Campanelle with two mushrooms and rosemary
I asked Derek what he wanted for dinner, and he very quickly replied “mushrooms”. Perhaps his decision was influenced by the very tasty mushroom soup I made last week. I got out the cookbooks and started looking for mushroom recipe. I found a bulgur mushroom pilaf that I plan on trying, and a pasta dish in Jack Bishop’s Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook, which I’d made once before. Based on the note in the cookbook I hadn’t been that excited about it, but I wasn’t sure how carefully I had followed the recipe, and I decided to try it again. Below is the recipe, with my modifications and my version of the instructions.
Ingredients
- 1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 medium onion, minced
- 2 large garlic cloves, minced
- 1.5 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary leaves, plus more for garnish
- 1 pound white button mushrooms
- 3/4 pound campanelle, orecchiette, or small shells
- 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (about .8 ounces)
- 2 Tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves, plus more for garnish
Instructions
- Bring 4 quarts water to a boil in a large pot for cooking the pasta.
- Place the porcini mushrooms in a small bowl and cover with 1 cup hot water. Soak until softened, about 20 minutes.
- Chop the onion, garlic, and rosemary. Start cooking the onion. In a large saute pan heat the butter and oil. Add the onion and saute over medium heat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and rosemary and cook until the garlic is golden, about 1 minute more.
- While the onion cooks, thinly slice the mushrooms. When the garlic is done cooking, add the mushrooms to the saute pan. Saute until golden brown and the liquid they give off has evaporated, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
- When the water comes to a boil, add salt to taste and the pasta. Cook until al dente and then drain.
- While the pasta cooks, prepare the porcinis. Carefully lift the mushrooms from the liquid. Wash them if they feel gritty. Chop them. Add the choped porcini mushrooms to the pan and cook for 1 to 2 minutes to release their flavor. Strain the soaking liquid through a sieve into the pan, and bring to a boil. Cover and remove from the heat.
- When the pasta is done, add it to the mushrooms along with the cheese and parsley. Toss over medium-low heat just until the cheese melts and the pasta absorbs the liquid in the pan. Serve immediately.
My notes
Based on the post it note comment I had stuck in the cookbook, I upped the garlic from 2 medium cloves to 2 large cloves, and increased the rosemary from 1 tsp. to 1.5 tsp. The recipe recommends orecchiette, but I didn’t have any so used campanelle instead. Also, the original recipe calls for 1 pound of pasta, but we always find that the pasta to sauce ratio in Bishop’s recipes is too high, so I reduced the pasta to 3/4 pound.
The recipe worked fine. All the instructions seem correct and the recipe came out as (I imagine) it was intended. But I didn’t care for it. Even increasing the rosemary and adding more as a garnish, I couldn’t taste much rosemary flavor. The flavor of the mushrooms didn’t excite me, and I found the dish overall a bit boring. I had to add more cheese to get it to taste like much at all. I also tried adding a little soy sauce, but it was too strong for the delicate flavors. My post it note from my last attempt sums it up: “Okay, not great. Bland at first, improved by adding more rosemary. Recipe calls for too much pasta, use 3/4 pound. Not creamy enough to warrant all that butter.” I’ve tried a number of mushroom pasta dishes in the last few years, and none of them has excited me. Maybe I just don’t like mushrooms and pasta? Or maybe (as Derek claims) I just don’t know how to cook mushrooms!
Derek liked it more than me. He happily went for seconds, and said I should make it again. I froze the last serving and Derek ate it for dinner the night we got back from our overseas flight from Austin. He said it was still good, even after it had been frozen and defrosted in the microwave.
Rating: B-
Derek: B
Tri-color winter salad with kumquats
Before I met Derek, he used to eat frequently at Cafe Sam, in Pittsburgh. One of his favorite dishes was a radicchio, arugula, and endive salad served with feta cheese and hard boiled eggs. I was planning to try to replicate this salad, and bought all the ingredients to do so, but as I was checking out at the Turkish grocery store near my house, one of the “seasonal fruits” on display at the checkout stand caught my eye.
