North African Chicken and Vegetables with Couscous

First of all, let me explain my extended absence. We just moved and blogging kind of became a low priority for a while. Plus, we still don't have internet at home. Plus, I have a real job so I don't do much cooking anymore. In fact, I didn't even make this meal. My brother's wife, Melissa had us over for dinner and cooked this delish dish which she got out of a cookbook from a series that I love. It was so good that I decided to snap a picture and have a guest chef.
The series is called "Quick From Scratch" and this recipe is in the chicken book. The series is good because the recipes are relatively easy to execute and the ingredients are accessible, but they feel a little upscale and all the ones I've tried are tasty.

So here's the recipe:

1 tbsp. Olive Oil
3 chicken breasts, cut in half
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 onion chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tbsp. fresh ginger, chopped
1/2 tsp. paprika
3/4 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 tsp. cayenne
1/4 tsp. ground turmeric
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes
1 cup canned garbanzo beans
1 zucchini, sliced

Season the chicken with a little salt and brown them in the olive oil. Add the onion and cook it until it's translucent. Add the spices, then everything else and simmer it for 15 minutes.

serve it over 4 cups of prepared couscous (a pasta from Morocco that is SO fast and easy to cook--follow the directions on the box) and sprinkle on some chopped parsley and some fresh lemon juice.

If you want to do it vegetarian, I think it would be great to add extra garbanzo beans, leave out the chicken, and use veggie broth instead of chicken.

Chicken Cacciatore

Cacciatore (catch-a-torry) means "hunters" and the dish has a sort of hearty, woodsy flavor from the mushrooms, wine and rosemary. This dish is quite easy to execute and can be made mostly from ingredients you ought to have in your pantry/fridge/freezer (except for the fresh rosemary, but you should plant some in your yard because it beautiful, tasty, useful, and extremely hardy--tolerating heat and cold very well).
Cooking time is over an hour, but for most of that time, it just sits on the stove, requiring no attention. This recipe should be enough to feed 10 people. You could cut it in half, or freeze part of it for a smaller group.

Dredge 3-3.5 lbs. of boneless/skinless chicken thighs and fry in batches until golden in a few tbsp. of olive oil in a large dutch oven or skillet (This step is a little tedious and a tad messy, so skip it if it's going to prevent you from making the dish, but it will improve the flavor and texture).
Slice one half pound of thick sliced bacon into little strips and fry it in a pan until it's thoroughly cooked but not crispy and drain the oil.
Chop one yellow onion, 2 carrots and 2 stalks of celery and sautee them in a large dutch oven or heavy pot on moderately high heat until the veggies start to get some color from the heat.
Squish the tomatoes from two 2 28 oz. cans in your hands (be careful--they'll explode onto your walls) and add them along with their juice to the pot.
Add 1 1/2 cups of red wine and 2 cups of chicken broth, then place the chicken thighs back in (or add them raw if you didn't brown them).
Slice 2 portobella mushrooms (cut them in half, then slice them) and about 10 white mushrooms and add them to the pot.
Add 1 tbsp. each of dried oregano and chopped, fresh rosemary along with a pinch or more of crushed red pepper flakes, 5 0r 6 cloves of minced garlic, the cooked bacon, and some black pepper.
Let it all simmer for about an hour and boil 2 lbs. of pasta in salted water when it's almost time to eat. I think linguine is best. while the pasta is cooking, use a wooden spoon to gently break up the chicken thighs a little bit, then at the last minute, stir in 1/2 cup of fresh, chopped parsley. Serve it over the pasta.

Rotini with Caramelized Onions, Gorgonzola, and Arugula

Believe it or not, this meal originated from an Old Mother Hubbard moment. We were starving and we had an onion, some left-over arugula, a tomato, two zuchinni, some gorgonzola and not much else (I always keep several kinds of pasta in the cupboard). It turned out to be pretty tasty, so I decided to tell you about it. Of course, you can substitute or leave out ingredients as you like or as your circumstances require. I am lucky enough to have a large piece of gorgonzola left over from a meal a while back, so it makes its way into lots of my meals and snacks.
If you've never had caramelized onions, you have to try them. As you cook onions for a long time, they lose their pungence and get very sweet. Arugula is another ingredient that you should try if you haven't. It makes a great substitute for spinach. Raw, it is a little spicy, kind of like a mild radish. Cooked, it's more like spinach with a little more flavor and bite.
This recipe makes enough for about four servings

Start by caramelizing the onions. This takes around 45 minutes and can't really be rushed. Slice one onion and put it into a large frying pan with a couple tbsp. of butter and a pinch of salt and cook them on medium-low heat, stirring every few minutes.
In the meantime, bring a pot of water to a boil for the pasta.
When the onions have been cooking for about 35 minutes, salt the water and add 3/4 lb. of rotini or somethinglike it (bowties, penne, etc.)
After the pasta has cooked for 5 minutes, add 1 zucchini, cut into half-moon slices and 1 tsp. of sugar (it heigthens the onions natural sweetness) to the onions.
Continue cooking the pasta according to the package directions then drain it and dump it on top of the onions and zukes.
Put a few handfuls of arugula on top of of the pasta along with 1/3 to 1/2 cup of crumbled gorgonzola and 1 diced tomato.
Stir it all together, check the salt level and add more if you need it, and serve it up with some black pepper.

