Weird Tasty Pasta Dish (and Formatting!)

I know Brussels Sprouts aren’t everyone’s thing, but I like them. I especially like them roasted. So it made sense as I was attempting to figure out how to fulfill my craving to turn them into a pasta dish- another one of those things I like so much I forget that not everyone is willing to eat it three or four nights a week.

Pasta with Brussels Sprouts:

• 1 16oz bag frozen Brussels Sprouts (yes, I buy frozen veggies. You know what I like about frozen veggies? They don’t go bad in my fridge if I forget about them for a couple weeks. Is the flavor and texture exactly the same? No. But most of the time it’s still damned tasty)
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic (I pre-mince my garlic and store that frozen as well)
• 1 Tablespoon butter (I used unsalted, because that’s what I keep around for baking)
• 1 generous pinch rosemary
• 1 scant shake thyme
• 1 handful breadcrumbs
• Enough oil to liberally coat the bottom of my cast iron skillet
• Two people’s worth of spaghetti (because that’s what I have on-hand. Linguini would be better. I think bow-tie pasta would be perfect*)
• Salt and pepper

I always feel weird writing how I do this, because it’s so utterly winging it. I wasn’t sure I was making a pasta dish when I started, or what was going to go into it. But I started by cutting the frozen Sprouts into pieces. I halved all of them, and cut the biggest ones into fourths. Even the itty bitty ones. The reason is that then all the inside leaves get all coated in oil and crisped, too. By making them all roughly I knew they’d cook in roughly the same amount of time.

While I was doing that, the butter went into the cast iron on a hot stove. I left it there to sizzle and pop until it stopped, so that it would clarify and not smoke when I roasted the Brussels Sprouts in the oven (did I mention I turned the oven to 400 degrees?). Once it was ready, I added oil to the pan to generously coat the bottom, gave it a minute to heat up, and dumped the Brussels Sprouts in. Salted and peppered, added garlic, rosemary, and thyme, and put it in the oven.

Once that was in, I started a large pot of water, heavily salted it, and turned the heat to high. The pasta would go in once the water reached boiling. I aimed for just tender. Different pastas take different amounts of time, so

Every ten minutes or so, I checked on the Brussels Sprouts stirring them with a big metal spoon to ensure even browning. It took about half an hour.

With both cooked, I took the cast iron skillet with the Brussels sprouts out of the oven and tossed in the handful of breadcrumbs. I gave it a stir, then dumped the pasta in and poured a smidge of olive oil on it. Gave another toss, then divided between two bowls.

I grated parmesan over each bowl. There are schools of thought that not all pasta dishes should be doused in cheese. I don’t ascribe to them. I firmly believe in the power of cheese to strengthen just about any dish. I have yet to hear complaints from anyone eating my food ;)

Ways to improve this dish:

1. Nuts- I would add them about 2/3 of the way through the roasting process, so they don’t burn. I’d imagine just about anything chopped up would do (chop whole nuts in the food processor, by hand takes forever and is messy)
2. Bacon or Prosciutto- both pork products, so left out of the equation with my pescetarian boyfriend. I’d say, skip the butter and cook the meat on the stovetop first, then remove but don’t drain the pan. Chop and sprinkle back in with the breadcrumbs at the end. You could chop it before cooking and cook in the oven, but the pork sticks something fierce.
3. A cheese sauce- Not sure how I’d do this. Probably make it on the stovetop while the Brussels Sprouts cooked, then poured it over everything at the end. Would be lots of work, though.

Tonight: black bean soup and fried polenta! (the things I made when I'm not willing to go out in the cold to the store)


* While all semolina pasta may taste the same, different shapes have different textures and food-complimenting properties. Thin noodles are good for light sauces, seafood, and small pieces of stuff. Thicker noodles are good for thicker sauces. Shapes are useful for gripping things, and for pasta with lots of big, oddly sized stuff in it. Ziti with grooves is actually the ideal for red meat sauce, regardless of tradition. Bow-tie I think would work for this because you can pierce it with a fork easily and get a good pasta to Brussels sprouts ratio.

