Spaghetti with onion and zucchini

Yes, I hear you... "Zucchini again?"

As I've mentioned before, I would usually cook dishes with repeated ingredients one after another coz I bought too many, or because they were cheaper when bought in sets of 2 or more. But this round, it was not as 'stressful' since I was only cooking for the husband and myself. ;)

Linguine with zucchini and onions (adapted from "Thirty Minute Pasta by Giuliano Hazan")

Serves 4

Ingredients :

1 medium to large sweet yellow onion

4 tablespoons butter

Salt

1 ¼ pounds zucchini

Freshly ground black pepper

1 pound linguine

1/3 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Directions :

1.     Fill a pot for the pasta with about 6 quarts of water, place over high heat and bring to a boil.

2.     Peel the onions and very thinly slice them crosswise. Put the butter in a 12-inch skillet, add the sliced onions, and place over medium-high heat. Season lightly with salt and saute until the onions begin to turn a rich, golden colour, 6 to 8 minutes.

3.     While the onions are sauteing, wash the zucchini, cut off the ends, and slice into half moons about ¼ inch thick.

4.     When the onions are ready, add the zucchini and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the zucchini are quite tender and have started lightly browning, 12 to 15 minutes.

5.     After the zucchini have cooked about 10 minutes, add about 2 tablespoons salt to the boiling pasta water, add the linguine, and stir until all the strands are submerged. Cook until al dente.

6.     When the pasta is done, drain well, toss with the sauce and the Parmigiano-Reggiano, and serve at once.

Spaghetti with Garlic and Oil

I don't usually have the 'motivation' to cook when I'm alone at home. The thought of washing up after that would be enough to deter me most of the time, and I would end up buying food from outside. But once in a while, I'm even lazier to drag my butt out of the house. And today is one of those days.

Thanks to this cookbook I borrowed from the library a few days ago, I managed to find some really simple pasta dishes that I can cook for myself without much fuss. Also, if you are trying out this dish, do note that there is a difference between the flat leaf parsley stated in the recipe, as to the curly parsley I used (bought from NTUC).

Spaghetti with Garlic and Oil (recipe from : The Best Ever One-Pot Cookbook by Jenni Fleetwood)

Note : the following quantity is for 4 servings

Ingredients :

- 400g fresh / dried spaghetti
- 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 - 4 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 dried red chilli (I substituted with red chilli flakes)
- 1 small handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped (I could only find curly parsley)
- salt

Directions :

1) Cook the pasta in a large pan of salted boiling water, according to the packet instructions, until it is just tender, adding plenty of salt to the water* (see note below).

2) When the pasta is just tender, drain it using a large colander, then transfer it to a warmed, large serving bowl.

3) Heat the olive oil in a pan. Add the garlic and dried chilli and stir over low heat for a minute or two until the garlic is just beginning to brown. Remove the dried chilli and discard.

4) Pour the hot olive oil and cooked garlic mixture over the pasta, add the chopped parsley and toss vigourously until pasta glistens, then serve immediately.

* Note : Don't use salt when you are preparing the hot oil, garlic and chilli mixture, because the salt will not dissolve sufficiently. This is why plenty of salt is recommended for cooking the pasta.

And being a cheese person, I added a handful of grated Parmesan cheese to the pasta in the end so the saltiness of the dish is just right. :)

Oven-baked sweet potato chips

The last few times we went to the supermarket, the husband lingered a bit longer at the potato chips section. But he always managed to resist the temptation. So, considering his constant need to snack and in hopes to satisfy his craving for the heavily salted potato chips off the shelves, I decided to try out a version of oven-baked sweet potato chips I found online.

Since I didn't have a mandolin slicer, I had to try to cut the sweet potato slices as uniform in thickness as possible. Other than that, the rest of the process was simple.

Oven-baked sweet potato chips (recipe from : here)

Ingredients :

- 1 sweet potato

- vegetable oil for spraying

- sea salt

- mandolin slicer(preferably)

Directions :

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Slice potatoes with a mandolin slicer. Lay out the potato slices on a single sheet in the oven. Spray the potatoes with vegetable oil on each side and sprinkle lightly with salt. Bake for 10-20 minutes, monitoring the chips frequently to make sure they don't burn. If you want, you can flip the chips halfway through baking. Let cool a bit and then serve!

