Shakshuka

Tomatoes and eggs are a couple of my favorite ingredients to use in my cooking so you can only imagine how excited I was to stumble upon a recipe for shakshuka on Smitten Kitchen.  Shakshuka (also spelled shakshouka, shaqshuqa, or chakcouka) consists of peppers, onions, and spices cooked in a tomato sauce with eggs poached in it.  The dish is usually served with white bread and is popular in Tunisia, Algeria, Somalia, Morocco, Yemen, and Israel.  It’s pretty simple in that everything can be made in one pot and doesn’t require too many ingredients. 

My version of shakshuka is almost identical to the one from Smitten Kitchen with a few exceptions. I add mushrooms into the mix with chopped red onion and jalapeño peppers, cooked with paprika and cumin, then with canned crushed tomatoes.  Eggs are then poached right in the sauce and served with feta and parsley over a bed of brown basmati rice.   Few dishes to clean, not too many ingredients, minimal cooking time and prep work, and incredible flavor.  You really can’t ask for more. 

Serves 4

½ red onion, diced

2 large jalapeños, seeded and diced

8 ounces sliced mushrooms

5 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tablespoon paprika

1 teaspoon cumin

1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes

4 eggs

Feta cheese

Chopped parsely to garnish

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

1. In a medium pot over medium heat, add in onion and jalapeños.  Season with salt and pepper.

2. When onions become translucent add in mushrooms and mix in garlic, paprika, and cumin when mushrooms cook down.  Stir well.

3. Pour in canned tomatoes and stir. 

4. When tomato sauce thickens crack eggs into pot and cover for 5 minutes.

5. Serve over brown basmati rice topped with feta and parsley.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakshouka

Mushroom and Spinach Rice Casserole

This recipe is a slightly altered version of the Spinach Rice Gratin from 101 Cookbooks.  It’s one of my go-to recipes when I want a healthy and wholesome meal and can easily be served as a side dish.  And since I always seem to have trouble saying no to more cheese, I sprinkle more on top after the casserole’s ready out of the oven.  If you find the dish a little bland the saltiness of some grated Pecorino would be good too. 

                                

3 cups cooked brown rice

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 ½ cups chopped spinach

½ onion, diced

4 ounces of firm tofu, crumbled

½ cup ricotta cheese

½ cup shredded mozzarella

3 eggs

Salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.

2. In a pan over medium heat add cook mushrooms until slightly tender.  Season with salt and pepper.

3. Add in onions and cook until translucent.

4. Then add in chopped spinach and stir until wilted.  Taste and season if necessary, then remove from heat.

5. In a bowl mix tofu, ricotta, and mozzarella cheese.

6. Beat eggs and add to the tofu mixture.

7. Add mushrooms mixture to the tofu mixture and season one last time.

8. Transfer everything to a lightly greased 9 x 13 baking dish and place in oven for about 20-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

                               

Ginger Cream Tart

This was the first time I ever made a tart, including the crust from scratch, and although it was a bit time consuming it was completely worth it. It's not the healthiest of desserts but I figure I can treat myself once in a while to something as decadent as this tart. The filling almost tastes like cheesecake but isn't as dense and has a slight hint of ginger. The ginger cream filling sits on top of a crust that tastes like a crumbly shortbread cookie, made using flour, sugar, and butter. Then to top it off, fresh raspberries and itty bitty champagne grapes are placed on top, but blueberries or strawberries would work just as well. The recipe for the ginger cream filling is from epicurious.com but I opted to use a different one for the crust.

I thought it'd be helpful to post some tips for making the crust because it would have been useful knowing what to be cautious of when I had prepared the crust myself.

1. Be sure to wait for the crust to cool completely before attempting to remove the bottom piece of the pan. I tried doing this when the crust was still warm and made huge cracks in it.

2. The tart crust is crumbly, as I had mentioned earlier, so be extra gentle when handling it. I learned the hard way and broke a crust right in half (the cracks in it didn't help).

3. Also, I lined the removable bottom of the tart pan with wax paper (parchment paper works too). It's difficult to remove the bottom piece without the wax paper so I recommend taking this additional step if you're planning on bringing the tart to a get together with friends or something of that sort.

Tart Crust

1 ½ sticks of butter, at room temperature

½ cup sugar

1 ½ cups flour

special equipment: a 10 by 1 inch round tart pan with a removable bottom

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F.

2. In a bowl cream the butter and sugar together using a fork.

3. In increments of ½ cups, add in the flour and mix. Use your hands if necessary.

4. Transfer dough to a lightly greased tart pan with a removable bottom (lined with wax paper) and distribute evenly.

5. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until a very light golden color.

Ginger Cream Filling

1 ½ teaspoons unflavored gelatin

2 tablespoons milk

½ cup finely chopped crystallized ginger

¼ cup sugar

¾ teaspoon salt

2 cups heavy cream

¾ cup sour cream

1. Sprinkle gelatin over milk in a small bowl and let it sit for 1 minute.

2. Mix the milk, ginger, sugar, salt, and 1 cup of the cream into a saucepan over medium heat. When the sugar melts remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.

3. Whisk the sour cream until there are no lumps.

4. Beat the remaining 1 cup of heavy cream until soft peaks form, then fold in the sour cream.

5. Fold in the ginger milk mixture to the whipped cream and combine well.

6. Pour mixture into the crust. Place berries/fruit on top and chill for 8 hours.

Penne with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto

This Penne with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto is one of my favorite pasta dishes and takes minimal time to prepare it which makes it even better.  Goat cheese that will just melt in your mouth is sprinkled over the pasta coated in the sun-dried tomato pesto.  It’s a savory combination of a few ingredients as the creaminess of the cheese complements the acidity and slight sweetness of the sun-dried tomatoes.  You can add chicken breast meat into the dish as I have before but is not necessary by any means and is perfectly fine without any.  Also if you don’t like the strong flavor of garlic, stick to just one clove when preparing the pesto. 

