Sometimes you just want a good, hearty salad. A satisfying salad. A salad, with cheese, croutons, grainy mustard dressing and maybe some tart apple chunks.
Fortunately I had these ingredients on hand last night. Shane and the kids ate meat.
quick
Pasta con asparagi
It was my turn to cook tonight. This meant dinner would be on the fly, because you know, work, kid pick-up, walking home with a four year old takes forever, Christmas-is-a-coming etc.
I looked in the fridge and found asparagus. I looked on food52 and found the recipe for Pasta con Asparagi for which I had all of the ingredients except the fresh herbs. This qualifies as a miracle in my book so I got to cooking.
(Don’t shame me about the fresh herbs.)
As I read through the recipe I thought to myself “I’m pretty sure I’ve always wanted to make this dish.” Then, at dinner things started to feel kinda deja-vu-ish.
Fortunately, I’ve got the blog to pick up where my memory leaves off. It turns out, I have made Pasta con Asparagi before. It’s quick, easy and my family has enjoyed it twice. I call that an endorsement.
• Pasta con Asparagi •
from Craig Claiborne via food52
Serves 4-6
1 1/2 pounds fresh asparagus
3 tablespoons butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 cups canned Italian plum tomatoes, put through a sieve or grated coarsely
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil
3/4 pound penne, rigatoni, or other tubular pasta
2 eggs, plus one yolk, beaten well with a fork
1/2 cup grated parmesan
Have all the ingredients for this recipe prepared and ready to cook before beginning. Bring about 3 quarts of water to a boil and have it ready for the pasta. Cut the asparagus into lengths about 2 inches long. If the stalks are thick, cut them in half or quarter them. Leave the tips in tact.
Heat the butter in a large, deep skillet and add the asparagus pieces, salt, and pepper to taste. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes, or until crisp-tender and lightly browned. Transfer the asparagus to a plate and reserve.
In the same pan, add the oil and garlic. Cook until lightly browned and remove and discard garlic. Add the tomatoes, parsley, basil, salt and pepper to taste. Cook, stirring, for about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, add the pasta and salt to the water and, when it returns to a boil, cook for about 7 minutes or until tender. Do not overcook.
Just before the pasta is done, turn off the heat under the tomatoes and add the beaten eggs, stirring vigorously so that they blend without curdling. Do not boil the sauce after the eggs are added. (If you are nervous about curdling the eggs, you may temper them in, by stirring a ladleful of the hot tomato sauce into the eggs, then whisking the mixture back into the pan.) Add the asparagus to the tomato sauce and stir to blend.
Drain the pasta immediately. Add the tomato sauce and asparagus, and toss with half the cheese. Serve piping hot with the remaining cheese on the side.
A perfect meal perhaps
This is kind of the perfect meal, if you ask me. Pasta with perfectly spicy, olivey, capery puttanesca sauce (no tuna) and tangy, lemony, roasted broccoli.
Truth be told, this picture is from a week ago, but I felt like I owed you something since I’ve been too busy, tired, working and generally pre-Christmas-swamped to post lately.
30 days of posting challenge: Day 9
When Shane has to work at 6pm, as he did tonight, the arrangement is that I pick up both kids from two different activities in two totally different locations. This gets us home around 7:15, barely—just barely—in time to avoid a dinner’s-too-late meltdown.
How totally surprised and delighted was I to come home to dinner all prepped and waiting on the stove? I was so totally surprised and delighted that I exclaimed out loud “Holy ho ho! I’ve got the husband of the year!”
I don’t know where “holy ho ho” came from.
Shane had made us a fresh pot of Penne Alla Vodka and a bowl of par-boiled pasta. He even left a previously boiled pot of still-warm water so that we were able to eat literally minutes after walking in the door.
Awesome sauce!
30 days of posting challenge: Day 6
Today was one of those days. Shane was working. I tried to do some unpacking since we moved back to our house in June and are still in boxes. Between 10am and 1pm, I managed to unpack approximately one box, thanks to my incredibly helpful offspring.
I tried to take the kids for a “fun” trip to Party City.
Mistake.
Took them to Trader Joe’s partly as punishment and partly because I wanted to buy wine.
Mistake.
After rolling all over the floor of Trader Joe’s, Sid screamed all the way home because he wanted to take his sweater off, but couldn’t because he was in his car seat. When we got home, he stripped naked in the parking lot and demanded justice at the top of his lungs.
