The Hunt for a Fresh Pasta Recipe

Well, it was bound to happen. The first snowfall of the season arrived yesterday and brought with it over 200 crashes in just under 3 hours. Uhg. Suddenly the decision about which new tires to buy and if they should be winter tires seems crucial. Needless to say, I did not take my skidding sedan out for a spin yesterday.

Instead, I turned my kitchen into a test kitchen. The mission? To create a fresh pasta recipe that is easy, soft, versatile, delicious, and nutritious (and doesn't use eggs).

I know that semolina flour is the best for pasta; it creates the perfect texture and flavor for pasta. While semolina flour doesn't have a horrible nutritional profile compared to say all purpose flour, I wanted to mix it up a bit.

So, what other flours have a great nutritional profile? To decide which flour(s) to use in my pasta recipe, I looked at the following flours:

• semolina 
• all purpose white flour
• brown rice flour
• garbanzo bean flour
• spelt flour
• whole wheat pastry flour
• coconut flour
• kamut flour
• quinoa flour
• whole wheat flour
• teff flour 

I compared calories, fat, protein, carbohydrates, fiber, and iron. Here's what I found!

This chart shows stuff we want less of in a flour. So, theoretically, the shortest line should be the healthiest.

As you can see, fat is negligible. Coconut has 4 grams, everything else has around 1 gram of fat. Calories range from 94 (kamut) to 140 (brown rice and semolina), but most are in the 110-120 range. Carbs also don't very too much with the least being 16 grams (coconut) and the most being 30-31 grams (brown rice and semolina).

This chart shows all the stuff we want more of in a flour. So, theoretically, the longest line should be the healthiest.

Semolina was at the top of the chart of bad stuff and in the middle of the pack for the good stuff. This makes it not terrible, but it can be improved. Therefore, I want to create a recipe that combines a couple flours together to maximize both the texture and the nutrition. Because of the snow, I was limited to what I had on hand... which included about 1/4 cup semolina flour... not much to work with. :( So, I decided to go the gluten free route and use garbanzo bean flour and brown rice flour.

So, I made 5 different fresh pasta recipes. They all used a 3:1 mixture of garbanzo bean and brown rice flour (although one reversed the ratio). I mostly played with the amount of oil, salt, xanthum gum, and potato starch in the recipe. Because I was using gluten free flours, I had to add the xanthum gum and potato starch to make it stick together.

My favorite dough was #1, but that quickly changed...

All of them were a pain to roll out, especially #5 which had mostly brown rice flour. From the moment I started rolling them, I knew that none of these would be a winner... :(

I thought that #1 would be awesome when it came to cutting into spaghetti shaped pasta, but it became pasta bits. Not what I wanted at all.

Then came the tasting. I simply tossed them in some butter, parmesan, and salt and pepper to let the noodles really shine. Unfortunately, they were just a pale glimmer.

I roped my husband into the taste testing, and we agreed on most of the ratings. The worst pasta was #1; it fell apart, wasn't chewy, and tasted gritty. Its overall rating (1 being eww! 5 being lick your plate delicious) was a 2.

Second worst was #5. It had a horrible flavor and texture. Its overall rating was 2.25.

Third worst was #2. It had the same flavor as #1, but it wasn't as dry and was chewier. Its overall rating was 3.

Recipes #3 and #4 tied with an overall rating of 3.25 (still barely edible). The texture was better for both of these recipes, but it still fell apart and was gritty.

The verdict?

More testing is definitely needed. My next round of testing will use a combination of semolina and garbanzo bean flours. 

But, don't worry. Amid all this testing, I did discover a recipe worthy of sharing with you: Tempeh Nicoise (Nees-swa) Salad.

I put off making this because it required time to marinate the tempeh. I shouldn't have. This was much easier to put together than I had anticipated. Plus, it blew me away with its deliciousness. Don't wait like I did - go out and try this! Now, before the snow comes and locks us in our homes again!

Tempeh Nicoise Salad

4 servings, 60-90 minutes (mostly inactive)

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon finely chopped yellow onion

1/2 teaspoon prepared mustard

1/4 teaspoon dried sage

1/2 teaspoon sugar

3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1 8oz package tempeh, cut into 1 inch cubes

2 cups frozen green/yellow beans, thawed

1/2 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered

1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Mixed greens

1. Mix together the vinegar, onion, mustard, sage, and sugar in a wide-bottomed bowl (good for marinating). Slowly whisk in the olive oil. Add the tempeh and stir gently so it is well covered. Let sit for 30-60 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking pan with tin foil. Scoop the tempeh out of the marinate and onto the baking pan (reserve the dressing for later). Bake for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Be sure to stir after about 5 minutes to ensure the tempeh doesn't stick to the tin foil. 
3. Meanwhile, add the green beans, tomatoes, and cilantro to the bowl with the remaining dressing. When the tempeh is done, toss that into the bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. To serve, place a bed of mixed greens onto a plate and top with the tempeh salad. Yum!

Print this recipe. Adapted from Tempeh Nicoise Salad by Whole Foods.

Caldo Verde

One of the things that surprised me last year with my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box of veggies was the plethora of deep green leafy vegetables in the late fall. Now I know that these nutritiously dense vegetables love a little bit of cold! But how to cook them?!

Kale is easy - I've only discovered one way that I love kale: kale chips. Easy and delicious. 

Other greens like mustard greens, collards, and escarole are trickier. They don't taste fantastic raw, and I'm not a big fan of just a pile of steamed greens. Soups and smoothies tend to be the next obvious choice. I did end up trying a Warm Wintergreen Salad that ended up being not bad. I would make it again with some tweaks. 

