No recipe today, just the warmest wishes for a safe and happy Fourth of July! I’m home for the long weekend seeing family and doing the whole cookout-and-fireworks thing. Back in the kitchen in a couple of days! In the meantime, I hope that all of my friends have a fantastic holiday. Happy Birthday, America!
Roasted Vegetable Pasta Sauce
Despite the title of this blog, I am actually something of a neat freak. Although I do flail about and throw flour everywhere while I bake, I’m an extremely tidy cook and am very conscientious about cleaning my condo – particularly the kitchen, since I spend so much of my time there. But one cleaning chore that I geniunely hate is cleaning the refrigerator – especially the dreaded produce drawers. Mostly, I hate doing this because it bums me out. I end up throwing so much away – mostly vegetables that were intended for dinners which never materialized, because I worked late or came home exhausted or forgot about happy hour plans I had made when I wrote my weekly menu. Throwing that stuff away makes me sad, partly because I hate to waste anything (especially money, and since I shop at Whole Paycheck, it really is like tossing cash down the drain) and because I was really looking forward to those dinners that never happened.
The solution? Make something out of nothing. I’m good at this – you should have seen my 1L Torts outline.
I don’t always succeed, but I try not to get to the point where I have to throw food away. Instead, once a week I try to do a fridge-clearing meal and actually use those vegetables that would otherwise be thrown out on the next market day. Because I like alliteration and keeping my husband on his toes, I come up with cute, catch-all names for the dinners, like “Pantry Pasta” or “Fridge Frittata” so that he never knows what he’s going to get for dinner that night. (Evil laughter.) These dinners don’t really take to being written down in recipe form, but here’s one I made recently. Alter as you see fit, depending on what’s languishing in your vegetable drawer…
Roasted Vegetable Pasta Sauce
2 Japanese eggplants
1 red bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
1 cup shredded carrot
1 28-ounce can crushed San Marzano tomatoes
1 teaspoon light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 dried bay leaf
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
2 tablespoons light cream (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
- Cut eggplants and peppers into medium-sized chunks. Toss on a baking sheet with extra-virgin olive oil, kosher salt and pepper. Roast in a 450 degree oven for approximately 40-45 minutes (keep an eye on it) tossing halfway through.
- Bring remaining ingredients to a simmer over medium-low heat. Stir in roasted vegetables and simmer together 20 minutes. Remove bay leaf.
- Process in a blender or in the pot with an immersion blender until sauce reaches the consistency you prefer. Stir in Parmesan cheese and cream, if using, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
You can serve this over any pasta that you happen to have in your pantry. I served it over whole wheat spaghettini, but it would also work well with linguine, penne, rigatoni or cavatappi, either classic or whole wheat.
Happy cleaning!
Source: Covered In Flour
Strawberry Shortcake Cookies
I wait all year for berry season. Fresh fruit is my absolute favorite food – just about any kind of fresh fruit – and by extension, I’ll always choose a fruit dessert over chocolate. I’m weird like that — what can I say? So when I saw these cookies in the May 2009 issue of Martha Stewart Living, they spoke to me loud and clear. This morning I was up to my elbows in flour anyway, baking the world’s greatest chocolate chip cookies, and a cake, and artichoke dip (okay, there’s no flour in that) for my firm’s summer picnic. So, I figured, what’s one more dessert? I’ve been thinking about these cookies for three days. Strawberries and cream… they had my name written all over them. Why not?
Well. They were the hit of the picnic. The kids gravitated toward the cake, but the adults went crazy for these cookies. They are light and refreshing, not too sweet — basically, summer in cookie form. I love baking with fresh fruit and this recipe was so simple and easy that I’m certain it will become one of my standbys. In fact, given the raves these got, I think I might have won a few converts to the fruit side.
Strawberry Shortcake Cookies
12 ounces strawberries, hulled and cut into 1/4 inch dice
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup plus 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking power
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
6 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (not in the original recipe, but really bumps up the flavor)
2/3 cup heavy cream
sanding sugar or vanilla sugar (for sprinkling)
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- Combine strawberries, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons granulated sugar in a small bowl and set aside.
- Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining granulated sugar in a large bowl.
- Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or two knives, or rub it in with your fingers, until it forms approximately pea-sized crumbs.
- Stir in vanilla extract and cream until mixture comes together, then stir in strawberry mixture.
- Using an ice cream scoop, drop cookie dough onto parchment- or Silpat-lined baking sheets. Sprinkle with sanding sugar or vanilla sugar (I like Penzey’s vanilla sugar) and bake until golden brown, approximately 25 minutes.
- Cool cookies on a wire rack.
Note: These cookies really need to be eaten immediately. They will not keep longer than one day. Shouldn’t be a problem.
Source: Adapted from Martha Stewart Living, May 2009.
A blogging holdout no more…
I’ve been resisting this for years. Literally. Years. (About two years, to be exact. But that’s still years – plural.) As my friends joined the blogosphere one by one, I’ve stayed out of it, pleading that I am too busy, have enough hobbies, etc. Very twentieth century of me. But the truth is, I’ve been afraid to jump into the deep end of the pool. What if no one reads this blog? Or what if people read it and hate it?
I’m kind of a risk-averse person.
But I’m here now, because although I might be risk-averse, I love to share. Specifically, I love to share food and, by extension, recipes. I like to cook and bake, and then feed people, and then if my friends and family like the food I am forcing on them, I entertain them by reciting the recipe and explaining how easy it is until they stop speaking to me. (I jest.) Maybe a blog would be a better outlet for this tendency I have. So that’s what I plan to do here. I’ll cook and bake, and I’ll ply you with photos, and I’ll share recipes from those I’ve eaten since childhood in my grandmother’s kitchen to those I was inspired to try for the first time today.
So, why the name “Covered In Flour” for my blog? Well, you should see my kitchen when I’m baking. Forget my kitchen — you should see me! I’ve got a large collection of aprons, because I need them… but they don’t seem to stop me from getting flour on my forehead. I don’t know how it happens. It just does. It doesn’t seem to affect the finished product, and my husband apparently thinks it’s charming. So I’ve embraced my tendency to be exuberant in the kitchen. It’s so much more fun that way.
I hope you read, I hope you come back, and I hope you enjoy.
covered in flour 