PASTA LIGHT: Homemade Turkey Spaghetti

I had a craving over the weekend: good ol' spaghetti and meatballs. Doesn't that always sound good? It seemed like a heavy dinner for July so I thought of ways to lighten it up: use ground turkey instead of ground beef and incorporate the meat into the sauce rather than make big meatballs. You could also substitute regular pasta with whole wheat pasta if you like.

I like a lot of chunky foods: chunky salsa, chunky peanut butter, chunky cookies... So the spaghetti sauce below has delicious chunks of cooked tomato, onion and turkey. However, if you're not a "chunky kind of person," feel free to substitute the diced tomatoes with tomato sauce and chop your onions as finely as you can. This easy spaghetti sauce recipe has simple ingredients sure to amount to a lot of flavor. I'm hoping you won't want to go back to the jar.

Twirl, savor and enjoy!


Things I've Learned:

• Grate fresh garlic. It's so much easier than chopping, mincing and pasting! Just peel the garlic and grate it with your zester right into the pan. You won't have to worry about anyone chomping into a big piece of garlic, and you get all of the flavorful juices!
• You can't beat fresh Parmesan. Use a vegetable peeler to shave it right off the block, and those thin slices give the perfect saltiness to each bite of your pasta dish.
• Waste no more! Always have a tube of tomato paste in your refrigerator. In the past when a recipe called for a tablespoon or two of tomato paste, I opened a can and always had at least half of it left. I'd try to figure out ways to use it before it went bad, but more times than not it ended up in the garbage. The tubes makes it so you can use what you need without worrying about wasting.

HOMEMADE TURKEY SPAGHETTI
recipe from Trish Garber
serves 4-6

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 sweet onion, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (more or less to taste)
  
• 1 package ground turkey (1.25 lbs)
  
• 1 big can (28 oz) Italian style peeled tomatoes
• 1/2 tbsp Italian seasoning (usually a combination of marjoram, thyme, rosemary, savory, sage, oregano and basil)
• 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
  
• salt and pepper (to taste)
• 1 box/bag spaghetti
• fresh Parmesan cheese

Method:

1. Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Cook onion and garlic until soft. Add the red pepper flakes.
2. Put the ground turkey directly in the pan with the onion, garlic and red pepper flakes. Salt, pepper and brown the ground turkey, breaking it up as it cooks.
3. Open the can of peeled tomatoes. Take out and dice the whole tomatoes. Pour the remaining juice from the can, as well as the diced tomatoes, into the pan.
   
4. Add the Italian seasoning, sugar, tomato paste, salt and pepper to the sauce. Once the mixture bubbles, turn the heat to low/medium-low and cook down (20-30 minutes or so).
5. If you like to drink wine while you cook or plan to have it with your pasta dinner like me, add a splash of red wine to the sauce and let the sauce cook until it thickens back up. It adds another layer of flavor. If you don't have it on hand, that's ok. Think of it as a bonus :)
   
6. Cook the pasta according to the box/bag.
7. Serve the pasta with the homemade sauce and shaved Parmesan on top.

TAPAS FOR DINNER: Roasted Peppers

Background Story:
One of my husband's and my favorite restaurants in San Francisco and tapas places outside of Barcelona is Iluna Basque in North Beach. Beside their delicious sangria, their roasted pepper tapas dish is a must-have every time we go. We've yet to order something there we didn't find delicious.

Inspiration:
Just this past weekend, one of my best girlfriends and I were walking around the farmers' market in downtown Palo Alto. There we found a table of peppers that immediately caught our eye. It was a rainbow of vegetables made up of bell peppers in a variety of beautiful colors. Of course there were green, red, orange and yellow peppers-- but there were purple, chocolate, white and tie-dyed peppers, too! We had to know what a purpley pepper tasted like.

It had me thinking: what special dish could I make with this purple, yellow, tie-dyed pepper? What's the best thing I've had involving a bell pepper? Of course! The tapas dish at Iluna Basque. Mission: Recreate that Dish!


