Some of the best and most delicious busy week-night comfort food you can put together for your family may not be the fanciest or prettiest, but it certainly delivers satisfaction.

These recipes often also leave you with baking pans that have a crust of baked-on food that can leave the cook with a, let’s try to say this nicely, lessened enthusiasm for making that recipe again. There isn’t a much†more dispiriting thing in the kitchen than a baking pan that has a death grip on baked-on cheese and pasta.

Be honest – how often do you consider a recipe, think it sounds delicious, but then a vision of the baking pan you will have to clean later puts you off the whole enterprise? I don’t like using throw-away foil pans, so that’s not a short-cut I consider for feeding the family on a daily basis.

I tend to use olive oil to coat my baking pans or, if I run out of that, I use a discount oil spray (because that’s what I have on hand a lot). Whether it’s high quality and tasty olive oil or butter or cheapy spray, food still sticks on the pan.

If I am the one loading the dishwasher I scrub the pan with the steel scrubber I use for my stainless steel pans – sometimes with a lot of elbow grease – and then put it into the dishwasher. If someone ELSE loads the dishwasher, they don’t pre-scrub, and I go to unload the washer to find a pan with very well-washed, baked-on food on the pan. I then have to scrub the pan with the scrubber and put it through AGAIN. Yeah – tell me I am not the only one with this issue?

BlogHer – working with the makers of PAM® – reached out to some blog reviewers to use their new spray formulation. You can learn more about the new PAM at this link and also ìlikeî their Facebook page.

I am going to share my experience with this new product, a recipe, and also a chance to win a $100 Cooking.com gift card giveaway plus coupons for the new and improved PAM Cooking Spray and Hunt’s Tomatoes (details at the bottom of this page)

So you could see from the photos above that I made a baked cheesy sausage rigatoni. I hope you try the recipe. Its not a major innovation in recipe development and won’t win any Nobel Prizes, BUT I think your family will find it irresistibly delicious both on the day you make it fresh and as leftovers at school and work the next day.

I have video farther down of the dish burbling away in the oven-you should have smelled it-knock out. Watching the video is the next best thing, and maybe it will entice you to try it.

In terms of stick-factor, this recipe definitely offered a challenge to the new PAM spray formulation.

And how did that turn out, you may ask? I can tell you that the stuck-on food came off with just my bare fingers-amazing huh? I then poured some hot, soapy water in the pan and grabbed my iPhone and shot the video below-showing you how the food was just barely clinging. After the video I rinsed the pan, ran a soapy sponge across it to remove oils and then rinsed it again, et voila – done with the clean up.

Please dont forget to enter the giveaway at the bottom of this page!

Herb Kissed Sausage Whole Wheat Rigatoni Bake

Ingredients

• 1 lb box whole wheat rigatoni
• 1-2 pounds raw sweet Italian sausage, cooked, diced
• 4-6 cups pasta sauce (not white cheese sauce type)
• 32 ounces whole milk ricotta
• 2 whole eggs
• 8-10 ounces freshly shredded mozzarella
• one large ball of fresh mozzarella, sliced
• bunch of fresh basil, rough chop
• bunch of fresh oregano, rough chop
• 1/2 Spanish onion, diced finely
• 1-2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 3 tablespoons good olive oil
• salt as needed

Directions

Boil whole wheat rigatoni about 3/4 of recommended time, drain, set aside.

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Saute sausages on medium heat until 3/4 cooked and nicely browned on the outside.

Remove sausage and cut into small pieces.

In the sausage pan, saute onions in leftover oil, sprinkle with a bit of salt.

Once lightly browned, add garlic and turn off the heat and set aside.

Mix ricotta, eggs, basil, oregano, 1 teaspoon salt, until fluffy.

Fold in sautÈed onions and 3/4 of the shredded mozzarella.

Spray your baking pan(s) with PAM lightly. Add boiled pasta. I had to split this recipe across two baking pans. Add 1/2 pasta sauce to each pan, add 1/2 ricotta mix, add 1/2 sausage, mix evenly. Sprinkle tops with last 1/4 of shredded cheese and also add slices of fresh mozzarella. If you like, add a slight glug of olive oil across the fresh mozzarella. Spray some foil with PAM, and then cover the pans.

Bake them about 30 minutes.

