Food Post #205: Who Made These Rules Anyway

There's rules everywhere. All. The. Time. I have learned to make peace with most (unspoken) rules.... can't do much, that's how it is. But of late, I am having trouble understanding social rules. I have to be politically correct all the time, else someone might get offended. I have to watch what kind of jokes I cut around people, else someone might get offended. Even if something is bothering me, I have to fake it, and just shut up, because my saying anything, might result in someone getting offended. Even if someone offends me (I too have an ego, you see!), I have to just suck it up, else I might offend the offender. The only person I can really be me is with myself.

They have cooking rules too. And there's pasta rules as well. Yes, "pasta rules." Cook it al dente. Cook it in salt water. Do not use oil in that salt water when you cook that pasta. If it's pasta with fish, do not use cheese. Every pasta is to be cooked differently according to its shape. One time a friend commented- you put peas in your pasta?? He seemed to be appalled. I mean, what's wrong with putting peas in pasta? Heck, what's wrong with putting cheese on fish? I'll put peas, fish, and cheese in my pasta, for all I care! Cooking the pasta al dente seems like a reasonable tip; I say tip, not rule. But other than that, it's up to the cook, in this case- me, to use whatever ingredients I want in my pasta. I'll follow pasta rules if and only if a *true Italian cook* tells me that these are indeed the rules to cooking perfect pasta. Then again, maybe I won't! The only person that rules in my kitchen, is me!  

My No Rule Pasta with Mushrooms, Artichokes, Pimento Stuffed Olives, Corn, Capers, Crushed Hot Chili Garlic Sauce, and Torn Basil, topped off with Grated Parmesan 

Pasta a la Appi

Quick Recipe 2: Shrimp, Basil, Tomato Fettuccine

For this week's quick fix, here's a lovely fettuccine with shrimp recipe that uses very few ingredients, and is ready in under 15 minutes. Yeah!

Ingredients: 

Fettuccine of your choice- 1 packet

Shrimp- 7-8 (or more!) shrimp per person 

Garlic, the more, the better- smashed and almost minced

Basil- a good handful

Tomato- 1 chopped

Cooking oil- 2-3 tsp

Italian seasoning- a pinch (for extra flavor)

Salt to taste

Method: 

1. Follow the instructions on the fettuccine packet and cook. It usually takes 3 minutes. Then drain off water. I like to rinse the cooked fettuccine under cold running water to stop it from cooking any further (you want it al dente).

2. In a pan with 2-3 tsp of oil, get the heat going. Add a pinch of Italian seasoning, followed by smashed, minced garlic. Quickly stir a little bit and add the shrimp. Within no time the shrimp will turn pink, which means it is cooked. Turn the heat down, throw in the chopped tomato.

3. Then fold in the cooked fettuccine into the pan. Tear up some fresh basil leaves into this. Add salt to taste. Mix it all up.

Zing it up with some lemon juice and freshly ground pepper and enjoy!  

Yummy!

Fun Fact: I noticed a recipe on the back of the empty fettuccine packet that I was about to discard into the trash can. So I thought I'd check it out. It turned out to be the exact same recipe! And here I was, thinking how brilliantly original I was.....!! 

Squid Ink Pasta

We made our very last trip to Spokane last weekend (insert as many sad face emojees as possible). My brother and sister in law are moving out of WA state, all the way to WI, of all places! *shake head* My brother moved to eastern WA 8 years ago- and ever since, we have visited each other umpteen times. Our visits involved food, of course, but more importantly, unending bouts of laughter, and togetherness. I will miss him like HECK (insert as many teary face emojees as possible)! Then he got married 3 years ago- and luckily, we hit it off- my sister in law, and I. And we continued visiting each other umpteen times. I will miss them like HECK (and now insert those very sad face emojees, and a couple mad face emojees as well)!