I'm Back--Again

So, do bloggers get Summer vacation? Well I took one anyway. We're back from Nova Scotia where we had a lovely time staying at a fantastic Bed and Breakfast called the English Garden. We also had the best fish and chips in the whole world. It turns out that haddock is a better choice than halibut--who would've thought? We were there with all of Anne's family and of course the guy with a food blog got nominated to make a few meals, which was no problem because I truly enjoy cooking if for no other reason than it is definitely the world's most appreciated hobby.

One night's dinner menu was decided by what would not require a trip to the grocery store, so we ate red lentils (of Esau fame). I didn't take any pictures of that one so I'll have to make it again some time because I rather liked it.

The other night took a little more planning and I made a dish from the Italian restaurant I used to cook at. This is a huge recipe (probably around 30 servings of the sauce), but what I do is make the whole batch and freeze some, then cook as much pasta as I need for each meal. So here it is:

Rigatoni with Sausage and Peppers

In a large pot,

Saute one, minced, yellow onion in olive oil until translucent

Add 5 hot, Italian sausages (squeeze the sausage out of the casings)

Cook the sausage all the way and break it up into small bits with the end of a spatula

Add 4, 28 oz. cans of tomatoes, pureed in the blender,

1 small can of tomato paste,

3-4 cloves of garlic, minced,

2 tbsp. salt

3 tbsp. sugar

black pepper

red pepper flakes (if you like it a little spicy)

2 fresh red peppers sliced into half rings (the freezer turns them into mush, so if you're going to make a large batch and freeze it, leave the peppers out until later)

Cook as much rigatoni as you need for your group (I use two handfuls per person) one minute shy of the lower end of the cooking time (if it says 14-16 minutes, cook it for 13, it will finish cooking in the sauce) in salted water, and use 1 cup of the prepared sauce per serving

Save one cup of the pasta water and drain the noodles. Dump the pasta into the sauce along with two spoonfuls of feta cheese per serving. If it looks dry, add some of the reserved water. Stir it all up and serve it with some grated parmesan.

Farfalle with Tomatoes and Basil

This one is sooo much tastier and healthier than mac-n-cheese but takes hardly any extra time or effort. I promise, you can even ask Anne. Sometimes we make it with chicken and sometimes without. Anne says she like it just as well without--I think I agree.
The amounts I have here are for four adult servings:
Cook 1/2 lb. of farfalle (bowties) according to the package instructions. Make sure you generously salt the water. If the package says "10-12 minutes" cook them for 10. By the time everything's finished, they'll be perfect.
While the pasta is cooking,
in a large saucepan or dutch oven, heat enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan,
then add:
1/2 onion--chopped finely
once the onion is soft and translucent, add
6 roma tomatoes, diced (I almost always cook with romas becasue they're easy to cut and usually the cheapest)
Cook the onions and tomatoes on medium-high heat until the tomato pieces have turned into sauce. You want to cook out a lot of the water.
Your pasta probably needs to be drained sometime in here, but scoop out a mug full of the pasta water before you drain it. I'll explain later.
Add about 1 tsp. of salt (make sure to taste it because seasoning is personal), 2 tsp. of sugar, some black pepper, and some red pepper flakes if you like a little spice.
Dump the pasta into the sauce and stir in 1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese, 8-10 chopped basil leaves, and 1 chopped, grilled chicken breast or leftover chopped up chicken (if you want it).
Now is when you use the reserved pasta water to control the texture. I'm sure that sometimes you've cooked, or been served pasta that is dry and stuck together and just not perfect. Well, you can avoid that with the addition of a little pasta water. It works best becasue it's salted so it won't dilute the sauce, it's hot, so it won't make the dish cold, and it has some starch that the pasta abandoned during cooking so it won't make the sauce too thin.
Add a little water and stir it in until the pasta is covered in perfectly textured, shiny sauce.
Do it again when you come back for a second serving and the pasta looks all dried out.
Also, whenever you're reheating pasta, add a little water before putting it into the microwave.

Tilapia and Linguine

Linguine is absolutely my favorite dried pasta. It has the most wonderful toothsome bite and goes especially well with seafood. Tilapia is a great fish because it is so darn cheap. I bought 5 fillets and it only cost about $2.50. Really, this whole meal is quite inexpensive. I suppose that the whole thing cost me about 8 or 9 dollars for about 8 servings. Not bad. It is also quite simple to prepare.

Dice an onion and saute it in some olive oil until it's soft and translucent. Then add two 28 oz. cans of whole tomatoes that you've crushed in between your fingers. I like to do tomatoes this way because it leaves them kind of rustic, plus it's just a good way to really feel the food. Just be careful, because they'll explode if you just squeeze them. You have to kind of puncture them first with your fingers.

After squishing all the tomatoes, add some salt, pepper, and sugar to taste, and some red pepper flakes if you like a little kick.

Depending on what brand you have, linguine takes around 10 minutes to cook, so now's the time to drop a pound of it into boiling, salted water. Time it and don't overcook it. (It's important to salt your pasta water always because if you add unsalted noodles to perfectly seasoned sauce, you'll end up with an undersalted finished product)

Bring it all up to a simmer then lay 5 or so Tilapia fillets into the sauce and kind of tuck them down in so they're covered.

Let it simmer for 10 minutes or so, then just when you're ready to serve it, add a handful of chopped parsley, and a small bottle of green olives that you've cut into quarters. As you stir it up, the tilapia should break into pieces.

Drain the pasta and dump it back into the pot. Ladle a few cups of the sauce onto the pasta and stir it around, then turn it into a serving bowl and pour the rest of the sauce over top.