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Simple Soup!
No picture, but I’ll add one when I make it in a larger quantity!
Ingredients
1 cup brown long grain rice
3 tomatoes, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
1 can chicken or veggie broth
salt
pepper
basil
2 cloves garlic
4 cups water
olive oil
1/4 of a red onion, diced
Directions
- First things first, in a medium pot, get your 4 cups water boiling with a pinch of salt, the rice, and a smashed clove of garlic.
- Next, dice up your other garlic clove. In a small pot, cover the bottom with olive oil and throw your garlic in there with it.
- Dice up your tomatoes, then slip them in the pan with juice and all. Add salt, basil, and pepper.
- Let the rice go about 30 minutes at a low boil, and the tomatoes at barely boiling.
- When the rice is done, drain and run cool water over it before transferring to a separate bowl. You can remove the garlic bits.
- In your medium pot, add a bit of olive oil and then the chopped onion. If you want the celery crisp, wait until the onions are half sauteed before adding it. If not, add now.
- Once your onions are mostly clear, add the broth.
- After they stew together for a bit, add in the tomato sauce and however much rice you like. I added about two handfuls. Add salt and pepper as you like.
- Turn your heat as low as possible, let simmer for at least 10 minutes. You can let it simmer until you serve, but no more than 30 minutes.
Review
Since I made this without a recipe, just making it up as I went along, I’d say it turned out pretty good! I was very very happy with the results and plan to make it again soon. It’s also pretty good with cheddar or parmesan added, but definitely not necessary. I’m betting it’d be good with mild Italian sausage if you want some meat in it.
Adding this to my list!Baked Stuffed Rigatoni
While mom seemed to be a huge fan of this, there were a few adjustments I’m eager to make. The original recipe calls for frying and breading the chicken, but I bet it’d be nicer just barely browned in butter or oil. The frying was too thick for my tastes. Furthermore, I’d add some cheese and herbs to the inside stuffing to make it just a little more melt-y for next time. The sauce was good, but too thick on the tomatoes and not thick enough on the veggies and herbs, so that bears modifying. Finally, Italian cheese on top was nice, but a couple globs of ricotta would have added a nice, almost lasagna-y touch. Oh, and lastly of all - the cooking time needs some playing with, as the edges of the casserole ended up dry and gummy after baking, which was no good but should be an easy fix overall.
Prep Time: 30 min
Cook Time: 30 min
Ingredients:
Sauce:
- 1/4 cup diced chicken
- 1 small onion, diced
- 3/4 cups baby carrots, diced
- 3/4 cups celery, diced
- 1/4 cup diced and gilled portobello mushrooms
- 1 can plain tomato sauce
- 1/4 to 1/2 can diced Italian tomatoes
- 1/2 to 1 cup water
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
- Salt to taste
- 1 to 2 small cloves garlic, minced, or 1/4 to 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp parsley
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- 1/4 tsp oregano
- Pepper flakes to taste
Pasta and filling:
- 1 box short, wide diameter rigatoni
- Salt
- 1/2 a boneless, skinless chicken breast, diced finely
- 1/2 cup shredded Mozarella or Italian Four Cheese mix
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 tbsp parsley
- Pepper to taste
- 4 tbsp butter or margarine
- 1 3/4 cups Italian Four Cheese Mix
- 1 cup ricotta
Instructions:
- Begin by making the sauce. Dice the chicken and vegetables.
- Add oil or butter to a large pot and mix in the chicken. Brown on all sides.
- Stir in onion, carrots, celery, and mushrooms and cook until tender.
- Add tomato sauce and Italian tomatoes, stirring frequently. Try to mash the tomatoes against the side of the pot as much as possible with a wooden spoon.
- Stir in water, pepper, salt, garlic, parsley, thyme, oregano, and pepper flakes.
- Simmer, covered, for a half hour or until desired thickness.
- While the sauce simmers, begin working on the pasta and filling. Briing a large pot of water, salted and oiled, to a boil.
- While waiting for water to boil, beat the egg and add it to the cheese, parsley, and pepper. Toss well.
- Cook the rigatoni until al dente. While rigatoni is boiling, add oil or butter to a pan over medium heat and brown diced chicken on all sides.
- Mix chicken in with cheese, parsley, egg, and pepper while still warm and toss well.
- Strain rigatoni but do not rinse. Using your hands, stuff each pasta with chicken and cheese mixture.
- Arrange the rigatoni in a layer on the bottom of a greased casserole pot, distributing slices of butter or margarine (especially around the edges) to keep pasta from becoming gummy.
- Cover rigatoni layer with a layer of tomato sauce, then another layer of rigatoni and butter or margarine. Top with remaining tomato sauce, Italian cheese, and ricotta cheese if desired.
- Bake for 25 minutes, covered, at 375 degrees.
Image by Karl.Simpson on Flickr.
Recipe based off cooks.com recipe.
Zucchini Fritters with Tomato and Mozzarella
Ingredients
3 cups shredded zucchini
2 cups all-purpose wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
4 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil, or as needed
3 tablespoons olive oil, or as needed
1 pound fresh mozzarella cheese
2 large ripe fresh tomatoes, sliced
sea salt for sprinkling
Directions
- Mix together- zucchini, flour, baking soda, Parmesan cheese, garlic powder, oregano, marjoram, basil, black pepper, and salt.
- Beat eggs with buttermilk
- Mix these hoes together.
- In a large skillet, heat your olive oil/ vegetable oil mix over medium heat until it’s shimmery with heat.
- Spoon a decent amount of batter into the pan. Fry each side until golden brown.
- Let them drain on paper towels.
- I used a cookie cutter to cut rounds of mozzarella out of a sheet. But you can do that however you like. Layer fritter, mozzarella, then tomato. Then sprinkle with chunky salt.
Review
I liked this! I got the recipe originally from allrecipes.com, made a few healthy tweaks, and threw it together. Even a few days later, still really delicious. I just heat up the fritter part, then layer cold mozzarella and tomato. It’s yummy. I had some trial and error with the sizing, but I figured out smaller=better. If you like veggie stuffs, I recommend this. If you don’t, I don’t. That simple!