With moving comes packing, and with packing, there's a lot of discarding that happens. And often times, a lot of food is thrown away..... from the refrigerator, from the pantry, from kitchen cabinets, from the oven that you used for storage, etc. Yes, even from those bedside table drawers where you stash away a few midnight snacks! Well, since I was there over the weekend, my dear bro and sis in law figured why not give some of that food to someone who would actually use it. And lucky me, got to bring back quite a few things, including some interesting stuff, that I would otherwise have never even thought of buying. One such interesting item was Squid Ink Farfalle.

Squid Ink Farfalle

My first thought was, uggh, not sure if this is going to be good. However, I went ahead, and the result was pretty darn good! Of course, I first looked it up online- and from what I read, the best recipes for squid ink pasta incorporate some sort of sea food, so that the flavors complement each other.

I cooked the pasta for 5 minutes (the instructions said 3-4 minutes). That pasta water turned dark- obviously the squid ink had something to do with it!

Squid Ink pasta, al dente

Ingredients: 

1. Cooked Squid Ink Pasta (this was farfalle)

2. Some garlic powder (crushed garlic would work well too)

3. Some Italian seasoning (you know, oregano, thyme, basil, pepper etc)

4. Some veggies of your choice. I used colorful sweet bell peppers, and green olives.

5. Seafood of your choice- I used tuna for this one. You could most certainly use calamari, that happens to be squid, actually- that'd make it even better.

6. Salt per taste

7. Some oil to sauté

8. Lemon juice

Method:

There isn't a big procedure here, really. I mean, you've made pasta before.....

1. Sauté the sea food, the veggies, throw in the cooked squid ink pasta. Stir it all up.

2. Don't forget the garlic powder/crushed garlic, italian seasoning, and salt per taste.

3. I like to zing it up with freshly squeezed lemon juice right in the end. Done!

Squid Ink Farfalle- YUM! 

The squid ink pasta tasted pretty good. Simple, and elegant. And it wasn't "squiddy" at all. The kids loved it, until after they had finished eating, when I informed them that it was squid ink pasta! *Clever Mom* ;)

So there- getting some squid ink pasta from my bro and sis in law was nice- though them moving away, to the land of moos (get it?), and cheese is certainly not nice! *smirk* But well, the positive thing is that we can make longer road trips every summer, and they can do the same every winter- perfect! That long desire of going RVing might come true after all!

Ode to Pasta

My latest hobby is to go on the web and find out what day it is. By day, I don't mean what day of the week, but for instance, you know how we have Mother's Day in May, Father's Day in June, so on and so forth....... that kind of day. And I am surprised that there is in fact a day, for every day of the entire year! Well, at least they have come up with a day for every day of the year! Yes, that was a redundant statement...........

And so apparently, today, October 17th, is National Pasta Day! We had pasta just the other day. My daughter whipped up her special pesto pasta, using sea shell pasta. She incorporated peas, corn, carrots, red swiss chard, leeks and a ton of garlic. It was par excellent!

My daughter's delicious Pesto Sea Shell Pasta

Not sure I want to make pasta again tonight, but I thought it would be fun to put up some of my pasta pictures from the past........ sort of like an ode to pasta!

My "Devious" Penne Pasta

Chicken Soup with Farfalle

My One-Pot Pesto Pasta

My rather tasteless Shrimp Scampi made with angel hair pasta

My creamy delicious Orzitto

So there, that's my little ode to pasta. (Yes, I do notice that I tend to make more of pesto/green pasta that the red sauce based kind!) Pasta is versatile, and you can never have enough of it! If you haven't already had pasta this week, go ahead and make some awesome pasta tonight. It is afterall National Pasta Day! Oh, don't forget to wear some gaudy clothes while cooking, because, it also happens to be "Wear Something Gaudy Day!" Are you going, "Geez!" yet?! ;)

Spicy Tomato Asparagus Noodles

Last evening, our neighbor brought us some tomatoes from her garden. They looked beautiful, and after thanking her like a dozen times, and shutting the door, my immediate thought was ooh, gotta make some spicy tomato noodles!

