At the end of the year International Law Journal banquet, the Editorial Staff treated us all to a dinner at Southern Rail Restaurant in Carboro. It was, to say the least, pretty phenomenal. There was a simple salad with a roasted garlic vinaigrette. Dessert was a coffee pot-au-creme with vanilla bean and nutmeg whipped cream. But dinner…oh…dinner was amazing. It was a linguini in a spicy tomato cream sauce with artichoke hearts and tomatoes, topped with a perfectly cooked salmon that had some kind of sweet crust to it. I don’t now how they did it, but it was just perfect.

To mirror that, I revamped my usual shrimp, spinach, tomato sauce pasta to try to capture the spicy-sweet aspect of Southern Rail’s salmon pasta. I didn’t know how to sweeten the shrimp, so I just caramelized the onions and garlic. Delicious!

Recipe after the link

Shrimp Pasta, Revamped

1 box thin spaghetti
2 (28 oz) cans tomato sauce
About 1/4 – 1/2 cup cream
15 large shrimp, peeled
3 handfulls of fresh spinach
4 cloves garlic, sliced really thinly
1 onion, sliced thinly
Salt, black pepper
Cayenne pepper
Sugar
Olive oil for pan, as needed

1. Heat the tomato sauce and cream together (put as much cream as you like, really), and season with cayenne until it is sufficiently spicy. I think I put in about 1 – 2 tsp…but that’s because I’m desi. Add it to freshly cooked pasta.

2. Over medium heat, sautee the onions until soft. Turn the heat to high for a couple of minutes to let them brown. Turn the heat back down, and add a pinch of sugar and let them cook until sweet, about 3 more minutes. (My secret quick-caramelize technique).

3. Add the very thinly sliced garlic to the onions (making sure that the heat is on medium. Do not burn the garlic. Do not. Burn. The. Garlic. Do not.) Cook until lightly golden brown.

4. Put the shrimp in a single layer in the pan, nestled in the onions and garlic. Sprinkle with salt and black pepper.

5. After shrimp are cooked, put in three handfulls of fresh baby spinach and toss to get it all mixed in. Salt it. Cover the pan.

6. Plate your pasta. I’ve finally figured out how to roll it into nests, fancy-like.

7. The spinach should be wilted by now. Serve a big spoonfull of garlicky-sweet shrimp and spinach on top of each bowl of pasta. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Amy and I met rather by chance; she sat next to me in Business Administration and we bonded over the weirdness of the class, religion, and food! So while we were “studying” for the exam, Amy (a double-Pole) taught me how to make pierogis. They’re delicious little dumplings filled with cheese or some kind of vegetable mixture – we did butternut squash and wild mushroom (porcini and cremini), but you can also do potato – then mixed with caramelized onions and topped with sour cream.

I used twice as much caramelized onion as the recipe calls for. The sour cream really makes the dish; don’t leave it out! Amy served this with a spicy Korean salad – even though it was such a mixture of ethnic foods, the smoothness and creaminess of the pierogies and sour cream went really well with the vinegary-spiciness of the Korean salad. I really recommend this pairing.

We used this recipe for the dough. We rolled it out onto the counter (with plenty of flour), and cut it out with a 3-inch round glass. This is the recipe for the Wild Mushroom filling.

Butternut Squash filling
3 cups butternut squash, diced
1 onion, diced
1 tomato, diced
Cumin, salt, pepper, to taste
Paprika or cayenne, to taste

Caramelize the onion, then add the tomato and squash. Flavor with cumin, salt, and peppers. Resist (or succumb to) the temptation to eat this with a spoon. Mash it up a little so most of the lumps are gone. Stuff inside the pierogies!

Enjoy the pictures! I’m experimenting with a Lightbox plugin. Click on the first picture (first on the left, of the dried porcini mushrooms), and then you should be able to click through the rest like a flowing gallery, complete with captions. As you can see, I had fun taking pictures while Amy was doing all the work. Let me know what you think!

