Awesome for lunches

I’m constantly on a quest to find good lunch dishes that are something different than the classic sandwich. It’s a tough deal because you want something flavorful and tasty, but it also needs to be filling and healthy.

If I don’t have a filling lunch, I find myself snacking on the chips at about 4PM. Ok. I sometimes snack no matter what, but it’s especially bad if I skip a hearty lunch.

Quinoa has been the perfect base for my lunch salad experiments. It has a good amount of protein and fiber which will keep you full. It also has a great texture and can be thrown in with a huge list of other tasty ingredients.

In short, quinoa is my salad king.

Pesto Quinoa Salad

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

8 ounces quinoa, cooked
1 small red onion, diced
1 red pepper, diced
1 orange or green pepper, diced
1 cucumber, seeded, peeled and diced
1 Cup feta cheese, crumbled
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 large beet, roasted and diced (opt.)
1/3 Cup parsley, chopped

Basic Pesto:
Makes about 1 1/2 cups pesto
2 Cups basil
2 cloves garlic
1/3 Cup pine nuts
1/2 Cup olive oil
1/3 Cup Parmesan Cheese
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor for pesto

Directions:

1) Combine pesto ingredients in a processor and pulse until combined.

2) Cook quinoa according to package and set aside.

3) While quinoa cooks, chop all your veggies and roast your beet (350 for about an hour) if you're using beets.

4) Combine veggies with quinoa. Crumble in feta. Toss with pesto.

5) The salad is best if you let it chill before serving.

Making the Pesto

I make pesto all the time and I love playing around with the flavors. A bit more garlic or pine nuts can really change the flavor of it and make it very different. If you’re making it, don’t stress about the exact amounts. Just taste it as you go and adjust.

It takes just a minute or two to toss all the ingredients into a processor and pulse it together. When I make pesto, I normally make a double or triple batch and then freeze some pesto for later.

If you’re in a super-rush, you can use jarred pesto without a problem also.

Pesto is so easy.

The Quinoa

Cooking quinoa is like cooking a strange mix between oatmeal and beans. Basically, I just always follow the instructions on the package and it ends up being great.

It’s a really flexible grain so if, while you’re cooking it, you notice that yours is a bit dry, feel free to add more water. One time I added way too much water and just strained my quinoa through a strainer when it was done and that worked great also.

So, basically, it’s pretty hard to screw up.

Love this stuff.

Cooking it takes maybe 15-20 minutes. It’s not too bad.

If you have leftovers, this stuff freezes great actually. Just cool it down completely and then seal it in a freezer bag. Try to get out as much air as possible and it’ll keep in your freezer for a few months. Then you can just thaw it in the microwave (low power) when needed.

Nice and fluffy.

Chopping Practice

It’s okay that the quinoa takes a few minutes to cook because you’ll have a lot of chopping to do to finish off the salad.

The veggies I used in the salad are just a suggestion. I would definitely keep the onion, feta and chickpeas though. Those are really nice flavor additions.

Mix and match to your liking

Try to dice up all your ingredients so they are roughly the same size. The onions should maybe be a bit smaller.

Unless you’re an expert chopper, this will take a few minutes, but it’s worth it because you’re getting meals for days out of it.

Chopping skillz.

The Beet!

I had a spare beet sitting around so I roasted it up and included it in the salad. This is very optional. The beet added some nice sweetness to the dish which I liked but it also had the unfortunate side effect of turning the salad a kind of purple color!

If you’ve never roasted a beet before, just toss it on a baking sheet and roast it at 350 until it’s very tender, about an hour normally.

Let it cool a bit and then you can peel it and dice it up.

Love this.

Combining everything

A salad like this is very flexible. Start by adding your quinoa to the veggies that you’ve chopped and then add enough pesto to lightly coat the salad. You should need about 1 to 1 1/2 Cups of pesto, but feel free to use more or less depending on your tastes.

I stirred in my beet last to try to minimize the color burn, but it still turned stuff pretty red.

A slight change in color...

My final salad wasn’t quite as appealing as the nice green salad in the first photo, but it tasted better in my opinion. I loved the beet addition.

So let the record state that pesto plus quinoa plus a bunch of random veggies makes for a really good lunch!

This is how you make hummus!

There’s a certain brand of hummus that Betsy and I find particularly wonderful due to its creaminess. I’ve tried to replicate its wonderful texture and never quite gotten it right. Even the few times I’ve made hummus for Macheesmo, they’ve been good and tasty but a bit firm.

I’ve probably tried (but not posted) to make really creamy hummus about half a dozen times over the last few months and normally my attempts involve pumping it full of an increasing amount of oil. That never really worked.

Then one day, I had the sudden realization that I was thinking inside a very tiny box. That very tiny box was assuming that I had to start with chickpeas. I had this realization on the day when I made my chickpea pancakes.

You see, on the back of the chickpea flour bag, there was a recipe, in very tiny print, for hummus. And chickpea FLOUR, my friends, makes some seriously creamy hummus.

Creamy Hummus

Yield: 4 cups.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

3/4 Cup Chickpea flour
2 1/2 Cups water
3 cloves garlic
1/4 Cup water or stock for blending
1/4 Cup Tahini
1 lemon, juice only
1/4 Cup olive oil
Pinch of ground cumin
Pinch of salt and pepper
Dash of hot sauce

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor (mini or full-sized)

Directions:

1) Start by bringing the larger amount of water to a simmer in a pan. Slowly add in the chickpea flour, whisking the whole time.

2) Continue stirring/whisking on low until the the chickpea flour mixture is thick, about 8-10 minutes.

3) Combine chickpea paste with other ingredients except stock/water and oil and process in food processor until smooth.

