BACON WHAT LOL (I've been near the Internet too long)

I swear I'm going grocery shopping today. Unfortunately, there is a forecast of two inches of snow. This means that the grocery store will be packed, because people are afraid of being snowed in and having to resort to cannibalism. I'm going in. If you don't hear from me in a day or two, it's because I cut a bitch in Whole Foods with a broken bottle of organic gluten-free beer and I'm in jail.

Spaghetti Carbonara is not exactly "healthy", per se, but it's tasty and filling and cheap. It is also made of things that I always have lying around the house: bacon, eggs, and pasta.

It can be a little tricky; the hot pasta cooks the eggs on contact. This means that you have to drain the pasta and immediately toss it with the egg mixture before the pasta starts to cool off. Now normally you want to get the pasta really drained and dry as to not water down your sauce, but in this case it's good to have some cooking water in there. Really the biggest hassle of this whole recipe is cooking the bacon. I have switched to the oven method and I am never going back. I heat my oven to 450 degrees. I line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, and I lay the bacon out on the paper. I pop the bacon on to the middle rack of oven for about 15 minutes. Keep an eye on it while it cooks. Cooking time depends on your oven, the thickness/fattiness of the bacon, and how crispy you like it. Flip the bacon strips halfway through, if you like. Remove the cookie sheet from the oven, transfer the bacon strips to a paper-towel lined plate to drain.

The benefits of this method are as follows:

1) You can cook a whole package of bacon at once. More than one package if you need to!

2) No splatter mess, and your hair/clothes/house don't get that grody cold grease smell.

3) Easy clean-up; Let the pan cool and the drippings solidify, and you just grab the parchment from the pan and throw it away. I don't have to drain hot grease into a jar like my mom used to, I don't have to scrub a pan.

I'm telling you, it's the best.

Okay, so here's what you do once you've got your bacon cooked up and ready to go:

Spaghetti Carbonara

1# dried spaghetti, linguini, or fettucini

1/2# cooked chopped bacon

4 large eggs

2T cooled melted butter

1c grated parmesan cheese

1 c chopped fresh spinach

s/p to taste

Cook pasta according to package directions, just in case you are unsure of how to cook pasta. I am not here to judge. While pasta is cooking, beat together eggs, cheese, and butter in a large bowl. Set aside. Right before draining pasta, reserve 1 cup of the cooking liquid. Drain pasta, and add to egg/cheese mixture. Toss to coat, adding reserved cooking water a little at a time. The eggs will cook on contact, the cheese will melt, and the cooking water will thin it out into a sauce. You want to use the cooking water as opposed to regular hot water because the starch left by the cooking pasta is what holds the sauce together. Toss/mix in the bacon and the spinach and serve!

I was a little skeptical as to how this would taste as leftovers, but I reheated some in the microwave and it's still totally tasty.

Never Slurp The Stroganoff

It snowed yesterday, and everyone freaked the eff out. Seriously, it's New England. We've seen snow before. The first major snowstorm of the winter always has people acting like fools. We took full advantage of the snow day, and laid around the house in a way only rivaled by the cats.

I had already planned Lamb Stroganoff for dinner, and it ended up being perfect for such a cold night. This recipe can be made with any ground meat, or even a vegetarian protein like seitan.

Easy Lamb Stroganoff

1# ground lamb

4 oz portobella mushrooms, sliced or chopped (I chopped mine to hide them from the kids)

1 diced onion

2 T chopped garlic

1 splash white wine or cooking sherry

1 c chicken broth

8 oz condensed cream of mushroom soup (I like Trader Joe's if you can get it)

1 tsp dried dill

1T fresh thyme

1 c frozen or fresh peas

1 c plain yogurt or sour cream (Greek yogurt is nice and thick and gives the dish a little tangy bite)

Brown lamb in a large skillet. Add mushrooms, onion and garlic. Saute' until onion is translucent and mushrooms have released their juices, about five minutes. Deglaze the pan with wine or sherry, add chicken broth and herbs. Bring to a boil. Add peas, boil for about two minutes. Reduce heat to low, stir in yogurt, heat through. Remove from heat. Serve with wide noodles. I tossed whole wheat egg noodles with minced garlic, olive oil, chopped parsley. cracked pepper and sea salt.