This was actually the first dish I made in my cast iron pan. The shrimp got a savory sear on one side from the high heat, and everything came together perfectly. It’s reminiscent a Hamburger Helper meal, except so much better and less….boxed-pasta-y. This was for two meal-sized servings or 4 side dish servings. It was inspired by Pioneer Woman’s Penne a la Betsy (a lawyer-turned-food blogger, like me! Wonder how much Contracts Law she remembers…..or how much I’ll remember in oh….2 years at Bar Exam time.)

Creamy spicy shrimp pasta

10 or 15 medium shrimp, shells removed
2 medium tomatoes, diced
1 bullion cube
Water, to boil pasta
2 cups small pasta, like mini shells or orecchiette
Lots. Lots. of garlic (3 or 4 cloves) – sliced into slivers
1/2 onion, sliced
Red pepper flakes
1/2 cup, at least, of parmesan cheese (even the pizza can kind)
1 cup steamed broccoli

– Flavor a pot of water with a bullion cube and boil the pasta. It doesn’t have to be a the exact cube-water proportion as required for a real broth – put enough water to cook the pasta, just use the cube as more flavoring. Cook the pasta until not quite al dente. It’ll finish cooking with the shrimp.
– In a skillet, add some olive oil and saute the slivered garlic and onions until savory and rather soft. Add a generous sprinkle of hot pepper flakes.
– Put the shrimp into the pan in a single layer. Sprinkle with crushed black pepper. Don’t touch the shrimp. Let them get a nice sear on one side.
– Flip them over and add the diced tomatoes. Let it cook for a few minutes until tomatoes release some juice. Salt it.
– Add the almost-cooked pasta. Mix it well to let it simmer and finish cooking in the tomato juice. Add some of the cooking water/broth if it’s too dry. Sprinkle with red and black peppers again. Add the broccoli.
– When the juice is absorbed into the pasta, add the cheese in and mix until it’s all melty and gooey and yummy. (and sprinkle with red pepper again, if you can take the heat!)

This has a creamy, earthy feel and taste. The flavors meld deliciously well together in the oven. I made this for a dinner party (and didn’t get any pictures of an individual serving, sorry!), and it was pretty quick to put together – and the meal didn’t require much more. I served it with salad, bread and herb-roasted potatoes. My friend Amani pointed out that this would go well with shredded roasted turkey as well.

Recipe after the link, but first, a picture of the condensation on the pasta pot after boiling the lasagna

Creamy Mushroom, Spinach, and Chicken Lasagna

8 oz button mushrooms, sliced
8 oz cremini mushrooms, sliced
Lots of garlic (to taste, but lots)
2 cups whole milk + 1/4 cup
1/2 cup flour
1 15oz. container ricotta cheese
1/2 onion, sliced
1 small pkg frozen spinach, thawed and drained
2 cups cooked chicken, shredded
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan or Mozzarella cheese
1 small stem rosemary, leaves chopped (about 1 tsp)
Red pepper flakes
Salt, pepper

1. In a large sautee pan over medium heat, add some olive oil and sautee the onions and spinach until well combined. Salt and pepper. Off the heat, add about 1/4 cup milk and stir until the mixture softens a bit. Back on the heat, add about one third of the ricotta and mix well. (You need a heaping cup (8 oz) for the white sauce, so put the rest in the spinach). Remove the spinach mixture from the pan.

2. In a large pan over medium heat, add some olive oil and sautee garlic and mushrooms until almost soft. Add the rosemary. Salt and pepper it. (Start cooking the lasagna noodles at this time too. The rest doesn’t take too long).

3. Add the flour to the mushrooms and stir very rapidly to combine. Off the heat, add one cup of milk and stir it in very well. Put the pan back on the stove and stir in the second cup of milk. Keep stirring until thickened. Taste and adjust seasonings (lots of pepper tastes good in this).