Remove the foil and put the pans back in the oven with it on the broil setting to crisp up the surface cheese. Allow to cool 15 – 20 minutes. Serve and enjoy! Leftovers only get better

SWEEPSTAKES/GIVEAWAY RULES

Prize: $100 Cooking.com gift card giveaway plus coupons for the new and improved PAM Cooking Spray and Hunt’s Tomatoes, courtesy of BlogHer and PAM.

To be entered for a chance to win, let me know your favorite recipe that uses PAM.

No duplicate comments.You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

• Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
• Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
• Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
• For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This sweepstakes runs from 2/1 – 3/31.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e- mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. The Official Rules are available here.†

Be sure to visit the PAM round-up page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggersí reviews and find more chances to win!

OCCUPY THE ECONOMY : Andrew Faust – Permaculture – OWS from TerraVisus on Vimeo.

Andrew Faust Permaculture Designer: HomeBiome.com
Costa Boutsikaris Filmmaker: TerraVisus.com

Happy Holidays everyone! Things have been simply crazy this year – some good some not good – such is life. Am hoping to post some newer stuff – as always delicious – soon.

I recently had to get a new phone – my blackberry dated back to the Jurassic era and was just not working anymore – so I bought an iPhone.

I am so loving it. Even for spontaneous food photography!

I have been using my food photography as wallpaper images on my iPhone and have been enjoying images I have not seen in ages.

I thought that I would share one of them with you all. (for free of course)

While surfing on your smartphone CLICK THIS LINK to get a larger version of the image above – save it and then use it as wallpaper!

Let me know if you decide to use it.

Food can be non-intuitive if you eat mindlessly. When you fall into a rut with your daily cooking or if you never venture out of box or frozen food from the store or are always eating out in restaurants sort of like they are your dorm cafeteria, you miss an opportunity to hear what food has to say to you.

When you are bored with cooking or what you have been eating, its your body’s way of telling you that its well past time to wake up and pay attention.

What better way to wake up the mind and mouth than with the deep mind-awakening transformation that can happen when you eat a cuisine that has spent 1,000s of years intensely focused on the information within food and how our bodies respond to that information.

Indian cuisine is not just something you buy off an all-you-can-eat buffet line in an indian food restaurant, in a building which had once been a Supercuts or a pet store or a shoe or eyeglass store in a forlorn strip mall somewhere near your work.

Its food that can be made at home and it can bring you great satisfaction, not only on the palate but also a sense of accomplishment as you broaden your food knowledge and choices.

When you cook from the Indian Cuisine universe you get to enjoy the perfume and alchemy that happens as you cook with spices and then you get to sit down to food that will not only fill your belly but enliven the rest of your being from your toes, to your chest, to your sinuses, to your imagination.

A good place to start is with a resource that will guide you to the irridescent pools of Indian spice magic at home; start with Hari Nayak’s new cookbook “My Indian Kitchen: Preparing Delicious Indian Meals without Fear or Fuss“.

Chef Nayak’s books are always visually mouth-watering and the recipes are approachable, authentic, and delicious. I reviewed another of his books previously – “Modern Indian Cooking by Hari Nayak and Vikas Khanna“.

He has worked at famed New York restaurants like Aquavit and Daniel, has just opened the Soul & Spice Restaurant in Kuwait, and owns the Orissa restaurant in Dobbs Ferry, NY. These are just a FEW of the many things he has going on, very busy guy.

You can see a video trailer for the book here.

I decided to give a couple of more mainstream recipes a try in this book to help gauge how well it enables the average non-Indian cook to prepare favorite treats.

I made the most delicious potato and pea samosas (page 58) and found it to be very simple. Nayak provides plenty of guidance on how to make the samosa dough from scratch and then how to form these pockets of goodness.

My photos show a samosa made by a shortcut – using wonton wrappers. You can use either method with great success. My family completely enjoyed these, they were gone as soon as they cooled.

I also made another favorite, roti, chapati, or parathas (these all vary a bit but are similar in shape and all can be made with an infinite variety of additions/secret touches).

This recipe could NOT have been any easier and the result was simply delicious. Again Nayak provides a lovely illustrated guide to making these griddle cakes.

These too were eaten by my little kids as soon as they had cooled enough.