As a side dish, I steamed green beans. A traditional spinach salad would also go nicely. Stroganoff is pretty heavy, so you want to team it with some light vegetables to balance out.

I leave you with what I assume is the only song with the word "stroganoff" in it. They even manage to find a rhyme.

Do I get this stuck in my head every time I make stroganoff? Yep. Now I'm sharing.

July, July, July.. never seemed so strange

Augh, it's hot. We're going through a "heat wave", which in New England means that it's over 80 degrees. Listen, I know that it could be worse - but when your winter is half your friggin' year, you're so busy trying not to kill your family Shining Style that you forget what's it's like to be warm. Plus, it's humid and that is GROSS. We don't have AC, save for in Jeffrey's little home office*, and my small house is set up such that cooking on the stove raises the temperature substantially.

The weekend was for barbecues (it was Independence Day, after all), Monday we had rotisserie chicken, last night we ate at Apollo. Tomorrow and Friday we are invited out to other people's houses, but tonight I have to cook. Tonight is for cold food. Minimal stove time. Tonight is peanut noodles and fresh rolls.

I don't usually make peanut noodles from a recipe, I just kind of mess around until it tastes right, but I came across the following and I have to say that it tastes exactly how I want it to. (I added more garlic and an extra tablespoon of vinegar, but that's just me. I also used whole wheat vermicelli)

Cold Peanut Noodles

recipe courtesy of Catherine Newman

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup orange juice
1 clove garlic, pressed
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon ginger, freshly grated
1/4 cup hot water
1 pound angel hair pasta, cooked, drained and rinsed
2 scallions, very thinly sliced (optional)
1 English cucumber, peeled, seeded, and sliced into long, narrow strips, then cut crosswise
2 tablespoons cilantro, coarsely chopped (optional)

Whisk together first 9 ingredients in a large bowl. Add pasta, scallions, cucumber, and cilantro, and use your fingers to toss and coat the noodles. Add salt or more vinegar if it isn't as vibrant as you like. Let sit at room temperature if you're going to eat fairly soon — otherwise refrigerate.

Our accompaniment was asian-inspired fresh rolls. These are a great way to trick children into eating salad, by the way. There are near endless possibilities as to what you can put in these light, tasty, little packages; once you get the hang of rolling them you will want to make them all the time. I like to put rice noodles in there, usually, but since noodles were the main course it seemed like overkill. Tonight was simple, using what I had on hand.

Chicken, Basil, & Romaine Fresh Rolls

1T rice vinegar
1T soy sauce
1 tsp raw sugar
1 small clove of garlic, pressed or minced
1 tsp fish sauce
zest & juice of 1 lime
2 c cooked chicken, shredded
4 c chiffonade romaine lettuce
1 c chiffonade basil, any variety
1 carrot, grated
package of rice spring roll wrappers, available at any asian market

Whisk together first six ingredients until sugar is dissolved, then toss with shredded chicken. Let marinate for at least 20 minutes, then toss with lettuce, basil, and carrot.

That's your filling, now you need to know how to wrap it up.

First of all: spring roll wrappers come stiff, like uncooked noodles. "IF I BEND THEM THEY WILL BREAK, OH GOD." Don't be scared. Let me walk you through, friend.

1. Set up your work space. The bowl of filling, your package of wraps, a plate or some kind of dish with cold water, and a cutting board or dish to roll them in.

2. Lay one wrapper in the cold water. Wait 30 seconds. Take the wrapper out, being cautious not to rip it. If it falls apart, you left it in too long. If it still feels stiff, like it won't be pliable enough to work with, put it back in the water for a few seconds.