4. Add the shredded chicken to the white sauce and stir well to incorporate.

5. Start building your lasagna: Using a ladle, put about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of sauce on the bottom of a lasagna pan. Put a layer of lasagna noodles, then put about half of the spinach mixture on top of that, spreading it out well. Pour about 1/2 or 1/3 of the mushroom-chicken cream sauce on top. Place another layer of lasagna noodles and top with the rest of the spinach and some more sauce. Another layer of noodles, then top with the rest of the sauce.

6. Bake at 425 for about 20-30 minutes. Take it out, top with shredded cheese, then bake until cheese is bubbly and brown to your liking. Total oven time is about 30-40 minutes.

One more. This one, according to Ameir and Samra, STARES INTO YOUR SOUL. Sarah L. says it looks like an owl.

This was my first time making meatballs in a non-Pakistani style, but they turned out well. I loosely got this recipe from my Good Housekeeping cookbook, but I made some changes. The meatballs stay soft and flavorful because of a pureed onion and garlic mixture.

Meatballs:
1 lb ground beef
2 slices of bread
1 egg
1 garlic clove
1/4 onion
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Generous sprinkle each of few dried herbs and spices (i used oregano, basil, parsley, and paprika)
1 tsp salt and fresh black pepper
A bit of fresh herbs, chopped (I used 4 or 5 leaves of fresh basil)
8 oz mushrooms
1 large can (29 oz) tomato sauce + 1/2 a second can
1 pack spaghetti

1. Flavoring the meat: In a spice grinder/tiny food processor, grind the bread slices into bread crumbs, adding in the dried herbs, spices, salt, and pepper. This will yield about 1 cup of bread crumbs. Take out the bread mixture and add in the onion and garlic. Puree until smooth, or at least chopped finely. This keeps the meatballs soft, so you can handle them a little more roughly than usual to ensure a well-shaped meatball.

2. Making the meatballs: To the ground beef, add breadcrumbs, pureed onion and garlic, chopped fresh herbs, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and egg. Mix well and form into golf ball sized meatballs. (made 17 1/2 meatballs)

3. In a large medium-hot pan, add some olive oil and sear the meatballs on one side. Flip them over. After they sear lightly, add the mushrooms on top (and some more garlic, if desired)

4. After the mushrooms soften, pour in the tomato sauce and turn the heat down to simmer.

5. Cook the spaghetti. To the hot, cooked pasta, add some olive oil, chopped herbs, crushed red pepper flakes, and grated parmesan cheese (why? because it tastes good).

6. Once the meatballs are cooked through (only about 5 or 6 minutes in the pasta sauce), pour the sauce over the pasta. Sprinkle with more cheese and serve!

….. which is just a fancy term for “cook veggies. add pasta.” This is really simple, which is what makes it perfect. There’s no cream sauce or fancy-schmancy stuff. Just veggies, garlic, and pasta. The sauteed veggies give off a broth, too, so this would be great by itself with some crusty bread or scooped over couscous.

Pasta Primavera

1 carrot, sliced into matchsticks
2 zucchinis, sliced into sticks
1 yellow squash, sliced into sticks
4 roma tomatoes
1 small onion, diced
handful of tomatoes, diced
1 can of corn, drained
1 handful of frozen peas
1 pack of pasta, cooked.
2 cups pasta sauce
(and shrimp. i cheated.)

1. Sautee the onion and garlic in olive oil.
2. Add all veggies except corn, peas, and tomatoes and cook over medium-high heat until halfway done (as soft as you want them – mine took about 15 min total). Add tomatoes, corn, peas, then cook all the way.
3. If you are not stopping here (this is couscous/by itself stage), move all the veggies to the outer rim of the pan and let the liquid pool in the middle, then turn to high heat to let the liquid evaporate. 4. Stir in the pasta sauce at the end.
5. Mix into cooked pasta. Top with cheese, if desired.

Sounds fancy, eh? It’s not. Don’t be alarmed. On Sunday nights, I usually try to make a big pot of something that we can eat for dinner and that will last Ameir and I all week to take to work/school for lunch. This came together so quickly, I was back to lounging on the sofa in no time. (Summer break!). This thick sauce would also be good over couscous or stuffed into a hoagie roll with cheese melted on top.

