Turkey Meatball and Farfalle Soup

Lunch on Tuesday:


I adapted this from the Chicken Meatball and Orzo Soup from the April 2009 issue of Food & Wine. It was in a feature called "5 (Almost) Instant Soups", and they weren't kidding. From start to finish, this took me 20 minutes. It's light and fresh, a perfect soup for early summer.



This didn't look like something that would reheat particularly well, so I decided to just make enough for lunch. I used one link of sweet turkey sausage and made 3/4" meatballs from it. I browned the meatballs in a bit of olive oil in my saucepan I was using, then added 1 can of low-sodium chicken broth (no removing the meatballs and then adding them back in). Once it came to a boil, I added 1/2 cup of mini-farfalle pasta. Any small pasta would work for this: shells, orzo, even spaghetti broken into smaller pieces. I set the timer for 2 minutes less than the pasta cooking time, and when it went off, added a handful of chopped spinach. It cooked for another couple of minutes to let the spinach wilt, and then, DONE!

A nice light lunch in no time!

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Recipe: Chicken Meatball and Orzo Soup from Food & Wine, April 2009

Space needed: Minimal
A plate for the meatballs. For my single-serving version, I just formed the meatballs and dropped them directly in the pan; no plate needed.

Cost: Under $5 ($4.10/serving)
$16.35 for the full recipe as written, but almost half of that is the chicken sausage. Maybe chicken sausage is cheaper elsewhere in the country, but the packs I looked at here were pricey. I subbed in less-expensive turkey sausage and, had I made the full 4 serving recipe, would have saved $3.50 overall. I also used store brand low-sodium chicken broth instead of brand name, which also saved me some money.

Recipe amounts: Chicken sausage - $7.50; Chicken broth - $4.50; Orzo - $0.75; Garlic - $0.10; Spinach: $3.50

Brown Butter Blueberry Tart

I posted my results from a food terms quiz on Facebook a few days ago, and one of my friends responded with "Cook me a pie!"

Just to spite him, he's not getting a pie. He's getting a tart. TAKE THAT.



This is going to my gaming group this evening: my adaptation of the Brown Butter Raspberry Tart from Bon Appétit's June 2009 issue. I switched blueberries in for the raspberries, and left out the berries completely in one quarter, using white chocolate chips as the "filling" instead. In case there's anyone who dislikes berries. Which, yes, is probable.

Tarts like this, where the crust is pressed into the pan, are perfect for smaller kitchens. No rolling out the crust! And like all recipes that call for a tart pan, I made this in a springform cake pan. Same removable bottom principle, but the springform is able to multitask a bit better. The tradeoff: it means that my tarts don't have a lovely fluted edge. I haven't had anyone complain yet.

What a great, simple way to let a batch of berries shine!



Recipe: Brown Butter Raspberry Tart from Bon Appétit, June 2009

Space needed: Minimal
A couple of bowls (you could probably get away with one and just reuse the bowl you made the crust in to also make the filling), a saucepan, and a tart pan/other baking pan. I needed very little counter space for this.

Cost: Under $10
For the recipe as written, you'd be looking at about $9.00 for the whole thing. Most of that comes from the berries. Substituting a less expensive berry or finding a deal at a farmers' market would be an easy way to lower the price. Mine using blueberries came out to $5.

Recipe amounts: Butter - $1.25; Sugar - $0.25; Vanilla - $0.80; Flour - $0.30; Eggs - $0.30; Raspberries - $6.00

Dutch Baby with Lemon Sugar

April's issue of Gourmet had a lovely article featuring 5 different dessert recipes made with lemon and eggs. I was faced with the dilemma: which to make first?

The winner ended up being the Dutch Baby with Lemon Sugar. This is basically one huge popover that ends up being shaped like a bowl. Popovers are my weakness, so I'm not sure it was a fair contest for the other recipes.

Anything you would put on pancakes or waffles would work as a Dutch baby topping: fruits, powdered sugar, syrup. The Gourmet recipe uses lemon sugar, made by combining lemon zest with the sugar. I added the zest to the batter instead, and finished it off with a dusting of powdered sugar.

I followed the advice of several reviews and cut the butter back by half. They weren't kidding. Two tablespoons is more than enough butter to generously coat the pan.

Piping hot in the oven. Puffy!

The center puff falls almost immediately once it's out of the oven.