4) Drizzle in oil and water/stock and continue to process until combined well and smooth.

5) Serve right away with toppings of your choice or store in a plastic container with a drizzle of olive oil on top.

Of course, it makes complete sense that if you want to make something really smooth, it’ll work better if you grind it into flour before mixing it. It just honestly never crossed my mind.

Since chickpea flour has no other ingredients besides chickpeas, it’s not like you are adding a lot of stuff. It’s just a process switch that results in a much finer finished texture!

Making the hummus

Besides the special ingredient, this recipe has pretty standard hummus stuff.

Pretty basic stuff except the chickpea flour.

The thing about chickpea flour is that it can take in a lot of water. So start out by bringing the water in the recipe to a simmer in a pan and then add the flour. It’ll look like a small amount compared to the water, but it’ll swell pretty quickly.

Whisk it continuously for a few minutes until it starts to thicken. Don’t worry if it has some lumps. They will smooth out when you process it.

Keep stirring until it’s pretty thick, about 8-10 minutes over low heat should do the trick.

The key to creamy hummus.

Then mix the chickpea paste with all the other ingredients in a food processor. If you have a mini one, you can use it but you might want to process it in two batches.

Ready to whirl.

Just give this all a whirl and don’t forget to add in your oil and extra water or stock. It should be really creamy and delicious.

All blended up.

This stuff is best right away, but eating four cups of hummus is a challenge in one sitting so you’ll probably want to store some. The best way to store this stuff is to put it in a plastic container and drizzle some olive oil on top. That’ll keep it nice and moist.

It’ll keep in the fridge for a week or two without a problem.

Store with oil.

Of course, the best thing to do is to toss on a few toasted pine nuts and a bit of oil and eat it right away while it’s still kinda warm!

Or just eat it right away...

This was a great example of a time when it helps to change your frame of reference a bit. I’m not sure if this is how Sabra makes its hummus so darn creamy, but I was able to get really close to their texture by making the simple switch to chickpea flour.

You could obviously mix in any flavors that you wanted like roasted red peppers as it processes to get a flavor that you like.

If you’re a hummus eater, you have to give this a shot.

Pretty salad.

In the spirit of quick summer meals and cool kitchen gadgets, this recipe grabbed my attention as I was paging through the most recent Bon Appétit the other day.

Slicing things into very thin ribbons always seems to be a popular technique with the fancy-pants restaurants, but I wasn’t sure how practical it would be for the home cook. So I figured I’d give it a shot for this recipe which I happened to have almost all the ingredients for in my pantry. I just had to pick up a few zucchinis from the market.

Shaved Zucchini Salad

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 pounds medium zucchini, about 4.
1/2 Cup fresh basil, chopped
1/4 Cup pine nuts, toasted
1/3 Cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon)
Pinch of salt and pepper
Pinch of red pepper flakes
Parmesan cheese

Helpful Equipment:
- Really good peeler or mandoline.

Directions:

1) Add the olive oil, lemon juice, pepper flakes, and salt and pepper to a small bowl and whisk to combine.

2) Toast your pine nuts in a dry skillet over medium-low heat for a few minutes until they're lightly tan and fragrant. Watch them closely or they'll burn.

3) Wash your zucchini and chop the ends off. Using a peeler or mandoline, slice the zucchini into very thin slices. Also chop your basil roughly.

4) Add the zucchini, basil, and pine nuts to a bowl and drizzle in the dressing. Be careful not to over-dress the salad. Just add enough to lightly coat everything.

5) Piling the dressing on a plate and shave a few big slivers of Parmesan cheese over the dish. Serve it immediately!

The Dressing

This dressing is really simple but the flavors are very summery and intense.

Simple but flavorful.

Everything works really well in it and the red pepper flakes provide a good touch of heat to the dish. Don’t leave them out!

Good summer flavors.

The Pine Nuts

Ok. A quick story. I was talking to a loyal reader (Hi Mom!) on the phone a few weeks ago and I was telling her my basic pesto ingredients. This was roughly our conversation:

Me: So yea… it’s just basil, garlic, olive oil, some parm cheese, and pine nuts. All mixed together.
Mom: Pine nuts?! I don’t eat pine nuts.
Me: Really? I didn’t realize you were allergic to them.
Mom: I’m not.
Me: …??…
Mom: I don’t eat them because they fall on the ground where animals umm… you know… do their business.
Me: *MUFFLED LAUGHS* You realize that almost all the fruits and veggies you eat are on or near the ground at some point right mom?
Mom: Well… I just don’t like them.

But in all seriousness, I love my mother. And I love pine nuts. Especially when you toast them.

Don't walk away!

Anytime you’re toasting pine nuts, do it in a dry skillet over low to medium-low heat. They’re done when they turn slightly tan and smell really good. Keep a really close eye on them because they’ll go from perfect to burned in about 15 seconds. It’ll take under 5 minutes to toast them.

The Zucchini

For this recipe try to find some smaller zucchini. They’ll shred easier into small ribbons. Leave those gargantuan zucchini for zucchini bread or something.

Wash them and chop the ends off.

The Titan is a cool peeler.

The Part Where I Endorse An Infomercial Product

I’m not sure that I’ve ever done this before, but I’m pretty sure that The Titan Peeler was an infomercial thing at one point and I just got it as a wedding gift.

I absolutely love this peeler (seriously they aren’t paying me to say this… I wish they were). They’re sturdy and work like a charm. In fact, they might work almost too well. You have to be really careful or you can take off a piece of skin without even noticing.

The one caveat is that I haven’t used these enough yet to speak to their durability, but they seem very well constructed actually and are really sturdy. I can’t see why it wouldn’t last for many years.

And they make really quick work of something like zucchini.