Serves about 4

1 lb. package of penne, cooked

1 8 ounce jar of sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil

A handful of walnuts, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

Olive oil

Crumbled goat cheese

1. In a food processor or blender, add the sun-dried tomatoes including its oil, walnuts, and garlic.

2. Pour in some olive oil and blend.  Add more if the mixture is too dry.

3. In a large bowl mix the pesto with the cooked pasta using a wooden spoon.

4. Sprinkle goat cheese over pasta before serving.

Open Faced Bagel Sandwich

This is a recipe for a simple breakfast sandwich made with scrambled eggs and a bagel.  I put it together on a whim one morning using what I had left over in my fridge, and it really is that easy to assemble as long as you have eggs and some kind of bread.  The mushrooms can be substituted with red bell peppers, or a meat element like bacon or breakfast sausages can easily be added for a delicious breakfast.  The recipe below serves two but if you’re really hungry, you know what to do.

Open Faced Bagel Sandwich

1 bagel, cut in half and toasted

3 eggs

1 tablespoon plain Greek yogurt

1 cup of mushrooms, chopped

¼ an onion, chopped

Spring baby greens

Parmesan cheese

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

1. In a pan over medium heat, pour a tablespoon of olive oil.  Add mushrooms to the pan. 

2. When mushrooms start releasing liquid add onions.  Season using salt and pepper.

3. Meanwhile whisk eggs and yogurt in a separate bowl.

4. Once the mushrooms and onions start browning pour in the egg mixture.

5. Cook the eggs and scramble, until light and fluffy.

6. Divide the scrambled eggs on top of each bagel half and finish by sprinkling some parmesan cheese.

Tomato Garlic Linguine with a Poached Egg

So I woke up this morning not feeling a hundred percent from the festivities last night at a friend’s house warming party, and for some reason I was badly craving something with a poached egg, or even two.  Now if you know me, you know that I absolutely adore eating eggs! I like them fried, scrambled, hard-boiled, medium-boiled, poached, and well, I guess pretty much every way except raw.  I believe eggs shouldn’t be reserved only for breakfast which leads to today’s post. 

I was inspired by a recipe I drooled over the other day for a pesto pasta with a poached egg on top and threw together what I call Tomato Garlic Linguine with a Poached Egg (my apologies for the long name, but it’s worth it!).  The creaminess of the runny yolk over the garlicky noodles tossed with wilted grape tomatoes and olive oil seriously hit the spot and cured my “sickness”.  This was also the first time I ever tried poaching eggs myself and I am happy to say that it was fairly simple to do, so you can probably expect more egg poaching featured on my blog in the days to come!

Tomato Garlic Linguine with a Poached Egg (serves 2-3)

1 pound linguine

1 pint grape tomatoes, halved

2 to 3 cloves of garlic, minced

Eggs

1 to 2 tablespoons vinegar

Olive oil

Red pepper flakes

Dried oregano

Salt and pepper

Pecorino Romano or Parmesan

1. Over medium heat, pour about 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a pan.  Cook the halved tomatoes until slightly wrinkly.

2. Add in the garlic and desired amounts of red pepper flakes and dried oregano.  Season with salt and pepper. 

3. When the pasta is done cooking, transfer from water to the pan.  Mix well with the tomatoes and garlic.

4. Add additional olive oil if the pasta looks dry.  Lower the heat while poaching the eggs.

5. Boil water to a boil, then down to a simmer in a medium pot over medium heat.  Add in vinegar.

6. Crack one egg into a small bowl and gently drop into the water.  Use a slotted wooden spoon to push the whites together to maintain the shape.

7. For runny eggs, remove after about 2 ½ minutes.  Place each egg on a paper towel to remove excess water.

8. Plate the pasta and top each bowl with a poached egg.

9.  Sprinkle some grated cheese over the dish.  

Ricotta Cheese

I never knew how simple making ricotta cheese at home until I stumbled upon this recipe from 101 Cookbooks.  Ricotta cheese is so delicious when fresh and really makes a difference in the taste of homemade lasagna.  Also, mixing some into scrambled eggs gives a nice creamy texture.  Heidi from 101 Cookbooks probably does a better job explaining how to make it but here’s my interpretation of her recipe.  It’s seriously easy to make and definitely worth trying!

Ricotta cheese

1 gallon of whole milk

1 quart of buttermilk

(makes 4 cups)

1. In a medium sized pot over medium heat, pour in the whole milk and buttermilk.

2. As the milk mixture heats up, use a spatula to stir it around to avoid it from scorching.

3. While the milk is heating, fold the cheesecloth a few times until there are six layers.  Line a colander using the cheesecloth and have it ready in the sink.

4. The milk will start to thicken once it gets hot.  Use the spatula to scrape the bottom of the pot occasionally for any stuck curds.

5. The curds and whey will separate after about 15 minutes.  Once you see the curds clumped together in a large white mass remove the pot from the heat. 
6. Using a ladle transfer the curds from the pot to the colander into the cheesecloth. 

7. Gather the corners of the cheesecloth and tie them up.  The cheese needs to drain for about 15 minutes (A good place to tie the cheesecloth to drain is the kitchen faucet).

8. Once it’s done draining, use right away or transfer to an airtight container.