty and vegetarian too.

Wild Porcini Orzo with Grilled Portobello Caps and Baby Arugula Salad

Serves 3

Ingredients:

4 portobello caps

1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms

4 Tbs. butter

Olive oil

2 Tbs. apple cider vinegar

1 Tbs. balsamic vinegar

1 cup dry orzo pasta

2 cloves garlic

zest and juice of one lemon

1/4 cup Pecorino Romano cheese

1/4 cup crumbled chèvre

3 mini bell peppers

salt and pepper

Directions:

Bring a cup of water to boil. Pour over the dried mushrooms and cover. Set aside for 15 minutes. Remove the stems from portobello caps and set aside. Remove the gills with a spoon. Lightly score the tops of three of the caps with a paring knife. Reserve one cap for the orzo. Combine 1/3 cup olive oil, the vinegars, one minced clove of garlic salt and pepper to a one-gallon ziploc bag. Carefully add the caps, seal and gently toss to coat the caps. Let sit 30 minutes to an hour.

Chop the stems and one portobello cap. Remove the porcini mushrooms and reserve the liquid. Chop the porcini. Set aside.

Bring a pot of water to boil and cook the orzo for 7 minutes. Drain and set aside. Lightly toss with olive oil so they don’t stick together. Meanwhile, heat the butter and one tablespoon olive oil in a large sauté pan. Add the chopped mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes until some of the liquid has evaporated from them. Add the lemon zest and one minced clove of garlic. Cook for another couple of minutes, till garlic is fragrant. Add the orzo, 1/4 cup of reserved mushroom liquid and the juice of 1/2 lemon. Toss thoroughly and season with salt and pepper.

Set all burners on your gas grill to high and heat for 15 minutes. Chop the tops off the bell peppers and remove the seeds. Skewer them on a metal skewer. Turn grill burners to med-high and set the peppers and the mushroom caps, top side down, on the grill. Cover and grill for about 4 minutes. Flip and grill another 4 minutes. Remove everything from grill and slice the peppers. Serve the caps with sliced peppers and crumbled chèvre alongside the orzo, sprinkled with grated Pecorino Romano cheese.

For the salad: Top baby arugula with sliced cherry tomatoes, blueberries and crumbed chèvre. Squeeze fresh lemon on top and drizzle on extra virgin olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

baking, Cooking, recipes

Homemade Bagels

April 14, 2014 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

My favorite bagels in Alaska come from LuLu’s in Fairbanks. That’s a six-hour drive from Anchorage and sometimes I crave a good rosemary bagel! I’ve blogged about bagels in the past, but I have to post the recipe I made tonight because it was near perfect. Homemade bagel heaven. Crusty and salty on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside.

The recipe hails from an unassuming corner of the internet — HubPages.com. It contains few ingredients and the steps are simple. I tweaked the ingredients and process ever so slightly, which is why I’m posting it. I will forget how I made them if I don’t!

Ingredients:

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 Tbs. sugar

1.5 tsp. salt

1 Tbs. vegetable oil

2 tsp. yeast (not instant rise)

1.25-1.5 cups warm water

2 Tbs. chopped fresh rosemary (optional)

Coarse salt (optional)

Directions:

Place all the dry ingredients plus the oil in a Kitchen Aid mixer. With the hook attachment turn the machine onto a medium setting. Slowly pour in the water and wait for it to be fully incorporated into dough before adding all the water. If the dough is too dry, add the remaining quarter cup water. Knead the dough on a floured surface for about five minutes. Place back in the mixer bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in size, about 1.5 hours.

Once risen, remove the dough and split into eight even-sized balls. This is where I incorporated the chopped rosemary. Roll each ball into a snake, about 8 inches long, folding in the rosemary as you go. Overlap the ends to make a bagel shape and carefully roll the the seam part of the bagel back and forth till it’s combined and sealed.

Form the rest of your bagels and set them on the Silpat-lined or greased baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and preheat the oven to 425 degrees. When the water is boiling, gently set a few bagels at a time into the pot, being sure not to overcrowd. Boil for one minute, then flip the bagels and boil another minute. Using tongs, remove the bagels and place them back on the baking sheet. Sprinkle liberally with coarse salt. Boil the remaining bagels. Place baking sheet in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, turning the sheet around halfway through. Let cool completely.

