Zucchini "Pasta" with Sauce

Every time I tell someone that I can't eat gluten, I get a similar response: "Oh my god! What DO you eat?"

Once, this conversation occurred while I was grocery shopping with a friend. I'd just told him that I'd have to skip the breakfast roll he was about to grab for me. Feeling guilty, he quickly cast his glance around in search of the nearest available substitute. "Um, can you have bananas?"

Yes. I can eat bananas. I can eat almost anything that didn't come out of a bakery or a brewery... at least, as long as we're talking about raw ingredients and not packaged products. But I've been out of the habit of buying anything packaged for years now, so I rarely even think about that. Who needs beef-stroganoff-in-a-box, anyway?

I could get all the packaged stuff in a gluten free version, if I really felt like it. At the health-food shop across the street from me, I can buy gluten-free crackers, bread, cereal bars, pasta, cookies, pita bread, sponge cake... even rice beer if I want to. (It tastes a lot like sake, in case you were wondering!) But most of the time I don't. I'm a whole-food junkie, and besides, those replacement products are expensive! Most of the time, I'd rather just figure out a way around it.

That's how this particular recipe came to be. I was out of rice pasta one night and craving spaghetti, so I grabbed the nearest veggie and started shredding it. Tossing it into a pan with some turkey breast, tomato sauce, onions, and seasoning, I managed to whip up this simple one-pan meal in under 30 minutes.

Although it won't twirl around your fork or give you the joy of slurping foot-long noodles off your plate like real pasta, the zucchini noodles are delicious in their own right. I've always been a fan of zucchini with pasta sauce, but I'd never realized how important the shape is in recreating the "spaghetti experience."

When you cube the zucchini, as I normally do, the zucchini is more the centerpiece of the meal. Each mouthful gives you a sudden burst of... well, zucchini... as you bite into the larger pieces. But with the fine shreds I used this time, the flavors blended together and allowed the sauce to stand out in it's own right. And really, when you're eating pasta and sauce, the noodles are just there to help carry the spicy tomato goodness to your mouth, aren't they?





Zucchini Pasta with Tomato Sauce:
This recipe is for one serving, but you could easily double or triple it if you like. The sauce is a very basic "quickie," but of course you could vary it in any way you want - mushrooms and Parmesan cheese come to mind as nice additions.

Ingredients:
1 Large Zucchini
4 oz turkey or chicken breast, uncooked
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 C. tomato sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
pinch black pepper
pinch rosemary


1. Browning the turkey:
Cut the turkey breast into bite size pieces and toss it into a hot skillet along with the onion and garlic. Stir this all briefly to get the browning process started, then turn the heat down to medium and let it keep cooking.

2. "Noodling" you zucchini:
Wash the zucchini and make sure your chef's knife is sharp. You're going to slice the zucchini lengthwise as thinly as you can. This is a bit tricky with a large zucchini; you may want to cut it in half first to make slicing it easier. The shape isn't too important - I realized at some point that I was really whittling more than slicing. This will give you big, wide ribbons of zucchini "noodles," which work just fine. If you want thinner strips, go ahead and keep chopping.

3. Putting it all together:
Add the zucchini strips to the turkey and onions. Pour the tomato sauce over everything, and add the seasonings. Stir it all together, cover the pan with a lid, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Stir every so often to prevent sticking. Continue Reading!

Jörg's Birthday Cheesecake

It's becoming tradition that every year I make my flatmate a cheesecake for his birthday. This makes me happy for a number of reasons. First of all, because it gives me an excuse to bake. But more importantly, it made me realize that I've been here long enough to start establishing traditions. I have less and less "firsts" here; instead I find more and more moments of connection. Moments that feel like real life, before I uprooted myself from everything I knew.

We've been in this flat for exactly a year, and last year we celebrated Jörg's birthday in this same room with the same people. This year, I watched the same crowd show up, looking more or less like they did last year. They distributed themselves throughout the familiar background, and we went through the familiar birthday festivities. It could have been last year, at first glance.

The background was almost identical - the same furnishings, the same faces - but a closer look revealed the subtle changes of the last year. The table's been painted. There's a new poster on the wall. One of the couples is now married, another brought their new baby. I am, at long last, able to follow the German conversation going on around me. I felt like I was watching a painting come to life and slightly alter itself, so faintly that the casual observer might not have even noticed.