The crater, still dotted with melted butter from baking.

Perfectly browned risen sides.

Time for dessert! Or breakfast! Or brunch!

I managed not to eat the entire thing in one night, refrigerated my leftovers wrapped in foil, and then reheated the foil-wrapped package in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes for breakfast.

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Recipe: Dutch Baby with Lemon Sugar from Gourmet magazine, April 2009

Space needed: Minimal
One bowl and an oven-safe skillet. If you don't have an oven-safe skillet, this would work fine in an 8" or 9" baking dish or cake pan. Baking time might need to be adjusted for a different size pan.

Cost: Under $5
My total came out to $2.52 for the whole dish. This makes 4-6 servings (depending on serving size), so you'd be looking at anywhere between $0.42 and $0.63 per serving.

Recipe amounts: Sugar - $0.15; Lemon - $0.67; Eggs - $0.45; Milk - $0.30 ; Flour - $0.15; Vanilla - $0.20 ; Cinnamon - $0.05; Nutmeg - $0.05 ; Butter - $0.50

Lemon Pepper Pasta with Capers

To make up for the gravy fries from the last post, let me point you in the direction of a lovely pasta in a light lemony cream sauce: Lemon Pepper Pasta with Capers from The Kitchn. And yes, I mean that. Each serving has a grand total of 1 tablespoon of cream in it, and you can easily nudge that already-pretty-low number down, or even use half-and-half instead.



We have Trader Joe's here, so I made sure to pick up a package of the Lemon Pepper Pappardelle the last time I was there. The girl who rang up my purchases told me she'd tried it with tomato sauce and that it just hadn't worked, but she didn't know what sauce to use instead.

This one is a nice simple option. Turns out you don't need a lot of cream for a convincing cream sauce; this one calls for 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) total, and I used even less than that. I added between 2 and 3 tablespoons of cream to mine and it was plenty. I also cut back on the capers and added what looked like a "good amount".

There's a lot of room to play around here. Toss in some veggies, add some chicken (or shrimp or shellfish, if you're someone who can do that without breaking into hives... which I'm not), use regular pasta and add the juice from the lemon to the sauce, etc.



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Recipe: Lemon Pepper Pasta with Capers from The Kitchn at Apartment Therapy

Space needed: Minimal
Two pans (one for pasta, one for sauce), and enough counter space to chop up the garlic.

Cost: Under $5 per serving
Actually, under $2 per serving. $1.79 to be exact, $7.15 for the full 4-serving recipe, going by what I paid for the ingredients here in Maryland.

Recipe amounts: Pasta - $2.00; Garlic - $0.10; Lemon - $0.50; Butter - $0.10; Olive oil - $0.15; Chicken broth - $0.40; Cream - $0.40; Capers - $3.50) = $7.15

Gravy Cheese Oven Fries with Roasted Garlic

Today was a yucky, rainy, gray day here in MD.

I wanted warm, carb-filled, unhealthy comfort food. The PERFECT excuse to make the Gravy Cheese Oven Fries with Roasted Garlic that Serious Eats posted a few weeks ago.



Oh, mama.

I feel bad even posting this, but it was so ridiculously easy and SO GOOD. A nice time-saver and space-saver is to use frozen steak fries. That's what I did, so I omitted the olive oil used on the potatoes. I ignored the cooking instruction on the package and followed the recipe: 40 minutes at 400 degrees, turning once. The fries and garlic were done at the same time, ready for the super-simple gravy. Cook flour and butter together for a quick roux, add beef broth, stir like crazy for a minute to get rid of the lumps, then let it simmer for 20-30 minutes.

The roasted garlic is such a great addition to this. The sweet, slightly caramelized flavor sets off all those savory ingredients very nicely.

I am ready for a happy carb nap now. :)

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Recipe: Eat for Eight Bucks: Gravy Cheese Oven Fries with Roasted Garlic from Serious Eats

Space needed: Minimal
Space to cut up the fries and slice the top off of the garlic, a saucepan for the gravy, and a baking sheet for the fries and garlic. If you use frozen fries, you barely need any counter space at all.

Cost: Under $5 per serving
This depends heavily on the cost of the cheese. Serious Eats used a Gruyère that was $15.80 per pound, and even theirs came in at $8.02 for 2 servings. I used some Trader Joe's shredded Mexican four-cheese blend that I had on hand, which was something like $4 per pound.