The dinner theme: Quick, healthy, rustic small plates that a busy home chef could make during the week and for parties, most requiring less than 10 minutes prep time. I used simple, fresh ingredients accessible everywhere. A nice discovery was how versatile pre-cooked tortellini can be to quickly make seemingly elaborate dishes.

Barilla tortellini’s composition of dough and cheese (and sometimes spinach) makes the perfect base for dishes needing those ingredients such as savory pies or casseroles. And as can see at the right, I even tried it for breakfast in a bacon-wrapped tortellini frittata.

Grazie to Barilla and Foodbuzz for this opportunity.

The Big Event

I spent days planning the recipes then invited over my foodie friends to help pull it off, my first experience as a “top chef.”  There’s nothing like good food, pressure to perform, and the spirit of invention to spice up a dinner party: A race against time to photograph the dishes before sunset. Orchestrating multiple dishes to serve at once. No kitchen nightmares here! The tortellini worked perfectly in each plate—and surprised us that even after four courses we were fighting over the dessert. All in all, perfect practice for an even more fun dinner in Italy!

Here’s a quick preview of the dinner, with recipes below:

Appetizer:

The Green Course: Zucchini a la Tortellini Barilla

Entree of Small Plates

:
The Brown Course: Mushroom Pizza a la Barilla Tortellini

The Red Course: Barilla Tortellini-Stuffed Red Peppers

The Purple Course: Barilla Tortellini-Eggplant Parmesan

Dessert

The Caramel Course: Caramelized Barilla Tortellini

Appetizer

Zucchini Rounds a la Barilla Tortellini

The Green Course
This recipe puts a twist on tortellini “a la zucchini” to become a healthy, fun appetizer. Barilla Three Cheese Tortellini fills rounds of large zucchini slices topped with marinara and cheese. If you don’t have access to wide zucchini, you can cut a thinner zucchini lengthwise, core the filling, and lay the uncooked tortellini on the zucchini.

Serves 4.

1 2-to-3 inch diameter zucchini, cored and cut in 4 pieces
1 cup uncooked Barilla Three Cheese Tortellini
2 cups Barilla marinara sauce mixed with 1 cup water
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees with oven rack in the middle of the oven.

To core the zucchini:
Cut each end off the zucchini then cut it in half. Using a thin knife, place the knife in the zucchini center then spin the knife to make a coring motion, keep coring to make the zucchini as hollow as possible without cutting through the shell. Needless to say this is not for children!

Slice the zucchini into 2” wide pieces. The number of slices will depend on the length of the zucchini.

Layer 1 cup of marinara across the bottom of an 8” square or round ceramic or glass baking pan (which you can use for serving).

Place the zucchini slices in the marinara then fill each with dry tortellini.
Top each slice with the remaining marinara sauce. It will absorb water from the mixture to cook. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on each slice.

Bake 45 minutes or until a fork easily penetrates the zucchini.

For another meal: Save the zucchini centers to saute in olive oil with salt and pepper. Toss in cooked Barilla tortellini to warm. Serve in a bowl topped with parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. A refreshing light 5-minute meal!

Entree: Small Plates

Mushroom Pizza a la Barilla Tortellini

The Brown Course
Serves 2, or cut each in 4 to share.

These pizzas are literally on large portobello mushrooms topped with Barilla tortellini – a fun, quick weekday meal as the tortellini can be cooked ahead of time or leftover tortellini from another meal can be used.

PREP: Pre-cook the tortellini.

2 large fresh portobello mushrooms
1 cup cooked Barilla Cheese and Spinach Tortellini
1/2 cup Barilla marinara sauce
2 slices provolone or other cheese
1/4 c olive tapenade
1/4 c olive oil
1/4 c red or white wine, optional
1 clove garlic

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Toss tortellini in olive tapenade (or pesto if you prefer!)

Peel and cut garlic glove in half, and rub on the smooth side of the mushroom. With medium heat, pour oil and wine in frying pan. Add mushrooms and cook until softened, flipping over to cook both sides, about 5 minutes.

Grease a metal or glass baking pan with olive oil. Place the mushrooms smooth side down. Arrange tortellini on mushroom to cover as a flat layer. Spoon marinara over the tortellini. Lay one slice of cheese (or sprinkle shredded cheese if you prefer) over each mushroom.

Cook until cheese is melted and slightly browned.

Enjoy!

Barilla Tortellini-Stuffed Red Peppers

The Red Course
Serves 4 as a side dish. As a main dish, double the recipe.