I'm watching life evolve here - my own and those around me. I'm not just the "new transplant" who everyone half-expected to head back home in a few months. I live here now. A network of people and places has slowly grown up around me. I'm a part of Berlin, and these people and places are all a part of me.

And I reflect on my last year here; on how much things have changed and yet remained the same. People think that when you go to a new country you leave everything behind - and it's true, you do, in a physical sense. But while the background picture of Jörg's birthday stayed the same, with only the details changing, I find that the opposite is true of moving countries. I've picked myself up and stuck myself into a new painting, but the longer I stay here the more I recognize the similarities to the old one. Life goes on, people meet and interact and grow together and then apart. We eat food and drink wine, and have our small dramas that fade into distant memory. Things haven't really changed at all. Everything stayed exactly the same... just slightly different.

And on that note: I move on to the recipe for this year's cheesecake! Last year I tried to use a recipe I found on line, but the cheesecake ended up in a puddle once we took the Springform pan away. This year I just gave up on the recipes and forged my own path. Not the best way to approach a cake destined for an audience of 30 people, but I got lucky.

This is a very German-style cheesecake. German käsekuchen is very firm and more cake-like than custard-like. It holds it's shape and lets you really pile the cheesecake on top of the crust without risk of collapse. The sturdy surface lets you spread your choice of toppings freely over the surface without any trouble, and as the cheesecake itself is fairly mild and lightly-sweetened, you can go crazy with the toppings.

The one trick with this recipe is that it is based on Quark. Click the link for a wonderful explanation of this cheese, but in short just know that it's flavor is basically the same as cream cheese, with a texture closer to that of ricotta. I had never seen it before I came here, but apparently it is available through a few creameries in the US - you may be able to find it at a high-end grocery store. If you're very curious you can also order it online at GermanDeli.com If you can't locate quark anywhere, feel free to substitute a low-fat (or full fat, if you like) cream cheese in place of it. It won't be exactly the same as what I made, but hey... almost the same, just a little different!



German Cheesecake with Plum Topping
This basic recipe could be a great starting point for a number of variations. I topped mine with the last jar of my cinnamon-plum jam, but orange marmalade or strawberry jam could be excellent as well. I'm looking forward to trying it with a squeeze of lemon and a tangy lime glaze, or with some goat cheese blended in to the filling for extra bite!

Crust Ingredients:
1/4 cup breadcrumbs (GF if necessary)
1 1/2 C. ground almonds (5 ounces if you're buying pre-ground)
3 Tbs sugar
1/4 tsp cinammon
1/2 C. butter
pinch salt

Cheesecake Ingredients:
48 oz lowfat Quark (or cream cheese)
2 medium eggs
1/4 tsp. almond extract
3/4 C. sugar
1/3 C. cornstarch
pinch salt

Crust Preparation:
Preheat your oven to 350°. Take out a 9" Springform pan, and cut a circle of parchment paper to cover the bottom of it. Reassemble the pan and lay the parchment paper down inside.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a small bowl. Melt the butter over low heat (or microwave on low power). Add the butter to the dry ingredients and stir until the ingredients come together. Scoop the mixture into the pan and pat it into an even layer. Bake this in the oven for about 10 minutes, to give it a nice toasted almond flavor.

Preparing the Cheesecake:
Briefly mix the corstarch, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, stir the quark (or cream cheese) until it is soft. Add the two eggs and almond flavoring, and blend until you have a smooth mixture. At this point, stir in the dry ingredients little by little. Make sure they are thoroughly blended into the cheese mixture.

Pull the crust out of the oven and let it cool for about 5 minutes. Pour your filling into the crust and smooth the top with a spatula. If you'd like a swirl effect in the center of the cheesecake, you can do that now. Take a few tablespoons of topping and plop it in the middle of the filling. Then, take a butter knife, stick it about halfway-deep into the filling, and draw a rough spiral shape from the center of the filling heading out. This will incorporate the topping into the center part of the filling.

Bake for 60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let the cake cool completely, then remove the walls of the Springform pan. Spread thick blanket of preserves over the top, and slice into at least 12 pieces. This is a thick cake - it doesn't take much to make a serving! Continue Reading!