Quick and comforting

I almost feel like I need to apologize for this post.  We have been inundated with recipes that are "quick and easy".  So much so that some of us, myself included, take pride in cooking "slow and difficult".  However, sometimes, you just need the quick and easy.  You take your kid to soccer, you clean the bathrooms, you run a load of laundry, you've already had pizza twice this week and you have an hour before you need to be out the door again and have something on the table before you do.  My personal excuse this week was I was nursing a cold and had no energy after keeping the house in somewhat of a workable order.  What is a busy foodie mom to do?  Well, ya gotta do what ya gotta do...quick and easy.  This is for you sis.

Classic Tuna Noodle Casserole adapted from Campbell's Best Ever Recipes 125th Anniversary Edition

1 can (10 3/4 oz) condensed Cream of Celery or Cream of Mushroom Soup

1/2 cup milk

2 cups hot cooked noodles (I had macaroni on

 hand, they recommend egg noodles) - about 2 cups dry.

1 cup cooked peas (I actually substituted about 1/2 cup pico de gallo - it zinged it up and plus, I didn't have peas!)

2 Tbs. chopped pimento, optional

2 cans (about 6 oz. each) tuna, drained and flaked

1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

1/4 cup dry bread crumbs

2 Tbs. butter, melted

1.  In a 1 1/2 quart casserole, combine the soup and milk.  Stir in noodles, peas, pimento and tuna.

2.  Bake at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes or until hot; stir

3.  In a small bowl, combine cheese, bread crumbs and butter.  Top tuna mixture with bread crumb mixture.  Bake 5 minutes more.

Southwestern Veggie Chili adapted from Taste of Home winning Recipes

The bread sticks on this dish were very pretty, but they ended up getting gummy, I would recommend just making the bread sticks by themselves and serving them on the side instead of baking them on top like I did.

I also had bunches of fresh veggies from our CSA basket, so the only canned things I used were the beans.

3 medium carrots, sliced

2 celery ribs, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

2 to 3 teaspoons of chili powder

1 tsp. ground cumin

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

2 Tbls. butter

3 Tbls. all-purpose flour

1/2 cup milk

1 can (16 oz.) kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 can (15 oz.) black beans, rinsed and drained

1 can (15 1/4 oz.) whole kernel corn, drained

1 can (14 1/2 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained

1 can (4 oz.) chopped green chilies

1 tube (11 1/2 oz) refrigerated corn bread twists

In a large skillet, saute the carrots, celery, onion and seasonings in butter until vegetables are crisp-tender.  Stir in flour until blended; gradually add the milk.  Bring to a boil;  cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened and bubbly.  Add the beans, corn, tomatoes and chilies and simmer for 20 minutes  uncovered while corn bread twists are baking.

You couscous, don't you?

Last night was literally a fly by the seat of my pants night (one of my father's favorite phrases).  I am still on my cleaning kick and had decided to go through all of my CD's, alphabetize them and take them out of their jewel cases and put them into CD sleeves in a binder.  (It was raining and I needed an indoor activity.  Still sounds a little lame huh?)  Anyway, I finished my project (it is beautiful and so much neater if you still think me lame) just in time for my husband's arrival from work and my children's stomach grumblings.  I had left myself no time to cook.  I knew had a ham steak in the refrigerator that I could fry up quickly, but what to do for a starch?  Hooray!  Fast and friendly couscous to the rescue!

Couscous is often thought of as a grain, but it is actually a very tiny pasta that is basically flavorless but will serve as a base for all sorts of Middle Eastern and fantastical creations.  Another bonus?  It is done in 5 minutes.  Here in Eastern Washington, you can buy it pretty cheap at the health food store but in more progressive areas it is starting to appear in the grocery stores by the rice and grains.  For my couscous, in order to pander to kiddy palates, I put the known entity of raisins in to soften the blow of a new dish.  It ended up being quite good and the leftovers are good cold.  Enjoy!

Lemon Raisin Couscous with Peppers and Scallions by Joie de vivre

1 lemon, zested and juiced.

1/3 cup golden raisins

1 cup couscous

1/4 chopped red bell pepper

1 whole scallion, chopped 

1/4 cup sugar (optional)

1 1/2 cup water

Place the water in a saucepan with raisins, sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice. Place over high heat and bring to a boil.  When water is boiling, add the couscous, stir, cover and remove from heat.  Leave for 5 minutes.  After 5 minutes, uncover, fluff with a fork, add the chopped red pepper and scallion and stir.

Side note:  Shame to the French me.  You can see from my plate above that I started out with a reasonable portion of ham, but the steak was sitting in front of me and I kept picking at it until I probably doubled my portion of ham!  Note to self:  remove the serving dishes from the table and place on counter!

Pasta Puttanesca

Thursday, I was exhausted.  I've been watching the BBC show How clean is your house and have gotten a bee in my bonnet to clean the house.  Not that my house is anywhere, ANYWHERE close to the hovels that those people live in, but vigilance is key in the war on dirt so I've been cleaning.  Normal things like bathrooms, dusting, etc. but also above the top things like dusting my walls, scrubbing my baseboards and organizing my CD collection.  By Thursday, the decision of what to make for dinner was almost more than I could bear and I started fantasizing about The Olive Garden.  But what I really wanted wasn't necessarily Olive Garden, but some homey pasta.  I remembered I had a tin of anchovies in my pantry and also remembered eating a yummy dish called Pasta Puttanesca in Italy (which uses anchovies), which lead to thinking about foccacia and voila...now you know how my thought process works.

Pasta Puttanesca is translated from Italian into "whore's pasta".  No one really knows for sure how it got it's name, but the common belief is that brothels would offer a cheap dinner of pasta puttanesca to lure customers in.  Sounds good to me.  My favorite explanation from wikipedia is pasta puttanesca is basically pasta with tomato sauce which has been "tarted up".  However it got its name, it is a tasty, tasty dish that smells divine and is also easy.  I served it with an easy foccacia made in my bread machine to sop up all of the yummy sauce.  I was so enthusiastic about this dish and how it smelled and tasted, that when I was describing it to my pregnant sister, it sent her into craving mode and she made it the next day.  Enjoy!

Pasta Puttanesca by Joie de vivre

2 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil

6 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 tin of anchovies (2 oz)

3/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

3 Tbs. capers

1 14.5 oz. can chopped tomatoes

2-14.5 oz. can tomato sauce

4 Tbs. olive tapenade or about 20 oil-cured black olives, chopped

1 pound spaghetti, cooked to al dente

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add garlic and contents of anchovy tin (oil and all).  Stir anchovies over heat until they dissolve into oil.  Add olive tapenade, red pepper flakes, capers, tomatoes and tomato sauce with a little bit of black pepper.  Bring sauce to a gentle boil and simmer for 8 - 10 minutes.

Thyme Focaccia adapted from Betty Crocker's Bread Machine Cookbook

Layer in order listed in your bread machine pan:

3/4 cup water

2 Tbs. olive or vegetable oil

2 cups bread or all purpose flour

1 Tbs. sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. yeast

Set machine to dough setting (Should take about 1 1/2 hours).  Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Grease a cookie sheet or pizza pan and pat dough into a 12 inch circle on pizza pan.  Cover and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.  Make deep depressions in dough at 1 inch intervals all over dough with finger or the handle of a wooden spoon.  Drizzle with 3 Tbs. olive oil.  Sprinkle with fresh thyme (or rosemary as original recipe suggests) and some coarsely ground black pepper.  Bake 15 - 18 minutes or until edge is golden.  Cut into wedges and serve warm.