The tomatoes, freshly picked from my neighbor's very own vegetable garden, were nice, and red, and firm, and simply gorgeous. Oh, and a 100% organic of course!

Gorgeous organic tomatoes, fresh from my neighbor's garden!

Prepping:

1. I first chopped up the tomatoes. Also minced some garlic. You can make it as garlicky (if that's a word!) as you want. And I roughly chopped some beautiful tender asparagus.



Delicious Tomatoes

Psst: While chopping the tomatoes, I ate up one raw tomato- it was the best tasting tomato I've ever eaten! Sweet like heck, with just a mild hint of tang in the background. My son tried some, and he couldn't stop either! In fact, I felt bad to cook those gorgeous beauties. They definitely don't deserve to be cooked, I thought. And so, I decided that instead of really cooking them, I'll just throw them in at the end.

Tender Asparagus

2. I cooked some regular chowmein style noodes from a packet. I thought I ought to take a picture of the instructions on the packet. OK, not trying to be mean or anything--- but, it was quite funny. Very straightforward, but funny!

Very straightforward instructions (disregard the spellings.....!)

Cooking:

1. A wok would have been nice, but since my wok is not all that great (I got it for free from one of those online orders I made one time), I just used a big pan. Put some cooking oil, got the stove running, and then threw in the garlic. I didn't want to brown the garlic, just sort of get the oil infused with the flavor. I then added about 1/2 teaspoon of red chilli powder for some kick.

Garlic and red chilli powder in oil

2. Then in went the asparagus, that was quickly stir-fried for about a minute or so, you know, to retain the beautiful green color as well as the crunch.

Asparagus

3. I added some salt to taste, and also some freshly ground black pepper. And then threw in the noodles that I had previously cooked. Normally I would have added the tomatoes along with the asparagus, but remember, I didn't want to kill those lovely tomatoes by cooking them. Therefore, I added the tomatoes right at the end. And gave it all one good stir, to get the flavors rolling.

Spicy Tomato Asparagus Noodles

My spicy tomato asparagus noodles turned out pretty darn good. Well, it wasn't all that spicy like I intended it to be. Guess I should have added a good couple teaspoons of red chilli powder. But then, I can go overboard with the spice, sometimes!

The best thing was that I finally, after all these years, successfully ate my noodles with chopsticks! Two thumbs up for that!



Mm mm!

I have bad days too!

One might think that wow! this gal sure cooks some real good stuff. Most times I do, but guess what? I have bad days too! Take for instance the Shrimp Scampi I made the other night. I had all the right ingredients. Most importantly, I was in the right spirit too- totally in the mood.

I marinated some tail-on shrimp in lemon juice, salt, pepper, garlic and italian seasoning. Put it away in the fridge for about 30 minutes. Took my devoted pot and sauteed the shrimp in some olive oil and some extra garlic. Cooked some angel hair pasta and threw it into the sauteed shrimp. Tossed everything together. Finally added some salt, freshly ground pepper and a splash of lemon juice. Also added a chopped tomato for color. Looked pretty darn good, I must say. I mean, look at the picture:

 Lookin' Good! But does it taste good?

We served some of that awesome looking shrimp scampi into our respective bowls and as soon as we tasted it, all our spirits were dampened. It had no flavor whatsoever! Sure it had a hint of lemon and garlic, but that's about it! What a disaster! We quietly ate and nobody went for seconds.........yep, you can imagine how bad it must have really been.

I mean, how hard is it really to make shrimp scampi? I have no clue as to why it turned out so bad. One friend suggested adding butter to it...........hmm, perhaps the next time around, I will try butter instead of olive oil. Another friend suggested adding some wine to it.........again, perhaps the next time. My daughter suggested I just make some alfredo on the side and then it will all be tasty. Sure makes sense. But again, why did my shrimp scampi taste like nothing????

They say you eat with your eyes........but you know what, looks can be deceptive. And I proved that to myself with my tasteless shrimp scampi!!

