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Recipe Mashup: Baked Sweet Potato Pasta

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This is my usual way of dealing with recipes – I steal from them and I smash them together.

Until I started my blog, I didn’t really follow recipes closely. I usually just use them for inspiration. I figure out what ingredients I have on hand, and I Google my way to a few recipes that sound neat. I take a little bit from one and a little bit from another, and there we go!

Tonight’s dinner was fueled by my wish to bake a pasta dish, and the sweet potatoes that were waiting to fulfill their delicious destiny.

I took most of my inspiration from Martha Stewart: Baked Mushroom Linguine and Butternut Squash and Sage Lasagna. Some people like to mock Martha, but honestly I’ve had great success with recipes from her website. I’m not embarrassed to say that I enjoy her show (on the rare occasion I’m able to watch it) and it’s now one of my go-to sites when I can’t think of what to make for dinner.

On that note, I think I need to add her link to my blogroll. Done!

Pasta Mashup - Oven Dish

Mashup Pasta & Sweet Potato Casserole

Soo… here’s what I did: I cooked up some rotini (ok, not either of the recommended types of noodle); baked my sweet potatoes as suggested in the squash recipe; loaded up a cheese sauce with some cream cheese, some Fizzy cheese from Quebec, herbes de provence, thyme, rosemary, nutmeg, cayenne and tangy mustard powder; sauteed some mushrooms and onions with mushroom broth; tossed it all together and threw it back in the oven topped with breadcrumbs. Whew!!

Pasta Mashup - Plate

Pretty yummy!

So, how did it turn out? Not bad! The cheese sauce is a little different from my usual (shock! I didn’t put any anise in it!) and I’m usually too lazy to make a meal and THEN put it in the oven to bake. I ended up putting in too many noodles, which meant the sauce wasn’t as vibrant and saucey as it should have been. Blerg! I didn’t think the breadcrumb thing through – it ended up being a little too dry, because the sauce was mostly absorbed into the pasta. So I had to add a little more liquid and stick it back in the oven. Live and learn.

About Food, Recipes

My Very Own Thali

Indian Thali

I love Indian food. I love the spices, I love the mix of textures and flavours, and I absolutely love the variety you get in an Indian Thali. Indian thalis are platters that feature a number of dishes, alongside some kind of bread (such as naan or chapati) or sometimes rice. Most of the Indian food that people are familiar with are from North India, but it is important to note that there are many regional differences in Indian food. This is something I’d like to learn a little bit about, but I haven’t started researching it yet.

Indian Thali

My first Thali (clockwise from the top): Baingan Bharta, Saag Paneer and Chole.

I love to make Indian-inspired dishes at home, but haven’t had much success at making restaurant style dishes until recently. A few weeks ago, I tried a Palak Daal recipe that was fantasic but very lonely. We’re used to having multiple dishes in an Indian meal, so my loney daal didn’t go over as well as it should have. This inspired me to try making a group of dishes at once.

There are two challenges for me here: successfully making restaurant-style Indian dishes AND making multiple dishes at the same time and timing it all out properly. It was a great experience, and left me with the confidence to try more in the future!!

Enjoy!

A mix of the spices I used in one of the dishes.
Recipes after the jump!
Continue reading My Very Own Thali →
Recipes

Winter Warming Ginger Tomato Soup

Ginger Tomato Soup

This is one of my favourite soups in the winter. It’s fresh and gingery, a little spicy and very hearty. For a more brothy, soupy soup, you can reduce the amount of barley to 1/2 cup. The introduction of either chipotle pepper (a smoked pepper), or smoked paprika gives it a rich, rounded flavour. Fresh ginger gives a bit of a bite, but also a slight citrusy flavour that cannot be replicated with dried ginger.

Feel free to add in any random veggies, or leftover stuff in the fridge (within reason). This kind of soup can be a great ‘use it up’ meal!

