Recipe: Cheesy Orzo with Cherry Tomatoes and Basil

As I've said in some of my past few posts, I've been trying hard to work on planning meals in advance for the week rather than picking recipes throughout the week and shopping along the way. I've already pretty much mastered the art of "Chopped: Refrigerator Edition," or that ability to take random ingredients from the fridge and pull them together to make a meal (like a less intense version of the show, Chopped, where contestants are given a basket of ridiculously mismatched ingredients and asked to make meals). Between work and looking for work (did I mention I'm planning to move to Memphis by the end of the summer?) this week, I only had time to try out two new recipes (and though I planned and shopped accordingly, I still failed at groceries because I went shopping while hungry...Hello, frozen soft pretzels and Ben&Jerry's S'Mores!). Anywho, this orzo recipe was the first I made and I was quite happy with the results. Cheesy and comforting, this dish is a lot like if mac&cheese and rice pilaf had a baby—orzo (a type of pasta that looks an awful lot like big pieces of rice), grated Italian cheeses, fresh basil, and tart cherry tomatoes mix together to create a comforting and delicious side dish (add chicken or even shrimp for a complete meal).

Yields: 4 servings
Prep. time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 20-30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp. unsalted butter
• 1&1/2 cup orzo
• 3 cups low sodium chicken stock
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated or shredded
• 1/2 cup Pecorino-Romano cheese, grated or shredded
• 10-15 leaves (large handful; approx. 2 packages of pre-packed) basil, chiffonade cut 
• Butter and olive oil, as needed
• Salt and pepper

Directions

Melt the butter in a medium pot over medium high heat. Add the uncooked orzo and saute in the butter until lightly golden brown, then add the chicken stock. Briefly bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 20-30 minutes, until little or no stock is remaining (drain excess stock if necessary; orzo should be al dente/tender yet firm when done). During the last 5-10 minutes the orzo is cooking, add a little butter and olive oil to a small pan over medium heat, then add the tomatoes and cook until their skins start to split a bit (they should be a little soft). When the orzo is done, add the cooked tomatoes, garlic, basil, cheeses, and salt and pepper and gently stir to combine. Serve as a side (top it with chicken or shrimp for a nice meal), or make into a hearty and comforting meal by adding chunks of sauteed chicken to the finished orzo. Or, if you're me, just eat it as is! Who says it can't be a meal in and of itself?

This dish is simple, quick to make, and quite tasty. The cheeses melt into the orzo, making the dish creamy and rich. Fresh basil and cherry tomatoes add a pop of flavor to balance out the creaminess of the cheese. Cooking the orzo in chicken stock rather than water adds great flavor to the dish. This is a perfect side dish, but it can be made into a main meal with the addition of some sort of protein (chicken, shrimp) or simply serve it as is for a comfort dish. 

Recipe: Hot Sausage and Mushroom Bucatini with a Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

My mother was going to some dinner event with friends tonight and I was instructed to "make something your dad likes...you know, spicy, with mushrooms or peppers or whatever." I took this to heart and made just that: a dish with mushrooms and peppers that was spicy. My dad and I both love heartiness in pasta dishes and red sauces, and this dish offered both. Bucatini, a thick, spaghetti-like pasta noodle with a hole in the center (down its length), is a unique pasta—it's thick, with a bit of a bite or chew to it, and it always make me think that it's more "old school" Italian than some of the other, more common pasta shapes on today's grocery store shelves. My father tells me stories all the time about his Pap making heaping bowls of bucatini for the family and said tonight's dish brought him right back to those dinners. Using roasted red bell peppers as the base of the sauce added a depth of flavor and a little punch that you don't get in a plain tomato sauce and hot Italian sausage paired with meaty baby portobella mushrooms add a both meatiness and earthiness to the dish.

