The Odd Fork

The Odd's Fork summer tribute to pasta ends with this recipe. However, it ends the right way!
How is this? With a pasta dish containing very few ingredients while at the same time, it has everything (like they say, less is more)!
Meaning it is tasty, lowcal, vegan, quick and easy to prepare, low in cost, mediterranean and suitable for the summer season. It is indeed the absolute summer pasta!

Of course, it is also strange. The strange thing about this recipe, is the different kind of tomato sauce. No onion or garlic, no need to saute anything, the fresh summer tomatoes, peach and herbs here, do all the work.
During springtime instead of peach, the Odd Fork thinks of using fresh strawberries.

To start, you 're going to need some cherry mini tomatoes or 1 - 2 fresh tomatoes and a peach. Peel the peach and cut it in three equal pieces, as you need only the 1/3 of the peach. Cut it in small cubes.
If using cherry tomatoes, dip them in boiled water for 1 - 2 minutes to peel them easily. You will use one part of peach pieces and three parts of tomato pieces. The Odd Fork used cherry tomatoes mainly for aesthetic reasons, but feel free to use big tomatoes if that suits you better.

In a medium pot over low heat place the peeled cherry tomatoes or tomato pieces (add also the tomato liquids), the peach pieces, a tbsp of olive oil, salt, pepper and a little ground nutmeg and simmer for about 15 - 20 minutes until tomatoes and peach are tender.
Remove the lid, increase the heat and let the sauce thicken. In the end, just before removing from heat, add some chopped fresh basil.

Mix the sauce with your boiled and strained spaghetti of choice, and serve!
For a non vegan option, you can sprinkle the pasta with your favorite shredded yellow cheese.

The Odd Fork goes vegan, lowcal and gluten free today! After many pinches, it turned out that chickpea pasta is the No1 gluten free option for tasty, nutritious pasta meals. An avocado pesto chickpea pasta was the first successful recipe that turned the Odd Fork into a chickpea pasta fan!

So for the above vegan pasta recipe, the Odd Fork used a medium beetroot which it washed thoroughly, dried and wrapped in aluminum foil. It baked the beetroot in a preheated oven at 400F, for approximately an hour until the beetroot was tender.

Meanwhile, the Odd Fork boiled a portion of its favorite chickpea pasta, drained it but kept one cup of boiled pasta water aside. It soaked into this water 2 tbsps of dried cranberries.
When the beetroot cooled, the Odd Fork unwrapped it, peeled it easily and cut it in small pieces.

For the beet - cranberry pesto the Odd Fork just mixed in its blender the baked beetroot pieces, a tbsp of red vinegar, 2 tbsps of olive oil, a clove of garlic finely chopped, salt, a pinch of hot paprika, a pinch of sweet, red paprika, a pinch of nutmeg, 2 - 3 fresh spearmint leaves, a small spring onion finely chopped and the soaked (and of course drained) cranberries.
The Odd Fork blended well on a high speed all the above until a smooth paste formed. To adjust the thickness of the pesto it added some of the pasta water that had kept aside.

The Odd Fork mixed quickly the warm, boiled pasta with the beet - cranberry pesto and served immediately with fresh chopped parsley and sunflower seeds.

The Odd Fork does not stick to food categories, nutrition plans, food trends etc .;
It tries, as much as possible, to pinch everything! So, when it discovered in an organic store chickpea flour pasta, it thought to give it a try.

For a simple first recipe in order to taste more the genuine flavor of the main ingredient (the chickpea pasta), and less the sauce flavor, it thought of making a quick avocado pesto. Besides, avocado is a superfood and so are Chickpeas, so why not follow this healthy food road to the end? -the odd fork thought.
And with this decision, it made in no time a vegan, light and gluten free meal full of protein which gave it the energy to pinch strange food even harder, like this:

It peeled a ripe avocado, cut it into pieces and blended it with the juice and zest of a lemon, a clove of garlic, some black pepper, a little olive oil, and enough oregano until the mixture was a smooth, green cream. This happened while the pasta was boiling, but the odd fork was pleasantly surprised when it found out that the pasta had already boiled even before the pesto was ready!
The odd fork kept aside some water from the boiling pasta and poured it into the pesto -it was never keen on very thick pasta sauces.
Missing something? Of course, salt is missing but you see the odd fork went through a "free" phase that day (gluten-free, lactose-free, salt-free, etc.).
The pasta however, turned out to have a great taste!

Although salt-free, the spicy black pepper, the aromatic, juicy lemon, the umami flavor of the garlic and the intensity of the wild, Greek oregano gave the pasta a Mediterranean mark which made the fork really happy! The chickpea pasta had a slight chickpea flavor but not to the point of being annoying to the palate.

But the odd fork does not stop its healthy pinches here. It has other vegan posts at his blog store which it will soon upload.