Orzitto

The other night we watched Andrew in Venice where he eats this awesome looking sea-food risotto. You know, Andrew from Travel Channel's Bizarre Foods........ he visits different places all over the world and eats pretty much anything and everything. So anyway, in the last episode, he was in Venice eating all kinds of sea-food and this yummy-looking and oh-so-creamy sea-food risotto. Ever since the kids and I watched that, we have been craving for the exact same risotto! Sadly there's no Venice for us right now and so well, I decided to just make some at home myself.

Now they use a very specific kind of rice to make risotto. Well, I just thought I'll use orzo- I mean I know it is pasta, but it does resemble the short-grained semi-round rice and cooks fast. OK, so it is not really risotto then. No probs- I shall call it Orzitto! I couldn't go get all that amazing sea-food and so stuck to good old tilapia.

Ingreds:

A packet of orzo, onion roughly chopped, sliced mushrooms, garlic, 1 tomato, bite sized pieces of tilapia, frozen green peas, oil, salt, pepper, italian seasoning, veggie stock cube(s), hot water.

Last moment Addition:

Whipping cream (for the creamy factor).

Method:

1. I took my favorite cooking pot and poured in a few teaspoons of cooking oil, got the heat going and threw in some chopped onion, garlic. Sauteed it a bit and then threw in some sliced mushrooms and a chopped tomato.
2. Added a couple veggie stock cubes, salt, italian seasoning and some freshly ground pepper. I then poured in that packet of orzo, stirred it all and then added hot boiling water to completely immerse the orzo. Since the water was hot anyway, didn't take long for it to come to a boil. At that point I covered the pot with the lid and turned down the stove to a minimum.
3. After about 10 minutes, I opened the lid and all that orzo had cooked up and all the water was gone. I poured in some more hot water into it and stirred it.
4. And then finally I folded in the tilapia and the frozen peas and a dash of whipping cream. Covered the lid, turned off the stove and meanwhile set the table. The fish cooked up perfectly in that heat and of course, the frozen peas too.

Mmm, that creamy delicious tilapia orzitto!

The final consistency of my orzitto was perfecto. Nice and creamy (yep, the whipping cream sure helped!) and flavorful. I did make a mental note though that this preparation is best when served immediately, else orzo tends to get separated and then the risotto consistency no longer prevails. That's right- risotto ought to be made with proper short grained rice. Hey, I will make sure to keep some Arborio for the next time around.

The good thing is that the leftover orzitto is now really orzo and still delicious. Hmm, sorta like killing two birds with one stone!

1-Pot Pesto Pasta

I love to cook dishes that require least amount of effort, time and utensils. The fewer the number of utensils I have to use, the better. I therefore love to cook these 1-pot wonders that well, as the name suggests, utilize just 1 pot and of course, a ladle to stir up everything.

Now usually I cook pasta by first boiling water, cooking the pasta until al dente and then in a separate pot, throwing in some veggies/meat, seasoning etc and then draining the cooked pasta and then finally incorporating that into the sauteed veggies/meat. It does take some time and effort to do all that. Not to forget, I have extra utensils in my sink. So sometimes, when I am on a time-crunch, I just cook everything together in 1 pot and it turns out pretty darn good. This is how I make my 1-pot pesto pasta:

• I take a pot, add some oil, followed by some Italian seasoning and then throw in some mushrooms. 
• Quickly sautee and then add a packet of pasta. 
• I then add water just enough to cover the pasta. Yes, they do say that pasta must be cooked in "sea-water," meaning a lot of salty water..........but remember, this is my 1-pot pasta wonder. 
• I then add some salt and pepper and then once it comes to a boil, I cover the pot and reduce the heat. 
• I stir it intermittently to prevent the pasta from sticking to the bottom of the pot. 
• Towards the end, I add some broccoli and frozen peas followed by a couple tablespoons of pesto. 
• Give it all one last stir and ta-da! my 1-pot pesto pasta is ready! 