By then, Shane was home so I locked myself in the office to contemplate what kind of salad might just be good enough to turn my day around.
I settled on this salad from Epicurious, but substituted walnuts for pecans, and radicchio and romaine for red endive.
It’s a lot to ask of a salad to be so good it turns your day from poop to gold, but this salad did it’s best and I give it an A for effort. And I’ll definitely make it again.
Shane made pork tenderloin.
Easy for a crowd
We had big numbers at the Cape this weekend. Though I can take no responsibility for it (I was there with both kids and no husband) I have to say, the meals were super-successful and seemed relatively easy to prepare, serve and clean up after.
Friday night was Green Posole, the most delicious quesadillas—I don’t know what André did, he said it was just olive oil—and a gorgeous salad. We did our new-ish paper plate, buffet-style, eat-outdoors-while-kids-run-around thang and it was seamless.
Saturday we had Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce and Tzatziki, sausages and salad. The pasta dish is always a winner and is super-easy to prep ahead of time. Also, it doesn’t need to be served super-hot which is good when you’ve got people coming and going, which we did.
Thanks to Jenya and André who really pulled the whole thing off.
Solo salad
I’m super bummed to be missing out on being on Cape Cod eating my all-time favorite dual-purpose vegetarian and/or turkey chili, and hanging out with friends whom I haven’t seen in eons—not to mention friends & family I see all the time.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my nearly 10 years of being a parent, it’s that when your child has a stomach bug, the best thing you can do for the child, for yourself, for your sanity and for all of humankind, is to get that child the hell away from everyone else as soon as possible!
So Rose and I are back from the Cape early, she is recovering on the couch, and I’m going to make the most of my time at home. Starting with one of my favorite salads: roasted eggplant, goat cheese and arugula with a drizzle of olive oil, a pinch of salt and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.
Be well, one and all.
TLTs and BLTs
Actually, tofu, lettuce and tomato sandwiches (aka “TLTs”) are really good.
I’m sure BLTs are good too, but I’ve never had one. Nor had I ever had a TLT, until last night.
When Shane called and said “We’re having BLTs tonight, Nina, and I got you some tofu.” I didn’t complain. Not only because Shane was doing the cooking, but because a TLT sounded kinda good.
Here’s how you do it: Heat your oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking tray with parchment and spray with cooking oil (I like canola). Slice a block of extra-firm tofu into 1/4″ – 3″8″ slabs and lay them out on the greased parchment. Drizzle them with soy sauce. Really, you can douse them, tofu can totally take the salt. Then spray them with more cooking oil, right on top of the soy sauce. It seems weird but it works. Bake for 20-30 minutes until the slices begin to get a bit leathery.
Meanwhile, clean some Boston lettuce leaves and slice up some tomatoes. Toast your favorite kind of buns in butter (we used challah). When the tofu is ready, assemble your TLT sandwich with mayo and Frank’s Red Hot. Yum!
Optionally, you can tuck into a traditional BLT, as demonstrated by Rose below. P.S. Don’t forget to follow us on instagram @thesteadytable it’s really where all the action is these days. xo
Hot days
Mostly, we’ve been on Instagram @thesteadytable these days. With our big move back to our new/old house unpacking has taken priority over posting.
But tonight it’s hot. Crazy hot. Too hot for unpacking.
We’re having cilantro-lime chickpea, jalapeño & corn salad, Caesar salad & dawgs (which will ultimately be cooked).
Summer!
Bowties with breadcrumbs, gruere & squash
Bowties with Breadcrumbs, Gruyere and Squash is one of those dishes that sounds kinda weird but is actually really good and interesting. I posted about it once before, but to be honest my photos didn’t make it look all that appealing, and so I won’t blame you if you didn’t try it.
The recipe is from the cookbook Keepers which is a great source for quick weeknight meals. This one takes very little effort, just basically grating and boiling.
I like to serve all of the parts separately, that way if certain people don’t like certain things they can skip them. Also that means I can go real heavy on the squash for a nice, high veg-to-pasta ratio.
You can use whatever kind of pasta you like. In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever used fusilli, which is what the recipe calls for. Also you don’t have to restrict yourself to zucchini, summer squash works real well in this dish too. And if you’re a vegetarian, go ahead and skip the anchovies, it’s just fine without them.
Here’s the recipe. Oh also, we’re on instagram now, please follow us @thesteadytable Enjoy!