Pasta pizza

I love this recipe because I can have it on the table in 12 minutes.  If it didn't take the pasta water so long to boil it would be even faster. 

Serves two hungry adults.

1/2 box spaghetti

1/2 package pepperoni slices or cubes (personal preference)*
1/2 c ham* or mushrooms
1 jar pizza sauce
* Processed meats can be full of soy and even dairy products.  Be sure to read the label before you buy a particular brand.

Boil the water, start the spaghetti.  Cook it al dente (undercooked by American expectations), a minute or two less than is listed on the box. 

Meanwhile cook the pepperoni in a dry pan.  If using ham start it at the same time in the same pan.  If using mushrooms add the pepperoni after a few minutes.  Your goal is to get the effect of oven heat on pizza toppings in the pan so if you like crisped pepperoni you'll cook longer / hotter than someone who just wants their pepperonis hot enough to release some oil.  Add the sauce a minute before your pasta is done.  Stir to heat through and toss with the pasta.

If you're feeling generous to your non-dairy allergic dining partner top his portion with good cheese. 

Fish stew

This is jambalaya's tamer cousin.

2 cans diced tomatoes
6 6 oz tilapia fillets
1/4 c olive oil
1 c water
1 t onoin powder
1/2 t celery salt
1 t garlic powder
1 t dried thyme
1/2 t dried basil
1/4 t ground red pepper

Put the tomatoes into the bottom of a large stew pot.  Layer the fish on top.  Combine the oil and spices and pour over the fish.  Put on a lid and simmer about 20 minutes or until the fish flakes easily.  Make some rice.  Serve fish over rice.

Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the final product. 

Beans Barcelona

Everywhere we went in Barcelona we were served white beans with a lot of garlic and oil and white rice as a side dish.  They were heavy on the oil and probably slow cooked their beans.  I've redeveloped that dish into something that's a little more workable for our lives.


Serve with a side salad for a complete meal.  Your soy eating family members can put it into tortillas for burritos.  I like it plain but when the rest of the family eats burritos I frequently use the fillings to top corn chips for my own version of nachos.
Uncooked rice (how much depends on how many people you're stretching the dish to feed)
2 cans white beans
2-5 T olive oil
a lot of raw garlic (I used half of a large head and will probably use more next time.)

Put the oil in a large saucepan and turn the heat to low.  Peel and coarsely chop the garlic, add to the oil, and put a lid on it.  Keep the heat low and stir occasionally.   You are low cooking it to sweeten the flavor, not browning it.  Start the rice.  When the rice is done cooking and you're in the "let stand ten minutes" period, add the beans to the garlic and oil.  Stir to heat through.

 

Update 5/19/10 _ I tried to make this in the crockpot from dried beans and it was awful.  The garlic became bitter and very sharp. I don't know why but I'm sticking with the stovetop version in the future.

Curry

I love curry.  So do my kids.  Unfortunately it stains so my daughter now thinks she's supposed to eat topless.

The easiest way to do it is get a jar of Patak's and follow the directions.  Where is says ghee or butter substitute oil.  I usually use olive for the health benefits but safflower is very lightly flavored.    When it says "double cream" use coconut milk, the stuff in the Asian food section, not the refridgerator section.  Our fridge kind has soy.  Our canned kind does not.  When my sweet tooth kicks in I use the Goya cream of coconut.

They make what seems like 30 kinds of curry paste and I only have access to five so I can't vouch for all their products but most of what I've laid hands on is soy and dairy free.  The cooking sauce is not OK.  It's premixed with all the stuff to make my baby boy sick.

I serve this with homemade flatbread or basmati rice.

Meatcakes

This is pulled from my other blog so it's not in recipe form.  It is a true story and in my (twisted) opinion a great idea.  

I am not a person who should ever allow herself to become bored.  I used to be a bit wild but these days I just don't want to call the babysitter's mom to explain that she's going to be late because I'm in jail. I have a nice homelife I don't want to disrupt so my appetite for destruction has to be well directed.  I'm more blowtorch than flamethrower these days.

But alas a bit of boredom did hit and I unleashed the meatcakes.  I blame Cake Wrecks.   She did a bit on April Fool's jokes.  She linked to an entire meatcake gallery.  A gallery of meatcakes!  And like any crazy person all I could think was, "I can do better than that."  And frankly I did.

The original recipe is basically three layers of meatloaf covered in mashed potatoes all in the shape of a cake.  Meatloaf is disgusting.  Flour based foods are fine in loaf form.  Meat is not.  It also requires a ton of meat and I only wanted one meal's worth of meatcake so I decided to wing it.

Meatcakes recipe
Mix 1/2 pound ground beef with 1/2 pound hot Italian sausage.  Press into a 12 slot cupcake tin.  Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes.  I don't remember which and it depends on how well done you want your meat anyway.  Dump them out on papertowels to drain and blot a bit if your meat was fatty.

Meanwhile, make some mashed potatoes.  I used instant.  Yeah, I'm a slacker but my two year old helper can't be trusted with a masher or beaters.  She can stir the heck out of some potato powder though.  Mmmm.  Potato powder.  I used Betty Crocker Potato Buds.  They're non-dairy non-soy unlike most other instant potatoes.  I used also olive oil instead of butter, rice milk instead of regular milk, and garlic powder to give it a bit of zing.  Also, garlic icing gives me the giggles.  Put down the bucket, its not that gross.  Really quite tasty in fact.

    Mmmm.... Low chemical, dried, flaked, potatoes.