How cool is that?!

It took me maybe a minute to make those pretty ribbons.

I also chopped up a good handful of fresh basil for the salad.

Classic flavors.

All Together

Then just mix everything (except the parmesan cheese) in a medium bowl.

My advice is to go light on the dressing. It’s a very strong lemon flavor and can easily overpower the other flavors in the salad. Add just barely enough to lightly coat everything.

You don’t want pools of dressing here people.

Go light on the dressing.

Pile all of this high on a plate and shred some really good Parmesan cheese right on top.

Now that’s a good lookin’ salad.

Don't forget the cheese.

I loved this dish for two reasons. First, it just tasted like summer. The fresh zucchini and lemon and everything was really light and refreshing. Second, it looks way harder to make than it actually is so you can impress your friends and loved ones.

So if you can get around the fact that the pine nuts may have been poked and prodded by a real live animal, you should totally give this salad a shot!

Ok. I’m done making fun of my Mom… for now anyway.

There's goat cheese in there...

I’m noticing a trend with the pasta salads that I really like: They are freakin’ packed with flavor. If I’m making a meal out of a pasta salad, it needs to be flavorful. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it needs to be really heavy. The white bean pasta salad I made on Monday was pretty light actually.

This salad is a bit heavier, but still summer appropriate. Betsy and I loved it mainly because we have a near-fetish for sun-dried tomatoes. Ok. I guess I can only speak for myself there, but I’m pretty sure we both really like them. And you can’t tell from the top photo, but there’s also some creamy goat cheese folded into the pasta which makes it really rich.

It’s hard not to love this quick and simple dish.

Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta Salad

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound Farfelle (bowtie) pasta
1 Cup sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 Cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 Cup pine nuts, toasted
2 Teaspoons balsamic vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
1 clove garlic
1/2 Cup olive oil
6-8 ounces fresh arugula
4 ounces goat cheese
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor (if you don't have one, you can just chop everything really finely)

Directions:

1) Cook pasta according to package and drain pasta and reserve 1 Cup of cooking water.

2) Process sun-dried tomatoes, Parmesan, pine nuts, and garlic in a food processor, blender, or chop finely. For more flavor, toast pine nuts in a dry skillet until fragrant over medium heat, about 5 minutes.

3) Drizzle oil into the tomato mixture. Then stir in vinegar.

4) Toss pasta in tomato pesto mixture. If it seems dry, add 1/2 Cup of the reserved pasta cooking water. Taste for salt and pepper.

5) Stir in goat cheese and arugula or serve pasta on a bed of arugula with goat cheese crumbled on top.

Adapted from America's Test Kitchen 30 Minute Suppers.

This is about as simple as it gets for pasta salads. There’s barely any chopping to do which is rare.

One of my favorite pastas for salad.

If you’ve never used bowtie pasta for pasta salad, give it a shot. It’s climbing the ranks in my favorite pasta list. Not only is it fun, but the ridges grab hold of a lot of sauce or, in this case, sun-dried tomato goodness.

Of course, you can use any pasta for this though if you can’t find bowtie pasta. I’d recommend larger blocky pastas though. Don’t come crying to me if you try this with angel hair pasta and it sucks.

Strong flavors!

Making the Pesto

Besides boiling your pasta, the only thing you really need to make for this is the sun-dried tomato pesto. This is as simple as adding in all your sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, and Parmesan cheese into a food processor and pulsing it until it’s a coarse paste. Then drizzle in your olive oil and pulse a few more times and stir in the vinegar.

But Nick. I don’t have a food processor!

Do not fret. You have some options. You could try it with a blender although it might be rough going. But honestly you can also just finely chop all your ingredients and then mix together everything in a bowl. Your final product might be a bit chunkier than mine, but it’ll still be delicious in the final pasta salad.

A kind of pesto I guess...

The Others

There’s two key ingredients to this recipe that really make it pop. First, goat cheese. When that gets folded into the pasta it gives it a creamy, tangy flavor. I liked folding it in, but you could also kind of crumble it on the finished product if you wanted.

Second, and maybe more important, is nice fresh arugula. The peppery taste of it goes great with the goat cheese and tomatoes. The arugula is maybe my favorite part of the dish, but don’t tell the goat cheese I said that.

Creamy and peppery.

Once your pasta is boiled, just drain it and reserve some of the cooking liquid. Toss it immediately with the sun-dried tomato pesto. If it seems a bit dry, add in 1/2 Cup of the cooking water. After everything is well-combined you can fold in your goat cheese also if you’re doing that.

This smelled amazing.

Making it Pretty

I elected to not make mine very pretty. I just kind of mixed everything together because I was planning on taking it for lunch and stuff like that and it was just easier.

If you wanted to make this pretty though, you could serve the pasta on a bed of arugula with the goat cheese crumbled on top.

For my version, I chose function over form I guess.

You could probably make this prettier...

Start to finish this dish is literally done in the amount of time it takes to boil pasta. It’s fast and tasty and keeps for days.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for the last summer salad of the week which is actually based off of last week’s poll winner!

Mint is one of my favorite spring flavors. It has such a distinct flavor that even a tiny bit of it can easily be tasted in a dish. Mint doesn’t hide well. That’s why I was really intrigued when I saw a mint pesto. It doesn’t use mint as an accent. The dish is pretty much all mint.

Honestly, I wanted to try this because I thought it’d be interesting, but I was 100% ready to report that the mint was very over-powering. That’s what I assumed would happen. Shows how much I know. Mint pesto worked just perfectly.

Very flavorful!

What’s funny about this pesto is that if you just taste a single sprig of mint, the flavor is intense, but when you grind down a lot of them, they lose some of that intensity and mixed with the other ingredients it just becomes a really delicious, light pesto.

