Over the last weekend my boyfriend was out of town, so I decided to experiment with light meals that might not be enough for him to eat for dinner, but would be fine for me. Namely, I had saved a few recipes of grain-based “salads” that would be quick, cheap and at least moderately healthy. One of them was a couscous recipe from Serious Eats (from their “Healthy & Delicious” series, natch). I substituted a lot of different things in this recipe, but the backbone is still there; in fact, you could argue that the recipe itself is like a template that can easily be adapted for various ingredients. To call this a salad is really kind of a misnomer; it’s a salad in the same way that any mix of vegetables and grains can be considered a salad. This dish can be served hot or cold, as a main course or a side, and it’s dead simple, with few, low cost ingredients.

First, sauté some garlic in oil until it is browned. This recipe doesn’t actually have any onion in it, which is surprising for me because I don’t know when the last time was that I made a stew-type recipe without onions. But it’s just garlic here!

In goes the diced tomatoes, chickpeas, basil (mine was fresh purple basil from my garden) and some paprika. For whatever reason I don’t have crushed red pepper in my spice cabinet, and in hindsight I should have probably added more paprika, or some cayenne too, if I wanted any kick from this. But it was tasty and full flavored without the spice anyway.

The original calls for couscous; I went with the harvest grains blend from Trader Joe’s, which includes Israeli couscous, red and green orzo, split dried garbanzo beans, and red quinoa. It’s a great blend, and it worked spectacularly in this dish. However, wanted to make sure it cooked through, so instead of taking the pan of the stove and letting the couscous cook from just the residual heat and moisture, I cooked this for the time listed on the bag (10 minutes) and then took it off the stove.

Once everything is cooked, chopped scallions and some crumbled feta or goat cheese get stirred in. The presentation looks pretty good here, and you could probably serve it just like this without mixing everything in (or maybe mix in the scallions but leave the goat cheese on top). Served like this, you would likely have larger hunks of goat cheese populating the dish, unless you stirred it up really well.

As it was, I stirred everything in at once. The goat cheese quickly melted and left me with a cheesy, creamy sauce. It was really two different dishes; with the goat cheese on the top, the flavors are all more separate, and you get the thinner tomato-y sauce covering the grains with larger, stronger chunks of goat cheese. With the goat cheese mixed in, the flavors mellow out more and everything melds together (in a good way). The goat cheese flavor is still present, but not concentrated and it mingles well with the tomatoes. As I said before, this dish is tasty and filling as a main course, but it also works well as a side; when my boyfriend got home, we used it as a side to a grilled steak along with some fresh sliced jicama in lime juice. The recipe makes a fairly large batch, so it will keep you going for a while.

Harvest Grains Salad (adapted from Serious Eats)

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 1/4 cups water, divided
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• 1 (16-ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
• 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup uncooked Harvest Grains blend
• 1 cup coarsely chopped green onions (about a bunch)
• 1 cup crumbled feta or goat cheese

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook 3 minutes, stirring frequently until browned.
2. Stir in 1/2 cup water, basil, chickpeas, and tomatoes. Simmer over medium-low heat for 15 minutes.
3. Add 1 3/4 cups water and salt and bring to a boil. Stir in Harvest Grains blend and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes or until grains are cooked.
4. Stir in onions and cheese. Serve hot or cool.

Here they are: the first tomatoes from my garden. Small, but plump and red and juicy. What on earth was I going to cook with these, the first tomatoes I had ever grown myself? This frittata was born out of several things. First, I had lovely, fresh tomatoes, and I wanted to showcase them in something simple and something they wouldn’t disappear in. Second, we needed breakfast and I had eggs and cheese. Third, I didn’t want to wait for a breakfast casserole/quiche to bake forever in the oven, but I was bored of the standard omelet. And so the pan frittata was inspired. Not really a true frittata, which is usually cooked mostly on the stovetop and finished under a broiler, because the pans I have access to are not oven-safe, so all the cooking had to happen on the stovetop. In the end it did turn out to be a tasty breakfast that was filling and perfectly showcased the ripe, fresh tomatoes.

Six eggs and probably a cup of shredded cheese – what I had on hand, which turned out to be mixed cheddar and asiago. I ended up using more like a half to three-quarters of a cup of the cheese; I just added cheese to the eggs until it looked like enough for my tastes.

I sautéed a clove of garlic to give the frittata some extra flavor.

In go the eggs (beaten), cheese and the fresh tomato slices are laid on top. This is a small sauté pan (maybe 6 inches in diameter?), but the eggs will puff up a lot. I realized too late that this would have been awesome with some fresh basil or oregano from my garden. Oh well.

I let it cook, covered, for probably 8–10 minutes until the eggs were completely set and cooked through. If I had an oven safe pan, I probably would have let it cook on the stovetop for 3 minutes and then sprinkle it with more cheese and put it in the oven for another 3–4 minutes.