ROASTED PEPPERS WITH MUSHROOMS AND MANCHEGO CHEESE
recipe from Trish Garber
serves 4

Ingredients

• 2 bell peppers (red or purple variety)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 shallot, minced
  
• 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
  
• 1 lb fresh brown mushrooms, sliced
  
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
  
• 1/3 cup parsley, finely chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/3 lb manchego cheese
  

Method

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
2. Wash, halve and seed bell peppers. Lightly coat the peppers with olive oil and salt and pepper on both sides. Put the peppers (inside facing down) on a sheet pan and roast in the oven for 18-20 minutes. Set aside.
   
3. Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Mince the shallot and thinly slice the garlic cloves. Cook the shallots and garlic until soft.
4. Slice the mushrooms and add them to the shallots and garlic. Cook down. Right about when you think they're done, add the vinegar. Cook until the vinegar is absorbed.
   
5. Chop and add the parsley, salt and pepper and cook another 3 minutes. Turn off the heat.
   
6. Place each pepper half into a ramekin or individual baking dish if you want to serve them as tapas. Otherwise, any baking dish will do. Top each pepper with 1/4 of the mushroom mixture.
   
7. Cut the cheese into 1/8 - 1/4 inch slices. Place 1/4 of the slices of cheese on top of each pepper's mushrooms, covering them as much as possible.
8. Broil until the cheese bubbles and browns.

LOVE, DON'T HATE: Brussel Sprouts

I understand how scary brussel sprouts can be. Cooked the wrong way or barely cooked at all, brussel sprouts make you want to say, "Blech!" Brussel sprouts just steamed or boiled leave a lot of flavor to be desired-- and if cooked too long a lingering sulfurous stench. My dad, who isn't a picky eater at all, once told me, "Life is too short to have to eat brussel sprouts." With that I really hadn't tried them until one fateful day at Google.

One of the best perks of working at Google is the food. Having several cafes at work to choose from for breakfast, lunch and dinner is something I really miss-- but that's another story. Let's talk brussel sprouts. I didn't grow up eating them and was warned against them. But as I walked down the buffet line one lunch at work, I was curious about the browned brussel sprouts. I love cabbage, so could they be that bad? They were halved, browned, lemony and spicy. They were delicious! I went back for seconds.

I started experimenting with cooking them at home, knowing there were very few ingredients in the brussel sprouts our chef made. I've perfected my inspired recipe to the right amount heat, salt and lemon flavor for Chris and I. They're a vegetable side I rotate into dinners regularly, and I definitely crave them when it's been a while. Truth be told, Chris has to remind me to get my hands out of the pan once they're done so that there are some left for dinner!

If you've been a brussel sprout hater in the past, I dare you try these. They just might convert you :)


SPICY LEMON BRUSSEL SPROUTS
recipe from Trish Garber
serves 2-4

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (more or less to your taste)
• ~20 brussel sprouts
• 2 lemons
  
• salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Wash and halve the brussel sprouts.
2. Heat olive oil and red pepper flakes over medium heat in a large pan.
3. Place all of the halved brussel sprouts inside/light-side down. Zest one of the lemons on top of the brussel sprouts. Cook them facing down this way until browned.
4. Pour the juice of both lemons on top of the brussel sprouts and immediately cover to steam the brussel sprouts. Shake the pan around occasionally to prevent sticking and burning. If you find they are still sticking or burning before cooked through, turn down the heat a bit and add a little more lemon juice.
   