They say it's an exaggeration to eat pasta with bread. But if you like to do that, don't feel anymore strange or odd because the Odd Fork presents today this recipe especially for you!
Fresh ravioli here is served with a rich -vegetarian however- milky sauce with whole grain bread, walnuts and parmesan cheese.
The key ingredient though, is fresh sage and it shouldn't be omitted!

If you like to try it, use the following:

- a small packet of fresh ravioli (about 250 grams)
- a slice of whole grain bread
- a cup of milk (fresh milk or evaporated, anything you like)
- a tbsp of butter
- 3 to 4 fresh sage leaves
- 1/3 cup ground walnuts
- salt, pepper, ground nutmeg
- ground parmesan cheese to serve

Start by cutting off the bread crust, as you 're going to need only the breadcrumbs for the recipe. Grind the soft breadcrumbs with your fingers and soak them in milk.
Boil the ravioli (the Odd Fork used spinach and ricotta filled ravioli, but feel free to choose your favorite) and strain. Fresh ravioli take only a couple of minutes to cook.

Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat and add the sage leaves. After a while, the kitchen will be filled with a lovely fragrance so add the ravioli and mix, to give it this nice sage butter flavor. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a medium pot, at medium-low temperature bring milk with soaked breadcrumbs to a boil, add the walnuts (you don't want walnuts to be ground in powder, the texture should be a little bit chunky), salt, pepper and a little ground nutmeg and by stirring frequently to prevent mixture from sticking to the pot or from getting a crust, let it thicken.
Add sage buttered ravioli to the pot stirring softly with a wooden spatula, until mixture thickens more.
Remove from heat, sprinkle with parmesan cheese and serve immediately.

If you also wish to try it, you ‘ll need:

For the goji berry tomato sauce:

- a tbsp of olive oil
- a medium onion finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic chopped
- a small wine glass of Greek Rakomelo (or red wine if Rakomelo is not available)
- 70 grams of tomato paste
- a small carrot, grinded in the cheese grater
- some dried spearmint
- salt, pepper (both black pepper and non hot red paprika)
- a small, dried hot red pepper
- 2 whole cloves, 3 whole grains of allspice, half of a cinnamon stick
- 1/3 cup approximately, dried goji berries

In a small pot, sauté onion and garlic in olive oil. Add the Rakomelo or the wine and after a while the tomato paste dissolved into a big glass of water. Add all the remaining tomato sauce ingredients, cover and let it simmer for 20 - 30 minutes so that onion and carrot are tender.
Then remove the lid, increase the heat and allow sauce to thicken and reduce. Remove from heat and set aside.

For the vegetable - feta cheese "bechamel":

- a big carrot
- an onion
- a zucchini
- fresh dill
- a bay leaf
- some whole grains of black pepper, coriander and allspice
- 2 tbsps of olive oil
- 2 tbsps of all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup of light evaporated milk
- some feta cheese finely chopped
- an egg
- salt (to taste), ground nutmeg

Boil together carrot, onion, zucchini, fresh dill, bay leaf, pepper, coriander and allspice grains. Strain, keeping though about a cup of the water.
Puree boiled carrot, onion and zucchini in your blender adding some of the water that you kept aside, so that a smooth, silky purée forms. Add in a clean pot 2 tbsps of olive oil and when it heats, add the flour stirring constantly. Continue to stir and add the vegetable puree. Lower the heat and stirring with a wooden spatula, allow the vegetable mixture to thicken.
Remove from heat and add the evaporated milk, feta cheese, pepper, ground nutmeg and salt (taste before adding the salt). Finally, add the egg and mix well. You should have a nice, smooth light green cream.

For the pasta:

- half a packet of whole wheat penne pasta (about 250 to 300 grams)
- a tbsp of olive oil
- 2 small cloves of garlic finely chopped
- half a bunch of fresh dill
- some feta cheese finely chopped

Boil the penne pasta al dente in salted water. Dip the dill for 1 - 2 minutes in the boiling water (you want it to soften, not to boil), chop it and mince it in a mortar grinder with the garlic and the olive oil -it is almost like making a dill pesto.
Strain the penne pasta and mix with the dill "pesto" and the feta cheese.
Arrange half the pasta mixture on a baking casserole, cover with the tomato - goji berry sauce, add the remaining pasta mixture and cover the top evenly with the light green vegetable "bechamel".
Bake in a preheated oven, at 400F, for about 30 - 45 minutes (depending on the oven).
Allow to cool for 30 - 45 minutes before serving, cut in squares and enjoy with red wine or beer!

Sticking to pasta recipes, the Odd Fork pinches pasta like there's no tomorrow! However, the Odd's Fork pasta recipes may be odd but they 're tasty and healthy as well!

