There's gin in there...

It seemed like there was a phase in the cooking world, and maybe it’s still happening, when vodka pasta sauce was the freakin’ bee’s knees.

It was the sexiest thing you could do to pasta.

I’ve definitely made it and ate it and enjoyed it, although I’ve never posted on it.

Here’s my problem with vodka sauce: Good vodka is specifically engineered to be tasteless. That’s why it’s great for mixed drinks. It really has almost no taste.

So wouldn’t it make sense to make a sauce with booze that has some flavor? More importantly, maybe booze that has some herbal flavors that would go well with tomatoes and cheese?

Gin has these flavors and it will kick your pasta sauce up a notch.

Gin Penne Pasta

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound penne pasta, cooked al dente
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 cup gin
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 cup fresh basil, minced
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Stick blender or normal blender

Directions:

1) In a medium pot, add olive oil, onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes and begin cooking over medium heat. Cook for 5 minutes until onions are soft and fragrant. Be careful not to brown the onions and garlic. You just want them soft.

2) Add in tomatoes and cook for a few minutes.

3) Remove sauce from heat and blend with a stick blender, or normal blender until sauce is fairly smooth. It doesn't have to be perfect.

4) Add gin and sugar to sauce and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes or so until alcohol cooks off from gin. You'll know when it's ready because it won't smell like strong alcohol.

5) Stir in cream, Parmesan cheese, and basil and season with salt and pepper. Keep warm.

6) Cook pasta according to package. Make sure to pull it when it is al dente or has a slight bite to it still.

7) Drain pasta well and add directly to sauce. Stir together.

8) Serve garnished with Parmesan cheese and fresh basil!

Gin Over Vodka

I was a bit worried when I had the idea for this sauce that I would go too far in the other direction. I was worried that gin would have too much flavor and completely overpower the sauce. I started slow and added a quarter of a cup to the sauce, let it simmer and tasted it.

At the end of it, I decided that about a cup of gin is the right amount. Even though gin has a pretty strong flavor on its own, when it cooks down and mixes with the other ingredients, it’s a subtle but nice flavor.

Basically, I think it gives the sauce some interesting complexity that definitely can’t be found with a vodka sauce. Gin after all is made with a fair amount of botanical herbs and spices while vodka is made mainly with… potatoes.

A few basics...

Starting the Sauce

While there is some simmering and stirring that goes on with this sauce, there’s really not much chopping. Just dice up some onion and garlic and you’re ready to start the sauce.

Just a few things to chop.

Add the olive oil to a medium pot with the onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Cook this over medium heat until the onions and garlic start to soften and it smells very fragrant.

You don’t want the onions to brown at all. They should just get soft over medium heat which will take around 5-6 minutes.

Try not to brown them.

Then add in your tomatoes and sugar. The small amount of sugar balances some of the acidity of the tomatoes.

Any diced tomatoes will do the trick for this recipe. I went with some fire-roasted Muir Glen tomatoes.

Any kind of stewed tomato will do the trick.

Continue to cook this for a few minutes.

I wanted my sauce to be pretty smooth so I decided to blend it up with my stick blender. You could also use a normal blender or just kind of mash the tomatoes as they cooked and go with a more rustic version of the sauce.

You definitely don’t need a blender to make this sauce, but if you can, I recommend taking it for a spin.

A quick spin.

Big Time Flavor

At this point our sauce is pretty standard, but it’s about to get a big bump in the flavor department.

Starting with the gin. A whole cup. It doesn’t really matter what brand of gin you use, but I wouldn’t use super-cheap stuff.

A whole cup!

Bring this sauce to a simmer and let it simmer for about 15-20 minutes, stirring regularly. Your goal here is to cook off most of the alcohol and reduce the gin flavors.

You’ll know when it’s done because the sauce won’t smell intensely like alcohol!

As a final step stir in some cream which will mellow out some of the flavors and give the sauce a nice, rich texture.

Mellows it a bit.

Any time I’m trying to make a really good tomato-based pasta sauce, there are two ingredients that I almost always include: Real Parmesan cheese, and fresh basil.

Must have flavors.

Add a good amount of these to the sauce and season the sauce with salt and pepper.

I recommend finishing the sauce and then just keeping it warm while you work on the pasta.

This was my finished sauce!

Done deal!

Finishing the Dish

For the pasta itself, just cook it according to the package. While I guess you could use any pasta, I think penne works perfectly for this dish.

Whatever you do, don’t overcook the pasta. Soggy pasta is pretty much the worst.

Steaming hot.

As soon as the pasta is drained, toss it into the sauce (or toss the sauce into your pasta depending on your pot size).

Stir it all together. Even though it will look like a lot of sauce, as you stir in the pasta, all that sauce will get trapped in the penne pasta and you’ll be all set.

These guys will soak up a lot of sauce.

I like to serve pasta dishes like this family style which basically means I just pile it in a huge bowl and add some basil and cheese to the top.

I like to serve it family style.

Surprisingly, even with a cup of gin in this sauce, the flavor is pretty subtle. All of those gin botanicals, most importantly juniper, give the sauce this really complex flavor and fragrance.

It’s one of those dishes that if you were to eat it without knowing what was in it, you wouldn’t be able to put your finger on it, but once you know it’s gin, then it makes sense.

Let it be known: When it comes to pasta sauces, gin is the new vodka.

My first shells!

Let’s talk about something quickly that has confused me over the years: the difference between yams and sweet potatoes.

Here’s the thing. It’s actually hard to find real yams in grocery stores. They aren’t popular in America. But, there are two kinds of sweet potatoes that are sold: ones with a lighter skin and light yellow flesh and ones with a more orange tint to it.

Unfortunately, a lot of grocery stores label the more orange sweet potatoes as yams even though they aren’t. They are still sweet potatoes but just a different variety.

