The Last Summer Pasta Salad

September 11, 2015September 11, 2015 / ktbuchs87 / 1 Comment

Summer is having its last hurrah. Half of this week has been ridiculously hot and humid. I’m talking two showers-a-day hot and humid. But that humidity finally broke a few days ago and now you can feel a touch of fall in the air.

While I absolutely love fall, I’m not quite ready to give up my summer just yet. My farmer’s market still has plenty of end of the summer vegetables like corn and tomatoes and there are still a few 80 degree days in the forecast. Warm days like that beg for a meal that doesn’t require you to turn on the oven.

I came up with this pasta salad last Sunday when even thinking about turning on the oven made me sweat, and I was already sweating buckets. This meal comes together fast and tastes amazing served up cold. It also packs in a lot of vegetables and herbs and can be customized to whatever produce you have lying around.

So if you’re like me and aren’t ready to say goodbye to summer, whip up this salad and enjoy these last few days.

The Last Summer Pasta Salad with Herb Sauce

2 cups cooked pasta, I used brown rice rotini
1 cup cooked quinoa
2 ears of corn, kernels removed (you can also use frozen kernels, thawed)
1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1 cup bell peppers, I used a mix of yellow, green, and red
1 cup zucchini, diced
1/2 cup onion, diced
3-4 cloves garlic minced

Herb Sauce

1 small bunch of basil leaves, about 1/2 cup tightly packed
1 small bunch of cilantro
2 cloves garlic
1/3 cup full-fat coconut milk
juice of half a lime
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all sauce ingredients in a blender and set aside.
Heat a little olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Saute the onions until softened and then add in the peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, and corn. Cook until the edges are slightly brown. Add in the garlic at the very end and saute for one more minute.
Remove the vegetables from heat and let them cool. In a large bowl combine the pasta and quinoa and the cooled vegetables. Mix everything well.
Pour the herb sauce over everything and stir to combine so everything is coated. Taste and adjust the seasonings. You can serve it right away or put it in the fridge to cool completely.

Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

August 28, 2015August 28, 2015 / ktbuchs87

I am the queen of roasted things. It’s pretty much my answer to everything. Broccoli? Roast it. Zucchini? Roast it. Almonds/cashews/hazelnuts? Roast it. Sweet potatoes. Roast it. Annoying relatives that randomly drop in for the weekend without calling? Roast it.

Ok, maybe not the last one but still. Whenever I have food that can be roasted, I’m gonna roast it. So I was shocked that I had never roasted peppers before. It’s not like it’s a hard process. It couldn’t be simpler. I just never looked at a pepper and felt the need to roast it. Well, that time is over because roasted peppers are delicious. They add a wonderfully smoky flavor to whatever you use them for and smoky is always good.

I put this sauce over gluten free linguine and it was fantastic. You could use this over zoodles, in lasagna, over vegetables (roasted of course), or you know just eat it straight out of the pot. I won’t judge.

Roasted Red Pepper Sauce- slightly adapted from Minimalist Baker’s Vegan Roasted Red Pepper Pasta

2 large red bell peppers
1/2 cup caramelized onions (or regular onion), diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 to 1 cup coconut milk
3 tbsp nutritional yeast
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place the peppers on the sheet. Roast the peppers for 20 minutes and then flip them over and roast for another 20 minutes. The pepper should have a little char on it once it’s done.
Remove the peppers from the oven and place a glass bowl over them to allow the steam to loosen the skins. Let them sit for about 15 minutes.
While the peppers are steaming, heat a little oil in a medium pan over medium-high heat. Saute the onions and garlic until soft and translucent, about 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from heat and place in a blender.
Take the peppers out from under the bowl and remove the skins. The skins should slip off pretty easily. You can leave a little bit of the char on for a more intense smoky flavor.
Add the peppers, nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper to the blender. Pulse a few times to break everything up and then add in 1/2 cup of the coconut milk. Blend until smooth. If the sauce is still really thick add in more coconut milk, up to 1 cup.
Pour the sauce into a saucepan and heat through, about 5 minutes. Serve over pasta, vegetables, or even rice.