There was half a packet of whole wheat penne pasta left from the previous post's recipe, so when the Odd Fork also discovered in its kitchen a can of smoked tuna in olive oil, it came up with the idea for the following pasta dish.

It boiled the pasta in salted water adding also some broccoli cut in small pieces. It drained, keeping aside some of the water.
It opened the can of tuna, drained it from the oil and put the tuna oil in a clean pot. It heated the oil and added a clove of garlic finely chopped and some lemon peel strips (only the yellow part of the lemon peel), mixing only for a few seconds.
The Odd Fork just wanted to give the tuna oil some extra flavor and taste, not to fry the lemon and garlic. Quickly it added in the pot the juice of half a lemon, the boiled pasta and the broccoli, the tuna, fresh oregano from its garden, salt and pepper.
It mixed all the above over medium heat (the water from the boiling pasta can be added to this point if necessary -the Odd Fork didn't use this water after all) and served the pasta immediately hot, adding some extra fresh lemon zest.

Pasta recipes are to be continued of course, all forks stay tuned!

The Odd Fork continues with joy its tribute to pasta and today it will pinch a light, summer pasta salad. In the country where the fork is located, bread, grapes and cheese is a common quick snack, especially in the summer.
So, the Odd Fork came up the idea of making a salad using penne pasta instead of bread. It preferred to use wholewheat pasta since as it believes, it is a healthier option and the taste is still great.

It boiled the pasta, strained and washed it with cold water. The Odd Fork washes the boiled pasta with cold water only when it is going to become a cold pasta salad. For a warm pasta dish, rinsing the boiled pasta with cold water is not suggested.
It continued by mixing the penne pasta with grape seeds, small pieces of Greek kasseri cheese and fresh chopped basil. For a vegan option, the Odd Fork thought to use walnuts instead of cheese.

For the salad dressing, it prepared a vinaigrette whisking in a bowl olive oil, lemon juice and lemon zest, ground fresh ginger and some honey. It mixed the salad with the vinaigrette (salt and pepper are missing on purpose here, but you can add if you want to) and let it covered in the refrigerator for about an hour. This way the dressing marinates the salad and the taste completes.
The Odd Fork pinched the above fruity, aromatic pasta salad and was satisfied enough to share the recipe!

The Odd Fork when not busy pinching strange, tasty foods, likes to dive in beer!
Beer is its favorite superdrink and after a good beer-bath, the Odd Fork is always ready to cook nice, unusual dishes!
When the Odd Fork visits its favorite island, the amazing Corfu, washes itself in the lovely local Corfu Beer! And today, using the ultimate summer beer Corfu Real Ale Special, is making the following light beer pasta!

If you also want to taste this easy and totally delicious beer pasta, just saute in one tbsp of olive oil 2 cloves of garlic finely chopped, add two small zucchinis cut in thin strips and some chopped nouboulo (a lovely Corfiot local product made from pork meat which tastes like prosciutto -see it here).
Add pepper, a little turmeric, some fresh chopped basil and 2 - 3 leaves of apple geranium or apple pelargonium (arbaroriza in Greek; an aromatic herb which is widely used in the Greek Ionian islands).
Add a glass of Corfu Real Ale Special Beer and let it simmer for 5 - 10 minutes until the zucchinis are tender. Then increase the heat, remove the lid and let the sauce reduce.

Meanwhile, boil half a packet of spaghetti, strain and transfer back in the pot with the beer sauce and about 1/3 cup of shredded soft yellow cheese, like Greek graviera cheese (if you can find Corfiot graviera cheese is even better!)
Stir over medium heat until cheese melts and serve immediately with BEER!

The Odd Fork celebrates its online success, introducing a theme.
The theme of the blog for a series of posts, is going to be pasta. Pasta is tasty, found everywhere to buy at a low cost, easy to cook and perhaps the most versatile dish. That explains why pasta lovers are countless and the reason that pasta recipes come in thousands.
A simple and perhaps not so strange recipe is this one.

When the Odd Fork wants urgently to pinch something, it makes the following spaghetti dish using leftovers and whatever else is in the fridge.
If you want to make it too, start cooking the spaghetti and while pasta is boiling, heat in another smaller saucepan some evaporated milk. Add a small piece of feta cheese rubbing it with your fingers and stirring with a wooden spatula so that it can melt and dissolve in the milk. Also add some Kalamata olives and dried oregano, they match perfectly with feta cheese!

Strain the spaghetti and transfer back in the pot with the feta cheese sauce, stirring for some minutes so that all the ingredients mix well together and the sauce thickens.
Serve the spaghetti warm! Wasn't that easy?

Variations: Use basil instead of oregano, sun-dried tomatoes instead / or with the olives, roasted red pepper in small pieces, capers, etc ... It is also very tasty with wholemeal pasta.
All you need is fantasy and a big appetite!