My grocery store actually had these labeled as “Sweet Potatoes/Yams” as if they were the same thing!

Real yams have a dark skin and are even sweeter than sweet potatoes. They are popular in Caribbean cuisine, but are actually a bit hard to find in most grocery stores in the states.

So let the record show: These wonderfully delicious baked shells are stuffed with sweet potatoes and definitely not stuffed with yams.

Sweet Potato Stuffed Shells

Yield: Serves 5-6.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 large yams, boiled and mashed
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 fresh sage leaves, minced
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1 28 ounce can tomato sauce
6 ounces mozzarella cheese, sliced
16 ounces pasta shells, cooked al dente
Salt and pepper
Fresh chives (garnish)

Directions:

1) Peel and cube yams and boil them in salted water until they are very tender, about 12-15 minutes. Drain yams and mash in a bowl.

2) You can cook shells in same water. Cook until al dente and then remove and drain shells.

3) Dice onions, sage, and garlic and saute in butter over medium heat until onions are soft, about 5-6 minutes. Don't brown the onions. Add red pepper flakes and a pinch of salt.

4) Add onion mixture to mashed yams with greek yogurt, cream, and walnuts. Stir together and season with salt and pepper.

5) Add half of the tomato sauce to the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish. Working with one shell at a time, fill shell with a few spoonfuls of filling. You can stuff them pretty full. It's also okay if they rip a bit.

6) Arrange stuffed shells in baking dish. Once the dish is full, top each shell with extra sauce and a slice of mozzarella.

7) Cover dish loosely with foil and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Then uncover and bake dish for another 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

8) Serve shells garnished with fresh chopped chives.

Making the Filling

This is really a perfect winter filling. You could do a lot of things with it actually besides stuff it in shells. You could layer it in a lasagna or put it in manicotti. You could put it in ravioli or add some cheese and extra cream to it and make a kind of baked dip out of it.

It all starts with sweet potatoes though. Two large ones should do the trick. Just peel them and dice them into pretty large cubes.

Peeled and cubed

Boil these cubes in salted water until they are very tender (about 15 minutes) and then mash them up in a bowl. It’s okay if they aren’t completely smooth. Some lumps are just fine.

No need to be perfectly smooth.

Filling Flavors

Sweet potatoes are a good start but we want to add a lot more flavor to this filling. I really like the onion/sage flavor profile that the polenta I posted on Thursday had, so I decided to use similar stuff for this filling.

Good winter flavors.

Dice up the onion, mince the garlic and sage, and saute the veggies in butter over medium heat until the onions are soft. Be sure not to cook them on high heat or the veggies might brown which isn’t what you want.

You just want them to soften a bit so they turn slightly sweet. It should take about 5-6 minutes.

Then add in your red pepper flakes and add this mixture to the mashed sweet potatoes. You can add your yogurt and cream at the same time!

Yogurt... or sour cream.

I stirred this all together and tasted it.

Very Important: Any time you are coming up with a filling like this, it’s very important to taste it as you go.

When I tasted this, I liked the flavor, but I thought the texture was a bit mushy. So I went rummaging through my pantry and landed on some walnuts that I thought would give this filling some great texture.

Great add-in.

Just remember… if the filling tastes good on its own (which this did) then it’s going to be even better when it’s baked and covered with cheese.

The Pasta

Like I said, I wanted to use shells for this dish just because I don’t use them very often. You could use almost any baked pasta thing though for this filling, so go crazy!

Whatever pasta you choose, just make sure you don’t over cook the stuff. Pull it out while the pasta still has a very tiny bite to it. It will continue to cook in the oven later.

Be careful not to overcook these guys!

Prepping the Shells

These shells are actually really easy to stuff assuming that you don’t overcook them. Just add a few spoonfuls of filling to each shell! You can really stuff them pretty full.

Easy as that.

In a large baking dish, add about half of your tomato sauce to the bottom of the dish and then start stacking these shells in the dish.

You might have some leftover filling or shells depending on a few things, but it’s better to have leftover filling then not enough!

Might have some leftovers...

Add the rest of your tomato sauce to the top of the shells and top each shell with some mozzarella cheese.

I’m always inclined to add a large amount of cheese to dishes like this, but I would really recommend keeping the cheese light in this instance. The filling is really the star of the show and very delicious and rich on its own. So just a small amount of cheese should do the trick.

No need to go crazy with cheese.

Baking the Pasta

Cover this dish loosely with foil and bake it at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Then crank up the heat to 400 and remove the foil. Bake it for another 15 minutes just so the tops of the pasta gets slightly browned.

Baked!

Serve these suckers with some fresh chopped chives!

Really great meal!

These were a delicious winter dinner and the leftovers were perfect also. Betsy and I ate these shells for a few days and I never got sick of them.

So remember: These are sweet potatoes, not yams.

And also remember to try this as soon as possible!

This warms the soul.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted something made in my crockpot, almost two years in fact. So I was very happy when a crockpot dish won the poll last week.

Plus, it just makes sense. It’s cold and you’re probably busy this time of year so a dish that you can RONCO (set it and forget it) is probably helpful.

Funnily, this soup fits almost all of the categories in the poll last week. I swear that wasn’t planned… sometimes it just works out that way.

I’ve made chicken tortilla soup before, but never posted on it. This version was, by far, the best version I’ve ever made though. Something about letting the flavors just kind of mingle all day long really gave the finished soup an interesting and deep flavor.

You’d be silly not to try this!

