Pasta with Spinach and Baked Camembert

A fabulously easy option for entertaining, this Camembert baked with garlic and rosemary is set on the table where guests can help themselves to a spoonful or two to drizzle over pasta that's been tossed with baby spinach. 

Last night it was my distinct and utmost pleasure to cook dinner for my elder daughter and her friends. Their cozy hallway kitchen had all the necessary tools despite its compact size and the company was superb.

Our menu included the pasta, fresh Rhode Island-grown grape tomato salad and strawberries and cream.


The fun for me started in Eastside Marketplace where I got to peruse their fresh produce and extensive selection of dried goods. I can see why it has been voted best local market for so many years. With a large Whole Foods in one direction and Eastside Marketplace in the other, the Brown and RISD students are spoiled for choice.

This recipe comes originally from one of Jamie Oliver’s books. I think it might have been Ministry of Food, but don’t quote me.

Ingredients
1 X 250g box of Camembert cheese – you want one with the wooden box
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 sprigs fresh rosemary
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
100g of Parmesan
16 oz or 500g dried rigatoni or penne pasta
150g or three good handfuls of fresh spinach

Method
Preheat over to 180°C (350°F) degrees. Open the box of cheese and unwrap it. Place it back in the wooden container. (I suggest lining with foil first! The first time I made this, my box popped the side and my cheese melted all over the foil-lined pan that I had put it in.) Score a circle in the top of the skin, then lift it off and discard.

Peel and finely slice the garlic. Pick the rosemary leaves off the woody stalk. Lay the garlic slices on top of the cheese, sprinkle with some pepper and drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil.



Scatter over the rosemary leaves and gently pat with your fingers to coat them in the oil. Grate the Parmesan.



Place the box of cheese on a baking tray and put it into the preheated oven for 25 minutes, until golden and melted.



(Mine was well melted after only 20 minutes so watch it.) Meanwhile, bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. When your cheese has 10 minutes left to cook, add the pasta to the pan and cook according to the packet instructions. When the pasta is cooked, add the spinach to the pan – it only needs cooking for 10 seconds or so. Drain the pasta and spinach in a colander over a large bowl, reserving some of the cooking water. (I forgot to add the spinach before I drained the pasta and found that it wilted just as nicely when added to the pot of hot pasta with the lid on.)



Drizzle with a couple of good glugs of olive oil and add the grated Parmesan. (I probably should review a recipe before I decide to make it again after many months, but I didn’t. Anyhow, I also completely forgot this part yesterday and didn’t even buy Parmesan, but in the past I have left out the last part of this step anyway and let everyone add Parmesan at the table. Some like it, some don’t in my family.) If you do add the grated Parmesan here and the sauce is too thick, add a splash of the reserved cooking water to thin it out a bit. Season with salt and pepper and give it a good stir. Remove the cheese from the oven.

Divide the pasta between your serving bowls. Either drizzle the melted Camembert on top or pop the box of cheese on the table and let everyone help themselves to a lovely, gooey spoonful.

Enjoy!

Everyone served themselves last night and then fought over the last vestiges of cheese while doing the dishes. We finished the evening sipping red wine, sharing funny stories and listening to Johnny Cash. Bliss.

Rosemary Lemon Chicken Stroganoff

Rosemary Lemon Chicken Stroganoff is made with the delicious leftovers of Nigella's Rosemary Lemon Chicken. You'll make extra just to be able to make this, I promise!

A few years ago, my cousin Connie sent me an email asking for family recipes to include in a cookbook she was compiling.  They didn’t have to be originals but they did have to be family favorites. Among those I sent her was Nigella Lawson’s Butterflied (Spatchcocked) Chicken with Lemon and Rosemary  because it is one of my go-to dishes both for company (because it can be prepared ahead and can just be stuffed in the oven when the guests are arriving) and even for weekday dinners (for the same make ahead reason.)

When it is just us, there are hardly any leftovers because I do one whole chicken with a couple of breasts (preferably on the bone for flavor) tucked in the pan extra. When we have guests, my congenital Cajun defect will not allow me to only cook how much I think people can reasonably eat; I have to cook more than enough. So, then, sometimes there are leftovers.  In the past, the leftovers have languished in the fridge, possibly being nibbled on as cold chicken, re-warmed chicken or even made into chicken salad. Inevitably, I end up throwing some away.

The last time we had leftovers, I did something different. I took all the chicken off the bones, discarded the lemon rinds, deglazed the pan and tipped the whole rest of the dish, including the pan juices, into a freezer bag and then popped it into the freezer. My plan: Rosemary Lemon Chicken Stroganoff (although I hadn’t actually named it yet) to serve over pasta. First, of course, you'll have to make the original recipe! And then use the leftovers for this lovely dish. 

Rosemary Lemon Chicken Stroganoff

Ingredients
Leftover chicken with lemon and rosemary – deboned, lemon discarded, plus juices from the deglazed pan. I had about a pound of stuff altogether.
2 heaping tablespoons of Greek yogurt
1/4 cup full cream
1 tablespoon corn flour or starch (and a little more cream to dissolve it in)

Method
Remove the bag from the freezer and thaw. I cut the bag apart and popped the whole frozen lump into a pan with a lid and covered, over a low heat. Once it is thawed enough, remove the lump from the pan and chopped the meat on a cutting board.