Serves: 4
Prep. time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Special equipment: Food processor or stick blender

Ingredients
For the sauce

• 1, 12 oz. jar roasted red bell peppers, drained
• 1/2 cup diced tomatoes
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1-2 tbsp. red wine (cooking wine is fine)
• 1/4 cup chicken stock
• Dash of crushed red pepper flakes, or to taste
• 1 tbsp. dried basil
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Garlic powder, to taste
• Cornstarch-and-water mixture, as needed (this can help thicken the sauce just a little bit)

For the rest of the dish

• 3 hot Italian sausage links (about 1/4 lb.), casings removed, pulled into small pieces
• Approx. 1 cup baby portobella mushrooms, cleaned (stems/stalks removed), sliced
• Approx. 10 fresh basil leaves (I ended up using one small packet of fresh basil from the grocery store), chiffonade cut (long, skinny strips)
• 1 tbsp. red wine
• Butter, as needed
• Olive oil, as needed
• 1 lb. (16. oz.) bucatini pasta (any other long noodle, like spaghetti or linguine, would work if you can't find bucatini)
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Garlic powder, to taste
• Italian cheese, as desired

Directions

Add the roasted red bell peppers and diced tomatoes to the food processor. Heat a little butter and olive oil in a large pan over medium high heat, then add the onion and cook until tender. Add the garlic and cook for less than a minute, then remove from heat and add the mixture to the food processor. Add the chicken stock, red wine, crushed red pepper flakes, dried basil, garlic powder, salt, and pepper to the mixture and blend until fairly smooth and well-blended. Set aside. 

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. 

In the same pan used for the onion and garlic, add a little butter and olive oil and heat over medium high heat. Add the sausage and cook until mostly cooked through, then add the mushrooms and a little more butter, reducing the heat to medium. As soon as you add the mushrooms, add the pasta to the pot of boiling water and cook until al dente (10-13 minutes). While the pasta and the mushroom and sausage mixture are each cooking, pour the red pepper sauce into a small saucepan and bring to a gentle boil. Add the cornstarch-and-water mixture if desired, let thicken a bit, and reduce the heat to medium. Let cook for about 5-10 minutes, then pour it into the mushroom and sausage mixture. Add salt, pepper, and garlic powder, as desired. 

When the pasta is done, drain it and return it to the pot, then stir the fresh basil into the sauce, mushroom, and sausage mixture and add the mixture to the pasta. Toss to coat. Serve topped with more fresh basil and Italian cheese, as desired. 

This dish is hearty, a little spicy, and absolutely delicious. The size and shape of pasta is incredibly important in Italian dishes and this dish screams for bucatini. This noodle's thickness is perfect with this relatively thin sauce, and it pairs well with the chunks of sausage and mushroom slices. Cooking the mushrooms in with the sausage allows them to soak up that oh-so-good sausage grease, giving them exceptional flavor. Using roasted red peppers for the base of the sauce makes for a nice change from a traditional tomato sauce—there is a mild spiciness and smokiness in the sauce that makes it ideal with the heat in the sausage. Overall, very very tasty and definitely fit the bill for a dinner that's "spicy, with peppers and mushrooms and stuff."

Recipe: Lobster Ravioli in a Vodka Cream Sauce

I got the chance to spend this past week with Sara, my best friend from college—she found a reasonably-priced flight and flew up to my home in Pennsylvania for a visit. We spent time in Pittsburgh, visiting museums and eating some fantastic meals, and we also spent time at home, watching movies (including a guilty pleasure, You've Got Mail with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks) and even doing a little cooking. I showed her some basics, like mincing garlic and cutting basil in chiffonade, and hopefully didn't drive her nuts by hovering over her while she performed said basics. One thing she said she really wanted to try was making homemade pasta with my pasta rolling machine, so I got the bright idea to make ravioli, because that's the one attachment (for raviolini, actually) on the pasta machine that I hadn't tried out yet. That idea turned into Lobster Ravioli in a Vodka Cream Sauce (with a little inspiration from here and here) that took at least three hours to make and resulted in some not-so-attractive but oh-so-tasty raviolini (basically, miniature ravioli). Now, if you want to go the easy route, buy pre-made lobster ravioli and skip ahead to the vodka cream sauce part of the recipe. If you want to go for the glory and make the ravioli by hand, I recommend looking up methods for cutting them by hand, because I've tried that way before and I'm betting it's a lot faster and less messy than the machine (though, keep in mind, this was our first time using this attachment, so it was bound to take a little longer than if I'd tried to do it before).

