I had about a half a pound of ground grassfed beef in the freezer. It really wasn’t enough to make burgers, and Roberto has been craving meatballs lately. So I decided to make some pasta with red sauce and mini meatballs.

In my constant quest for pasta that is good for you, and doesn’t make me symptomatic, I came across another option from DeBoles– my favorite pasta company. Most of their pastas are made with a flour other than or in addition to wheat. I have had 100% corn (my favorite), and a Jerusalem artichoke/semolina mix, and now Ancient Grain. Ancient Grain is a mixture of organic spelt, quinoa and amaranth, along with organic whole grain semolina and organic whole grain durum. It packs 32 grams of whole grains per serving, and cooks up just like regular pasta.

Due to my issues with grains, I don’t cook pasta very often. But every once in a while it is nice to have a nice steaming bowl of pasta with red sauce, and for those occasions, I am thankful that I have these ready made pastas available. When I eat it, I try to eat more sauce than pasta, actually!

I wanted to make a nice sauce to go with it. Roberto, being Italian and a lover of pasta, does eat it more often than I do. For those occasions, he goes with a nice local organic jarred sauce. There was about a half a jar left of sauce in the fridge and a ¾ can of tomato paste. So this is a leftover queen recipe for sure! I added to those the mini meatballs, onions, garlic, wine and dried porcini mushrooms from Marx Foods. There is a giveaway of these porcini mushrooms (and morels) going on over at The Foodie Blogroll this month. So if you haven’t commented over there to win, please do! The mushrooms are excellent and added an amazing depth of flavor to my sauce with a mere pinch or two of the small broken bits and powder at the bottom of the bag. The sauce turned out dark and thick, perfect for coating the penne. With a nice crumble of soft goat cheese and a quick grate of Parmiggiano cheese on top, it was a great and extremely flavorful winter meal.

The other wonderful thing about this dish besides the wonderful flavor, is that it is also extremely inexpensive and would serve a family nicely with a side salad. This is a great way to stretch your grassfed beef, if you are worried about cost. This dish serves 4, and was about $1.75 per serving.

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(Sunshine with Toad Hollow Goat Milk Caramel and Mary Joy with none other than Ben & Jerry’s!)

As many of you know, I am part of a fabulous group of ladies, who love food, in Saint Augustine. Every month we hold an all out foodie event, that we call, Ladies Supper Club. Each month, on a rotating basis, one of us hosts and picks the theme or main dish for the month, then each of the women is assigned a dish – welcome cocktail, appetizer, soup or salad, veggie side, non-veggie side, dessert and wine. We let our creative juices flow, and come to the dinner with dishes based on our best interpretation of the theme. We have had some really memorable themes, like Blueberries, Cooking with Julia Child, Tamale Fiesta, etc. I really love spending time with these ladies each month and seeing what creations everyone comes up with. We all lead busy lives, and it is nice to have scheduled time to come together each month, and spend time finding out what has been going on in each others’ lives over the last month. I am really going to miss these ladies when we move to Vermont. Ladies Supper Club was a great way for me to meet some wonderful women in Saint Augustine. Who knows, maybe I will start one, in the Great White North.

In January, it was my turn to host. Last January, I hosted a Moroccan inspired meal, which I was happy to learn was memorable for the ladies. We had a great time feasting on spiced foods, and worked off some of the meal later by blasting the music, and having an impromptu bellydancing dance party!

This month, in honor of our upcoming move to Vermont, I decided to make the theme none other than Vermont. I have an awesome cookbook called Dishing Up Vermont 145 Authentic Recipes from Green Mountain State, by Tracey Medeiros. The book contains 145 authentic recipes from the Green Mountain State. Contributors are various restaurant proprietors, chefs, bed & breakfast owners and farmers who are all inspired by the bounty of food available in this beautiful state. This is a cookbook of local and seasonal foods. Something I am very passionate about. So I decided to choose a recipe from this book for Ladies Supper Club.

(Brie Stuffed Chicken, with a Pear and Cider Sauce – and Apple Pie for dessert!!!)

The dish I choose to prepare was Brie-stuffed Chicken Breasts in Pear and Cider Sauce. This dish is from The Dorset Inn. I was really intrigued by the flavors, and you can never go wrong with Brie, especially in my Supper Club group! I sent my choice for a main dish around to all the girls a few weeks in advance, and looked forward to what everyone would bring to dinner!

