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October 31, 2005
The Joey stuff
A couple of weeks ago I went to a pot luck with my neighbours, and Jenn's old roommate Joey showed up halfway through supper bearing an amazing cold pasta dish that was so good it gave me that little food orgasm. I went home carrying all that was left of it, and badly needing to know how to make it. I haven't got the recipe yet, and today I couldn't wait any longer. So I made it up myself.
The dish was basically pasta, greens, garlic, crushed red chillies, bread crumbs (I never would have thought to use bread crumbs in a pasta dish!) and some kind of light sauce. I wanted to try something tahini-based, even though Jenn said that she doubted he would have used tahini. I thought a good starting place would be Jae's vegan "alfredo" sauce recipe, since it contains most of the things I was guessing were in the Joey stuff.
I started by frying up some garlic and onion in olive oil, then threw in a huge pile of chopped-up collard greens (thanks, Cari, for the great tips on how to cook greens. I've been eating them all week) and sauteed them until they were soft and really bright green. Then I added about four chopped (dried) red chillies, some black pepper and sea salt, and about half the tahini and plain soy milk called for in Jae's alfredo recipe. Here's what all that looked like cooking down:
After it had thickened up a bit I added the lemon juice and took it off the stove. I let the sauce cool before mixing it into my cooled pasta, but next time I'll mix it up while both are warm so that it's a little easier to get the collard greens to not clump together.
I toasted three slices of bread under the broiler with butter and crushed garlic (obviously to make it vegan you would substitute margarine or olive oil). I accidentally let about half of it burn up, so only about one and a half slices of bread made it into the salad. This turned out to be the perfect amount.
Then came the fine tuning: I was pretty sure that Joey's recipe had a lot of raw garlic in it, so I crushed one more clove right into the salad bowl. It didn't taste quite hot or tangy enough, so I chopped three more chillies into the bowl and threw about two tablespoons more lemon juice in.
Perfect. I could eat this every day. If you want to try it, you can get Jae's "fettucini no-fredo" recipe in her hot-off-the-press cookzine, Ripe #4.
Update: Jenn told me that Joey likely also puts Braggs in the salad, because apparently he puts it in everything. I've never used this and have no idea what it tastes like, but the second time I made the Joey stuff I threw in some soy sauce, and it was good. Really good.
I also made myself a Hallowe'en costume today, since there's a party tonight. Here's a peek:
I'm going as flypaper.
Posted by jodi at October 31, 2005 08:11 PM | categories: food
Comments
That pasta dish looks yummy. Thanks for sharing it.
Posted by: Gina at October 31, 2005 08:45 PM
That looks fabulous. Coincidentally I had kale from the garden last night in a brown rice pasta dish...but mine had red sauce. The kale was SO DELICIOUS. That's the time to pick it, they say, after there's been a bit of frost, and boy is that the truth! I hope more grows before it gets killed by the frost.
And that costume is a hoot.
Posted by: Norma at October 31, 2005 11:13 PM
love the fly paper idea!
I would love to get my hands on those cookzines and knittingzines but I have no way to send her cash, maybe when I get to the States eventually she'll have some left!
Hope you had a good night!
Posted by: Anna at November 1, 2005 04:39 AM
I'm one posting too late for topical commenting, but...I LOVE your Durrow pattern in Magknits. "Perfect" sweaters for men are few in the knit world. You've captured the following "items" that makes for a great man-knit:
1. It is in grey.
2. Not too fancy.
3. Interesting enough though that I don't want to stick a needle in my eye.
4. The sleeves are the most interesting part - that's good b/c I begin to hate projects by the time the sleeves roll around. Something to look forward to.
5. The design is not reminiscent of someone's grandfather or a sea captain.
Well done jodigreen, well done. (now you just have to convince magknits to post your chart)
Posted by: Moe at November 1, 2005 08:13 AM
Okay...that's the first thing I'm going to make when I'm back home in my own kitchen again.
Posted by: cari at November 1, 2005 11:09 AM
I'm not a big collard greens fan, but that looks worth trying. Mmmmmmm.
Posted by: Snowball at November 1, 2005 11:48 AM
yum!
i want to see the costume!
Posted by: Sandy at November 1, 2005 11:53 AM
jodi - the blend of recipes sounds great (is your tongue made of sandpaper though?! that sounds like a lot of chilis!).
and what a smart costume - i wanna see it in full.
Posted by: jae at November 1, 2005 12:33 PM
Happy Halloween!
~
Thanks for the link to the AntiCraft. It's awesome. Just the kind of stuff I like. (I just had to check out the pattern you said was named after snow) I hope they have many more issues.
So do we get to see a full version of you as fly paper?
:)
Posted by: Micky at November 1, 2005 12:48 PM
Now I'm hungry.
Flypaper...heh.
Posted by: NWJR at November 2, 2005 08:21 AM
being eye-talian (and coincidentially vegan) i can't wait to try the pasta-bitter greens recipe. thanks for sharing!
Posted by: a rose is a rose is a rose at November 2, 2005 10:12 AM
Oh, super yum! I think I'll try this next time I hit the market.
Don't we get to see the costume in full?
Posted by: Jen at November 9, 2005 01:26 PM