Main dish minestrone

When I was a little girl, my dad made three things really, really well: pancakes, spaghetti sauce, and main dish minestrone.  The original recipe for the minestrone I think came out of a Canadian Living magazine, and was a staple in our house... until it was misplaced. No more minestrone.

A couple of years ago, I asked my dad about that recipe and he said he could barely remember it. I guess it only really imprinted on me, but I have craved it on and off for YEARS.  Every so often, I would do a quick google search and come up with nothing.  That is, until recently.  My googling finally paid off and I found what I think is the Exact. Same. Recipe. on Food.com, submitted by a reader.

I'm telling you, I did a little dance right there, and made it that night.  It tasted every bit as good as I remember!

There are many, many wonderful things for the boonies cook in this recipe: you can change the veggies you use, you can change the beans you use, you can take out the beans, you can add barley or lentils... you get the point.  It's one of those recipes that everyone needs when they haven't been shopping in a week and there's a snowstorm outside. 

So thank you bert for posting this longed-for recipe!  I owe you one!

Recipe Notes:

The original recipe calls for Italian sausage, but dad always used regular old pork breakfast sausages.  They don't slice very well, so I cook them first, then fish them out and slice them up.  You can replace the beans with any other beans, or leave them out entirely.  You can replace the pasta with barley, or add barley along with the pasta (mmm, carbs).  On the second day, the pasta and barley will soak up more liquid and it will be like a thick stew... still delicious!

Main Dish Minestrone

(Originally from Canadian Living (maybe?), posted on Food.com by bert)

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 lb sausage, sliced or crumbled
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 1/2 cup chopped carrot
• 1/2 cup chopped green pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 pinch dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• salt & pepper
• 2 cups chopped tomatoes (or 19 oz can)
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups shredded cabbage
• 1 cup cooked or canned kidney bean
• 1/2 cup elbow macaroni (or other pasta)

Heat the butter and oil over medium heat and saute the sausages until brown and firm.  Retrieve from the pan and slice them into 1" sections, then return them to the pan. Add the onion, garlic and veggies and saute until soft. Stir in the herbs and spices.

Stir in the tomatoes and stock.  If you're using canned tomatoes, pour the liquid in too and decrease the stock to 3 1/2 cups. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.

Add the cabbage, bean and macaroni (or substitutes) and simmer for 30 minutes. You can add more broth at this point if it's too thick for your liking - it will thicken even more as it cools. 

Serve with some crusty bread!

it's fish season!

Here in northern British Columbia, August is smack in the middle of salmon season, and let me tell you - I'm going to take advantage!  This recipe uses jarred fish (which tastes about a million times better than canned fish, but if you don't jar your own fish you'll have to make do with the canned stuff), as well as yogurt, a lemon, and a few fresh herbs.  It's summer, so hopefully even the boonies cook can grow a couple of herbs in a pot at this time of year! 

The bonus for this recipe is that it literally takes 8 minutes to make.  In the time that it takes to boil pasta, you can be feeding your entire family.  Because who wants to spend hours in the kitchen when it's so nice out??  not me.

I don't want to say I invented this recipe, but I saw a recipe in a magazine at the doctor's office, then tried to reproduce it at home.  I have no idea if it's the same...

Pasta with Salmon, Yogurt, and Dill

Ingredients

• 4 servings pasta (spaghetti works well)
• 1 c. frozen peas
• 1-2 jars (or cans) of salmon (preferably sockeye), drained
• 1 c. plain yogurt (not Greek)
• 1 tbsp grated lemon rind
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 c. fresh dill, chopped
• 1/4 c. fresh parsley, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Boil water and add pasta.  During the last 3 minutes of the pasta cooking, add the frozen peas.

While the water is boiling, mix the yogurt, lemon rind, garlic and herbs together in a bowl.

Drain the pasta and peas.  Add the yogurt mixture and the salmon and mix.

Serve and OMNOMNOM.

