Cauliflower as a side dish

Forgive the picture. It's winter and the sun sets before I serve dinner. I must shoot my pictures under the glaring light of the kitchen pot lights. Ugh.

Now, that I've got that out of the way. Check out the pan-roasted cauliflower with garlic, parsley and rosemary posting in the cooking section of the New York Times. I served this to company and the woman, a fine cook in her own right, wanted the recipe.

I add some large, cherry tomatoes and some sliced almonds to my version. It was yummy. And the squeeze of lemon added at the table proved very important. So, don't forget the lemon slices.

I made a fast dinner using leftovers on Hallowe'en.

The kids start ringing our doorbell early on Hallowe'en. This makes it the perfect evening for a quick, clean-out-the-fridge dinner. I made pan fried sole fillets topped with pan roasted sliced almonds and grilled minced garlic with large chunks of sundried tomato. Off to the side, I served oven roasted red peppers and cherry tomatoes plus pan-grilled romaine. All came on a bed of long, grain rice.

I roasted the tomatoes and pepper slices in the oven at 400-degrees for about forty-five minutes. The next time I will cut the time back to half and hour. Luckily, Judy loves the pepper slices slightly crispy and caramelized. Overdone or not, she loved 'em. (You gotta know your audience.)

The romaine was half a head, a leftover from last night's dinner. I chopped it in half and quickly grilled it in a little olive oil with minced garlic. It took less than five minutes and was flipped once.

The almond slices were toasted in a small frying pan. It took but a few minutes and then I left them to be sprinkled later on the sole. To add a little extra punch to the pan fried sole, I gently fried some minced garlic and sundried tomatoes in a little olive oil for about a minute. The mix was drizzled on the sole before serving.

The sole was fried in a little hot olive oil for five minutes - two and a half minutes per side. It had a nice browned look. I like that. But, it wasn't overcooked. I salt and peppered it in the pan while it cooked.

And the long, grain rice was put on the burner about twenty-five minutes before I planned on serving it. It was done in about twenty minutes. Rice can be cooked and then left as it stays warm in the pot with the lid in place. Just remember to turn off the burner.

Being retired and living on a fixed income means I must cook often I must not toss leftovers. Seniors, like me, must watch their money. I'm rather proud of this dinner made from ingredients hanging about in our fridge. It was tasty and cheap. . . . Oh, gotta run. Some ghost or goblin is at the door.

An amazing salad featuring raw brussel sprouts

I love the fall. Real field tomatoes and freshly picked brussel sprouts. I managed to put both into tonight's dinner. Judy gave my effort a two thumbs up.

The brussel sprouts were inspired by a recipe found online in the Cooking section of the New York Times. The writer of the piece thought the recipe a winner but many of the comments said otherwise. Many folk found the dish boring as published. I kicked it up with lemon, green onions and pan roasted minced garlic.

Ingredients

• Two dozen brussel sprouts, stems removed, exterior leaves peeled, and then coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup of very coarsely chopped, pan-roasted, walnuts
• 1/4 cup of Pecorino Romano cheese, again very coarsely chopped
• 4 coarsely chopped green onions
• 1 minced garlic clove, pan roasted in a little olive oil
• 3 Tbsp good extra virgin olive oil
• 3 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• salt to taste

1. Remove the stems of the brussel sprouts and the exterior leaves. Coarsely chop the raw sprouts and place in a large bowl.
2. Mix the olive oil, lemon juice, pan roasted minced garlic, coarsely chopped green onions, Pecorino Romano cheese and walnuts.
3. Add olive oil mixture to brussel sprouts and mix well. Feel free to use your hands. Salt to taste.

I served this with some slices of roast chicken on a bed of Basmati rice with fresh field tomatoes on the side. At the table I sprinkled some grated Parmesan on both the brussel sprouts and tomatoes. The Parmesan was an afterthought. I had some grated Parmesan in a bowl in the fridge. It looked nice on the plate but it wasn't necessary.

The bread, by the way, came from Angelo's on Wonderland Road North in London. For good bread, I always go to Angelo's. The bread featuring sun-dried tomatoes is now available only on weekends. It is one of my all-time favourite breads.

