Pasta with Sun Dried Tomato, Garlic and Parsley AKA (vegan) Dad's Spaghetti

So back when I was younger and lived with my parents, whenever it was my dad's night to cook he would fall back on a couple old stand-by's. He would either make burgers, which were great, grilled cheese, which would literally make me vomit(sorry Dad, and anyone reading this blog for the mental image BUT IT'S TRUE), or his special "Dad's Spaghetti" was was fantastic. In the original Dad's Spaghetti, crispy bits of fried proscuitto is used instead of sun dried tomato. I settled on the tomato as a good vegan replacement because it was the right color, similar chewy texture and a nice complement to the garlic and parsley.

I see a lot of recipes like this around on different food websites and the one ingredient they always leave out is something which makes this dish really special: breadcrumbs. The breadcrumbs do a great job soaking up the flavorful sun dried tomato and garlicky oil so that the pasta isn't slick and slimy, but rather moist and a little crunchy and packed with flavor. This is a low effort dish that works great on weeknights when you want a home-cooked meal but don't have a lot of time to spare.

Comfortably feeds three

Ingredients:
7-8 cloves crushed and very finely chopped garlic
1 cup breadcrumbs (or more to taste - different brands absorb moisture differently)
13.5 oz box of spaghetti
2.5 cups thinly sliced sun dried tomatoes
1 3/4 cups rinsed and chopped parsley
1-2 tablespoons red pepper flakes
2 tbsp olive oil (depending on if your tomatoes are dried or stored in oil you will want to adjust this. If they are dried maybe bump it up to 3 tbsp - if they are stored in oil feel free to reduce it depending on how much oil you use from the tomatoes.)
salt and pepper to taste

Note: I did not slice my tomatoes as thinly as I should have in these pictures. They should be about the size of half an almond, not big chunks like I have here.

Most of the work for this dish is prep. Get all your ingredients ready - chop your tomatoes, garlic, parsley, measure out your breadcrumbs and cook and drain your pasta according to the instruction on the box

All set? OK!

On medium low heat lightly fry your tomatoes and garlic in the oil in a large pan(I used a wok). The tomatoes burn very easily so stir constantly and keep a close eye on them. In this case we're not trying to caramelize anything, just releasing the flavor into the oil, so you can put your tomatoes, garlic and oil in the pan while it's cold and then warm it up until they are sizzling nicely. Don't risk burning them by throwing them into an already blistering hot pan.

After about 3 minutes of this add your noodles and coat with the oil, garlic and tomatoes. Add your breadcrumbs, stir until combined then take it off the heat and add the parsley, pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Continue folding the pasta over itself gently until all the ingredients are well mixed. At this point the incredible aroma of garlic and sun-dried tomato should be driving you a little crazy so immediately plate and serve. If you want, garnish with Parmesan cheese though it really doesn't need it.

*I added a Brazilian and Portuguese market in Arlington to the Useful Grocery Stores section of this blog.

Vegan Chili

Chili - Great cold weather food, hearty, freezes well, a good source of protein that isn't soy if you're vegan... Chili is awesome. In NoVa there are a lot of small Central American grocery stores that sell dried peppers and this is one recipe which utilizes them. With this simple way to prepare dried peppers for chili you will never have to buy chili powder again.

Pretty good guide to dried Chilies: http://www.foodsubs.com/Chiledry.html

Ingredients:

2 Small Hot Chilies such as Piquin, Arbol or Japon
3 Fruity Chilies such as Ancho, California, or New Mexico
3 Earthy Chilies such as Chilhuacle negro, Mulatto or Pasilla
2 whole chipotle chilies in adobo sauce with two tablespoons of the sauce
2 (14 oz) cans chickpeas drained, rinsed and chopped in a blender on pulse for a few seconds
2 (14 oz) can kidney beans drained and rinsed
1 (14 oz) can tomatoes pureed in a blender
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
1 large onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, grated or pureed
1 1/2 tbsp cumin
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 tablespoons soy sauce (or more for seasoning)
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
splash of bourbon or some other whiskey
some cornmeal to thicken if desired

Optional Garnishes: sliced avocado, spring onions, chopped shallots, cheddar cheese and sour cream (if you're vegetarian)

1. De-seed and de-stem the peppers and boil them in about 6 cups of water for 20-30 minutes.

2. While the peppers are boiling fry the onion and garlic with the oil in a large heavy bottom pan or dutch oven till the garlic is fragrant and the onions are soft and translucent. Add the cumin and oregano and fry that another minute. When the onions are nice and cooked pour in your tomato puree and simmer that until your chilies are cooked.