Recipe here

Pasta with Roasted Chicken Ragu

One small onion, diced
Two garlic cloves, diced finely
Two to three cups of leftover roasted chicken, shredded
One bag of microwave-steamed green beans
One tomato, diced
One large can of tomato sauce (about 28 oz, I think)
One box of pasta (I used farfalle)

You don’t even need me to tell you want to do. This is so easy. But, for the sake of writing a blog post, I will. Come on, say it with me in your head.

- Olive oil in a pan, sautee onions and garlic till soft.
- Meanwhile, microwave green beans. Add to onions and garlic, hit it with salt and pepper.
- Add in diced tomato. Shred chicken into pan.
- Add tomato sauce, mix well, let it simmer
- Boil pasta
- Combine pasta with chicken and tomato sauce.
- Eat.

See, now this one is just easy. I was running errands and cooking all day for a family dinner yesterday night and around lunchtime, I was famished. I had some garlic herb butter leftover that I had used to marinate a roast chicken so I put together this quick lunch for myself.

Two handfuls of small pasta
Six shrimp, peeled
One handful of diced tomato
Bit of olive oil
Bit of garlic herb butter
Dash of red pepper flakes
Squirt of lemon juice
Half a handful of peas

Boil some water, cook the pasta. I used farfalle (which, incidentally, means “butterfly” in Italian. Don’t you think the words for “butterfly” are so light and airy in many languages – tittaali (urdu), papillon (french). I like when words sound like what they mean. But I digress.

In a small saucepan, warm the olive oil and the red pepper flakes. Add the garlic herb butter and let it melt. (Garlic herb butter = softened butter + garlic + any dried or fresh herbs you have. You could also just use plain butter and add garlic and herbs to the pan. Same effect). Add the shrimp and sautee until just pink. Add the tomatoes and frozen peas. Add the cooked pasta to the pan and swirl it around in the sauce. Hit it with some lemon juice, salt, black pepper. Eat while watching Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth version, of course).

OH, also – DONE WITH EXAMS! I’m officially a 2L. Well, I don’t have my grades yet, but I’m celebrating all the same.

Buttermilk Alfredo Pasta
A tangy, creamy pasta with chicken or shrimp, spinach, mushrooms, and sundried tomatoes.

I made a pumpkin cake last weekend for my sister-in-law’s birthday [Turned out great - basic pumpkin spice cake recipe and then added half a can of pumpkin into a carton of Betty Crocker cream cheese frosting. Made a pretty orange frosting.]

So anyway – made pumpkin cake, had most of a quart of buttermilk left. I’m not a fan of fried chicken, and plus I think it’s a waste to use a quart of lovely, thick, rich buttermilk just to soak some chicken in. I had baked five things in the past week and a half [2 banana breads, pumpkin cake, banana-coconut muffins, and blueberry muffins] so I wasn’t going to bake anything. What to do, what to do?

My friend Sarah suggested a buttermilk sauce for pasta or chicken. Ayesha suggested mellowing it with spinach so that the potential over-tangy-ness would be a little softer. So during class… I mean during lunch, I did some searching and found another fine service by Google – Google Books! Basic Buttermilk sauce recipe taken from New Laurel Kitchen Cookbook, for which I found a preview on Google Books. Their sauce is thickened with cornstarch instead of the Alfredo’s traditional roux, which is convenient when wanting to make a quick dinner and not stand over the stove stirring flour. I added veggies and cheese to their basic recipe. Success.

Result = a tangy, creamy, cheesy sauce mellowed a little by the veggies that lusciously hugs ever single strand of pasta. It’s stronger than Alfredo and a little less creamy – a good alternative when you want something strongly flavored but not as heavy [buttermilk is surprisingly low in fat, considering its thickness.] Chicken swims happily. Pretty colors. Just all-around yummy.

Another option: Buttermilk Alfredo Mashed Potatoes and Chicken: This sauce is excellent over pasta, here, but it’s also amazing mixed into mashed potatoes with a little chicken broth. Another option – skip the pasta and spoon some directly over grilled or pan-fried chicken.