Crockpot Chicken Tortilla Soup

Yield: Serves 5-6

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 8 hours

Ingredients:

1 yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Serrano pepper, diced (with seeds)
1 red pepper, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 chipotle pepper, minced
1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 pound chicken breasts
2 dried New Mexico chile peppers (or poblano)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 bay leaves
6 cups chicken stock
A few sprigs cilantro
3 corn tortillas, diced
1 cup corn
Salt and pepper

Garnish:
Corn tortilla strips
Avocados
Limes
Cotija cheese
Sour cream

Helpful Equipment:
Crockpot

Directions:

1) Finely dice the onion, garlic, peppers, and celery and add them to a crockpot.

2) Also add in the chicken breasts, canned tomatoes, bay leaves, cumin seeds, dried chiles, and chicken stock. The stock should just cover all the ingredients.

3) Cover and set the crockpot on low. Cook for 6-8 hours.

4) Remove dried chiles and bay leaves and discard. Remove chicken breasts, shred, and return to crockpot.

5) Add in cilantro sprigs, corn, and a few corn tortillas cut into bits. Let the crockpot simmer for another 30-60 minutes.

6) Season soup with salt and pepper.

7) To make tortilla strips, dice corn tortillas into strips and bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes until lightly browned and crispy.

8) Serve soup piled high with tortilla strips. Other fun garnishes include lime wedges, crumbled cotija cheese, avocados, and sour cream.

Preparing the Veggies

I know what you’re thinking: ”Holy crap that’s a lot of ingredients!”

True. But hang in there. Most of them are basic stuff and once they are all in the pot, there’s very little work involved in this meal. You can go cross stuff off your list and come home to a delicious soup.

These are the few veggies that you need to start this soup.

Just a few basics.

The key to these is to dice them pretty finely.

For the Serrano pepper, I left the seeds in. You could take them out though if you’re worried about the heat.

Then just toss all this stuff into your slow cooker!

A fine dice.

Besides the veggies you need a few other things to get this soup going.

This is where a lot of the flavor comes from in this soup.

Flavor town.

Add all this stuff to the crockpot along with your chicken breasts. I would shoot for about a pound of chicken but you could use more if you wanted.

For the chipotle pepper, make sure you dice it very finely. Nobody wants a big bite of chipotle in their soup.

For the dried peppers, you can use almost any dried pepper. I went with New Mexico chile peppers, but poblanos would work also. Just break up the dried peppers into a few pieces and scrape out the seeds. Then throw the dried pieces into the crockpot along with the chicken breasts.

Everybody in the pot!

Add in all your chicken stock which should just barely cover all the ingredients.

A Slow Cook

Set your crockpot to a low heat and let this sucker cook, covered, for at least six hours. If you wanted you could cook it for even longer though. Six hours is the minimum.

After that, your house will smell amazing and your soup will look something like this.

6 hours later...

Finishing the Soup

There’s a few things we need to do to finish this soup now that most of the cooking is done.

For starters, take out the bay leaves and dried peppers from the soup and discard them. They’ve given the soup plenty of flavor and there’s no need to hang on to them.

Next, take out the chicken breasts and use a few forks to gently shred the meat. Then you can return it to the crockpot.

Get it?

Finally, there are three new ingredients that I recommend adding at this point as they don’t need to simmer all day long.

First, add some corn and cilantro sprigs. Second, cube up a few corn tortillas and add those cubes straight to the soup.

Just some more flavor!

Cover this and let it simmer for another 30-45 minutes. The tortillas will soften and some will completely disintegrate into the soup which will give it a really rich texture. The cilantro will give the soup a nice herb flavor.

After it’s second cooking, remove the cilantro stalks and season the soup generously with salt and pepper.

The Garnishes

My favorite part of chicken tortilla soup is serving it with tons of fun garnishes and toppings and then people can kind of make their own bowls.

The essential topping (in my opinion) is crispy tortilla strips. These are super-easy to make. Just cut a few corn tortillas into long strips and bake them at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes.

The strips will be lightly browned when the are done and super-crispy.

Great garnish.

Some other topping ideas that I like are sliced avocado, crumbled cotija cheese (or any cheese really), sour cream, and lime wedges.

Some other fun add-ins.

Once your soup is seasoned well with salt and pepper just ladle it into a bowl and pile on the toppings!

From above.

It’s actually a very filling meal for soup because of the chicken, tortillas, and cheese. It’s very warming and just a complete winner of a meal in my book.

Don’t be daunted by the ingredient list here, people. You can and should give this a shot sometime this winter!

The cute little napkins in this post were kindly donated by Oh Little Rabbit.

Awesome lunch.

If you’ve been a long time Macheesmo reader you’ll know that Betsy and I are on a crazy hunt to find original and fun lunches to eat during the week. There’s always a few qualifications for these lunches.

1) You need to be able to make them in bulk.

2) They need to be fairly economical and also keep really well for at least five days.

3) They need to be somewhat healthy.

This hunt has led us to some awesome lunches like this pesto quinoa salad. In general though, it keeps us both out of the fast food lines and generally saves us a few bucks a week also.

I do think I’m starting to get fairly good at the weekday lunch because Betsy’s co-workers have actually offered to pay me to bring them lunch during the week. I haven’t actually taken them up on it, but I happily direct them to this here website where they can find almost every lunch I’ve made for us.

The latest iteration of this hunt took the form of a classic Middle Eastern meal: Falafel and Tabbouleh.

A Middle Eastern Lunch

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

Tabbouleh:
1 cup quick cooking bulgar
1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/3 cup fresh mint, chopped
3 scallions, minced
1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes (drained)
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of salt

Falafel:
2 16 ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 large egg
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup fresh parsley, minced
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, minced
1/2 white onion, diced
2 Teaspoons baking soda
1 Teaspoon cumin seeds
1 Teaspoon paprika
1/4 Cup Sesame seeds
Pinch of salt and pepper

Mini Pitas
1 quart oil for frying
Greek Yogurt

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor
Deep Fry Thermometer

Directions:

For Tabbouleh:
1) Cook bulgar according to package. This will most likely mean letting it steep in hot water for about 20 minutes.
2) Chop other ingredients.
3) Once bulgar is soaked, mix with veggies and add in olive oil and lemon juice.
4) Season with salt and store for up to a week.

