Vegetable Noodles

Another fabulous Food52 find; these noodles made out of vegetables. After making those zucchini ravioli, I'm no stranger to turning vegetables into noodles, but it was super cool to give it a go with other vegetables.
We used this as a side dish to some sandwiches, and it was actually pretty heavy on its own at this portion size, so it could just as easily qualify as a meal.
The flavours at work here are so harmonious it's practically sinful. Fresh sage and lemon, a hint of sweetness from maple syrup. A quick punch of spice from freshly ground black pepper to garnish. Absolutely lovely. Some day, I'm going to get a better photograph of this, because this one does not do it justice. It's so beautiful. I blame my kitchen lighting.

Ingredients:
1 sweet potato, washed and peeled
2 carrots, washed and peeled
2 parsnips, washed and peeled
1 zucchini, washed
for the glaze
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp maple syrup
1/4 cup sage
3/4 tbsp butter
1 1/4 tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:
Using a vegetable peeler, slice thin ribbons from each vegetable, peeling from top to bottom and turning slightly after each strip is removed, until the core is reached or until it is too small to peel anymore.
In a large saucepan, melt butter and cook sage for 1 minute.
Add vegetables (except zucchini) and toss with tongs, cooking until they begin to wilt.
At this time, add zucchini. Add lemon juice, salt, and maple syrup, as well as a quick grind of pepper. Add about 3/4 cup water.
Cook over medium heat, turning occasionally with tongs, until the liquid boils away and the vegetables are glazed and tender. Serve immediately.

Notes:
1 portion of vegetable produces a LOT of noodles, so keep that in mind when you're scaling up. Rich and I made a little more than what's listed here, and ended up with two more servings. I tried to write a scaled down version so that it serves two people a little more easily.
I added the zucchini last because it is a softer vegetable than the root veggies, and I didn't want it to turn into mush. The timing I have written will give you the vegetable sufficiently cooked whilst remaining intact. If you only want root vegetables, you can exclude the zucchini.

Grilled Hot Sausage and Vegetables Somen Noodle Bowl

For a while, noodle bowls were my thing. Asian noodles (soba, somen, udon) are easy and pretty cheap to get at my local asian grocery, so when I first moved here, I made quite a few of these. I started making them when I was still living at my dad's, though, when I started getting sick of eating the same things all the time.
Anyway, I haven't made a noodle bowl in a long time, although Rich and I talk about them often. It was actually the first meal I made in my new apartment, and since he helped me move, he got to have some. It was the three of us -- Rich, our friend Kevin, and myself -- sitting on the floor of my new place, with nothing unpacked, no furniture in the whole place, eating an imitation crab noodle bowl with mushrooms and broccoli, and probably carrots. I don't think I had a broth that time, though. Anyway, the noodle bowl has some fond memories for me.
The nice thing about noodle bowls is that they are pretty easy, and super versatile. All veggies, tofu, beef, chicken, pork. Wanna add an egg in there? Go for it. Seafood is always a winner with these. Try every combination you can think of.
For the broth for this noodle bowl, I used the teriyaki "broth" from my sirloin and veggie bowl a while back. It worked really well with the hot sausage, and the somen noodles carried it pretty nicely.

Ingredients:
2 hot sausages, casings on
3 carrots, peeled and sliced thin
1 package mushrooms, cleaned and sliced thin
1 green onion, chopped
2 bunches somen noodles
Teriyaki broth

Directions:
Grill hot sausage until cooked through and the outside is charred slightly.
Meanwhile, combine ingredients for teriyaki broth in a large pot and bring to a boil.
Add carrots, bring pot down to a simmer, and cook until tender. Add mushrooms and cook for another one to two minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove carrots and mushrooms and place in bowls.
Add somen to broth and cook until done. Use tongs to place noodles in bowl, and pour broth into each.
Slice sausage thin, add to bowls along with green onions.

Notes:
A dish like this can easily be made spicy. Add chili powder or white pepper to adjust the spice level.
Instead of making the teriyaki broth, you can just as easily use 2 cups of vegetable broth, spiced to your preference.
1 bunch of somen noodles is a lot for one person, and not everyone may be ready for that kind of commitment. If you're worried it might be too much, try using a half bunch per person.

Peach Galette

What says summer quite like a pastry made with stone fruit? Very few things.
I never even heard about galettes until this summer, when all of a sudden, every recipe site I peek around is talking about them. And man, do they all look delicious.
I made this a while back, when peaches were on sale for a dollar per pound, which is good because this thing requires like, four peaches. It's totally worth it. I loved this thing, and I want to make it every year when stone fruit comes to season.
I got the pastry recipe from Jessica at How Sweet It Is which, as I have already mentioned, is an awesome food blogger and I love pretty much everything she makes. She fills her galette with ginger seasoned peaches, but I took a different approach, instead using brown sugar, maple syrup, and some cinnamon and nutmeg. The sugars bring out the sweetness of the peaches, the syrup adds depth, and the spices take it all up a notch. I could have just eaten those peach slices without the pastry. Oh, wait.

