Fresh Tomato Ravioli

Recipe #69: page 51 in the latest issue of "What's Cooking" magazine or

http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/fresh-tomato-ravioli-115967.aspx

Now that I've finished two courses already this semester, and haven't had any hours at work all week, I decided I'd cook dinner tonight. I've done a bit of cooking since my last post, but haven't been in the mood to blog my efforts. You didn't miss anything spectacular.

As I was walking home from the bus today, I was dreaming of a gastronomical trip to Italy. Oh, what I wouldn't give for a week of unlimited pasta and pizza done right! Italian is my first foodie love - and before you call me a copycat, I had my fantasy long before Eat, Pray, Love was written. Sadly, for now, I'll have to settle for something a little more local.

When I got home, I found the new issue of Kraft's "What's Cooking" publication and flipped through it for ideas. Lo and behold - pasta! and there's no seafood in this one, hooray! Often, they ruin the recipe with gross things like peppers, onions, or seafood, but I lucked out tonight. Off to the grocery store.

I made but a few modifications in my version: I didn't find cheese ravioli at the store so I bought cheese with spinach, figuring the addition of spinach is a really healthy idea. I found a package of sliced mushrooms on sale so I cut them up a bit smaller and used them too. I didn't see the Extra Virgin Olive Oil version of the dressing so I opted for Calorie-Wise instead. Cherry tomatoes haven't been seen out here for a while so I bought grape ones. I used about 1/8 cup of squeeze-tube basil that I already had on hand (added to pot at same time as tomatoes and mushrooms), and I grated a bunch of mozzarella cheese into a bowl without measuring it. The meatatarian loves cheese so more is always better.

I had the water for the pasta on the burner first, but it seemed to take a really long time to heat up, as in long after I was finished with the rest of the dinner. Turns out the burner wasn't properly plugged in and the residual heat in it was from the oven. Might want to check yours before you start.

I chose to cook the mushrooms, basil, tomatoes and dressing for a bit longer than the suggested time of 2 minutes because the mushrooms needed to soften. Because of my burner problem, it worked out that I had lots of cooking time. I also seem to have lots of dressing left so maybe you'll want to put a little less into your verison.

Overall, this recipe is really nice. I especially enjoyed sampling the hot tomatoes with basil while they were cooking - divine! It's not quite Italy, and I don't profess to be as good a cook as my friend, the Italian Chef, but it's hot pasta on a night I was craving it so it's perfect for me. Better yet, it's STILL light out at 6:30pm!

Mushroom Broccoli Pasta

Recipe #68: http://www.canadianliving.com/food/mushroom_broccoli_pasta.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dinnerclub_10Feb2011

The poor meatatarian has been inadvertedly foiled again. I emailed him a copy of this recipe earlier in the week to see if he'd be willing to eat it if I made it. He said yes and I finally had time to cook tonight. Just as we were serving ourselves to eat, he asked me if the dinner had any meat in it. I replied that it didn't, and he just kind of stared at me. Later, I was informed that I could be arrested for serving meatless meals in the province of Alberta. Lucky for me, I'm still on grace time as I haven't yet lived here a year. Viva la vegetarian meals!

The only real problem I had while shopping for this meal was the mushroom measurement: 3 cups, yes, but is that before or after being chopped? BE SPECIFIC, Canadian Living! Some of your anal recipe users need to know stuff like that. I opted for 3-4 large handfuls of uncut mushrooms which translated to about 2.5 cups once chopped. I used reduced-sodium beef broth because I already had some, and I can never be bothered trying to measure the pepper. I just grind a bunch in and stir a lot, repeat if necessary. The only place I added salt was to the pasta water. My parsley was from the squeeze tube and it ended up being about 3/4 of the 1/4 cup. After the two weeks I've just survived at school, you'll have to do that math yourself if you want it measured differently. I also added ~1/4 tsp of italian spices to the mushroom pot for a bit of flavour. I happened to use whole wheat pasta (entire 300g box) although the meatatarian said he doesn't really like the whole wheat pasta because it tastes gritty. Something to keep in mind perhaps?

The recipe tells you to reserve 1/4 cup of the pasta water to add to the mushroom pot with the pasta. However, whether it was because my mushroom mix didn't simmer very well (I had to simmer it longer than the suggested 4 minutes to get the broccoli to soften) or some other reason, I already had plenty of liquid left by the time I added the pasta so I didn't end up using the extra water.

