Noodle Love VI: Rotini

When I first saw Rachael Ray’s cauliflower mac-n-cheese, I had two thoughts. The first one was, Yum-o! (I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist that.) The second one was, This reminds me a lot of Ina Garten’s cauliflower gratin, which I’ve made previously and really liked.

There are some fundamental differences between the two dishes. For one, the seasonings are different. Rachael's dish is seasoned with cayenne, paprika, and Dijon, whereas Ina’s dish features nutmeg. Rachael uses smoked Gouda, and Ina uses Gruyère. There’s also, obviously, the omission of noodles in Ina’s cauliflower gratin. Rachael’s recipe calls for cavatappi, but my store, much to my disappointment, has a pretty limited pasta selection and no cavatappi. I didn’t think elbows would work that well. I’d have to cut the cauliflower up pretty small to get it to be similar in size to the pasta, and I wanted to leave the cauliflower in larger chunks, like it is in Ina’s gratin.

What I finally settled on was the following: I went with Rachael’s seasonings (cayenne, paprika, Dijon) but used Ina’s cheese (Gruyère). I chose rotini for my noodles, because I thought they’d be about the right size, and their ruffly edges sort of remind me of the bumpy surface of the cauliflower. To finish the dish, I topped it with a fresh breadcrumb crust, just like in Ina’s recipe.

The end result was really good! I already want to make this again and experiment with the ingredients. I think a combination of cheddar and Gruyère might be good, and I’m also thinking I might try using nutmeg next time. Has anyone ever used nutmeg in a pasta dish before? I don’t think I have, and I’m intrigued by the idea.

Cauliflower Mac-n-Cheese
adapted from Mac-n-Smoked Gouda with Cauliflower
3 servings

Coarse salt
1/2 pound rotini
1 small head cauliflower, cut into florets
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
2 cups whole milk
2 cups shredded Gruyère
1/2 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Freshly ground black pepper
4 slices white bread

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add salt to season the cooking water, then add the pasta. Return to boil and cook for 3 minutes, then add the cauliflower and cook for 3 minutes more or until pasta is cooked to barely al dente and the florets are just tender. Drain well and return to the pot.

While the pasta cooks, heat a medium sauce pot over medium-low heat. Add 2 tablespoons butter and heat until it melts. Add the onions and cook for 5 minutes to sweat them out and turn the juices sweet. Raise the heat to medium, then whisk in the flour, cayenne, and paprika. Whisk together until the roux bubbles up, then cook for 1 minute more. Add the milk and, whisking frequently, bring the sauce to a quick boil. Once it bubbles, drop the heat back to a simmer and cook until the sauce thickens, a couple minutes more.

Add the cheese to the thickened sauce and stir to melt it, a minute or so. Stir in the mustard and season the sauce with salt and pepper. Combine the sauce with the pasta and cauliflower and then transfer to a greased shallow baking dish.

Remove crusts from bread and pulse bread to fine crumbs in food processor. Melt the remaining two tablespoons of butter and toss with breadcrumbs to distribute evenly. Scatter breadcrumb topping evenly over cauliflower mac-n-cheese, then bake in oven for about 20 minutes or until edges are bubbly and topping is golden brown.

I'm Back!

So I’m back from my wine-tasting weekend in Shenandoah Valley. I’ve been looking through my pictures and just noticed that, though I took a lot, I don’t have that many pictures of the actual wineries. Which is strange, but kind of makes sense if you’ve been to a winery. They’re sort of dark inside, so you’d need to use your flash, and I guess I just didn’t want to draw attention to myself as everyone was enjoying their wine. Instead, I took pictures outside the wineries—see the flower pot above and the weather vane below.

I had the same issue with the restaurants I went to. On Friday evening Adam and I had dinner at The Joshua Wilton House, and the setting was candle-lit, quiet, and on the formal side. I had a beautiful meal—pork loin with panzanella, all drizzled with a delicious strawberry glaze—and I was dying to take pictures of it, but I didn’t think I was supposed to. I mean, I don’t know, what’s picture-taking etiquette? Have any of you ever whipped out your camera at a fancy restaurant?

There was one place, though, where I didn’t restrain my urge to take pictures. We had lunch one afternoon at Edinburg Antiques and Tea Rooms, which is an adorable little place where you can get some proper English tea and other assorted goodies, and Adam and I had our own little table in a private room, so I let my trigger (camera) finger run wild.

We had scones with strawberry preserves and clotted cream, along with assorted tea sandwiches, and the best Earl Grey tea either of us has ever tasted.