By the time we finally finished cooking, I was too hungry to go find my "plating" plate, so the "Poppies in Blue" will have to do

Serves: 4-6 (depends on the size and amount of ravioli/raviolini)
Prep. time: 10 minutes for the sauce; anywhere from 1-3 hours to make the ravioli (dough comes together in 10 minutes, and 30 minutes to rest, then the ravioli will take at least an hour to roll out and form)
Cooking time: 15-20 minutes for the sauce; 5 minutes for each batch of ravioli
Difficulty: Moderate

Ingredients
For the sauce

• Extra virgin olive oil, enough to lightly coat the bottom of a pan
• Approx. 1 tbsp. butter
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1-2 shallots, minced
• 1 cup vodka (you don't need to use the good stuff, since you're cooking it)
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 can crushed tomatoes (28-32 oz.)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• Fresh basil, chiffonade cut, to taste
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Crushed red pepper flakes, to taste
• Italian seasoning, to taste

For the ravioli

• 1/2 stick (2 oz.) unsalted butter
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp. shallots, minced
• Approx. 16 oz. pre-cooked lobster meat (I used frozen, pre-cooked langostino lobster)
• 4 oz. cooked crab meat (I used the crab meat you can find on the same shelf as canned tuna)
• 2 oz. Cognac 
• 1/2-1 cup ricotta cheese
• 1 tbsp. chives, chopped
• 2 tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Pasta dough, double batch, rested for 30 minutes (see recipe here; double the recipe)

Directions
Heat the butter for the ravioli in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic and cook for a few minutes, until fragrant. Add the lobster, crab meat, and chives and cook for a few minutes, then add the Cognac and cook until it's been reduced by about 1/2 to 3/4 (you only want a little liquid in the pan). Pour the mixture into a food processor and pulse to chop the mixture (only pulse a few times—you just want to break up the pieces of lobster, but you don't want to turn the mixture into a puree). Pour the mixture back into the bowl and set aside to cool. Once cool, add in the desired amount of ricotta and season with salt and pepper. Now, the tricky part...if you're using a pasta machine with a ravioli attachment, follow the instructions for use (it'll likely involve threading dough into the attachment, adding filling, rolling out sheets of ravioli, then pulling apart the ravioli sheets into squares). If you're cutting them by hand, look up instructions (they'll likely say to lay out rolled-out dough on a flat surface, place a dollop of filling a few inches apart in straight lines down the dough, then lay a sheet of dough on top, press around each filling mound, and cut into ravioli shapes). Either way, you will need to make sure you have large, rolled out pieces of dough before you start forming and cutting. (I apologize for not offering more information, but I was using a machine and followed its instructions to make my ravioli). Once the ravioli are formed and cut, spread them out on a lightly floured baking sheet and cover with a clean towel to keep them from getting dried out.
In a large, deep pan, heat the olive oil and butter for the vodka sauce over medium heat. Add in garlic and shallots and cook for a few minutes, until lightly fragrant. Add the vodka and cook until it's been reduced by half, then add the chicken stock and tomatoes. Turn up the heat and cook until it just starts to boil, then reduce heat to low. Slowly whisk in the heavy cream, and continue to keep the sauce warm.
Bring salted water to a boil in a large pot. Cook the ravioli in batches, for 5 minutes each. Rather than drain the pot, refill, and wait for it to boil all over again, just pull the ravioli out with a slotted spoon and continue to use the same batch of boiling water. Transfer the cooked ravioli from the spoon into the sauce. Once all of the ravioli is cooked and added to the sauce, it's finished. Serve with grated Italian cheese and a sprinkling of fresh basil.