The mashed potatoes didn't quite look like frosting at this point.  They're a bit yellow to begin with and then the garlic was making it a bit spotty so I decided to dye the whole thing.  Search Amazon.com for gel icing color wilton I let Froggy pick the color and she chose green.  Frankly I expected pink but we were making cake for Daddy and I suppose in her mind he likes green.  He does wear it every day.  A bit of gel icing, a bit of stirring and ta-da a big bowl of green garlic mashed potatoes.  It was even more disturbing in person.

To assemble place a meatcake in a foil cupcake paper.  It needs to be foil or the weight of the mashed potatoes will knock over the paper.  Mine shrunk a bit with cooking but no worries when you're coating the whole thing in "frosting".   Put the mashed potatoes in a piping bag with a star tip and squeeze them on there.  This was my first experiment in piping and it wasn't visually distressing.  It wasn't attractive either but it definitely looked cupcake like.

I planned to tell my husband we were having dessert first when he came home for lunch but he seemed to sense something was up.  He saw the tray of cupcakes on the table and got out the camera.  Froggy immediately ratted me out.  "Daddy it's mashed potatoes!! Hahahahah!!!"

Grilled sausages and kraut

Sausage can be tricky because of the fillers.  We have a local butcher and get the perk of supporting an independent business while eating well.  Oscar Meyer hot dogs will do if necessary. 

For kraut I like the Bavarian style by Del Monte.  It's sweet rather than sharp and my toddler will eat it.

I usually serve this with bread and corn or a salad.

Pasta Puttanesca

Oh how I love this stinky dish!  There's a whole lot of flavor here.

Ingredients
1 box thin pasta
1 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/3 c parsley, chopped
1/4 c olives, chopped - This is the major flavor for the dish.  Pick an olive you like.  Greek and Spanish work well.
2 T capers
1 t anchovy paste or 1 tin anchovies pulverized with a mortar and pestle or mini food processor
1 T fresh or 1 t dried oregano
1/8 t cayenne pepper
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes, no salt if available
1 box frozen chopped spinach, defrosted

Directions
Seriously, chopped everything before you start.  Once you start cooking it goes fast. 
Cook the pasta
Heat the olive oil.
Saute garlic 1 minute
Add parsley, olives, capers, anchovy, oregano, cayenne pepper and saute 2 minutes
Add tomatoes and saute 5 minutes
Add spinach and heat through

Toss with pasta.

Split pea soup

Ingredients
1 pkg split pea soup
2 c diced ham (check the brand for soy / dairy if processed), 1 meaty ham bone, or 1 ham hock
3 carrots, chopped
1 small to medium onion, chopped
2 ribs celery with leaves, chopped
1 bay leaf
1/4 c fresh parsley or 2 t dried
1 T salt
1/2 t pepper
1 1/2 qts (6 cups) hot water

Put it all in a crockpot and cook on high 4-5 hours or low 8-10 hours.

Pulled Pork

Ingredients
Marinate:

• 1/2 c cider
• 1/4 c chopped onion
• 1 t Worcestershire sauce (Some brands have soy sauce.   Lea & Perrins is safe.)
• 1 t tobasco
• 3-4 lb pork shoulder

Rub:

• 1 T sugar
• 1 t salt
• 1 t paprika
• 1/4 t black pepper 

Optional
Ketchup or BBQ sauce. (Check your BBQ sauce for soy. Different flavors in the same brand can have very different ingredients.)

Directions
Marinate 6-10 hours. 

Make a ring from aluminum foil to lift the pork out of the liquid in the crock pot. 
Pour marinade in the crock pot, pat the roast dry and apply rub
Cook on low for 7-9 hours

Optional sauce:
Skim fat and add 2 T ketchup or BBQ sauce to make a vinegar sauce.  Can also serve with bottled BBQ sauce.

Chili

Ingredients
1 lb ground meat (beef, chicken, chorizo, whatever)
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves chopped garlic
1 15 oz can tomatoes w/ chilis
2 15 oz cans beans (any type you like)
2 T chili powder
1/4 t cumin
1/4 t BBQ or Cajun seasoning

Directions
Brown ground beef.  Add onions and garlic and brown those too.  Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer 20 minutes or until just warm or as long as you need until you're ready to eat.

Pasta and red sauce

It's not glamorous but it's fast, both kids will eat it, and I can have it on the table in 12 minutes if I use the right pasta.  We usually have rotini because it cooks fast and both kids can handle it.  Angel hair cooks a bit faster but the little ones have a tough time handling the noodles.

Ten minute fish

Ingredients:
Frozen fish
Frozen veg
Instant potatoes.

Directions:
Read the label on the sack of fish.  There will be directions for how to bake, fry, etc it.  Wherever it says butter use olive oil.  If you use breadcrumbs make your own or check for soy.  Repeat on the vegetables.

Be sure to read the label on your instant potatoes to be sure they're non-dairy non-soy in the box.  When making them use rice milk and olive oil instead of whole milk and butter.

Mixed Bean Soup

Ingredients
1 20 oz  sack 15/16 bean soup
1 large onion chopped
2 cloves garlic or 1 T garlic powder
1 tsp. celery salt
2 stalks celery chopped
1 bay leaf
2 dashes of cayenne pepper
Ground pepper to taste
1 package polish kielbasa sliced into coins or 1 ham hock or 2 c ham cubes

Directions
Throw away the flavor packet.
Soak the beans overnight well covered with water
Drain the water
Put beans in the crockpot and cover with water plus 1 inch.
Brown the onions and garlic
Add all ingredients to the crockpot
Simmer all day (8 - 12 hours) and stir before serving.

Serve with bread or rice and a salad.  Freezes well.  Makes good leftovers.