For Falafels:
1) Pulse onion, garlic, and sesame seeds in food processor.
2) Add chickpeas and pulse until combined.
3) Remove from processor and stir in breadcrumbs, egg, herbs and spices.
4) Heat frying station up to 350 degrees.
5) Make about Tablespoon-sized balls from the chickpea mixture.
6) Fry balls in oil for about 3-4 minutes until they are a deep golden brown.
7) Let drain and serve with pita and greek yogurt.

Getting Bulgar

Tabbouleh, if you aren’t familiar with it, is an awesome side dish that just a mixture of bulgar wheat and lots of fresh vegetables and herbs.

You can find bulgar in most supermarkets and grocery stores these days. Look out for the quick cooking variety. It works great.

Love this stuff.

Besides the bulgar, you just need a lot of veggies. I like crunchy stuff like scallions and cucumbers in mine along with lots of fresh herbs like parsley and mint. I also drained a small can of diced tomatoes and added those to the mix just for good measure!

Lots of good flavors here.

Preparing the bulgar is really straightforward. You should read the instructions that come with your bulgar but basically it will involve soaking the bulgar in hot water for about 20 minutes.

Then it will turn nice and fluffy!

After a soak.

Mix all this stuff together and season it with some lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and you’ll be all set.

As with most stuff like this, tabbouleh gets even better if you let it sit in the fridge for a day or two. All the flavors start to mingle and it’s really very delicious, not to mention healthy.

It gets better on day two.

The Falafels

It’s pretty hard to make a meal out of just tabbouleh so I decided to make a big batch of falafels that would go well with it.

Honestly, this was my first time ever making falafels and I was pretty impressed at how easy they were to make.

I started out by pulsing my onions, garlic, and spices in my food processor until they were minced finely. Just a few pulses will do the trick.

A food processor is your friend.

Then add your drained chickpeas to the food processor and pulse them a few more times. You should end up with a rough paste. Remove that from your food processor and add in all your other ingredients!

My mixture was already smelling really good so I knew I was onto something here!

It's like a batter-dough thing.

Frying the Falafels

Once you have your falafel batter ready, just set up your fry station as you normally would. As always, I highly recommend using a deep-fry thermometer to make sure you don’t overheat your oil.

Once your oil is at 350 degrees, just start adding your falafel batter in large tablespoon sized balls. They should only take 3-4 minutes to fry up and turn really nice and brown.

Nice color on these guys.

These were really flavorful. Perfectly crispy on the outside and moist and tender on the inside.

Chomp!

I was worried about the falafels keeping okay. After all, fried food tends to be best right out of the fryer.

It’s true that the falafels were best right away, but they kept fine also. You could microwave them or I thought they were fine cold.

A few falafel balls plus a cup or so of tabbouleh and some greek yogurt and pita made for a great lunch.

All packed up!

If you can find a way to cycle in some semi-healthy foods for lunch during the week, I think you’ll be shocked at how much more energy you have in the afternoon. If I eat something like this, I find I have way more juice than if I chow down on a huge cheeseburger or something.

While it is a bit of work to make these two things, if you can find time to do it on a lazy sunday, you’ll be all set for lunches for the entire week!

It's like a flat taco!

Betsy would like to thank all of you who voted for the Tex-Mex dish in last week’s poll. She didn’t actually vote and when she saw the results she sighed a sigh of relief.

“I can’t believe you almost had to make a cake. Over Tex-Mex. I would’ve been mildly upset.”

Of course, I explained that much like in a democracy… you can’t complain if you don’t vote!

But she got lucky on this one.

I’ve made a tex-mex style stack before, but this one is a bit more themed around ingredients that normally go in a crunchy beef taco. It’s just layered instead of stuffed which makes it fun!

The Taco Stack

Yield: 4 Taco Stacks

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

12 corn tortillas, fried crispy
1/4 Cup vegetable oil, for frying tortillas

Beef Mixture:
1 pound ground beef
1/2 white onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Cup diced tomatoes
1 small can roasted green chilis
1 Teaspoon cumin seeds
1 Teaspoon chili powder
1 Teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 Teaspoon cayenne pepper
Pinch of salt and pepper

2 avocados, mashed
2 Tablespoons cilantro, mashed with avocado
1/2 lime, juice only (for guac)
Chopped Lettuce
8 ounces pepper jack cheese, grated
Sour cream

Directions:

1) Add oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Once hot, add one tortilla at a time. Cook tortilla for 15 seconds and then flip. Cook for a total of 2-3 minutes until tortilla is slightly browned and crispy. Flip occasionally. Then let drain and cool on a paper towel. The tostada will continue to crisp up as it cools.

2) For beef mixture, add diced onion and garlic to a large skillet with a drizzle of oil. Cook over medium-high heat until veggies start to soften, about 3 minutes.

3) Add spices and continue to cook until fragrant, another 2-3 minutes.

4) Add beef and cook until well-browned. Then add chilis and tomatoes and continue to cook until tomatoes cook down, another 5 minutes or so.

5) Grate cheese, chop lettuce, and make quick guacamole.

6) Slather bottom tostada with guac and add a handful of lettuce. Add a second tostada, then cheese, beef, and more cheese. Top with final tostada and a dollop of sour cream.

Frying the Tostadas

You can buy pre-made tostadas in the store these days, but I still like to make my own. The pre-made ones are much thinner and therefore they get soggier and just don’t hold up as well to something like this.

Frying your own isn’t hard. Just add a good drizzle of oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Once it’s hot, add a tortilla and let it sizzle for 15 seconds, then give it a flip to get both sides cooking. Cook tortillas for 2-3 minutes total, flipping occasionally.