Pasta with Tuna and Broccoli

It would appear that posting about my former carb-obsession may have opened the floodgates to more pasta recipes.  Certainly, they've been a go-to thing over the past couple of weeks.  I mean, who has time to cook when there's playoff hockey to be watched? 

So in that vein, I'll present you with another easy and fast pasta recipe that puts most of your favorite food groups in a single bowl. My dad found this recipe several years ago - possibly in Canadian Living Magazine.  You may think it to be a weird combination of flavours, but it works - it really does. And for the boonies cook, it's pretty achievable.  The broccoli can be fresh or frozen, and everything else is canned or dried.

Start by breaking apart a head or two of broccoli and putting the florets in a steamer. Put the water on to boil for the pasta, and put the broccoli on to steam (about 5 minutes once it starts to boil - you want it to retain a bit of crispness).

Mince 3 cloves of garlic and saute them in 2 tbsp. olive oil in a large frying pan until fragrant but not brown. 

Add 2 cans of flaked tuna (drained) to the garlic and stir around. Then add 1 tbsp dried basil (or about 1/4 c. chopped fresh if you have it), and a few shakes of crushed red chili pepper (to taste).

Put about 3/4 c of raisins in a coffee mug.  At this point, your broccoli should be done, so drain the broccoli water directly into the coffee mug to blanch the raisins.  Then add the drained broccoli to the tuna mix and stir. After about a minute, drain the raisins and add those to the broccoli and tuna. 

Toss with the cooked pasta of your choice (I like rotini - it holds on to the tuna better than other pastas), and serve garnished with parmesan cheese. 


Tuna and Broccoli Pasta

2-3 servings of pasta (rotini works well)
1-2 heads broccoli, split into florets
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cans flaked tuna, drained
1 tbsp dried basil
crushed red chili pepper (to taste)
3/4 c. raisins
parmesan cheese

Pasta and Stuff

Once upon a time, I was a carb-monster. I was 100% invested in the pasta-for-energy camp and probably ate it 4 days a week. I still get a little drooly when I see a ginormous plate of creamy pasta and sauce.  However, we all know now that too many carbs can be bad too, and that carb energy?  short lived and liable to make you bonk afterwards.  So the pasta-monster has had to be tamed a little in favour of lean protein and lots of veggies.

Despite all of this, there are some nights when the only thing that will satisfy is a big bowl of tortellini, and I have a million and one recipes for things to add to it.  Today's recipe is based on one from the Our Best Bites Cookbook. This cookbook is probably the most-used recipe book in my kitchen.  I discovered their blog a couple of years ago, and couldn't resist the book when it came out. Anyway, back to the recipe.  I have a tendency, when I'm feeling too lazy to hit the grocery store, to grab everything I can find in the cupboard and fridge, then search for recipes that might suit what I've got.  The other night, it was canned tomatoes, canned artichokes and ground turkey. The recipe I used as a base was the Tomato Artichoke Tortellini from the book. It's supposed to be vegetarian, but I couldn't let a good package of ground turkey go back in the freezer.

Put some water on to boil for your pasta - I like tortellini for this, but you could use anything.

Start by browning the meat in a large pan. When it's lost all its pink, add 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, minced and stir until it smells all garlicky and delicious.

Add in a can of marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped (my artichokes were not marinated, just canned in brine, so I added some oregano and basil and salt and pepper too). Also, add in a can of diced tomatoes, and a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste. Stir the whole lot until it's heated through, and add salt and pepper to taste.

Mix the sauce together with the pasta, and grate some parmesan cheese over the top. Serve!

I love a good one pot meal, and this kind of pasta really does the trick when you need a fast, hearty meal.  Notice that almost everything was canned, and hence, very accessible to the boonies cook! 


Meaty Tomato-Artichoke Pasta
(based on recipe from Our Best Bites)

1 lb ground meat (turkey or other)
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 can marinated artichoke hearts, chopped
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes
3 tablespoons tomato paste
salt and pepper (and oregano and basil if your artichokes aren't marinated) to taste
Parmesan cheese
1 package frozen tortellini