Tag: pasta

Some more green & pasta!

When I look at my food pictures these days it’s a lot of green that I see! Most of my recent preparations included leek, canola, spinach, celery, ice plant, sprouts, lettuce…  Even though it’s winter we don’t get bored eating only cabbage and potatoes! Luckily Chiba has a mild weather and many different veggies grow all year round. I remember cooking a lot of pink/purple food last year at this time of the year because I could find red cabbages, but this winter I haven’t found any yet. Anyway, green is delicious, and I prepared a kind of dry veggies and pasta soup with 1 leek, 3 branches of celery, and some little spinach. As usual, I start by cooking the leek and celery in a bit of olive oil, then cover with water and pasta for soup, once all the water has disappeared I add the spinach for one or two minutes and serve. I added some freshly gratted parmegiano. An other way to cook and eat pasta!

Regressive pasta

There’s been a lot of pasta here these days. That goes together with a busy agenda, a need for energy to combat winter cold weather and because it is just too good!!! After the vegan spinach-tofu pasta, that was quite simple, here is an even more regressive version with spinach and ham, served with Sicilian ring pasta. Delicious on the spot, cold or reheated in a pan, topped with cheese or not, with olive oil or butter. Choose your own version, all is needed is pasta of your choice (I find spinach suits better short pasta), fresh spinach and delicious ham. Cut the ham and the spinach, boil the pasta. In a fry pan greased with olive oil or butter cook the spinach (the water from washing them should be just enough), add the ham, the drained pasta, salt and pepper, stir and serve. Simply perfect when in a rush! 

Sicilian inspired pasta

After browsing my Sicilian cuisine cookbook I had a lot of new inspirations and ideas, and a crave for pasta. I love so much pasta and Italian cuisine that sometimes I wish I could live in Italy or travel there more than once a year! So for the inspiration it was on using pistachios, something I really barely use, may because I prefer them salted and usually they would be used in sweet or dessert recipes. And since I bought a big bundle of fresh celery at the farmers market, I made a very simple vegan spaghetti dish. I boiled spaghetti. In a small pan I hested olive oil, chopped 2-3 tbs of pistachios (I did it with a knife but you can use an electric chopper). Add them to the pan and stir regularly. Chopped 3 celery branches with a bit of the leaves but not too many, add to the pistachios and continue stirring. Drained the pasta, and served, top with the celery-pistachios mix. And have a nice week!

Vegan pasta

What better than a pasta plate for dinner when in a rush? And to accomodate it: spinach and tofu simply cooked in olive oil. So simply delicious now with the pick of the spinach season, they are so soft and sweet. 

Boil the pasta of your choice and drain them. 

In the meantime, start draining a puece of tofu (hard or soft, both are good), wash the spinach and cut them in 4-5cm long pieces. In a large heated pan, add olive oil and the spinach, then the tofu in crumbles. Stir well. Add the boiled pasta, stir and add a bit more olive oil, salt and pepper. Serve and eat immediately.

Tagliatelle

Being in Italy we eat fresh pasta quite often. And being with our mother we cook all together. This time it’s a recipe that our mother created. Very simple, taking advantage of the seasonal products and that can easily be prepared ahead and for large tables. This is tagliatelle with radicchio, spinach, speck and pine nuts. Served with fresh parmegiano. You need one radicchio, a few bundles of spinach, a few slices of speck, a handful of pine nuts, olive oil, fresh parmegiano. In a large pan, heat some olive oil, wash and cut in bite size the vegetables, cut in bite size the speck. Add all in the pan and stir until soft but still colorful. In a small pan, grill the pine nuts, when golden roughly crush them, add to the vegetables. Boil the tagliatelle (homemade, fresh or dry), when al dente, drain them and add them to the vegetables mix, add olive oil, stir well and serve. Top with parmegiano. 