(Old Vermont Cocktail)

When the ladies got to my house, they were all carrying bags of food! For our welcome cocktail we had a maple syrup and bitters cocktail, which was reminiscent of curry (weird, but actually quite tasty). To eat along with the cocktails we had a yummy brie dip, the recipe from a Vermont B & B. The soup was a cheddar ale. We had delicious roasted root veggies and fresh baked rolls to accompany the chicken. For dessert, homemade apple pie with Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream (3 flavors) and Toad Hollow Goat’s Milk Caramel ( This is to die for!).

It was another great evening! Thanks ladies!

* Also, don’t forget to SPREAD THE LOVE THIS MONTH, purchase a copy of my e-book – The Secret Energy of Love Through Food! All proceeds during the month of February will go to Haiti Relief!

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In my last post I talked about how you can eat organic and healthy on the cheap. If you missed that post, please check it out for some tips and links to some great recipes – that do not take a lot of effort in the kitchen, but will be much more nutritious, and less expensive for you than fast food or freezer meals!

Here is an awesome recipe for a lentil loaf – made with leftovers and pantry staples. This was a truly great meal, especially for this time of year, when we are yearning for comfort food, that “sticks to your ribs”. The flavors were really good in the loaf – bringing lentils to life with the addition of zing from sun-dried tomatoes and roasted red peppers. Adding a delicious and savory sauce for on top, takes this meal from humble to fantastic! I served it w/ sautéed dinosaur kale with onions, garlic and a sprinkle of fresh meyer lemon juice.

This is a great vegetarian meal for those who don’t normally eat vegetarian – or for your veggie friends! It is also gluten-free. So I hope you enjoy it! Here’s to great health and great food!

For the next few weeks I am going to be focusing on some other real life things and projects. I am still around, and plan to keep posting, but maybe not as regularly as usual.

Lentil Loaf with Sweet Tomato Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups red lentils, sprouted and cooked until tender
(why do I soak/sprout? )
½ small yellow onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 TBS olive oil
salt & pepper
½ tsp nutmeg
1 tsp dried thyme
½ cup, shredded cheddar and parmesan, tightly packed
1 egg, scrambled
¼ cup jarred roasted red peppers, chopped
2 TBS sun dried tomatoes, packed in oil
1 TBS dijon or spicy mustard

For sauce:
½ can tomato paste
splash of red wine
1 TBS maple syrup or sugar
pinch of dried thyme
salt & pepper

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 400 F. In a skillet sauté onion, carrot and garlic in olive oil until tender. In a large bowl mix veggies with lentils and all the other loaf ingredients. Place in a lightly oiled (or buttered) loaf pan. Cook loaf for about 30-40 minutes, until heated through.
While the loaf is cooking, make the sauce. In a small saucepan, stir all ingredients together, and cook over medium heat until cooked through. Serve spooned over top of sliced pieces of the loaf. Serves 4 (large potions).

Brunello di Montalcino is a very special wine variety made in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is known the world over as being a very good wine. Our friends Erin and Chris, who lived for a year in Florence, had a bottle that they wanted to share with us. They had fond memories of a night in Florence that they spent with friends savoring a bottle of this wine, and wanted to spend another evening like that with us! So of course we were game and very excited to taste wine from a very different bracket than what we are used to.

Since they were bringing such a nice bottle, I offered to find some tasty morsels to go along with the wine, so we could have a proper Aperitivo – or the Italian version of Happy Hour! If you would like to learn more about Aperitivo, please check out Ms. Adventures in Italy. Sarah has a great passion for Aperitivo and has great tips on how you can have your own – or where to go for the best ones in her hometown of Milano!

I knew this was a special wine, so I enlisted the help of a professional to come up with food ideas to compliment it. With the help of my buddy, Vince DiPiazza (no known relation – though I am sure there is one somehow, not many of us DiPiazza’s in the world) from D’Italia – an online specialty store of food products from Italy, we came up with a menu of aperitivi, or small plates:

Variety of cheeses of different flavor profiles served with Rosemary Grissini and Garbanzo Crackers

Parmigiano-Reggiano is Italy’s most famous cheese, known as Parmesan in the English language. We know it well as a cheese for grating on top of pasta. However, if you eat it in cubes, it is a whole other experience. The cheese is made from raw cow’s milk, it is then put into a brine bath for 20-25 days to absorb salt, and then aged for 12 months. My favorite part (and Erin’s too) are the little crunchies you get in a good Parmigiano – the crunchies are bits of crystallized salt.