At first glance, it looks like there are a lot of complicated steps but you’re really just roasting peppers and then blending everything together. You could even roast the peppers ahead of time and then when you’re ready for dinner you can just throw everything into the blender and you have dinner in no time! You can also roast the peppers in a few different ways, I just like the oven because it doesn’t take a lot of effort.

Anyone have any fun weekend plans besides making this awesome and simple dinner? I’m looking forward to spending some time with Adam since we haven’t been able to do that for over two weeks! Have a great weekend everyone!

Cilantro-Garlic Pasta with Egg Sauce

June 12, 2015June 12, 2015 / ktbuchs87

Sometimes when I am coming up with recipes I let things get a little out of hand. I blame The Flavor Bible and The Vegetarian Flavor Bible. These are my go-to cookbooks when I am creating recipes and they are awesome. You look up whatever ingredient you have and find flavors and other ingredients that go well with them. I get a little ingredient happy as I’m looking through the lists and soon I end up with a recipe that has 500 ingredients, not all of which are easy to find.

I have to remind myself to keep it simple. We often think simple recipes that have fewer ingredients can’t be as good as the fancy elaborate recipes. Fancy recipes have their place, but it’s the simple recipes that are the backbone of the food world.

I took it simple with this pasta dish. I was looking for a meal that was light and refreshing but also felt like comfort food. I also didn’t have much food on hand so I had to work with what I had. I remembered seeing a recipe for spaghetti carbonara and wanted to try and make a pasta using the same kind of a sauce. This in no way is spaghetti carbonara, but the egg sauce is made in the same way. With only four ingredients and less than 20 minutes to put together, this makes for a really easy weeknight meal that everyone will love.

Cilantro-Garlic Pasta with Egg Sauce

1 package of pasta like penne or rotini (I used Trader Joes brown rice pasta)
4 large cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
4 large eggs
salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to package drain and set aside. While pasta is cooking, mince the garlic and chop the cilantro and whisk the eggs.
Once the pasta is cooked and drained, in a medium saucepan, heat a little olive oil over medium high heat. Add the minced garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add the pasta into the pan and mix to coat with olive oil and garlic.
Remove the pan from the heat. Pour in the eggs while constantly stirring the pasta. Make sure you keep stirring the pasta or else you will end up with scrambled eggs over pasta instead of a creamy sauce.
Once all the eggs have been whisked in, stir in chopped cilantro and season with salt and pepper.

That’s it! The egg sauce makes this dish feel super comforting and indulgent, but the cilantro helps brighten it up and make it not feel too heavy of a meal. This is also great poor college student food because there are no specialty ingredients and each serving is less than $3.00.

What is your favorite simple meal?

Happy Friday and have a great weekend everyone!

Fusilli N’ Cheeze

March 20, 2015March 20, 2015 / ktbuchs87

Part of my palate is still a small child and one of my favorite comfort foods is mac and cheese. I used to love eating that wonderful blue box delicacy, just like most kids in America. I can’t remember the last time that I had “regular” mac and cheese and given the recent recall on top of the fact that there isn’t any real cheese in there, I don’t think I will be indulging any time soon.

There are plenty of dairy free versions of mac and cheese out there, I actually have two of my own versions on the blog. I like those versions, but I was missing the smooth and creamy texture of the boxed variety. Many versions use cashews in the sauce and because I don’t have a fancy schmancy high powered blender, I usually end up with a slightly grainy texture. It tastes like mac and cheese but it doesn’t feel like mac and cheese. So I set out to make a “cheese” sauce that didn’t use cashews for those of us who have to suffer without a Vitamix or Blendtec.

While this does have a cheesy taste to me, don’t expect it to be an exact replica of Kraft or any other regular boxed version. It will have that nice and creamy texture though and that is enough for me!

