One-Counter Cooking: Spaghetti Pie

Last week when I went to cook a meal to last me a while, I polled my pantry and saw I had everything to make pasta. But regular pasta is boring. I wanted something baked, and I wanted to use my new Pyrex pie plate. 

Enter spaghetti pie. To me it makes me think of mid century dishes that include elaborate jello molds that bizarrely contain spam. Filling, tasty, and easy to do on the cheap, it's a great single ladies dish. 

I scanned a few Pinterest recipes but ultimately made my own dish, as I encourage you to do as well. 

Ingredients: 

For the Crust:

Half pound of cooked spaghetti

4 eggs 

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese 

3/4 tbsp oregano

3/4 tbsp dried basil

1/2 tbsp cracked red pepper

Salt and pepper to taste 

For the Filling:

8oz bag of shredded mozzarella 

1 medium jar of sauce 

2 small zucchini, sliced 

1 cup chopped mushroom

3/4 cup diced tomato 

1 cup sliced pepperoni 

Olive oil, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar

Preheat your oven to 375. 

In a large skillet sautée your filling (if you choose to use the same ingredients as me!). Inspired by a discussion on home cooking with legit Italian grandma at my office, I used extra light olive oil to sautée and as the zucchini cooked squeezed in half a lemon and a splash of ACV. I think this kept the veggies from being overpowered by the pepperoni. Add the tomatoes at the end, you don't want them to cook down too much. 

In a bowl, beat the eggs. Add seasonings and cheese, then whisk well. 

Add noodles to egg mixture. You will start building your crust. I started by covering the base of the pie dish, then layering strands around the sides until there was an obvious indentation in the center. 

Now in retrospect I wish the crust had been permeated with sauce. So in the future I will probably put down a layer of sauce, then cheese. You could also use ricotta for this layer. 

Add your filling! 

Top with sauce, cheese, and fresh basil if you feel so led. 

Bake at 375 for 20 minutes, then let it sit for at least 5 minutes. This held up super well for leftovers and made 8 nice slices. 

One Counter Cooking: Bacon Waffle

There's no real recipe to follow here, just some food porn inspiration to show what you can and should do.

One Counter Cooking - Slow Cooker Black Beans

These beans are out of control. Soft and flavorful, some might call it "transcendent." Eat with rice, in wraps or tacos, as a side. 

I ate mine with dirty rice and chicken (in a mushroom Dijon sauce). 

I made up this recipe after browsing through a few blog posts. I doctored it to my tastes (spicy) and what I had on hand. I would've used all chicken stock but I was nearly out when it came time to cook. I quick soaked the beans - basically boil them for 2 minutes in 6 cups of water and then let stand for an hour. 

INGREDIENTS 
1 lb of black beans (you'll need to soak them before cooking!)
2 bell peppers
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic 
1 cup salsa
2 seeded and sliced jalapeños 
2 bay leaves 
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cumin 
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup water
1/4 cup fresh cilantro

In a skillet sautée the onion, garlic, and bell peppers [rinsed and chopped first, duh]. Salt and pepper to taste. When the veggies have browned slightly, remove from heat. 

I did a large chop on the peppers and onion

In your crockpot add the beans, chicken stock, water (enough so that the beans are covered), salsa, herbs, and seasonings. For jalapeños, I used the jarred variety. Add your sautéed veggies, stir it up, and set the crock pot to high. 

Ready to stew 

Depending on your pot, it will take 4-5 hours. My pot is older, so it took 5+ hours. At the 5 hour mark I mashed the pot a few  times, to add an extra creamy texture. 

It filled a 2 quart corningware dish. Beautiful.

I wish I had lime juice!! It's going on the top of my list next shopping trip. Consider topping with sour cream or avocado, or both. Or cheese. Get your freak on.

One Counter Cooking - Sautéed Sweet Potato & Spinach Pasta Salad

Since moving into my new apartment, I've been cooking and feeding myself for the first time in two years. When I was in Peace Corps, my well meaning host mother would hardly let me boil water. Now I'm queen of my own kitchen and pantry. 

Pinterest has been an endless source of recipes with which to experiment. This is one of the non-Pinterest meals I've thrown together. 

Sautéed sweet potato & spinach pasta salad, with homemade balsamic vinaigrette and feta. 

My one failing was that I started off sautéing the sweet potato and the spinach simultaneously. And clearly they did not need the same cooking time.   Despite some too crispy spinach, this wound up being an excellent single lady/one counter meal. 

INGREDIENTS

1+ cups cooked pasta of choice

1 medium sized sweet potato

2 cups spinach 

1/4 cup feta cheese (or more, whatever. you do you.)