2 large red bell peppers
1.5 cups cooked Barilla Three Cheese Tortelli
1 cup Barilla marinara sauce
(optional) zucchini, cubed in small pieces
4 pieces sliced Provolone cheese, cut into 1/4″ wide pieces (or substitute shredded Parmesan cheese)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

With a sharp knife cut the top of each pepper off at the widest point, to create a lid. Pull any veins and seeds out of the pepper by hand.

Mix tortellini with zucchini pieces. Spoon the mixture into each pepper, then top with marinara. Lay or sprinkle cheese on top.

Grease a 9×12 glass or metal baking pan with olive oil. Place peppers in the pan, with the “lids” alongside the peppers to allow the cheese to brown.

Bake 30 minutes on the middle rack until cheese is browned. Pepper will be crispy, which is a nice contrast to the soft tortellini.

Barilla Tortellini-Eggplant Parmesan

The Purple Course
What’s better than layers of eggplant, tomato sauce, and cheese? A layer of Barilla tortellini to add a nice chewy component.

Serves 4.

1 large eggplant, sliced into 1/2” pieces
2 cups cooked Barilla Three Cheese Tortellini
2 cups Barilla marinara sauce
1 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 c olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

PREP: Pre-cook the tortellini.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a 9×12” pan greased with olive oil, place a thin layer of marinade. Layer 2 large pieces of sliced eggplant, as the base. Drizzle olive oil on the eggplant then spread a layer of marinara then a layer of tortellini. Sprinkle cheese. Add another eggplant layer and repeat, finishing the lasagne with a layer of marinara with cheese sprinkled on top.

Cover with foil and cook for 30 minutes. Remove foil and cook 10 minutes longer to brown.

Dessert

Caramelized Barilla Tortellini

The Caramel Course
By the time dessert rolled around, could we eat The Caramel Course? Several more guests arrived just in time for dessert. They literally fought over the dish, marveling at how the Three Cheese Tortellini’s slightly tart filling married so well with the caramelized coating.

PREP: Pre-cook 2 cups of Barilla Three Cheese tortellini without adding any salt to the water.

Serves 4.

Your guests will be surprised at how delicious the caramelized Barilla Three Cheese Tortellini was. The cheese offsets the decadent caramel with a slightly tart and savory flavor. Topped with whipped cream, it makes the perfect easy dessert.

Heat

2 cups cooked Barilla Three Cheese Tortellini
1/4 cup sugar
3-to-4 tablespoons cream

Sprinkle sugar in a 9″ saute pan at medium-high heat.  Let caramelize.  Make sure it gets evenly cooked, stirring with a wooden spoon if necessary.  When the sugar starts to smoke, start pouring in cream, whisking to make sure sugar is melting into the cream and not sticking to pan.  Bring to boil and toss in tortellini. Bring back to boil, then turn down to simmer as you “saute” the tortellini.  Make sure they are completely coated as they cook in the caramel and take on a golden hue.

Serve in bowl either over vanilla ice cream or topped with creme fraiche or lightly sweetened whipped cream. Optionally top with sliced strawberries.

In Winter, try serving with grated nutmeg and no fruit. The nutmeg accents the cheese-filled tortellini well.

Getting In the Spirit on the “Set” of the Barilla Tortellini Dinner Fest

Word on the street is this market can be very lucrative for small food businesses.

According to a fellow at Norml: “No.” Although a workaround might be joining a “co-operative” as part of the business. While he suggested the baker must have a medical marijuana card, it doesn’t seem like you’d be able to sell products using the product that you’d gotten under your own card.

For now perhaps making vanilla mixes and other food products, under a regular old food license, are the best bet, for the dispensaries to sell or blend together themselves. (My mind is reeling with ideas.)

He noted that Norml is working on getting legislation passed for all sorts of service providers related to the dispensaries.

Do you have ideas, experience, or information about this topic? Please comment or email me, confidentially if you like, to share your thoughts!

Here’s what made this salad so exciting:

• 12 year Saporoso Aged Balsamic Vinegar from House of Balsamic – Not the kind you get at TJs. This is that syrupy, condensed vinegar you can drizzle on your finger to lick.
• Extra Virgin California Olive Oil from Owen’s Creek, rich and accessible with great olive flavor, the kind you can drizzle on a piece of bread with salt and go to heaven.
• Truffle Salt from Susan Rice Truffles, shake and taste.
• An organic apple from the farmer’s market
• Organic spring greens
• Nearly moldy parmesan (Have you read this far? I am of the waste not want not school.

