Comunidad Health Foods

For some reason, I feel like all the recipes I have been looking at lately have been for fajitas. I know this isn't actually true, but I have been faced with a great many of them. So, in case I'm not so crazy and you, too, have noticed several enticing fajita recipes out there, I figured I would tack one more onto your list. Now, I made this recipe a long time ago - as in, before I got the wacky idea to actually write detailed notes on the procedure and end result. I have a list of ingredients that I am basing this post on, and not a very intricately described one, either. But we'll go with it, because fajitas aren't really the kind of recipes that need to be rigid, which is exactly what makes them so perfect in my book.

This recipe produces a fresh, creamy wrap full of chicken, veggies, and spices that will make you feel like you're indulging...when you only kind of are. Yes, you could take the recipe I am about to share with you and add guacamole, cheese, and full-fat versions of things like sour cream. And you know what, it would probably be out of this world. I chose to scale this back a little bit, simplifying the ingredient list and trimming down the recipe to make it a little bit less decadent. That's the kind of versatility I'm talking about when I say that fajitas don't need to be rigid, or when I tell you about all of those other Mexican-themed meals I have become so enthralled with lately. They're ideal mid-week slump meals, when you have ingredients on hand and need some help piecing them all together, and yet they're equally nice when you go out of your way to the grocery store to find your inspiration.

The Method

Anyone with Diabetes, high triglycerides, or an affinity for Dr. Atkins should just stop reading now. Even I find myself looking back on this indulgently carb-loaded meal and ask myself what I could have been thinking, throwing all of these ingredients together. I actually do remember my thought process and rationale, but I don't think that I would repeat the combination. Would I eat these two dishes again, separately? Absolutely! They were both delicious, different, and decadent - three words I love to hear associated with food. So, if my introduction to this meal did not yet scare you away, I ask you to hear me out for just a little bit longer, because it very well may be worth it.

One of my Everyday with Rachael Ray magazines presented me with a recipe for a Chicken & Pear Panini that I had to try. Chicken, sauteed onions, gooey cheese and sweet pears: it just sounded like an awesome and intriguingly original combination. This sandwich, I do not jest, delivered. The flavors were rich and worked extremely well together, with the pear bringing out the sweetness in the onion, the chicken and cheese playing off of that sweetness with their savory notes, and the chewy, nutty whole grain bread factor really rounding out this panini's arsenal of sensory explosives. There was only one of my five senses that was disappointed in this meal, and that was my sense of sight. Think about it: chicken breast, bread, pears, onions, cheese. Where's the color? The magazine said to pair it with an escarole salad which certainly would have helped, but I would still like to see more color in the actual panini - maybe some spinach? Aside from that, the only other complaint I had was the amount of oil, which I successfully (I think, anyway) halved.

But other than those two things, this is a must-make sandwich - again, if you feel that you can brave the carbohydrate-laden ingredient list (but here's a tip - use whole grain bread and the fiber will help slow those rambunctious sugar molecules down, and then it's really not so bad! Oh, and maybe don't pear it with starchy fries like I did).

Speaking of those fries, even if you don't make them as a side dish for this sandwich, I still have to tell you about them - first of all, because they're included in the picture of this meal and second of all, because they were pretty good. They didn't get as crisp as I would have liked, but keeping them in the oven for a little longer should do the trick. I actually don't know that pears have the ability to become crispy in an oven, but sweet potatoes do, and even they should have had a little longer to cook. You could try roasting them and then broiling them at the end to see if that helps the process any, too. Just some suggestions.

The first semester of my Freshman year of college, I went to school in New York - Ithaca, to be exact. It took me a grand total of I think 2.5 months to realize I wasn't even going to make it to January there, much less through the entire second semester. It rained or snowed every day after late September, and the gusts of wind were enough to freeze your lungs and knock you out cold. Sunny days in Ithaca are beautiful, but too few and far between to outweigh every other rotten weather day hovering atop that small mountain. So, I transferred. Now, of course, the winter here is beginning to feel much too akin to that of Ithaca than I would like, and although the sun is out today, I still find myself dreading the lab I need to walk to in just under an hour from now.

This winter calls for heavy dishes - and I don't necessarily mean calorically dense. I mean, rib-sticking recipes: soup, casseroles, stews, chili. Homemade bread to get the rib stickage factor up another ten notches. Although this recipe for chickpea casserole doesn't have a homemade bread component, it does throw some hearty pasta into it, so carb lovers should have no fear. I'm sure that true carb lovers would still add a loaf of homemade dough to this menu, but I can assure you that it certainly doesn't need it.

