45 Minutes or Less Collection

Summer is most definitely not for me. As you may have have gathered from previous posts, my culinary inclinations favor cooler weather (Spargel obsession notwithstanding). So much so that when it’s oppressively hot, I lose my appetite and passion for food almost entirely. It’s sad when meal prep becomes more an irritant than an outlet for creativity. So here’s a small collection of unfussy recipes you can bung together in under an hour. I know people usually tout 30 minutes or less as the benchmark for quick cooking, but I’m a slow cook. Wear your sunscreen and stay hydrated!

Bruschetta

You can crisp the toasts in the oven while you prepare the toppings. You can make the tomato business a few hours beforehand and throw it in the fridge for when hot food is unthinkable. There’s a lot of room for improvisation here. The marinated tomatoes are also great on salads, the mushrooms could be developed into a killer pasta sauce, the toasts could be applied to nearly anything dippy (oooh, now I have to go make Spinach Artichoke dip, brb).

Ingredients

Toasts
loaf of bread
olive oil
Tomato topping
6 tomatoes, seedy goo removed and diced (San Marzanos are perfect, Romas work)
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
oregano, 1/2 t dried or 1 t minced fresh
salt
pepper
olive oil
fresh basil leaves
Mushroom topping
olive oil
1 shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 lb/500 g mushrooms, sliced
thyme, 1/2 t dried or 1 t fresh
salt
pepper
2 T dry sherry
Optional
Parmesan cheese, grated or shaved
Balsamico crema

Tools

Baking sheet
Pastry brush
Medium mixing bowl
Skillet

Basic Toasts: Preheat oven to 300°F/150°C. Grab a loaf of bread that you can slice into medium slices, maximum 1 cm thick (I like ciabatta or a fat baguette). Slice it up then spread the slices in a single layer on a baking sheet. Using a pastry brush or similar, paint the slice with a bit of olive oil, just lightly coating the face-up surface. Bake toasts oiled side up for 15-25 minutes or until crisped. Don’t have a pastry brush? Pour a little olive oil into a wide, flat, high-sided plate and dip one side of the bread in. It doesn’t need to be soaked through.

Marinated Tomato Topping: Mix tomatoes, garlic, oregano, salt, pepper and olive oil thoroughly. Heap on toasts, garnishing with fresh basil, balsamico crema and cheese.

Sautéed Mushroom Topping: Heat skillet to medium and add oil. Add shallot and garlic and cook until tender and fragrant. Turn heat to medium high and add mushrooms. Cook, stirring frequently, until mushrooms have released their liquid and are beginning to brown. Add thyme, salt, pepper and sherry and stir until sherry is cooked off. Heap on toasts and garnish with cheese.

Homemade Pancakes

Breakfast for dinner FTW! Or breakfast for breakfast. Or lunch. If you want to brush up on basics, I highly recommend a deep dive into Mark Bittman’s recipes and videos. He doesn’t make things overly fussy.

Grilled Asparagus

Again with the green Spargel! Well yeah, I need to eat enough that I don’t crave it before next May. This preparation is really simple but the result is deliciously complex. The green and smoky flavors pair deliciously with a creamy foil, like a half batch of the Creamy Parmesan Pasta Sauce.

Creamy Parmesan Pasta Sauce

Alfredo sauce’s creaminess comes from emulsifying pasta water, butter and cheese. My sauce is cream based, so I won’t call it Alfredo sauce. Ideally, I call it dinner. It’s brilliant with the grilled asparagus. In other seasons, I like to add roasted Brussels sprouts or broccoli. The link directs to our blog as Williams Sonoma doesn’t have their GDPR game right.

Tabbouleh

The batch size fills a large mixing bowl. If you can let it chill overnight, the flavor develops nicely. Some grilled chicken wouldn’t go amiss as an accompaniment.

Kimchi Noodle Stir Fry

Since successfully making fish-sauce-free kimchi, I’ve been having a good time finding ways to consume it. I didn’t bother with the tofu in this recipe, but I really liked the result from squeezing the kimchi juice. I added it with the other sauces in step 2 (click link!) and was wowed.

