Quick & Easy: Gnocchi with Alfredo Sauce

I've never been a pasta person. I skip spaghetti, pass on the lasagna, ignore ravioli... I don't even partake of macaroni and cheese. I'm a texture eater: I don't like anything too squishy, or slimy, or chewy, or grainy, or chunky. Something about pasta has always turned me off. And not only the texture of pasta, but the tomato sauce. In high school, on a school trip to Europe that included Spain, France, and Italy, I lied on my permission slip and wrote that I was allergic to tomatoes. So for the entire trip, while my classmates enjoyed authentic Italian pasta that was probably more delicious than anything I'll ever eat again, I was served white pizza. As my French teacher told a waiter when I tried to order grilled cheese off the kids' menu, "Elle est tres difficile."

I like to think I've grown out of my picky-ness, at least somewhat. At my friend Rachel's house last summer, I actually put some of the gnocchi and red sauce on my plate. Just a little bit, and I made sure to cover it with a pound of parmesan cheese. To my surprise, I liked it! Squishy little potato balls, and I went back for seconds.

So now gnocchi is the one pasta I know how to make. And it's incredibly easy: add the gnocchi to a pot of salted, boiling water. When they start to float, they're done. The end! Even I can do it. I can even open a jar of pasta sauce to eat it with. Unless, when I go to the fridge to grab the jar, it turns out the jar expired in April 2010. So what do you do when you have cooked gnocchi and no pasta sauce? Make alfredo! We had on hand some heavy cream, some butter, garlic, and of course the parmesean cheese. That's basically all alfredo sauce is. Combine the ingredients until it tastes good, then eat. Yum!

Soup Season

It's cold. And we're the kind of people the hold out as long as possible to turn the heat on; not because we're of sturdy Norse stock or because of some perverse pride, but for the oh-so-humble reason of: we're cheap.

So what does one do when sticking to a budget but trying to stay warm? Soup! We've been on a soup kick for about a month now. It started on our vacation to Cape Cod back in October. We love the Cape in the fall. The scenery is beautiful, and there's hardly anybody around to spoil it. Even though we were on a vacation, we were still watching our wallets and trying to balance going out to eat with cooking at home. Enter this Garlic Soup recipe from Tasty Kitchen.

In the end, it tasted more like a slightly-garlicky, blended version of French Onion soup. It was tasty, but next time we'll be doubling the garlic. Colin and I are lucky to have each other, because it's important in a relationship to have equal levels of garlic tolerance. And ours are high :).

Garlic Soup

Ingredients
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 cup Onions, Thinly Sliced
12 cloves Peeled Garlic, Smashed
1 cup Dry White Wine
1 quart Chicken Stock
1 leaf Bay
2 cups French Bread, Torn Into Pieces*
¾ cups Heavy Cream
½ cups Shredded Gruyere (or sharp white cheddar, if you're on a budget like us)
    *note - the color of your bread will determine the color of your soup. French bread is not required. I used some homemade Sally Lunn bread so my soup came out medium brown rather than a lighter tan.
 
Yields
4 servings

Directions
1. Heat the oil in a large pot. Add onion and garlic. Cook over medium heat for 10 -12 minutes; the onion and garlic will begin to caramelize. 
2. Add the wine, cover, reduce heat, and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the stock and bay leaf.
3. Bring to a boil; reduce heat; cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the bread and allow the soup to sit without heat for 10 minutes. Remove the bay leaf.
4. In batches, pour the soup into the blender and puree until smooth. Add the cream and salt and pepper to taste. As each batch is pureed, pour into another pot. (Or, if you're lucky, use your immersion blender). Keep warm over low heat. Garnish with the cheese (if desired).

Serving alternative: Colin Version
Colin like chunky soups. So, I didn't blend the entire batch. He go half blended, half un-blended, topped with extra bread.

Apples.

Lots. of. apples.

Colin and I participated in the fall tradition of apple-picking this year, and came home with 72 apples.

What does one do with 72 apples? Have an apple-themed dinner party of course! On the menu: apple cider (natch), alcoholic and non-, provided by our friend Stefanie; apple and bacon polenta; apple crisp (made by Colin from his mother's recipe); and fried chicken made by Sean and salad made by his girlfriend Laura.