Despite being labor-intensive (if you make the ravioli from scratch), this really is a delicious and surprisingly light dish. The ravioli are flavorful little pouches of meaty lobster and creamy ricotta and the vodka sauce, with the fresh taste of tomatoes and just a hint of the vodka, is the perfect choice for the pasta.

Recipe: Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Risotto with Seared Chicken

A good risotto is incredibly rich, incredibly creamy, and incredibly delicious. Like warm macaroni-and-cheese and buttery mashed potatoes, risotto is something of a comfort food, albeit a fancy comfort food that takes a lot of time and patience to make. It's up there with homemade pasta and the perfectly poached egg on the list of "things that are (supposedly) hard to make." Truthfully, it's not so much that risotto is hard to make, but that it takes a very long time to make and really requires your constant attention to make sure it cooks through properly—it's so worth making though, because, as I said in the first sentence, a good risotto is rich, creamy, and absolutely delicious. This recipe combines tangy sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil with a healthy handful of grated Parmesan cheese, some white wine, and a little garlic to create a colorful, flavorful dish that's incredibly filling and perfect served with chicken (or shrimp or scallops). Plan on making this on a night when you have time to spare and a big appetite.

Serves: 6
Prep. time: 10-15 minutes
Cooking time: Approx. 45 min.-1 hour (give or take a little time—the rice takes a long time to cook)
Difficulty: Moderate

Ingredients

• Approx. 6-8 cups chicken stock or broth
• 1-3 tbsp. whole butter
• 1-2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup white wine (cooking wine will do)
• 2 cups Arborio rice (this is key—you must use this type of rice)
• 1, 7 oz. jar (about 10 pieces) sun-dried tomatoes, diced (I buy Alessi brand, oil-packed)
• Approx. 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, or to taste
• Approx. 1/4 cup fresh basil, chiffonade
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Crushed red pepper flakes, to taste
• 3 chicken breasts, cut in half and pounded out to about 1/2 inch thickness

Directions
In a medium pot, bring the chicken broth to a simmer (it should bubble slightly around the edges). In a large pot, heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat, then add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion is slightly soft and translucent (about 5 minutes). Add the rice to the pot with the onion and garlic mixture and stir it around to coat it with the butter and olive oil. Let it cook for 1-2 minutes, until the rice is coated evenly and the pieces look a little white in the middle. Add in the white wine and cook until it's absorbed into the rice and there is little or no wine visible in the pot. Reduce the heat to medium-low and add in a ladle-full of chicken stock, stirring the rice as you pour. Keep stirring and watch as the rice absorbs the stock. When most of the stock is absorbed, add in another ladle-full, stirring as you go, and watching until the stock is absorbed. Repeat this process until the rice is tender and the mixture is creamy (it's really important to taste this as you go so you make sure you get the right texture). If your rice is crunchy, add more hot stock, but be sure that you always add it in small ladle-fulls—the rice needs to absorb the stock before more is added. Towards the end, when you're nearing the end of your pot of stock, the rice should look really creamy and the individual grains should look larger. At this point, feel free to reduce the heat to low and let it cook gently, undisturbed, to let it absorb any excess stock and to thicken a bit more. The result should be tender rice (they may be a little al dente, but this is okay) that is creamy and thick. Once the rice is done, toss in the sun-dried tomatoes, basil, Parmesan cheese, crushed red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper, plus a little butter (about 1 tbsp.), then stir to combine. The tricky part about this is figuring out when to start the chicken, and my timing was a little off when I made this. I'd recommend starting the chicken when you've only got only a few ladle-fulls of stock left—heat a little olive oil and butter in a large pan over medium heat. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and place them in the pan, cooking both sides until the chicken breasts are cooked through.
Plate the chicken atop the rice and garnish with a little fresh basil.