3. Place the wrapper on the work area, and a large pinch of filling in the middle.

4. Wrap it like you would a burrito, keeping in mind that unlike a tortilla this will stick to itself. You also have to work kind of fast so it doesn't get too tacky or soggy. If you don't know how to wrap a burrito, it's pretty simple. Fold the southern "flap" up over the filling. Bring the eastern flap over, then west. Roll it all north.

I have made a video that demonstrates. It was shot by my eleven year old daughter, who spends a lot of time making Ke$ha tribute videos and is handy with a camera.

Once you get used to it, you can soak the next wrap while you're wrapping. Serve as-is, or with a dipping sauce. An easy one is soy, fish sauce and a squeeze of lime. Thai sweet chili is excellent, especially when accompanied by sweet soy sauce. Hoisen, grated ginger, and a shot of lime juice or orange juice is good too.

*that we have totally taken over, the poor man gets no peace.

Super Fast Dinner!

Time - we never have as much as we need. For most of us, it's because we have terrible time management skills. The internet has ruined us. For most people it used to be a luxury to be able to sit and read the newspaper, now we get all pissy if we don't get to spend an hour or two every day dicking around Digg or whatever. I've been reading a lot about how constant access to information is rewiring our brains, and it's scary. I've been implementing some new rules for myself; Don't refresh Facebook. Don't carry your phone around and check it every minute (I leave it in the car, my bag, the other side of the house, I don't give a fig anymore). Close the laptop if you're watching a movie. You don't want to look at Reddit, so don't (it's a time-suck, and it's stupid).

It HELPS. I get so much more done. I focus on one thing at a time. I don't want to stab my friends and colleagues (well, just a little less).

Even so, some days I don't have the time to assemble anything too complicated - but I still need to get something tasty-and-nutritious-that-is-not-pizza on the table for the fam.

If I don't kick out a frozen Trader Joe's entree (surprisingly tasty, but not enough in one bag to feed us all), my go-to is pasta. As I've mentioned before, I like to use enriched whole wheat pasta for it's flavor and nutritive value. One pound of cooked pasta, one jar of pesto (or about a cup of home-made, and 4 oz cream cheese mixed together is a big winner around here. This time I used Tofutti's 'Better Than Cream Cheese' so that Jeffrey could enjoy without pain, and I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised at how good that stuff tastes. Very very close to actual cream cheese flavor, tastier than store brand cheap cream cheese for sure. Before you drain the pasta, reserve about a cup of the cooking water, then mix it with the pasta, pesto and cheese. It turns it into more of a sauce by warming and thinning the cream cheese.

On the side, I made braised greens with bacon. Our CSA farm share just started up and that means that we have leafy greens to spare. I used bok choy and dinosaur kale this round.

Braised Greens With Bacon

1/2 lb good quality bacon

1 large bunch hardy leafy greens (kale, collards, bok choy, mustard)

1/4 c white wine

1 shallot, minced

Rinse and roughly chop greens. Set aside.

Slice raw bacon into 1/4" cubes or slices. Heat a wok or very large skillet on medium high, and fry the bacon bits until crispy. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towel. Fry shallots in bacon grease until they just start to brown, then add white wine. Add greens, stir, cover. Cook, covered, for 2-3 minutes until greens are wilted and tender. Stir in bacon bits, season to taste with salt and pepper. Best served immediately.

If you add bacon to anything, my kids will eat it. Anything. I wish it was better for us.

Sunday Night Dinner Party

My friends found a trivia board game in which you place bets (with poker chips) on whether or not your opponents will answer the question correctly. It is ridiculously fun if you enjoy trivia and not having any faith in your friends.

We played for the first time last night, after dinner and a dramatic reading of the first few chapters of "My Immortal" courtesy of E. I don't care if it's for real or not, it is the most amazing piece of literature ever written. (Yes I know it's four years old, no I had never heard of it before.)