Olive oil, salt and pepper for sautéing... you're a grown ass human, you know how much you like. 

Balsamic Vinaigrette INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup EVOO

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1 clove of garlic, minced 

1 green onion, finely chopped

Salt and pepper, as you wish. 

Wash and peel your sweet potato (or potatoes if you aren't an independent single woman eating alone, like me) and halve and slice. Sauté in a pan with olive oil and salt and pepper. Once the sweet potato has softened (and gotten a nice tan), throw in the spinach... and maybe some extra EVOO if the pan is getting dry. 

While you're sautéing that sweet potato, which might take 5 + minutes, add all the ingredients for your dressing in a jar (I reuse a glass salsa jar). Screw on the lid and shake well!! Shake it like a shake weight! The recipe I adapted this dressing from included honey and Dijon mustard, but I prefer my dressing on the bitter side to balance out the sweet potato. 

The deed is done, so add your sautéed veggies to a bowl of cooked pasta, pour on some of that dressing, and top with feta. 

One Counter Cooking - Buck You, Starbucks

On a scale from one to daily fanatic, I'm about a six on the Starbucks scale. If I'm going to buy a tasty basic brew, I like to mix and match at 711. But I do enjoy a tasty flavored treat from Starbies. When I was in Indonesia with the Peace Corps, Starbucks was the ultimate decadence, rarely enjoyed and easily 5x the cost of a meal in my village. As a funemployed cat mom, I can't really justify a regular tap of iced mochas. Besides, I've tasted the nectar of the gods, and Starbies can't hold a candle to iced coffee served in a plastic bag from a pushcart parked in downtown Bangkok. 

nothing compares 2 u

I've been itching to try cold brewing my own coffee so that I could attempt Thai iced coffee on my own. What I've learned is that a batch of cold brew can be styled all kinds of ways, and that one batch lasted me nearly a week, drinking it twice a day.

This is the counter where all the magic happens [featuring one of Michelle's candles]

I adapted this brew from a post by The Pioneer Woman. She brewed a pound of coffee in 8 quarts of water, and I have nothing that big in our apartment. So I halved it and gingerly rested a lid on our biggest Tupperware and hoped the cat wouldn't find it. 

So, half a pound of coffee (I used Dark Roast that I bought at Aldi, but next time I'm going to get something radically strong from Zeke's Coffee), 4 quarts of water - mix it up and make sure all the grounds are in contact with water and not floating on top. Then let it sit - I wound up letting it sit for a lonnnng time because I went out that night and didn't want to filter it until morning. But at least 8 hours for brewing in a cool space. 

Then the fun starts:

I moved all the clean dishes out of the way for this photo but did not put them in the cabinets. 

Using a mesh sieve and paper towel for an extra fine filter (you could also use cheesecloth, less paper waste!), I started straining the grounds. The key is to use a spoon or something to press down on the grounds in the sieve, ensuring you get every last drop of black gold goodness. 

In the end I had an entire carafe of cold brewed coffee. The first thing I wanted to make was Thai styled iced coffee. The essential ingredient to Thai or Vietnamese iced coffee is, in my opinion, the sweetened condensed milk. 

oh my glob

Depending on the size of your coffee, one gloopy spoonful can be enough... or it could be just the beginning. This is the formula I followed: fill cup with ice, fill 2/3 of the way with coffee, spoon in condensed milk, top with coffee creamer [or milk], and stir. For Thai style, I added a dash of cinnamon. I've also read opinions that Thai style needs nutmeg and cardamon, but you know what, I don't have that in my pantry yet. 

yes ma'am

That was only the beginning of a very caffeinated week. One night Michelle was craving ice cream, so I made Nutella Coffee frappes. 

I took a shitty screenshot of my instagram video of the process

For a frappe, you'll want 1 cup of ice, 1/2 cup of milk [I used chocolate milk], 1/2 cup of coffee, multiple tablespoons of Nutella [I used 4], 1 teaspoon of sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Blend and serve. I threw a dash of cocoa powder on top, but I wish I had blended it in. You could also add whipped cream or chocolate syrup.

I also perved out on some coffee on coffee cube action. The coffee cubes were from a leftover cup of Sumatra roast I had brewed the boring, hot way and then forgotten to drink because I got obsessed with cold brew.

I do drink everything out of my Starbies travel cup

The great thing about cold brew is that its flavor is very strong and won't be too watered down with regular ice. So when you add cold brew to coffee cubes, you're basically asking to never sleep again. It's great.

I also tried mixing in cocoa powder with the condensed milk and creamer, which really made it taste like a Starbies iced mocha. 

Do you hear angles and harps? Because I do.