I wanted Mac and Cheese, but I also wanted Spaghetti. So I combined them. I’m so glad I did.
Ingredients
1/2 lb. (or enough for 2-4 people) spaghetti or other pasta
Spaghetti Sauce:
1/2 to 1 lb. ground beef
1 – 15 oz. can tomato sauce
1 leek, washed and chopped
4 medium cloves garlic, chopped
I C cauliflower, finely chopped
1 carrot, grated
1/2 C kale, chopped
1 sprig fresh rosemary, chopped
3 sprigs fresh oregano (or about 1 t dried), chopped
6 leaves fresh basil, chopped
1 t dried basil
1 t dried parsley
1/2 t dried thyme
salt
pepper
1 T olive oil
Bechamel Sauce (cheese sauce) 2 T olive oil
2 T flour
1 t spicy brown mustard
1-2 C pasta water
1 C milk (I used 2%)
1 C cheese (parmesan and cheddar)
salt
pepper
1 t smoked paprika
Instructions
Cook pasta. Meanwhile, cook meat. Drain and wipe out pan if necessary.
Add to meat pan: 1 T olive oil, leek, carrot, cauliflower, and garlic. Cook until veggies are tender (about 5-10 minutes) over med heat. Add tomato sauce, herbs, and seasonings.
Drain pasta, reserving 1-2 C water (helps the sauce stick to the pasta). (If meat sauce is finished first, add pasta water, adding enough until it reaches desired consistency, cover and let simmer on lowest heat setting.)
Heat oil in a pan. Add flour and whisk together, cook for 30-60 seconds. Slowly whisk in milk and water. Once it thickens, add mustard and paprika. Turn off heat and add cheese, whisking in.
Top pasta with beef sauce and cheese sauce and more grated parmesan (and fresh basil if you’d like).
Great with a spinach salad with some chopped apple, and orange dressing. Or, garlic bread would of course be good.
Notes
2/5 (only because you have to make a bechamel/cheese sauce, which can be difficult at first)
I’m happy to tell you that I have a new sponsor for my show!!
TX Bar Organics provides me with organic, grass-fed beef. This beef is really yummy. It’s so good that a friend, who eats (mostly) vegetarian tried the Hawaiian Sliders and Beef Crostini, and liked them both! Part of the reason she was OK with eating this beef is that I’d asked TX Bar Organics how their cattle is treated. I found out that not only is this beef for sale online, and delivered right to your door, but the cattle are treated humanely, and they eat only grass!! I think I like it.
So far I’ve tried the ground beef and the top sirloin. I can’t wait to try a few more things! I’ll be using their ground beef on this week’s episode of A Cooking Show with Rachel O!
A little bit about them, in their words:
“TX BAR Ranch is located in Northern California 120 miles north of Sacramento. The beef we sell you have spent much, if not all of their lives on a local ranch in Northern California. Our passion is to raise the best beef you’ve ever had, and do it in a way that benefits all of the parts of an agricultural system. That agricultural system includes you, the land, the animal and the community. All of our cattle are part of the global animal protection program in which these animals are raised in a calm low stress environment and treated in with the utmost humane care. This care funnels down to you in the form of taste, quality and peace of mind that your meat came from a naturally healthy peaceful environment.
Our cattle live a completely natural existence as foragers and grazers. Grazing enhances a complex and balanced mosaic of native grasslands, which in turn maintains the vigor and distribution of these habitats, ensuring a sustainable food system.“
And… they want YOU to try some of their beef!
You could win a $25 gift card from
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To Enter (Please leave a comment on this blog post letting me know that you have done both, in order for your entry to be valid! :))Â
1 green garlic, chopped (or 1 clove regular garlic)
1 T za'atar seasoning
1 t smoked sea salt
pepper
pinch nutmeg
1 t paprika
1 T coconut oil
1 T olive oil
parmesan cheese, shaved, for topped
parsley, for topping
Instructions
Heat medium to large pan on stove. Add oils. Add carrots, cauliflower and seasonings. Cook 5 minutes, or until veggies are getting tender, over med heat. Add green garlic, cook 2 minutes or so.
Add water, wine, lentils and quinoa. Bring to a boil. Cook about 15-20 minutes, or until lentils are tender. Add more water if necessary. Add greens about 5 minutes before serving. Water should be absorbed, not like soup - unless you want soup!
Serve topped with shavings of parmesan cheese and parsley, along with some good bread.
I’m blessed to have two brothers. But, until I got a sister-in-law last year, I had zero sisters. However, my cousin, Jill and I are as close as sisters. She’s one of my best friends. She lives in Colorado with her family, so we make up for the distance with visits, Skype chats, phone calls, emails, and texts. She and I were devastated at the loss of our Oma a couple of months ago. We both inherited a love for cooking from her. Jill, however, must have inherited the baking side of it much more than I. She’s a great baker. I asked if she would share Oma’s recipe for Moon Cookies.
Here’s Jill.