Baked Polenta with Apples, Gruyere, and Bacon

Ingredients
6 cups chicken stock
1 1/3 cups uncooked polenta
2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme
4 slices thick cut bacon
1 tablespoon butter
2 large Granny Smith apples (about 1 pound), cored and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon grated orange peel
1 1/2 cups shredded Gruyere cheese

Yields
A baking-dish full, easily 8+ servings

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

2. Bring the 6 cups of chicken stock to a boil in a saucepan. Gradually whisk in the polenta. Reduce the heat to low and cook until the mixture thickens and the polenta is tender, stirring often, about 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and add in the thyme.

3. In a second pan, cook the bacon until desired texture is reached. Remove from the pan, pat dry of excess grease, and chop into 1/2-inch pieces. Add the butter to the pan over medium high heat until it begins to brown. Add the apples and saute until tender, about 9 minutes. Add all remaining ingredients EXCEPT cheese; stir to blend.

4. Add apple mixture, the bacon and one cup of the cheese to the polenta. Stir until well combined. Transfer mixture to a 13×9x2 inch oval dish (or something of similar capacity) that has been greased or coated with cooking spray. Top mixture with remaining cheese.

5. Bake until cheese is golden, about 30 minutes.

recipe from The Pink Apron

And what do you do when, even after all that, you still have 50 apples left? Apple butter! Apple butter is so simple, especially when using a crock pot. All it is is cooked-down applesauce. And all applesauce is is cooked down apples! Maybe add a little brown sugar or cinnamon, if that's your thing.

Just let it cook, stirring occasionally, until a wooden spoon can stand up on its own.

Then spread on homemade bread and enjoy.

Apple Sage Pork Chops

I never knew I was a pork girl until I looked at my bookmarked recipes and saw that I had more pork tags than beef or chicken! This was pretty easy to make, though it does require a little pan shuffle. 

 

adapted from McCormick

Ingredients 

1 1/2 teaspoon ground sage

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon thyme 

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
4 pork chops, about 1-inch thick (about 1 1/4 pounds)
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 red apple, thinly sliced
1 cup apple juice
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Directions
1. In a shallow bowl, mix together the flour, salt and the McCormick spices. Set aside 1 tablespoon of the flour-spice mixture in a separate bowl - you'll use this in the sauce later. Pat each pork chop in the flour mixture on both sides. Discard the rest of the flour-spice mixture.

2. Heat a larget skillet over high heat with just 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. When hot, add the pork chops and cook until browned on both sides. Remove the pork chops (they'll come back into the pan later for additional cooking). Wipe the skillet clean with a paper towel.

3. Heat the same skillet over medium heat with the remaining 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. When hot, cook the onions for 3 minutes. Add the apples and cook an additional 2 minutes. Push the apple/onions towards the outside of the pan, leaving an empty space in middle of pan. In the middle of pan, add apple juice, brown sugar and reserved flour-spice mixture. Whisk or stir until flour has disappeared.

4. Return the pork chops back into the pan, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 5 minutes or until pork chops just cooked through. 

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Corn on the Cob

Due to a picky-eater based childhood, I was never really into corn. Something about this summer (and the farmers' markets) has flipped the switch, and now, bam: I love corn on the cob. Here's how I make it, courtesy of In Praise of Leftovers:

Plain Jane Corn
So silly I’m telling you this, but somewhere along the line, I learned to cook corn this way, and nothing beats it. Put big old pot of water on the stove. Shuck your ears (or have your seven-year-old do it). Cut them in half if they won’t fit in the pot. Drop them in, and get the water to a boil. As soon as it boils, turn the water off, cover your pot, and let the corn sit for 10 minutes. Now it’s ready to eat, and not even a tad overcooked. Nothing worse than mushy corn. And if you have a grill going, you can throw it on there for a quick second for some smoke and grill marks. Oh–one more thing. Let your children completely annihilate whatever cube of butter happens to be in the butter dish. No sense trying to protect it. Slathering corn is its highest use, anyway.

Watermelon Salad

Aha! An actual new blog post about an actual recipe I actually made!

I've made this watermelon salad at least half-a-dozen times this summer. I've been obsessed with watermelon, and this dish will only work if you've got a nice ripe one.