Dinner was a series of "And And And Food", as my old boss used to call it. Lemon and Herb Roast Pork Shoulder with Spinach, Shiitake, and Goat Cheese Ravioli and Roasted Grape Tomatoes, Zucchini, and Garlic Scapes in Balsamic Brown Butter. Julia supplied a Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp with vanilla Haagen Daz for dessert. We tried Lost Angel Mischief, which I picked up based on how I usually choose wine - the pretty label. I'm (mostly) kidding. It was really nice, very lush and berry. I could happily drink it all summer, it's an "easy" red and would go down well even in hot weather. Plus, it's a steal for $10.

For the pork, I dug out my terra cotta roaster that I usually forget that I have. I had used it a couple times in the past to make oven stews, but this was the first time I used it to roast meat. I'm a convert! The pork was so juicy, but still had a nice crust to it. The onions perfectly caramelized and nothing stuck to the pan. I'll definitely be experimenting with the roaster again soon. I picked mine up at TJ Maxx, years ago for about $20, a quick Google search shows that they're generally affordable and come in all different sizes. Mine has a glazed interior, which I would recommend as the clay will absorb flavors and the glaze will hinder that from happening.

Here is a thing that I like to do for pork, and sometimes for chicken; make a salt & garlic paste, rub the pork down with it, then roll it in chopped fresh herbs and a little bit of olive oil. Garlic paste is made by mincing fresh garlic cloves with a pinch of salt added in. The salt works to break down the garlic. (You can also add a little bit of lemon or lime zest in there for extra flavor) This is a helpful video, though I don't see why she's so fussy with slicing the garlic in the beginning. I just smash the clove with the side of my big knife, pull off the paper and root end, and chop from there. So much faster, and you're just grinding it down anyway.

I soaked my roaster in cold water for about a half hour, then added the pork, a sliced red onion, and poured a little less than a cup of white wine and the juice of half a lemon over the roast. Start in a cold oven, set the temp to 475, and cook for 45 minutes to an hour, until the internal temperature of the pork is about 160.

Home-made ravioli is not as daunting as you might think! My secret? Won Ton wrappers.* For real. You can get them at the Asian market for a couple of bucks, and you can keep them in your freezer until you're ready to use them. Then you can stuff them with anything! A little bit of cheese, your favorite vegetables minced or mashed, some ground meat, some chopped seafood, the list is endless. It can be a little time consuming while you're getting the hang of stuffing and folding, but I threw these together in about a half hour - 45 minutes if you count the cooking time.

Shiitake Spinach Goat Cheese Ravioli

1 package won ton wrappers (I use round)

12 oz goat cheese

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 c minced shiitake mushrooms

1 bunch spinach, stemmed and chopped fine

1/4 c vermouth or sherry (or white wine, whatever)

Heat a skillet on high. Sautee' mushrooms and garlic in a couple tablespoons of olive oil until mushrooms have released all of their liquid and begin to stick to the pan. Deglaze the pan with vermouth, add spinach. Sautee' until spinach has wilted. remove from heat and let cool. (You can cheat by popping the mix in to the freezer for a few minutes while you prep your work area.) When cool, mix with goat cheese and salt/pepper to taste.

Here's how to set up your stuffing station; take two cutting boards or cookie sheets and sprinkle a layer of cornstarch over each. (One is going to be your work area, and the other is where you will set the finished ravioli.) Two bowls: water in one, in the other a beat an egg with a teaspoon of water. A pastry brush would be helpful here, but I have used my fingers more than once.

Ok! Lay out won ton wrappers over board #1. Using the pastry brush (or your fingers), paint the outer rim of each wrapper with egg. Set about a teaspoon of filling in the center of each wrapper. Keep your left hand dry, pick up the ravioli with your left hand and fold it in half. (If you dip your right fingers into the water bowl, you can use that hand to tuck the filling into place without it sticking to your fingers.) Pinch along the seam, sealing the ravioli closed. Repeat until you're out of filling.

Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil. Add the ravioli one at a time - I do it in batches of 6 -8. When the ravioli floats, it's done. Since your filling is already cooked, you're just cooking the pasta. Fish each ravioli out using a slotted spoon, and transfer to a plate where it can sit and wait for saucification. (Real word, I say so.)

This makes quite a few, but you can freeze them before they're boiled.

This is one of the easiest sauces out there, and incredibly versatile. Also fantastic on chicken, fish, or roasted vegetables.

Balsamic Brown Butter

6T unsalted butter

2T balsamic vinegar

s/p to taste

Melt butter in a skillet on med/high heat until golden brown, stirring or swirling occasionally. Remove from heat, whisk in balsamic vinegar. Season to taste.

That's the base recipe but it's simplicity leaves a lot of room for creativity. When I made this last night, for the ravioli and roasted summer veg, I minced a shallot and about a teaspoon of fresh sage and fried them in the butter before removing from the heat and adding the vinegar.

*photo courtesy of Burning Pasta - I forgot to take a picture, and this is the brand I use.

Infinity Tacos

How many different ways can one family eat tacos? The answer is infinity. (Infinity Tacos is the name of my Los Lonely Boys/Evanescence cover band.)

I had a small beef brisket from our CSA, and decided to slow cook it for taco filling. Since I don't give a frig about authenticity, I rummaged around in the cabinets and came up with a melange of ingredients to throw in the crock.

I rubbed the roast with Lime Pepper and Kitchen Bouquet, and let it sit while I chopped a head of garlic. I sautee'd the garlic in a few tablespoons of oil, and then quickly seared the meat on all sides. I then transferred the meat to the crock and topped it with a can of roasted green chiles, a couple of quartered tomatoes, a sliced onion, a half a jar of pizza sauce that I had in my fridge and some agave syrup to balance out the acid in the onions and tomatoes (probably about 2T?). Then I set it on low nd came back to it eight or nine hours later. I took the roast out, shredded it by ripping it apart with a fork in each hand, and returned it to the pot, mixing it back with the cooking juices.

fig. 1

fig. 2

The results were tender and flavorful, peppery without being too spicy. I used a jarred tomatillo salsa and smoked shredded cheese to complement the meat.

The reason that I didn't write this up in my traditional recipe format is that I don't intend this as a strict recipe (which it certainly can be), but more of an example of how I take what I have and wing it from there. I know a lot of people don't feel comfortable cooking without a recipe, and I don't blame you! When I was first teaching myself to cook, before I was working in kitchens and learning from more experienced people, I didn't trust myself to experiment. Even now - when dealing with flavors and cooking styles that I am unfamiliar with - I will stick hard and fast to recipes until I get the feel. Eventually I get to the point where I instinctively know what something will ultimately taste like as I'm composing a dish.

Maybe we don't all have this ability, and I'm taking it for granted. Maybe it's kind of like how anyone can be taught to play the guitar, but not just anyone can be Clapton. I'm certainly no Keller (the food world's Clapton), but I'm just as good as half the hacks on Food Network (eff you Bobby Flay) and I think that anyone with a love for interesting food and some core knowledge can throw together an impressive meal any day.

Here is another example: pasta salad. Like Taco Guts (what we refer to taco filling as), the possibilities are endless. Do you have pasta? Good, you're halfway there. I made the following salad for a pot-luck at E's school. I wanted something a little different but not "weird", and something that the parents could enjoy in the sea of mac and cheese and meatballs that everyone always brings to these events.

Chicken Chipotle Pasta Salad

Dressing:

3 cloves garlic, minced
zest + juice of 1 lime
3/4 c mayo
3/4 c sour cream
1 scant tsp chipotle powder

Blend together, set aside.