This dish takes time and it's not something you can start and then walk away from—you need to be constantly stirring the rice, adding more stock, and tasting it for texture and doneness the entire time—but the end results are worth the time it takes to make it (and if you're cooking for a smaller crowd like me, you'll have some delicious leftovers). The rice is decadent and creamy, with a rich, full flavor from the chicken stock and Parmesan cheese and brightness from sun-dried tomatoes and basil.

Recipe: Potato Soup

Words that describe today: Cold. Rainy. Grey. Dreary. Autumn. Cold (did I already say that?). I spent my morning in a warm kitchen for my Foods 1 class, learning how to make Espagnole (one of the five mother sauces; a brown sauce), variations on that sauce, and tomato sauce. When I got home, I changed into pajamas, curled up in bed under a mound of blankets with the space heater on, and basically went into a brief hibernation mode, napping for two hours. When 5:00PM rolled around, all I wanted was a warm, hearty dinner, which is lucky for me, because I picked up the ingredients for my cousin's fabulous potato soup late last week and it's the perfect meal for a chilly day in the North. This is yet another meal I tried at my cousin's place over the Labor Day weekend, and it's an original "Katie" recipe—a recipe that I'm glad she shared with me. The soup has small chunks of soft, warm potato in a thick, creamy base. Topped with crispy bacon, fresh green onions, and grated cheddar cheese, it's the perfect meal for a cold and damp autumn evening.

Serves: 4-6
Prep. time: 10-15 minutes
Cooking time: 30-40 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

• 4-6 strips bacon, cut into 1 inch cubes/strips
• 2 tbsp. butter
• 5-6 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 medium leeks, diced (be sure to clean these thoroughly by letting them soak in water and by cutting off the tops—they are incredibly sandy and dirty and you don't want that grime getting into your soup)
• 1/4 cup flour
• Approx. 3 lbs. potatoes (about 4 medium potatoes or 8 small potatoes), diced (smaller pieces will cook faster)
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1 & 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup heavy cream
• Salt and pepper (and white pepper), to taste
• Corn starch, if necessary (a small—no more than 1/4 cup, and likely less than that—mixture of cornstarch and water can be added to the soup to help thicken it if it's too thin)
• Shredded cheddar cheese, bacon, and diced green onions, for garnish and taste (I set out about a 1/2 cup of each)

Directions
In a large pot over medium high heat, cook the bacon until crispy, but not overly brown or burnt. Remove from pot, set it aside on paper towels to soak up some of the grease, then use that as your bacon garnish at the end (if I remember correctly, my cousin cooked two small batches of bacon and actually included some of that bacon in the soup, but I chose not to do that). Drain all but 2 tbsp. of the bacon grease into a small bowl and set aside (you may want to add a little more to the soup later—that's what I did, to add a little more flavor). Add the butter to the pot, then add the garlic and leeks, cooking them until they are slightly soft. Add the flour and stir around, making a sort of roux (this helps thicken the soup a bit). Cook until the butter and grease mixture is incorporated into the flour and there is no longer any flour smell. Turn the heat up to high, add the chicken stock to the pot and deglaze it (use a spoon or spatula to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pot). Add the water and heavy cream and stir to combine. Add the potato chunks and cook until they are cooked through (15-20 minutes). If the soup seems too thin, add a little of the cornstarch-and-water mixture and continue to cook, adding more as needed, until the soup is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. If your soup is too thick, add a little water to thin it out. Add salt and pepper (and white pepper), to taste. Serve topped with bacon crumbles, shredded cheddar cheese, and diced green onions.

This soup is creamy, hearty, and rich without being overwhelmingly rich. The cheddar cheese, green onions, and bacon add a punch of flavor to the dish, as well as some crunch and texture. It's the perfect dish for a cool autumn evening or a cold winter day and it reheats wonderfully.