Butternut squash ravioli again

Last winter I made some butternut squash ravioli  with a very simple filling and in small size, with the ravioli plate I bought in Roma last year. This time I decided to add some nutmeg to the filling and to make large ones, where there is plenty of filling. And since I had plenty of sage in the garden seeved them with olive oil and sage. Simple and soooooooo delicious! How do you prefer your ravioli?

Simple pasta

Friday evening and Sunday evening we usually have dinner rather late and I like to have something that can ready quickly with short cooking time, yet still with fresh vegetables. Pasta and gnocchi are usually my best picks for their short and simple cooking, and their versatility in terms of topping and arrangement. Recently I’ve been attracted by green leaves, but not necessarily spinach, and by trying novel associations. So here are two recipes of gnocchi and pasta that use greens. The meat is optional and can be easily removed for the gnocchi recipe and replaced by hard tofu in the pasta recipe for a vegan option.

Gnocchi with rucolla, basil and grilled bacon: for 2 people as a one-dish meal, you need a bundle of fresh basil and a bundle of rucolla, in Japan that would be a bag of each since they come conditioned in bags. You need fresh gnocchi for two (for homemade one check the recipe here), olive oil, salt pepper and additionally bacon and gratted parmegiano. Boil water for the gnocchi. In a pan grill the bacon if using any. Wash the rucolla and the basil, remove hard parts and cut roughly with scissors. One the gnocchi are boiled, in a large bowl add the gnocchi, the greens, olive oil, salt pepper and the bacon, stir well, serve immidiately. Add a bit of gratted parmegiano if you like.

Mizuna and chicken fettuccine: for this recipe for 2 you need: 2servings of fettuccine (fresh or dry); a large pack of mizuna fresh leaves. The younger the better. 100g of grounded chicken breast or 100g of drained hard (momen) tofu, olive oil, salt, pepper. Boil water for the pasta. In a pan heat some olive oil and cook the chiken or the tofu to obtain small crumbles. Wash the mizuna, remove the hardest parts. Cut in 3cm length segments. Add the mizuna in the pan, start with the bottom parts, keep the leafy parts for the end since they do not need so much cooking, add salt and pepper. Drain the pasta serve and add the topping. Add olive oil, salt, pepper, parmegiano to your liking. Have a good week!!!

Pickled cabbage

This week, our nice little grandma neighbor gave us some salt pickled chinese cabbage. She has offered to teach me how to make it if we like it. Of course we liked it! So next weekend I’m looking forward to learn how to make it. In particular because I like Chinese cabbage but they are too big, and if I buy one we have to eat some for 3 consecutive days of more and I get tired of it. So pickling a part of it seems a very good option to keep it a little longer. And I find actually quite easy to use when pickled, even more than raw. 

Last night I used it in an improved recipe where I found it brings the perfect salty-crunchy taste and texture to a very simple saffron pasta soup. I used 1 cup of small soup pasta, 1 dose of saffron, a little piece of butternut squash peeled, a puece of pickled cabbage thinly cut, a piece of flounder, optional, black pepper.

In a pan I boil 0.75l of water, add the saffron and the butternut squash cut in small cubes, the pasta. Separately I grill the flounder in a fry pan. A minute before the pasta are ready I add the cabbage. Stir well. Serve the pasta/veggies then the fish, add black pepper. That’s it! 

Want a Japanese twist for your pasta salad?

Since I have bought some different types of miso at the miso shop in Kichijoji (see Saturday’s post), I am using quite extensively. Mainly with raw veggies as a dip but finally last night I decided to try an original mix: a pasta salad with a white miso dressing. And it was a real nice experience! And super simple to prepare. I boiled some farfalle, then cut some okra, tomato and cucumber in small dices and add them to the pasta. And for the dressing I used 2 tsp of white miso, 2 tsp of olive oil and 1 tsp of sesame seeds, stir well and add it on top of the salad, add a little more sesame seeds for the decoration. The white miso mixed with olive oil is perfectly creamy and almost cheesy and suits perfectly the vegetables in the salad and the farfalle! A very good wa-yo taste and texture! 

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