Mint Pesto

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Cups loosely packed fresh mint
1/2 Cup loosely packed flat leaf parsley
2 Tablespoons pine nuts
3 cloves garlic
1/3 Cup Parmesan cheese
1/3 Cup olive oil (maybe a bit more)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor. You obviously don't need a huge one to make this, but if you're in the market for one, might as well get a large one in my opinion.

Directions:

1) Wash the mint and parsley well. Toast the pine nuts for a few minutes in a dry pan.

2) Add all ingredients to a food processor and pulse until they resemble a coarse paste.

3) Taste the pesto and adjust the flavors. It might need a bit more oil or salt and pepper.

4) Toss pesto with hot pasta and serve with extra Parmesan cheese.

Adapted from Body & Soul Magazine.

Making Pesto

This pesto is just like any other. It’s not rocket science. The only note is to make sure your mint leaves are well-washed. They have a tendency to accumulate tiny dirt bits on the leaves. When you buy your mint by the bunch, it’ll come with stems obviously. When you make the pesto try to get mostly leaves but you don’t have to be crazy about it. A few stems won’t mess up the situation.

Lots of mint...

Now you can use a lot of different tools to make pesto. The traditional way to do it is to use a mortar and pestle or even just a large knife which you keep working over the basil (mint in this case) until it’s a coarse paste.

For this version, I just whipped out my new food processor. Have I mentioned that getting married rocks?!

Kitchen Gadget of the Century.

Of all the gadgets I’ve received as wedding gifts, I think I’ve used this one the most so far. It’s so simple to use. Besides pestos, I’ve started making hummus every week which is really awesome and I’ve used it for a few different dips also. Basically, I’m in love.

For this pesto, it’s as easy as throwing all the stuff in the processor…

A good start...

And pulsing it a few times until it’s a coarse paste. You don’t want to over-process it.

I love my processor so much.

Taste Testing

This really goes for any dish, but I think tasting is essential for pestos. Based on your ingredients, you’ll need to adjust some things. Feel free to add a bit more olive oil if the pesto is too dry or more salt and pepper if needed. Try to identify what flavors the ingredients are contributing to the pesto and then adjust for those flavors if you need to.

Once you get it just right, you can mix it right in to your pasta. Make sure your pasta is really hot and freshly cooked. That’ll help the pesto flavors meld into the pasta.

Together at last!

Mix it all up and you’re good to go! I used a whole wheat penne pasta for this dish, but you could use your favorite obviously.

Man this smells good.

If I were to re-make this dish (and I just might!), I think I’d add some fresh spring peas to the dish. Peas and mint work really well together and it would add one more great flavor to this pasta dish.

Ok. So peas would've been a good idea.

As is though, I just grated some extra Parm on the pasta (because why not) and it was a great dinner. Turns out this dish is also great the next day. The pesto, as pesto has a tendency to do, got even better as the flavors blended a bit.

It was kind of surprising to me how good this was, but if you are used to a basil pesto, this isn’t that much of a step away but it’s a great alternative.

The voting Macheesmo readers seem to be intrigued by it though. And I must say that I was also. I’ve never cooked polenta like this before so this was all new territory for me. This was my final result!

Good texture on this stuff.

Making the polenta

I was really impressed with the method of making this polenta, but I have to admit that the flavor was a bit lacking for me. I think if I made it again, I’d add some chopped herbs or maybe some jalapenos or maybe even bacon to it to kick it up a notch. It kind of, well, tasted like cornmeal.

Polenta with Spicy Tomato Sauce

Yield: Serves 8.

Prep Time: 15 minutes + cooling time

Total Time: 2 hours

Ingredients:

Polenta:
8 Cups water
5 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Teaspoons salt
2 Cups polenta (coarse cornmeal)
Freshly ground pepper

Spicy Tomato-Basil Sauce:
2 (28 ounce) cans crushed tomatoes, with puree
1/4 Cup pine nuts
4 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped
4-6 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 Teaspoon crushed red pepper (I doubled this to a full teaspoon.)
1/2 Cup chopped fresh basil
1/3 Cup dry white wine
1 Teaspoon dried oregano
Salt and pepper

Directions:

Prepare Polenta one day in advance of serving.
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2) In baking dish, combine water, olive oil, and salt. Slowly whisk in cornmeal.

3) Bake this at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

4) Remove dish from oven, add a fair amount of pepper and then stir it all together. Make sure that it all has an even consistency. Use a whisk to spread out.

5) Bake another 50 minutes to an hour in the oven to get thick, stirring every 20 minutes to make sure the polenta is evenly distributed.

6) After the second hour, pull it out and smooth over the polenta with a spatula so it is nice and smooth.

7) Let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours until it becomes very firm.

Prepare sauce the day of serving.
1) Blend a cup of your tomatoes with pine nuts.

2) Heat oil in a large pan and then add onions, garlic, fennel seed and red pepper.

3) Cook until the onions are soft, about 5 minutes.

4) Add the rest of your crushed tomatoes, the wine, the oregano, pine nut and tomato puree, and half of the basil. Stir this all together and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Add a pinch of salt and pepper.

5) Cut polenta into triangles.

6) Heat up a Tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over high heat. When it’s hot, add your polenta. Brown each side 7 minutes or until crispy.

7) Serve the polenta with sauce!

From the January 2010 Bon Appétit.

If you haven’t made polenta before, it starts with a coarse cornmeal. You can buy this at most supermarkets these days I think. If you can’t find it, you can definitely substitute normal yellow cornmeal.

Artsy cornmeal.