Ingredients
Half of a large watermelon (seedless if you can)
1 vidalia onion
1 bunch of mint
Balsamic vinegar
Olive Oil
Lemon or lime juice
Salt & pepper

Yields
5+ servings

Directions
1. Cut the watermelon into bite-size pieces. I've found the best way to do this is to do the same way you do an avocado: slice a grid then scoop out with a spoon.

(photo from Simply Recipes)

2. Slice the onion. I like mine sliced very thinly, almost translucent. You can do a rouch chop (guacamole style) if you'd like or if you don't have the patience.
3. Chop the mint. I like to roll mine up and then cut it with kitchen scissors, chiffonade-style, but you can chop it how you like.

(photo from Wikipedia)

 4. Dump the watermelon, onion, and mint in a serving bowl. Toss with a dash of balsamic, a splash of olive oil, two or three squirts of lemon juice, and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Tastes good cold from the fridge, or room temp. Would also be good with basil instead of mint, or adding cucumbers or tomatoes.

Printable recipe

Another new page!

I promise I will start posting actual recipes again soon. In the meantime, I've created a page for all the bookmarked recipes I've yet to try. Just click on the "Bookmarked Recipes" link in the menu bar or go to http://robynsrecipestotry.posterous.com/. It's still a work in progress, but I like having everything all in one place rather than bookmarked in a folder or starred in my gReader feed.

New page!

I'd like to share a little side project with you: Hoboken Eats, a restaurant blog/map/thing that we've started. Colin and I, along with our friend Sean, decided to keep track of which restaurants and bars we've been to. Despite being only a Mile Square, there are a ton of places to eat and drink in Hoboken. Here's hoping that sharing it with you will encourage us update it more often.

To see the map, simply click on the tab at the top of the page or click here.

Cooking with Gas

My new kitchen has a gas stove rather than an electrical one. I don't really care about gas vs. electric, but I do think gas heats up faster; sometimes too fast! Either that or I'm still getting used to my new stainless steel pans.

Also, see that yellow? Colin and I are not yellow people, and our whole apartment was various shades of it when we bought it nine months ago. We're not sure what color to do the kitchen, and will probably settle on white. It might be boring, but at least my food photos will stop getting a weird yellow cast all the time.

Quick Chicken Curry

This recipe comes from the Joy of Cooking. Colin gave me my copy of the 'bible' for Christmas two years ago, and despite the numerous food blogs I read every day (seriously, thirty seven and counting in my feed reader), I return to JoC time and again. Something about the thin pages, columns of text, and line drawings are so reassuring; it makes me feel like I'm a cook!

The Quick Chicken Curry recipe is one of the 'classic' recipes, and I think it could use some updating. It's not quick exactly (about 30 minutes, if your chicken is already cooked), but it's simple. The flavor doesn't quite stand up and needs a little tinkering. More pineapple? Fresh pineapple? Fresh ginger? More spice? As is, it's a fine go-to recipe, especially if your boyfriend went on a let's-make-pina-coladas-from-scratch kick and you've got most of the ingredients already on hand.

Ingredients
2 tbsp butter
1 large onion, chopped
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 (13.5 oz) can unsweetened coconut milk
1 1/4 c chicken broth
1 (8 oz) can crushed pineapple with juice
2 to 3 c cooked chicken (or turkey)
Salt & pepper

Yields
4+ servings

Directions
1. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat, adding the onions and cooking until translucent (about 7 minutes)
2. Add flour, curry, ginger, and cinnamon to the onions, and stir it all together as best you can (it should be pretty paste-y).
3. Remove the pan from heat and whisk in the coconut milk, chicken broth, and pineapple.
4. Put the pan back on the heat and bring to a boil, stirring 'constantly' until the sauce reduces to a nice thick consistency. I say 'constantly,' because really, are you gonna stand over a hot stove for 10 full minutes? Or are you going to stir a bit, then go update Twitter, stir a bit, then start the rice, stir a bit, then check the baseball scores, stir a bit? I thought so. Your sauce will survive.
5. Add your diced chicken and let cook on low for a few more minutes. I also tossed in (already cooked) potatoes, since our favorite curry at Rearn Thai has potatoes in it. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
6. Serve with cooked white rice or naan (pictured).

Recipe from Joy of Cooking, photo from me.
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