I totally did, because there were some leftover peaches. Mmmm.

I probably could have gotten away with just using three peaches, but then I wouldn't have had this delicious bowl to snack on whilst the galette baked.

Galette pastry
Ingredients: Note: This will make enough pastry for two galettes
4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
3 teaspoons salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1/2 cup ice cold water
1 1/2 cups cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces (3 sticks or 24 tablespoons)
1/3 cup sliced almonds + extra sugar for sprinkling
for brushing: 1 egg + a few drops of water, beaten together

Directions
Add the flour, sugar and salt to a bowl and whisk. In a small bowl, whisk mix together the egg, vinegar and water. Add the cold butter pieces into the bowl and mix with a hand mixer until small coarse crumbs remain. Sprinkle the water/egg mixture over the flour and mix again until the dough comes together. If needed, use your hands to kneed the dough into a single unit.
Remove the dough with your hands and wrap it in plastic wrap. This dough makes enough for 2 galette crusts, so you can either separate it into 2 sections now, or separate it after it's refrigerated. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Filling
Ingredients:
4 peaches, sliced thin
2 tbsp pure maple syrup
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg

Directions:
In a large bowl, place all peach slices.
In a small bowl, mix syrup, sugar, and spices and whisk until sugar is melted.
Add syrup mixture to the peaches and toss to coat.

Assembling the Galette
Take out one of the dough packets from the fridge, place on a sheet of parchment paper, and roll out to about 1/4 inch thickness. Don't worry about making a perfect circle -- you want the edges to be rough to make it "rustic-looking."
Starting about two inches from the edge, begin placing the peach slices so that it creates a round. Make multiple layers, leaving about an inch from the previous layer, and repeat until either all the peach slices are used or no more can be placed.
Fold over the edges of the galette, making sure the seams stay together so it doesn't unfold.
Brush eggwash over folded crust. Press almonds into crust, and sprinkle lightly with sugar.
Transfer galette (with the parchment paper) onto an overturned cookie sheet.
Bake for 40 minutes or until the crust is golden.
Once cooled, cut into slices and serve with ice cream or homemade whipped cream.

Pasta With Peas and Toasted Almonds

So, this is the second time I've made this dish, but the first time, it didn't photograph well, so I waited until I could make it again. Quite frankly, I blame the peas. The first run through with this recipe, the peas were kind of dull looking and not fabulous. This time? Fabulous.
So, this dish was inspired by Sommer at A Spicy Perspective, and hers definitely looks more fabulous, but my dish is only slightly different from hers: I did not use smoked almonds, I toasted some sliced almonds in a dry pan. I also reduced the amount of lemon added to the vinaigrette, as the first time I made this, I found it to be way too lemony and not enough of the other flavours.
This dish is super versatile -- It can be served as an entree, with a side salad or maybe a light crusty bread, or as a side dish to a lean protein entree, or even cold, as a re-vamped pasta salad that isn't oozing mayo. Either way, Rich and I found this to be light, refreshing, and all around delicious. And this recipe makes a lot, so we had some to pair with sandwiches for lunch for a few days afterward! Sometimes, it's better to have to feed only two, am I right leftovers fans?
Also, can I just say that I'm writing this whilst a big ol' batch of sweet potato chips bakes in my oven, and I'm so excited for those chips? But more importantly, I used the mandolin to slice them, and I was super nervous about it, and I feel like I need a whole chocolate pie or something to deal with that stress.
Anyway:

Ingredients:
16 oz small pasta, like ditalini or macaroni
10 oz frozen peas
1 cup sliced almonds, toasted
1/4 cup fresh chopped dill
1 green onion, roughly chopped
1/2 lemon, juiced and zested
5 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Directions:
Cook pasta according to package directions.
To toast almonds, add them to a dry skillet over medium low heat, stir every few minutes, until some begin to brown and they are fragrant.
About two minutes before pasta is done, add peas. Drain.
To make vinaigrette, add lemon juice and zest, oil, mustard, salt, pepper to a bowl and whisk until emulsified. Add to pasta and peas.
Stir in almonds and dill.
Serve.

Notes:
Sommer uses a whole lemon for her recipe, but as I noted before, we thought it was far too strong. If you're unsure of what to do with the other half of lemon, pour 1 cup of water into a small pot, add juice from the lemon half, 2 tbsp honey, and bring to a boil. Steep 1 black tea bag in it for about 3-5 minutes and BOOM. Honey lemon tea.

Pretzel Crusted Apple and Pepper Jack Grilled Cheese

Welcome to the new world of grilled cheese.
Let me just say that I *love* grilled cheese. I grew up on it. On wanna-be Kraft slices melted between two slices of buttery wheat. Mmm...
Just recently, I started going through some old cooking magazines my mom had given me (we're talking two to four year old magazines here), and I found a photograph of a pretzel crusted jalapeño melt, and I thought that was pretty neat. Rich is not too fond of jalapeños, so I decided to used the pretzel idea with something new.
Enter this sandwich. Cheesy, salt, sweet, soft, crunchy, everything. This sandwich is everything. And more. I wanted to eat like a thousand of them. I want to eat some right now.
This sandwich is the perfect opportunity to up your soup-and-sandwich-night game.

