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Not Quite Just Pasta with Sauce

This recipe is one of the several that evolved from stir fry while I was in Poland last summer. It's pasta with sauce, but a little more exciting. Premade pasta sauce is a component of this recipe. However, I've made a habit of doing this with a particularly plain kind of sauce. Tomato with basil but none of that fancy cheese mushroom chunk vodka nonsense.

In fact it's possible to replace the premade sauce with sauce of your own creation without changing the recipe much. It involves quite a number of additional tomatoes and the time to cook them down. I haven't yet had a batch turn out braggably well, though, so I'll stick with this for now.

Ingredients:

1 lb	dry pasta (I prefer whole wheat fusilli)
1 jar	pasta sauce
1.5 small	onion, diced
2 cloves	garlic, minced
6	roma tomatoes (or another fleshy variety), chopped
	olive oil
	mozzarella cheese
	parmesan cheese
	lemon juice
	crushed red pepper
	basil

Procedure:
Prepare your noodles as recommended but don't quite cook them all the way. They'll get a little more time later to finish up. Shoot for double al dente and set them aside while you prepare the sauce.

Raw chicken spooks me out something terrible. I buy raw chicken frozen and throw it right into the pan with some olive oil. As it softens I cut it into chunks with my stirrer. If you were so inclined you could cut your chicken prior to starting it.



Now a short aside. I use a lot of onions in my cooking. To make matters worse, the little red ones I get seem to be particularly aggressive. I have a few tricks to keep my eyes from burning out of my skull while I cut them. It's first of all important to have a sharp knife. It helps to also get the knife wet. I've also had success with making as many cuts as possible without letting the onion splay out and expose the slices (see above image). Finally, if all else fails, press your tongue against the roof of your mouth and breathe through your mouth. This one, suggested by Aaron, sounds strange but works exceedingly well.

Now your chicken has been cooking for a bit. Throw in some basil, red pepper, and a few tablespoons of lemon juice. Let the chicken cook through, stirring occasionally. Once the chicken is cooked (if you're not sure, leave it a bit longer; don't mess around with undercooked chicken), add some mozarella and parmesan cheeses. Use enough that the cheeses briefly make your whole pan into a sticky mess but then brown on to the surfaces of your chicken.

Add onions and garlic. Cook them until the onions are soft. Add the jar of pasta sauce and mix everything together until it starts to bubble.

Add the tomatoes. Very soon afterwards stir in the pasta. Your goal is to keep chunks to the sauce. If you're not careful they'll melt right in as part of the sauce.



Now throw this into some tupperwares. Makes lunch for one for an entire week.

Data Point 2

I have recently been told that Ghiradelli makes flat out the best boxed brownies. They were on sale so I bought some. However, since I had limited brownie making time before the swing dance last night I have not yet put them to the test.

I made the ones I had around which required the least amount of baking time: Target brand dark chocolate. Same scoop recipe-wise as in the past: recommended number of eggs, half a stick of butter, and the rest of the wet ingredients replaced with applesauce. Tub cream cheese frosting and dried cranberries.



Becca rates these "one hundred fold" better than the zeroth batch, which I imagine also puts them above the middle batch which were marginally better than the zeroth. The consensus was also that the density of cranberries should be increased, perhaps drastically. I have divided an 8 ounce package between three pans of brownies but I think it would be more appropriate to use at least half of a package at a time, if not more.

Doctor Jack

Now I understand that you've come to expect a certain degree of gourmet-icity from this blog. Some of you may be shocked and appalled at what I'm about to show you. But give it a chance! This treat allows you all of the customization you could ask for in a meal while also satisfying your laziness and craving for junk food.