Once the tortillas are done, let them drain on a paper towel briefly. As they cool, they will continue to crisp up.

Not too hard.

Cooking the Filling

I really don’t love pre-mixed taco seasonings, but you could definitely use one if you wanted. I’ve found a combination of spices that I think makes for a really delicious taco seasoning.

I sometimes play with it a bit, but it almost always has these four flavorful spices: cumin, red pepper flakes, cayenne pepper, and chili powder.

Spicy!

When you’re ready to cook the filling, add a drizzle of oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Once it’s hot add the onions and garlic and let them cook until they start to soften up, about 3 minutes.

Then add all of your spices and stir it all together. The spices will toast and become really fragrant as the onions continue to cook.

It’ll smell delicious.

Already smellin' good.

Add the ground beef to the onion mixture and continue to cook until the beef is well browned. Then stir in the green chilis and diced tomatoes.

Good flavors.

Stir this all together and cook for another 5 minutes or so until the tomatoes cook down and most of the liquid is out of the pan. Taste it and season with salt and pepper.

The Other Toppings

Since this is a taco after all, there are a few other ingredients that I consider to be essential: Grated cheese, lettuce, and guacamole.

For the guacamole, I went pretty minimalist here and just mashed up avocados and some diced cilantro and then added the juice of half a lime.

Guac is essential.

Making the stack

There’s nothing too scientific about the stack, and you could stack your ingredients in any order really, but I like this order.

Start with one tostada and slather on a good helping of guacamole. Then pile on some lettuce. The guacamole will help the lettuce stick around.

Straightforward.

Then add a second tostada followed by a handful of grated cheese.

Then top with your hot beef mixture and add another handful of cheese on top.

The hot beef will melt the cheeses and the middle tostada will keep any liquids from making the lettuce soggy.

My favorite layer.

Top with your final tostada and add a good dollop of sour cream and some extra cilantro if that’s your thing.

From the top!

Not only was this completely delicious but it also turned out to be a really pretty dish I think.

Well, pretty for a taco anyway.

It might seem like the best way to eat this is with a fork and knife, but Betsy and I discovered that the best way to eat it is to literally just pick it up and eat it with your hands.

The guacamole and melted cheese will keep everything together.

It’s a bit messy, but so is a taco so just go with it.

There’s a very important caveat to note before I get started with this post:

I do not have children.

I have a cat and a dog and they are more than enough for me to handle at this point in my life. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t COOK stuff for kids right?

I’ve been watching the last season of Food Revolution (sound) on Hulu during my lunch breaks and it’s pretty devastating to see what is called “lunch” at some schools in the U.S. How we expect kids to learn and grow while feeding them bad food is a mystery to me.

What you put in is what you get out.

But, I understand that it must be hard to feed children. I wasn’t a picky eater when I was a kid, but my sister definitely was and I remember watching my mom struggle to get a vegetable into her mouth.

At the same time, I think kids eat first with their eyes. If something looks fun, they are a lot more likely to try it out. So I came up with three fun ways to spice up the normal packed lunch that might make your kid more likely to, say, try a carrot.

This is all about presentation. It’s all the same stuff in a normal sandwich, but if your kid will only eat peanut butter and jelly this might be a way to get them to try out some other things.

It’s a scientific fact that food is more fun when it’s on a stick. That applies to sandwiches also! This takes about the same amount of time to make as a sandwich and just looks fun to eat. You could include a few little containers of ketchup and mustard for dipping sauces. Also, almost anything would work on these sticks.

Note: Betsy made the very astute observation that kids might not be allowed to have pointy sticks at school. If that’s the case, I think you could break off the pointy ends and be okay.

This one is a leap of faith really. My hope is that it looks so fun, that kids will want to eat it. It has lots vegetables in it though, which I hear is like arsenic for most children.

All you need for the sandwich is a tiny cookie cutter and some green, orange or yellow, and red veggies. Then just strategically place them on the sandwich and you’re all set.

You can put other stuff on the sandwich also (cheese, turkey, etc.), but just make sure the veggies and the bread with holes in it line up.

Easy!

I got this idea from a site called Planning with Kids and I thought it was just really fun.

I would’ve loved to open my lunchbox as a kid and see this sandwich.

The right way.

OK. Let’s talk about dessert.

A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is one of my favorite treats to this day. I still frequently have one for dessert.

I like to think of them as dessert instead of as a meal though which is why this sushi recipe works so well. You can include four or five little bites along with something really healthy and hopefully convey to the little ones that they are supposed to eat them last.

These might look tricky, but they are pretty easy to make actually. There are three keys to making these work:

1) Cut off the ends on the bread. It just makes it roll easier. I’m sure your kids will like this.

As I always asked my Mom growing up, “Mom, why do they even make bread with ends on it?”

2) Roll the bread thin (Upper right photo below). It’ll be easier to roll if it isn’t all puffy.

3) Go light on the PB & J. Otherwise it’ll just be messy. A very thin layer of both is more than enough.

Be sure to roll up the rolls pretty tightly so they stay formed and, if you have one, cut the rolls with a serrated knife so they cut cleanly.

These are just super-fun.

From above!

I ate all of these for lunch as I made them and I liked all of them!

Of course, that’s not the test though. The test is children. I figured it would be kind of creepy for me to go handing out my lunches at the local elementary school so none of these have been officially tested.

If you have kids, leave a comment and let me know if you think your kids would actually EAT any of these! If you try one out, even better.

School lunch photo by Chidorian.

It’s funny, when I moved to Sofia, Bulgaria three years ago, I didn’t like cucumbers. I avoided them on veggie platters and ate around them in salads. However, pretty quickly I realized that cucumbers weren’t worth worrying about especially when you move to a country where you can’t speak the language, you don’t know the Cyrillic alphabet and you don’t know anyone in the city.