Morbier is a raw cow’s milk cheese from France. It is a Gruyère-like cheese with a vein of ash running through its middle. The two layers of the cheese originally came from two milkings, one in the morning and one in the evening, over it with a protective thin layer of tasteless ash, both to prevent it from both drying out and to keep away the flies. The next day, they would add the leftover curd from the morning milking and production. The result was a two-layered cheese.

Goat Fromage Blanc is from a batch of the pasteurized goat milk cheese that I made recently. I added some basil and a little dried dill – as well as a few sun-dried tomatoes (Vince said they pair well with Brunello) stirred in.

Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar is one of our favorite cheeses, and we decided to add it at the last minute. It never tastes the same from one batch to the next. It is the cheese variety that Cabot used to sell to hunters and truckers…on their way out of town. Chris said it tasted like ham to him, which as a vegetarian, was a weird experience. This cheese is amazing paired with a sweet bread and butter style pickle.

Miscellaneous Treats

Sautéed Mushrooms
Hummus
Assorted Nuts
Assorted Olives
Pickles

Dessert

French Truffles
Chocolate covered mint cremes

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The Tasting :

When Erin and Chris arrived we opened the bottle to give it about 20 minutes to breathe. We decided to do the tasting in two stages, the first without food, and then one with food. We each had a piece of paper and a pen. We spent about 5-10 minutes sniffing and tasting the wine, and individually writing our impressions of both the nose and the taste without sharing.

NOSE:

Erin: cheese – brie, sweet chocolate, metal
Chris: robust, dank – wet wood or earth, finishes smoky
Roberto: cherries
Jenn: woody, tannins, blackberry/cherry

TASTE:

Erin: milk chocolate, cheddar, old smoke – like what your clothes smell like after a BBQ or fire
Chris: pungent, truffles, finishes with citrus (mild burn, fruity end) and something like ginger, but not quite ginger
Roberto: old fermenting cherries, blueberry and ends with citrus
Jenn: black pepper, herbal/smoky, cherry

After we shared our observations, we found it interesting that both the guys had noticed a citrus end, while the ladies had both noticed a smoky taste. Is it coincidence, or do males and females taste wine differently?

Once we headed over to the food, and had a second glass with food, we all agreed that the wine tasted much sweeter, and it was at that point that Erin and I noticed a bit of a citrus taste.

It was a really fun night. I can’t say that I have ever really enjoyed wine in this way, and I think it is a really great way to spend the evening with friends. We decided we had so much fun, that we definitely need to do it again, with different wines and food pairings.

Well I have been up to a little kitchen experimentation, lately. First I wanted to tackle another batch of Fromage Blanc made with goat milk. The last time I made it , after draining it for 12 hours, I gave the cheese cloth a bit of a heavy handed squeeze which resulted in a dry and crumbly sort of cheese. I liked it. It was good for stirring in eggs and other dishes. However this time I was hoping to yield a softer more spreadable cheese. Basically I followed the same procedure as last time , except that I used pasteurized goat milk, instead of raw, let the cheese drain for about 15 hours (instead of 12) and did not squeeze the bag. It came out perfectly! Wonderful and creamy and perfect to spread on crackers…except there were no crackers!

That was an easy fix. I have been wanting to play with some of the recipes from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients. Jeff and Zoe, along with Monica from their publishing company, St. Martin’s Press, are generously hosting 2 months of giveaways of this book on Foodieblogroll.com! I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the book from Monica and really wanted to get baking. I was particularly interested in the gluten-free breads. So I was delighted to find a gluten free version of the Olive Oil bread, I use so often from their first book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. The gluten free recipe called for soy flour, and I have a soy sensitivity and I didn’t have rice flour on hand either. So I decided to make a modified version, using what I had available – since I really wanted to enjoy some cheese & crackers.

These crackers are not gluten free, but what I call transitional crackers. Although you could make them gluten free by using rice flour in place of the WW flour. I used kefir and raw apple cider vinegar to soak local whole wheat Vermont flour – from a farm we visited in Vermont this fall and then used garbanzo bean flour to cut down on some of the grains in this cracker. The garbanzo bean flour had a very strong smell and so I really wasn’t sure how it would turn out if I used exclusively garbanzo flour. I used over half of the dough to make crackers, and then used the other part to make a small loaf of bread. The bread was not great, but the crackers were wonderful! The bean flavor in the flour really complimented the nice crispy crackers. Here is my recipe inspired by both Gluten- Free Olive Oil Bread and Gluten-Free Cheddar and Sesame Crackers from Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.