3. Puree the chilies in a blender with about 2 cups of water (reserve the rest of the water you boiled them with) and the chipotles with the adobo sauce. This is your intensely flavorful chili sauce. Add the chili sauce, tomato paste, beans and the nutritional yeast to the dutch oven and bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes covered on low.

4. OK your chili is sort of done. If it's too watery  reduce it a bit and add some cornmeal till it's the desired thickness. If it's too thick add some of the reserved chili water. If it's not salty enough add more soy sauce. Give it a splash of bourbon to finish it off and you're actually done. Garnish with whatever you like.

Cook Books

I got some great cook books for Christmas such as Pok Pok and Vegetable Literacy which I'm very excited about. Unfortunately for this blog that means I'm cooking and experimenting with a lot of new dishes so I won't be posting any recipes until I'm comfortable with them and think I have something worth sharing.

Spinach and Feta Sandwich with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Garlic

This was one of my favorite sandwiches from a bakery/cafe I used to work at. It's a simple sandwich with very few ingredients but it can be a little tricky to get the balance right so I'll try to explain it as well as I can. What's difficult about it is that every bite needs to have feta, spinach and tomato in it or it won't taste good. These three ingredients together play off beautifully and create a really nice experience but if one is left out you'll be in trouble!

Warning: You need a panini press for this recipe. You can simulate this effect by putting the sandwich on a hot pan, putting something heavy on it and then turning it over after a few minute to cook the other side.

I made two sandwiches here but I'll just give a recipe for one sandwich and you can double or triple it (and so on) as you like. Oh! I made this on a multrigrain bread but it tastes great on a crusty baguette as well.

Ingredients:

1 clove garlic, sliced thinly
1 handful of baby spinach (see picture below)
Butter/oil or Earth Balance to spread on bread.
2 slices multigrain/baguette
2 packed tablespoons sun dried tomatoes sliced thinly (you can buy these in big jars at Cosco and they last forever)
1.5 tsp olive oil to fry spinach
Enough sliced or crumbled feta to cover your sandwich (see picture below)

The first thing you'll want to do is prep your garlic, tomato and feta.

This is how much spinach you'll need for a single sandwich:

Saute the garlic and olive oil over medium low heat, it should just be sizzling a bit, for about 30 seconds. You're just releasing the aroma and flavor into the oil before you throw the spinach in. Ok throw in the spinach and stir it and fold it over itself so it cooks as evenly as you can get it. Spinach burns if you look at it funny so you want to be VERY CAREFUL not to overcook it. The spinach will continue to cook once you remove it from the heat so you really only want it to wilt a bit before removing it from the heat.

This is how your spinach should look when it's done frying:

Seriously, that's it. Put in on a plate with a paper towel while you begin to assemble the sandwich. Butter one side of each bread slice and arrange one of them butter side down in front of you. Using a fork, lay the spinach on the unbuttered side of the bread in a thin, even layer. Don't overdo it or the bitter spinach will overpower the rest of the ingredients. See picture.

By the way, see how much more cooked it's gotten just from sitting around? OK now layer the sun dried tomato and cheese, again check out the pictures.

Put the second slice of bread on top, buttered side up and panini press that dude. It's done when the cheese is a bit melted. 

I love this recipe. It's just a few ingredients but when combined the flavors just work soooo well together - the sweet tomatoes, the bitter spinach and the salty/sour cheese. 

permalink: http://arlingtonhomecook.blogspot.com/2013/12/spinach-and-feta-sandwich-with-sun.html

Update

Added two more groceries to Useful Grocery Stores. I'll have another recipe up tonight or early tomorrow (edit. Ok that turned out to be a lie, THANKS CHRISTMAS). If you know of a good ethnic grocery store in NoVa, send me the information at grocersubmissions@gmail.com and I will post it.

Thing I learned today: How to make proper garlic croutons

I made a Vegan Ceasar Salad last night which was great and I will probably post the recipe at some point but I had a revelation when it came to croutons. The method described here: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/10/the-best-caesar-salad-recipe.html for making the croutons yielded the most garlicky, evenly cooked crunchy croutons I've ever made. The secret is soaking garlic in olive oil and then straining the garlic out before coating the bread squares with the oil. That way the garlic doesn't burn and make your croutons bitter when you put them in the oven. BRILLIANT.