I know what you are thinking, it’s why are these called moon cookies yet they are shaped like stars? Well honestly it is just because I don’t have a moon shaped cookie cutter. Every time I make these cookies I am already far too deep in the process to stop, go to the store and get the proper shape, and every year I seem to forget that I don’t have a moon shape so I choose the next best celestial object, a star. But Oma, whose recipe this is, always made them in moon shapes, hence the name. Everyone in the Pries family knows what a moon cookie is.
This recipe is special for many reasons, most importantly because it was Oma’s. And everything from Oma is special. Secondly, they are insanely delicious. One of the ways Oma loved her family was through food. She always had lovely treats and amazing meals waiting for us whenever we would visit. Some of my fondest childhood memories take place in her kitchen, whether it was baking Zwieback and honey cookies, or sitting under the kitchen table first thing in the morning to warm up by the vent, or having Opa help me crush my crunchy buns into my bowl of “Opa” soup. Of all the many traditions Oma passed down, a love of the kitchen was definitely one of them. She was always eager to teach us and to pass down these special family recipes. She had a servant’s heart and loved her family so much through everything she did. I can only hope that I can make my family feel as loved and as precious as she made us feel. Oma – I love you and I will keep trying to learn to crochet dish clothes, even though they always end up looking like cat toys!!
And now a special word of caution…..do not eat these cookies while wearing black. The evidence will be all over you. And that is especially bad if you happened to indulge yourself when you really shouldn’t have or were flat out told not to, like a certain three year old boy who disappeared behind the sofa for a few minutes and then reappeared with lovely white fluff all down his front.
Mix together flour, butter and sugar. Add the nuts (use your food processor to grind the nuts if you had to buy whole ones). Mix well. Refrigerate for about 3 hours. Roll out the dough about 1/4 " thick (thicker is better because they can be quite fragile).
Bake at 350 for 8 minutes or until golden.
After the cookies bake you can cool them until warm, them give them a bath in the icing sugar. Not just a light dusting. Carefully place the cookie in the bowl of sugar and gently pack it on so there is a nice coating. Store between layers of wax paper in the freezer.
Hello!!! It’s time for another episode of A Cooking Show with Rachel O!! I made a Pulled Pork Sandwich with Coleslaw which = a tasty (really messy) sandwich! There’s also a special little feature – the winner of the Joy the Baker cookbook giveaway is revealed on the show!
I got some pork from one of my sponsors, Llano Seco Organic Pork, a couple of weeks ago. I roasted it last week, and have been trying to be creative with the leftovers (it’s the pork I used in last week’s episode as well). If you don’t have pork, you could totally substitute beef, chicken, or even grated veggies (like carrots, squash, parsnips, beets – veggies that aren’t going to turn into mush – just don’t cook them as long). The pork was combined with homemade BBQ sauce, green garlic, pea tendrils, and chard from my Abundant Harvest Organics box, and cooked for hours and hours! There’s cabbage and a grated carrot in the coleslaw, potatoes making the home fries.
Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Coleslaw
Recipe Type: Sandwich, Crock Pot
Author: Rachel Oberg – De Ma Cuisine
Prep time: 25 mins
Cook time: 4 hours
Total time: 4 hours 25 mins
Serves: 4-6
Pulled Pork meets Coleslaw.
Ingredients
2 C BBQ sauce
4-6 C water (enough to cover the pork)
4-6 C pork (I used leftovers, in large slices) (chicken or beef could be substituted)
1 T olive oil
1 green garlic, chopped
3-4 C greens (I used pea tendrils and chard, spinach/kale would also work well)
Drizzle Crock Pot with olive oil, pour a little water and a little BBQ sauce in the bottom. Add pork. Cover with remaining water and BBQ sauce. Cook for 2-4 hours on high, or 4-6 on low (or more!!!! if you have the time, I’d cook for 6-8 hours on low!!).
Add green garlic after pork has cooked for about an hour.
After 2-3 hours, in Crock Pot or on a cutting board, using 2 forks, shred the pork. Return to Crock Pot and continue to cook (on low or high, between 1-5 more hours – make sure there’s enough liquid so it doesn’t burn!).
About 30 minutes before serving, add greens to Crock Pot and combine with pork.
Assemble sandwich: bread/roll, pork, tomato slices, coleslaw (or coleslaw, tomato), drizzle a little BBQ juice over, top with bread. You can dip one slice/side of the bread/roll into the BBQ juice in the Crock Pot… it will make it extra messy! Serve with more coleslaw on the side, and home fries.
On the show, I said to cook it 2-4 hours. That’s fine. But, if you have time, I’d cook it for more like 6-8, on low, with plenty of liquid. After I finished filming, I kept it cooking until dinner time. It was amazing!
The bread that I used got really soggy! It became a knife and fork sandwich. I used what I had, but if I was buying/making something specifically for this meal, I’d use a roll that’s got a good crust on it, that wouldn’t fall apart. All in all, it was a yummy 2 napkin meal!
