Tomato and Sausage Risotto with Steamed Broccoli

This meal comes from the Smitten Kitten food blog and appealed to our love of risotto. The saffron risotto we make is fantastic and we were eager to try a new variation to the rice. To make the meal healthier we decided to include a side of broccoli which ended up just being served on top. The picture below doesn't really do the dish justice, but trust me, it's delicious.

Tomato and Sausage Risotto
(originally found on the Smitten Kitten food blog)

Serves 4

1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes
Olive oil
1 lb. italian chicken sausage, casing removed
1 onion, diced
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 package (10-14 oz) spinach, chopped
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
2 tbsp butter

In a small saucepan, combine the tomatoes, and their juices, with 3 cups of water. Bring to a simmer and keep warm.

In a medium saucepan, saute the sausage and onion in some olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and break apart the sausage while it cooks. When the onion is soft and the sausage is cooked, stir in the rice and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add the wine and cook, while stirring, until it has been absorbed.

Add 2 cups of the hot tomato mixture and simmer the rice over medium-low heat while stirring until it is almost completely absorbed. Continue by adding 1 cup of the hot tomato mix at a time, stirring until it is absorbed. Continue until the rice is cooked, tender and creamy. Not all of the tomato mixture may be needed.

Remove from heat and stir in the spinach, cheese, and butter. Season with salt and pepper and serve with additional Parmesan cheese on top.

We steamed some broccoli florets and served them over the risotto in a bowl.

Green Salad with Grilled Chicken & Caesar Dressing

This weekend, Mike and I volunteered with our friends Jeremy and Kendra at a camp in rural New York. We spent Saturday wandering the campus, picking up remnants of an epic shaving cream battle and harnessing teenagers into a giant three-person swing that drops passengers from 60 feet in the air. As lovely as it was to escape the city, we were both ready to come home and eat something green and not-fried.

Enter Mike's last-minute salad suggestion. We ran to Trader Joe's, grabbed a bag of mixed greens and some grilled chicken for protein, then came home and quickly assembled what we deemed to be a mighty successful, mostly-healthful meal. Definitely going on our list of recipes to tweak and repeat.

Green Salad with Grilled Chicken & Caesar Dressing
(Caesar Dressing adapted from Epicurious recipe)

Salad Ingredients

1 bag of mixed greens
2 carrots, diced
1/4 cup walnut pieces
2ish tablespoons herbed goat cheese
2 chicken breasts

Caesar Dressing Ingredients

7 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
5 anchovies, roughly chopped
3/4 cup TJ's reduced fat mayonnaise
1/2 cup reduced fat buttermilk
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Preheat a cast-iron grill pan on medium heat (if you have an actual grill, by all means use it instead). Spray it quickly with olive oil spray to lubricate. Quickly salt and pepper the chicken breasts and then place them on the grill pan. Cover with a large sauce pan lid. Grill breasts for 7-8 minutes on each side, or until juices run clear. Remove from heat, let the chicken rest for 4-5 minutes and dice into bite-sized pieces.

While the chicken is on the grill, finely chop the garlic and anchovies in a food processor. Add the mayonnaise, buttermilk, parmesan, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce. Blend in the food processor until smooth. Season with black pepper to taste. Cook's note: This will make plenty of leftovers.

In a large bowl, combine greens, carrots and about 1/2 of the dressing (or enough to coat the greens). Serve salad with walnut pieces, diced chicken and goat cheese. Salt and pepper to taste.

Quick Curry Shrimp with Couscous & Green Beans

We originally planned to make a baked fish with curry marinade, but unfortunately Trader Joe's was plum out of frozen fish. So we got frozen shrimp instead!

This was a pretty good meal. Not one of our best, but definitely a recipe to revisit when we're in a pinch and need a quick dinner. The leftovers were also better than the freshly prepared version, surprisingly.

On the side, we served steamed green beans with a touch of olive oil, salt and pepper, along with couscous seasoned with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper (to taste).

Curry Shrimp

1 package frozen shrimp (medium-sized), thawed
1 medium onion, diced
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2ish bottle Trader Joe's red curry marinade
black pepper to taste

In a skillet over medium heat, add oil and onions. Saute for about 5 minutes, or until onion is just translucent. Add the garlic and ginger and saute for an additional 2 minutes to release and mingle the flavors. Add the red curry marinade and cook, stirring, until the marinade comes to a steady simmer. Add the shrimp and cook for 5 - 6 minutes. Add black pepper to taste. This dish definitely did not need any additional salt.

Overall, not too bad.

Chicken Roaster with Curried Lentil Soup and Spinach

It has been a while since Brit and I made our favorite soup, the curried lentil soup, so we eagerly put it on our meal calendar and planned to serve it along side Brit's incredible chicken roaster and some wilted spinach. My father had recently tried to make the soup himself (he feel in love with it after Brit and I had cooked it for my family in July) but found that it was too liquid. Paying closer attention to my own experience I found that the lentils cooked in about 35 minutes, but that my soup was also still quite liquid. I let the soup simmer at a slightly hotter temperature for an additional 5-10 minutes and that definitely concentrated it quite well. This soup is so good I'd recommend it to anyone. It could even be made vegan and pareve by substituting the butter for margarine.

Dan Dan Noodles

Brit and I have recently made a Dan Dan Noodle dish not just once, but twice in the past month. The recipe comes from a reader of Bon Appetit requesting their favorite Sichuan dish from a restaurant in Georgia, and the dish sure does deliver. Brit and I worked to improve the dish by doubling the sauce quantity, adding some garlic, and also some vegetables to give the dish color and round it out as a nicer meal. Well, tonight I perfected it.

