Fregola Sarda with Asparagus and Lemon

My posting has gotten sporadic lately, sorry!  My recent dog adoption took up a lot of time in the beginning, and then I bought The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim  and since then I've completely failed at adulthood like a good little gaming addict!  Usually a new computer game means less time for cooking, or at least a greater emphasis on quick, easy meals.  Here's a dish I made recently that took less than 20 minutes!

My in-laws are foodies, which is nice because that means I never have a bad meal with them.  It's also pretty cool that they give us all kinds of high quality ingredients to experiment with.  Recently, they gave us some fregola sarda, which I had never heard of until I looked it up on Wikipedia.   It's an Israeli couscous-sized pasta that has been toasted.  As a result, this pasta is a variety of shades of brown and gold, and its toastiness sets it apart from other pastas.

The best recipes are ones that don't overpower the toasty flavor.  This one appealed to me because it contains lemon and I love tart and sour flavors. Since the pasta tastes so good on its own, I restrained myself and put in exactly the maximum amount of lemon zest specified in the recipe.  It was hard not to go crazy and double it, but I behaved myself. 

The only changes I made were to increase the amount of asparagus and use a little extra cheese.  I had more than 1/4 pound and I didn't want it to go to waste.  The lemon zest complimented the toasty flavor of the pasta perfectly.  If you can find fregola sarda, this quick meal is great when you're in a hurry!  This meal can be made vegetarian by substituting vegetable broth for chicken broth. 

Manti!!

One of my favorite restaurants in DC, Zaytina, used to feature a dish called manti, which were tiny Turkish dumplings filled with ground meat topped with an amazing salty garlic yogurt sauce and paprika.  Sadly, the manti disappeared from the menu for a while, and is only offered as a special now, from time to time.  Ever since trying them, I've wanted to make them myself, especially for the sauce.

Over the weekend, I had enough time to finally try the manti recipe from Turquoise.  All I can say is wow, these things were good.  The sauce was even better than what I had at Zaytinya!  The manti themselves were very labor intensive, and were worth making for the experience.  Apparently, the smaller the manti, the better the chef, but I made large ones to save time.  In the future, I'd probably use wonton wrappers to speed up the process.  But the sauce!  So. Good.  It's really two sauces: yogurt sauce and paprika butter.  I'm going to make it to serve with other dishes, like kofte kebab and Turkish chicken with tomato rice pilaf.  The sauce is salty, garlicky, and the paprika butter gives it a great spicy, smoky taste.  I topped my manti with some Aleppo pepper.

The finished product, with the tasty, tasty sauce.

Shirazi-Style Pan Cooked Lamb Kebab

I enjoy looking at the photos in Food of Life, but so many of  Najmieh Batmanglij's recipes are more appropriate for a feast than as dinner for two people.  But, this kebab recipe was easily scaled back for two people.

I know kebabs require skewers, but the only ones I have right now are metal and too long to fit in my largest pan.  So, I improvised! This Persian dish looks really awesome in the pan as it cooks.  It's a little less pretty as the tomatoes break down, but the lamb is so tender!  This dish is cooked by layering onion slices, lamb chunks, and tomatoes, to allow the tomatoes to release their juices over the meat and onions. 

Onions, lamb, and tomatoes layered in the pan.  Also look, my stove is clean!

General Tso's Chicken

My husband and I are fighting the sick.  You know what's awesome when you're feeling crappy?  Chinese food!  Obviously, Chinese delivery or take out, because who wants to cook while sick?  I made this dish a few days ago, but it seems appropriate to post about now, since I had Chinese for lunch.  I think only college students do Chinese food twice in one day, so my post from tonight's dinner will probably be Easy Soup That Requires Minimal Effort.     

Appetite for China never fails to provide awesome Chinese recipes!  This recipe for General Tso's tastes like the real thing (well, as "real" as I've ever had, which isn't saying a lot).  The original recipe called for chicken thighs, which I'll use next time, but for this batch I used chicken breast and it worked fine. 

This is much better than grocery store buffet General Tso's because even though it's fried, the batter is light and the chicken pieces aren't gristly or fatty. I doubled the sauce (which is reflected in the recipe below), and used chili garlic sauce instead of chili paste, which I couldn't get.  The extra sauce is great on rice! The tomato paste makes it tangy, the sugar adds a little sweetness, but I added some extra chilis for a kick. Not only is this good, it's easy.  I don't make a lot of fried crispy food, but I'll definitely keep this recipe around for when I do!  I served it with some steamed broccoli like in Chinese take out. 

My First Omelet - Success! (Except for the flipping part)

People might ask me, how can you be so obsessed with cooking, and never have made an omelet before?! I consider omelets to be a breakfast food and I am way too lazy to haul my sleepy butt out of bed in the morning and cook something. Second, I always considered omelets to be kind of bland.  My mom's omelets were fabulous, but then I went to college and ate omelets from the campus cafeteria.  You know, one ladle of eggs from a giant vat containing who knows what else, toss in some onion, green pepper, and tomato that definitely could have been chopped more finely, and then drown in Tabasco sauce so you can't taste that the eggs have been in the vat since dinosaurs roamed the earth. But, a recipe from one of my Indian cookbooks caught my eye: a garlicky mushroom omelet that contained a hot pepper and some cilantro. It was enough of a departure from the traditional omelet to tempt me to make an omelet. This picture represents my first attempt ever at one!

My "flip" wasn't very successful. 

Sriracha Mac and Cheese

I like spicy food, but I have my limits.  I discovered sriracha sauce a while ago at a local Thai restaurant.  In small doses, I love it!  It can make anything taste good.  I wish I had a bottle at work for when I eat my crappy frozen meals.  I bought a bottle and it languished in my sauce cabinet for a while.  After reading this comic over at The Oatmeal, I was inspired to find some ways to incorporate sriracha in food I actually enjoyed eating.  I discovered that there is a sriracha sauce cookbook.  I'm not brave enough to purchase it at this point, but I found a recipe for sriracha mac and cheese and it is AWESOME. 

The blogger (Sarah for Real) I got this from tweaked the original recipe, and then I did some tweaking of my own (extra cheese! more pasta!  more onion!) and it turned out really well.  I've made this twice.  The first time, I used the recommended amount of sriracha sauce and it was a little too spicy to eat in large quantities.  So the second time, I used just a bit less and it was perfect!

No one can resist the spicy, cheesy goodness!

Antep Lamb Not-Kebabs with Sumac Onions and Asparagus

Okay, so the plan was to make Antep kebabs from Turquoise, my awesome Turkish cookbook.  Too bad we forgot to turn the gas grill off the night before and all the propane escaped.  Since the grill was out of commission, my only choice was to use my Le Creuset grill pan.  The problem is that my metal skewers are way too long for me to use them with it.  So, kebabs were out of the question.  Also too bad: I bought lamb loin, not ground lamb, because apparently I don't know how to read.

But, this dish was still very good, and eliminating the step of skewering the meat may have made it easier to prepare.  The Lamb Spice Mix is fabulous, and would work really well outside of this dish. 

Since I wasn't skewering my meat and onions, I decided to thinly slice the onion and cook it with a little sumac for a tart punch.  I wanted some side dishes, so I made simple steamed asparagus and used some previously made hummus with pita. 

This salvaged meal turned out pretty awesome!