Shawna Coronado's Pumpkin Harvest

Also, happy World Pasta Day!  Good grief, so much going on.  We better get right into

Penne with Basil and Pumpkin Bechamel

Wow…so let’s see…  This recipe is my #meatlessmonday post for Meatless Monday. 

It’s also the last of the 2009 Nude & Eco-Cheap Cooking recipes for this year (boo!  I know, I’m bummed.)  I’d team up with the awesome Shawna Coronado for any cooking challenge anywhere and I am going to miss all her delicious veggies.  Still, as winter touches the Midwest, all her nude (no chemicals) eco-friendly veggies are going away and without the veggies, it’s hard to feed a family of four for less then $10.50! 

But, if she’s up for it, I’m would love to see a 2010 Nude & Eco-Cheap Cooking Initiative!

Oh, and before I forget,  it’s also World Pasta Day, which can only be celebrated by eating pasta.  Which is how we get to this crazy recipe  I dreamed up. 

Making Penne with Basil and Pumpkin Bechamel

This recipe is going to be a tiny bit time consuming since we’re going to make our own pumpkin puree with fresh out-of-the-garden pumpkin.  You can substitute canned, but it won’t be as good or as cheap!  After that, it’s merely a case of making the bechamel and eating.

You will need:

• 1 Sugar Pie Pumpkin (free from Shawna’s garden)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (free for the challenge)
• Salt and pepper (free for the challenge)
• 1 package penne ($3.00)
• 2 tablespoons butter (50 cents)
• 2 tablespoons flour (free for the challenge)
• 3 cups heavy cream at room temperature ($5.00)
• Pinch of nutmeg (25 cents)
• 4-6 leaves basil, sliced thinly (free from Shawna’s garden)

That’s a total of $8.75!  Another successful challenge.

Preheat your oven to 350.

Cut the pumpkin in half, remove the seeds and coat with olive oil.  Then sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.  Put the pumpkin on a cookie sheet cut side down and roast for 45 minutes or until fork tender.  Then remove from the oven.

Once it’s cool enough, peel the pumpkin, cut it into chunks and puree in the food processor.  If the puree is too thick, you can loosen it with a little water, broth, or cream.  Add a little extra salt and taste for flavor.  It’s not going to taste like pie or anything because it’s not seasoned for that.  It should have a mild, earthly flavor instead.

Next, prepare the pasta to package directions in well salted water.  Remove while al dente.

When the pasta is cooking, melt the butter in a skillet over a medium flame.  When the butter is melted, mix in the two tablespoons of flour to form a paste.  Continue to cook for about 30-60 seconds or until you get a nutty aroma.  Then pour in the room temperature cream and let it get warm.   Finally, add the pumpkin and let the sauce thicken.

Serve the sauce on the penne.  Top with basil.

And enjoy this final 2009 Nude & Eco-Cheap Cooking recipe!

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Chef Chris Perrin of www.blogwelldone.com and Shawna Coronado of http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com have teamed up to create the ultimate cooking and gardening lineup for the “2009 Nude & Eco-Cheap Cooking Initiative.”

In an effort to encourage people to grow gardens for better health, Shawna Coronado has created the “Get It Garden Challenge” on her blog. As a garden and green living expert, Shawna has written “Gardening Nude”, a book focused on green lifestyle living. Shawna’s challenge has been to replace her suburban front yard with a vegetable garden and grow fresh organic vegetables (naked of chemicals) for better health. She is encouraging her readers to simultaneously grow a garden for better health and record progress with The Casual Gardener gardening blog.

As Shawna pulls ripe and metaphorically nude veggies out of the garden, Chris will feature a meal which includes a special recipe for the veggies picked that day. This entire meal will cost a family of 4 to 6 under $11.50 to prepare. Chris Perrin is author of “How To Make Tofu Not Suck”, an e-book on fantastic tofu cooking techniques, and is internationally famous as the chef for Blog Well Done.

While cooking an entire meal for under $11.50 is an inspiration during these hard economic times, it is also a goal as part of the initiative to stay as natural and organic as possible, utilizing simple, uncomplicated ingredients and cooking techniques that everyone can afford and should use for a healthier lifestyle.  Today’s fresh picked vegetable is Bonnie Plants’ Broccoli ‘Packman’ variety.’

Get healthy today and follow the “2009 Nude & Eco-Cheap Cooking Initiative” with Blog Well Done’s Chris Perrin and The Casual Gardener, Shawna Coronado.

You hungry yet?  Good, because we’re making

Broccoli Bechamel Loaded Baked Potatoes

When I saw Shawna’s beautiful broccoli, I knew I had just the recipe.  Tyler Florence, on his show Tyler’s Ultimate, had a recipe for celebration loaded baked potatoes.  Basically it was blanched broccoli and cheesy béchamel stuffed into a crispy baked potato.

This is my inspired take on Tyler’s fantastic dish.

Making broccoli béchamel loaded baked potatoes

You will need:

1/4 package of bacon ($1.05)

(optional) 8 tablespoons kosher or sea salt

4 potatoes (approximately $1)

Shawna’s amazing broccoli (free!)

Olive oil (part of the challenge!)

4-6 white button mushrooms, sliced ($1)

1 pinch of salt

2 cups heavy cream ($4.29)

2 cups white cheddar cheese ($2.75)

Total: $10.09!!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a heavy skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon and render out the fat.  Keep the fat and cut the bacon into small pieces.  Roll the potatoes in the bacon grease and optionally roll in two tablespoons of salt.  Prick the potatoes with a fork and bake the potatoes until fork tender (how long this takes varies, but start checking around 20 minutes.)