2 c corn
1 bunch scallions, sliced
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 whole chicken - roasted, boned and chopped (can you say "rotisserie", boys and girls? I can, especially in summer.)
1 c chopped fresh cilantro
1 # pasta

Cook the pasta according to package directions. Drain, and then immediately rinse in cold water. Drain off as much water as possible.

Toss pasta with remaining ingredients and dressing. Chill for at least one hour to allow the flavors to blend.

"Life is a combination of magic and pasta" - Federico Fellini

So I just got back from a weekend in Boston, and I am home for three days before flying to Toronto for TCAF and I have a bazillion things to do before I go and oh my god aaaaahhh. I didn't really have time to cook yesterday, but I also feel terrible about the amount of take-out and frozen stir-fry that I've been subjecting my kids to. Last night I made a full meal in less than 20 minutes - and you can, too!

If you do not own a crock pot, you are wrong and go get one. Seriously, I bet you even know someone who has one that they never use and will give it to you. They are fools, those people. They know not the amazing tool that they have at their disposal.

Before I left the house, yesterday morning, I rubbed a whole roaster chicken down with olive oil and seasoned salt.* I set my crock pot on high/4 hours. Line the bottom of the crock with crinkled aluminum foil.




Not only does the foil keep the chicken away from it's own drippings (stew is nice but not what you want, here), for some scientific reason that I have not given much thought to it gives it more of a crispy skin than when there's no foil. (Same holds true for roasting potatoes in there.)

Pour about a half cup of water in the bottom of the pot, this will keep the meat nice and moist while it's cooking. Place the chicken on the foil, close the lid.

That's basically it, walk away. Come back in a few hours and your chicken is ready to go.

Along with the chicken I made a quickie pasta saute'.



Wicked Easy Weeknight Pasta

1# large pasta shape

12 oz can of diced tomato, or if you can find them, canned cherry tomatoes
1/2 red onion, diced
minced garlic to taste, I seriously used a whole head
a handful (a cup or so) of fresh basil, roughly chopped

1/4 c white wine
2 T balsamic vinegar
1/2 c olive oil
s/p to taste

Boil pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.

Get a large saute' pan or wok really really hot - high heat for a minute or two until it just starts to smoke. (This is all in the heat and timing. Saute' takes practice, but this is an easy one.) Add olive oil and immediately add onion and garlic. Stir (or wrist flip if you're fancy) until the onion is translucent. You want to keep the onion & garlic moving around as much as possible - if the garlic browns too much it will turn bitter. Add the wine. If your pan is hot enough, the alcohol will burn off almost immediately and the wine will reduce by half. Add the tomatoes, juice and all. Stir. You'll notice after about a minute that the sauce will have thickened, the goal is to reduce the sauce by about 1/3. Add vinegar, stir, then add the pasta. Give it a quick toss to coat the pasta and remove from heat. Toss in the basil at the end, season with salt and pepper.

The whole active saute' process takes less than five minutes once your ingredients are chopped and the pasta is cooked.

This is so basic that you could easily add other things at the end - capers and shrimp might be nice, for example - or kalamata olives and feta cheese!

*You can buy seasoned salt already mixed, but be careful because a lot of brands have MSG and silica and weird additives. I like Jane's Krazy Mixed Up Seasonings, but you can easily mix your own. I have a problem, I impulse-buy different spices and seasoning mixes just about every time I'm in the store. It's ridiculous.

Goat Cheese, Yes Please

Thursday night is often Pasta Night around here, because it's a kind of hectic evening. I do car pool after school and then hustle E off to tap class while C has guitar lessons. So I need to either have something in the crock pot ready to go, or I need to cook something that takes less than 45 minutes start to finish. (That's the window between dropping E off at the studio and having to run back to get her.) I like to mix it up; as good as marinara and meatballs are, we get sick of them pretty quick.

While browsing online for ideas, I found out this: when goat cheese comes in contact with hot pasta it melts into a perfect sauce.