Ingredients:

  • 1-2 tsp oil
  • 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
  • 2 stalks of celery, chopped (plus some of the celery leaves, if you like)
  • 6 medium mushrooms, halved or quartered (depending on size and preference)
  • 1-2 medium carrots, cut into thick slices
  • 1-2 large potatoes, cut into big chunks
  • 2tbsp fresh grated ginger (dried will be quite different, so I do not recommend it)
  • 2 cloves of garlic, pressed or finely chopped
  • 1 tsp chipotle pepper, powdered (if you don’t want spicy, you can use smoked paprika instead)
  • 1 cup corn kernels (can use fresh, frozen or canned)
  • 1 796 ml can of diced tomatoes
  • 4+ cups of broth (a lightly flavoured one, like vegetarian or chicken, can substitute with water if needed)
  • 1/2 cup of chopped fresh parsley
  • 1 cup of barley, dried
  • salt & pepper, to taste

Instructions:

  1. Heat oil in a pot on medium heat.
  2. Once heated, add onion and celery. Cook until golden and soft – can add a tablespoon or so of broth or water to help with this. Be sure to cook off any extra liquid before the next step.
  3. Add the mushrooms, and saute until soft and lightly browned.
  4. Add the carrots, potatoes, ginger, garlic and chipotle (or paprika). Stir, and cook for a couple of minutes.
  5. Add the corn. If you’re using frozen or cold corn, cook until the corn warms up a little.
  6. Add the diced tomatoes.
  7. Add 4 cups of broth (or water). Make sure the liquid covers the vegetables completely. Add more broth or water if necessary.
  8. Cover. Let this cook for about 20 minutes on low heat.
  9. Add the barley. Cover, and cook for 30 minutes, or until barley is cooked through. Stir occasionally, and check to make sure everything is still covered in broth. Add more broth or water as needed.
  10. Add the chopped parsley and chopped peppers. Cook for another 10 minutes.
  11. Add salt and pepper, to taste.
Challenges, the Mélange

Monthly Mélange: February 2010

Noodles!!

February was my first full month of blogging about food, and I packed it full of new cooking experiences. This has really helped to battle my usual winter blahs. I hope to keep things coming at the same frequency.

Here’s a rundown of some of my culinary highlights of February 2010. If there’s anyone out there reading my blog, feel free to comment with your own rundown of the month!

How did February 2010 taste?

Wrapping up the Waste
The 2010 Food Waste Reduction Challenge is now over, and I can say that it was interesting to see just how much edible stuff we throw out every month. I suppose it’s less of a wake-up call for me, because I’ve always tried to use up everything I can. There are still a few weak spots – frozen items moreso than fresh foods. I can do better there. Planning meals helps with this, and only buying the items you really need for the meals you have planned.

Monthly Spice
I would probably say Berbere, because it probably was my favourite of the month, but it already got its own post. While making a Cajun-inspired shrimp dish the other night, I realized I had misplaced my Cajun mixed spices and had to make some up on the fly! Seriously, I realized I couldn’t find it RIGHT when I needed to add it in. Internet to the rescue, I found a couple of recipes that outlined the herbs and spices to use, and the proportions, and I was all set. The dish turned out great, by the way.

Mystery Ingredient
Leafy, leafy greens. I’m usually pretty good about eating my spinach (bought into the whole Lie of Popeye), but I never knew what to do with things like kale. This month, I chose some recipes that not only used lots of spinach, but also kale and collard greens. Sometimes referred to as a ‘superfood’, leafy greens contain many important nutrients, such as vitamin C, iron, potassium, magnesium, lutein, beta-carotene, folic acid and are high in dietary fiber (among other things). They’re pretty tasty, too!

I Made This!
Hubs says the best stuff I made this month was my Indian assortment, which I should be posting soon. I made three really yummy dishes, and overall we were more satisfied with these three than the Ethiopian three dishes (the closest competition – I wasn’t as impressed with the yellow lentil dish, so it lost some points there!). My favourite of the three Indian dishes was definitely the Saag Paneer – this is one of my all-time favourite Indian dishes, and it came out just the way I like it!! Joe’s favourite was a chick pea dish. Yum.

Shameful Secrets
I am happy to say that I haven’t had any Skittles since my last post, and have limited my Jelly Belly intake to 10 beans per sitting. My stomach has been doing much better, which is important since I’ve been cooking so much

On to March, and hopefully some longer days so my food pics turn out better!!

S