Repurposing Basil, Part I (Penne with Chili-Rubbed Beef and Pineapple Salsa)

Hello all...

Yes, yes, it’s been next to forever since I’ve updated The Man Who Cooks. Lots of life events, transitions, and just plain laziness stood in the way. I thought about letting this little domain lapse into the ether, but thanks to a flash of inspiration around Vine Headquarters, I thought I’d get back in the ring and take another swing.

What’s the inspiration? A big-ass patch of basil, that’s what.

Fresh basil. Can’t live without the stuff during summertime. There’s something about the soil and sunlight in our garden, though – the stuff grows out of control if we don’t continually chop it back. Even with our barbering, we end up with jar after jar of frozen pesto at the end of the season.

I’m not saying that’s necessarily a negative, mind you, but I know I’m not alone here. Basil tastes best when it’s new. If you leave a basil plant to its own devices, the leaves lose some flavor, the stems get woody, and it’s just not as good.

To keep waste to a minimum, we decided to “repurpose” the basil by incorporating the stuff into as many things as we could this summer. Our attempts will follow.

Here’s the first installment. This pasta, adapted from a Food & Wine recipe, makes a really nice summertime pasta. The original recipe called for cilantro, but I think the basil’s spiciness gives a nice counterpoint.

• 1 lb. flank steak (I used a couple of pre-packed bacon wrapped filets instead)
• 2 tbsp plus 1 teaspoon cooking oil
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 tbsp. salt
• 8 oz. crushed pineapple, drained 
• 1 jalapeño pepper, seeded
• 1 shallot, chopped
• juice of one lime
• 1/2 c. chopped basil
• 1 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
• 1 pound penne

Heat the broiler. Rub the flank steak with the 1 teaspoon oil, 1/2 teaspoon of the chili powder, and 1/4 teaspoon of the salt. Broil until medium rare, about 5 minutes per side. Let it rest for 5 minutes and then cut it into thin slices.

In a large glass or stainless-steel bowl, combine the pineapple, the remaining oil, the jalapeño pepper, shallot, lime juice, bail, black pepper, and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon chili powder. Stir in the sliced steak.

In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the penne until just done. Drain and toss with the salsa and steak.

Served this with a glass of Albarino. Tasty, tasty lunch...

 

 

Technorati Tags: pasta,beef,recipes

American Highway Cauliflower (Pasta with turkey & peppers in cauliflower sauce)

(Well, it's as close as I could come. "Ask the Dust" is nowhere to be found...)

Since I may have managed to properly queasify most of the members of the audience who don’t much care for the dismemberment of furry woodland creatures, here’s something that’s a little less farm-to-table, although I guess it wouldn’t have to be for the most part.

Cauliflower is one of those vegetables I had to develop a taste for – but now that I have, I use it (as you’ve seen) in all sorts of ways. Instead of a heavy cream sauce for pasta, using steamed cauliflower as a base makes for a much healthier sauce. This savory bit of yumminess is very quick and healthy. If you’re a WeightWatchers person, as I once was – it’s about 5 points for a serving. (Thanks, Rachel.)  Here’s what you’ll need:

• head o' cauliflower, cut into florets (about 6-8 cups)
• 1 onion (preferably Vidalia or something sweet) cut into thin wedges
• 6 oz. roasted turkey from the deli, sliced thin
• a bunch of dried tomatoes, sliced thin
• 1 jar roasted red peppers, drained and sliced into 2 (or so) inch pieces
• chives
• 1/4 c. fresh basil, chopped
• thyme (2 tsp. ground or a heaping teaspoon of leaves, fresh)
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 c. skim milk
• 1 c. chicken broth
• 1/4 c. parmesan cheese
• 1 lb. pasta -- penne works well.

Steam the cauliflower until tender. (18-20 minutes in a steamer) Add to blender.

In a skillet over medium-low heat, add some olive oil and the onion. Cook until caramelized and tender -- 10-12 min. Add to blender.

Return pan (do not wipe out) to stove. Increase heat to medium. Add turkey and tomatoes. Saute until turkey begins to brown -- about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Add peppers, stir to mix, cover and keep warm.

Start pot of salted water boiling for pasta. After you add the pasta to the water, add milk, broth, lemon juice, and herbs to the blender. Puree until smooth. Pour into saucepan over medium-low heat. Add parmesan cheese. Stir and cover.

