Kat of All Trades

I tend to have very specific food cravings. I’m sure they correlate to nutrients that my body needs; however, what comes through to my brain is “Tomato soup, NOW!” or “Cheeeeeeeeeeeeese.” Lately, my cravings have been of a more healthy variety, including quinoa (No really, who craves quinoa?), tofu, greens, and cannellini beans. When my body asks for certain foods, I try to eat those things, so I’ve been coming up with different ways to use them than my usual stand-by recipes.

In some ways, this is a “what do I have around that needs to be used?” recipe. You can use any sort of greens you want, though I think the smokiness of the tea works really well with collards. You could roast tomatoes instead of bell peppers for the sweetness. And of course, you could use basil instead of arugula in the pesto, as is traditional.

Pesto Pasta with Sweet and Smoky Vegetables

For roasted bell peppers:
2 red or orange bell peppers
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

For pasta and collards:
16 oz pasta (1 bag or box)
1 bunch collard greens
1 tea bag lapsang souchong
1 tbsp butter
1 15-oz can cannellini beans (or equivalent of dried beans, soaked and cooked)
Pesto (recipe below)
Salt and pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. While oven is heating, place pine nuts from pesto recipe (below) on a small tray in the oven to toast. Slice bell peppers in half lengthwise and remove seeds. Mix together olive oil, salt, and pepper. Put pepper halves on a baking sheet, skin side up, and brush olive oil mixture over peppers.

Remove pine nuts from oven when they begin to brown after five to ten minutes, and prepare pesto. When oven reaches 450 degrees Fahrenheit, put peppers in the oven on the top rack. Roast for 20-25 minutes, or until skin begins to bubble and darken.

While oven is pre-heating, roughly chop collards and rinse beans. Put water on to boil when the peppers go into the oven. Cook pasta according to directions on the box or bag.

While pasta is cooking, add about a cup of water and the butter to a medium pot. When water approaches boiling, put the lapsang souchong tea bag into the pot. Allow the tea bag to simmer for a few minutes, and then add the collard greens. Once the greens have wilted, drain the tea water, add the beans to the pot, and heat for a minute or two. Sprinkle on salt and pepper to taste.

Drain the pasta, mix the pasta and the pesto, and slice the bell peppers. You can either mix all vegetables into the large pasta pot to serve, or portion out pesto pasta and then top with peppers, greens, and beans.

Arugula Pesto (adapted from How it all Vegan!)

2 cups fresh arugula
1 cup fresh parsley
2 tbsp grated parmesan, romano, or asiago cheese
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
3 tbsp miso
1/4 – 1/3 cup olive oil

Blend all ingredients in a food processor* until you reach desired consistency.

*I have a little 3-cup kind, and if I add the arugula and parsley in two portions, it’s plenty big enough.

I didn’t eat meat during what I consider my formative cooking years (ages 20-25ish), so cooking meat has always been a little intimidating to me. Heather was kind enough to share her recipe when I roasted my first chicken back in February, and as it turns out, the prep and roasting are much easier than I’d thought!

Since that first bird, I’ve been really excited to try out different recipes and play around with it. It’s less expensive to buy a whole chicken than to buy four boneless skinless breasts (dinner and a lunch or two for my Ian – my partner – and me), and buying a whole chicken also gives us the bonus of being able to save the bones and other bits for chicken stock, which we can discuss in another post. It’s an all-around win in my book!

Last night, I was going to go back to H’s basic recipe when I realized that I had a lot of grapefruits to use, but no lemons to stuff inside the bird. Change of plans! I pulled out my trusty copy of The Flavor Bible and looked up grapefruit to see what seasonings would work well. Tarragon? We’ve got some. Miso? Dear lord, we have a gigantic container full.

Ian says this is his favorite of the roasted chickens I’ve made thusfar. It’s a little salty from the miso – I think next time I might mix it with a little butter or oil to cut the saltiness – and pretty flavorful and tender.

I served the chicken with this cauliflower gratin recipe to use up a few other ingredients that were languishing in our fridge.  It’s delicious and just the right amount of cheesy, so you can feel kind of healthy while eating a gratin.

Grapefruit-Miso Chicken

1 chicken (I usually get a 3 lb bird for the two of us)
2-3 medium onions
1 grapefruit
3 tbsp miso
1 tbsp dried tarragon

Preheat oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit. Peel and slice onions into 1/4-inch slices, and lay the slices at the bottom of a large baking pan (I use my 11×17 rectangular cake pan). Peel grapefruit, removing both rind and white pith, and divide into sections. Mix miso and dried tarragon together in a small bowl.

Rinse chicken with cold water, and pat dry with paper towels. Use the handle of a wooden spoon to separate the skin from the meat as best you can.* I try to separate it on the thighs and back as well as the breasts. You want to separate the skin enough to get your hands under it.

Using your hands, spread the miso-tarragon mixture under the skin. It’s gloppy and messy, but do your best to coat the chicken evenly everywhere you lifted the skin. Use the remaining miso mixture to lightly coat the bird on top of the skin, as well as inside the cavity.

Once your bird is thoroughly miso-ed, take the grapefruit slices and stuff them all in the cavity, minus one or two. I never keep twine around to tie the drumsticks, so what I do is cut a little slice in the skin near each of them, and then you can tuck the end of the drumstick through that to hold them in place.

Put the chicken on top of the onions. Squeeze the juice from the remaining two grapefruit slices over it, and then stuff them in the cavity with the others.

Bake for about an hour and twenty minutes, or until a meat thermometer reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit in the thighs (Make sure you aren’t hitting a bone).  The skin on mine got quite dark, so don’t be surprised if that happens – though if it does happen, I’d recommend not eating the skin!

Allow the chicken to rest for about ten minutes before carving and serving.

*This is Heather’s amazing tip. I wish I could take credit!