A few years ago I went to the Vegetarian Summerfest with my friend Annette, and we had a blast. One of my most distinctive memories from the summerfest is of Dr. Michael Greger asking us “What’s by far the healthiest citrus fruit?”. But no one in a room full of nutrition buffs could answer the question. His answer, it turns out, was the kumquat. He argued that it’s the healthiest because you eat the whole thing, rather than discarding the pith and peel like with other citrus fruits. According to Greger, the bitter flavors in the pith and peel come from a multitude of uber-healthy substances. Greger exhorted us to never eat another lemon, lime, or orange without first zesting the fruit, and adding the zest to our food. I can’t recall what he said to do with the zest, but I imagine it could be good in yogurt, smoothies, rice dishes, breakfast cereal–even in tea or ice water! I was pretty good about zesting all my citrus for a while, but eventually I forgot all about his citrus chastisements. Until, that is, this week, when I saw those kumquats at City Basaar. I bought a handful to bring home, and decided to ditch the feta and egg in this salad in favor of thinly sliced kumquats.
Four years ago: the best lemon bars ever
Saffron Risotto
My friend Alex and I took a walk along the river Saar this evening. Despite the cold, the damp, the dark, and the mist, I had a lovely walk. In the course of our conversation, we started talking about saffron, and I realized I’d never posted one of our favorite risotto’s to my blog: saffron risotto. This dish is plain, but very satisfying. The daisy-yellow color and creamy consistency make me feel like I’m eating macaroni and cheese. There’s just something about saffron that tastes like comfort food to me, even though I never had it growing up. I can’t actually remember the first time I ever ate saffron, but it very well might have been the first time we made this saffron risotto!
The recipe we typically use is based on a recipe from Jack Bishop’s Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook. The saffron flavor is maximized by dissolving it in a little hot stock then adding it to the rice toward the end of the cooking time. Bishop’s recipe is good, but quite rich. We usually cut down on the butter quite a bit.
Below I’ve compared Jack Bishop’s recipe to the saffron risotto recipe in Cook’s Illustrated’s The Best Light Recipe. I believe Jack Bishop works for Cook’s Illustrated, so it’s a bit odd that the recipe aren’t more similar. Read the rest of this entry »
Spicy cauliflower simmered in red wine
I love cauliflower, but other than cauliflower curry, I actually don’t have any standby recipes for it. I was looking for something new to try, and I found this recipe in which the cauliflower is simmered in red wine instead of water. It sounded interesting, and, as an added bonus, it would give me a chance to use up the red wine that we often have lying around from unfinished bottles. The recipe is from Jack Bishop’s The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook.
Summer rice salad
I was looking for something to do with some yellow and red bell peppers, and I found a recipe in Jack Bishop’s Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook for a summer salad made with arborio rice. I normally just use arborio rice for risotto, so I was excited about trying something new with it. The rice is boiled in salted water like pasta, until al dente (about 16 minutes), and then mixed with a vinaigrette and allowed to cool before the vegetables and herbs are mixed in.
Bishop says to peel and seeds the tomatoes and cucumber, but I just seeded the tomatoes, and peeled neither. If I made this again, I wouldn’t even bother to seed the tomatoes. I think the pulpy parts would add more tomato flavor. My cucumbers were the little tiny ones that have small seeds–maybe if you have big, waxy American cucumbers it would be worth seeding and peeling them. I didn’t have fresh parsley, but I doubled the basil to two tablespoons. I also forgot to add the one garlic clove that Bishop calls for. The salad tasted okay, but was a bit boring, and the ratio of rice to vegetables seemed too high. I added one red bell pepper, another kirby cucumber, and two more small tomatoes to the salad. The extra veggies helped, but it was still a little boring. Derek thought it needed pesto, and I agree that it definitely needed more than 2 Tbs. of herbs. After my tweaks the salad was pleasant eaten with scrambled eggs and garlicky chard for lunch, but I wouldn’t make it again without making some additional changes.
Here are the ingredients, with my suggested changes:
- 1.5 cups Arborio rice
- salt
- 1 Tbs. white wine vinegar
- 1 medium garlic clove, minced
- fresh ground black pepper
- 3 Tbs. olive oil
- 4 small, ripe tomatoes (about 1 pound)
- 1 medium yellow bell pepper, diced
- 1 medium red bell pepper, diced
- 3 small kirby cucumbers, diced
- 10 kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
- 2 Tbs. minced parsley
- 2 Tbs. minced basil leaves
Rating: B-
Pureed Cauliflower Soup with Pesto
This is a simple but satisfying soup, from Jack Bishop’s Complete Italian Vegetarian cookbook.