Garlicky pasta & lemon: served daily but always different

Tonight I made the garlicky pasta with lemon recipe that I have been making every night for dinner for the past few evenings. Each night I add different ingredients to play with the base flavour. Tonight I added coarsely chopped tomatoes, two kinds, about three tablespoons of coarsely chopped hazelnuts, some chopped basil and, of course, grated Parmesan, about a quarter cup. At the table I added some extra dried pepper flakes and more grated Parmesan.

The trick here is to use richly-flavoured field tomatoes. If your tomatoes are the hard, tasteless variety form Mexico, this dinner will fail. It desperately needs the strong, fresh tomato flavour. I also used about ten cherry-sized yellow-cream tomatoes. All in all, this had lots of tomato flavour.

One often reads how hard it is to feed oneself on a budget. No it isn't. Not if one knows a little about cooking. If you insist on opening a can, you had better be prepared to open your wallet.

I bought my pasta on sale for 89-cents for a 900g bag. My tomatoes and broccoli came from Thomas Bros. Farmer Market on highway 4 south of London. (I used one, large, red tomato.) Parmesan is expensive but I buy it in big blocks from Costco. It's a lot of cheese but it keeps and goes a long way. The hazelnuts came from the Bulk Barn in the Smart REIT run mall in London's northwest.

I'm still tryng variations on garlic, oil and pasta

If you read the post before this one, Garlic plus pasta can almost carry a meal, you will know I am experimenting with flavour riffs based on garlicky pasta. Tonight it was the usual dinner for two starting with 150g of small penne flavoured with a tablespoon of pan-roasted minced garlic and quarter teaspoon of dried hot red pepper flakes.

To the garlicky pasta base, I added:

• 1/4 cup pan-roasted pine nuts
• 1/3 cup coarsely chopped artichoke hearts 
• 1/4 cup coarsely chopped black olives
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup of pasta water (reserved before draining pasta)

Originally, I was going to use coarsely chopped hazelnuts but Judy convinced me to use the pine nuts in our fridge instead. She wanted to cut into our growing list of leftover ingredients. She was right.

To get an idea how to proceed with this dinner, please read Garlic plus pasta can almost carry a meal. But don't let yourself get bogged down in following the recipe. Be bold. Invent your own riffs on this solid, basic pasta recipe. Tomorrow night I am going to try basil and coarsely chopped field tomato as the additions to the garlicky pasta. I think it will be wonderful.

Garlic plus pasta can almost carry a meal

I love pasta. 75g dried pasta almost makes a meal, at least for me. A 900g bag can be found for under a dollar. That's enough pasta for a dozen healthy dinners at little more than 7-cents a piece. Pretty inexpensive, eh?

Of course, pasta alone does not make a meal. But it doesn't take much to turn a plate of  pasta into a pleasant dinner, especially when accompanied by a glass of white wine poured from a box.

Before boiling the pasta, take one tablespoon plus a little extra of fresh, minced, Canadian garlic and  brown it in a couple of tablespoons of good olive oil. Don't use too high a heat. You don't want to burn the garlic, just turn it golden brown. When done, if you'd like a little bit of spicy heat, add some red pepper flakes to the pan. A quarter teaspoon, or a little more, should suffice. Now, set all aside and turn your attention to the pasta.

Cook the pasta in a little less water than the instructions on the package suggest. This will increase the starch in the water. Reserve about a quarter of a cup of the pasta water immediately before draining.

With the pasta drained, add the remaining, raw, minced garlic. Half a teaspoon is about perfect. If you are not as fond of garlic as I am, add a little less. Raw garlic is more pungent than the pan roasted garlic. Roasting mellows the strong garlic flavour.

Toss in a teaspoon of grated lemon zest, a tablespoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice and add the reserved pasta water. Stir over medium heat until the water has almost completely cooked away.

Finally, add a quarter cup of chopped fresh basil, an ounce of grated Parmesan and 2 ounces of pan roasted pine nuts. Salt and pepper to taste. Have extra grated Parmesan available at the table.