Slice, toast, butter and enjoy the bagely goodness.

Cooking, mexican, recipes

Chicken Enchilada Roll-ups

April 10, 2014 alaskaknitnat 2 Comments

I am trying to pare down our cabinets and fridge contents. This takes a little creativity. Last night I made a list of all the cookable staples such as rice, beans, rotisserie chicken, can of tomatoes, lasagna noodles, cheese and so on.

I recall my friend Kelly telling me last week that she was making enchilada stuffed shells. Any time a recipe calls for stuffed shells I automatically switch to lasagna roll-ups. You don’t have to be as ginger with them and they are really easy to serve. Why not make enchilada roll-ups with lasagna noodles, leftover chicken, spinach, cheese and homemade enchilada sauce? Sounds good to me. It was!

Since I only had a can of tomatoes, I decided to make my own enchilada sauce using this fabulous recipe from DamnDelicious.net. I will never buy enchilada sauce again if I can help it. It was thick and bursting with flavor.

As for the roll-ups, I modeled my recipe from this one at Bevcooks.com. I tweaked it here and there, but I think this experiment may become a staple in our household. I was licking the plate!

Chicken Enchilada Roll-ups

Serves six

Ingredients:

1 large can of red enchilada sauce (or the equivalent of homemade)

1/2 bag frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed of excess liquid

1 leftover rotisserie chicken, edible bits removed and chopped

1 can diced green chiles

3 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, seeds removed and chopped fine

1 egg (I figure if I’m modeling it after lasagna, I might as well add an egg)

1 cup grated cheese blend (I used mozzarella and cheddar)

salt and pepper to taste

12 undercooked lasagna noodles

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Coat the bottom of a casserole dish with a generous amount of enchilada sauce. While the lasagna noodles cook, combine the spinach, chicken bits, chiles, egg, salt and pepper and 1/2 cup of cheese. Mix it well. Spread a couple of tablespoons of the mix into each lasagna noodle. Roll up the noodle and place it seam down in the casserole. Repeat with rest of the noodles and filling. Top with remaining sauce and sprinkle liberally with grated cheese. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 10 minutes, if desired. Let sit 5 minutes before serving with chopped scallions, sour cream and avocado.

Cooking, Italian, Pasta, recipes

How to Make Marinara in Bulk

March 17, 2014 alaskaknitnat 6 Comments

I never thought I’d be a label reader. But then I had a child and started feeding him. I quickly realized there’s a lot of extra stuff in store-bought food. I could be making a lot of that food myself and it would probably be cheaper.

Then again I am pretty lazy. I’ll make homemade marinara every once in a while, but when I’m in a pinch, I just go buy the jarred stuff. If I want the good jarred stuff it usually costs about $4.

Here is where I take a lesson from good ol’ dad. My entire life he has cooked sauce in bulk and freezes jars of it for later. I’ve been saving quite a few pickle and sauce jars so why not give it a try?

It was easy and in the end cost less than half as much as store bought; and it’s probably twice as good.

Here’s what you’ll need:

2 GIANT 106-oz. cans of crushed tomatoes – $2.99 apiece at Costco

25 cloves of garlic, smashed

about 1/3 cup good olive oil

1/4 cup dried basil

2 Tbs. dried oregano

2 Tbs. sugar

8 dried red chilis

salt and pepper to taste

6-7 large 40-oz. jars with lids

Directions:

Heat the olive oil in an extra large stock pot over medium-high. When oil is heated, toss in the garlic and turn heat to medium. Stir frequently and sauté till garlic is golden, about five minutes. Add all the other ingredients and turn heat to high. Cover and bring to a simmer. Turn heat to med-low and simmer for about two hours, stirring every once in a while so sauce doesn’t burn.

Let cool and spoon into jars. Do not fill right to the top because the sauce will expand in the freezer and then you’d have a sauce bomb to clean up later. If sauce is still hot enough, the jars might self seal as once they cool on the counter. Freeze up to six months.

To thaw: Defrost in microwave according to your microwave settings or leave out on the counter during the day. Once it’s slightly thawed and can be loosened into a sauce pot, thaw the rest of the way over medium-low flame.