I just lightly sautéed radicchio and escarole for about 7 minutes. Then I added capers, kalamata olives, currents, and red pepper flakes. For a dressing, I drizzled the juice of one lemon and a little bit of olive oil. I finished it off with some orange zest and toasted almonds. While it was good, it was too tangy. The olives, capers and lemon juice were all too tart. The next time I will reduce the lemon juice and drizzle some honey over the entire salad. 

One new deep leafy green I got in my box recently was Portuguese Kale. It actually looks and acts more like cabbage than kale. The overwhelmingly most popular dish to make with this unique vegetable is Caldo Verde (Portuguese Kale Soup). Caldo Verde is the unofficial national dish of Portugal. It is a light soup that is served at celebrations and family gatherings. 

Basically, Caldo Verde is a wonderfully delicious potato broth with strips of green kale and sausage. I, of course, made some alterations to the traditional soup. :)

The potato broth is made by sautéing onions and garlic until soft and then adding the kale ribs and potatoes with a couple cups of vegetable broth. Once the veggies are soft, puree until super smooth and thick. Yum! This alone is delicious. I just love this technique of making a thick broth and then adding a few chunks of veggies and protein afterwards. I'm going to have to experiment with this more!

So, traditionally chorizo, or a spicy sausage, is used in the soup. Not for me. I used Field Roast Mexican Chipotle sausage, which is wheat gluten. This was my folly. I love Field Roast. But using four spicy sausage links ended up with a soup that was too spicy for my taste buds. My husband gobbled it up though! Next time, I'll use 1 spicy sausage link and 2 Italian sausage links instead. 

Check out these crazy fingerling potatoes I picked up! Not all of them had this coloring, but many did. So pretty!

Caldo Verde warms up well and I found it to be pretty hardy with the addition of the faux-sausage. You could leave out the sausage too if you'd like. Red beans would also be a good protein addition. If you can't find Portuguese kale, you can substitute cabbage or collards and still get a fantastic and nutritiously rich soup.

Caldo Verde

6 servings, 75 minutes

1/4 cup olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

1 leek, diced (or just use 1 large onion)

3 cloves garlic, sliced

1 cup Portuguese kale ribs, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces

6 medium potatoes, peeled and large diced

8 cups water + 3 Rapunzel Vegan No Salt bouillon cubes (or your favorite broth)

2 Field Roast Italian Faux-Sausage links

1 Field Roast Mexican Chipotle Faux-Sausage link

4 cups Portuguese Kale leaves, thinly sliced

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Head the olive oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion, leek and garlic. Cook until soft. Stir in the kale ribs and cook for another 5 minutes or so, just to soften the ribs a little.
2. Add the potatoes, water, and bouillon cubes to the pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer until the potatoes and ribs are soft, about 15 minutes.
3. Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until smooth. You can also use a blender/food processor to do this, just work in small batches and be really careful: the hot soup likes to splatter all over.
4. Return the soup to medium heat and stir in the crumbled faux-sausage links and the kale leaves. Cook for about 5 minutes or until the leaves are bright green and tender (Field Roast faux-sausage is pre-cooked). Adjust the seasoning to your liking and serve warm.

Print this recipe. Adapted from Harmony Valley November 3, 2011 Twin Cities Newsletter

Curried Beans and Rice

Hello! I have returned. :) 

Halloween is my favorite holiday, so this year my husband and I ended up doing something really special for Halloween, which consumed the two weeks before the holiday and caused us to need a week of recuperation afterward. We performed in the 18th annual BareBones Halloween Outdoor Puppet Extravaganza! 

BareBones productions are unlike anything I have ever experienced or seen. There are life-size puppets (some require several people to puppet), aerialists, and pyrotechnics. Throughout it all, the production honors the dead in a spooky and entertaining way. 

It is also completely an organic process. I joined the production just three days before our first performance! In the two rehearsals prior to our opening night, we were just figuring out blocking, and in some cases, what was really going to happen during the show. The show evolved over the course of our five performances, culminating in what I would call our best performance on Halloween night. 

I don't have a lot of pictures since I was performing... however, you can see pictures of the dress rehearsal prior to our opening night here. There is a great picture of Martin on stilts and in his tengu costume. There is a picture of me putting on my make up. And I'm in a bunch of other pictures - just look for the long red skirt. My favorite is the one of me and the rest of the ground tengu puppeting a gigantic pop-up book. 

Needless to say, we've been busy. So busy, that I've hardly had a chance to use my CSA bounty!

I adore these mini butternut squashes! I want to find a way to serve them in their miniature state - we'll see what I end up figuring out. I put a piece of broccoli by them so that you could see how small they are. They are so cute!

So, the recipe I have for you is something I just whipped together one night and then ended up salivating over unexpectedly. I'm not a big rice and beans person, but the ease of this recipe and the tastiness of it made me fall in love.

This did end up quite spicy, which is why the garnish of sour cream/yogurt works so well. Use mild bell peppers and find mild curry to use if you are spice averse. 

Curried Beans and Rice
4 Servings, 30 minutes

1 cup long grain rice
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 cup chopped peppers (I used Ukrainian and jalapeño)
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
1 can black beans, rinsed
4 ounces red curry paste (I used Maestri brand)
1 1/2 cups water or coconut milk
Sour cream or plain yogurt

1. Rinse the rice. Place in a medium saucepan. Add 1 2/3 cups water. Boil, then simmer until tender.
2. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add onions and carrots.
3. When the onions are translucent, add the peppers and ginger. Cook until tender. Add beans. Cook until heated through.
4. Mix the water/coconut milk with the curry paste. Stir well. Add the cooked rice to the skillet and pour in the curry liquid. Stir well and cook until heated through.
5. Serve warm with a dollop of sour cream. Heats up magnificently.

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