The one thing about this recipe is that it calls for a 15X10X2 glass baking dish. Turns out I don’t have one of those which I only noticed right before I was getting ready to cook. I just used my normal 13X9 baking dish. After it was combined and cooked for a bit, I took out 1 cup of kind of cooked polenta from my dish so it didn’t end up too thick.

To start, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In your baking dish, combine your water, olive oil, and salt. Then slowly whisk in your cornmeal. It’s not really important at this point that everything is mixed perfectly. It will be very watery – basically a soup.

This was mine:

Honestly, I was skeptical

Bake this at 350 degrees for 1 hour. If you’re using the wrong size dish, like I did, you can either go with extra thick polenta or scoop out a bit at this point. When your dish comes out of the oven, add a fair amount of pepper and then stir it all together. Make sure that it all has an even consistency. I used a whisk to spread mine out.

Whoa.

This will most likely need another 50 minutes to an hour in the oven to get thick enough, but at this point, pull it out after every 20 minutes and stir it again to make sure the polenta is evenly distributed.

After the second hour, pull it out and smooth over the polenta with a spatula so it is nice and smooth. Then let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours until it becomes very firm.

The Day Before

If you are halfway competent at math, you might notice that we are at 4 hours total time just for making the polenta right now. So guess what… do that the night before you actually want to eat the stuff. In fact, you could do it a few days in advance if you wanted, just store it in the fridge until you need it. If you are making the polenta the same day you intent to eat the dinner, you should probably plan for a weekend unless you like a LATE dinner.

The Sauce

This sauce is actually pretty straightforward for a tomato sauce and even though it’s labeled as “spicy” I doubled the amount of red pepper in my version and it was still only mildly spicy.

Anyway, you’ll need to start with some onions, garlic, red pepper, and the secret ingredient: fennel seed. It’s a subtle thing that you can leave out if you don’t have any on hand.

Basics.

To start, take a cup of your tomatoes and blend them up with the pine nuts. I was a bit skeptical on this step and you could skip it, but it ensures that the pine nuts are really smoothly incorporated in the sauce which is nice.

You’ll also need a bunch of basil!

More sauce stuff.

Start by heating your oil in a large pan and then add your onions, garlic, fennel seed and red pepper. Cook until the onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Then add the rest of your crushed tomatoes, the wine, the oregano, your pine nut and tomato puree, and half of your basil. Stir this all together and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. It should reduce slightly and smell lovely. Be sure to taste it for salt and pepper. It’ll probably need a good pinch of both.

Beautiful.

Searing the polenta

As your sauce simmers, you can get your polenta ready. After a long night in the fridge, it should be very firm. I cut mine into triangles, but you could do whatever shape you wanted. Chop up the pieces you need and stick the rest back in the icebox!

Well that firmed up nicely.

It’s important to sear the polenta because it takes on almost a slimy quality as it sets up. Some high heat in a pan transforms the mild sliminess into a very crispy exterior.

Heat up a Tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over high heat. When it’s hot, add your polenta. You’re looking for a very crispy and slightly browned crust. Mine needed about 7 minutes per side to get really nice and crispy.

Then serve the polenta over a nice portion of the sauce!

Pretty good stuff.

I’d never really had a dish like this before and it was definitely interesting. It was almost like a pasta dish but instead of pasta there was these hearty polenta slices. My only complaint was that the polenta, on its own, was a bit bland. There just wasn’t a lot of flavor to it.

I should’ve went with my gut and spiced it up a bit, but you can benefit from my mistake! If you make this, experiment with the polenta flavors. The texture is spot on, but it needs some help getting to Flavortown.

Second, once I buy them, they always go bad before I can use all of them! I’ve tried freezing them and drying them and all of that is fine, but I always find myself wanting fresh herbs a week later so I just buy more. It’s a sick cycle.

The one herb that is definitely an exception to this rule is basil. When I find it on sale, I buy as much of it as possible. Take this box of basil that Whole Foods had on sale a few weeks ago.

I'm a sucker for basil sales.

Now that is a lot of basil! It’s about 4 ounces to be exact. Total cost: $5. Keep in mind that mere feet from where I found this box of basil, you could purchase the very tiny 3/4 ounce of basil for $4. You can do the math people. I’m buying the big box!

Once I got home, I used the tiny amount I needed for a dish, which I think was chicken parmesan. This left me with about 3.8 ounces of basil left. Also known as still a lot of basil.

So, I decided to make a bunch of pesto out of it and freeze it! The pesto maintains its flavor a lot better when frozen than just the raw basil leaves. I think it might have something to do with the oil keeping it fresh.

Let’s make it!

Basic Pesto

Yield: 1 cup or 8 ice cubes

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

3 Cups basil, washed and dried.
1/4 Cup olive oil (might need a bit more or less)
1/8 Cup pine nuts
1 garlic clove, crushed
Parmesan cheese, grated (optional)
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor (I have the mini version.)

Directions:

1) Place all ingredients in food processor and let it spin for a few seconds until all mixed up (when using the mini processor, you may need to do a few batches).

2) Place pesto into ice cube trays (about 2 Tablespoons per cube).

3) Let these freeze solid overnight.

4) Pop the pesto cubes out and store them in a freezer bag. If you have ice cube trays to spare you can keep your pesto in the tray I guess.

5) You can toss them into any warm dish and once they have melted down, you’ll have a very tasty pesto dinner!

Examples:
Cube up some chicken, brown it in a few tablespoons of olive oil, and then toss in a few cubes of pesto!
Make some pasta and once the chicken is completely cooked through and the pesto melted down and hot, add the pasta to the dish for a super-fast but very flavorful pesto chicken dinner.

Now you could go crazy with this and add roasted red peppers or tons of other things, but I wanted to keep it simple for this version.

Basic stuff for pesto.