- 1 large cauliflower head, sliced or broken into florets (about 2.5 pounds, or 6 cups of florets)
- 2 Tbs. olive oil
- 1 medium onion, minced
- 2 Tbs. dry white wine
- 3 cups vegetables stock or water (I needed a bit more)
- 1 tsp. salt (I used 1/2 tsp. salt and 1 bouillon cube and it was quite salty)
- fresh ground pepper
- 1/4 cup pesto
- In a 4-6 quart saucepan, saute the onion in the olive oil until golden, about 6 minutes. Add the wine and cook until the alcohol aroma fades.
- Add the cauliflower and stir to coat the florets with oil. Add the stock, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about 12 minutes, until the cauliflower is tender.
- Use a stick blender to puree the soup, and add more broth if necessary to thin the soup.
- Swirl 1.5 – 2 tsp. of pesto into each bowl before serving.
Bishop suggests serving this with olive and thyme foccacia. Serves 4 to 6. Makes just under 8 cups, depending on how thin your like it.
My notes:
I enjoyed this soup. It’s thick and creamy without actually adding any cream, and the pesto adds a nice flavor to the relatively bland soup. I wouldn’t rave about the recipe, but I can see myself making it again. Derek said it was tasty, but didn’t go for seconds. The next day, however, he added more pesto and then raved about it, telling me “You should make this for company.”
Rating: B
Derek: A-
Fusilli with Spinach Puree
This brilliant green vaguely pesto-like sauce is based on a recipe from Jack Bishop’s Italian Vegetarian Cookbook. If you have a food processor it’s extremely simple and fast to make. Read the rest of this entry »
Braised Fennel
This recipe is from Jack Bishop’s Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook. He says “While sauteing fennel emphasizes its sweetness, braising it in butter and white wine highlights the dense, almost unctuous texture of this versatile vegetable. A dusting of Parmesan complements the rich flavors in this dish.”
- 2 medium fennel bulbs (about 2 pounds)
- 3 Tbs. butter
- 1/3 cup dry white wine
- 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
1. Trim and discard the stems and fronds from the fennel bulbs. Trim a very thin slice from the base of each bulb and remove and tough or blemished outer layers. Slice the bulbs through the base into 1/2-inch-thick pieces that resemble fans. Do not remove the core.
2. Melt the butter in a saute pan large enough to hold the fennel in a single layer. Add the fennel and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Add the wine, cover, and simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes. Turn the fennel and continue to simmer, covered, until it is quite tender and has absorbed most of the liquid in the pan, about 10 minutes. (I like to carmelize it a little bit at this point, but make sure to watch it carefully so it doesn’t burn).
3. Sprinkle the fennel with the cheese and serve immediately.
My Notes:
I had one very large fennel bulb, which weighed almost 1.5 pounds. I used 1 Tbs. olive oil and 1/2 Tbs. butter, along with the white wine. I made my fennel in a tall narrow 2 qt pot, so it didn’t get carmelized at all. After flipping and cooking for another 10 minute I thought it still wasn’t soft enough, so I cooked it for another 10 minutes. I added 1/2 ounce parmesan, and sprinkled with a little truffle salt. The dish made about 3 cups, and would make 3-4 side servings.
This dish doesn’t have a strong fennel flavor, but it is definitely “unctous” as Bishop says. Yes, it is rich, but it tastes way richer than it actually is. I liked the truffle flavor, but I think it would be tasty even without the truffle salt. I’m not sure how it would taste without the cheese. I’ll try it next time. I also want to try it with only 1 Tbs. of olive oil, as it is still quite rich.
The appearance of this dish isn’t great. It’s not very colorful, and the pieces are odd shaped and get kind of long and limp as they cook. So it ends up looking like a pale green pile of limp stringy stuff, with a creamy sauce. Anyone have any ideas on how to improve the presentation? Or alternative ideas for seasoning the fennel?
