Quick Broccoli and Pasta

PASTA WITH BROCCOLI

There was a great article on cooking pasta in a small amount of water in the New York Times this week. I have been doing this since forever because I cannot wait for a big pot of water to boil and I never thought that my pasta was inferior to that cooked in the correct amount of water. So what if the water got paste-y? Never bothered me - or the family. Turns out that when restaurants cook pasta, they cook it in the same water over and over again and the water becomes very flavorful. That is why you add the pasta water to your dish in this recipe.

pot of water - maybe a three or four quart pot
1 huge bunch of broccoli.
salt
1/2 pound of any whole wheat pasta you like. We like penne or fusilli.
1/4 cup olive oil
three cloves garlic smashed or put through a garlic press

Bring a pot of water to the boil. Put some salt in. Throw in the broccoli and cook for 4 minutes. Take out the broccoli, set aside and while water is still boiling throw in the pasta. Cook according to package directions and if the directions say cook from 9 to 11 minutes, for instance, you cook to the least amount of time which would be 9 minutes.

While the pasta is cooking, Chop up the broccoli into small pieces. Put the oil and garlic in a big saute or frying pan over medium heat. Saute the garlic BUT DO NOT LET IT BROWN.
When the oil is hot and the garlic is just starting to sizzle, put in the broccoli and saute for a minute or two. Take the pasta out of the water with pasta tongs or a wire mesh skimmer (sold in Chinese or Asian stores) when done and put it into the frying pan with the broccoli. ADD a ladle full of pasta water so that the oil, water and tiny bits of broccoli act like a sauce for the pasta. Add a bit more water if you think it needs it, but not too much.

Non vegans can add grated Locatelli cheese.

This is a great quick and very tasty dish and if you add even more olive oil when cooking the garlic, it will be even better.

Potato Kibbe

I was in Lebanon during Lent and one of the dishes that I most loved was a meatless variation of a national dish called Kibbe. Kibbe is usually made with lamb, but during Lent, my aunt made it using potatoes.
Last weekend, when my visiting cousin took me around to visit distant cousins that I did not know I had, living not more than 45 minutes from where I live, we started talking about Kibbe Batata (potato kibbe) and my mouth started to water. In Lebanon, in those days, women would sit in front of a large hollowed out marble slab, put all the
ingredients in the cavity and pound it to a fare-thee-well. I think a good food processor would get the same results.




In the interest of full disclosure, I have never made it but I do have a Lebanese cookbook and I have taken this recipe from there. This recipe is from a cookbook I own called, "Foods of the Lebanon" by Cassie Maroun-Paladin published in England by New Holland Press.

6 medium potatoes
11 oz. bulgar wheat (also called cracked wheat -you can find this anywhere now-usually in ethnic aisle of your food store.)
1 onion thinly sliced
4 ounces chopped fresh parsley
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of allspice (if you do not have allspice, you need to get it. Very important in this dish)
1 tbsp dried mint
1/4 cup flour (optional)
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper

Put the bulgar in a bowl and pour boiling water over it, then let sit for 1/2 hour.
Cook potatoes in their skins in salted water until soft. Peel and mash. Squeeze out water from the bulgar.
Add the bulgar to the mashed potatoes with onion, parsley, spices, mint and salt and pepper. Moisten hands with water and knead mixture well. If mixture is too soft, add flour. Keep kneading until misture is firm. Press mixture into a lightly greased baking tray and cut into diamond shapes. Pour oil over it and bake in 350 degree oven for 40 minutes until golden.

Italian-Arab Goulash

It is actually called, Pepperonata, which is an Italian vegetable stew. But I like to add cous cous to make it middle Mediterranean.

Recipe:

a big eggplant
4 peppers
a huge onion
garlic
olive oil
2 cups plum tomatoes
salt
pepper
sugar
1/3 cup wine
1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar
1 cup of cous cous

Eggplant One half hour before you are ready to cook, slice a one pound eggplant into four lenthwise sections and salt. Put this in a colander for half an hour. When done, scrape off all the salt and cut into cubes.

Cut up before you are ready to cook, the following veggies:
Onion one really big onion sliced into slivers or up to 3 smaller onions
Garlic two or three cloves of garlic smashed or crushed
Peppers- 2, red, 2 yellow or for those who do not like peppers, 4 cubanelle peppers. (They are the long light green peppers you may see in the supermarket. Their taste is less intense.)
Tomatoes 2 cups of Italian San Marzo tomatoes (from a big can and without the juice). Chop them up into big chunks.

