Bucatini with sweet peppers, onions, chard, beans & bacon in veg broth

Another weeknight pasta meal

Homemade pork sausage, chard, tomato paste/veg broth/creme fraiche sauce with rigatoni pasta.

Lots of pasta dishes lately, as they make for quick weeknight meals.

Rigatoni Pasta with Spicy Sausage & Chard
This recipe is forgiving and many things can be substituted to accommodate what you already have around. I will try to provide some guidance.

50 grams dry pasta per person (for entree size)
1/4 lb ground pork per person (or Italian sweet or spicy sausage, without casing)
1/2 C shallot, onion, or fennel per person, sliced in nice edible size pieces
2 cups raw greens per person (spinach, chard, kale, other braising green)
1-2 T tomato paste per person
1 C vegetable stock (or chicken, etc) per person
heavy cream or creme fraiche, about 1-2 T per person

If you are working with ground pork and not pre-seasoned sausage, season your sausage with what you have on hand: paprika, chili powder, chili flakes, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, salt, pepper and even rib rub. Mix well.

Boil water for the pasta and begin cooking the pasta. In a large skillet on high, cook the ground pork in chunks, separating bits with your hands and tossing into the pan; when all pork is in the pan, add the onions/fennel/shallot. When pork is browned on one side, stir vigorously and add enough stock to cover the bottom of the pan. Add tomato paste and stir to dissolve, add salt. Add greens to wilt, and as the pasta is finishing, add the cream or creme fraiche to taste. Serve in warmed bowls.

Inspired by Thursday Farmers Market @ The Ferry Building, I made these “tacos” in spirit of Namu‘s lunch stall.

These is loosely adapted from my mother’s bulgogi recipe–I’m not sure how she came up with it, whether from a recipe a friend gave her while we lived in Seoul or if her own interpretation from eating the real thing, but I’ve been using it as a beef marinade ever since and broke it out on skirt steak for these.

1 half pound or more skirt steak (I like grassfed/organic)
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch ginger, grated
1/4 C whiskey
1/2 C soy sauce
3 T toasted sesame oil
1 T red pepper flakes

Mix marinade ingredients together with a whisk. Cut the skirt steak into 1/4 inch slices, and mix together. Marinate at least 1 hour at room temp or up to 2-3 days in the refrigerator.

Make some white rice, feel free to add one of those great Japanese seasoning packets with beans and cut your nori/seaweed.

In a skillet or wok, add some sesame oil and pan-fry the beef. Assemble and top with some sesame seeds and some gochujang (Korean hot sauce).

I know it’s barbecue season and all, but the nice little disc that distributes the heat on my gas grill pretty much withered away to dust all of the sudden, and I’m grill-less unless I want to bother with the whole charcoal thing, which most of the time just takes way too much planning.

And so, after my latest grocery impulse buy–a rack of ribs–I had to come up with somethin’ new.

Oven Baked Ribs

1 rack (or more! hey! who’s to stop you) babyback pork ribs

For the spice rub:
1/4 C brown sugar
1 T paprika
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp berbere mix if you can get your hands on some

Mix it up and rub it on the ribs generously. Let sit overnight in the fridge with it on or at room temp at least 30 minutes.

Make a loose foil packet for the ribs and bake at 300 degrees for 2 1/2 hours.

When rib meat is pulled away from bone, dress top in bbq sauce (store bought in my case) and stick under the broiler meaty side up for a few minutes until bubbly and caramelized.

Mango Slaw

1/2 cucumber,seeded and sliced thinly
1/4 mango, julienned
1/4 jicama tuber, julienned
1/8th head red cabbage, sliced thinly
1/4 carrot, sliced thinly in wafers
2 radishes, quartered and sliced thinly
juice of 1/2 lime
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp walnut oil
1 tsp sushi vinegar or other vinegar
pinch salt

Whisk together last 5 ingredients and add all other ingredients. This’ll be fine the next day too but I prefer it immediately.

Thanks to P for the inspiration.

This dish is extremely quick to prepare if you have the right equipment (a mandolin or julienne tool) and 100% doable on a weekday. Took me about 15 minutes, healthy, tasty, and very presentable.

For the Salmon

1/3 lb salmon per person, fillet, non farmed
5 spice powder
berbere spice mixture or a bit of cayenne
salt

Salt the salmon, let sit for a couple of minutes. Dust the fleshiest side of the salmon in five spice powder and then top with 1/3 as much berbere or cayenne or other similar mixture.

For the Asian Mixed Vegetable Salad

2 broccoli stalks, trimmed and peeled w/ veg peeler
2 radishes, quartered and sliced thinly
1/4 bulb fennel, shaved on mandolin
1/2 cucumber, peeled, cored and sliced thinly
4 leaves butter lettuce, roughly ripped into 1-2 inch squares or so
1 pink pluot, in 1/2 inch cubes
1 dark plumb, in 1/2 inch cubes
2T seasoned rice vinegar
1T walnut oil or other fragrant nut oil
1T sesame seeds or gomashi
salt to taste

Julienne broccoli stems (hopefully you have a mandolin type contraption to do this) and mix all ingredients together!