Making the pesto

Pesto is pretty straightforward to make. Because I just have a mini food processor, I had to make mine in a few batches. Just try to only add enough olive oil to make the ingredients form a paste. You don’t want it to be too oily.

I had to do a few batches...

Give it a spin for a few seconds and it should be all mixed up. I like to leave my pesto with some texture. I want those little chunks of cheese and pine nuts throughout so I never over-process mine. Just a few pulses will do the trick.

Smells good... trust me.

Freezing the pesto

Once you have all your pesto made you can add it to ice cube trays! Each of these trays is about 2 tablespoons of pesto which is, very conveniently, about one good serving. So if you’re making dinner for two, use two cubes. If you’re making dinner for two plus enough for leftovers the next day (as I always do), use four cubes!

Future deliciousness.

Let these freeze solid. It’s best to just leave them in overnight. Then you can pop the pesto cubes out and store them in a freezer bag. If you have ice cube trays to spare you can keep your pesto in the tray I guess. I wanted to return my try to its ice-making duties so I stored my cubes in a bag once they were frozen.

Artsy shot of the day.

Making Dinner

The advantages of these pesto cubes should be pretty obvious, but you can basically toss them into any warm dish and once they have melted down, you’ll have a very tasty pesto dinner!

For example, one night I cubed up some chicken, browned it in a few tablespoons of olive oil, and then tossed in a few cubes of pesto!

You can add these guys to lots of things.

I also made some pasta and once the chicken was completely cooked through and the pesto melted down and hot, I added the pasta to the dish for a super-fast but very flavorful pesto chicken dinner.

Still tastes great!

So the final score in battle herb usage is something like

Nick: 1, big-box-of-basil: 0, all other herbs: 23259.

But never mind that! The point is that now you can capitalize on that huge box of basil that might be sitting, unloved, in your supermarket!

Also, I linked to this last Friday, but if you’re looking for a creative way to extend your fresh herbs for a few more days (or weeks?), check out the contraption that Jason made over at Well Done Chef.

Do you freeze anything in ice cubes to use later?

For me, hitting that button usually means drinking an absurd about of water and making a really nutritious salad that I can eat for the next few days.

Enter the wheat berry salad. Wheat berries give an awesome texture to this really flavorful salad that includes roasted peppers, roasted garlic and a tangy vinaigrette. It’s health on a plate.

Good food.

If you aren’t familiar with wheat berries, I guarantee you that you are familiar with their most common application: flour. Basically these are just the whole berries that are normally ground down to produce flour, but you can find them whole in the grain aisle. You cook them a lot like you would cook beans or rice and you end up with a very nutritious final product that has a great chewy texture and light, nutty flavor.

Wheat berries are jam-packed with iron, fiber, and protein and they work perfectly for this salad.

Wheat Berry Salad with Roasted Peppers

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Cups uncooked wheat berries
6 peppers, roasted, peeled, and cubed
2 heads garlic, roasted
1 Cup basil, chopped
1/3 Cup pine nuts, toasted
1/3 Cup red wine Vinegar
1/2 Cup extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
Spinach or greens for serving

Directions:

1) Boil the wheat berries in salted water and then drain them, but check the packaging before you dive in (this takes approximately 75 minutes).

2) Get a whole bulb of garlic, peel off any papery stuff that is on the outside, but make sure the bulb stays intact, and then slice off the very tip of the bulb to expose just a bit of each clove. Wrap this in foil with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt.

3) Bake the foil package at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until a knife easily slides into a clove. It should be tender and golden brown and smell like awesomeness.

4) Let it cool a minute and then you should be able to literally squeeze out each clove. You can use a fork if you are trying to be all proper about it. Then for this recipe, just mush it up.

5) Roast red, yellow, and orange peppers in the broiler for a few minutes a side until they deflate and are charred on the outside. Or you could grill them. Or if you have a gas stove, you can lay them on the open flame for a few minutes a side.

6) Stick all the peppers in a large bowl and cover it with plastic wrap and let them steam for 15 minutes.

7) After that you need to peel and dice each pepper. Peel off as much skin as you can using your hands and a paper towel, then use a knife to slice out the core and slice the pepper down the middle. Then clean up the pepper a bit more with a paper towel, and then dice them all up.

8) Roast some pine nuts in a dry skillet over medium heat.

9) Chop up the fresh basil!

10) Whisk olive oil and red wine vinegar together to make the dressing for the salad.

11) Once the wheat berries are cooked (they should be tender, but have some chew to them), drain them and then rinse them for a few seconds so they don’t stick together.

12) Stir in the peppers and garlic and basil.

13) Pour the dressing over the whole thing and stir it up! Be sure to taste for salt and pepper.

14) It's best to let it chill for a few hours so the flavors can have plenty of time to come together.

15) Serve on a bed of spinach, topped with the pine nuts along with some toasted bread slather in garlic!

Adapted from How to Cook Everything.

Cooking the Wheat Berries

The wheat berries will normally take about an hour to 75 minutes to cook, so get them started first. Basically, you just boil them in salted water and then drain them, but check your packaging before you dive in.

Before there was flour, there was wheat berries.

Roasting the Garlic

While this dish only has a few ingredients, each one is incredibly flavorful. Also though, each ingredient takes a bit of time to prepare. This is definitely not a quick weeknight meal if you do everything from scratch mainly because the wheat berries take about 75 minutes to cook.

But also you need to roast some garlic! If you’ve never had roasted garlic, you don’t know what you’re missing. Luckily, it’s really easy to make. Just get a whole bulb of garlic, peel off any papery stuff that is on the outside, but make sure the bulb stays intact, and then slice off the very tip of the bulb to expose just a bit of each clove.

