Spicy Roasted Vegetable Macaroni and Cheese

 

This month’s Pasta Please theme was chilies and was hosted by Shaheen.

I’m looking at the picture of this dish, and I’m realizing there is way too many breadcrumbs on the dish. Once scooped out of the dish, they obviously got lost in the noodles – but oh my goodness – this picture looks like a breadcrumb dish.

Anyway, after poking around different corners of the internet and looking for something that would work for this challenge, I found a delicious looking mac and cheese. I didn’t venture out as much as I could have with this challenge. I should have bought a red chili to substitute the crushed red chili flakes – but alas, I did not. I like spicy food. I just really hate cutting chilies. Without a doubt, for as careful as I try to be, I touch my eyes or rub my nose or get the chili juices somewhere that just doesn’t feel great – and oh my goodness, it’s hard to get rid of it once you do it. Even when I wear gloves, I somehow manage to just create so much pain for myself. I love the taste, I just hate the process.

Because of this, I rely on red chili flakes to add the heat from a fresh chili (though.. obviously not the same, I know.)

Anyway, this was a yummy mac and cheese. It created a lot of dirty dishes, but was delicious!

Spicy Roasted Vegetable Macaroni and Cheese
(source)

Ingredients
1 cup broccoli florets, cut into pieces
1 yellow squash, diced
1 orange bellow pepper, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 cups elbow pasta
1/4 cup olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups skim milk
2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp dried chili flakes
2 tbsp bread crumbs

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400. Set a medium pot of water to boil. Cook the noodles per package directions. Drain and set aside.

2. Prepare a baking sheet with aluminum foil covering it. Toss the broccoli, squash, bell pepper, and carrots on a baking sheet. Coat with half the olive oil. Bake for 20 minutes.

3. Heat the remaining oil in a skillet. Once hot, add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Whisk in flour and cook for 1 minute. Slowly whisk in the milk, stirring until the mixture thickens.  Remove from heat. Stir in cheddar, allowing to melt. Add the red chili flakes and cayenne. Add the macaroni and vegetables.

4. Place the mixture in a casserole dish. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Place under the broiler for 4 minutes.

* serves 6
* Besides Pasta Please, this recipe is being shared with See Ya In The Gumbo

Spaghetti with Ragu

After skimming through December 2010′s Food Network Magazine for the one millionth time, I decided to make ragu. What a quick and easy recipe. I especially like that ragu uses vegetables to add bulk without relying entirely on meat. The celery and carrots in this sauce added some flavor of their own, but for the most part they supplemented the meat.

Served with garlic bread, this made a great dinner.

Spaghetti with Ragu
(from Food Network Magazine December 2010 edition)

Ingredients
1/4 onion
1 stalk celery, cut into pieces
1 carrot, cut into pieces
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp rosemary
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lb ground turkey
15-oz crushed tomatoes
1/4 cup skim milk
6 oz spaghetti noodles

Directions

1. Place the onion, celery, carrot, garlic, and rosemary into a food processor. Pulse until finely chopped.

2. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the chopped vegetables and cook, stirring until softened and golden, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the turkey and season with salt and pepper. Cook, breaking up with a wooden spoon, until the turkey is no longer pink. Add the tomatoes, milk, and 1/2 cup water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and bring to a simmer for about 20 minutes, until slightly thickened.

3. Meanwhile, cook spaghetti noodles to package directions. Drain.

4. Once the sauce and noodles are cooked, toss the noodles and sauce together until well combined.

* serves 2
* Shared with Tasteful Tuesday Party & Tempt My Tummy

Yakisoba

 

This month Chris asked us bloggers to join him on a trip to Japan. I sometimes wish Chris’s travels with us were real. My brother’s been to Japan three times. I’m sure if he ate my dinner he would have turned his nose up and claimed it not to be Japanese enough. I’m not claiming it’s super authentic either. I had to make several substitutions that probably minimized it’s Japanese value because I couldn’t justify buying sake (rice wine) or mirin (a sweeter rice wine) for cooking this dish. I had some sake and had to toss it because it was way too old. I just can’t justify buying ingredients I don’t use frequently. So I used white wine instead.

I probably should have just taken a picture of the Japanese curry and the tonksatsu that we had for lunch at the Japanese restaurant.

