Sunny Day Pasta (Pasta with asparagus, feta, onion, lemon)

This is for days when you come home with a pink nose from the sun. For when you’ve been riding your bike, or lounging around on a terrace. It is for days with ice-cream cones and chats with friends. For the end of a warm afternoon reading the papers or a juicy book. It is for days like today.

Asparagus, feta, lemon and onion pasta

Serves 1

200 gr slim green asparagus
1 large red onion
25 gr feta
zest of half a lemon
1 tbsp lemon juice
large handful basil leaves
1 tbsp olive oil
a short pasta shape, enough for one person

Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil.

Peel the onion and slice it into slim wedges. Crumble the feta.

Heat the oil until warm. Add the onions and lower the heat. Cook until soft.

Wash the asparagus and snap off the woody ends of the stems. Slice each stalk in 3 cm lengths. Separate the tips and the other pieces.

Add the pasta to the water when it boils and set the timer for three minutes less than you would to fully cook the pasta. When the timer sounds, add the asparagus pieces, but not the tips. Set the timer for two minutes and add the tips when it sounds. Boil for one more minute and drain the pan. (If the simultaneous timing makes you nervous or you are not sure your asparagus are slim enough to be done in three minutes, cook the asparagus separately until they are tender but still firm.)

Leave the pasta and asparagues to cool for a minute or two. Add the softened onions, the feta and the lemon zest and juice. Mix thoroughly. Chop the basil into fine ribbons and add them too. Serve.

Regaining Control (Fresh Tomato Risotto)

My e-mail inbox is taunting me. Every day I go into the office determined to empty it. Answer the messages that need answering, toss the rest. Sometimes I get as far as dwindling down the unanswered pile to 20 messages or so, and the overall mess to under 100. Then I leave for an hour and *bam* - the screen is filled with bold-face e-mails jostling for my attention.

“Neh-neh-neh-neh-neh, you can’t get rid of us. Neh-neh-neh-neh-neeeeeeh.”

Okay, the noise is in my head, but the bizarrely quick procreation of these buggers surely isn’t. So the battle resumes. If I’m lucky, I leave the office with as many messages in my inbox as when I came in. And while it is nice to be needed, it is also a tad intimidating to see my inbox spiral out of control.

After a day of battle, I want something to remedy the madness. Calm, simple food that takes little effort and does exactly what it is supposed to do. No jeering from my pans or oven, no inexplicable multiplication. I have found that risotto is a perfect answer to these demands. I skip the stirring and just boil the rice with the amount of broth the package tells me to. The rice plumps up from the liquid, but in a desirable rather than an uncontrollable way. Twenty minutes later, I have a pot full of soft, luscious food that only needs some flavorings to make a great meal.

Tonight I mixed in a quick fresh tomato sauce with lots of garlic for a clean, upbeat taste. I added slices of olive for punch and topped it with a fried egg for kicks. The latter wasn’t such a great idea: the yolk added a good extra creaminess, but the white didn’t bring anything. No matter, though. There are so many other toppings that would complement the base. Slices of fresh mozzarella, chunks of creamy gorgonzola or shards of salty parmesan. White fish fillet, finely chopped anchovies or squid rings. Crispy bacon bits, smoked chicken or beef strips…

Yeah.

‘Cause I need more endless lists.

Fresh tomato risotto

Serves 1

75 gr risotto rice
1 shallot, finely diced
olive oil
250 ml hot chicken broth
200 gr cherry tomatoes (regular tomatoes work too)
2 cloves garlic, minced
toppings to taste

Heat a glug of olive oil in a thick-bottomed sauce pan. Add the shallots when the oil is warm, and cook until they are translucent. Add the rice, stir until all rice has a film of oil and cook until most of the grains are translucent. Add 180 ml of broth, lower the heat and cover the pan. Simmer for ten minutes.

Meanwhile, halve the cherry tomatoes or chop the tomatoes in roughly evenly sized pieces. Heat a second glug of olive oil in a second small pan and add the garlic. Cook for a few seconds until it loses its rawness. Add the chopped tomatoes and heat gently. Simmer until the rice is done and the tomatoes have mostly disintegrated into a chunky sauce.

Taste the rice after ten minutes. The rice probably isn’t done yet- add more broth to prevent it from drying out and sticking to the pan and cook until the rice is tender (it usually takes about 20 min for me). Add the tomato sauce and mix thoroughly (you can remove the tomato skins if you like, but I never bother). Cover the pan and leave to stand for five minutes or so. Mix in toppings, if using. Turn out onto a warmed plate and top with more additions, if you like. Serve hot.

Dinner challenge

The challenge: Shop for and cook a tasty, healthy dish that is filling but easy to digest in 60 minutes or less. Oh, and get home in that time too, cuz you’re still at work when the challenge presents itself.