Some particular aspects of this book include:

• Indian cooking for the spice sensitive
• Which wines to pair with Indian cuisine
• How to jazz up your summer grilling ideas by using Indian ingredients and flavors
• How to create an Indian/Bollywood-themed cocktail party with his bruschetta recipes using Indian flavors for a twist.
• Diwali, the festival of lights, celebrated from Wednesday, October 26 through Sunday, October 30 this year. Hari can explain why it is an important holiday in the Indian culture, how it is celebrated and what food traditions are associated with it.

I have really enjoyed this cookbook and I look forward to more of Hari Nayak’s books in the future! Its my hope that you will get an opportunity to give this book a try, I highly recommend it.

Book Details

• Title: My Indian Kitchen: Preparing Delicious Indian Meals without Fear or Fuss
• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing (August 10, 2011)
• ISBN-10: 080484089X
• ISBN-13: 978-0804840897
• Book Dimensions: 11.8 x 9.1 x 0.8 inches

I have been exploring an alternative to syrup which is a bit easier and brings a different flavor profile to pancakes and waffles.

Instead of a juicy topping, I used this new product from the butter people Land o Lakes – its a whipped butter with cinnamon already in it.

To learn more and also enter to win the kewl stuff below in a giveaway visit this page on this blog!

CLICK HERE TO ENTER

Giveaway Details

To Enter:

All you have to do to enter to win this cute prize pack is to leave a comment on this page telling us what new sort of butter you think Land O Lakes should make next!

click here for more details

Contest starts today August 24, 2011 (when this posts) and ends August 31st, 2011, at 5 pm Pacific time (8 pm Eastern time) – that is one week!

Please comment only once. You can enter one more time by tweeting this link – http://bit.ly/oLf79I – and adding this hashtag #myblogspark.

Recently, BlogHer and Häagen-Dazs® asked me and a few other bloggers to create original recipes (not just desserts) using their ice cream as an ingredient.

How can one possibly say no to that?

I said yes and then, to the delight of my children, I went out and bought quite a few containers of Häagen-Dazs. I had to buy extras to fend off the ravenous offspring and then I set to creating my original take on Häagen-Dazs as an ingredient in a savory dish.

I could not help slipping in some of the lovely things growing in my garden too!

Click through to see all about this recipe – Caramel/Salt Surprise Summer Salad and enjoy!

As you likely know, we try to grow and enjoy wholesome food at home, making us frugal foodies.

We raise and milk our own dairy goats.

We raise our own laying chickens for eggs.

We are getting a family Jersey cow this fall. We will have cow and goat milk next spring.

I blog about some of that craziness at my homesteading blog Humble Garden.

We source a lot of our red meat as pastured Beefalo meat from Wild Mountain Farm.

This year, in addition to our layer flock, we will be raising between 25 and 50 broiler chickens which we will butcher and freeze for the year!

The video below shows those (the little yellow ones) as well as some fancy chicks – ameraucana which lay blue eggs and purely ornamental chickens – white crested black polish – the ones that look like they have marshmallows stuck to their wee little heads.

Many people here in the US are getting into urban homesteading but run into roadblocks when they try to get some chickens.

I totally support you all and send you all my positive vibes as you fight to regain the right to raise chickens in your space.

(one of our neighbors down the street)

We had a VERY close call here at Nika’s Culinaria.

(NASA satellite image of the track of this tornado through our area)

We were missed being hit by the Massachusetts EF-4 1/2 mile wide tornado by only a 1/2 a mile – living near a climate induced disaster zone REALLLLY brings home climate change in a way thats almost down to the cells of the body.

Before, in some ways, climate change was academic – charts, presentations, news about far away Pakistan or Moscow, Joplin, MO.

But now the battle has been engaged. We chose this area to build a home and a homestead because its NOT the south or tornado ally or midwest etc and that its supposed to be “cooler” and wetter than the intense droughts in the works for much of the US – well – with this tornado – what i knew – that nothing is safe or sure – is something i know for certain. one can dig an earth home – create a sustainable self sufficient eden in their backyard but mother earth can easily simply wipe it clean.

The real work is inside our heads – and the goal is resilience and hope in the face of chaos.

Here are photos from the apocalyptic devastation just down our street.