As it is, exactly as it is, this casserole is everything you need to forget about the harsh winter raging outside your kitchen. There's no heavy cream involved, just sour cream and some parmesan, so you can play around with the literal heaviness of it; but either way, it's thick and creamy, and doesn't have to be too sinful. Instead, it's savory and a little salty, creamy and indulgent, and warm and filling.

I've made this twice now, and the first time could not get it to thicken up. It wound up being a soup that still tasted incredible, but lacked a little bit of the heartiness that a thicker consistency brings. The second time around I was able to get it to thicken better, partially by pureeing the chickpeas first and also by allowing for more reducing time. I've come to find that the canned parmesan is much saltier and stronger than the Real Deal, so if you're using that you might want to decrease the amount by a little bit. I'd also encourage throwing in some spinach or pureed or chopped veggies (cauliflower, pepper, asparagus...), and maybe even slightly increasing the amount of chickpeas and pasta (though not by too much). I made a few adjustments, some out of laziness, some just to try to use up similar products that I had in my pantry.

There are always a couple of nights each week where I don't get back to my apartment until after 6:00, and no matter how much I love to cook and how much I hate those frozen, microwavable dinners...I'm hungry. I don't want to wait an hour to eat. I want to eat, digest, and still have time to eat a nice little sinful dessert before bedtime - scratch that, before 2 hours before bedtime, since I try to be good even with my sinful dessert and give my belly time to digest before it switches into sleep mode. Sometimes, I do pop a meal into the microwave, and sometimes, that meal is not one I had prepared earlier on in the week and frozen myself. However, what's even better than that is finding a recipe that you can make, fresh, in no time at all.

This recipe for Taco Pasta is by far one of the easiest, simplest, and most delicious recipes I've devised. It takes no more than five minutes to throw together once the pasta has cooked, which means you're looking at, what? A 20-30 minute meal, tops? It may not solve the dinner situation for someone coming home at 8pm, but it's perfect for those 6:30-7 nights. Plus, it's pretty healthy, heavy enough to fill you up but not so much that you feel gross about eating it so late at night, and it has tons of flavor. I wouldn't have it any other way, come on! Have you noticed my opinion on bland food? It doesn't fly in the Floptimism Kitchen. Period.

I tend to do a lot of "Mexican" themed dishes. Really, they're all some form of variation on each other: burritos, fajitas, taco salad, taco pasta, my Mexican Fiesta Omelet. I do enjoy many other cuisines, but this is a set of ingredients that I tend to keep in my kitchen more than others (except, maybe, Italian), and most of the ingredients pack a big flavor punch with limited extraneous calories and prep time. Plus, I'm a one-person household, basically, so when I buy a jar of something like salsa, it gets used for many meals until it's gone. But beyond that, I've found Mexican foods in general really great for home cooking. You can also easily do vegetarian with them, throwing in some black beans, or scrap that and include any kind of meat your heart desires. It's flexible that way. Plus, it's a safe choice, despite having that creative element in your ability to mess around with some ingredients based on what you have on hand. And if you're walking in at 6:30 and want dinner a-sap, it might not be the best night to toy around with flavors. This will give you something reliable and fast, no questions asked.

Taco Pasta Toss

The Ingredients*

A while ago, I made fresh pasta for the first time. So far, it has also been the only time, but after seeing how easy (and fun!) it is, I not only plan to do it more often - getting a little more creative, perhaps - but encourage you to give it a shot, too. Now, I made the pasta as part of a cooking class that I assist at. Now, forget, for a moment, the irony that the assistant had never made the recipe before as well as the irony of what I'm about to confess to you: I didn't know what to do with the pasta once I had flattened it out. Being bold and humble, for once, I did not just trudge on with my gut instinct; no, I asked my instructor what to do if I wanted to make lasagna the following night. She explained that when she makes lasagna from fresh pasta, she likes to layer the pasta with vegetables, sauce, and cheese in little, personalized ramekins for each guest. She said nothing about preboiling.

Perhaps it was something that was meant to be inferred. I, of course, took her word straight. I layered the pasta in beautiful folds with vegetables, meatballs, sauce, and cheese, and I popped them in the oven to bake as though I didn't have a care in the world. Alright, I was a little hesitant, with the no pre-boiling step, but I forged on. The little ramekins cooked up wonderfully, too! I even tied one particularly long strand of pasta into a bow at the top. I mean really, when I say that I had a good time, I wasn't kidding. These ramekins were little jewels, mini works of art.