A bunch of friends and I just spent the weekend at Tea's family's beach house. Technically, the season is over, but we had a birthday that needed celebrating, and we got incredibly lucky with the weather on Sunday (sunny and warm when it was supposed to be cold and rainy). Being me, and liking to feed people (and looking forward to any opportunity to play with fire) I made a bunch of different types of burgers we could grill. Some of them came out better than others (the crab burgers, for example. Though tasty, they fell to pieces when you looked at them. Luckily, I cooked them in a pan).

The one that blew everyone's mind, though, were the veggie burgers. I admit, I stole this recipe from someplace else, and then altered it just a little bit. I couldn't help it, the original were so bland, all the flavor was in the specialty condiments. I'm not a fan of specialty condiments. I don't like to be fussy with my food, and nothing seems more nitpicky than "this sauce goes with this, and that little jar is only for that dish." Build a meal that uses the same flavor palate, so I can just grate Parmesan cheese over everything, or ask for the ketchup once and squirt it both on my sandwich and a corner of my plate for dipping fries, or what have you. Long story short: I moved the spices from the condiments to the burgers. They are made thusly:

Drain and rinse a can of black beans and a can of kidney beans (15 oz cans of each). Add 1/3 cup of corn (canned, frozen, fresh, whatever), 1/3 cup of breadcrumbs, 1/3 to one half a small onion (the recipe says 1/4 cup. I might use more), 1 large egg, 1/2 teaspoon chile powder, and 1/2 teaspoon cumin. A couple or four generous twists of black pepper (or shakes, but I have a pepper grinder thing, so this is how I measure pepper), and just a tiny pinch of salt. Now, mash with a fork.

I suppose you could mash it in the food processor, but what I've discovered is that you want something coarser than that gives me. So I use a fork, and my aim is to at least puncture every bean in the bowl. You don't want to smash them to oblivion, because then it's too moist. but if you have two whole beans next to each other, they fall off the burger patty. So every skin broken, but not mashed to death is my goal.

Edit 1/24/2010: I used a potato masher tonight, and that gave me the same final texture as a fork with less than half the effort.

Form them into patties (hands work well. It is messy though), wrap in tinfoil, and freeze until ready to cook and eat. I like them with cheese, mustard, and pickles, but you can put whatever you wish on them. In any case, they are crazy tasty. They don't pretend to be meat, which makes me happy, and they don't taste like you're sacrificing anything for lack of a beef burger.

In Pursuit of Perfection

There are a lot of foods I’m horribly fond of, but don’t make myself. Oddly, most of these are things that I consider the pinnacle of their food type. Cinnamon rolls, for one, or flan. Only in the past few years have I unlocked the joy of guacamole (the secret: mash the avocados with your favorite salsa. Add Tabasco to taste. Do not salt, as the chips will provide that). But my second-favorite dip is easily hummus. Which ought to be easy to make. To whit, your basic hummus recipe:

Chickpeas
Tahini (sesame paste)
Garlic
Olive oil
Juice of a lemon
Cumin
Salt and pepper

Combine in blender, at varying ratios, until paste is achieved. Spread on stuff, or scoop up with pita.

The problem is, it never comes out quite right. I’ve tried a bunch of different combos, and it never tastes as good as store-bought. It’s flat, or there’s too much tahini (why does this stuff only come in big jars?), or the raw garlic is overpowering.

In my latest attempt, I roasted my garlic in the olive oil, then used that. It was not bad, but that would be one of the “flat” experiences. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t a “don’t come near me for three days” experience of the too much raw garlic time. But it was too legumy. If that can be said of the paste of a legume. It reminded me of unsalted organic peanut butter (yuck!). I think I need at least some raw garlic. And possibly more citrus. Maybe some of the lemon zest as well as the juice? And I’m definitely missing a spice.

So this is my working theory for next time:

1 can chickpeas, drained
1 clove raw garlic
1 clove garlic roasted in ¼ cup olive oil
Juice of one lemon
¼ to ½ teaspoon of lemon zest
¼ teaspoon cumin
Salt and black pepper to mood that day

Combine in food processor, blend until paste.

But what’s the spice I’m missing???