I also figured that we move abroad to try new things, to test ourselves, to have an adventure and to learn to love new things. Cucumbers or краставица (krastavitsa) were an easy stepping stone into Bulgarian culture.

Now here I am sharing two different Bulgarian dishes that revolve around cucumbers.

Shopska Salad and Tarator Soup

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes (for both)

Total Time: 30 minutes (for both) + chill time for soup

Ingredients:

Shopska Salad:
3-4 tomatoes
1 medium large English/European cucumber (if you can't find this you can use any cucumber you can get your hands on. If the seeds are too big or bitter tasting remove them)
1 medium to large onion
1/8 of a pound feta cheese (Greek feta is a substitution the Bulgarian cheese сирене--sirene. I've seen Bulgarian feta at shops like Whole Foods before and it's worth looking. Bulgarian feta or white cheese as Bulgarians translate this cheese for foreigners is softer and less salty than Greek feta.)
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil and vinegar dressing (traditionally Bulgarians use sunflower seed oil and grape vinegar but olive oil and red wine vinegar is what I used)

Tarator Soup:
1 cup plain yogurt
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup finely diced English/European cucumber (if you can't find this you can use any cucumber you can get your hands on and if you think the seeds are too big or bitter tasting remove them)
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
3-4 tablespoons chopped dill
1/8 to 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Shopska Salad:
Chop the tomatoes and cucumber into bite size pieces. Eye-ball the amounts. Your goal is to have an equal amount of tomatoes and cucumbers. Chop the onion into pieces about half the size of the tomatoes and cucumber that is unless you want a big bite of onion in your salad but I assume you do not want this.

In a large bowl mix together the tomatoes, cucumbers and onions. In terms of portions you are aiming for a ration of about 1/3 onions to 2/3 of the tomato and cucumber mixture. Crumble feta cheese on top and mix. At this point you have a choice you can dress the salad with olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper or you can serve the salad and let people dress their own. This is what Bulgarians do. Anywhere I've ever been in Bulgaria you dress your own salad at the table be it a restaurant or a friend's house and then you eat this salad washing it down with a homemade grape brandy called rakiya.

Tarator Soup:
In a container with a lid mix together the yogurt, water, cucumber, garlic, dill and walnuts. Shake. Chill in the refrigerator for 2-4 hours.

Before serving, taste it and add salt and pepper accordingly. The thing that makes or breaks this soup is the size of the diced pieces of cucumber, garlic, dill and walnuts. You really want these as small as possible. I used a knife to slice and dice the cucumber, garlic, dill and walnuts because I like being in control but my mom asked me while I was shaking my soup together: Do Bulgarians really chop up everything by hand and then shake the soup? Me: I don't know. Mom: I bet you could have saved some time using the food processor.

The first dish is called Shopska salad and is the traditional Bulgarian salad. It’s a dish best made with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and feta cheese. Depending on your taste you can also add diced bell peppers and black olives. Everything is diced and combined in a bowl. Traditionally you dress the salad at the table yourself with salt and pepper, sunflower seed oil and grape vinegar. It’s light summery and very easy to make. The dish relies on ingredients that are readily available in Bulgaria during the summer–it seems like everyone knows someone growing tomatoes and cucumbers.

This dish entered popular culture during communism in Bulgaria thanks to the state tourism agency–Balkantourist. Apparently the agency thought they needed a little more than the Black Sea, the Balkan mountain range and rose oil production to really “sell” the country. Enter shopska salad–named after a region just outside of the capitol Sofia. Today you can’t go to a Bulgarian restaurant and not see this salad on the menu.

I spent my whole first year eating shopska salad every where I went. My Bulgarian friends and colleagues insisted on it and I wasn’t in any position to say no. So I ate it and ate it. By December I was sick and tired of the salad and the produce was no longer as fresh as it had been in August when I’d first arrived. Luckily by then I’d found a Bulgarian pizza joint with a walnut, pear, blue cheese and romaine lettuce salad. Now I eat shopska salad between the months of May and October. In fact, the last salad I had before flying home this summer was a shopska.

Another cucumber dish I am in love with is tarator soup. It’s a cold yogurt soup with finely diced cucumbers, garlic and dill and topped off with some chopped walnuts. Again, it’s easy to put together but what’s great about this dish is that it tastes even better after a few hours in the refrigerator. On the Black Sea, men walk through the sun-bathers selling cups of tarator as a refreshing snack in a cup. So this dish screams summer to me–sand, sun, yogurt and cucumbers. In restaurants it’s dished out in bowls and eaten with a spoon and Bulgarians shake on plenty of salt and pepper. Twenty-somethings swear by this dish as a hangover cure.

In the summer both of these dishes are served up with grilled meat be it chicken or pork shish kabobs or minced meat hamburger-like patties called kufteta.

Shopska Salad

Chop the tomatoes and cucumber into bite size pieces. Eye-ball the amounts. Your goal is to have an equal amount of tomatoes and cucumbers. Chop the onion into pieces about half the size of the tomatoes and cucumber that is unless you want a big bite of onion in your salad but I assume you do not want this.

In a large bowl mix together the tomatoes, cucumbers and onions. In terms of portions you are aiming for a ration of about 1/3 onions to 2/3 of the tomato and cucumber mixture. Crumble feta cheese on top and mix. At this point you have a choice you can dress the salad with olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper or you can serve the salad and let people dress their own. This is what Bulgarians do. Anywhere I’ve ever been in Bulgaria you dress your own salad at the table be it a restaurant or a friend’s house and then you eat this salad washing it down with a homemade grape brandy called rakiya.