The tea sandwiches were ham, chicken curry, and, of course, cucumber.

I’m a sucker for tiny sandwiches and cute dishes, so I really liked this place—you might be able to guess that from all the pictures.

Aside from all the wining and dining, we did a bit of shopping as well. There was a farmer’s market where we stopped and loaded up on homemade goodies for the pantry, and, as luck would have it, there’s a book fair going on in the area right now, as well. Of course, I went right to the cookbooks. I got two hardcover “The Best of Gourmet” books (2002 and 2005), both with a list price of $40.00, for—are you ready?—$6.00 each! I was like a kid in a candy store. I also picked up a reprint edition of the original 1903 Good Housekeeping Everyday Cook Book for just $1.99!

This book is almost as much an instruction manual for domesticity as it is a cookbook, and I’m looking forward to some amusing reading with this one. Here’s a taste of what’s inside: “I have found in my teaching that only the pupils who do not know how to wash them properly dislike the washing of dishes. When I hear a young lady say, ‘I hate to wash dishes,’ I know she is not a trained worker and does not know the best ways of doing things.” So there you go. If you think you don’t like washing dishes, you just don’t know how to do it right! If you suffer from this condition, I recommend picking up a copy of this book. It has a whole section devoted to the fine art of dish washing.

So, as much as I loved the shopping and the drinking, and as quiet and beautiful as was the setting, it’s still good to be home. I missed my cat and my own bed, and I haven’t cooked anything in days! It’s time to get to work on that. Plus, I have 14 bottles of wine to work my way through. Cheers!

Three-Pepper Chicken Chili

It's been four days since my last post, and I've been trying to post something all week. I've had a busy week though. I am not a person who normally leads a hectic life, but the last few days have left me with no time left over for blogging. I've had deadlines at work and things that needed to be taken care of at home, and everything has to be settled before I leave town this weekend (I'll be spending a long weekend wine-tasting in Shenandoah Valley--yay!). So I won't be posting over the weekend, either. And yet, with all my stressful franticness of the past week, would you believe that, through it all, I kept thinking, I need to write a blog post before I leave for the weekend!

It sounds so silly, but I guess I realized that this little web-space of mine has become part of my daily (or semi-daily) existence, and I hate to leave it neglected. And I hate the thought of people checking my page (I know there are a couple of you out there who do!) and seeing the same tired content for a week straight. So finally—finally—I'm setting some time aside to post.

Last night I came home late from work and got started making some chili. I actually wasn't even hungry--I was too exhausted to have much of an appetite--but it was on the schedule (yes, I keep a meal schedule) and I'd already defrosted the chicken, so I got to cooking. I made Ina's Chicken Chili, which has been on my list forever, patiently waiting its turn, and finally came up in the queue. The Recipe Girl recently made this dish and it turned out fabulously. She served hers up with some chips for scooping—a very delicious idea. I served mine over rice with cornbread on the side.

I don’t know if anyone else has ever eaten their chili over rice, but it's pretty common in my family and sometimes that's what I'll be in the mood for. It's very tasty and pretty budget-friendly, too, as it lets you take a pot of chili and stretch it even further.

I changed the recipe very little, but I did add a seeded, minced jalapeno, hence the “three-pepper” part of the title. I’d like to write out the whole modified version for you, but I have bags to pack and dinner to cook, so I’m going to have to be quick. I sautéed boneless skinless breasts instead of roasting bone-in chicken, just to save time, and I cut out some of the liquid from the canned tomatoes to make the chili a bit chunkier. While the chili was simmering I baked the corn muffins and made the rice. I sautéed a shallot in a bit of butter in a pan before adding the rice and chicken stock (instead of water). When everything was finished I added some rice to a bowl, ladled the chili over the stop, sprinkled it with shredded cheddar and sliced scallions, and tucked a corn muffin along the side. Very filling, very warming. You can get the detailed recipe here.

OK, I’m off. Have a great weekend everyone!

Cheddar-Sausage Corn Muffins, Spicy or Sweet

I found this recipe for cheddar-sausage muffins a while ago. Sounds good, right? Somehow, either in reading this recipe or remembering it, I thought it was for cheddar-sausage corn muffins. So when I went to make these yesterday morning and realized that there was no form of corn anywhere to be found in the recipe, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I’d been thinking “corn muffin” for so long that I really wasn’t in the mood for anything else, but I didn’t know off the top of my head how to make a corn muffin. Nor did I feel like cleaning my hands, going to my computer, and finding another recipe. I have some corn flour in the pantry, and I was wondering whether simply substituting that for the regular flour called for would have given me a proper corn muffin. Anyone know? I suspect probably not. See, this is why I don’t bake more often.