I made a marinade for tempeh bacon with apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, and liquid smoke, and I accidentally splashed a bit on a little of the fennel. The combo was delicious! Something to try next time.
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Serving Size: 1/3 recipe |
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| Amount Per Serving | |||||
| Calories | 157 | ||||
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| Total Fat | 8g | ||||
| Saturated Fat | 2.6g | ||||
| Cholesterol | 8mg | ||||
| Sodium | 378mg | ||||
| Carbohydrate | 15.6g | ||||
| Dietary Fiber | 6.5g | ||||
| Sugars | 0g | ||||
| Protein | 4.3g | ||||
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Pear and Parmesan Drizzled in Honey
Jack Bishop in his Italian Vegetarian cookbook suggests a dessert in which pears are cored and sliced thinly, topped with ribbons of parmesan cheese (ribbon the cheese using a vegetable peeler) and drizzled with warm honey. Maybe my pear wasn’t ripe enough, but honestly, this recipe didn’t do much for me.
Rating: C
Wilted Escarole with Garlic and Lemon
I was surprised to see escarole at the farmer’s market this summer, but was pleased to be able to diversify my greens selection. I have mostly used escarole for a “beans and greens” dish like at Girasole here in Pittsburgh, but decided to branch out and try something new. This recipe is from the Complete Italian Vegetarian cookbook by Jack Bishop. Read the rest of this entry »
Potato and Tomato Casserole with Olives and Herbs (D)
This southern Italian casserole is supposed to be sort of like a lasagna, except with potatoes instaed of pasta and a “pungent herb paste” instead of tomato sauce. The recipe is again from The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook by Jack Bishop.
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup fresh oregano leaves
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
3 large garlic cloves
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1.5 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
4 medium baking potatoes (about 2 pounds), peeled and sliced crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick rounds
10 large black olives, pitted and chopped
6 small, ripe but firm tomatoes (about 1.5 pounds), cored and sliced crosswise into 1/8-inch-thick rounds
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place the herbs and garlic in the work bowl of a food processor or blender. Pulse, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, until the ingredients are finely chopped. With the motor running, slowly add 2 Tbs. of the oil to form a thick paste. Scrape the herb paste into a small bowl and stir in the salt and pepper.
2. Place the bread crumbs in a small bowl and drizzle 1 Tbs. oil over them. Mix just until the crumbs are moistened.
3. Brush a 13-by-9-inch baking dish with the remaining 1 Tbs. olive oil. Cover the bottom of the pan with one half of the potatoes, overlappiing the slices slightly. Sprinkle half the olives over the potatoes. Cover with a layer of half ot he tomato slices and then dot each tomato with a tiny bit of the herb paste. Repeat the layering of the poatoes, olives, tomatoes, and herb paste. Sprinkle the crumbs over the top.
4. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and bake until the juices are bubbling and the bread crumbs are lightly browned, about 25 minutes more.
5. Let the casserole cool on a rack for 10 minutes so the layers solidify. Cut into squares and serve immediately.
I had extremely high hopes for this recipe, maybe because I love lasagna so much. But it was utterly disappointing. Now, I do have to confess, as usual, I didn’t correctly follow the recipe. I didn’t have fresh oregano so I used some dried and added some fresh parsley. I also didn’t use the bread crumbs, but instead sprinkled a Tbs. of parmesan on the top layer of potatoes. My kalamata olives were small so I used double the number called for. Finally, and probably most importantly, I forgot to add the salt. I suppose it is possible that this would have transformed the dish, but I doubt it.
The tomatoes let out a lot of water as they cooked so the bottom half of the dish boiled rather than baked. The herb paste was actually surprisingly watery. I added an extra Tbs. of olive oil to it because the processor blades wouldn’t turn, but still the end paste was watery. Maybe I didn’t dry my herbs well enough. The tomatoes had a sort of stringy texture, and the peel often became separated from the flesh, so there were lose circles of tomato peel floating around. There weren’t enough olives to really infuse the dish with olive flavor, and the herb paste tasted dull and watered down. It’s possible that the salt would have helped the herb paste stay bright tasting, but then again it did get boiled for almost an hour… The only part of this dish I enjoyed were the crispy potato slices on the very top of the casserole, that had the browned parmesan on top of them. Clearly, I would have rather just eaten oven-fries.