Yakisoba
(the more authentic recipe)

Ingredients
6 oz dried chow mein noodles
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 oz pork chop, cut into small chunks
2 oz cabbage, shredded
2 oz carrot, chopped
2 green onions, chopped
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp white wine
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp sesame oil

Directions

1. Cook the noodles per package directions. Drain and set aside.

2. Heat a large skillet or wok and add the oil. Add the garlic and stir, cooking until brown. Add the pork and stir a few times.  Next add the cabbage, carrots, and onions. Stir a few more times. Add the noodles and the remaining ingredients. Stir fry until the vegetables are cooked and the noodles are warmed through.

* serves 2
* Besides Bloggers Around The World, I’m sharing this dish with Foodie Friends Friday, Foodie Friday, Weekend Potluck, & Foodie Friday

Fish Pie

This month over at BakeBakeBake the challenge is British. Frankly, my experience with British food is very small. All I can think of is fish and chips. But a baked British dish? Google was required to find something to meet the challenge! Fish pie is a pie made with white fish. It is a traditional British dish. Upon googling I found Jamie Oliver’s Fish Pie recipe, using a combination of fish, shrimp, carrots, celery, lemon, tomato, spinach, and mashed potatoes.

I was skeptical, but clearly I had no reason to be. This dish was time consuming (until it went into the oven) but came out perfectly with a beautiful crispy potato topping.

Fish Pie

Ingredients
2 lbs white potatoes, cut into pieces
1 carrot, shredded
2 sticks celery, shredded
5 oz Cheddar cheese, shredded
1 lemon
2 1/4 lbs tilapia, cut into pieces
4 oz shrimp, cleaned and peeled
olive oil
1 handful baby spinach
2 tomatoes, quartered

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the potatoes and cook for 12 minutes. Once the potatoes are tender, mash together with several glugs of olive oil.

2. Place the grated carrot, celery, and cheese together in a baking dish. Zest the lemon into the baking dish. Cut the tilapia into bite size pieces. Mix the tilapia, shrimp, spinach, and tomatoes in with the grated vegetables.

3. Spread the mashed potatoes on top of the dish. Bake for 40 minutes.

* serves 6
* shared with Tasteful Tuesday Party, Tasty Tuesdays,  Tempt My Tummy, & Recipe Box 

Jamaican Curry

 

This month I’m participating in Cooking Around The World. This month the blog is traveling to the Caribbean and we were challenged to make a dish from any of the Caribbean islands.

I decided to go with Jamaica. I wish I could be in Jamaica right now for real. With this Sacramento-cold (which I know isn’t even that bad compared to a lot of the United States,) I could use a day of sunshine. I’ve been waking up and having to scrape ice from my car windows every morning. I’d rather have to worry about putting on sunscreen than standing outside in the cold shivering scraping my car windows.

Anyway, the recipe I found wasn’t exactly authentic. It’s Martha Stewart. It was delicious though. And it made me dream of the beach.

Jamaican Curry

Ingredients
2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
3 tbsp curry powder
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 cup water, divided
salt, to taste
4 carrots, thinly sliced
1 can coconut milk
1 10-oz package frozen peas, thawed
Cooked rice, for serving

Directions

1. In a heavy pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Working in two batches, brown chicken for 3 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.

2. Reduce the heat to medium. Add the onion, garlic, cumin, curry powder, thyme, and 1/2 cup of water. Season with salt. Cook, stirring occasionally for 3 to 5 minutes, until the onion is soft.

3. Add carrots, coconut milk, 1/2 cup water, and chicken. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cover, cooking until the carrots are tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the peas.

4. Serve the curry over rice.

* serves 4

Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie Stew

 

This will probably be the last slow cooked recipe you see for a month. I’m done with school! This meal was made for last night because I had an evening final. I have one more evening final on the 4th, but I decided to make an easy salad that night (maybe I’ll start sharing my meal plans again, because why not?) Yeah, I think I will.. They will be listed at the top of the blog with the other links once I get it up.

Anyway, because I’ll be home in the evenings for the next month I’ll have time to cook! Wahoo! But next semester is going to be even crazier than this one; I have late classes three days a week. But then.. Then I’ll be done. If I pass.

This was a really easy recipe. It didn’t take any culinary skill besides the skill of dumping. But it tasted good and it lasted more than one meal. Tonight I made biscuits with fresh oregano from my AeroGarden to go with it and it was perfect and full of carbs.

Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie Stew
(source)

Ingredients
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into cubes
5 red potatoes, cubed
3 carrots, sliced
4 (10-oz) cans condensed cream of chicken soup
2 tbsp chicken bouillon
2 tsp garlic salt
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1 (16-oz) bag frozen mixed vegetables

Directions

1. Combine the chicken, potatoes, carrot, soup, bouillon, garlic, salt, and pepper in a slow cooker. Cook on high for 7 hours.

2. Add the frozen mixed vegetables. Reduce slow cooker to low and cook for 1 more hour.

* makes about 8 servings
* Shared with Foodie Friday, Foodie Friday, Foodie Friends Friday, & Weekend Potluck

Carrots with Sausage and Rosemary

 

In my attempt to stuff more vegetables into my face, I found this carrot recipe. I know, I know, it’s not exactly a vegetable dish, because one of the ingredients is sausage, the sausage really did add an element to the carrots that I don’t know how you’d recreate without it. The combination of the rosemary, carrots, and sausage was perfect. I couldn’t ask for a better veggie dish.

Carrots with Sausage and Rosemary

Ingredients
3 lbs carrots, cut into slices
2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 lb turkey sausage
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp rosemary, chopped
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup water

Directions

1. In a large pot of boiling water, cook the carrots over high heat until tender, about 7 minutes. Drain the carrots in a colander.

2. In a large, deep skillet, heat the olive oil. Add the sausage and cook over moderate heat. Break up the sausage while cooking and cook for about 4 minutes, until no longer pink. Add the onion and rosemary and cook for about 6 minutes, until the onion is softened. Stir in the carrots and cook until heated through.

3. Stir together the tomato paste and the water. Add to the carrots and stir well.

* serves 12
* 113 calories per serving
* Shared with Mealtime Monday

Slow Cooker Lentil Vegetable Stew

 

The first week of my last year in law school was this week. Just two semesters left and I’ll have to change the name of my blog. It won’t be the Law Student’s Cookbook anymore, but the Unemployed Law School Graduate’s Cookbook. Well, that is until I pass the bar and hopefully get hired somewhere great. Then my blog will be called The Public Defender’s Cookbook. But more likely it will just need a new name that leaves me unaffiliated with a career. When that day comes . . . No. I can’t even think about it. It’s still so far off.

Anyway, school started this week and I have night classes two days every week. Last semester I had a ton of night classes.
Last semester I also got really fat because I ate out so much. On top of gaining pounds, my wallet got pretty slim. I would prefer things to work in reverse, so I’ve decided I really just need to implement ways that make getting home just before 9PM okay. The number one way this is going to work is if in the morning before I leave for work or school I throw everything for the day into a crockpot. That way when I do get home just 2 hours before my bedtime, I don’t feel like I need to run and get fast food to satiate myself. And frankly, anything I can make at home tastes a million times better than something that comes through a drive through.

This week has been a pretty mellow week compared to what the rest of my semester is going to look like. Two of my classes got cancelled the first week of school, so instead of two nights of needing quick dinners (rather, slow cooked dinners,) I only had one.

During the middle of my Prosecutorial&Defense Ethics my stomach started grumbling. I was happy to find this slow cooker stew when I got home.

Slow Cooker Lentil Vegetable Stew

Ingredients
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 potato, peeled and cubed
4 carrots, sliced
1/2 cup onion, diced
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 cup green beans, broken into pieces
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 cup tomato juice
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup dry lentils

Directions

1. Add everything except for the lentils into a slow cooker. Stir to combine. Cover and cook for 8 hours on low. Add lentils during the last hour of cooking.

* serves 6
* 273 calories per serving
* Shared with Souper Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen & What’s Cooking Wednesday

Chicken and Dumplings

 

This month at Food ‘n Flix we watched The Help hosted by Glennis at Can’t Believe We Ate. This is actually one of my favorite movies (and books) of all times. I typically don’t enjoy movie renditions of books, but I really feel like the movie did a great job of creating the book onto film.

In The Help there’s a lot of cooking on part of the help, the maids who raise rich white families’ children, cook dinners, and get no praise or thank you for the hard work they put in. The movie is based in Jackson, Mississippi, deep in the US South. There was a lot of fried food, a lot of Crisco… In fact Minny Jackson says at one point in her cooking lessons to Celia Foote:

“Crisco ain’t just for fryin. You ever get a sticky something stuck in your hair,like gum?…That’s right, Crisco. Spread this on a baby’s bottom, you won’t even know what diaper rash is…shoot, I seen ladies rub it under they eyes and on they husband’s scaly feet…Clean the goo from a price tag, take the squeak out a door hinge. Lights get cut off, stick a wick in it and burn it like a candle….And after all that, it’ll still fry your chicken.”