Ingredient list - serves two

• 150g  dried pasta. I favour pennine (small penne).
• 1 Tbsp plus one and a half tsp of minced garlic
• 2 Tbsp good quality virgin olive oil
• 1/4 tsp dried red pepper flakes
• 1/4 cup chopped basil
• 2 ounces grated Parmesan
• 2 ounces roasted pine nuts
• salt and fresh, grated pepper

If you don't feel like basil and pine nuts with your pasta, add something else. For instance, when the minced garlic is golden, stir in a half teaspoon of coarsely ground fennel seed along with the red pepper flakes before setting aside. Then, when the pasta is al dente, drain and add 8 ounces of coarsely chopped artichoke hearts in place of the basil. I'm partial to the artichoke hearts packed in water and bottled not canned. Finally, add two ounces of chopped, roasted hazelnuts and stir over medium-high heat until the pasta water has disappeared.

Try thinking of other variations on this garlicky pasta theme. I have tried substituting four ounces of pitted, black olives and adding these along with the garlic and Parmesan to the drained pasta. I also add two ounces of chopped, pan-roasted walnuts for a bit of crunch.

How would you make this garlicky pasta theme your own? Any ideas?

For a vegetable with this pasta dinner, I'm partial to asparagus but I'm sure there options here, as well.

Pizza can be healthy: Enjoy

I've mentioned this before but as we had this for dinner, it seemed like a good to mention this again. Dr. Oetker pizza often goes on sale in London for less than $3. When it does, my wife and I pick up a number of 4-cheese pizzas and store them in our downstairs freezer.

Half of each pizza contains only 50mg of cholesterol. Add five slices of Ziggy's pepperoni to each piece and you have a two pizza-slice pizza dinner with only 65mg of cholesterol. I've been told to keep my daily cholesterol intake below 100mg. This dinner does just that.

The green and red sweet peppers, the diced pickled hot peppers, black olives, artichokes and mushrooms all contain no cholesterol but these ingredients help to bulk up the dinner. We find this dinner quite filling and the calories, or points if one uses the Weight Watchers system, are low enough to allow both of us to have a small glass of wine with the meal.

Two tips: fry the mushroom slices first. This removes the excess moisture trapped inside the mushrooms. And fry the pepperoni slices. This removes a little fat. Always a good move.

French Potato Salad: Made With No Eggs

Some years ago I was asked to bring a potato salad to a family dinner. After making the request, my relative realized eggs were off my diet and I wouldn't be able to have any of my contribution to the dinner. I told them not to worry. I'd find a recipe for potato salad that didn't use eggs. And I did.

I found a recipe for French potato salad posted by a Swedish blogger named Ewa (Eva). She lives in Seattle, WA., and enjoys sharing her recipes. I don't believe she'd mind my posting a link to her site and her recipe for French potato salad: Carrots & Spice (Healthy Recipes for Busy Families.

Over the intervening years I've served this salad to numerous folk and I've had many requests for the recipe or at least the link. This healthy potato salad is popular and deservedly so.

Low fat lasagna

Tonight I served low-fat lasagna. No mozzarella but eggplant instead. I kept the traditional ricotta cheese but used a light, 2% fat, version. I also used a bottled tomato sauce. This kept the preparation time down. And of course, there was no ground meat in my lasagna.

I used a pinch of cinnamon and a tablespoon of fresh basil plus salt and pepper to give the entire presentation a little extra depth. I may add some mushrooms lightly fried in a clove or two of garlic when I make this next. And I will make it again and soon.

When I have the recipe down pat, I'll post an update and add a link to this post.

Maitake mushroom: too beautiful to hide

Maitake mushrooms are incredible. Not only are they delicious, they are beautiful. When I cooked tonight's dinner I could not bear to fold the omelettes and hide the beautiful mushrooms. Tonight, I served my first open-faced omelettes.

Maitake mushrooms can be expensive. I got mine as a 70th birthday gift. I was delighted. A maitake mushroom keeps very well in the fridge. If it is fresh when purchased, it can last several days without showing any signs of deterioration. In other words, it is not hard to eat the whole thing by having a little each day until all is gone.

I broke mine into smaller pieces, weighed the result (I insisted on getting as much on my omelette as my wife) and then I fried the mushroom in olive oil and Becel. (I cannot eat butter. Doctor's orders.) When the maitake was almost done, I added some mined garlic. After about thirty seconds after adding the garlic, I set the pan aside.