Tarator Soup

In a container with a lid mix together the yogurt, water, cucumber, garlic, dill and walnuts. Shake. Chill in the refrigerator for 2-4 hours.

Before serving, taste it and add salt and pepper accordingly. The thing that makes or breaks this soup is the size of the diced pieces of cucumber, garlic, dill and walnuts. You really want these as small as possible. I used a knife to slice and dice the cucumber, garlic, dill and walnuts because I like being in control but my mom asked me while I was shaking my soup together: Do Bulgarians really chop up everything by hand and then shake the soup? Me: I don’t know. Mom: I bet you could have saved some time using the food processor.

And you know what? She’s probably right. Moms are like that.

Besides checking out her blog, be sure to follow Carolyn on Twitter!

Very fresh and delicious.

I hereby proclaim it officially tomato season. It’s possible that it has been tomato season for a week or two now in some areas of the country, but we are just now in full swing here. I know this because my tomato plants are exploding with real tomatoes! None of them are ripe yet unfortunately, but soon!

Of course, real tomato farmers are much better at growing things than I am so their tomatoes are looking really good these days.

And so I wanted to use some of these bad boys in a pasta dish. Here’s the fun part about this dish. The sauce isn’t cooked at all. Unlike this cherry tomato pasta dish which has really deep, rich tomato flavors, this dish is nice and light and fresh.

Perfect for a hot a summer day which a good number of people are experiencing these days!

Summer Tomato Pasta

Yield: Serves 4-6.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound angel hair pasta
3 Cups cherry tomatos (about a pound), halved and squeezed
2 Tablespoons fresh basil, minced
1 Tablespoon fresh marjoram, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 Cup olive oil
1/2 Cup kalamata olives, diced
Salt and pepper
Parmesan Cheese for topping

Directions:

1) Wash cherry tomatoes and cut them in half.

2) Squeeze each half into a large bowl.

3) Add olive oil, vinegar, chopped herbs, minced garlic, and diced olives to bowl. Stir to combine.

4) Let sit for 10 minutes, then taste for salt and pepper.

5) Cook pasta according to package. Be sure not to overcook it. It'll cook fast!

6) Drain pasta and toss it in with tomatoes. Toss well to combine.

7) Serve immediately with Parmesan cheese!

Adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe.

Making the sauce

This is honestly one of my favorite pasta sauces I’ve made recently. I’m not even sure if you can call it a sauce. It’s more of a mix-in. But it’s delicious so just go with it.

Before we get to that though, I have to show off.

Check out my exploding basil plants! I’m really proud of them because I’ve always had a hard time getting basil to really take off.

Explosion!

These guys should last me all summer!

The real star of this recipe isn’t the basil though, it’s the cherry tomatoes. Be sure to find the ripest ones you can.

The stars.

Wash these guys and cut each tomato in half. Then give each half a little squeeze and toss it in a large bowl.

This will squirt out some of the ripe tomato juices and also bruise the fruit a bit which is good for a dish like this.

If you happen to have children, I’m sure they would love squirting tomato halves into a bowl so recruit the kids to help. The reason I know this is because I really enjoyed it and I’m basically a big old kid.

Get the kids to help...

When all your tomatoes are squashed you’ll have a big bowl of, well, squashed tomatoes.

There's good juice in there.

This isn’t much now, but we are gonna turn it into something awesome.

You’ll need this stuff to start.

Good stuff.

And because I have a hard time getting everything together for one family photo, you’ll also need these things.

Go light on these...

Mince the herbs and garlic really fine and don’t use more than a clove of garlic. One clove is more than enough because the flavors are pretty subtle here. Garlic can over-power pretty easily.

Add these things along with the chopped olives, olive oil, and vinegar. The vinegar is very important. Definitely not optional, but you could use white wine vinegar. I wouldn’t use balsamic. It’s too heavy.

A great no cook sauce!

Mix this all together and, here’s the important part, let it sit for 10 minutes.

That ten minutes will give all the flavors a chance to really meld together.

If you notice that there’s a cup or two of liquid at the bottom of your bowl, don’t worry. That’s good. That will all be soaked up by the pasta and turn into a delicious sauce. Just let it be. Do taste the “sauce” though for salt and pepper. It’ll probably need a good pinch of both.

Finishing the Dish

You could use a lot of different pastas for this dish but I went with angel hair because it’s nice and light. It also happens to be my wife’s favorite pasta so sometimes I have to let her get her way!

The hair on an angel...

Angel hair is a great pasta for the summer because it cooks in, like, 4 minutes. Done deal and then you can turn the stove off!

Once it’s done, drain it and toss it right in the bowl with all the tomatoes while it’s still steaming hot. The heat from the pasta will soften the tomatoes a bit and just make everything work.

Tongs are helpful.

Use tongs to really mix the pasta together with the tomatoes to make sure that everything is tossed together well.

Then just serve up a big helping of it with some parmesan cheese on top!

One more shot...

For my money, there’s not much better than a dish like this in the summer time. It uses really fresh ingredients, doesn’t require a lot of stove time, and takes just a few minutes to toss together.

It’s healthy and light, but still flavorful enough to be filling.

So what I’m saying is… you should make this dish.

Like tonight.

Great summer pasta dish.

I kind of over-purchased some prosciutto that I used for a date night a few weeks ago.

Ok. I say over-purchased. I pretty much knew that I was buying too much, but I figured it’s never a bad thing to have really good cured meats laying around.

So bring on the prosciutto!

I, of course, ate some of it on it’s own with melon, but I still had plenty left over so I decided to make a big pasta salad with it.

This was absolutely perfect as a summer dish.

Prosciutto Pasta

Yield: Serves 6-8 as side.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

12 ounces bowtie pasta
1 Cup grape tomatoes, halved
1 lemon, juice only
2-3 ounces prosciutto, diced
1/4 Cup olive oil
A few big handfuls of arugula
Fresh Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper
Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)

Directions:

1) Cook bowtie pasta according to package.