If you prefer a vegetarian version, use olive oil instead of bacon fat. That’s what Tyler Florence did.  Add another dollar’s worth of mushrooms.

Blanch the broccoli by cooking it in well salted boiling water for three minutes.  Immediately remove from the heat and shock it in ice cold water.

In the same skillet, add a tablespoon of olive oil, the mushrooms, and the pinch of salt.  Cook the mushrooms until they turn brown and have given up their water.  Add the broccoli and the heavy cream.  When the cream starts to bubble, add the cheddar cheese and stir to melt.

Add the bacon and mix.  Top each potato with one quarter of the mixture.

Also, if you have any leftover ham or chicken, you can add it at the same time as the broccoli (as long as it’s cooked.)  Now sit back and enjoy!

Get healthy today and follow the “2009 Nude & Eco-Cheap Cooking Initiative” with Blog Well Done’s Chris Perrin and The Casual Gardener, Shawna Coronado

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(BTW, this post is dedicated to Kelly Olexa, who ironically enough, is one of the best fitness vloggers out there.  She’s also one of my favorite people to Twitter at…)

Vegan Gnocchi in Cheesy Bechamel with White Truffle Oil

This recipe starts vegan with the gnocchi, but ends up being vegetarian with the yummy 5 cheese bechamel.  However, vegans, please do not go away.  You can remove the bechamel and replace it with some Elegant Marinara or a sage-brown vegan margarine sauce.

Either way, the party ends with a delicious garrnish of white truffle oil and a little basil for green and flavor.

Vegan Gnocchi

My challenge to myself in making this dish was making the gnocchi vegan.  Gnocchi recipes abound and are not terribly difficult, like this one at 101 Cookbooks I really liked.   Most recipes call for around 2 pounds of potatoes, 4 eggs, and some flour, salt, and nutmeg to add flavor to the party, but I wanted to eat some, too so I had to veganize it.

The easiest thing to do would have been to swap out the eggs with Ener-G egg replacer, but there are two problems with that.  First, while Ener-G egg replacer works great as a binding agent, it’s not so good at providing the protein matrix I wanted to make the gnocchi fluffy.  To address this issue, I added a scant teaspoon of baking powder (you can add more, but be careful, it has a bitter taste).  Second, Ener-G egg replacer needs to be blended with water and I did NOT want watery gnocchi.  For this, I used the novel approach of cutting the amount of water in half.

So here’s what I ended up doing:

• 8 small potatoes (probably four pounds), peeled and cut into large pieces
• 4 egg’s worth of egg replacer, but only 2 egg’s worth of water
• 3 cups whole wheat flour + more for bench use
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder

Boil the potatoes until they are just fork tender.  Rinse with cold water until they can be handled.  Drain thoroughly in a collander.

Add the egg replacer, whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt, and garlic powder.  Using your hand or potato masher, mash the potatoes and mix the ingredients.  If the dough is too wet, add more flour a quarter cup at a time.

Cover a clean surface with whole wheat flour and begin kneading the dough until it is the consistency of cookie dough.  If the dough does not want to stay together, add more flour or a bit more egg replacer.

Once you are happy with the dough, do what Heidi recommends and cut the dough into eight pieces.  Roll each piece into a long strip and cut that strip into bite-sized pieces.  Let the dough rest for a few moments as you get the water ready.

Ready the water by bringing to boil enough water to cover the gnocchi and one tablespoon of salt in a sauce pan or pot.  When the water is boiling, add the gnocchi to the pot in small batches.

How do you know when the gnocchi is ready? Now, here’s where Herve This and I agree.  FORGET THE ADAGE THAT THE GNOCCHI IS READY WHEN IT FLOATS!  It’s a myth and I ate raw gnocchi to prove it.  Boil the gnocchi for three minutes and fifteen seconds.  Use a timer.

Serve with a sauce like a marinara or the bechamel below and enjoy!

Five Cheese Bechamel

I really wanted to gild the lily with this recipe, mainly because I was showing off.  This cheese sauce uses five cheeses to give it the extra zing and junk-foodiness that one needs to truly shatter one’s New Year’s Resolution.

You will need:

• 2 tablespoons butter, cut into tablespoon pieces
• 2 tablespoons white flour (for the love of all that is good, DO NOT use whole wheat flour.)
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup fontina
• 1 cup aged Gruyère
• 1 cup Asiago
• 1 cup Emmenthaler
• 1 cup mozzarella
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• (optional) grated Parmesan

As my one concession to meat eaters, you can use rendered bacon grease instead of butter.  I hear that is might tasty.

Add the butter to a cold skillet.  Bring it to medium heat and continually move the butter around to prevent burning.  Immediately after the butter is melted, add the flour and stir.  (You are making a roux, the king of French thickeners.)  Cook the roux until you begin to detect a nutty aroma.  This should take anywhere from 2-4 minutes.

Add the cream and give it a good stir to make sure the roux is removed from the bottom of the skillet.  Begin bringing the cream to a boil, stirring occasionally.  As the cream starts to boil, add the cheeses, the nut meg, and the white pepper.  That much cheese makes the sauce thicken VERY quickly so you will only need to stir another 30 seconds or.  Remove from the heat and add the parm, stirring to incorporate.

Pour over gnocchi, cauliflower or anything else you want.

Bringing Vegan Gnocchi, Cheesy Bechamel, and the Truffle Oil Together

Get out a large bowl and dump the cooled (though hopefully not cold) gnocchi into it.  Top with the bechamel.  Now, if you have time, you can top the dish with breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese and parsely and bake the dish like a casserole until it gets crusty on top, or you can skip this step.

Baked or not, top with a light drizzle of white truffle oil and a chiffonade of basil.

Grab and spoon and get to eating.

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