Next, I heated some olive oil in a small, fry pan and when hot I added four ounces of Egg Creations. (I cannot eat whole eggs. The yolks are banned from my diet. Doctor's orders, again.) Before the Egg Creations had set, I added the garlic-fried maitake and a few chunks of cheddar cheese plus a little salt and pepper.

I refused to fold my omelette but served it open-faced. I just could not bring myself to hide the maitake. I think it was the right decision. Do you agree?

Maitake mushroom, salmon steaks and zucchini noodles: yum.

The maitake mushrooms, also known as hen-of-the-woods, was a birthday gift. I fried the maitake with garlic, shallots and finely chopped thyme. It was delicous.

The noodle dish had a base of not pasta but zucchini run through a spiralizer. My wife treated the zucchini as pasta and it was delicious. One must overlook the zucchini juice that collects on the plate but, on the bright side, the juice is delicious sopped up with a slice of bread.

The salmon steak would be expensive if it were larger but it wasn't larger and it wasn't expensive. It was delicious grilled for a total of about six minutes. I basted both steaks with a mixture of Becel with olive oil, ground peppercorns and chopped sage.

Because my recipes used for this post are taken from the New York Times and Weight Watchers, I am being a little obtuse as to the exact mix of ingredients. But the point of this post is not to instruct but to inspire. Cruise the Web or give the cookbooks at Winners a look. And enjoy some fine, and oh-so-healthy, dining.

Rainbow trout, Brussels sprout, cauliflower: heart healthy eats

The small serving of rainbow trout cost about $1.75. The vegetables were fresh and mostly locally grown. The dinner wasn't expensive but it was good. Now in my 70s, I am not finding adhering to a heart healthy diet difficult. And it certainly is not restrictive. In fact, I find the challenge liberating.

I am not a chef. I cook but I am a rank amateur. Admitting this makes me feel a tinge of shame. I should have applied myself much earlier in life. Don't make the same mistake.

I did not get really serious about cooking until my doctors told me I had to go on a heart healthy diet. I have a heart condition now and I am at risk for more in the future. My arteries don't need help in plugging up. They can do quite nicely on their own. My genes are working against me.

Have I managed to slow the deteriorating condition of my arteries? I don't know. My doctors are monitoring the situation and they may offer an opinion soon.

The meal featured today is from the New York Times Cooking site. If you pay to read the Times online, the Cooking pages are free. If not, I believe you might find a small number of free hits are allowed each month. Here a some links. Good luck. (And if you like the recipes, don't be cheap. Check out the price of a subscription. You may be surprised. I was.)

Garlicky Brussels Sprout Salad With Apples, Walnuts and Parmesan
Five-Peppercorn Fish Fillets 
Pan-Roasted Cauliflower With Garlic, Parsley and Rosemary

With so much going on flavour-wise, I opted for a simple bed of white, basmati rice for the trout. And I must confess, the cauliflower was a leftover and that is the only reason it made it onto the plate -- but I liked it. A bit of crisp, cold, white wine helped cleanse the palate. Do I dare mention  the wine came from a box.  ;-)

Quick sweet red pepper soup

I love soup. This sweet, red pepper soup is going to be one of my favorites. I'd serve this elegant soup to company but it is so quick and easy to make that I'll be making it often for my wife.

Dice one, large shallot and fry in a medium sized pot until the shallot pieces begin to show transparency. Don't burn. This may take five minutes.

When the shallot is done, add two, diced, sweet, red peppers and continue to fry all for another five minutes. Add just enough milk to cover the peppers. Simmer for about fifteen minutes. The peppers should be soft but not mushy.

Using an immersion blender mix all to a thick but smooth consistency. Add one Tbsp of potato flakes and two Tbsp of grated Parmesan cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. Optional: I added a pinch of dried, hot pepper flakes. I liked the kick of heat but, as I said, this is optional. Stir all until well mixed.

Serve and garnish with a few dollops of low fat sour cream. I also added a sprinkle of hot pepper flakes and a twist of freshly ground pepper. My wife added a little Parmesan cheese instead. Both approaches yielded great looking and great tasting soup.