I happened to have some Jiffy corn muffin mix in the pantry, which I like to keep around for just such emergencies. So I got it out, made it according to package instructions, and then added my sausage and cheese. I tossed in some chopped scallions, too, for freshness and color.

But I didn’t stop there. I knew these muffins would be good, but I wanted to see if I could make them even better. Some kind of jazzed-up butter, I thought. Adam likes things spicy, and I like them sweet, so I finally settled on two different butters: a roasted poblano butter and, my favorite, honey butter. I really liked this idea, because it allowed me to take the same muffin and enjoy it two different ways. And, as an added bonus, I used some of the leftover poblano butter to cook up some home fries this morning. Fabulous.

I served these muffins for breakfast, but I think they’d also be great as a side dish to a Mexican meal. I used breakfast sausage and sharp cheddar, but these would also be good with, say, some fresh andouille or chorizo and Monterey or pepper jack cheese. Yum!

Cheddar-Sausage Corn Muffins with Spicy and Sweet Butters

Makes 8 muffins

1 8.5-oz package Jiffy corn mix (or your favorite corn muffin recipe)
1/2 pound sausage, cooked and crumbled into small pieces
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 scallion, thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Prepare corn muffin mix according to package instructions (you’ll need one egg and 1/3 cup of milk). Add sausage, cheese, and scallion, and stir until just combined.

Grease 8 cups of a standard-size muffin tin. Distribute batter among greased cups. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until muffins are cooked through and edges begin to turn golden brown.

Honey Butter

1/2 stick butter, room temperature
2 tablespoons honey

Add ingredients to food processor, and pulse until thoroughly combined.

Roasted Poblano Butter

1 small poblano pepper
1/2 stick butter, room temperature
Juice of 1/2 lime

Heat broiler. When hot, please poblano, on a pan, on top shelf beneath broiler. Roast for 5 minutes, then turn pepper and roast for 5 minutes more, until pepper is blackened on all sides.

Place pepper in a small paper bag, closed tightly, for about ten minutes or until cool enough to handle. This allows the steam to loosen the skin. When cool, remove pepper from bag and gently remove blacked skins. Remove stem and seeds.

Chop pepper roughly and place in a food processor with softened butter and lime juice. Pulse until pepper is chopped in small pieces and evenly distributed through butter.

Note: You can use the same processor that you used for the honey butter, without washing it. Just scrape as much honey butter as you can from the food processor before beginning. I wouldn’t, however, recommend using the same processor to make the honey butter after the poblano butter. The pepper flavor may linger.

Tomato Salad

There’s a Whole Foods a few blocks from my apartment. I don’t do my main shopping there, but when I’m downtown I like to stop in and browse the aisles. I always leave with something wonderful. The produce department is the first thing I see when I walk through the door, and they always get me there. On Tuesday night they had some gorgeous mini tomatoes positioned strategically next to mounds of basil that were clustered around a sign that said “just picked.” Just picked basil? Tiny cute tomatoes? Well, I’m only human, after all. I got some.

The container I picked up was actually a gourmet tomato medley, and I know that because the package said so. According to the package, these gorgeous green-striped ones are exotic tomatoes, the orange and yellow ones are cocktail and cherry tomatoes, respectively, and the red ones are of two varieties: grape and mini plum.

I knew right away what I wanted to do with these. I’d make a simple tomato and basil salad for myself for lunch the next day, simply dressed with nothing but a bit of extra virgin olive oil, a squeeze of fresh lemon, and some salt and pepper. Nothing else. I didn’t want any extraneous ingredients to interfere with the natural beauty of these little guys. And they were so sweet, so delectably juicy, that really nothing else was needed.

Okay, I’m lying. Could you tell? Not about there being nothing more needed to enhance the flavor of the tomatoes—that part was true. But, even so, I couldn’t stop myself from adding a little something extra. After I took the pictures, I added a dollop of mayo to the tomatoes and stirred it in. I couldn’t help myself! And it was so good. The natural juice from the tomatoes thinned out the mayo and the two, together, formed a delicious dressing that was simultaneously fresh and creamy and, oh, so good. But if that’s not what floats your boat, I still recommend picking up some of these tomatoes if you see them, because there are tons of ways to use them. A nice panzanella comes to mind, or some tomato-topped bruschetta. And, really, they’re just so colorful and pretty—what more reason do you need?