2) Chop prosciutto into cubes. Add oil to a large pan over medium heat and add in prosciutto. Cook until crispy, about 3-4 minutes.

3) Add in halved tomatoes and stir to combine.

4) Toss in cooked, drained pasta and stir.

5) Add lemon juice.

6) If you want it creamier, add 1/2 cup cream or some of the original pasta water.

7) Toss in fresh arugula and taste for salt and pepper. It shouldn't need much salt.

8) Add grated cheese and serve it up!

A Simple Pasta Salad

There’s really only a few ingredients for this salad, but each of them brings something delicious.

Good stuff.

The real star of the show is the prosciutto of course. It’s better than bacon in my opinion. It also happens to be really expensive (usually around $30/pound for the good stuff) so a few ounces is all you need.

This was about 2-3 ounces of prosciutto.

A little goes a long way!

To really bring out the prosciutto flavor, I added a few tablespoons of olive oil to a large pan (big enough to fit all the pasta also) and then tossed in my prosciutto over medium heat.

It’s so thin that it crisps up very quickly and also flavors the oil with delicious cured meatiness.

Doesn't take long to crisp up.

Then I added my grape tomatoes (which I cut in half) to the pot just to warm up and take on some of that prosciutto flavor.

When my pasta was done and drained, I tossed it into the pan and stirred everything together really well along with the fresh lemon juice. The prosciutto, oil, and lemon juice will kind of stick to the pasta and make a very light, but flavorful sauce.

If you want it saucier, you could add 1/2 Cup of the pasta water or even 1/2 Cup of cream which would give it some serious, well, creaminess.

I kept mine really light and simple though.

All mixed up!

Once you get the base of the pasta all mixed together, add in the fresh arugula and grate on as much cheese as you want.

Taste it for salt and pepper. It probably won’t need much salt because the prosciutto and Parmesan are both very salty. I added a good pinch of red pepper flakes also for some heat but that’s pretty optional.

From the top.

All told, the whole thing only takes 15-20 minutes to toss together and it’s hearty enough to have as a quick dinner.

As with a lot of the dishes I’ve been making these days, leftovers are great cold for lunch the next day!

There’s a ton of stuff you could add into this to make it your own. Think of my recipe as just a base to get you started!

I can do romantic sometimes!

Betsy and I had a whirlwind month over the last four or fives weeks. We were both out of town a lot, but not traveling together. When we are in town together, we’ve both had really busy work schedules.

So it kind of felt like we were two ships passing in the night.

We decided to right the problem a few weeks ago by having a dedicated date night. No movies or dinner out though because that’s exactly what we had been doing too much of over the last few weeks. So we stayed at home, came up with a fun menu together, and just relaxed.

I thought I’d share some of the stuff we ate on our very fun date night!

It Was Betsy’s Idea

Betsy came up with a great idea for a date night menu. Instead of having one big meal, she wanted to have a bunch of smaller plates. Kind of like tapas I guess, but mostly appetizers that we could just kind of snack on all night long.

This sounded like a great idea to me! We went to a few stores together during the day and shopped for fun snacks that we would eat later in the night. Betsy never goes grocery shopping with me so it was a nice change to shop together.

For kind of a starter dish to our meal of starters, I set out some olives, roasted, marinated garlic cloves, a wedge of soft truffle cheese (Betsy loves truffles), and some crackers.

Basic starters

I also prepped one of my favorite appetizers: Radishes and butter.

It might sound strange, but it’s really good. Make sure to use a really good European style salted butter. It’s an awesome dish.

Simple but good.

The Mosto Cotto

One of the fun things you can do if you want to plan a night like this is pull out special foods that you might have from trips. We pulled out a small bottle of this stuff called “Mosto cotto” from our honeymoon to Italy.

From what I could tell, to make this stuff they just take a bunch of Sangiovese wine and slowly simmer it down for about 18 hours. The result is a thin syrup that’s sweet and tangy at the same time.

Hard to find... sorry.

You could pour this stuff on your shoe and eat it, but it’s really tasty on cheese.

I cubed up some romano cheese and drizzled the mosto cotto over the top. Tasted just like it did in Italy!

One of my favorite things!

The Crostini

The most substantial parts of our date night meal was a bunch of different crostini that I made. I pretty much took most of these ideas from the most recent Bon Appétit issue which gave six or seven really great crostini ideas.

One of the most important parts of making good crostini is to make sure the bread is cooked well.

Ideally, you want a very crusty exterior and a soft interior. The best way to do this, that I’ve found, is actually on the grill.

Just get your grill super-hot, rub the grates with some olive oil, and toss on the sliced bread. Any baguette will work great for this.

Important!

I made three different kinds of crostini. The nice thing about these is that they all took just a few minutes to prepare once the bread was ready.

The first was a Mexican inspired crostini with Mexican crema (basically sour cream except a bit lighter), grilled corn, and fresh cilantro.

The second one was a standard caprese style crostini with mozzarella, basil, and tomatoes.

Light and tasty!

The most ambitious one that I made had fresh ricotta cheese, ripe peaches, prosciutto, and honey.

It was pretty amazing.

Set all these plates out with some fresh cherries and a big bottle of red wine and date night is served!

Quite the spread!

I was worried that I wouldn’t be full after this, but it worked out fine. The crostini were all pretty filling and since we had been snacking all afternoon on cheese and olives and stuff, it was the perfect amount of food.

The nicest thing about doing a date night like this is that all of the dishes were really quick to make (and clean up). I wasn’t toiling away in the kitchen for hours or anything.

Hopefully, this gave you all some ideas that you can use for a date night or just as a fun appetizer for a party or something!