Ingredients:

1	frozen pizza, as cheap as possible
	shredded mozzarella cheese
	toppings
	seasonings

Procedure:
Preheat oven as directed on pizza wrapper. Apply toppings and seasonings to taste. Make sure that the toppings the should end up crispy are exposed on top, while the soft ones can be covered. Intersperse cheese between layers to ensure cohesion. Cook somewhat longer than instructed. If you prefer a crispy crust cook directly on the oven racks (the cheese will drip and make a mess, possibly setting off your fire alarm); if you're still recovering from gum surgery use a tray to keep the crust soggy. Serves 2-3.



Admittedly, the exciting part of this isn't in the recipe. It's exciting because you can really put whatever you want on a pizza. In this case I started with a frozen pizza already topped and threw on whatever I had around. In general I prefer to start with a cheese pizza so I don't have to worry about antisynergy with the default ingredients.




Onions pretty much go onto all of my pizzas, along with red pepper and basil. This one also included pepperoni and pineapple. Other good additions are tomato slices, bell peppers, asparagus, and minced garlic. Really it's up to you. You could even throw a fried egg on there if you were so inclined.



Seriously, though, make sure you cook the egg beforehand. It'll get a little burnt around the edges and curl up, looking ugly. But if you crack a raw egg onto your pizza it will take too long to cook. You'll end up with a rubbery egg and an incinerated pizza. The ideal technique has not yet been determined.

My favorite combination so far has been sliced tomato, fresh basil, onion, and pineapple. I'm hankering to try something with slices of pear, though.

Caprese Triscuits and Data Point 1

I came into the possession of some pine nuts so I felt it was appropriate to make caprese triscuits again. The recipe appears here without any pictures. As always, you can right click and view image to see a larger version of any image.



Additionally, I made some more brownies. This time they were Betty Crocker (America's favorite!). Again I used the recommended amount of eggs and replaced the oil and water with half a stick of butter and the rest in applesauce. I used dried cranberries and pre-made cream cheese frosting.



Becca wasn't around to test them, but these rate higher than the first batch on the JinJin scale.

Chili Stu

I've never made chili before. My approach in this case was pretty much to prepare it as I would stu, but allowing chili-type ingredients to stand in for stu-type ingredients. My figuring of what belongs in chili was based on a combination of my impressions, those of Alec (who was around to help me make this) and a skimming of the ingredients panels on cans of chili and packets of chili flavor powder.

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs	ground hot Italian sausage
1.5 cups (approx)	mixed beans
4	roma tomatoes, cut into chunks
1	red onion, chopped
1 clove	garlic, minced
1 large	potato, cubed
1 can (28 oz)	diced tomatoes in juice
2 tbs	tomato paste
4	dried chiles
2	jalapeño peppers
	crushed red pepper
	chili powder

Procedure:
I elected out of curiosity to start with dry beans rather than canned beans. Supposedly they taste appreciably better. If you use dry beans they take a while to reconstitute so be sure to do so ahead of time. I used about equal parts black beans, pinto beans, and black-eyed peas. I bought some fresh chiles at the farmers' market a few months ago and let them dry but I imagine that you could also buy whole dried chiles.



Brown sausage and (whole) jalapeño peppers. Once the peppers have blackened slightly discard the seeds, dice them, and set them aside. Add the potatoes and cover for several minutes. Once potatoes are soft, add onion, garlic, and jalapeños. At this point your entire kitchen should start to smell pretty amazing.

Add red pepper and chili pepper. Keep in mind that you've got several sources of spice so don't overdo it on any one. Also don't go overboard on the chili powder. It has a very strong flavor and will tend to cover up the subtleties of your other peppers' flavors. Both seasonings should be added continuously in small amounts.



Add diced tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, and beans. Add dried chiles as well (don't crush them!). Cover and keep on high heat. Let all of the flavors seep into each other for about half an hour. Then discard dried chiles and serve. Makes 3 servings on its own, but should probably be paired with bread to serve 4.



Were I to make this again, I would change several things. It turned out very thick, for one thing. I would use at least half again as much tomato since that really makes up the fluid part. I also recommend adding another half onion, chopped very small. And double the potatoes. They were surprisingly good.