Chicken Salad with Curry-Lime Dressing

This is almost certainly evolved from Coronation Chicken. It is kind of a staple during the summer for us, served on croissants, a soft whole wheat roll or just crackers. You can poach chicken for it, but breaking down a rotisserie chicken makes this happen as fast as you can chop. Use the meat for this and freeze the carcass for future broth making.

Casserole Collection

When I read a recipe for a casserole in cool food blogs or hip food magazines, the dish is often referred to as “a throwback” or “retro.” This makes me irate. Delicious and comforting are the culinary equivalent of timeless chic and no one can tell me otherwise. Sure, if you grew up with these in the midcentury Midwest, they may have been cream soup explosions or can-opening extravaganzas. But if you learn to make from-scratch cream soup substitutes or opt for fresh vegetables instead of their canned counterparts, you can add skills to your culinary toolbox while turning out some real treats. Also, casseroles usually yield leftovers, so future you will thank present you.

Jambalaya
This one is a one-pot wonder. It’s also fairly flexible. I first had jambalaya at a Cajun restaurant in Detroit and have tried to recreate it ever since. I like it with just sausage, but you can throw in chicken and/or shrimp if you like. And because I’m a fiend for any permutation of beans and rice, I add highly unorthodox kidney beans. I used to make it fully on the stove top, which was fine, but there was always the issue of part-burnt/part-gummy rice. This stove-to-oven version (learned from Serious Eats) avoids that problem and the texture is more generally pleasing. I usually cheat with this and use store-bought Cajun seasoning mix from the US, but I assembled my own seasoning mix from this recipe for this batch, made entirely with spices I can buy here in Germany.

My method differs from the one in the linked recipe above, in that I add the rice before the liquid. When I make rice outside of a rice cooker, I always use the pilaf technique to keep it from cooking into a burnt disaster on the bottom. If you’re better at cooking rice than I am (and most people are), feel free to follow the instructions linked above.

Ingredients

2 14.5 oz/400g cans whole stewed tomatoes
2 links Andouille sausage, sliced (Kielbasa works, too!)
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
3 sticks celery, chopped
1-2 jalapeños or other hot green chilies, chopped (leave the seeds and membranes for extra heat)
1 small (about 2 T) can tomato paste
3 T Cajun seasoning
olive oil
2 c/500 g rice
1 1/2 c/180 mL chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1 T Tabasco or your pepper sauce of choice (I’m a Cholula fan)
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed (optional)

Tools

Large mesh strainer
Large bowl with minimum 4-cup capacity
Lidded Dutch oven or other stove-to-oven pot

Using a mesh strainer set over a bowl, drain the canned tomatoes. Crush them with your hands to break them up and squish out all of the juices inside (careful, they’ll squirt!). Set aside crushed tomatoes and add chicken broth to the juices to bring the total amount of liquid to 3 cups.

Preheat your oven to 325° F/160° C and heat a lidded, oven-safe Dutch oven to medium high on the stove top. Brown your sausage slices well in the Dutch oven and remove to bowl. If your sausage lets off a lot of grease, drain all but 1 1/2 tablespoons (If your sausage doesn’t let off much grease and your pot looks dry, use olive oil). Turn heat to medium and add your onion, garlic, bell pepper, celery and chilies and cook, stirring frequently, until very tender, about 10 minutes.

Add tomato paste and crushed tomato and cook, stirring frequently, until wetness cooks off and tomatoes just start to smell caramelized. Add spices, stir to distribute and cook for 2-3 minutes until fragrant. If bottom of pot looks dry, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. It will almost certainly start to show a browned, cooked on layer; this is fine and it will come up when you add the liquid. Next add rice and stir until well distributed and coated with oil. Cook for 3-5 minutes, until rice grains begin to appear translucent on ends. Add chicken broth and tomato juices and stir well, scraping the browned crust from the bottom of the pot. Add cooked sausage, bay leaf, pepper sauce and beans, stir and taste, adjusting seasoning as needed. Bring to a simmer, cover and transfer to oven. Bake for 35-40 minutes.