When pasta is finished, drain, return to pot, and add cauliflower sauce and turkey mixture. Salt and pepper to taste. Plate it up. Garnish with a few chives.

Deli-meatin’ Workin’ Man Blues (Penne Salad w/Roast Beef & Capers)

“Man, it's hot. It's like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn't take this kind of hot.”

– Eugene Morris Jerome, Biloxi Blues

I don’t know about you, but the heat just takes it out of me. This weekend, heat indices were up around 100, and the last thing I felt like doing was spending a lot of time in the kitchen over a hot stuff, much less standing in front of my usual flaming implement of destruction to make dinner. I was in the mood for something light, but I wanted beef or something similarly meaty. Does that make any sense? In any case, we put out heads together and came up with this little gem. This recipe is something you can put together in less than 15 minutes, if you need something quick.

• 1/2 lb rare deli roast beef, cut into thin strips
• 1 lb. penne
• 5 oz. spring salad mix
• 3 tbsp. quality olive oil
• 1 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1/4 c. capers, drained
• Shredded parmesan

(Note: don’t skimp on the quality. Get the best roast beef your deli has. Use really good olive oil. Indulge yourself.)

Get the water going for the pasta. Take the beef and slice it into thin strips.

When the pasta is done, drain it and rinse it with cold water. When it’s drained, put everything but the beef and cheese into a big bowl. Add some salt and pepper to taste. Toss everything together. Add the beef and toss it again.

Plate it up and top it with the Parmesan. That’s all there is to it. As for a wine pairing, put it with some Beaujolais, which is one of the few red wines that should always be chilled. Then hunker down in the a/c and move as little as possible until the cold front comes through…

Pump It Up (Broccoli with Orecchiette)

Carbs are your friend.

They’re especially friendly when you’re doing a new fitness routine. After a conversation with a colleague of hers, the Sweet Partner in Crime decided that she wanted to try doing P90X – a home workout routine that many of you have probably have heard of at some point. Of course, I couldn’t let her go through that alone…

So we’ve started in on this fairly torturous workout set. Honestly, it’s a pretty solid set of exercises. We’re finding that we can at least handle it, and it seems to actually give some results as we “bring it.” There are, however, two drawbacks:

1) The workouts are all around 75 minutes (the power yoga is 90), and we usually can only do them after work.

2) These workouts leave us hungry, but also give us even less time to cook than usual. Even so, we’ve got plenty of recipes up our sleeve to replenish the ol’ glycogen stores. Here’s a quick, scrumptious pasta recipe that’ll quiet the cries of your aching muscles:

• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 5 (or more) cloves garlic, minced
• 2 (10 oz) packages of chopped, frozen broccoli
• 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
• 1 c. water
• 1/2 c. white wine
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh oregano (or 3/4 tbsp. dried)
• 1/4 c. shredded pecorino or parmesan cheese
• 1 lb. orecchiette pasta
• salt & pepper

Fill a pot with water. Add some salt and a dash of olive oil. Get it boiling. Get another pot, add the remaining olive oil and put over medium high heat. When oil is hot, add the garlic. (Mmmmm….garlic…) Cook the garlic, stirring a time or two, until it turns golden and gets fragrant – about a minute. Add the broccoli, red pepper flakes, oregano, water, wine, and some salt & pepper. Stir it together. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid has been absorbed. This usually takes about 15 minutes.

(Now, some of you may want to give me a hard time for using frozen broccoli. Use fresh if you want to. Frozen is easier to make quickly – and if you’re looking for nutrition, then frozen veggies aren’t a bad option. They’re usually prepared when they’re in season and ready to harvest. Some fresh vegetables may sit around awhile and lose some nutritional value.)

Meanwhile, when the other pot comes to a boil, add the orecchiette. Give it a stir and get it cooking until it’s al dente – about 10-12 minutes.

If you’re not familiar with this kind of pasta – it’s shaped like little flat shells or thumbprints. Since it’s flat, the individual pasta pieces tend to stick to both to the bottom of the pot and to each other. Give it a few good stirs while it’s cooking. Just before it’s done, reserve about a cup and a half of the cooking water.

