Salami, arugula and tomato strata

Stratas are wonderful ways to free up space in your refrigerator and freezer. I've always got a stash of bread cubes accumulated from ends of loaves I'm trying to save before they reach the compost-fodder stage. At some point they start to take up valuable real estate in the refrigerator freezer and it's time to play another game of what's in the house.

So I grab whatever cheese is teetering on needing using (usually something I bought for some recipe that I can no longer what it was), whatever protein is at hand and random of acts of vegetables. Pour over your standard egg-dairy mixture and you've got a great make-ahead dish.

And once you've eaten your way through the leftovers for lunches, you've got all that reclaimed refrigerator to fill up and start the process all over again.

This version of random acts turned out particularly nicely, so I thought it was worth sharing. 

Salami, arugula and tomato strata

Adapted from variatons on a Gale Gand recipe in House Beautiful

Ingredients

5 cups cubed bread (crusts are fine)

1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

½ cup salami slices (uncured pink peppercorn worked well here)

1 cup arugula leaves

2 cups grated Fontina (or whatever you’ve got handy)

10 large eggs

1 quart whole milk(or some combo pack of dairy that adds up to that; I used a mix of 2 percent milk and some odds and ends of half and half and cream that needed using)

1 teaspoon dry mustard

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon white pepper

Method

Grease a 9-by-13 pan. Scatter bread cubes on the bottom of the pan. Scatter tomato halves and salami pieces over the top. Strew the top with arugula, pushing ends down in. Sprinkle cheese over the top.

Mix eggs, milk, mustard, salt, garlic powder and pepper together. Pour over ingredients in the pan. Cover and refrigerate for 4 to 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Set out pan to warm up in the meantime. Uncover and bake for 60 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. If it starts to get to brown, top with foil. Let cool slightly before serving.

Rating: Just fine. Perfect for days when blizzard-level winds howl and random sheets of snow go sideways past your house, so you'd rather cook what's in your house than leave it. 

Fusilli with olives, capers and roasted cauliflower

 

When a recent snowstorm hit the Pacific Northwest, media outlets had their fun reporting that Portland residents' idea of stocking up ahead of the storm apparently involved denuding the produce aisles of kale. Really, I'm surprised it wasn't cauliflower, given its current love as a staple in cauliflower bowls, etc. 

Does a Minnesotan rush to the store for kale? No, of course not. We can't get there because of all the blasted snow. Besides, I've got two kinds of it growing in the basement. You know, for those kale emergencies.

Aside from the cauliflower, the rest of the ingredients list for this dish are pretty shelf stable, so if a trip to the grocery store looks to be annoying, it's a decent option using the seemingly omnipresent cauliflower.

Fusilli alla Siciliana

Adapted from "Lorenza’s Pasta," by Lorenza de'Medici. Serves 4 generously.

Ingredients

1 1-pound head of cauliflower, broken into florets

½ cup olive oil, plus 2 tablespoons, divided

4 garlic cloves, chopped

½ cup pitted black olives (I used kalamatas); the recipe suggests Gaetas or another Greek type

4 tablespoons capers in brine

4 anchovy fillets in olive oil

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, plus more for garnish

1 pound of fusilli, cooked until al dente and drained, with some cooking liquid reserved

Method

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. On a rimmed baking sheet, toss cauliflower with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Sprinkle with coarse salt and ground black pepper. Roast for 35 to 40 minutes until almost tender, tossing occasionally. Remove from oven and set aside. (Alternatively, you can follow the original recipe and cook with the fusilli until the pasta is al dente and the cauliflower is nearly tender, which would dirty one less pan.)

Heat ¼ cup olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add garlic and cook a few minutes until fragrant. Add anchovy fillets and break down with the back of a cooking spoon. Stir in olives, capers, remaining ¼ cup olive oil and parsley, cooking a few minutes more until anchovies sort of dissolve into the sauce. 

Add cooked, drained fusilli to sauce along with cauliflower. Toss to coat, adding more pasta cooking liquid as needed for desired sauce consistency and cook briefly to blend flavors. Season to taste, keeping in mind that anchovies and capers are already pretty salty.

Rating: Dave really liked this. I thought it was quite fine, although perhaps not as good as a very similar recipe I've made. But it was less fuss than that one and a faster fix, so it has merit. Hard to go too far wrong with that basic ingredient list. And I could stay inside and glower at the snow.

Pasta with rosemary garlic chick pea sauce

This dish is a perfect pantry meal, one of those what's-in-the-house concoctions. Well, providing your house has fresh rosemary handy, so I guess there's an asterisk there. My potted rosemary plants are managing to survive this punishing winter in the basement under grow lights, waiting, like me, for longer, sunnier, warmer days when it's safe to be outside.

In the meantime, this is a good hearty winter pasta. I suppose if you're cooking for a crowd that insists on meat in every meal, some cooked pancetta would go well tossed in with it. But it's a substantial dish without it.

If you make the recipe with dried beans, it does take a bit of planning ahead. But canned beans would certainly work. I have the equivalent of canned beans in my freezer, where I store beans I've cooked in the slow cooker. Recipes like this are the payoff for the minimal amount of work it takes to have them on hand.

 

Farfelle con passato di ceci

Adapted from “Lorenza’s Pasta” by Lorenza de’Medici, a cookbook that falls under the category of oldie but goodie, outlining 200 essential pasta recipes. She says this dish serves 4, and I'd agree, although you could stretch it to 6 if it's just a pasta course rather than the main dish.

Ingredients

4 ounces dried chick peas (or 2 cans with their liquid)

6 tablespoons olive oil

4 garlic cloves, chopped

3 rosemary sprigs, leaves chopped, plus an optional sprig for garnish

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 pound farfalle or other short pasta, cooked to al dente and drained with some cooking water reserved

Method

Soak the dried chick peas overnight in enough water to cover. Drain and place in a large pot with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cook until tender, about 2 hours. Drain beans, reserving liquid. (Or if you’re using canned, skip this step but reserve the liquid in the can.) 

Puree drained beans in a food processor, adding some salt and pepper and up to a cup of bean cooking liquid (or liquid from the can). (If you're using canned beans, go easy on the salt at first and add more later if needed, since canned beans tend to be heavier on salt than the ones you cooked yourself.) Add about ⅔ of a cup of the liquid to begin with and then add more as needed to make a fairly liquid mixture. (The sauce will tighten up a bit as a cooks.)

In a large deep saute pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and rosemary and cook until garlic is slightly tender and oil is fragrant. Add chick pea puree and tomato paste and heat through. Add a touch more bean cooking liquid (or pasta cooking liquid) as needed if the sauce is too thick. Stir in cooked pasta and season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with rosemary if desired.

Rating: Nice, and pretty fast to prepare if you're using beans already cooked by you or someone else. Next time I might add a touch of crushed red pepper flakes, or perhaps some Parmesan cheese for garnish. It also might be interesting to try with fresh sage leaves. Certainly a handy bail-out meal using mostly shelf-stable ingredients.