Baked French Onion Pasta
This one has been knocking around my recipe hoard for at least 3 years, but I’m glad I finally got to it. I’ll chow down on caramelized onions any day, but caramelized onions with brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce and red wine is a revelation, dare I say a game changer? Alas, my game; she is changed. The original is richer than mine, so to see that version, click the link. I’m detailing below what I did.

Ingredients

1 T butter
3 T olive oil
2 medium onions, cut into strips
1 T brown sugar
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 c/225 mL red wine
8 oz/225 g mushrooms, sliced
salt & pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 c/750mL chicken or vegetable broth
3/4 c/180 mL water
1 lb/500 g short pasta
2 bay leaves
1/2 t dried thyme (generous)
2/3 c/170 mL cream
pinch cayenne pepper
6 oz/160 g gruyère, shredded

Tools

Dutch oven or other stove-to-oven pot

Preheat oven to 350° F/175° C. Heat butter and oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onions and brown sugar and cook, stirring occasionally, until all onions are soft and translucent, about 10-15 minutes. Add Worcestershire and wine in several additions (I did 4), letting liquid cook off between additions.

Add a bit more oil if bottom of pan looks dry and stir in mushrooms. Cook until mushrooms let out most of their liquid, add salt and pepper (taste to check) and garlic. When garlic is fragrant, pour in chicken broth and water, turn heat up to medium high and bring to a boil. Add pasta, bay leaves and thyme to boiling liquid and cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes (or half cook time indicated on pasta package).

Remove pot from heat and stir in cream and cayenne pepper. Give liquid a taste and add more salt or pepper if necessary (cream often dulls salt, so you will probably need a bit more). Stir in gruyère until just distributed and bake uncovered in oven for 25-30 minutes.

Vegetable Paella
Bonus recipe, you guys! A big thank you to the Paella Club in Barcelona for getting our paella game right and tight! If you’re visiting Barcelona, I highly recommend booking a class, it was extremely fun and we learned a lot. What follows is how I’ve adapted their recipe to our kitchen and available ingredients.

Ingredients

olive oil
1/4 lb/115 g carrots, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/4 lb/115 g mushrooms, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 sachets ground saffron
1/2 t hot smoked paprika
1 c/225 mL tomato purée (I use whole canned tomatoes puréed in a food processor)
1 lb/500 g Bomba or Arborio rice
4 c/1 L vegetable broth
salt to taste
black truffle oil (optional)

Tools

12-in/30 cm cast iron pan or other ovenproof skillet

Preheat oven to 400°F/200° C. Heat pan on stovetop to medium high and add enough oil to fully cover the bottom. When oil shimmers, add carrots and cook, stirring frequently. You’re going to do this for a while, until the carrots have cooked way down and almost appear shriveled and dehydrated and have a faint aroma of burnt toast. This can take as long as 30 minutes, so be patient. Once your carrots reach the desired stage, remove them to a bowl and set aside. Now add the onion and cook until translucent and beginning to caramelize. Add carrots back in along with mushrooms and cook until mushrooms have let off all of their liquid and are beginning to brown. Add garlic, saffron and paprika and cook until just fragrant, 2-3 minutes.

Add tomato purée and stir well, cooking until about half of the liquid has cooked off and mixture is nice and thick. If the bottom of your pan is looking dry, add a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Add the rice, stirring well and coating with vegetable sauce for 3-5 minutes. Add broth and turn heat to high, stirring occasionally. Once boiling, stop stirring and turn heat to medium high to cook for 4 minutes. After 4 minutes, transfer skillet to oven and cook for 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven, drizzle with truffle oil and let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Morbiflette

This can be a side or a main. If you want the whole backstory on how this got reverse engineered, go to the blog and get the low-down.

Cabbage Roll Casserole

It sounds very humble, but this is my favorite casserole. A whole head of cabbage easily makes one dish to cook right away and one to give away.

Ribollita

This one is hard to categorize. Technically, it’s a soup, but since it’s all in one pot (more Dutch oven action) and goes from stove-top to oven, I’m inclined to call it a casserole. Whatever you call it, it’s extraordinarily delicious.