Seedy Garbanzo Crackers (NOT Gluten-free)

INGREDIENTS:

1 ½ TBS yeast

1 TBS sea salt

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tsp raw apple cider vinegar

2 large organic eggs

½ cup of homemade kefir

2 cups filtered water

3 cups whole wheat flour

3 cups garbanzo bean flour

½ cup corn starch

Cracker toppings: seeds: white or black sesame, fennel, flax, etc, salt, za’atar spice or any other spices or dried herbs you like.

METHOD:

1) Whisk together flours, cornstarch, yeast and salt, and put in a large lidded bowl.

2) Combine all the liquid ingredients and gradually mix with the dry ingredients using a spoon, or 14 cup food processor.

3) Cover (not airtight) and allow the dough to rest at room temperature for at least2 hours, but better for those with grain intolerance, to let it rest for 12 hours and up to 24 hours.

4) The dough can be used immediately after its initial rise or you can refrigerate in the lidded container and use it over the next 7 days. The flavor will be better if you wait for at least 24 hours of refrigeration.

On Baking Day:

1) Thirty minutes before baking time preheat the oven to 400 F.

2) Cut off an orange sized piece of dough, place dough on a piece of parchment paper or a silicone mat. Then cover with more parchment paper or plastic wrap. Use a rolling pin and roll until you have a 1/16^th inch rectangle. Peel off the top layer or wrap or paper, and place the dough on top of the paper or mat onto baking sheet.

3) Using a pizza cutter gently score the dough into the shape you want the crackers (be careful not to cut the silicone mat, if that is what you are using).

4) Just before baking, using a pastry brush, paint the dough with water and sprinkle the top with black and toasted sesame seeds, salt and za’atar spice.

5) Bake for 15 minutes, or until crackers are golden brown. Allow them to cool before eating.

6) Serve with fromage blanc!

I don’t always have a plan for dinner. It is about 50/50. But for me, that is OK – because how can I call myself The Leftover Queen if I’m not quick on the draw in the kitchen?! For me, some of my most creative, exciting and delicious adventures in the kitchen are the result of not having a plan. In these cases, sometime in the afternoon, or when dinner time rolls around, I look around in the veggie bowl, the fridge and the pantry, and let all the items therein swirl around in my mind until the perfect pairing of flavors – or an interesting combination comes to the forefront. Then I roll with it. These meals are the ones I tend to get the most compliments on from the spousal unit.

Such a night happened this week. I had an acorn squash, 2 links of chicken sausage (leftover from the corn pasta ) and some leftover buckwheat and quinoa from my daily Breakfast of Champions .

A plan started to form. Stuffed acorn squash sounded perfect. All I needed to do was scrounge around in the veggie bin and fridge to see what I could add to give it something – a spark, VT cheddar, red bell pepper, red onion and homemade yogurt filled the space. I threw the squash halves in a roasting pan while I did my daily exercise and after, I stuffed the squash with my stuffing, threw it in the oven and took a shower, while it was cooking. Having healthy, whole and nourishing food doesn’t require slaving in the kitchen and can easily be accommodated into a busy schedule!

This dish was super easy, very filling and so satisfying in the flavor department. Plus it was really good for us. I can’t ask for more than that. Having a pantry and fridge full of staple items that you love, make dinner making easy, even in a pinch, if you allow yourself just to have fun, and be creative.

Acorn Squash w/ Gluten Free Sausage Stuffing

INGREDIENTS:

1 medium acorn squash
2 links of chicken sausage
¼ cup red bell pepper, chopped
¼ cup red onion, chopped
1 clove garlic
¼ cup pre-soaked red quinoa
¼ cup pre-soaked buckwheat
(why do I soak? Check it out here )
handful of sharp VT cheddar cheese cubes (or any cheese you have on hand – but something sharp!)
¼ cup of homemade plain yogurt
salt and pepper to taste

METHOD:

Roast ( @350 F) acorn squash halves (cut side down) in a small roasting pan, with a splash of water.
While the squash is roasting – make the stuffing. Remove casings from sausage and brown in a skillet with olive oil, red pepper, red onion and garlic. Once sausage is browned on the outside, and veggies are getting soft, place in a bowl. Add the quinoa, buckwheat and yogurt. Once the squash is finished scoop out most of the flesh – making sure to keep the structure of the squash intact. Raise oven temp to 400 F. Mix flesh with the other stuffing ingredients and fold in the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Stuff the squash halves with the mixture and cook at 400 F for about 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven, and serve immediately.

