Pasta

One-Pan Crispy Chicken with Buttery Lemony Mushroom Orzo

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Chicken with Buttery Lemony Mushroom Orzo

This one-pan wonder combines crispy-skinned chicken, baked directly on top of buttery, lemony orzo, studded with wild mushrooms, leeks and baby spinach. It’s a complete (and completely delicious) dinner, made in a single skillet. 

Stir Fried Lo Mein Noodles with Pork and Vegetables

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This fast and delicious pork lo mein is loaded with noodles, meat, and plenty of vegetables—a complete meal in one wok (or skillet).

Preparing a stir-fry for us has become a game of time-shaving. A dish that’s already designed for the quick, hot pan treatment is made even more satisfying when you can snip a minute of prep here and there, or improve the efficiency of the cooking stage using that one weird trick (“Chinese restaurants hate them!”). Well, we’re using that one weird trick here, and here’s the essence of it: we soak the pork strips beforehand, for just 15 minutes, in a baking soda solution. This helps the pork stay really tender. More on this below.

Note: This recipe is part of our on-going series with Serious Eats. You can also find this recipe, and other great ones, on their site.

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Spring Pasta with Ramps, Peas and Pancetta

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Spring Pasta with Ramps, Peas and Pancetta

Ramps, a seasonal treat in the Northeast US, are in danger of being over-harvested. Since they are very slow to cultivate and difficult to farm, foraging is still the main way to find them. A wild ramp patch can be quickly overrun and destroyed. The most sustainable way to harvest ramps, if you find them yourself, is to cut only one leaf of each plant, leaving the bulb and second leaf to continue growing. This is least impactful on the soil, the plant, and the colony as a whole. You’ll find ramps in this form from sustainable vendors. 

Every spring I’m reminded of how happy I am that we bought a house in the Hudson Valley. The sun is out and I’m sitting on our deck, watching the chickens romp around the ‘garden’. Yes, ‘garden’ is in quotes because it’s mostly weeds, rocks and buried concrete (why, previous owners? Why?). And yes, those pesky chickens are obsessed with destroying the few plants we’re actually trying to grow. But none of that matters! Gardens can be planted. Chickens can be strangled penned. The important thing is that it’s ours and we love it (sometimes).

Another fantastic thing about spring is all the wonderful fresh green things that are just beginning to show up at the farmers’ market (or your own garden, if you’re lucky and/or talented). A simple pasta dish like this takes full advantage of these fresh flavors, pairing the tender vegetables with crispy pancetta* and a light, creamy sauce.

*You could absolutely leave the pancetta out for a vegetarian dish. You’ll probably want to add a bit more salt since the pancetta is salty.

Spring Pasta with Ramps, Peas and Pancetta
Ramps (wild leeks) have a lovely garlicky flavor. I love them with peas and pancetta but you could use any tender spring vegetable you like.

Since this is probably the last ramp recipe of the season (sob), it needed to be not just a really good one, but also flexible.

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Lasagna Bolognese with Fontina Béchamel

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Lasagna Bolognese with Fontina Béchamel

With a crunchy top and a creamy center, Lasagna Bolognese is the king of baked pastas. Our version adds fontina cheese to the béchamel with adds to the earthy richness. 

Greetings, rebel scum!

Before we get into this week’s recipe, I want to make a clarification about last week’s post: the chocolate babka. You might remember that one of us (okay, it was me) declared it to be an excellent treat for either Easter or Passover, whichever was your preference. We were inundated with literally several letters pointing out that the babka is yeasted, and a traditional Passover, one might say, tends to skew towards the unleavened. The Hebrews fleeing Egypt weren’t, after all, told “Take what you have and scarper, there’s no time to let your bread rise, oh, unless you’re making babka or something, that would be awesome, oh, good work on the pyramids btw”. So, my apologies for that slip, and please tell Uncle Mort it won’t happen again.

Lasagna Bolognese with Fontina Béchamel

This week’s dish is so much recipe – very so much recipe, wow – we actually had to enlist the help of a third Nerd, our most excellent and game friend Heather, who stayed with us this weekend and whose initial idea it was to make lasagna. Now, I made lasagna at uni – I think we all did – and it’s the easiest thing imaginable, you buy your jar of Ragu and a good cheap packet of dried lasagna, bit of cheese of some kind, Double Gloucester probably, cheddar will do at a pinch, bit of milk, nutmeg, there you have it, one lasagna, lovely.

(That sound you hear is Emily retching and then fainting).

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Toasted Orzo with Sage

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Toasted Orzo with SageLooking for an easy, healthy, quick side dish? We here at Nerds with Knives central casting have just the guy for you. This orzo is so good that we’ve made it two nights in a row. And you know what? I’m probably going to make it again tonight and I’m not ashamed to say it! Well, slightly ashamed but that’s mostly because I’ve stripped our one sage plant bare solely due to my obsession with this dish. It has a very similar texture and flavor to risotto but only takes 15 minutes to make. How cool is that?

Toasted Orzo with Sage

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