Recipe: Great Green Vegetable Pasta

I learned to make a white sauce and have regretted it ever since.  White sauces are easy and I will pair one with almost any type of food that I’m preparing.  And, more often than not, I will add cheese to that white sauce.  This recipe is a great alternative because it includes almost every element of the white sauce, except that it omits the flour and includes more vegetables.

I will still make white sauce, but I will add this into the rotation as a shout out to my arteries.  Hey, arteries, thanks for keeping me conscious!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cottage or ricotta cheese (I didn’t do this and ended up with a runnier dish)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tbsp fresh basil
• 2 tbsp fresh parsley
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Big handful of pasta – I used Ryan’s homemade wholewheat fettuccine
• About 6 cups of chopped vegetables, your choice – go crazy
• 1/4 cup green onions
• 2 tbsp butter

Method:

• Combine the first 7 ingredients in a food processor or blender.  Set aside.
• Cook the pasta in water until almost done.
• Add the vegetables to the water.  Use your discretion here if one type of veg will cook faster than another.  Add the former first and wait a minute or two before adding the next.
• Drain pasta and vegetables and put back into the pot.
• Add the butter and stir to coat.
• Pour the sauces over the vegetables and mix well.  Warm on a low heat setting if desired.

Recipe: Apple Spice Muffins

This is obviously not a picture of apple spice muffins.  Instead, this is Walt first thing in the morning.  As you can see, he’s wearing a retro Big Bird sleeper and has a clubbed foot.  Maybe not a clubbed foot.  Instead this demonstrates his new skill of removing his diaper while remaining dressed.  The diaper often travels to various parts of his body much to our humour and, often later, disgust.

We eat these muffins in the morning because they’re pretty healthy.  I only use whole wheat flour and try to sub in apple sauce and maple syrup instead of using sugar.  I wouldn’t say they’re the most amazing baked good in the world, but if you are hesitant to eat cake muffins for breakfast, these are a wonderful compromise.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp maple syrup
• 1 cup apple sauce
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

Method:

• Mix dry ingredients in one bowl.
• Mix wet in another.  It’s much easier when all wet ingredients are at room temperature.  This requires some planning, though, and wouldn’t judge you if they’re not.
• Combine wet and dry.
• Pour into a well greased muffin pan.
• Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 20 minutes.  I usually use mini muffin tins and usually only bake for 12-14 minutes.  Use the toothpick test to check doneness.
• Eat muffins while your baby attempts to walk with diaper in his foot.

A Particularly Vitriolic Post About Vegetable Stock

I should begin by warning that I’m going to sound like a crazy hippy here.  I promise I’m not a crazy hippy.  I really like showering and won’t camp unless I have access to warm, running water.   Nor, do I enjoy most stores that sell Tibetan flags.  I have no problem with rustic camping or Tibet(ian flags), I just really like flush toilets and pastels.

Wasting food is an awful thing to do.  Does that seem harsh?  I know I should be all, “my life, my choices; your life, your choices – let’s hug,” but I can’t because food waste is simply an eff you to most of the world.  Even worse, it’s the part of the world that doesn’t deserve it.

Like most of my kitchen practices, I began slowly and worked my way over to crazy evangelist street yeller.  It originated with composting.  There is no reason to throw away perfectly decomposable food, so we composted.  Sadly, our compost became fuller than we had space for in our meager garden containers; and so, I started making stock out of the larger pieces of vegetable and bones.

The discovery that I could make my own stock at first made me feel warm and fuzzy, but soon led to feelings of rage and paranoia (I would guess, similar to crystal meth use?).  Why is stock sold in the grocery store in massive amounts of packaging when it’s crazy easy to make at home for free?  Why?

I feel like I could be high on crystal meth and still  be able to make kickass stock.  It really is just that easy.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of vegetables – if it isn’t rotten, it works.
• 6-8 cups of water (depending on cooking time and heat – add more if needed)
• 1 tbsp of salt

Method:

• Put vegetables, water, and salt into a slow cooker
• Cook on low anywhere from 6 to 12 hours
• Strain liquid (this is your stock); compost vegetables (now you can throw them away guilt free), and freeze stock in whatever size batches you prefer.
• You’re done.  Seriously.

A couple of tips:

• I keep a 6 cup plastic container with a lid in my freezer.  Then, when I’m cooking, I’ll throw appropriate vegetable “waste” in my container as I go.  Then, when the container is full I’m simply put the contents into my stock pot, add water and salt and go.
• If you want to be really fancy, you can cook your stock longer and create a hyper concentrated stock.  This stock can then be frozen in ice cube trays and used almost like a bullion cube.  And when guests go to help themselves to an ice cube they’ll have invented a new crazy (possibly disgusting) cocktail.