Another option: Potato and Leek (and Spinach and Mushroom) Soup . Mix this sauce into a batch of mashed potatoes and freeze the whole thing. Keep them on hand to mix with sauteed leeks and chicken broth for a quick, hearty soup.

So many options! Excited? Well done. Onwards! Recipe here:

Buttermilk Alfredo Pasta
Recipe yields about 6-7 servings, depending on how hungry your husband is
Total time = 30 min start to table

Veggies
8 oz [or whatever 1 package is] button mushrooms, sliced [buttons were on sale that day, but creminis would be superb in this]
Half a small onion, sliced thinly
Six or seven sundried tomatoes, sliced
Package of frozen spinach, thawed and drained/all the water squeezed out
One or two cloves of garlic, sliced or minced (I used the jarred stuff)

Chicken
Four chicken cutlets [basically I took half a chicken breast and pounded it thin/butterflied it into four pieces]
Seasoned flour [salt, cracked pepper, pinch of mixed dried herbs]

Sauce
Three cups buttermilk
Three tablespoons of cornstarch
Salt, cracked pepper, pinch of mixed dried herbs [my Italian herbs mix includes
Half cup of cheese [I used an Italian cheese blend with Mozzarella, Asiago, Fontina, and whatever else came in that bag]

Pasta - I used a bag of rotini

Salt to taste

Pre-sauce work [about 2 minutes]: Mix the buttermilk, cornstarch and seasonings. Let it sit while you make everything else. Come back and visit it to stir every once in a while. [The best way I found to mix all that liquid was just to take out about half a cup of it and mix the cornstarch into that, then pour the whole thing into the 3 cups]

Pasta [depends on what you use] : Set a large pot of water boiling so you can be ready to drop the pasta when you need to. Rotini takes about 7-8 minutes accoriding to the package, so make at a proper time so that you can just pull it out, drain it, pour it into the finished sauce, and let the whole thing mesh for a few minutes.

Chicken [about 10 minutes] : Moisten the chicken cutlets with just a bit of buttermilk so the flour will stick. Dredge the chicken cutlets in seasoned flour and pan-fry on both sides until golden brown and pretty much cooked through. Set aside in a plate, cover with foil while you make everything else. [Note for next time: the chicken was a little too bland - I might next time press a mix of garlic powder and black pepper into the cutlets before I dredge them with flour…or something….they needed more flavor.]

Veggies [about 10 minutes]: Clean up any icky brown oil that might be left in the post-chicken frying pan. Throw in the onions and mushrooms, let them sweat/soften. Season with some cracked pepper while they’re going. Put in the spinach and tomatoes, add another layer of seasoning [pepper, some dried or fresh herbs if you want] let it all meld together. Once it looks done, take it out.

Making the sauce [about 5 min]: Pour the buttermilk mixture into the pan. In the beginning, it won’t do anything, so you can use this time to make sure everything else you will need soon [the cheese, veggies, chicken] is next to you because once it starts bubbling, you can’t move. Use the next couple of minutes to slice the chicken into eat-able chunks.
Start stirring the sauce with a whisk – it’s going to start to thicken. You’ll think nothing is happening, but all of a sudden it’ll start to bubble and go almost translucent and runny – that’s probably the buttermilk curdling – but don’t worry! It’s supposed to do that – just keep mixing, letting it thicken. If you stop, the cornstarch will fall to the bottom and the sauce will get gunky. Keep mixing. After 2 or 3 minutes, it’ll really look like a thick sauce. Add in the cheese, stir to melt. [the whisk became unhelpful now so I switched to a heat-proof spatula]

Putting it all together [about 3 min]: Add the cut-up chicken and veggies into the sauce. Mix it all together, let it hang out. Taste and adjust seasonings. Add in the cooked pasta, mix and let it mesh.

Serve with crusty bread and steamed veggies [I chose Brussels Sprouts, which Ameir claimed he didn’t like, but I saw him eat quite a few. Delish!