Overall, while the recipe lacks meat, it is tasty and filling. It's got lots of healthy stuff like calcium and vitamin C from the broccoli along with fibre from the whole wheat pasta. I'd make it again, but first I need to finish my last assignment before I can enjoy my Reading Week!

Taco Soup

Recipe #67: http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/taco-soup-111590.aspx?cm_mmc=eml-_-rbecaen-_-20101201-_-1132

I'm not really sure why Kraft refers to this recipe as "Taco Soup". Personally, I wouldn't put any of the ingredients (except the cheese and beef, and regular chopped tomato) in a taco. I'd call this soup more of a "runny chili", especially with the Superbowl looming on the horizon this weekend. I guess their title sounds more appealing or something.

I did a few alterations with this recipe. I used up the last of the beef stock (with 25% less sodium, huzzah!) that was in the fridge (just shy of 2.25 cups in total) in lieu of water, the cheese is marble because I already had it, I used a can of corn instead of frozen, my taco seasoning was some mexican stuff meant for eggs that I got for free from an egg farmer at the Stampede last summer, and my tomato products both came with fancy spices and such things in them.

My version turned out pretty well. If I could remember not to rub my eyes before washing my hands while chopping onions, it would probably be even better. It's got good flavour (I was a bit worried the Stampede mexican stuff would overpower everything) and it's hearty to fill me up. High in fibre too! I recommend that on a regular basis. I don't, however, recommend editing an assignment due tomorrow morning while cooking dinner...

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe #66: Page 766-767 in the 75th anniversary edition of the Joy of Cooking. Yep, you'll have to look it up the old-school way, on paper.

Well, some days you just need something familiar to cheer you up so I figured a day of snow and cold temperatures would be a good time to make a familiar recipe for chocolate chip cookies. My mom makes these for my dad on occasion so I asked her for the recipe. Turns out it's in my very own copy of the Joy of Cooking that I got for Christmas in 2009.

I didn't really do much in the way of substitution for this recipe. That's not as easy in baking as it can be in cooking, or so I'm learning. The only thing I did differently was use Splenda in lieu of the (white) sugar called for.

I always thought this recipe would take a long time to make, but it's pretty quick. I'm glad I was wrong. My mom said she usually doubles it but since I'm not making mine for the masses, I used the original quantities. The book says it yields about 36 2.5 inch cookies.... I got 18 obese ones.

That reminds me of the time my best friend and I made this recipe in a fit of domesticity when we were young. She's always been better in the kitchen whereas I'm the better reader, but somehow between the two of us, we overlooked the fact that these are "drop" cookies, and we carefully flattened each of ours before chucking them in the oven. We ended up with two giant cookies pretty much the exact dimensions of our cookie sheets...

In truth and in fact, I prefer these cookies when my mom makes them. Hers are probably the proper size which means the middles aren't thick and almost not-quite-baked-enough like mine. Hers are a bit crisper overall too. If you like big, soft, chewy chocolate chip cookies, then by all means use their "heaping teaspoon" measurement literally like I did when dumping them on the cookie pans. Otherwise, maybe you'd better ask her what she does differently. Mine are still edible but things taste better when they're made by a mom with love.

20-Minute Chicken Linguine

Recipe #65: http://www.canadianliving.com/food/20_minute_chicken_linguine.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dinnerclub_14Jan2011

Right, so I've been off the air for a while, haven't I? I seem to have done nothing in the kitchen (worth blogging) for the month of December. Well, now that I've returned to school and am still working, which translates to even less spare time than when I was only working, I'm hoping to keep up better with the blog.

Tonight's recipe was a bit of a whim. It got emailed to me in the weekly suggestion list from Canadian Living. A few emails home to see whether a) the recipe would be agreed to for dinner, and if that was successful, then b) what ingredients I already had on hand. A couple of hours of rock climbing after work then a trip to the grocery store on the way home and I'm ready to go.

I'm not sure who thought to give a time definition for this recipe. It certainly took me far longer than 20 minutes - more like nearly an hour. Not good when I've been up since 0530 and I'm eating dinner at 2100. Mind you, some of the delay came from my having to thaw the chicken while I chopped garlic and onion (and mistakenly rubbed my eye afterward). Regardless, it wasn't 20 minutes at this house.