The lasagna, however - for those of you who are at my level of cooking and still don't know how it must have turned out - was not what you would call traditional. The noodles never softened as they would have during a little dip in a pool of boiling water. But do I throw in the towel and hide my face from you, pretending it never happened? Mais non! I excitedly bit into one and actually enjoyed it. The casseroles were crisp at the tops and doughy in the centers, piping hot from the sauce and the cheese and beyond savory from all of the vegetables and chopped meatballs I had thrown in. I loved it! Much like my little uh-oh back in an earlier post with my curved-edged tortillas, I can't say that I was too disappointed in the end. The recipe is, of course, less than perfected because of the faux-pas, and I can't guarantee that anyone else would like it. Maybe "doughy" is not appealing to most folks. But, because I don't know this and can only base my posts on what I know I enjoyed, I have to share this with you. At the very least, try it out with boiled pasta and get a very rich, flavorful and fresh lasagna that can feel more comfortable cozying up to those tried-and-true type lasagnas.

I do have to warn you that there aren't really quantities for these ingredients. Unless my blog is on my mind while cooking, I tend to throw things together in a ratio that I know I'll enjoy (heavy on the vegetables, for instance). I encourage you to do the same, since a recipe like this really can't be "ruined" by too much or too little of any one ingredient.

I don't know what Mother Nature has against the East Coast, or really a whole lot of the United States as of late, but today is a downright miserable day. Maybe She is lamenting my return to academia as well - after all, Her antics have resulted in my 8am class being canceled, which is nothing to complain about - but outside is still this mish-mosh of ice, snow, and rain. I am not looking forward to the trek to my class in just a little bit. I would much rather be sitting inside with a book, some comfy pants, a cup of tea and these almond biscotti. In that context, I enjoy these days.

You see, these almond biscotti are kind of perfect. Crunchy around the outside, with a burst of almond and orange on the inside. The house smells wonderful when you bake them, and you can't help but smile when you try one. At least, I couldn't. I did have to make some adjustments to the original recipe, notably exchanging orange liqueur for orange juice, but I don't think that would make an extraordinary difference. The batter was unbelievably sweet, to the point that I considered writing in a decrease in sugar for the next time I made them, but the actual, baked biscottis are wonderful. I encourage you to make these, especially if you happen to be stuck inside, as I wish I were, in this awful weather.

This is it, my last day at home before venturing off to the Big Bad University for another semester's worth of adventures. I'm in a very mixed-emotion mood as I put off packing the rest of my things, essentially permitting a state of mild denial to settle over me. If I can just get through this semester, I keep saying to myself, because this one is going to be a killer as I reach the pinnacle of my academic career's challenging science courses. So, today, I'm in much need of the kind of recipe that I'm about to share with you: something I don't get to eat much at school, something that I can associate with home as I gear up for the apartment life again. There are really only two things that truly fit this bill: grass-fed beef, and fish.

The fish recipe I have for you today is not so rigid. I mean, it doesn't have to be a turbot recipe. It doesn't even have to be a fish recipe. You see, the spices and the curry play the starring roles here, and I don't care what you slather it onto - tofu, chicken, fish, veggies - it will be nothing short of awesome. I chose turbot because the wonderful workers at Whole Foods informed me that although their Halibut - what the original recipe used - was still in the freezer, Turbot was among the types of white fish that were pretty similar. I had never had Turbot before, it was wild caught, and it was a couple bucks cheaper than the other suggestions they made (not that a couple bucks is any true bargain when you're talking about fresh fish), so I went for it.

I was a little nervous making this, since my family does not worship Indian cuisine and although some members enjoy spice, others shy away from it. However, everyone loved it. It's not spicy; it's smoky. And while I would have enjoyed a little bit more of a kick (okay, a lot more of a kick), it was delicious in its own right. I mean, talk about flavor complexity! Roasting the Turbot in a masala rub just lets the fish pop with savory-ness, and the whole house smells like garam masala - which, I may not buy a candle in that scent, but I certainly enjoyed in conjunction with my cooking. And then you get this curry to serve alongside of it that has sweetness from the tomatoes, a tart-sweet oomph from some ginger, creaminess from the addition of some milk and a wonderful, deep smokiness from all of the other spices. If you like heat, though, throw in some extra chili peppers or sneak in a little dash of hot sauce. I don't know how authentic that is (something tells me at least the hot sauce thing would be a bit untraditional), but it sure would be something.