Heat up a dutch oven or a deep frying pan. It has to be at least 12 inches across the bottom.

Olive oil -when the pan is hot, add the olive oil and then the garlic, onions and peppers and cook for about 5 minutes or until they get floppy.
Then add the eggplant. And after about 5 minutes-
Then add the tomatoes
Add some salt and put in some freshly ground pepper to your taste.
Stir it up. Put a lid on it. Lower the heat.
Cook for 15 minutes, stirring it every once in a while.

Wine Put about 1/3 cup of any kind of wine into a measuring cup. Add...
Balsamic Vinegar-about 1/4 cup and mix it up. Add a bit of
Sugar and mix it up some more. Pour it into the pot and stir.
Raise the heat to reduce the liquid. Cook til it is reduced a bit.

Now you can do one of two things. You can take the pot off the stove and serve the peperonata over a bed of cous cous that has been cooked to the package directions. OR
You can add instant cous cous (Near East brand) and stir it into the hot peperonata, cover and let stand for 5 minutes.

adapted from Romagnoli's Table

Immortal Peppers

My mom was Italian. Filetese to be exact. What? You do not know what a Filetese is? A Filetese is a person who comes from the great Italian metropolis of Fileto. Or Filetto. I can never remember. Current population: 300 or so families. But when I was growing up in the coal fields of Pennsylvania, and my family described OTHERS as either being Filetese or not Filetese, I believed Filete to be the capital of Italy.

Whatever. The Filetese were, at least, extremely good cooks and my mom and grandmother were among the best of those.

In the 1960's when I was a student at Penn State University, my mom would send me food during finals week. She would put the hot food in a styrofoam ice bucket, wrapped in layers and layers of newspaper and surrounded that with aluminum foil. Then she would take it to the Martz bus company in Scranton in the morning and eight hours later, I would get a call from the bus station in State College telling me my package had arrived. I would then get in a taxi and pick it up and bring it back to Lyons Hall. It was still very warm!

So many of the girls on my floor loved the food, that I would only get a few bites at best. She would make rigatoni in her special sauce with grated romano on top and send it with a side of peppers sauteed in olive oil. These peppers are the most divine things in the world. Sweet, savory, and never - never enough. They are eaten with fresh Italian bread - torn from the loaf, not cut. They are good hot and they are good cold.

Here is an approximation of my mom's recipe.

At least six peppers and if you have time and a big enough saute pan, you can add more.
Slice them lengthwise in about 6 slices to a pepper.
a clove of garlic
olive oil enough to coat the bottom of the pan very well. Do not be stingy.
Heat the garlic in the oil over medium heat. DO NOT BROWN THE GARLIC. If you do you will have to throw out the garlic and the oil and start over. This, my nephew TJ taught me. In fact, TJ should be writing these recipes, not me.

When the oil is hot, add the peppers. Keep adding peppers as they get smaller and start to wilt. Cook them down until they are completely wilted, browned and fragrant with the escaping sugars. Don't be surprised if this takes about an hour. Keep watching it, making sure that the peppers do not burn, but are nice and brown nevertheless.

When done, pour out the peppers and the oil that is left into a serving plate and then eat the whole thing before anyone has a chance to see you. Sop up all oil with the best Italian bread you can find.

Pastafazoole

One of the very best Italian dishes is Pasta e Fagiloe. We always called it Pastafazoole.
This is the world's tastiest and fastest decently nutritious meal. Recipe serves 4 hungry people or 6 New Yorkers.

Ingredients:
A&P Master's Choice Marinara Tomato Sauce. large size.***
1 can of chick peas
1 box of Whole Wheat pasta. (elbows, penne, or any smallish pasta you like)
pot of water - 4 quarts or larger
salt.

Put the pot of water on the stove. Turn on the heat and add some salt to the water. When the water boils, add the pasta. Cook according to package directions.
When done, drain the pasta reserving 1 cup of pasta water. Return the pasta to the pot.
Pour the whole jar of sauce into the pot.
Heat it up for a minute or two to get the flavors immersed in the pasta.
Serve.

For the non vegans in your life, you can add grated Locatelli Romano cheese. Not Parmesan, please.

Eat this with a small salad and it is a wonderful meal. Garlic bread would also be delicious too.


*** (no other will do-if you cannot find it, do another recipe. Why? Because for my money Master's Choice is the best tomato sauce there is that is not made with meat. It has tomatoes, fresh onion, garlic olive oil and spices. That's it - and you can taste the freshness)