Like I said, it turned out to be a great way to showcase the lovely fresh tomatoes from my garden. It’s kind of like an omelet that never gets flipped over, and because it doesn’t get messed with the eggs stay really puffy. This was a quick and easy breakfast that I will probably make again; maybe I’ll even make a real frittata once I get some oven-safe pans.

Fresh Tomato Pan Frittata

Ingredients

• 6 large eggs, beaten
• 1 large tomato, sliced
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup shredded cheese
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• olive oil
• a tablespoon or two of fresh herbs (optional)

Directions

1. Sauté garlic in enough olive oil to thoroughly coat the pan until browned and fragrant.
2. Combine the eggs and herbs in a small bowl. Pour eggs into a small sauté pan. Sprinkle shredded cheese over the surface and lay tomatoes on top.
3. Cover and cook over low heat for 8–10 minutes, or until eggs are cooked through.

This is the first recipe I’ve tried out of my new Culinaria Italy cookbook. I really like the Culinaria series (I own Culinaria Greece as well) because they are packed with information and great pictures of the food and region, and contain tons of information about the ingredients and the food itself, not just recipes. The book gives the english name of this recipe to be “pasta with pork ragout,” and as given in the recipe this is true, as it originally calls for gnocchetti, not gnocchi, as the base. Gnocchetti are made of semolina, not potatoes like gnocchi, and are often dried. Not knowing the difference when I was buying ingredients for this dish, I substituted gnocchi, which worked out fine.

The dish starts out with a vegetable base: leeks, carrots, celery, parsley, and I added some green pepper, though it wasn’t in the original recipe. These are sautéed lightly in olive oil, but they don’t need to be cooked very thoroughly, as they will spend plenty of time in the pan.

In go the pork chunks, which are browned. Again, they don’t need to get cooked through, just mostly through. In retrospect I probably should have turned the heat up higher and given them a good sear to create some real browning on the outside, but by the time I thought of doing it they were already in this state.

After the pork is browned, chopped tomatoes and some balsamic vinegar go in. Actually, the original recipe called for a “1/2 glass red wine”, but having no red wine open nor the chance to visit a liquor store to get some, I used good balsamic vinegar instead. It probably changed the character of the dish quite a bit from the original, but the addition of vinegar here gave what basically would have been a tomato sauce a different kick that turned out to be quite delicious.

After cooking down for an hour, covered, the ragout looks ready to go on your pasta of choice. Nicely, most of the vegetables, including the tomato, had held up well and resulted in a chunky sauce.

The ragout worked well with the gnocchi. It’s not particularly “saucy”, but there was definitely enough to coat everything and provide a base for the meat and vegetables. I think this would work well with other meats like beef or chicken, or even sausage, and it was a welcome twist on our classic pasta and vegetable meat sauce.

Gnocchi al Sugo di Maiale – Gnocchi with Pork Ragout (adapted from Culinaria Italy)

Ingredients

• 2 medium-sized carrots, chopped
• 1 leek, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 small green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 handful of fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 pound pork, cut into cubes
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 4 medium tomatoes, chopped
• salt and pepper
• 1 pound gnocchi or gnocchetti, cooked

Directions

1. Sauté the vegetables and parsley for a couple of minutes in olive oil over medium heat.
2. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the pork, browning all sides.
3. Add the tomatoes, vinegar and salt and pepper and reduce the heat to low. Stir well and cover. Let simmer for 1 hour.
4. Serve over gnocchi, gnocchetti or your favorite pasta.

When I make dinner, I’m not big on main dish/side dish combos, especially when I’m cooking on a weekday. It’s just so much easier when everything is in one dish and you can get your veggies and your main course at the same time. It also easier to save for leftovers for the next day, which is a prerequisite for most of the meals I make. I’ve always associated macaroni and cheese with a side dish, but when it was requested that I make macaroni and cheese I figured, why couldn’t it be dinner? Add in some extras like prosciutto, tomatoes and a pepper, and it becomes a main course.

I looked a bunch of mac and cheese recipes in preparation for making this, and the following recipe is based on an amalgamation of those, somewhere between the fancy-cheese, many ingredient recipes and the super simple ones.

It starts out by basically creating a bechamel sauce for the base. The butter is melted, a bit of flour added for thickening, and the milk (preferably at least room temperature) is poured in slowly while whisking constantly to prevent curdling. This is cooked down until it thickens… most recipes don’t say how much, but it should be about the consistency of heavy cream.

When it’s thickened the sauce is removed from the head and the shredded cheese is added, which melts pretty rapidly and forms a loose sauce. You want the sauce to be not too thick so that your finished product doesn’t turn out too dry. You can use pretty much any combination of cheese that you want (sharp cheddar is always a favorite, though), and I just eyeballed it as to what would be the proper amount. After the sauce is ready, the cooked macaroni is added.