By the way, I used one percent milk but one with more fat would probably make a thicker, creamer soup but such a soup would not meet the demands of my heart-healthy diet.

Ingredients

1 large, diced shallot
2 diced sweet, red peppers
2 Tbsp good olive oil
1% milk to cover peppers fried in olive oil in medium sized pot
1 Tbsp dried potato flakes
2 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
A good pinch of dried, hot pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
Grated Parmesan cheese and dried, hot pepper flakes available to diners for adding if desired.
A little low fat sour cream to garnish

Orecchiette with cherry tomatoes and baby spinach

Pasta is fun. It comes in so many different shapes. Tonight I used a pasta called orecchiette or little ear. It's a shape that originated in Southern Italy. Mini penne would also be a good choice. The trick is to use a pasta shape that allows the successful blending into the pasta of other ingredients. I find this is very hard to do when using spaghetti. The added vegetables tend to separate from the long strands of pasta.

Ingredients (2 servings)

10 oz. cherry tomatoes
2 garlic cloves (crushed)
1 small, minced garlic clove
3 Tbsp olive oil 
150gr orecchiette
1 cup of packed, baby spinach
2 oz. grated Parmesan
A sprinkle of dried, crushed, hot pepper 
Salt, fresh ground pepper

Cooking details

Set ample water for the pasta on the stove set to high. While the water is heating, gently fry two crushed garlic cloves over medium heat in 3 Tbsp of olive oil. Let the cloves sizzle gently for ten minutes but don't let them burn. At the end of ten minutes, remove the crushed cloves and add the minced garlic. Again, do not burn. Thirty seconds may be all the time needed for the minced garlic to start turning a light, golden brown. Add the cherry tomatoes and continue frying over medium heat with occasional stirring.

At this point the pot of water should be at a rolling boil, add the orecchiette. Keep stirring the tomatoes now and then and, if the tomatoes should start to shrivel, turn the heat to low. When the pasta is done al dente, remove a cup of pasta water, pour off the remaining water and add the pasta to the deep pan with the tomatoes. Stir all and then fold the baby spinach into the mix. Add as much of the retained pasta water as necessary and serve as soon as the small spinach leaves have wilted.

At the table, sprinkle on the grated Parmesan, add a twist or two of grated, fresh pepper plus a pinch or two of dried, crushed, hot pepper. Salt if necessary. Oh, I forgot to mention the red wine. Something Italian and dry goes very nicely but I cheated and served a Jackson Triggs red wine from a box. I am, after all, on a budget.

After thought: My wife and I chatted briefly about my dinner time creation. We both agreed that sprinkling a little Italian seasoning, from Club House or McCormick, over the tomatoes while simmering would add a little extra punch of flavour.

$5 U.S. a month is worth it to subscribe to NYT Cooking.

I made this cod with sweet peppers and olives following a NYT Cooking recipe. Excellent.

The following is taken from, and edited from, the New York Times website.
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The New York Times has done it. The newspaper erected a paywall around many of the recipes, collections and features offered on its Cooking website. Readers are being asked to pay for a subscription in order to access the Cooking site.

Here's the scoop: subscribers to The Times have access to Cooking. Those who are not subscribers to the newspaper will receive a free, 28-day trial subscription to Cooking, at the end of which they will be asked to subscribe. A subscription to Cooking costs $5 a month.

The newspaper posted this change in policy saying:

"It is a core belief of The New York Times that we produce journalism good enough that people are willing to pay for it. That journalism includes our recipes and instruction here on Cooking, and the digital features we use to support them on all your devices . . . "

The newspaper went on to explain that it did not make the decision to charge for access to Cooking without a lot of thought. Giving readers access to the very best recipes in the world, along with the ability to save and organize them, and to use them on whatever device they wanted to, with accompanying instruction to make them delicious, every time, is expensive. It would be great to be able to continue to provide all that for free forever but that is simply not possible.

Times writers travel ceaselessly, cook every day and test recipes relentlessly. Photographs are taken and videos made to help readers make cooking, and planning, and shopping for meals easier, more enjoyable, and yes, even fun.

Paid subscriptions will help the New York Times to continue to do just that.