Oven roasted delicata squash and mushrooms, with kale dressed in tahini sauce
“Left over special” continues-
I think that I have expressed numerous times in one way or another that this Halloween weekend was unusually pleasant, but I left out the highlight. Sunday morning after the Samhain festivities, I woke up to the smell of garlic and thyme roasting in olive oil. It was already lunch time, and my guilt-tripping-Matt-into-cooking-for-me-after-the-master-cleanser had finally paid off.
He had oven roasted delicata squash and mushrooms, with loads of garlic and fresh thyme. He even toasted pumpkin seeds to sprinkle! With just the right amount of salt and pepper, it could have been the best thing he’s ever made for me. And the kale with tahini sauce was great too. Obviously, I was very pleased.
By the following evening, we only had just enough of the squash left for one person, and in the bottom of the baking dish was a little too much garlic and thyme infused oil to just wash away. In an attempt to make this last as long as possible, I turned it into a pasta dish. It was fantastic. I do succeed at times, thanks to other people’s hard work.
Oven baked autumn squash pasta with pumpkin sauce
1/2 or more of cubed delicata squash, and mushrooms, baked in garlic, fresh thyme, and olive oil until the squash is softened
a package of fusilli (this texture rules for holding on the thick sauce) or other kinds of pasta
2 or more cloves of garlic
2 scallions, chopped
1/4 or more of a red onion, chopped
1/2 cup of soymilk
1/3 cup of pumpkin purée (save the rest for pancakes!)
1/2 cup of bread crumbs
a handful of sun dried tomatoes, chopped
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
Under cook the pasta, until it’s softened but not quite al dente.
Make the sauce by combining the pumpkin purée, soymilk, garlic and onions, and salt and pepper.
Mix the well-drained pasta, pumpkin sauce, and the sun dried tomatoes in a well-oiled baking dish.
Sprinkle the top with bread crumbs, and bake for 20 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.
Serves 4-6
Still awesome after 1 1/2 days!
I made a heaping portion of pasta for a last minute dinner party of 3, using all the vegetables I could find in the fridge. Major players were obscene amount of garlic cloves, olive oil, sundried tomato, lots of black pepper, toasted pine nuts, and basil from the garden.
After 20 minutes of prepping, cooking, and cleaning, I covered the pan with aluminum foil and walked over to the location.
Appetizer: arugula salad with tofu with lots of ground black pepper
Main: pasta, potato salad with dill, and zucchini tian with tomato sauce
Dessert; vanilla coconut milk ice cream with Anarchy in a Jar raspberry topping and cookie crumbs.
+ wine, smokes, kitties, and chats through out the meal with favorite people= life not so tragic.
Next morning I mixed the pasta and the zucchini tian for the lunch box.
One of the many things in my abstracted to do list is to read up on different kinds of pastas. I tend to choose my pasta based on visualization of the result. Half of a buttercup squash in my fridge was what inspired this one. I had been planning on making a pasta dish with this little squash all morning, and normally, I would go with lumache pasta. I’m not sure why exactly but it just always seemed appropriate. But when I found out that they were flat out of it at the store, I decided to go with gobetti. I’ve always pictured gobetti with meaty, tomato based sauce, but with its chunky curls and strips, I thought it might be interesting.
Pasta with winter squash is something I started making during our harvest CSA season when we were getting heaps of different kinds of squashes. Sweet winter squashes can be roasted or boiled and puréed, peeled, chopped and stir fried, or just roasted in halves and scraped. I wanted the roasted flavor, but didn’t want to wait all day for it to cook. So I scraped the seeds out with a spoon, cut in thin slices, arranged the slices evenly on a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle some salt, and just put it the oven.
While the squash is roasting,
- Start cooking the pasta until al dente.
- While the pasta is cooking, sweat some pressed/chopped cloves of garlic in a pan with some olive oil and salt.
- Add to the pan, capers, shiitake mushrooms, chopped leeks and rosemary, and let it cook. I pour just a bit of dry white wine if I’m drinking some.
- Take out the squash, peel, chop, and add to the pan.
- Add the drained (cooled if needed) pasta to the pan, mix it all in, and add salt to taste. (I like to add some kind of chopped green, like kale or collard greens at this point, and cook it until it’s slightly softened.)