Mushroom Rice

Decided to cook something simple since it's just the husband and me spending this Saturday evening. So I referred to the Mushroom Rice recipe from this blog, which seems like a healthy and really easy dish to cook.

However, the final product was a little too salty for our taste. Maybe the amount of mushrooms was too little to "soak" up the sauce, or maybe it was due to the lack of the chinese rice wine, which I couldn't seem to find in my neighbourhood NTUC, so I really do not know if it was the reason behind the over saltiness, or that the amount of light soy sauce should be reduced. I'm really quite upset about it, and I was contemplating whether to just throw all away and had instant noodles for dinner instead. Proper cooking seems to elude me these days. Sigh.

But anyway, here is the original recipe.

Mushroom Rice

2 servings

Ingredients :
- Cooked rice for two
- 350g of assorted mushrooms (enoki, shittake, brown button mushrooms etc), diced
- 20g butter
- 1 tablespoons sugar
- 5 cloves garlic, diced
- Coriander, chopped

Seasonings :
- 5 tablespoons light soy sauce
- 5 tablespoons mirin
- 5 tablespoons Chinese rice wine
- Salt & pepper, to taste

Directions :
1. Heat up butter in a wok. Put in chopped garlic when the butter is half melted. Stir-fry the garlic until fragrant.

2. Add in assorted mushrooms and sugar, saute until the mushrooms are fully coated with butter. Add in seasonings, cook until the gravy has thickened.

3. Stir in chopped coriander, turn off heat. Add in cooked rice, stir until combined with mushrooms, serve.

Some tips to storing unused mushrooms :

- Keep mushrooms in a brown paper bag instead of resealable plastic bags, or even normal plastic bags. It is because mushrooms will "sweat" when kept in the fridge, and it may cause them to become soggy and mushy.

- Do not wash the mushrooms and then keep them in the fridge. Only wash when you are ready to cook them.

Herbed potatoes

I had these 3 poor potatoes that had been staying in my fridge for quite some time. So since I was feeling quite sick of outside food, I decided to find a way to get rid of the potatoes. Came across this recipe and decided to make use of it as a guide to make dinner tonight. So here it is, a simple dish I came up with:

Ok, ok... I know this looks something more like breakfast than dinner. But who cares? As long as it can help me get rid of some stuffs from the fridge and fill our tummies, anything goes.

My herbed potatoes

2 servings

Ingredients:
- 3 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
- 2 medium-sized red onion, chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper

Directions :
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add potatoes, and cook until tender but still firm, about 12 minutes. Drain, and set aside.

2. In a large frying pan, heat up some oil, and add in the onions. Give the onions a few stirs before adding in the potatoes.

3. When the potatoes are slightly browned, add in the salt, dried oregano and black pepper. Cook for a few more minutes then take it off the fire. Cover to keep warm.

Then from here onwards, you can decide if you want to eat it that way, or to scramble some eggs like I did. For the eggs, I added some garlic salt and black pepper as it cooked.

Broccoli Soup with Parmesan toasts

A book all on soups, and they are the considered quite easy to make, and could be taken as any normal meal. Yup, 500 soups are a damn freaking lot, and I'm one lazy bum. So, if you see me posting about 50 soups recipes from the book, it's already a super-duper gigantic feat to me, which I don't think will ever happen. Maybe I should set the "target" to just 20 soups. Haha.

So, the first "chosen one" from the book is broccoli soup. Healthy, and with easy-to-find ingredients, and of course, simple instructions to follow. There is also the part about the bread that you can make to go with the soup.

Well, pardon the newspapers at the bottom of the dishes. My kitchen doesn't have any proper and nice area for a more professional-looking photo. But generally, that was how everything turned out to look like in the end. However, the soup turned out a little too watery, which I think may be due to too much chicken stock coz I kind of got "lost" when adding the stock. Heh. But it was still drinkable, and looks quite professional eh?

Oh, and credit goes to the husband for helping me to do the blending, and toasting of the breads. And, be careful when blending as the dish is very hot and take care to put your hand over the cover of the blender, or else all the hot soup will be spilling over the place.

Broccoli soup with Parmesan toasts

For the soup

Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons plain flour
- 750 ml vegetable or chicken stock
- 450 g broccoli, cut into small florets
- 350 ml milk
- salt and ground black pepper to taste

Directions :

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion and cook gently for about 4 minutes.