 My 1-Pot Pesto Pasta

I made this for dinner on Saturday. Before serving, I added some chopped cucumber on top. It added a lovely cool, fresh crunch to the warm and delicious pasta.

The best part was that I had only 1 pot to wash!

Devious Penne!

In my family, I am the only one who can eat any kind of vegetable and I feel happy when I see different colors in my food. Vegetables are so colorful, right? You have the greens, the reds, the yellows, the oranges, the purples- the variety is just huge. In addition, I simply love to incorporate nice bite size chunks of veggies, not too overdone, nice and crunchy........yeah, you get the idea! The other three here, however, are not too crazy about all the variety out there--- they are fine with the basics- you know, the potatoes, tomatoes, onions, peas and carrots, perhaps cauliflower and maybe spinach.......but that's it. I mean, they don't even like red bell pepper!

And so I came up with this devious trick in order to get them to eat red bell pepper. I made an excellent pesto using red bell pepper and other ingredients and poured it over some penne pasta mixed with some sauteed yellow squash. It turned out beautiful.

The Ingredients:

1 Red Bell Pepper (cleverly sneaked in by yours truly), a couple green onions, a little bit of fresh basil, a little bit of fresh cilantro, 1 jalapeno, 1 juicy tomato, a couple cloves of garlic, a small handful of almonds, lemon juice, salt to taste and some black pepper.

Can you pick out the red bell pepper from the tomato? ;)

The Pesto:

OK, this is no rocket science at all. I put all those above mentioned ingredients into the food processor and converted them into one rocking pesto. I had to add a little extra water to get it into a pourable state, else it was too thick. I tasted it- it was perfect with all the right flavors, sans the unnecessary oil (pesto, as you know, typically contains a good amount of olive oil.........).

My Rocking Pesto!

Meanwhile:

I cooked the penne pasta and while that was going, I cut up one nice yellow squash into bite size cubes and quickly sauteed it with some italian seasoning. The squash cooked up in no time at all!

Then:

I threw in the cooked penne onto the sauteed squash and then folded in that beautiful pesto. Drizzled a wee bit of olive oil* and it was ready to be eaten by the unsuspecting folk.

The Devious Penne! 

My devious trick actually worked! All three of them LOVED it. And I was once again, pleased with myself and my clever little trick.

*I learned from this guy on TV that olive oil is supposed to be a cold oil if you want all its benefits. Heating it up destroys its good properties. Ever since I have stopped using olive oil to actually cook food (I remember using olive oil to fry stuff!)--- I just drizzle it right at the end if needed.

Uh-Oh Pasta!

Yesterday was one heck of a busy day. The highlight being----I spent about 3 hours upstairs cleaning my wonderful (please note- WONDERFUL) kids' bathroom (including the toilet) as well as their rooms as well as the dad's *WONDERFUL* "office." So yeah, back-breaking work, literally. At least my daughter helped me towards the end by helping me shred some ancient stack of paper that the dad had saved for I-don't-know-what-or-why-or-how many eons........finally even the shredder gave up! Really! It just refused to shred any more paper! Just got over-heated and went kaput!

So yeah, as expected, things got all delayed and dinner time was fast approaching and I had not even thought of what I was going to cook. Of course, my brilliant mind said to me, "PASTA!" Fastest thing to make on a crazy weeknight, right?

The basics: Pasta, of course (I used the egg noodles kind), onions, garlic, Italian seasoning, olive oil, salt.

I threw in: Ground Turkey, Cilantro, spinach (I had some leftover spinach that needed to be utilized else it'd have gone rotten!), green onion (mm hmm!), 1 tomato, a handful of almonds, red crushed pepper, lemon juice.

First: I roughly chopped up a medium size onion and a couple cloves of garlic and quickly sauteed it in a pan. Threw in the ground turkey, seasoned it with salt & the Italian seasoning plus some red crushed pepper. Cooked the turkey- took like 5-7 minutes straight! No kidding!