Wrap this in foil with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt (top left). Bake the foil package at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until a knife easily slides into a clove. It should be tender and golden brown and smell like awesomeness (top right).

Let it cool a minute and then you should be able to literally squeeze out each clove. You can use a fork if you are trying to be all proper about it (bottom left). Then for this recipe, just mush it up (bottom right).

It doesn't get better than this for me.

Roasting Peppers

You can definitely buy the canned roasted peppers if you want, but since you have to wait so long for the wheat berries you may as well roast your own. I used a combination of red, yellow, and orange peppers for my salad. You can definitely roast them in the broiler for a few minutes a side until they deflate and are charred on the outside. Or you could grill them.

Or if you have a gas stove, you can just do this:

I'm such a pyro.

When the peppers are 90% black, they are done if you’re using the grill or gas stove method. Then stick all your peppers in a large bowl and cover it with plastic wrap and let them steam for 15 minutes.

After that you need to peel and dice each pepper. This is kind of a mess, but it’s worth it in my opinion. I read somewhere that if you wash the pepper after roasting it washes off all the flavors and juices so I didn’t wash mine this time.

I peeled off as much skin as I could using my hands and a paper towel (top left), then I used a knife to slice out the core and sliced the pepper down the middle (top right). Then I tried to clean up the pepper a bit more with a paper towel (bottom left), and then I diced them all up (bottom right).

I would say the whole pepper process took me 45 minutes, but that’s fine because my garlic was roasting and my wheat berries were cooking anyway.

After a 15 minute steam, do this.

Other Ingredients

To finish off this dish, you’ll also need to roast some pine nuts which you should do in a dry skillet over medium heat.

Whatever you do, don’t take your eyes off these guys. They go from toasted (below) to burned (not shown, luckily) in about 30 seconds.

These guys burn quickly. Watch them!

Also, chop up a good amount of fresh basil!

If your kitchen didn't smell good already.

I didn’t take a photo of it but you’ll also need to whisk your olive oil and red wine vinegar together to make the dressing for the salad. That’s really easy though.

Putting the dish together

Once your wheat berries are cooked (they should be tender, but have some chew to them), drain them and then rinse them for a few seconds so they don’t stick together.

After about 75 minutes...

Then stir in your peppers and garlic and basil. Pour your dressing over the whole thing and stir it up! Be sure to taste for salt and pepper. I probably added 2 Teaspoons of salt and 1 Tablespoon of fresh ground pepper.

All together now! Don't forget the dressing.

I think this salad is best if you let it chill for a few hours so the flavors can have plenty of time to come together.

I served mine on a bed of spinach, topped with the pine nuts along with some toasted bread that I slathered with some extra roasted garlic I made because it’s just so darn good.

Pretty food.

Betsy and I ate this dish for 2 dinners and we both brought it for lunch one day also. So it served 6 full meals. It’s also possible that it’s the healthiest thing I’ve ever made on Macheesmo. I mean, just look at those colors! How could it not be delicious?

If you’ve never tried wheat berries, give them a shot. Prepared with these tasty add-ins and with the tangy vinaigrette dressing, they make a fantastic reset button salad.

Given that there were two food bloggers at the event, the food was pretty solid. For starters, these were the pesto pork chops we grilled up.

Flame licked.

We had quite the menu for this event, especially given that there were only four of us. Course one was margaritas. Nothing like a little tequila to smooth out a Saturday.

Course two was a dish that I learned from my Dad actually: Jalapeno Poppers wrapped in bacon.

Jalapeno Poppers
(For 12 poppers. Enough for 4 healthy guys.)

- 12 jalapenos
- 6 ounces cream cheese
- 2 ounces blue cheese
- 12 strips thick bacon
- Toothpicks, soaked in water

Making the poppers

If you have some rubber gloves you may want to put them on. First, mix your cream cheese and blue cheese together in a bowl. You can just use cream cheese if you want, but I think the blue cheese gives it a nice bite.

THe perfect mix of cheeses.

As far as the jalapenos go, chop off the stem but try to leave as small a hole as possible at the top of the pepper. Then chop them in half horizontally and cut out all the guts. If you want these guys really spicy you could mix the seeds in with your cheese mixture. That’d be kind of crazy, but I’m not against it.

Then stuff as much of the cheese as you can between the two halves of the jalapeno and sandwich them back together. They should be able to close completely.

If you are my father, then you have a drill bit that you use solely for this purpose. He just drills out the center of the pepper so there’s no need to cut them in half. It’s about 10 times as fast, but I don’t have a drill really so I do it this way. Still works great.

KInda messy, but worth it.

The problem obviously is that if we were to throw these guys on the grill like that, the cheese would just melt right out and you would have one big hot mess. Solution: bacon.

Wrap each pepper in a full strip of bacon. Start at the top of the pepper to make sure the top hole is covered and then just wind the bacon around until it is snug around the pepper. Then secure the whole thing with a toothpick. Make sure to soak your toothpicks in water before you do this or they will just burn off really fast on the grill.

As the bacon cooks, it contracts and keeps the pepper nice and tight so very little cheese will escape as it melts. I know it sounds crazy but it works!

Ready for the heat!

These guys need to cook until the bacon is nice and crispy. Probably 10-15 minutes on the grill. Turn them every few minutes. The first time you make them you may lose one or two, but don’t worry about it. You’ll get good at it quickly.

Warning. This will smell delicious.

The final result is crispy bacon wrapped around a roasted pepper that still has a tiny bit of crispiness to it. Inside is an awesome cheese mixture.

I think I could eat a dozen of these by myself, but usually 2 or 3 is enough to do the trick.

Tightly wrapped!