2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute, then gradually stir in the stock. Add the broccoli, bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 7 minutes, until broccoli is tender.

3. Process the soup in a blender or food processor until smooth, then return to the saucepan.

4. Stir in the milk, and salt and pepper to taste, and heat through.

For the toasts

Ingredients:
- 25 g butter, at room temperature
- 50 g freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 8 slices baguette
- 25 g Parmesan, cut into shavings

Directions:

1. Beat the butter with the Parmesan.

2. Grill the baguette on one side, then turn and spread the butter.

3. Top with Parmesan shavings, grill until golden and bubbling, and serve with the soup.

The Grillmaster's "Death Row Potatoes"

Yes, the name of the dish sounds a bit strange, and the overall look isn't that appetising. But it tasted good! For those who loves potatoes and cheese... this is a great and simple dish to do. It's done within 45 minutes. You can have it for any meal of the day.

However, I did make a teeny weeny bit of change to the original recipe. I used a mixture of Parmesean and Cheddar cheese to top the potatoes, instead of only the former as stated in the recipe. The Parmesean will only turn brown and melt on wherever you had sprinkled it on. But with the Cheddar, it will melt over to the other potato slices as it baked.

Also, please place a piece of aluminium foil on the baking tray for the potatoes if you do not want to spend half the time scrubbing away the stuck bits at the bottom of the tray. I'm using an oven-toaster so that was what I did. But I'm not sure if the aluminium foil is needed if you are using an actual oven.

The Grillmaster's "Death Row Potatoes" (from : Nigella)

Ingredients:
- 4 spuds (potatoes) peeled and sliced 1/4 to 1/8 inch thick
- 1 cup parmesean cheese
- 5 to 10 cloves garlic minced, depending on desired garlickiness
- 3/4 stick of butter
- salt/pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 400.

2. In a small pan, melt the butter with medium high heat. When it gets hot and slightly bubbly add the garlic. Cook for 1 minute, and 1 minute only.

3. Dump the garlic/butter over the spuds and toss. Add 3/4 cup parmesean with salt and pepper and toss with wild abandon.

4. Layer the spuds in a buttered baking dish. Top with the remaining parmesan cheese.

5. Bake for 30 minutes, until golden brown on top.

Potato salad

Managed to "catch" this very simple potato salad recipe from Jamie Oliver's show. So, I decided to try it out and brought it for the "guinea pigs" since we are going to the boss's place for Hari Raya gathering later. Heh.

It's actually quite easy to make:
Just some bite-sized potatoes, cooked them for about 10 minutes, drained, then toss with fresh dill, olive oil, a few drops of lemon juice, salt, pepper and a handful of capers.

The time-consuming part is to peel the potatoes. Because I bought them in bite-sized, so it's not easy to use the peeler. Instead, I boiled them with their skins on, then transferred them immediately to a pot of cold water. The skin comes off easier this way.

However, I think I bought the wrong type of potato. The ones I bought seem more suitable for mashing. But the end product is still edible... at least the guys have to pretend to enjoy it. Haha.

Oh, by the way, this potato salad is meant to be served hot/warm, not cold.


For those of you who are not sure what are capers (like me when I first heard it), below is the picture. I think it is mostly sold preserved in a bottle. I bought mine from Carrefour.

Garbage Fried Potatoes

Today is another after-work-no-tuition day. So decided to cook something simple for myself.

Yes, that's the name of the dish... Garbage Fried Potatoes. And yes, too... the dish turned out looking more like fried carrot cake than potatoes.

Anyway, this is a really simple dish to make, especially for 1 - 2 persons.

Took me about an hour to finish everything. Although not a really healthy cooking method, it's a pure vegetarian dish, and really filling coz of the potatoes. If you look through the recipe, the person who posted this up explained why the word "garbage" is in the name.

If you are not a fan of the green and red bell peppers, you can try to substitute them with other stuff. I used the US Russet potatoes, which soften in about 35 minutes, about 10 minutes faster as the stated time in the recipe. In addition, I felt that 15 minutes is just right for cooking the onions but a bit too long to be cooking the bell peppers. They turned out too soft for my liking.

Also, the recipe states to cut the potatoes into thin slices, which I think, should turned out something like potato chips in the end. But obviously, I didn't follow that. The reason being I felt it's much easier cutting them in cubes than in slices. In another word, lazy. Heh.

