Cooking tips, tricks, and advice from professional kitchens
Posts tagged basil
Spaghetti squash and vegetable ragout, confit garlic and roast tomatoes
Jan 18th
It’s cold, it’s rainy, and I’m tired. I also have virtually no groceries in the house. Now I need to be a little creative.
Here’s what’s in the fridge:
Spaghetti Squash
Zucchini
Carrots
Garlic
Artichokes
Tomato sauce
Garlic Mushrooms
Caramelized onions
Grape Tomatoes
These grape tomatoes are grim looking. They’re wrinkled and dry, so what better way to use up than roasting. Preheat your oven to 325F, put the tomatoes on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast for 30-45 minutes or until somewhat dry.
Grape tomatoes drizzled in olive oil and seasoned. Ready for roasting.
Cut the ends off the squash – carefully. Cut it lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds and pulp. Place it on a microwave safe plate cut side down, and microwave on high for 7 minutes. Remove when done, let cool, and with a fork, scoop out the strands of squash.
Place a few garlic cloves and olive oil into a small pan or pot. Cover, or nearly cover the garlic with oil. Heat over medium low heat for about 15 minutes. Do not let burn. Remove when garlic cloves are soft and golden brown.
Shread carrots and zucchini, or cut into spaghetti like strips with a mandoline.
Cooked spaghetti squash, julienne zucchini and carrot
Heat your tomato sauce in a pan, add carrots and simmer briefly. Add zucchini after about 2 minutes. Simmer 30 seconds, and add precooked mushrooms, roasted garlic.
Heat up a little butter in a pan, toss in the squash, season. Sautee to reheat. Add your ragout. Garnish with basil, confit garlic, roast tomatoes, and garlic oil.
Spaghetti squash and vegetable ragout, confit garlic and roast tomatoes
Related Blogs
Frozen fresh herbs are economical and convenient
Sep 19th
Fresh herbs are wonderful ingredients that can add loads of flavour to your dishes, but they come at an often inflated cost. I’ve seen two 6 inch long twigs of thyme go for up to $5!
There’s always dried herbs as an alternative, and those are really good in things that will slowly rehydrate them such as pasta sauces and such. But in dishes that are finished with herbs, or for fresh herbed butter dried herbs just won’t cut it.
What can you do if you want fresh herbs on hand all the time but don’t want to spend an arm and a leg?
After seeing some new products in the freezer section of grocery stores for $6 for 80g of basil (and then it’s loaded with oil and salt), I got an idea.
Take whichever fresh herbs you like and ensure they are clean. Pick off the leaves, chop them, and moisten with a little water. Place them in a ziplock freezer bag and squeeze out as much air as you can. You can also do the same in ice cube trays, by placing your herbs inside and topping up with a little water. When you need fresh herbs, just chop off a chunk or pop out a cube. Fresh herbs freeze very well, but you will lose the colorful bright green if you freeze them.