I gave the rest of this dish to a coworker who is always happy to try my “disasters”, and he ate it all up. He said he thought it was pretty good, and was surprised because the most flavorful part of the dish was the potatoes.
Rating: D
Sauteed Mushrooms with Garlic and Herbs (B-)
I bought mushrooms to make white bean pate, but radically overestimated the amount I needed. I bought two pounds instead of two cups. So I decided to use the rest up in this simple dish from The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook by Jack Bishop.
1.5 pounds white button mushrooms
3 Tbs. olive oil
3 medium garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup minced fresh herbs
1. Clean mushrooms. Halve small mushrooms and quarter larger ones.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the garlic and saute over medium heat until golden, about 1 minute. Add the mushrooms and raise the heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring often, until the mushrooms are golden brown and the liquid in the pan has mostly evaporated, about 8 minutes.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste and stir in the herbs. Cook for 1 to 2 minute just until the pan is dry. Serve immediately.
Bishop suggests using sage, oregano, thyme, marjoram, basil, parsley, and/or chives. I used a combination of sage, basil, parsley, mint and dill. Unfortunately, as is typical, my small deviation from the recipe was unsuccessful. The mint and dill flavors didn’t quite work with the earthiness of the mushrooms. I also used slightly less olive oil than called for, but I think that worked fine. The mushrooms weren’t as decadent, but they still tasted rich enough and they browned nicely (although I did have to add a few spoonfuls of water to start the cooking process). The texture of the mushrooms was pleasantly chewy in my opinion, but I know Derek wouldn’t have appreciated it at all.
Although these mushrooms were reasonably tasty, I think they were a bit boring for a side dish, and would work better as a component of a more complex dish.
Rating: B-
Raw Zucchini Salad with Lemon and Basil
Slicing zucchini paper thin yields a salad with a wonderful, silky mouthfeel; the lemon and olive oil and basil all come together to create one unifying flavor. This simple but lovely recipe is from The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook by Jack Bishop.
Ingredients
4 medium zucchini (about 1.5 pounds)
3 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
salt
10 large fresh basil leaves, cut into very thin strips
Add instructions here!
My Notes
After trying two of Bishop’s tomato salads that looked simple but tasty, and not being too excited about either, I was nervous about this one, since it’s even more simple! But I’ve never eaten raw zucchini so had to try it. I used a vegetable peeler to slice the zucchini into long thin strips. Bishop says to refrigerate the sliced zucchini until well chilled, but mine was already cold so I didn’t bother.
I’m not sure of the exact proportions I used, but I only used 1 zucchini and I vaguely recall that I needed more lemon juice than called for: 3/4 Tablespoon. I think I actually used 1.5 Tablespoons, and maybe the zest too? In any case, the salad was wonderful. It was totally different than I expected. I’ll definitely be making this salad for friends!
Rating: B+
Derek: B-
Two Tomato Salads (B-)
It’s the peak of tomato season here in sunny Pennsylvania, and so of course I pulled out my Complete Italian Vegetarian cookbook by Jack Bishop. It seems that every other recipe in that cookbook requires fresh tomatoes, so most of the year many of the recipes are out of reach. Not so in August!
There are two tomato salads that caught my eye. The first was tomato salad with black olives, capers, basil, and oregano. I didn’t have fresh oregano so used a bit of dried and extra basil. I also probably used less olive oil than called for. The end result tasted fine, but didn’t excite me. I thought that the briny olives and capers overwhelmed the tomatoes. The flavors really didn’t come together.
The second salad was tomatoes, red onion, basil, and vinegar (half red wine, half balsamic). Again, I wasn’t excited. This time the flavors weren’t too strong exactly, just not really any better than eating plain tomatoes.
Now, I’m thinking that to some extent the result will depend on the tomatoes you use. I was using “heirloom pinks”, which are sweet but not very acidic. Perhaps with a more acidic tomato these salads would work better?
If anyone has any advice please let me know. I’d really like to make a heavenly tomato salad before the season is up!
Rating: B-
The captious vegetarian 