Why the hell did this not occur to me before? OF COURSE it does. Goat cheese is so soft that it will melt at a much lower heat point than cheese made from cow's milk. Just leave some out on the table in the summer and you'll see what I mean. Bonus: goat milk is higher in protein than cow milk and gentler on people who have lactose intolerance.

So I stuck my head into the fridge and came up with this pasta dish. It was a huge hit, and I will definitely make it again.

Rotini With Sausage And Goat Cheese

16 oz whole wheat pasta
10.5 oz package goat cheese
28 oz can of diced tomatoes in juice, drained
1 head's worth or 1 package broccoli florets
1 small red onion, diced
1 T chopped garlic
2 T chopped fresh oregano
1# sausage (I used lamb), casings removed, crumbled
1/4 c reserved cooking water

Cook pasta according to package directions. Right before the pasta is done and ready to drain, dip a measuring cup in and pull out some of the cooking water. (You want the starch and salt in the water to help make the sauce.) Set aside. Toss the broccoli florets right in with the cooking pasta, lower the heat to medium, and cover. Cook for about a minute and drain the whole deal.

While the pasta is cooking, brown the sausage in a large skillet or wok - while breaking it up into smaller with a spoon. When the sausage has browned, add the onions and garlic. Cook until soft, 1-2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, stir, cook another minute or so. Add fresh oregano. Toss the pasta/broccoli with the sausage/tomato. Crumble in the goat cheese, give it a couple tosses with a spoon, add the cooking water, and stir until all of the goat cheese is evenly melted. Salt and pepper to taste.

Note: Depending on the fat content of your sausage, you may want to drain the pan before adding the vegetables. Mine was really lean, so I didn't have to do that.

Tuna Casserole Of The Gods

"I refuse to believe that trading recipes is silly. Tuna Fish casserole is at least as real as corporate stock." - Barbara Grizzuti Harrison


It's cold. It's dark. It's been cold and dark for months. It's winter in New England, my Vitamin D level is low, I'm so pale and the bags under my eyes are so huge that I look like a fat Lindsay Lohan, and all I want to do is lay on the floor and watch crime shows until the sun comes out and it's at least 55 degrees again. I suck at winter.

It comes down to this; I love comfort food. Meatloaf, mac and cheese, beef stew, and mashed potatoes, and that skillet chicken that you make with rice and cream of mushroom soup all have a special place in my heart. So when it's February and it's gross out and I've lost all will to go to the gym anyway so I might as well have a glass of wine and cook something that is mostly carbs I turn to my absolute favorite: Tuna Noodle Casserole.

The kind of tuna casserole that most of us grew up with was made popular by the Campbell's Soup company in the 1940's, as part of their campaign to show that their cream soups made a quick and easy sauce. Do you actually know anyone who eats canned cream soup as soup? Maybe the Cream Of Broccoli but not Cream Of Celery and certainly not Cream Of Mushroom. It gets turned into something else before consumption.

My problem is that canned soup is terrible. It's got a ton of sodium, for one thing, and the leading brand has an ingredient list a mile long. Last time I checked, one of those ingredients was MSG.* It is also in my personal opinion that canned soup tastes like ass. I eat pretty clean, and it's made me hyper-aware of the taste of preservatives and artificial colors and chemical tastes as such. (This is not always to my benefit; such as when we travel and the only place to eat is Outback Steak House or Applebee's or some such strip mall horror and I just want to have dinner and not feel like a giant douche because I can't choke down my salty salty food with my overly sweet margarita.)

On top of this, tuna casserole is not very good for you. Most people make it with egg noodles (bleached flour, fat, cholesterol), the aforementioned canned soup, and Ritz cracker crumbs. Ritz crackers are a big giant fat and salt bomb. Crackers should not leave me wiping grease off my hands like I'm eating bacon. So gross.