Rex cut up a bunch of nice veggies and marinated them. You can find his recipe on his post, but here is some grill porn for ya.

Veg city.

Pesto Pork Chops

There is a farmer’s market around the corner from my house and it gets bigger every weekend. My favorite stand so far is one that sells all kinds of pork products. They have amazing bacon (used theirs for the poppers above) and also pork chops.

Rex had lots of fresh basil growing in his backyard so we decided to mix up some pesto to marinate these guys in.

Basic Pesto

- 1 1/2 Cups fresh basil
- 1/4 Cup pine nuts
- 3-5 cloves garlic (ok. Five.)
- 1/4 – 1/2 cup olive oil
- Salt and pepper

Just mix up all those things in a food processor or blender and then pour the pesto over your chops in a plastic bag. Let these marinate for an hour or two at least.

Flavor packed.

Literally, as we were walking out to the grill it started to monsoon rain. Luckily, Rex is prepared for any situation. He has a full tent that was quick to set up that completely covers his patio – grill and chairs. Awesome.

While we were cooking the veggies above, there were some serious flare-ups on the grill and it would create these huge plumes of smoke which would get trapped in the tent. I stepped back from the tent and snapped this photo while Rex was manning the grill.

Hunting the hunter.

Cook the pork chops on pretty high heat for 5-7 minutes a side depending on thickness. You want to make sure they have a good char on them.

I don't have to tell you that these were good.

So there are a few recipes here that maybe you can use the next time you are looking for something to grill.

Good times.

For this post I thought I would tackle a veggie that gets, quite possibly, the worst publicity of any veggie ever. If brussel sprouts had a PR guy, they should fire him immediately and hire me. I will speak to their amazing-ness.

Eat your SPROUTS!

What you have to remember about brussel sprouts is that basically they are a mini-cabbage. Do you like cabbage? Then you will like brussel sprouts! But even if you don’t like cabbage, these guys can be used as kind of a blank canvas. They literally soak up whatever flavors you put with them, which in this case is a delicious red wine vinegar glaze.

The Parmesan adds some creaminess to the dish and the pine nuts give the whole thing some needed texture. I mean… it’s okay to not like plain old steamed sprouts I guess, but these guys are different! To not like these would be kind of weird.

Brussel Sprouts with Red Wine

Yield: Serves 4 as a side.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound of brussel sprouts. (I just used one bag. Should be about 30 sprouts.)
1/4 Cup pine nuts, toasted
1/3 Cup red wine vinegar
1/3 Cup olive oil (Few tablespoons for roasting, the rest for the reduction.)
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 garlic clove, crushed
Parmesan cheese, shaved
Kosher Salt

Directions:

1) Put all the sprouts in a roasting pan and drizzle with some olive oil and Kosher salt.

2) Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Be sure to check them and stir them every 10 minutes or.

3) Toast some pine nuts by pouring them in a dry skillet (no oil). Put the pan on medium heat and watch them carefully, stirring every minute or so. After about 5 minutes you should notice a distinctly wonderful smell coming from them and they should start to brown a bit.

4) Pour them in a bowl to get them off the heat as soon as possible.

5) Add the olive oil (1/4 of a Cup) to the hot pan and then add the garlic to the oil. Let the garlic simmer for about a minute and then add the red wine and the sugar and stir.

6) Let this simmer away and after about 10 minutes it should be reduced by about half.

7) Pour the sprouts right into the pan with the reduction and stir to soak up all that sauce. Then toss with the pine nuts and shave some Parm over the top.

The easiest way to get brussel sprouts is in a bag. You can buy the long natural stem with them attached, but that is kind of a pain to work with unless you plan to grill the whole stem, which I also highly recommend but is the topic of another post.

The simple sprout.

Look for sprouts that aren’t too big or loose. Nice and tight orbs with bright green leaves are what you are looking for. Wash all the sprouts and then chop off the stems and half each sprout. Don’t worry if a few leaves fall apart. That’s bound to happen.

Then put all the sprouts in a roasting pan and drizzle with some olive oil and Kosher salt.

Sliced and diced.

Put these guys in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Be sure to check them and stir them every 10 minutes or so in case they are cooking faster than expected.

Meanwhile, you can get your other ingredients ready!

Other essentials.

The first thing I did was toast some pine nuts. The best way to do this is to just pour them in a dry skillet. Don’t use oil or anything. Just the nuts. Put the pan on medium heat and watch them carefully, stirring every minute or so. After about 5 minutes you should notice a distinctly wonderful smell coming from them and they should start to brown a bit.

They are done! Pour them in a bowl to get them off the heat as soon as possible. These guys will go from perfect to BURNED in about 30 seconds.

Watch these guys. They will burn.

Now that you have a hot pan (from the pine nuts), you can use it to make your red wine reduction. Add your olive oil (I used probably 1/4 of a Cup) and then add your garlic to the oil. Let the garlic simmer for about a minute and then add your red wine and your sugar and stir.

Let this simmer away and after about 10 minutes it should be reduced by about half. The way to really tell if it is the right consistency is to run a spatula through it. It should leave a trail in the syrupy reduction.

A good reduction leaves a mark.

If you timed it right, your sprouts should be just about done. Some of them will be more browned than others and that is okay. I also like to pull them out when they still have a slight crunch. If they are too soggy then they kind of just turn to mush on the plate. Mush is not a delicious texture.

These were about perfect:

Out of the oven.

Pour your sprouts right into the pan with your reduction and stir to soak up all that sauce. Then toss with your pine nuts and shave some Parm over the top.

It’s a fantastic side dish that will have any veggie haters warming up to the little green orbs of death. That is, if you can get them to try it.

Up close and personal

Make this dish. Eat your vegetables. Thank me in fifty years.