The Odd Fork has an often sweet tooth, so it pinches cookies!
Cookies which are easy to make and at the same time full of good, nutritious stuff. Another good thing is that they come in various flavors!

For this unusual -but very aromatic chocolate option, the Odd Fork used:

- a jar of good quality peanut butter, made of 100% peanuts (220 grams)
- 100 grams milk chocolate with stevia, melted
- 1/3 cup of coconut sugar
- 2 sticks or 2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
- 1 teaspoon of pure almond extract
- millet flakes
- some shredded coconut

The Odd Fork emptied out the peanut butter into a bowl and mixing well, it added the melted chocolate, coconut sugar, espresso powder, almond extract and millet flakes (about 2/3 cup or some more, until a dough was formed).
Millet flakes are gluten free, cheap to buy and they have a pleasant, mild taste, but feel free to use oat flakes, buckwheat flakes or anything you like.
Finally, the Odd Fork added some shredded coconut (found also that very moment in the kitchen shelf, so why not?).
It dropped the cookie dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet and baked in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 10 - 15 minutes.

It let cookies cool for 20 - 30 minutes, carefully removed from cookie sheet and stored them in a cookie jar.
They turned out lovely, great with morning coffee or milk, or just practically any time!

The Odd Fork pinches everything and today it pinches lovely chocolate quinoa breakfast cookies which are sugar free, oil free, lactose free, gluten free... But definitely yummy!

If you want to pinch these cookies too with your morning coffee, you 'll need:

- 1/3 cup quinoa
- a handful of black raisins
- a ripe banana mashed well with a fork
- zest of an orange
- a little cinnamon
- 1/4 cup coconut (or a little more)
- about 100 grams of black chocolate pieces (adjust the amount to your taste)

First wash thoroughly the quinoa under running water and rinse it also very well (it will not taste bitter this way). Boil it using twice as much water (although the Odd Fork always uses a little more water). Just before the water is completely absorbed, add the raisins.
Increase the heat on the stove and cook stirring constantly with a wooden spatula until the liquids are absorbed. Be careful as the mixture sticks easily to the bottom of the pot.

Remove the pot from the stove. The quinoa mixture will look like sticky risotto.
Let it cool a bit and add the mashed banana, zest, cinnamon, coconut and chocolate (for the sugar free option use black chocolate with stevia). Adjust the amount of coconut in the quinoa dough, so that you can almost shape the cookies with your fingers.

Shape the cookies on non-stick Parchment Paper and bake at 180°C for about 10 - 15 minutes.
Pinch them warm or cold!

For about 60 small cookies, it used:

- a medium sized broccoli (only the tender florets)
- about a cup of pistachios, coarsely chopped
- 2 small liqueur cups of white sugar
- 1 small liqueur cup of Greek olive oil
- 1 small liqueur cup of Greek mastic liqueur
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- zest of a big lemon
- about 1 and 1/2 to 2 cups of all purpose flour

The Odd's Fork first job was to wash and dry the broccoli. Then it cut the broccoli florets and ground them in the blender.
It whisked olive oil, mastic liqueur, sugar, lemon zest, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl and added the ground raw broccoli florets and the pistachios. Finely, it added the flour and mixed until the dough resembled a kind of thicker cake dough.
It dropped dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet and baked at 180°C for about 10 - 15 minutes.

The Odd Fork not being able to behave itself, pinched the cookies hot right out from the oven but also cool the following day. They seemed more tasty, more "ripe" after a  day.

Anyway, the cookies are now in a cookie jar for the Odd Fork's afternoon green tea. Besides, it is widely known that green tea and green cookies get along with each other very well!

The Odd Fork found itself with enough fresh broccoli, so it decided to make a healthy, simple, cheap -but still odd, broccoli sorbet!

For about a quart of sorbet:

- a medium sized broccoli
- a cup of water (use the water the broccoli boiled into)
- a cup of sugar
- juice of a lemon
- the zest of half a lemon
- some Greek ouzo and some Greek mastic liqueur

To make this excellent broccoli sorbet with lemon - ouzo flavor, just boil the broccoli, rinse but keep aside a cup from its water. Boil the broccoli water with a cup of sugar and the juice of a lemon for 1-2 minutes.
Blend the syrup with the broccoli and the zest of half a lemon until the mixture is smooth.
When totally cool, add a little of Greek ouzo and some Greek mastic liqueur and refrigerate in your ice cream maker.

If an ice cream maker is not available, put the mixture in a plastic ice cream container in the freezer and every once in a while blend the frozen mixture to make sure your sorbet will be smooth.
Alcohol gives a smoother texture and instead of ouzo you can use vodka, gin or anything you like.

Feel free to experiment, feel free to be odd and strange!
Besides you never know, maybe with a green ice cream like this you can finally trick your kids into eating broccoli!