It. Was. Incredible. 

I'm re-printing the ingredients and directions below so that I have the adapted recipe, in its entirety, in one location for easy reproducibility.

Dan Dan Noodles

Serves 4

12 oz Udon noodles
2-3 carrots, chopped well (I used a mini food processor)
1-2 bell peppers, sliced
12 oz. ground turkey
2-3 tbsp ginger, minced
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 cups chicken stock
4 tbsp chili oil
4 tbsp red wine vinegar
4 tbsp soy sauce
8 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp roasted peanuts, chopped
4 tbsp scallions, sliced thin

Cook udon noodles according to package directions. Drain, rinse with cold water, and set aside.

In a skillet with some olive oil, saute carrots and bell peppers over medium heat until soft. Season with some salt and pepper while they're cooking. When ready, transfer to a clean bowl.

Add some more olive oil to the same skillet used for the veggies and begin cooking the ground turkey. Season with salt and pepper and cook over medium heat, breaking apart, until about halfway cooked. Stir in the garlic and ginger and continue cooking all the way through.

Add back the veggies to the cooked turkey and stir in the stock, chili oil, red wine vinegar, soy sauce, tahini, and some extra ground black pepper. Stir well and simmer over low heat until the sauce thickens. Be patient as this will take up to 10 minutes, but it's totally worth it.

After the sauce is deemed thick enough, spoon the mixture over the udon noodles in individual bowls. Garnish with the peanuts and scallions and eat! OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!!!!!

The chili oil gives the sauce a nice, but fairly subtle heat. You can add some sriracha if you want to spice it up a bit more.

Quinoa with Cheese

This recipe is a real winner. Mike found it on Simply Recipes, and boy is it hard for me to turn down any recipe where cheese is the main event. We did have to make a couple of minor changes, though, since queso fresco was nowhere to be found (well, not within walking distance of our house, anyway).

Quinoa con Queso
(slightly adapted from the Simply Recipes version)

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
1 cup chopped onions
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 large fresh tomato, chopped (about 1 1/4 cups)
1 roasted, peeled, seeded, and chopped large green chile, either Anaheim or Poblano
2 teaspoons tomato paste
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2ish teaspoon of dried oregano
1/4 pound (4 ounces) Fontina cheese, cut into small cubes
1 cup milk
Fresh basil, cilantro, or chives for garnish (optional)

Put 1 cup quinoa and 2 cups of water into a medium sized pot and bring to a boil. Reduce to a low simmer, cover and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes.

While the quinoa is cooking, prepare the sauce. Heat olive oil and butter in a medium skillet on medium heat. Add the onions and cook for a couple minutes. Add the garlic, cook for a minute more. Add the chopped tomato, about 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt, dried oregano, and tomato paste. Add chopped green chiles. Sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper. Stir until well combined. Let cook until the tomatoes have cooked through and the sauce has cooked down a bit. Then stir in the cheese. Taste and add more salt or pepper if needed.

Stir 1 cup of milk into the now cooked quinoa. Serve the quinoa in bowls and top with sauce. Garnish with chopped basil, parsley, cilantro, or chives. (We chose cilantro.)

I think next time we'll add a meat (maybe a sauteed chicken sausage?), but this was a very filling, tasty dish.

Pasta with Cauliflower, Sausage, and Mozzarrela

Tonight's meal is a recipe that we made a long time ago and had been forgotten about. While flipping through our recipe book, we were quickly reminded how good it was and quickly decided to make it again. The original recipe is from The Kitchn food blog and calls for using a sweet Italian sausage. We substitute chicken sausage that we get from Trader Joes, but that's the only modification that we make to the recipe. There is one other modification that I make and that's to the title of the recipe. Originally, the mozzarella is not included in the title, but the breadcrumbs are showcased instead. This makes no sense to me. Gooey delicious mozzarella is a much better sell than toasted breadcrumbs. Either way, it's delicious.

Pasta with Cauliflower, Sausage, and Mozzarrela
(Adapted from a recipe on The Kitchn food blog)

Serves 6

Olive oil
1 large shallot, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
12 oz chicken sausage, cut in half and then sliced (I used the spicy jalapeno from Trader Joes)
1 head cauliflower, cut into small, bited-sized pieces
28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 lb. penne rigate pasta (the type of pasta that can be used is really at your discretion)
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 lb mozzarella, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

Heat some olive oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Toss in the shallots, season with salt and pepper, and saute until soft. Add in the garlic, cook for another 1-2 minutes, and then throw in the sausage pieces. Continue to cook until the sausage is beginning to brown.

Once the sausage is ready, add in the cauliflower florets. Season with some more salt and pepper and add a little bit more oil to help it all cook. Stir occassionally, but let the cauliflower cook so that it is beginning to brown.

Once the cauliflower is beginning to brown, pour in the can of diced tomatoes and raise the heat on the dish. Scrape up all the good stuff on the bottom of the skillet, bring the dish to a simmer, put the lid on, lower the heat, and simmer for about 10 minutes until the cauliflower is cooked through.

While the cauliflower is cooking, boil the pasta. Also spread the breadcrumbs on a baking sheet and toast under the broiler until browned. Once the pasta is ready, drain the pasta, return it to its original pot, carefully add the cauliflower mix into the pot and mix well. Add in the cubes of mozzarella and mix until gooey. Garnish with the breadcrumbs and enjoy!