5. Once tender, uncover and salt and pepper to taste. I recommend fresh-cracked salt if you have it.
   

TWICE IS NICE: Grilling

TWICE the meat:
Without major fourth of July plans this year, Chris and I thought we'd treat ourselves to a nice home-cooked dinner. Not having cooked lobster before, I was inspired to make a surf and turf dinner by Giada De Laurentiis while watching Giada at Home. We grilled a beautiful Ribeye with fresh-cracked sea salt, grilled Giada's Lobster Tails with Clarified Lemon Butter, and made her Corn and Black Bean Salad with Basil-Lime Vinaigrette. The lemon zest made the butter sauce, and the salad was so refreshing. It was a deliciously light summer meal made easy with the grill.

The long and short of the matter is that I've never cooked a Giada recipe I haven't loved. I own three of her cookbooks and constantly watch/look up her recipes online, and all I've cooked have reasonably small ingredient and procedure lists to follow. She has a way with getting the most out of simple flavors. She's my go-to lady for cooking for guests.

TWICE the salad:
That leads into this past Friday; we had family guests for dinner and knew who to look to for menu inspiration. Having loved the fresh corn, mango and vinaigrette from her Corn and Black Bean Salad with Basil-Lime Vinaigrette, we manipulated the ingredients a bit for its second time on our table: double the fresh corn, minus the garbanzo beans. The combination of corn, black beans, and red bell pepper, plus the sweetness of the mango and freshness of lime and basil-- yum!

TWICE the grilling:
We partnered the mentioned salad with her Grilled Chicken with Basil Dressing from Giada's Family Dinners cookbook and a simple butter lettuce salad. Instead of using chicken breasts we substituted chicken thighs for added moisture. Having poured the basil dressing over all of the grilled chicken, a few cuts into the meat we realized it needed a few more minutes on the barbecue. It turned out that grilling that dressing into the meat was perfect. I'd recommend twice-grilling on purpose-- once to cook through without the dressing and once after coated with her fresh basil dressing to bake in the flavors. It's some of the best grilled chicken we've had: well-seasoned, zesty and juicy.

Recipes:
Lobster Tails with Clarified (Lemon) Butter
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/lobster-tails-with-clarified-butter-recipe/index.html
Corn and Black Bean Salad with Basil-Lime Vinaigrette
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/corn-and-black-bean-salad-with-basil-lime-vinaigrette-recipe/index.html
Grilled Chicken with Basil Dressing
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/grilled-chicken-with-basil-dressing-recipe/index.html

HOMEMADE ICE CREAM

"If I had my life to live over I'd like to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans." Nadine Stair

Chris and I got an ice cream maker as a wedding present. For a little over a year now it sat in its box on the top shelf of our closet. To be completely honest, I forgot about it for the most part. Then when we were watching "It's Complicated" with Steve Martin and Meryl Streep this past weekend, I was inspired to make Lavender Ice Cream like the main character in the movie-- silly, I know :) Anyway, talk of making ice cream led to Chris's idea of recreating the Olive Oil Ice Cream he had at a restaurant in San Francisco. Sure enough, we made both.

Making ice cream for the first time sounds easier than it proved to be. You have to make a custard, which is a little tricky. It took two tries to make both recipes (that's two tries each).

Things we learned:
- If you heat the custard mixture too much, too fast you get a gross surprise that resembles scrambled eggs.
- A good way to know if your custard mixture is cooked enough/ready is when it covers a spoon so much so that you can draw a line down the back of the spoon and see a line. It works with a wooden spoon and a metal spoon. An easier way is to buy a candy thermometer-- what I will do next time:)
- If you don't chill the final mixture long enough, it won't freeze in the machine. Even though the honey lavender recipe didn't call for sticking it in the fridge, we found that we had to (the hard way).

I liked the Honey Lavender Ice Cream best, but the Olive Oil Ice Cream was definitely interesting and I'm glad to have tried it. If you haven't had Lavender Ice Cream, you MUST try it. It's surprisingly delicious!

Recipes:
Honey Lavender Ice Cream (by Martha Stewart)
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/honey-lavender-ice-cream
Olive Oil Ice Cream (SeriousEats.com)
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/06/cook-the-book-olive-oil-ice-cr.html