Fusilli N’ Cheeze

1 package of brown rice fusilli (I get mine from Trader Joes. It’s awesome!)
1 cup non-dairy milk (I have used coconut and almond milk with great results)
1 1/4 cup water
3/4 cup nutritional yeast (this is your cheese flavor so if you want a cheesier taste, use up to 1 cup)
3 tbsp tapioca starch (you can also use corn starch)
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp tahini (you can also use sunflower seed butter)
1 tsp miso (I used red but you can use white or whatever you have on hand. if you don’t have miso, use extra salt)
1 tsp brown mustard
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp turmeric

1. Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package. While that is cooking, prepare the sauce.

2. Ready for this? Put all of the ingredients into a blender and blend until everything is combined. It will seem really watery but don’t worry, it’s going to thicken.

3. Put the pasta back into the pot you used to cook it in and pour the sauce over the noodles. Stir everything to coat the pasta and turn the heat on to medium high heat. Keep stirring and as the sauce heats up it will begin to thicken. Cook for about 5 to 10 minutes.

The other awesome thing about this? It takes less than 30 minutes to make. So when you have the urge for some good old comfort food you can whip it up just as fast as the box kind. This version though won’t have fake chemicals or pieces of metal in it.

Happy first day of Spring (even if it doesn’t feel like it) and have a great Friday!

Chipotle Chili Mac N “Cheese”

July 4, 2014 / ktbuchs87

Happy 4th of July! I hope you are enjoying the day off and participating in all the fun festivities! I am spending the day with family, but I still wanted to leave you with a recipe today! I know it’s not very “4th of July-y” but it is delicious whenever you make it. This is kind of a grown up mac n cheese because the chipotle adds a little bit of a kick. Also, if you have an Aldi near you and are gluten free, you need to go and stock up on their gluten free pasta. They have two types of corn flour pasta, penne and fusilli, and brown rice spaghetti. They all cost less than $2 for over a pound of pasta and the only ingredients are corn flour and water or brown rice. Considering most gluten free pasta costs well over $4 and sometimes has more ingredients than I can count, this is a fantastic deal. Aldi is really doing a great job of adding better quality products to their store, including a line of organic food called simply organic. I have been able to find honey, almond milk, and even almond butter at one, all for reasonable prices. Ok, public service announcement over, on to the recipe!

Chipotle Chili Mac N “Cheese”

1 package of whole wheat or gluten free pasta (I used penne but obviously macaroni would work too)
1 small onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup raw cashews, soaked in water overnight
3 chipotle chili’s soaked in warm water for at least 30 minutes (save the water!)
1 cup vegetable broth or water
1/2 cup reserved chili water
1 tbsp tapioca starch (corn starch could work too, but I haven’t tried it)
1 tsp ground cumin
3/4 tsp chili powder
4 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp salt
smoked paprika, as a garnish (optional but really tasty!)

1. Cook the pasta according to the package instructions and then drain and set aside

2. While the pasta is cooking, remove the chili’s from their soaking water (but remember to keep it!) and chop into bite size pieces. Saute the onion over medium high heat until soft, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add in the garlic and saute for another 1 to 2 minutes.

3. Place the onion and garlic into a blender along with the rest of the ingredients, except the smoked paprika. Blend everything until you have a smooth and creamy sauce. The sauce will be thin and liquid-y at this point, don’t worry that’s ok!

4. Pour the cheese sauce into the pot that you cooked the pasta in and heat over medium heat until the sauce starts to thicken up. Add the pasta back into the pot and stir to combine with the sauce. Sprinkle the smoked paprika over the pasta after it has been served if desired.

This is a fairly quick meal to throw together as long as you remember to soak your cashews before hand. If you forget though, have no fear. You can do a quick soak by boiling some water and then pouring that over the cashews and letting them soak for at least 30 minutes. You can also double this and serve to a hungry crowd, so if you’re looking for a healthy and tasty dish to bring to your 4th of July BBQ, this might fit the bill! Enjoy!