Vegan Shepard's Pie

Vegan Shepard's Pie. OK that sounds a little ridiculous I am willing to admit. Shepards pie without meat? WELL believe it or not LENTILS are the solution. Mushroom too, but mostly lentils. The best thing about this recipe is that if you have lentils, onions and potatoes you can pretty much throw in whatever other vegetables you want and the pie will taste fantastic. The reason it works is because lentils have a fairly earthy, hearty flavor by themselves but when you cook them with the seasonings in this recipe they just explode with flavor and bring the rest of the dish along with them. 

I'm going to write down my IDEAL Shepard's Pie recipe but honestly I don't know if I've ever actually had all of these ingredients on hand and that's OK. Want to use celery instead of carrots? No problem. No mushrooms? It's all good. Need to use up some turnips or sweet potato? Go for it. The foundation of this dish is so solid you can really go nuts with substitutions or even take some stuff out and it will still taste great. The one thing you do need (and if you're vegan you probably already have some) is nutritional yeast. It's one of those ingredients like shrimp paste or anchovies that tastes terrible by itself but brings out incredible flavors in other foods and you really need it for this recipe. I THINK you could probably replace it with miso paste or marmite if you absolutely had to but I've never tried it.

I cooked the Shepard's Pie in a dutch oven but if you don't have one you can do all the cooking in a pot and then transfer the mixture to a deep baking dish before you layer on the potatoes.

I'm missing a few things from this picture and again, the recipe I'm writing down is the idealized version of what I actually cooked. Also, yes, baby carrots I know - they were from a party and I'm using them up DON'T JUDGE ME. There's wild rice in the picture because I thought I wouldn't have enough lentils but I ended up not using it.

The Filling

3 carrots chopped

1 large onion chopped

1 package button mushrooms chopped

1 cup peas (fresh or frozen)

3 tbsp soy sauce

1.5 cups dry lentils 

3/4 cup nutritional yeast (you can buy this from MOM's or Whole Foods)

splash of red wine 

3 cups vegetable stock

4 cloves garlic pureed (either chop very finely or use a garlic press)

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp rosemary 

2 tbsp neutral oil

2 tbsp tomato paste

Mashed Potato Topping

3 large potatoes peeled

4 tbsp earth balance

1/2 cup soy milk (UNSWEETENED)

1. First you want to peel those potatoes and boil them. Cut them so no pieces are larger than a fist and boil them about 40 minutes, with no lid. Conventional wisdom is that the potatoes are done when they slide off a fork when pierced  but just to be clear they have to be mushy all the way through or else you'll get hard bits in your mashed potatoes. So they have to REALLY slide off your fork there should be no resistance.

2. While the potatoes are boiling chop your onions, carrots and mushrooms and fry your onions and carrots in the dutch oven on medium high heat with the oil.

Fry them till the onions are translucent you start to get some caramelization on the bottom of the pan, about 8 minutes. At that point splash some wine in there and rub the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to mix the caramelized stuff in with the wine then put your garlic and mushrooms in.

3. Fry the mushrooms for a few minutes then add your spices, soy sauce and tomato paste. Stir that a minute then add your lentils and peas.

Wait another minute then add the vegetable stock and nutritional yeast, bring to a boil then cover and change heat to low. Wait 20 minutes.

4. Those potatoes should be done soon so when they are get them out of the water, put them in a large bowl and add the butter and soy milk. Mash them with a fork until they are creamy and fluffy, add more milk/earth balance if you need to. Add salt and pepper to taste. It's hard for me at this point not to just eat those mashed potatoes because I'm normally starving but just hold on you're almost there.

5. After 20 minutes of cooking in the dutch oven the lentils should be done so take a look. Set your oven to broil. There will probably be a bit of excess liquid so I like to let that cook down a bit until the filling is dry enough to easily hold the mashed potatoes on top. Spread your mashed potatoes on top of the filling then get a fork and make some ridges in the potatoes. Throw that in the oven until the potatoes get a bit crispy AND YOU'RE DONE. In the picture I garnished with some fresh rosemary I had lying around and also added fresh chopped rosemary to the mashed potatoes which was pretty tasty.

This would be more aptly named SAVORY VEGAN PIE but Shepard's Pie sounds better. The combination of soy sauce, tomato paste and nutritional yeast makes this incredibly rich, balanced gravy that all the vegetable and lentils cook in and soak up. I'm a huge fan of this recipe because of how malleable it is and also how much fun it is to cook and then eat on a cold winter day. Questions or comments? Let me know at arlingtonhomecook@gmail.com and I'll post them.

permalink: http://arlingtonhomecook.blogspot.com/2013/12/vegan-shepards-pie.html