Pasta toss, frittata, and eggs

The first official philanthropic effort from the Austin Food Blogger Association is to help the Central Austin Food Bank SNAP program create nutritious and inexpensive meals that can be made on the cheap. If you would like to know more about the CAFB or would like to donate please visit these sites:

http://www.austinfoodbank.org/

http://hungerisunacceptable.com

I started to learn a lot more about nutrition after I found out I'm glucose intolerant.  Sure, I knew that we were supposed to eat mostly plants, but that's not always fun and it was easy for me to ignore.  One thing that I've mostly given up since then is pasta.  When I do have pasta, though, I make it count.  No more huge portions of watery tasteless pasta with jarred tomato sauce.  We've made the switch to whole wheat pasta and have never looked back (well, maybe once or twice).

One of my favorite ways to eat whole wheat pasta is to stirfry it in a pan with vegetables.  It gives leftovers some life and allows the noodles to be infused with flavor while helping to get rid of any bitter whole wheat flavors.  It also makes for a more nutritious meal because I can sneak in some extra flora.

1 lb whole wheat pasta ($1.50)
4 T olive oil (~$.60)
1/2 medium onion, diced (~$0.50)
1 medium carrot, peeled and diced (~$0.20)
4-5 medium-sized cloves of garlic, minced (~$0.15)

1 lb vine tomatoes, cut up ($1.70)
1 bunch spinach, thoroughly rinsed and roughly chopped ($1.98/bunch)
4 oz shredded mozzarella ($0.93)
salt+pepper

1. Boil the pasta in salted water until al dente, which varies on the type of pasta used.  Angel hair pasta cooks rather quickly, where as things like penne pasta take longer.  I prefer angel hair in dishes like these.

2. In a pan, heat up the olive oil over medium heat.  Add in the carrots and onion and ~1 t salt and cook until translucent (~5-10 minutes).

3. Add in the garlic and stir until fragrant (~30s - 1 minute).

4. Add in the tomatoes and the pasta and stir until the tomatoes are heated through. (2-3 minutes or so).

5. Add in the spinach and stir until it's all wilted (~1 minute).

6. Stir in the mozzarella cheese until it's melted. (~1 minute).

7. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

This should make ~8 servings or so and costs $7.56 to make, which is $0.95 a serving.  These prices were based on prices I found at my local HEB.  Things like the olive oil and the garlic were prorated to what that portion would cost, though the price of salt and pepper were omitted.   A half pound of pasta is more than enough to feed a family of four with leftovers.  These leftovers can then be turned into a quick frittata for the next day's meal.

Remaining pasta+veggie leftovers
4 eggs, beaten  ($0.50)
4 oz shredded mozzarella ($0.93)
1 tsp olive oil  ($0.05)
~1 tsp salt+pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Oil a small casserole or oven-safe vessel.  A pie plate would work really well.

3. Beat the eggs, salt, and pepper.

4. Pour over the pasta in the oiled dish and sprinkle with the mozzarella.

5. Bake for ~20 minutes, or until the eggs are set all the way through.  You'll be able to tell when this happens because the center won't jiggle if you shake the dish.  Either that or see if you can cleanly put a knife in it.

This dish can easily be expanded by adding more eggs and either one of these dishes work well because the ingredients are so interchangeable.  The additional cost of this dish is $1.48.  Since we used leftovers, this dish ends up costing $0.25 per serving.  I'm claiming that the addition of the eggs and mozzarella bulk up the leftovers to 6 servings.  Both meals end up totaling $9.04, which ends up being $0.90 per serving.