When the broccoli mixture is ready, turn the heat down to low. Add the cheese and about half the cooking water. Stir until the cheese is melted and well incorporated. Cover and keep over low heat until the pasta is done.

When the pasta is done and you’ve reserved the cooking water, drain it and toss it with the broccoli mixture. If it starts to clump up, add some of the cooking water. After that, plate it up. I sprinkled it with a little paprika for color:

   

 

 

For a wine pairing, find yourself a white on the lighter side of things, but still with a little weight and fruit. We had a Torrontes with this. (Thanks, Joyce!)

Enjoy your carbo-loading…and bring it!

Love & Hap-pea-ness (Pasta with Peas)

If there's a particular recipe site you like, get on the mailing list. Seriously – do it. Make a folder and route the mail there so you can go over it at your leisure. Chances are, you’ll delete about 95% of what you get – but every once in awhile, something comes over the transom that’s worth keeping.

I’ve made no secret of my admiration for Giuliano Hazan. I think his cookbooks are great, his recipes can be lifesavers, and I’ve very rarely had an issue with anything I’ve read from him.

The Sweet Partner in Crime and I were exhausted after a weekend that included our joint birthday/wedding celebration and hosting a Mother’s Day brunch. We needed something that would require a minimum of effort this evening and I’d been emailed a recipe that sounded promising. I took it and modified it a bit thanks to a couple of other ingredients we had around, and it turned into an ultra quick, very healthy vegetarian springtime pasta that was absolutely yummy. Alas, no pictures of this one…but you’ll be glad you threw this one together!

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 12 oz. package frozen peas
• 10-12 mint leaves
• 1/2 c. white wine
• 1 lb. pasta

Get a pot of salted water going for the pasta. Chop the onion and put it in a skillet with the olive oil over medium heat. Saute the onion until it’s golden. Add the peas and 1/2 c. water. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the peas are tender (about 6-8 minutes). When the water’s boiling, add the pasta.

When the peas are ready, drop the heat to low. Put half the peas, the mint, and the white wine in a food processor and puree. Return the puree to the whole peas. Add 3/4 c. of the cooking water (more if necessary) to the peas and stir well to make a sauce. Season liberally with salt and pepper.

When done, drain the pasta and toss it well with the sauce. Top with a little parmesan and serve with a nice pinot grigio. It almost seems too simple, but trust me – try it.

Welcome to the Fold (Marinated Flank Steak w/gingered asparagus & Joel's Gonga-Getti)

Greetings! I'm Mike. If you've made your way here, you like flavor.

Some of you have found your way over from The Naked Vine, my wine review site. Some of you have stumbled here from a lucky google. Regardless, welcome -- pull up a chair and grab a fork.

If you want to skip ahead to the food, scroll down to the stars...

Like most guys, my first experience cooking was when I left college and entered bachelorhood. My cooking was uncomplicated. I was just trying to feed myself, so I went the "quick and easy" route first. I was a fifth-degree black belt in tuna mac. That gets old quickly, so I branched out a bit. Anything with "quick" or "one dish" in the title drew my attention. I would make huge tubs full of Joel's Gonga-Getti (see the bottom of this post); square yards of my "semi-sagna"; and a beef stew that would knock anyone's socks off. Best of all? Leftovers. Lots of leftovers. I didn't need to buy lunch at work which, as you know, saves a ton of cash and left me more beer money.

Enter Pam, my now-wifey. Pam was a basketball fan, which made her significant-otherable immediately. We officially started dating on a cold December day in 2001 after watching Jay Williams light up Rashaad Carruth. As we got to know each other, I quickly discovered that I was completely out of my culinary league. So between my ardor and Pam's own level of culture, I taught myself to cook.

Then we mutually discovered wine.

Aside from the general yumminess of The Grape, we were fascinated by the way wine paired with food. As a couple of former potential chem majors, we wanted to understand why things worked as food and wine meshed. We plowed through Kevin Zraly's Wines of the World book and embraced the whole "so, what will go best this wine?" thing.

So, along came The Naked Vine -- which still moves forth if you're looking for some easy to understand wine info. I'd done it for going on four years, and I was starting to feel a little burned out. Both Pam and friend of the Vine David L. noted that the Vine, over the years, was focusing more on wine pairings than on wine alone. Along came the crystallizing moment. Our friend Jeff's birthday present to his wife, the Rev. Christine -- 12 meals, 12 wine pairings. The first of which is documented here in all its glory. Jeff inspired me. I decided to start this food blog.