The strategy: Check epicurious, hope for an attractive and quick noodle dish- with vegetables, please, but without ingredients that will mean a visit to more than two stores (luckily, work is in the middle of Amsterdam’s tiny China town and there’s a well-assorted Chinese grocer just around the corner).

The intermediate result: A recipe for Chinese chicken noodle soup with green onions, all necessary ingredients and arrival at home within 40 minutes.

The next stage: Slice chicken, mix marinade, put chicken in marinade (almost tipping the bowl of soy sauce-sesame oil- Shaoxing wine goodness into the sink in the process, but preventing mishap by lightening quick reflexes- or, you know, sheer luck). Kiss man when he gets in.

Panic, because man is home, but food is not ready. Relax when man trots of to do some repair work on his bicycle.

Slice cabbage, ignoring suspicious black spots on leaves (probably some sort of secret Chinese remedy for health). Slice scallions (are green onions the same as scallions? I assumed). Crush garlic, peel ginger, fall in love all over again with microplane grater when it reduces ginger to a pulp with the teeniest bit of effort). Mix garlic and ginger with yummy stuff.

Help man look for important bicycle part. Fail to locate it. Tell him to go look in the tool shed, four floors down, mostly to get him out of your hair.

Read recipe again, discover you’ve put too much sesame oil in marinade. Shrug shoulders and add more of it to pan to fry scallions and cabbage. Add stock, chop cilantro while waiting for stock to come to a boil. Add chicken. Attempt to take noodles out of package in neat bundles, dump them all over counter instead. Gather up noodles, add to pan. Stir.

Sigh a little sigh of happy relief- it is 65 minutes after the start of the challenge and soup is ready.

Hear man come in. Tell him “perfect timing!”. Scowl at man when he says ever-so-slightly pungent mixture in pan “smells”. Forgive him when he kisses neck.

The result: Lovely, warming, tingle-inducing soup, slurped up companionably with man (who eats three bowls, in spite of smell.)

The recipe is here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/106192
My modifications: Far less tahini (I think I have superstrength tahini, because I always use way less than recipes tell me to and I still get quite a pronounced flavor), a little less chili-garlic paste (the man's a wuss), less ginger (didn't feel like peeling more), Shaoxing rice wine instead of sherry, unseasoned rice vinegar (that's what I had).

Ah, yes. Soup, you’ve gotten to me. Big time.

Soothing soup

Just one of 'm days.

Waking up an hour before my alarm clock, unable to get back to sleep. An early morning visit from an electrician to tell me my intercom may be inter, but it's not so com. And no chance of getting it fixed. Good thing I have a balcony, cuz I'll be using it to communicate with my visitors, four floors below.

The garbage bag destined for the disposal toppled over when I put it down to tie my scarf. Rubbish and coffee grounds everywhere. Oh, and a nice smathering of garlic-laced yogurt.

On my way to the office, I got soaked. Naturally. An inbox filled with you-must-do-this-for-me-now and I'm-changing-the-info-I-sent-you-yesterday-and-you'd-better-deal-with-it e-mails waited for me inside. Again, naturally.

Seventy-five miniature crises and a nightmare planning meeting later (damn, I'm a drama queen) it was seriously time to go home and hide. Rain again on my way back and there was only one possible answer to this day: soup.

Nigella Lawson's Vietnamese chicken salad had left me with half a head of white cabbage. Perfect for Luisa's rice and smothered cabbage soup (http://wednesdaychef.typepad.com/the_wednesday_chef/2008/01/marcella-hazans.html , have to learn how to do hyperlinks). (Hey! I just clicked to test that link and noticed Luisa's Dutch oven is the same color and general shape as mine. Oooh. I'm so cool.)

Shredding the cabbage put the first real smile of the day on my face. My newly wetted knife defied the day's trend and was nothing but lovely, efficient sharpness. Waiting for the vegetables to change into a silky soft tangle was the perfect excuse for watching an episode of Dharma and Greg (what? you can't do anything trying if you have to get up and stir every ten minutes or so...) and call a few friends. (True to the day, answering machines were all I got. But, you know, at least now it is their turn to call me and I can stop feeling guilty for neglecting them.)

Then all there was left to do was pour in stock and rice, wait a bit more (ha, I got to update my must-try recipe list, seven pages and counting) and add butter and grated parmesan. (Butter and parmesan. Do your salivary glands spring into action just reading those words? Yes? Say yes? I'm normal, right?)

So what if it was still today, I over-poured the rice and the soup resembled risotto more than anything? It was creamy, soft, warm. A hug in a bowl. And just one of 'm days turned into one of mmmmm-nights.