As part of my 2010 food related goals, I have almost completed 2 weeks of not eating any wheat. I keep going back and forth with the gluten free thing – and I am still not sure that I have all the answers. So there are going to be some fun experiments coming up! However, as part of my two week abstinence experiment, and my on-going efforts to find a pasta that doesn’t make me fall asleep within an hour, while still satisfying my Italian’s need for pasta, I re-discovered corn pasta. I have made, and enjoyed corn pasta in the past but guess I grew tired of the spaghetti shape. Happily on a recent trip to the health food store, I found corn pasta in an elbow shape from De Boles, a pasta company that I already really like for their use of Jerusalem Artichoke flour in their pasta. So I bought a box to try.

The thing I like about corn pasta is that it looks the same as regular pasta, and cooks the same as well – and I have never gotten a soggy, clumpy result, like I often do with rice pasta. Plus, I think that rice has the same affect on me as wheat. Don’t ask me why…Anyway, corn pasta tastes really good – and works well with any of your favorite pasta dishes.

For this dish, I sautéed 3 links of chicken sausage, added 2 cups of homemade tomato sauce from the freezer, about a cup of frozen peas and 2 cups of leftover roasted cauliflower. I added a dash of red wine, about a cup of homemade yogurt, and some herbs – like oregano and basil, as well as salt and pepper. Then I tossed the pasta in the sauce, and served with a generous helping of freshly grated parmesan cheese. This dish was so good! It made enough for 6 servings. The first night we each had one serving. The next night, we each had two! I justified it as part of the experiment. If I could eat corn pasta two nights in a row, and even double up the second night, and not feel sleepy – then corn would be IN! So for now it is in. Personally I would like to find an alternative, as I am not thrilled with all the modifications that have been done to corn, or how the subsidization of corn has led to a lot of food policy issues in the US. But for now, I am happy to have found pasta that I can enjoy! And my husband is happy too!

Next on my list to try is a handmade soaked pasta that I found via MAHM during a recent Twitter #realfood chat,  and also see if I can find any pasta made from buckwheat – my ultimate, super grain!

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Also, my blogging buddy Pam from A Love for NEW Recipes! gave me a Happy Blog Award, and asked me to name 10 things that make me happy. Thanks for the award Pam! These are in no particular order:

1. My husband, Roberto

2. My animals: Nimue, Pepino and Cipollina

3. Coffee

4. Archery

5. Working out and sweating!!!

6. Vermont

7. Milkshakes  – although I rarely have them

8. Good friends and family

9. Music – especially fiddles

10. Growing things and taking care of my loved ones with good food

Happy Yuletide!

Today marks the day of the Winter Solstice, which means we are in the full swing of the winter holiday season! So if you are like me, you have been attending lots of holiday parties and gatherings. Some of you, like me, may also have some dietary restrictions that keep you from enjoying food at many parties. Or perhaps some of you are trying to watch what you eat during the holiday season or maybe you are tired of going to the grocery store everyday for more food! My advice for you, is when you are asked to bring a dish to a party – keep that in mind. Make sure that you make something you can enjoy from what you have on hand and if you are still worried you will be hungry at the party, have a little snack before you go!

For me, grains are my biggest battle. I can tolerate them if I soak them, but even at that, I try not to overdo it. Sometimes, I may risk the consequences and just go for it, but other times, I try to do the best I can to avoid those foods and with all the parties I have been attending as of late, I have already been overdoing it. Our friends Chris and Erin, who host a weekly community dinner, had a Christmas dress up party theme for last week. Of course, because of my love for reindeer, Roberto and I went sporting antlers and painted noses. I also brought along a nice layered dip – that was both grain free and veggie friendly – since there are a lot of vegetarians at these community dinners and made from stuff I had in the pantry and fridge.

My fridge is a disaster right now and I really didn’t want to go out and buy a huge list of ingredients for this dish. So I looked in the fridge and pantry. I had some canned beans (I am trying to get rid of those – kept on hand for this year’s Hurricane Season) and some salsa and guacamole from Wholly Guac which I received from a PR firm that is sponsoring a giveaway this month on Foodieblogroll.com (you still have until Friday for your chance to win an awesome prize package!!! ). So I ran out to the store just to get some shredded cheese and FAGE Greek yogurt (in place of sour cream), and tortilla chips and I was all set!

The dip was a huge hit and I thought it looked rather festive with all the reds and greens! I am wishing all my readers and fellow bloggers a safe, happy and healthy holiday season. Whatever holiday you celebrate – or even if you don’t celebrate, I hope you have a great week leading up to the New Year! I may not be blogging much between now and the new year. So have a happy, happy, jolly, jolly season!

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