In retrospect, I surely should have chopped my chicken up before I froze it. Live and learn. Return the chicken to the pot and add the yogurt and cream.   

Turn the heat way down because you don’t want it boil.  Dissolve the corn starch in a little more cream and add it to the pot.

Cook slowly for just a couple of minutes until it thickens. Grind in a little more fresh black pepper. That is it!

The yogurt adds a little more tartness to the already present lemon flavor and it is delicious.

Serve over the pasta of your choice (my choice is almost invariably linguine) with a side dish of, perhaps, steamed broccoli. 

Enjoy!

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Oven-roasted Tomatoes with Pasta

So I was browsing food blogs today and came across a recipe for stuffed roasted tomatoes that are served over pasta. It sounded delicious, except that it called for anchovies and pancetta and I am catering for a mixed group which includes one well-loved vegetarian.  I fully support her decision not to eat meat so I modified the recipe and, frankly, did my own thing ingredient- and method-wise.  Which is my way.

Ingredients

4 fair-sized tomatoes
3/4 cup bread crumbs
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan for recipe and extra to sprinkle on when serving
4 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 tablespoon of butter
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Dash of ground cayenne
450g (about 16oz.) of pasta
1-2 tablespoons freshly chopped flat leaf parsley

Method

First, cut the top of the tomatoes, just under the stem base.  If the openings to the seeds are not visible, slice another thin piece off of the tomatoes, until they are.  You want to be able to scoop the seeds and the top of the core out of the tomatoes. I used a grapefruit spoon and it was the best tool for the job!  The grapefruit spoon allowed me to cut less off the top and still scoop all the innards out without a hassle. Save the top slices of the tomato and chop into small bits. Discard the tomato seeds and top of the core.

Preheat the oven 350 degrees F or 180 degrees C.  Heat a small saucepan on the stove with some of the olive oil and slice the four garlic cloves right into the heated pan. Sauteé the garlic until soft and then add the chopped tomato bits, salt and pepper (don’t forget the cayenne too) to the mixture as it cooks gently, until all the juice from the tomatoes is gone. Remove from heat.  Add the butter and let it melt.  Transfer the mixture into a small bowl and stir a few times until it cools. 

Add the bread crumbs and the Parmesan, stirring until fully incorporated. 

With a spoon (or I used a spoon and then my fingers) fill the tomatoes with the mixture and pack in the holes. Top the tomatoes with the balance of the filling.

Place in an oven proof dish, trying to keep the tomatoes upright.  At first I had mine in a non-stick baking dish, then I transferred them with tongs to a muffin pan (Thanks, Mom!) because they wouldn’t stand up.  Drizzle tops with olive oil and bake for at least 45 minutes.

About 15 minutes from done, put your water on to boil for pasta. Add salt and a little olive oil.  I boiled all 500g of the bag of rigatoni and had leftovers of the pasta because someone at my house (read: youngest daughter) will always eat leftover rigatoni but 450g will surely do, even for four generous servings.

After the pasta is done, drain it and return to pot. Drizzle with a little olive oil to keep it from sticking together. (If you aren’t serving for a while, save a little of the pasta water to use to loosen the pasta again before serving and don’t put the tomatoes in yet. You will need to be able to stir the pasta vigorously while warming. ) Gently add the roasted tomatoes and the juice from the roasting pan and sprinkle with the flat leafed parsley.  Let each person scoop up some pasta and one tomato to serve.  Offer the extra Parmesan to sprinkle as needed.

(As suggested in the original recipe, I had fried crispy bacon to add but I kept it separate on the side so that each person could add or not add bacon as they saw fit.)

Borlotti cream sauce with pasta

Once again, my visiting photographer (my mother) took the photo. Unfortunately, she only remembered her duties after eating a few bites. Tomato and cucumber salad with two types of tomato and Japanese cucumber (probably grown here in Malaysia though) with a simple dressing of thinly sliced onion, vinegar, olive oil, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Plus a lovely cream sauce over whole wheat pasta.

Ingredients
1 can of rinsed borlotti beans
1 onion, finely minced
6 cloves of garlic, finely minced.
2 tablespoons of plain flour
1 -1.5 cups of low fat milk
1 cup (8 oz) cream
2 tablespoons minced fresh Italian parsley
1 vegetable stock cube
2 tablespoons virgin olive oil
500g (16 oz. pasta)

Method
Rinse the beans and mash 2/3 of the can.
Sautee the onion and garlic in the olive oil until translucent and tender. Add the flour and stir to make a roux.  Add 1 cup milk, stirring quickly so as to avoid lumps. Add more milk if necessary.  Cook for a couple of minutes and then add the mashed beans and the stock cube. Add a little water if mixture is too thick. Cook for a few minutes and then puree in a blender or with a hand blender. Return to the pot and then throw the whole beans in. Cook another few minutes until thickened sufficiently, then add the cup of cream. Salt and pepper to taste. Then add parsley. Make sure it is warmed through then it is ready to serve.

Serve with a generous helping of grated or shaved Parmesan cheese over freshly boiled pasta. Serves five generously.

Optional for non-vegetarians: Top each serving with crispy bacon bits and pan-fried Italian sausage sliced thinly. You don’t need much - treat these like a garnish.