In 5 minutes I had a $10 salad at a fraction of the cost, full of flavor, without a lot of heavy or artificial dressing.

May this inspire you to eat well and stock your cupboard with the best artisan ingredients! And may this inspire food companies to make more simple good ingredients for us simple gourmands.

I’m thrilled with the result of my Italian Onion Soup ala Barilla Tortellini, created for a Foodbuzz Italy trip contest. I was already a fan of caramelizing red onions – and in fact think caramelized onions could be a food business in itself – when the idea of “Italian Onion Soup” (“French” onion soup with an Italian twist) using Barilla Three Cheese Tortellini came to mind.

The tortellini makes this onion soup more substantial as a meal than the bread and cheese-topped style of onion soup. Using the one pot fits with Barilla’s goal to help families cook quickly. It’s a bit longer than the simple boiled pasta but a fun twist for a party or any dinner.

I love everything Italian, and it was fun to marry the Barilla pasta with California’s bounty, using rosemary from down the street (I’m sure my neighbor won’t miss it!), Napa red wine, and California olive oil. When I’m in Italy it will be fun to re-create this using all Italian ingredients!

Servings: About 4 primi sized; or 2 full meal size

Time: 30 minutes total

Equipment: You’ll need a broiler-proof saucepan.

Ingredients

1 cup Barilla Three Cheese Tortellini
1 medium red onion, cut in half and sliced thin
2 cups warm water
1 c grated or shredded parmesan cheese (parmigiano !)
2 T extra virgin olive oil
2 T red wine, of any quality – it still does the trick!
1 T sea salt
1 T ground black pepper
1 T chopped fresh or dried rosemary
Rosemary for garnish (optional)

Pour olive oil and wine in a broiler-proof sauce pan (generally non-stick pans will not work). Add onions and cook over medium heat.

Caramelize the onions stirring frequently until they are translucent, dark, with some crispy brown on the edges. The darker the onions, the sweeter and more flavorful they will be. Remove from the heat.

Slowly add 2 cups of water to the onions. (It will smoke for a second as the water hits the pan.)

Pour the 1 cup of tortellini plus salt, pepper, and rosemary into the onion soup mixture.

Cook for about 10 minutes. Add a little more water if you’d like a more soup-like dish. (Most of the water will be absorbed by the tortellini – which gives it a mellow onion flavor.)

Cook over medium heat until tortellini is done, about 10 minutes. In the meantime, pre-heat your broiler. See how it's nice and brown from absorbing the caramelized onion heaven?

Pour or spoon 1 cup of shredded or grated parmesan cheese evenly over the tortellini.

Broil for several minutes checking frequently, until the top is browned.

Serve it straight from the pan.

Even better than I expected, with rich onion flavor soaked into the tortellini shell. My friends and neighbors loved it!

When I set out to re-make the famous Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies recipe, adapted from Jennifer Cinquepalmi,   using sunflower seed butter, I headed to Trader Joe’s. At $3.99 for 16oz and containing sugar, their new sunflower seed butter product gave me pause. Roasting and grinding sunflower seeds myself would more accurately echo the recipe, which called for plain peanut butter. And $3.99 seemed a bit pricey to this peanut butter buyer….and one pound of sunflower seed kernels costs $1.49. Then again, I’d never made “nut” butter before. What’s a dabbler to do?

The country of origin is not marked on either product, but I’m 83.7% sure, based on the price, that the kernels are from China and 91.7% sure that the butter is from U.S.-grown kernels…perhaps Sun Butter. (Do you know?)

The Results

I coated the kernels with a salt water solution then dry roasting them over a flame. Crunchy, toasty deliciousness.

Using a food processor, I whirled the kernels until they became a smooth and gooey butter.

Interestingly, it took 2x as many kernels to make the equivalent amount in butter. 1/2 cup of kernels makes 1/4 cup of butter, not that shocking though when you think of how much more compressed butter or paste is than the raw ingredient.

The Verdict

Buy!

Given that the kernel price comes to $3 for 16 oz of sunflower seed butter, getting the pre-made butter is a much better investment, if the sugar is not an issue. I’ll definitely try the recipe and reduce the sugar a bit but it should be fine.