Garbage Fried Potatoes (from : allrecipes)

4 servings

Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 4 large baking potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 (4 ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained
- 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
- 1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
- salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the potatoes, and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until you think they are about halfway done.

2. Mix in the mushrooms, red pepper and green pepper. Continue to cook and stir until potatoes are golden brown and somewhat crisp, about 15 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper, and serve.

Spaghetti Al Limone

Saw this dish on David Rocco’s Dolce Vita on Discovery Travel & Living channel. It sounded like a simple enough, yet interesting dish and does not require much cooking, except for the cooking of the spaghetti. Best suited for lazy people like me. Ha. And at least healthier than instant noodles.

So I decided to give it a try tonight since it was my free day, which means an after-work-no-tuition day.

As there was still half a packet of linguine left over from Sunday, I used it instead of spaghetti as stated by the recipe. Everything was going well until I tasted the final result. It turned out that I had cooked a bit too little linguine, and the juice of half a lemon was too much. It became damn sour. So, I cooked another handful of linguine. I completed it in about 20 minutes or so. The taste was something completely different from the normal tomato or white sauced pastas. A bit tangy sour, with the slight saltiness from the cheese.

However, I haven't mastered the skill of telling whether the pasta had been cooked al dente or not. Seems like 8 to 10 minutes, as stated by most recipes, is not enough. The linguine felt cooked on the outside but was still a little too hard on the inside. Or maybe different pastas have different time for them to turn al dente? Guess got to do a research on that. Or are there any experts to advise me on that?

Spaghetti Al Limone (from : David Rocco)

4 servings

Ingredients:

- 1 lb spaghetti (457g)

- 1 garlic clove, for rubbing

- lemon juice from 2 lemons, freshly squeezed

- 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (74ml)

- salt to season

- 1 cup parmigiano cheese, finely grated (235ml), plus extra for sprinkling

- a bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

- the zest of 1 lemon, freshly grated

Directions:

1. Place spaghetti in a pot of boiling salted water and stir immediately to prevent from sticking.

2. Cut garlic in half and rub exposed area along the interior of a large serving bowl. This way the flavour of raw garlic will cover the inside surface of the bowl. Discard the garlic.

3. Add freshly squeezed lemon juice and slowly drizzle in extra virgin olive oil while stirring. Stir well until the ingredients have emulsified.

4. Mix in salt and parmigiano cheese.

5. When the spaghetti is al dente­, drain and add to the serving bowl. Mix well.

6. Sprinkle with parmigiano cheese, parsley and lemon zest. Serve immediately.

Minestrone Soup

Since it's a public holiday today, decided to do a little cooking. Came across a minestrone soup recipe and gave it a try. Not much cooking needed, but a lot of preparations were required. I used potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, tomatoes and cauliflower. There is no actual need to follow the exact ingredients of the recipe as this minestrone is all vegetables. So can basically add what you like into it. Like I said, preparation time was long as all the vegetables need to be cut into cubes. Took me about 1 hour or so to complete everything and leave the soup to boil and simmer for another hour.

Anyway, it so happened that Chris and BT came by this afternoon for a mahjong session, so luckily the recipe is for 6, and we had the soup for dinner, together with some toasted focaccia bread, and some of Chris' mum's very delicious fried noodles.

Will try this again, with some more other vegetables. It will make a simple and healthy meal. Can cook a big pot to keep for the next day too.

Minestrone Soup (from : allrecipes)

6 servings

Ingredients:
- 4 tablespoons margarine
- 3/4 cup chopped onion
- 1/4 cup chopped celery
- 1/2 cup chopped carrots
- 1 (19 ounce) can cannellini beans
- 1/2 cup shredded cabbage
- 1 (14.5 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 1/2 cups cubed potatoes
- 1 quart chicken broth
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons dried parsley
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup elbow macaroni
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Melt butter or margarine in a heavy pot over medium heat. Add onion, celery, and carrots; saute for a few minutes.

2. Add beans, cabbage, tomatoes, tomato paste, potato, stock, garlic, parsley, and salt to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat. Simmer for approximately 1 hour until vegetables are barely tender.

3. Add pasta, and simmer for 30 minutes more. Correct seasoning, and serve hot with grated cheese.