Arroz Tapado

I found this dish in one of my regular food blogs. The idea looked really awesome and Brit seemed pretty interested. Thankfully for my amazing girlfriend, I came home late from work, but she had done almost all of the prep work for dinner. She graciously let me take over at that point to do the actual cooking so she could take a break and just enjoy the rest of the evening. Overall the dish was good and tasty, but not very impressive and didn't have much of a Wow! factor. We both felt that using ground beef, instead of ground turkey, would have added some extra moisture and flavor to the fish, but that there was still something lacking and we're not sure exactly how to improve it.

Arroz Tapado
(adapted from a Food In My Beard recipe)

Serves a lot

2 cups basmati rice, cooked and seasoned well with salt and pepper
1 lb. ground turkey
2 medium sweet potatoes, diced
28 oz. diced tomatoes
1 tbsp smoked paprika
2 tsp cumin
1 onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3 hard boiled eggs, roughly chopped
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
1/4 cup black olives, roughly chopped

Roast the sweet potatoes at 450 F in some olive oil and salt until browned and tender. Remove and set aside.
Brown the turkey in a skillet in some olive oil and then set aside. Cook the onion and pepper until soft and then add in the garlic, paprika, and cumin for a few more minutes. (Chef's note: It would probably be better to cook the veggies first and then add the meat directly to the skillet. The flavor of the veggies and meat can blend together while keeping the meat from drying out while sitting aside.)
Return the meat to the skillet along with the tomatoes, eggs, parsley, and olives. Simmer for about 15 minutes and then stir in the sweet potatoes.
To assemble this dish, take a medium-large sized bowl and spray it with non-stick spray. Fill the bottom 1/3 with rice, fill the middle 1/3 with the meat mixture, and then cover the top 1/3 with more rice. Ensure that each layer is firmly in place and invert the bowl onto a plate. Gently tap and lift up the bowl revealing a very nice looking mound of food.

Dan Dan Noodles

The Dan Dan Noodles from 1.5 weeks ago were so good that we had to try them again. As previously mentioned, we added some extra vegetables to give the dish some more color, texture, and flavor.

So, this time we chopped up some red bell pepper, green bell pepper, and carrots and sauteed them for a few minutes at the beginning. I then removed the veggies from the pan and half cooked the ground turkey before throwing in the ginger and garlic. Once the turkey was fully cooked I added back in the veggies and stirred in the ingredients for the sauce.



I only used 4-5 tbsp of tahini instead of the 8 tbsp that I had used last time. I think the full amount was necessary and I'll be sure to go overboard with the tahini next time.

Previously I had just ground extra black pepper into the dish instead of whole peppercorns. I decided to try whole peppercorns this time and I don't think it was necessary. I squirted in a bit of Sriracha hot sauce to compensate for the lack of the Sichuan peppercorns and I think this was a great addition to the dish.

Also, instead of fully simmering and reducing the sauce, we were too hungry to wait so we just mixed it right away with the pasta. I believe this was a technical mistake. Be sure to let the sauce fully simmer and don't mix with the pasta in the pot. Be sure to distribute the pasta first so that the meat and sauce can be properly spooned over the noodles and all of the flavors of the dish can be enjoyed.

Despite some of the variations ultimately leading to the dish not being as good as the first experience, this was still a delicious meal and I'm sure we'll be making it again in the future.

Linguine with Ground Turkey Meat Sauce

When returning from Oklahoma last week, our friend MLove graciously picked us up from the airport, saving us a lot of money that would have been spent taking a taxi home. To repay her, Brit and I invited her over for dinner the following week. Brit and I considered making either our seafood mix with garbanzo beans or my ground turkey meat sauce with pasta. MLove liked the idea of either and Brit and I decided to do something we hadn't eaten in a while, so pasta and sauce it was.
This dish is a recipe of mine from my childhood that Brit has fallen in love with. The original recipe was for homemade meatballs my mom would make, but I've adapted it to be a meat sauce. In reality, every time I would try to make the meatballs, I would get anxious about how cooked they were and would break open a few to see if they were done. By the time they were all cooked, the dish had devolved into just being a pasta sauce with meat chunks. I have since stopped trying to make meatballs and have evolved the dish into what it is today.