Flourless Sunflower Seed Butter Cookies (Nutless Wonder Cookies)

• 1 cup sunflower seed butter
• 1 cup brown sugar (if using store bought butter that includes sugar, slightly reduce sugar)
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp baking soda
• sea salt
• flax seeds (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients together. Place 1/2 tsp size balls on parchment or a stick-free mat on a baking sheet. Bake 8-9 minutes. For chewier cookies remove when they are still soft and seem undone. A true nut free, gluten free crowd pleaser!

To most effectively “wing” something, you must have a vision of your end goal. Your vision lets you think and act quickly as opportunities and pitfalls arise. Read through these stories and you’ll see how you can master The Art of Winging It In Food and Business:

Launch a Product Without a Package (learned @ ExpoWest)

There’s nothing like a “hard deadline” to force a project launch, and the semi-annual food trade shows such as ExpoWest and the Fancy Food Show are the ultimate, for food entrepreneurs ready to make a splash.

While many booths screamed with glossy backdrops, glowing displays, and sexy packaging, the most memorable to me was Gardenbar, a new savory meal bar from the maker of Garden Burger. One of the team members offered a cellophane wrapped sample, running to grab mockup of their yet-to-be-printed packaging. No matter. The bars, which they’d worked to develop for 2 1/2 years, spoke for themselves.

Sure it’s easier to make an impression when you have a track record of a successful previous business, but when good food is involved, being genuine and personable is just as good as glossy, if not better. Not to mention, getting feedback on product before printing packaging from all the attendees is an invaluable opportunity.

Preserve a Bumper Crop (@ California Farm Conference)

My life revolves around farms, food products, and connecting the two. So it was only natural that in the last two weeks I heard from a couple of people whose lives also revolve around these:

Todd Champagne from Happy Girl Kitchen spoke at the Value-Added Products session at the Small Farm Conference. I didn’t know that they can co-pack for organic farms, transforming produce into preserves, without the hassle, cost and regulation of doing it yourself. But they can and do!

At ExpoWest, I learned that Just Tomatoes really does have a tomato farm, which is how their freeze dried vegetable business got started. They dry the tomatoes right after picking. Nothing like a crop of produce to get you to wing it, not to mention a  crop of sheep (see Bellwether Farms‘  story) or goats (see almost every goat cheese maker’s story!)

Make Fondue Without a Recipe (@ Cochon 555)

See how you can wing it with this quick fondue making session with Ray Bair of Cheese Plus (a San Francisco shop), at the Cochon 555 event in St. Helena. Note how well he wings my questions!

Start a Small Street Food Festival (@ Delilah Snell’s in Santa Ana)

Patchwork, in Southern California, has got to be one of the coolest websites and neatest art / craft / food street fairs I’ve heard of.

While the logistics and cost of getting permission to block off streets might seem overwhelming (to me!), Delilah Snell – master preserver and manager of the first Eat Real Festival in Los Angeles – has it down:

Find a block and a timeframe that overcomes any obstacles the city may find to granting a low cost, effortless permit. Essentially, do not block major traffic through-ways and avoid inconveniencing local businesses and residents. For huge festivals, it becomes more of a challenge. But this approach makes a seemingly difficult aspect of a small street food and craft festivals very wing-able.

Start Selling Your Candy (@ dinner with p.o.p. candy)

There’s nothing more interesting to me than hearing how a successful, growing food company put the stake in the ground to get started, let alone choose what they’re making. It was to my delight that p.o.p. candy, Santa Monica-based maker of nut butter crunch run by an uber-organized team, followed the time-honored method: winging it.

In fact, their name, branding, and step into the public eye at the Mar Vista farmers’ market followed happenstance. Rachel Flores had been making the butter crunch for years, as holiday gifts. Several times a respected shop keeper suggested that she sell it. The opportunity arose to share a booth at the market and test the public’s reaction.

Several heated brainstorms later, she and her partner Bill had settled on the name, pulled together packaging, made a few batches (which they do themselves on a stove to this day), and took flight. The rest will be history.

This is how so many small food companies get started, is exciting, and it works. Totally inspirational for the winging-it inclined.

5 Ways to Wing It While Reducing Risk

I wrote these 5 ideas in a general way as they truly can apply both to your business and life.