Meanwhile: I had a pot of water come to a boil, nicely salted it and put in the pasta to cook. Everybody knows how to cook pasta, right? I still check the package instructions for the cooking time.........some types call for 6 mins, some 7 while some others suggest cooking for 12 mins....... this one called for 6 mins. Also had a handful of almonds run in the m-wave for about a minute and a half to toast them. Believe me, that m-waving brought out the oils in the almonds and of course, smelled awesome!

Then: I put the cooked pasta into the pan with the cooked turkey. Mixed it up gently.

Finally: Took those toasted almonds, a little bit of fresh cilantro, that leftover handful of spinach, a couple green onions, 1 nice juicy tomato in the food processor. Added salt and some red crushed pepper. And then some lemon juice. Gave it a quick round in the processor--- not too fine, just short of being completely fine. Folded this into that pasta+turkey. In the end, sprinkled some freshly ground black pepper.

The Husband's Reaction on the phone: "Uh-Oh, wonder what you came up with........."


The Husband's Reaction after eating a fork-full of that "Uh-Oh" Creation: Oh man! This is EXCELLENT! (and he went for seconds and thirds!)


The Kids: The standard, "This is yummy, mommy!"


The Creator- Yours Truly: Thoroughly pleased with self.

Pasta with that yummy goodness...........

The Uh-Oh Pasta!

Note to Self: IF I make this pasta again, I should add some red color to it...........perhaps just add a few cherry tomatoes to make it look attractive...........looks do matter when it comes to food!

Beautiful Butterflies

Another Tuesday and an action-packed day for yours sincerely. Yet again, had to whip up something quick, easy and tasty. PASTA! One of the easiest things to cook and really versatile.
I mean, first of all there's a whole variety of pasta out there with different shapes---spaghetti, penne, rigatoni, macaroni, farfalle, linguine, manicotti, ziti, conchiglie etc etc..........it will take me a long time to sit and type out all the gazillion types of pasta available. Then there are those stuffed pastas, the most popular one being ravioli. Heck, isn't rice pasta too?

So anyway, today I decided to cook some farfalle (butterflies in Italian), the bow-tie pasta, with sausage, artichokes, olives and tomatoes. I had some yummy chicken jalapeno sausage that my husband had got from Trader Joe's (LOVE that place!) the other day. So took out the pack from the refrigerator, sliced up the sausage into discs. Took out a packet of frozen artichoke hearts, got a few arti-hearts out and ran them under warm water to thaw. Opened up a can of sliced olives. Chopped up a beef-steak tomato.

While I was prepping all this up, I had a pot of water on the stove come to a boil to cook up the farfalle. Everybody knows how to cook pasta! While that was cooking, I had another pot on the stove that I drizzled some EVOO into. Followed by some Italian seasoning. Then threw in the cut up sausage. Sauteed it until nice and plump and caramelized. Took about 3 minutes. Then put the thawed out artichoke hearts, stirred it all up. Then finally added the chopped up tomato. Seasoned with some salt and pepper. Covered the pot and simmered, just to get the flavors rolling. The farfalle was cooked and ready to be combined with the sausage+artichoke+tomato. Once that was done, added the sliced olives and gave it one last stir. Done!

Instead of the usual fresh basil in the end, I thought how about some fresh mint?! So tore up some fresh mint leaves and added to the pasta. That mint, I tell you, took the already delicious pasta to a whole new level of flavorful delight! Wish you could taste it!

Farfalle jazzed up with mint--- extra-delicious!

My kids love a little bit of shredded mozarella and parmigiano on top of their pasta. The hot pasta melts the cheese and it is a gooey-delight!

Note to Self: Next time, try adding some whipping cream and smashed up cilantro and green chillies. Bet it will be tasty!

Next time you decide to make some pasta, don't just dredge it with boring old marinara or alfredo. Use something new, something more fun and exciting. Treat that pasta with love and give it a new twist. Buon appetito!