Prosciutto and jalapeno chopped and at the ready to be added to the mixture before place in the baking dish. Not pictured here are the diced tomatoes, which should be drained well before added so as not to thin out the sauce too much.

Into a 3-quart baking pan…

And covered with about a cup of panko bread crumbs (so much better than regular bread crumbs because of their crunchiness), some extra shredded cheese, and some ground black pepper.

Baked until the top becomes browned and the sauce is bubbling. Definitely a success! The prosciutto, jalapeno and tomato chunks blended in so well that almost every bite included some of each. I might bump up the jalapeno if I made this again (I like a kick, and one jalapeno wasn’t really cutting it for this huge dish), but otherwise I was extremely pleased.

Macaroni and Cheese with Prosciutto, Tomatoes and Jalapeno

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons butter, plus more for the dish
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 cups milk, lukewarm
• 12 oz Extra Sharp Cheddar, shredded
• 5 oz Monterey Jack, shredded, some reserved for sprinkling on top
• 1 lb macaroni noodles, cooked
• 1 jalapeno, diced
• 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, drained well
• 4 oz prosciutto, chopped
• Dash of cayenne pepper, nutmeg, salt and ground black pepper
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF and butter a 3-quart baking dish.
2. Melt the butter over medium heat until it turns foamy. Add the flour and whisk to combine well.
3. Slowly add milk while constantly whisking to prevent curdling.
4. Bring the mixture to a simmer and let cook until the mixture thickens to the consistency of heavy cream.
5. Remove the mixture from the heat and stir in the shredded cheese. Set aside to let the cheese melt completely; it should form a loose sauce. Stir in a few spices like cayenne pepper and nutmeg.
6. Fold in the cooked macaroni and stir to coat well, then add the prosciutto, pepper and tomatoes, mixing well to incorporate.
7. Pour into the baking dish and spread out evenly. Cover the top evenly with panko bread crumbs, the reserved shredded cheese and some fresh ground black pepper.
8. Bake about 30 minutes, until it is browned and bubbling.

This is a dish that I make fairly often. I don’t really remember when I started putting together my own pasta sauce, but I won’t go back to the jarred stuff now. Since I use canned tomatoes my sauce isn’t entirely built from the ground up, but they save time in the process, which makes this a great week night dinner.

It starts, like most things, with a large chopped onion and two or three minced garlic cloves.

Saute them in olive oil in a LARGE skillet (seriously, you will need it to fit all the stuff that goes into this) over medium high heat until the garlic is nicely browned and the onions start to soften.

I usually throw in some kind of meat; many times it’s Trader Joe’s chicken sausage, which is oh-so-tasty. But occasionally I’ll forget or purposefully make this with vegetables only, and it’s just as filling and good.

The TJ’s sausages pre-cooked, but I throw them in the pan next to brown them.

The beauty of this recipe is you can throw in any veggies you feel like. I always put a green pepper in, and tonight I added green beans as well. Carrots, broccoli, snow peas… they all work great.

I throw the veggies in the pan to brown a bit, but not for long. They’ll get plenty cooked later as the sauce comes together. If you wanted them to be crisper, you could add them later in the process, but I usually throw them in here.

If I have a lot of time, I’ll go for fresh tomatoes, but if, like usual, I’m hungry and impatient, a can of stewed tomatoes adds larger chunks of tomatoes to the sauce without the work.

A large (28-oz) can of crushed tomatoes makes up the bulk of the sauce. I’ve spent some time trying out different brands of crushed tomatoes, looking for one that is more than just tomato sauce, and my favorite brand is Rienzi. It has substantial chunks of tomatoes mixed in with the more thoroughly crushed substrate. A variety of spices also go in at this point. I usually use basil, oregano, a bay leaf, salt, and pepper, and this time I threw in some sage and paprika.

After simmering, covered, for about 15 minutes, then another 5-10 minutes uncovered to cook off some of the excess liquid, the sauce is ready to serve over your favorite pasta. I like rotini because the spirals hold onto the sauce well.

I’m providing a recipe for this, though it is really a fluid dish that easily accommodates a lot of variants.

Chunky Veggie Pasta Sauce

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 lb sausage, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• a variety of vegetables, chopped
• 1 14.5 oz can of stewed tomatoes
• 1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon each oregano, basil, any other spices you would like
• salt and pepper
• 1 lb pasta

Directions

1. Heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add onion and garlic and saute until brown and soft.
2. Add sausage; saute until browned and mostly cooked through if using raw meat.
3. Add the rest of the vegetables and cook a few minutes.
4. Stir in canned tomatoes, including all of their liquids. Add the spices, salt and pepper and make sure everything is well combined.
5. Simmer for 15 minutes, covered, then remove the cover and simmer for another 5-10 minutes or most of the liquids have cooked off and the sauce has reached the desired consistency.
6. Serve over pasta of your choice, with fresh grated parmesan on top.