1. Ask for feedback from your target customer / audience before making the leap. I recently had 20 people taste and review some new food products, and fill out a survey along with a discussion, as a reality check on what seemed like good ideas.
2. Minimize expenses – Borrow, rent or share whatever resources you’ll need to get the job done. Again, ask others how they’ve done it. When a local cookie maker lost her commercial kitchen, she knew she needed to keep baking – wherever – and tapped into me and her network to quickly find a location.
3. Have a Plan B – What if winging it doesn’t work? While you may not want to think “negatively” from the get go, a Plan B may help you realize Plan A isn’t so scary after all, and really go for it. Know that Plan B does not signify failure, but learning, adapting, and capitalizing on unforeseen opportunities. Note: The development of Twitter was not a Plan A.
4. Focus – Know your key objectives for what you’re trying to accomplish. Back to Gardenbar, they wanted to get their new bars in as many mouths and their story in as many ears as possible. Wowing people with finished packaging was less of a priority.
5. Question perfectionism – The most artisanal food entrepreneurs I know master the art of perfection. The only downside is this may slow you down if you’re not ready to leap at opportunities. The upside of course is making an impressive first impression. Ask whether perfection outweighs winging it, and if you can achieve the appearance of perfection through “hacked together” means. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”

How have you winged it in food and business for success…or as a learning experience?

If you can’t make it down there, it’s easy to get your hands on the goods, with pickup locations in the South Bay, San Francisco, Central Coast, Peninsula and East Bay to get cases of organic produce at very reasonable prices for canning, pickling, and saucing: apples, squash, plums, pears, blends.

Yes it’s just as good to buy cases direct at the farmer’s markets but this is just one more easy option to load up before it’s too late and get the kitchen smelling great.

Check out what’s available this week!

They sat on my table for a few days until a dinner party came ’round, upon which I decided to see if they were salvageable. At the same time a heat wave struck, softening up the caramels.

Et voila – the hit of the party: my “monkey bread” pull apart caramels…a veritable caramel loaf. After turning the loaf out of the dish, a day later they’re really pulling apart. A kind of delightful treat for a gift or party!

References: David’s original Salted Butter Caramels recipe and my recipe using brown rice syrup.

Here’s my case for Wonder Food status:

• Affordable: Each slice makes 9 crackers
• Low calorie: About 10 calories each (nutritionals)
• High protein: 2 crackers have about 1 gram of protein. 9 crackers have 5 grams of protein and only 80 calories!
• Quick and easy
• Gluten free and YUMMY
  

Ingredient: (singular!)

• Organic Valley Mild Cheddar slices (each slice = 9 crackers, so as many as you like). 8 slices to a pack = 72 crackers!

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450.
2. Cover a sheet pan with parchment. If you do not have parchment, use a non-stick pan. Do not use a non-stick pan without parchment or disaster will ensue. (I learned the hard way.)
3. Using a sharp knife, slice each cheese slice into 9 squares, by slicing 3 rows across then 3 rows in the other direction.
4. Place cheese on the parchment-covered sheet pan, seven rows of five squares across
5. Bake approximately 7 minutes or until the cheese starts to brown. Cheese will be bubbling and appear lacey. Watch closely! Cook until entire cheese pieces brown then immediately remove.
6. Remove from oven and let cool for 2 minutes.
7. Lay paper towls on a rack or plate, if you would like to dab some of the oil off. You should be able to tilt the parchment to pour the crackers on to the paper towel.

Darker crackers will harden once cool. Crackers that are lighter in the middle may remain soft.

Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

The perfect food to turn into a food business? I have not fully tested the shelf life but they are a natural and stay crunchy for days if not weeks.

Serving Ideas – All Gluten Free!

• with guacamole
• topped with apple compote, for that apple pie / cheddar effect
• topped with caramelized onions
• other ideas?

Baking them topped with natural pepperoni so they bake together is another intriguing idea.

Feel free to reprint this and add new twists. Would love a link back to your recipe from the comments. Enjoy!

Smiling Chef Mahoney in hour 1.

Hour 1: Overview of setting up the brisket in the smoker.

• You want to keep it at 275 degrees for 18 hours.
• Use charcoal and mesquite.
• Keep the fat side up so it drips down.

To build a DIY smoker, Scott used a canola oil drum, from a bakery in Berkeley, and cut it in half. This smoker has had one long life! We once smoked trout in it (wrapped in foil) which was amazing.

Hour 5 – Just starting to brown!



Hour 10 – Night time and still smoking strong.

Hour 21 – Hard to resist a small morsel, even at 7am.

Hour 25 – The first taste is sublime. And the may tastes thereafter. The brisket stayed in the smoker for several hours more, completely infused with smoke.