Ingredients
Italian bread, or some crusty whole grain bread
Pepper jack cheese, two slices per sandwich
1 Granny smith apple, cut into rounds, core and seeds removed from the rounds
1/3 cup pretzels, crushed
1 egg
2-3 tbsp milk

Directions
Heat skillet or griddle to medium heat. Melt a small amount of butter for sandwiches.
Lightly beat together egg and milk. Dip one side of slice of bread into mixture, then coat with pretzels. Place on skillet or griddle.
Repeat for all slices of bread. Add one slice of cheese to each piece of bread, and two or three slices of apple to half of the bread.
Heat sandwich halves through, until cheese is starting to melt. Be careful not to burn the pretzel side!
Combine sandwich halves: 1 cheese only half with 1 cheese and apple half. Let sandwich sit on skillet or griddle for another minute or until cheese is completely melted.
Serve with homemade chicken noodle soup or a salad and chips.

Notes
This recipe, as written, made three sandwiches for us, but we used Italian bread, and the pieces were fairly small.
This would probably work with any cheese you prefer, but I really like the combination of low heat from the pepper jack with the sweetness of the apple -- a perfect harmony of deliciousness.

Spanish-Inspired Vegetable Stew

We've talked about my half-Guatemalan heritage, right? Okay, good. 

Every once in a while, I get the craving for some food that tastes like it came out of a Spanish-speaking country. Most often, that means tacos. But not this time.

I had some vegetable stock left over from when I made roasted cauliflower and saffron soup for Rich during his four days of madness at work, during which time he was working night shifts. Anyway, it's hard to find something to do with just two cups of stock, so I spent some time trying to figure it out. I settled on this stew, which I just sort of made up on the fly. It is super simple, really fast, and really delicious. Rich loved it, I loved it; everyone wins.

We also served it with some homemade garlic bread. And by served it with, I mean we piled spoonfuls of stew onto the bread and ate it like some mutant bruschetta, and it was fabulous.

If you like Spanish-y flavours, I encourage you to give this a shot.

Ingredients:
2 or 3 medium red potatoes, peeled and chopped small
12 baby carrots, cut small
1 ear corn, kernels shaved off, or 1/2 cup frozen corn
2 cups vegetable broth
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt, ground black pepper to taste
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika (I used Hungarian paprika)
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cayenne powder
1/4 cup small pasta (optional) [I used small-cut tomato basil pasta pieces for mine, purchased from my local farmers market]

Directions:
In a large pot, add garlic with a small knob of butter (or 1 tbsp of your favourite oil) and warm over medium heat until garlic is fragrant.
Reduce heat slightly, and add corn, stirring constantly for 1 minute.
Add carrots, potatoes, and broth. Bring to a boil.
Add spices, adjust to taste.
Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until vegetables are tender.
Serve with crusty bread or tortilla chips.

Notes:
This ends up pretty spicy, so if you want it more mild, add less of the chili and cayenne and then adjust to your preferred heat level.

Chicken and Tortellini Soup

Not one of the best photos I've ever taken. But give me a break, the lighting in my house is not fabulous.
Anyway, I got the idea for this some time ago, and I've actually been making it since like, May or something, but I thought I'd share it. It's just one of those meals that sort of got lost in my phone's photo album.
This is a nice all-around, all-weather sort of soup, except maybe the hottest summer days. It's actually pretty light when portioned in the appropriate servings, and the spice content can be adjusted to the season. Cold or rainy? Add a little white pepper or chili powder to make give it some heat to warm you up. Warm and pleasant? Use fresh herbs and feel like you're sitting outside, enjoying a gentle breeze.
The recipe itself is not at all complicated, but it's definitely a nice go-to when you're not sure what you want for dinner, or only have thirty minutes to cook.

Ingredients:
Boneless chicken breast or tenders, cut into bite-size strips
2 or 3 whole carrots, peeled and chopped small
2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced
Low sodium chicken broth
Cheese tortellini, about 5 to 7 pieces per person
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
Fresh chopped parsley
Additional herbs and spices, according to preference

Directions:
In a large pot, add olive oil and garlic and warm over medium heat until garlic is fragrant.
Add chicken and cook through.
Add carrots and broth, bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until carrots are tender.
Add spices and herbs, bring to boil.
Add tortellini and cook until pasta is done.
Portion out tortellini into bowls, top with other components of soup.

Notes:
I like to make a full batch of this soup (minus tortellini) and then save whatever Rich and I don't use that night for another meal. Sometimes that means heating it back up, throwing more tortellini in and enjoying it all over again. Other times, that means throwing in some sort of small pasta, like alphabets, and giving it a quick heat before bringing it in for lunch.
I've made this soup in a few ways, spice-wise. It definitely has a lot of range and possibilities. I encourage you to play with the flavours.