Trouble is, both Pam and I lead pretty busy lives. We both work full time, and when we get home at the end of the day, we're spent. Two hours slaving over a hot stove -- not gonna happen. But neither of us wants to simply peel back the foil over the apple crisp on a couple of Hungry Man TV dinners and call it chow time.

Really good cooking doesn't need to take a lot of time. Dinners don't necessarily require extensive food prep. For example, I recently saw a recipe for a normally-simple tamale pie that had a 34-item ingredient list and required grinding a spice mélange. I can get it down to half that and taste as good to anyone who's going to be following along here.

We're constantly on the lookout for flavorful, wine pair-able recipes that won't take all night to throw together. We've done a pretty damned good job in the search, if I say so myself.

I'd like you to join us on our tour through the world of lazy gourmet cooking. The main characters in this little narrative will be myself, the aforementioned Man Who Cooks, and Pam, henceforth known as the Sweet Partner in Crime.

Life's too short to eat bland food, so let's get it started...

************

The Sweet Partner in Crime walked into Kroger and got inspired by the first good-looking asparagus we'd seen in awhile. She snagged a bunch, and thought flank steak would make a good entrée.

[Remember -- there's no need to start with an entrée. If there's a side you want to try, it's easy enough to cobble together a menu around that instead. Takes the pressure off a bit.]

So, we ended up with this hunk of meat. Flank steak is meat made for marinating. We had some sesame-ginger vinaigrette in the fridge. I don't buy a lot of bottled dressing. I'd much rather simply throw some good olive oil together with vinegar and some spices. Store bought dressings tend to be average on salads at best, but if they're vinaigrettes, they make good marinades.

So, into a Ziploc bag went the meat, the vinaigrette, the juice of half a lime, and a bunch of minced garlic. Rather then the recommended couple of hours, the meat went into the fridge when we left for work. So, by the time we took it out of the fridge, we'd made meat ceviche.

We got home and I got the grill ready for the first time this season. Once it got up to high heat, I threw the extremely tender slab of meat on the grill after wiping off the marinade. Don't skip this step...your grill will flare something awful. I judged doneness by using a "poke test." If it doesn't spring back, give it more time -- when it does, get it off there! It cooked very quickly. Probably 6 minutes total, and I would have cooked it a tad less if I'd had it to do over again. Brought in the slab, covered it in foil, and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, the SPinC cut the asparagus into 2-inch or so pieces, slicing each piece on a 45 degree angle. She melted a little butter in a little olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and sautéed some more minced garlic, then added the asparagus. She sautéed the asparagus until it was almost tender, then added a teaspoon of chopped up crystallized ginger, salt, pepper, and a little bit of white wine.

I did my best to slice the flank steak against the grain at a perfect 45 degree angle. It sort of worked. Our little tenderizing project worked too well...the pieces would rip apart easily. But hey, small price to pay to make a tasty meal out of an inexpensive cut of beef. The meat ended up a little more done than I would have liked, but the soy-ginger flavor permeated the meat. Tasty stuff. The asparagus rocked. And the wine -- well...properly done California Cabernet. You tell me...


We served this with Dark Horse 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon. Dark Horse was one of the first wines we fell in love with on our first trip to Sonoma years ago. A delicious pairing to end a long work week.

Start to finish: half an hour.

And in case you were curious:

Joel's Gonga-Getti

1 tsp. Olive oil
1 lb. Lean ground beef
1 can tomato paste
3 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp. Onion powder
¼ tsp red pepper flakes
Dried basil, parsley, and oregano
1 jar Newman's Own spaghetti sauce-- your choice.
Salt & pepper
1 lb pasta -- I like using penne
Shredded parmesan

Heat oil in skillet over medium heat. Remove plastic wrap from ground beef. Plop mass of ground beef into skillet. Add garlic, onion powder, pepper, and an appropriate level of spices. Your call. Brown beef. Once browned, add spaghetti sauce. Reduce heat and simmer.

Cook pasta in a big pot of salted water. Drain pasta.

Taste sauce. Add salt, pepper, and spice as necessary. Return pasta to pot. Add sauce. Stir to mix. Bowl up and top with shredded parmesan.