- Mix in a dash of paprika and fresh ground pepper. Top it with some rosemary and toasted walnuts.
This dish never fails me, even with a slight variation. The chewy texture of gobetti, capers, and nuts with the softness of the squash was really great. Sweet and savory starchy dishes like this one is exactly the reason why I have to make things in small portions. But then again, this is so simple to prepare that I could always have more with just a little effort. Well. There’s one upside of being lazy.
Miso Ramen
Ramyun is god’s gift to all Korean people. Or I should say, it is Japan’s gift to Koreans. I’d even take it as a consolation offering for the genocide of 1923 and 35 years of forced occupation. This ramyun is not to be confused with the Japanese ramen made with fresh noodles and pork broth, which is also delicious but not vegan friendly. I’m talking about instant noodles here!
There isn’t a comparable cultural or culinary equivalent to ramyun in the west that I can think of immediately. Once a part of an emergency provision package, it signifies a certain lifestyle roughly associated with single adulthood, and teenage life. It’s also often considered as a cure for hangover by many (with no real proof). But most of all, it’s loved for its value as the ultimate fast, comforting food that provides spicy warm broth within minutes. It’s also an inspiration for some of the best moments in Korean pop culture such as this:
This song is called ‘Ramyun and the Coal Briquette’.
The most popular brand of Korean instant noodle is without a doubt, ShinRaMyun. The noodle is fried, and it’s a little thicker than other brands, with fiery spicy broth. I like to try different kinds, and I’ve had this somewhat new brand of instant noodles for a while. It’s called An-twi-ghin-myun (non-fried noodles). The consistency of the noodle is a little more chewy, and the broth package doesn’t contains MSG. Because I don’t eat meat, it’s important for me to make an effort to increase the content of protein in every meal. Something that I always have in the fridge is tofu, and Korean miso (called dwen-jang). So this is something I make very often. And now I present to you, the ingredients for Miso Ramyun.
This is basically dwenjang chigae (Korean miso stew) with ramyen in it. In the bottom corner of the picture above is the pot/bowl that I will use. I’m soaking some dried shiitake mushrooms. I usually buy my mushrooms at the Union Square Green Market, but I haven’t had a chance to stop by this week. I bought this pack of dried mushrooms at Hanahreum in K-town, and it’s so cheap, convenient and still flavorful. I still prefer fresh mushrooms, but it’s great for days like this.
To get started, I dissolve a spoonful of miso in the mushroom water and whisk it, and bring it to boil
Since I’m only cooking for myself, I break the noodle in half. All the mushrooms and tofu really increase the serving size. Below is the 2 ‘soup’ packets that come with the noodle. One contains dehydrated vegetables which I put in the pot, and the other one is what makes the peppery broth. Since there’s already miso in the broth, I only put in about 1/3 of the content of this packet. The rest I save for later. Perhaps I’ll use it for dukbokki. At this time, the noodle also goes in the broth.
Let the noodles cook for another 3-5 minutes, and then add some fresh chopped scallions.
Of course, it can never be a proper meal of instant noodles without some kimchi. I also like to add a tablespoon of kimchi water to the soup.
If there is an anti-thesis of slow food, this is it. It’s meant to be eaten fast, while the noodle is firm and the broth is steaming hot.
moi. je fais la cuisine pour moi.
I’m a freelancer who often works alone, and from home. Here’s a very typical dish I make for myself, which was made today for lunch. This represents every aspect of my cooking method— lazy (only 1 pot used), vegetarian, full of stuff I like, and mostly, fast. The whole thing takes 15 minutes at max.
1. I boil a fistfull of fusilli. While it’s cooking, I dice this nice looking shallot, along with some other veggies. Today, it’s garlic, mushrooms- porcini and crimini, and some collard greens.
2. When the pasta is not quite al dente, I pour the pot’s contents into a bowl, leaving just enough water to cover all the pasta and let it cook in the hot water. In the same pot, I sautee the garlic + shallot for about a minute in olive oil, and then the rest of the veggies, and then the pasta. This way, I have less dishwashing to do!
3. Season with s&p, and some olives, and that’s it!
And yes, sometimes, like today, I eat in front of the computer.
Enjoy!