I figured out how to make really excellent tuna casserole that has no preservatives, is low-fat, and is just as yum as you remember. It's pretty easy, too! Not as easy as opening a couple of cans and dumping them together but come on guys - you gotta work for the good stuff sometimes.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

1/2 small onion, minced
2 stalks celery, minced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c unbleached flour
2 c low-fat or skim milk
2T butter or margarine
2T olive oil
1/2 c grated parmesan cheese
2 cans tuna packed in water
1/4 tsp dried dill
1/2# (half package) frozen peas
12 oz whole wheat pasta
1/2 c breadcrumbs or crushed crackers

Preheat the oven to 375F. "Grease" a 9x12 casserole dish with pan spray or oil and set aside.

Cook pasta according to package directions. While pasta is cooking, set your colander in the sink and throw the frozen peas in the bottom of the colander. That way when you drain the pasta, the hot cooking water will defrost the peas and they'll be good to go for mixing in the rest of the ingredients.

While waiting for the pasta to cook, saute' the onion, celery, and garlic in the butter and olive oil over medium high heatuntil the vegetables start to soften and turn translucent. Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and stir. This will turn to a paste-like consistency, and you want that. Lower the heat to medium and cook for one minute while stirring. Continue to stir and slowly add the milk in a steady stream. Stir and cook for another minute or two until the sauce sarts to thicken. Add the dill. Remove from heat.

When the pasta/peas are done, mix (in a bowl) with the tuna and sauce. Transfer mixture to the casserole dish, and sprinkle with the breadcrumbs or crushed crackers. Bake for 20 minutes, let stand five minutes before serving.

Wheaty Baked Ziti

This weekend, after a crazy dinner party that left me with four dishwasher loads of dishes and six kinds of cheese in the fridge, I found myself hungrily eyeing my slow cooker and trying to think of what I could make that would involve as little prep and as few dishes as humanly possible. If I could use up some of that cheese, even better. The answer, my friends, was baked ziti.

I will admit that I was skeptical about slow-cooked pasta. The very nature of the noodle is that it's a quick, easy, meal. If you know how to boil water, you're pretty much good to go. I was afraid that the long cooking time would make the noodles mushy and unappetizing, and that they would absorb too much of the sauce. I found that as long as you don't leave it in too long ad you keep an eye on it, it works perfectly. This isn't a recipe for a workday when you'll be gone for eight or nine hours, it's more for when you're home but otherwise occupied.

I highly recommend the use of whole-grain pasta in this dish. Because they are denser than refined noodles, they're less likely to lose integrity during the slow cooking process and you are less likely to end up with a crock full of glop.

Slow Cooker Baked Ziti

1 box of whole grain ziti, or shape of your choice
1 jar of prepared marinara sauce
1 cup water
2-3 cups assorted cheese (I used shredded mozzarella, crumbled goat cheese, and a grated hard cheese - Roth's Private Reserve)

Spray the inside of the crock with pan spray, you'll thank me when it's clean-up time. Layer as such: One third of the sauce, half the pasta, half the cheese, one third of the sauce, the remaining half box of pasta, the rest of the sauce, the cup of water, the rest of the cheese. Cut a piece of aluminum foil about the size of the inside of the crock, spray one side with pan spray, and place it (spray side down) lightly on the ingredients. Like this:





This will keep the moisture down in the lower half of the crock, where it belongs, and the top layer of pasta will cook but not get all crunchy. Cook on high for four hours. Keep an eye on it, if it looks like it's drying out but the noodles aren't cooked through, sprinkle another 1/4 of water over the top.

This was a big hit with the family. I served it with chewy whole grain bread, and mixed greens.

P.S. My current favorite salad dressing is a sprinkling of tamari and a sprinkling of orange muscat champagne vinegar. I find the vinegar at my food boyfriend's place (Trader Joe's). It's zesty, sweet, and a little tart on the finish, and works perfectly against the subtle salt and umami of a nice tamari. Did I mention it's fat free? Because it is.

P.P.S. I started a Twitter account for notices of updates and random blurbs that won't fill a whole blog post. You can follow @mouthfull_blog, and I will attempt to be entertaining.