That’s actually the direct quote from the book, so maybe she delivered it differently in the movie. I don’t remember.

But that quote almost convinced me to make fried chicken. And if not fried chicken, to make something else with Crisco.

But as I sat there after the movie I found myself craving my Aunt Beau’s food. My Aunt Beau is actually my great-aunt. She lived in North Carolina before she died several years ago and really has been my only influence in Southern food. The movie left me hankering for hush puppies, for deep fried soft shell crab, and most of all, for chicken and dumplings. I didn’t eat very much Southern food growing up because that influence was across the country from us. But when I did have it, it just felt good.

And it still felt good and felt right and reminded me of my Aunt Beau when I made it. This is far from being an authentic chicken and dumplings.  I mean, I got it from Rachael Ray. And on top of that, I didn’t even use a full chicken. But I’m sure my aunt would appreciate me working with what I had to make something reminiscent of her.

And then I almost had to scratch the whole meal because there were bugs in my biscuit mix. Lucky I found another box in my cabinet which was unopened and didn’t have the same problem.

Chicken and Dumplings
(source)

Ingredients
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks
1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 russet potato, peeled and diced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1/2 onion, chopped
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 tsp chicken bouillon
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup Bisquick
1/3 cup warm water (plus more if needed)
1 tbsp dried parsley
1/2 cup frozen peas

Directions

1. Place a large pot on the stove over medium high heat. Add oil, butter, vegetables, and bay leaf. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Season with salt, pepper, and bouillon. Add flour to the pot and cook for 2 minutes. Stir broth into the pot and bring to a boil. Add the chicken to the broth and stir.

2. Place the Bisquick in a bowl and combine with water and parsley. If the mix is too thick, add more water. You want it to be fairly watery – not as thick as if you were baking biscuits. Drop tablespoonfuls of the biscuit mix into the pot, spacing the dumplings evenly.

3. Cover the pot and reduce heat to medium low. Steam for 10 minutes. Remove the cover and stir chicken and dumplings to thicken sauce. Stir the peas in, until warm. Serve in shallow bowls.

* serves 2

Chicken, Chickpeas, and Lentils

This was actually two dishes, but as I was making dinner it kind of became one. I had sort of an ingredient snafu, having to throw away the kale because it became inedible. So instead of making kale with lentil and the chicken, I kind of just threw the chicken on top of the lentils without the greens on top of rice.

It ended up being really good and hearty, so while I do wish my kale hadn’t been sitting in the garbage, my meal still came out delicious.

Chicken, Chickpeas, and Lentils

Ingredients
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped, divided
1 carrot, diced, divided
3 cloves garlic, minced, divided
1/4 tsp kosher salt
ground black pepper to taste
1/4 tsp ground red pepper flakes
1/4 lb uncooked lentils
1 can diced tomatoes, divided
2 1/4 cups chicken broth, divided
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite size pieces
1/2 tbsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/8 tsp ground cayenne
1/8 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 cup canned chickpeas, drained
1/2 tbsp lemon juice

Directions

1. Heat vegetable oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook and stir half of the onion and half of the carrot in the hot oil, until softened. Add half the garlic, the salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Stir to coat and cook for 1 minute.

2. Stir the lentils, half the tomatoes and its juice, and 1 1/2 cups of the chicken broth into the onions. Cover and simmer until the lentils are tender, about 40 minutes.

3. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.  In a new pan sprayed with cooking spray brown the chicken over medium heat until the chicken is cooked through. Remove the chicken and set aside.

4. Saute the remaining onion, garlic, and carrots. When tender stir in ginger, paprika, cumin, oregano, cayenne, and turmeric. Stir fry for 1 minute, then mix in the remaining broth and tomatoes. Return the chicken to the pan and reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes.

5. Add the chickpeas to the pan and simmer. Cover pan and cook for 15 minutes. Stir in lemon juice. Serve both the lentils and chicken over rice.

* serves 2
* Shared with Foodie Friday & Foodie Friday