To learn more about the delicious sweet roll you see above, this giveaway and how to enter the 45th Pillsbury Bake-off coming up, please click through to the giveaway page!

On Monday, January 31, 2011, the feds made these recommendations PDF (per New York Times which paraphrases as follows):

As the nation’s obesity crisis continues unabated, federal regulators on Monday issued their bluntest nutrition advice to date: drink water instead of sugary drinks like soda, fill your plate with fruits and vegetables and cut down on processed foods filled with sodium, fat or sugar.

More important, perhaps, the government told Americans, “Enjoy your food, but eat less.”

One day later, the enormous snack food industry announces that it has benighted February as “Snack Food Month”.

(rolling eyes)

As if they dont already spend vast quantities of money to sell enormous tonnage of snack foods into our children every day of the year.

As an antidote to this and a way to raise awareness of how toxic this non-food is, Roger Dorion and Kitchen Garden International has started a campaign called #20ate.

Here are some details from their site 20ate.org:

#20ate is a crowdsourced, open-source campaign to encourage people 1) to opt out of unhealthy, processed snack and junk foods for the #20ate days of February 2) opt in for real ones instead (which often cost less when made at home) and 3) to donate the money saved from #1 to a healthy food cause. Please see the oh-so-satisfying, meal-sized version (well-balanced, of course) for some ideas on how you can join the campaign and help our country’s good food movement to grow. Please use the #20ate hashtag and avatar/badge to show your support.

Here are 4 things you can do to help reclaim February for the good food cause:

1) Opt-out of Snack Food Month by not buying processed snack foods or junk foods for the month of February and opt-in for real foods which taste better, make you feel better and often cost less when you make them yourself. White bean hummus with home-made pita bread chips anyone? You say hummus, I say yummus!

Here are some links to some healthy snack resources that might inspire you:

9 healthy predinner snacks (Real Simple magazine)
Quick and healthy snack recipes (Eating Light magazine)
Healthy snacks 4 kids (Phy. Committee for Responsible Medicine)

2) Sing your participation in the 20ate campaign from the rooftops on twitter and facebook using the #20ate hashtag.

Here are some sample tweets or facebook statuses that might inspire some of your own:

• Did you know that the big food companies are calling Feb “National Snack Food Month?” #20ate Bite back here: http://20ate.org
• I’m opting out of National Snack Food Month and opting in for real food instead. How about you? #20ate http://20ate.org
• February=National Snack Food Month? Not in my house! #20ate http://20ate.org
• If February is National Snack Food Month, then March should be National (in the blank) Month! #20ate http://20ate.org
• National Snack Food Month? What’s up with that? Help me reclaim February for the good food cause. #20ate http://20ate.org
• I’m opting out of National Snack Food Month this February because I like my butt just the way it is. #20ate http://20ate.org

Be aware that your participation in the campaign may lead to snack food withdrawal symptoms such as the jerky jerk, twinkie twitch or oreoitis, but don’t fear: there’s a large twitter community on call to help.

Want to show the world you’re a #20ater (or is it #20eater?) in a more visual way? Grab the the #20ate badge/avatar here for use on your blog, twitter or facebook profile.

3) “Like” KGI’sFacebook fanpage to help us build our online presence. My pride is riding on this one: the freaking “cheese puff” fanpage has more fans than we do. That’s so wrong and in so many ways.

4) Donate some of your savings from #1 to a healthy & sustainable food cause you’ve always wanted to support. If you don’t have one, KGI would love to be your cause. We’re currently raising funds for coordination of “World Kitchen Garden Day” (August 28th), food gardeners’ answer to Snack Food Month.

My contribution to this will be today’s recipe for a very healthy snack indeed!

Sprouted Whole Wheat Crackers

Ingredients

• 3 cups sprouted whole wheat flour
• 1 cup dry corn masa
• 3/4 cup softened butter
• 1 1/3 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• salt
• rosemary
• montreal steak salt

Directions:

Preheat to 375 F.

Mix the dry ingredients, add the softened butter and incorporate until butter is fully mixed into flour. Add the milk and mix dough until stiff and not sticky.

Take a portion of the dough and roll out to about 1/8th thickness. Cut into squares and poke with a fork. Add salt and herbs if desired.

Put on a baking sheet and bake some 15-20 minutes until the desired color.

Enjoy!