Pasta with Meat Sauce

serves 5-6

1 package pasta of your choice (we actually used a combo of linguini and thin spaghetti)
Olive oil
Salt
1 can pasta sauce (we bought a roasted garlic marinara from TJs)
1 lbs ground turkey breast
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 lemon, freshly squeezed
2-3 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Black pepper
Garlic powder
6 garlic cloves, minced
Mushroom/asparagus/red onion mix from TJs (we were going to use this in another dish, forgot to, and decided to use the veggies in the meat sauce instead)
1 bell pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
6 carrots, diced and then quartered (we bought a mix of 3 different types of carrots from the farmer's market)
1-2 tbsp diced chives
Head of broccoli, chopped small
Parmigiano-reggiano cheese

In a large pot of water, cook the pasta according to package directions. Be sure to add 1-2 tbsp olive oil and to salt the water liberally.

In a glass bowl, combine the ground turkey, bread crumbs, lemon juice, ketchup, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, ground black pepper, salt, and garlic powder. Mix by hand until everything is well incorporated and then set aside.

Saute all of the veggies except the mushrooms, garlic, and chives. Cook over medium heat until soft. Add in the mushrooms, garlic, and chives and continue to cook until the mushrooms are done. I usually try to separate my veggies like this since the pepper, carrots, and onions always need more time to soften. The mushrooms and garlic don't need as long to be done and I've found that adding garlic at the beginning causes it to burn.

Once all of the veggies are complete, add the ground turkey and break it up into small bites with a spatula as it cooks. When the meat is fully cooked, add in the pasta sauce, mix everything together well, and simmer with the lid on for at least 10 minutes. Longer cooking times would help incorporate the flavors into the sauce better, but sometimes we're just too hungry to wait.

While the sauce is simmering, boil some water to cook and steam the asparagus and broccoli. The asparagus needed more time than the , so Brit removed the cooked broccoli with tongs, strained them dry, and let the asparagus cook until they were done.

Just as the asparagus were being strained, MLove showed up and we eagerly sat down to eat. The meal was served Brit's favorite way: in a bowl with the greens on top of the sauce, which is on top of the pasta. Parmigiano-reggiano cheese was provided to garnish the dish.

I love this meal and so does Brit. It's such a delicious reminder of both of our childhoods. There are always a lot of leftovers, so it's great to eat it for a few lunches or even dinner later in the week. The types of veggies we use varies every time, but I try to at least have onion, mushrooms, garlic, carrots, bell peppers, and the steamed broccoli. Asparagus and red onion was a new one for us and I rather liked it. This is also such a healthy dish too that I love to prepare it.

Spanish Noodles

Tonight Brit and I made Spanish Noodles, a dish that I had grown up eating and was feeling nostalgic for (seems to be a trend lately). Brit had taken a look at the recipe and was curious as to what gave the dish the title; there didn't seem to be any specific flavor profile amongst the ingredients that led to the title making any sense. Coincidentally, my mom called me while I was cooking dinner and I asked her where the name came from. Here's the story:

Turns out my mom was in the girl scouts many, many, many decades ago. Back when my mom was a brownie, attending the girl scouts meant going to home ec. The brownies were given lessons in etiquette and cooking and whatever else is involved in "women's lessons." One of the dishes my mom was taught was Spanish Noodles. Back in the 1960's, international/ethnic food was not as popular. By the fact that the recipe involves cooking the pasta/meat in tomato sauce made this a Spanish dish. And that story is probably far less interesting than you were expecting!


Spanish Noodles

Serves 4

olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium bell chopper, chopped
1/2 cup (2 stalks) celery, chopped
1 lb ground turkey
2 cans (16 oz) tomato sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp wine vinegar
3 cups cooked pasta

Cook the pasta until al dente.
Heat oil in a large pan and saute the vegetables until brown. Remove the veggies to a side bowl and cook the turkey, breaking up until done. Add back the vegetables, pasta and all the remaining ingredients. We had to put everything into large pasta pot for it all to fit.
Simmer on the stove another 20 minutes (or in our case, just 10 because we were too hungry to wait). I seasoned the dish a little with salt and pepper (and because Brit looooves pepper and would have added a great deal herself later) and then put some grated taco cheese blend on top.

Yum! We both really liked the dish and enjoyed eating outside in the beautiful weather. We're going to have so few days left before it gets too humid to be outside in the Phila summer. Next time we make this dish we plan on doubling all the veggies. The dish was also similar, but not as good, as my spaghetti and meat sauce dish. We'll make this dish again, but will probably just stick to my meat sauce for the most part.