As for alterations: I had chicken thighs already, not breasts. I just used all the thighs in the bag but it probably equated what the recipe called for. I couldn't find cherry tomatoes so I used grape ones. We didn't have linguine at home so I used up the remainder of the vermicelli. I opted for spinach instead of raddichio as the Charmer doesn't like raddichio. I passed on the green onion altogether. Blech.

I chose to roughly measure the S&P into the plastic bag that had held the chicken, then returned the now-sliced chicken to the bag and shook it up to season it. The advantage to having used the vermicelli is that it took 5 minutes to cook al dente whereas the recipe calls for linguine that takes 10 minutes. I'm hungry and really tired. I haven't got an extra 5 minutes to wait for food.

So the end result it surprisingly tasty. I'm always a little skeptical of pasta without some kind of traditional "sauce" (white, red, blush), but this one still has good flavour. It has the added bonus of good-for-you-ness with the garlic, tomatoes, olive oil and spinach. Give it a try and tell me how yours turns out.

Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

Recipe #64: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/2541

There are germs floating around my house. We're already one man down so I'm making chicken soup to keep myself healthy. I would hate to miss out on our class backpacking/rock climbing/hiking/caving weekend coming up in a few days!

I can't afford to shop at Whole Foods on any kind of regular basis but I'm certainly not above exploiting their website for recipe ideas. They have a good selection of healthy recipes, vegetarian ones too which come in handy at times. I do get a bit annoyed, however, because sometimes they measure things oddly. Take, for example, a line from the recipe in the link above:

2 tablespoons of chopped garlic.... why can't you just tell me how many cloves to chop? Maybe they are hoping people will buy the pre-chopped kind? I chopped 5 cloves (3 big, 2 smaller) and didn't measure the results. So there.

Ok, that's my rant done now.

As for alterations, I didn't do many to this recipe. I bought a bag brown wild rice (Canoe brand if you care) and the grains look long to me. I used one 900mL box of Campbell's reduced-sodium chicken broth and an additional 2 cups from a box of Campbell's vegetable broth. I used an entire medium yellow onion, not necessarily the prescribed 1 cup. Who wants bits of an onion left over if it measures to be more than you need? Heck, it adds flavour. In it goes. I dug a bag of boneless, skinless chicken thighs out of the freezer and chopped them up without caring how much they weighed. Are you sensing a theme here? If you're keeping track and really care, they weighed just under a pound. The mushrooms only came in a 7-oz package so I chopped them all up.

Hmmm, I just added the 1/4 cup of dried parsley that is called for, but I think they might have meant a 1/4 cup of fresh parsley. My soup looks a little green. Oh well, parsley doesn't have a really strong taste and I'm going to imagine that it's good for me too. Just keep in mind that if you're making this recipe, you might want to consider the parsley issue.

Well, if you're looking for a hearty cold-and-flu-season, I-need-to-stay-healthy-to-go-to-school, feel-good kind of soup, this one seems to do the trick. My version hasn't got a TON of flavour but it's tasty nonetheless. The rice is a nice touch of bulk and the garlic is plenty good for an immune system boost. Soup's on!

Bruschetta Chicken Bake

Recipe #63: http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/bruschetta-chicken-bake-87734.aspx?cm_mmc=eml-_-rbecaen-_-20101020-_-1126

My recipe productivity has slooooooowed.... I do still cook but not a whole lot and if I forget to take a photo, I tend not to blog it. Forgive me the crappy photo in this post.

This recipe was a request from the meatatarian. Although Alberta beef is very good, it's important to have variety too. Besides, the chicken was cheap.

All in all, this recipe is easy to make. I happen to have used the lower sodium stuffing mix because it's a better food choice. The stewed tomatoes came with italian seasoning in them and I finally bought dried basil after confirming for the nth time that I did not have any. Somewhat surprisingly, I actually had mozzarella cheese on hand instead of using whatever random cheese was already in the fridge. I added a bit of extra cheese for the meatacheeseatarian.

The one part I don't like about this recipe is the length of time to cook until chicken is done. I checked it after 30 min which is the initial cooking time suggested. I saw pink meat so I tried another 10 min. Still pink parts! I realize now that a subsequent 15 min was too long - the chicken is cooked but the topping and sides are a bit charred. My mistake.

In the end, the food was still good albeit a little crunchy in places. I'm not 100% sure how much actual time you'd need when cooking this, but I suggest it might be close to 45 min. Enjoy!