So how does the pasta dish stack up nutritionally?  The pasta has the following nutritional values:

321 calories

10.2 g fat

9.13 mg cholesterol

505 mg sodium

48.4 g carbohydrate

9.16 g fiber

13.9 g protein

This isn't the whole story, though. Here are a selected set of vitamins/nutrients:

17.5% RDA iron 

19.0% RDA calcium

117% RDA vitamin A

34.4% RDA vitamin C

The same can be calculated for the fritatta by multiplying each of the above items by 2/3 and adding in the following values from the eggs, olive oil, and mozzarella:

104 calories

7.07 g fat

153 mg cholesterol

164 mg sodium

0.78 g carbohydrate

8.78 g protein

3.83% RDA iron 

5.50% RDA calcium

0.50% RDA vitamin A

These two dishes could feasibly provide a healthy dinner for two nights and two lunches.  In addition, there will still be leftover items like eggs.  Eggs are nutritious and filled with protein.  They can also be cooked in the microwave, which makes them a good after school snack option for a hungry middle schooler.  Here's how to proceed:

1 egg ($0.13)

smear of olive oil ($0.01)

1. smear a tiny bit of olive oil in a microwave safe bowl

2. beat eggs in the bowl

3. microwave for ~30 s, stir.

4. microwave again for ~10 s at a time and check for doneness.

You can also add in things like cheese, vegetables, herbs, spices.

Gnocchi... gnuff said.

There's a giant wad of potato yumminess in the bottom of my tummy. I'm pretty sure that I don't have to eat for the next three days and I'll be fine. We had a couple of the people who helped us move over for dinner and I made gnocchi from scratch. It was really freaking good, but I'm super full. It was also pretty simple.

4 lbs potatoes
3-ish c all purpose flour
2 eggs
1 t kosher salt

Boil the potatoes and let them cool enough to handle. Remove the skins and rice the potatoes into a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Gently sprinkle/fold about 2.5 c of the flour into the potatoes. It's really important to not overwork the dough. Gently break the yolks of the eggs and pour into the center of the potato bowl. Knead the dough until it comes together, adding in the rest of the flour if it's needed. In my case, I needed all 3 c because the potatoes were a little bit wet from being a bit overboiled.

Grab a baseball sized amount of dough and place on a well floured surface. Roll into a long skinny tube and cut into individual pieces. You can smash each piece a bit with a fork to get the "grooved" look of gnocchi (and also so that sauce has a place to go). Boil the gnocchi for ~1 minute or so. The pieces should float to the top. Nom nom nom.

New Kitchen

We finally unpacked the kitchen enough such that I could actually find enough bowls, pots, and pans to cook a meal. Granted, the entire house is still in boxes and bags, but there's a ton of space in the kitchen so I settled on my new go to meal: pasta with garlic, artichokes, and sundried tomatoes. I served it with a salad made with spring mix, crimini mushrooms, getost cheese, and croutons with a bottled dressing (shameful, I know!).

garlic pasta toss
1 lb spaghetti, cooked to al dente
reserved pasta water
2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
6 oz sundried tomatoes, roughly chopped
6 oz jarred artichoke hearts, quartered
1 T dried basil
salt+pepper
parmasean cheese

heat EVOO in a crazy large pan (or stock pot if you don't have one). add in garlic and stir for 30 or until fragrant. add in artichoke hearts and sundried tomatoes and stir to heat. add pasta and basil and toss to combine. If it's too thick, add in the reserved pasta water to thin. season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with grated parm.

p.s. if you've never had getost, you should really try it. it's pretty awesome and it goes well with fruit.

Easy Shrimp Pasta

I've spent most of this summer working from home, which means that I get to dictate my own hours. At first, it starts out by me getting up at 10 and going to bed at 2 or 3, but then it evolves into the get-up-at-4PM-go-to-bed-at-8AM. This leads to three things:

1) I am out of sync with the rest of Central Time
a) incidentally, that means I'm in perfect sync with Chris, who's in Hawaii.
2) Colby doesn't get nearly as much sleep as he's used to
3) I watch a lot of late night television, with laptop enlapped.

Late night tele usually involves police procedurals (oh Bobby Goren, you are, by far, my *favorite*) and whatever's on Food Network that doesn't involve Paula Deen, Mark Summers, or Bobby Flay. This leads to an enhancement in Alton Brown in my TV diet and lately he's talked a lot about crustaceans and how they're very closely related to roaches in the animal kingdom. This hasn't really helped my appreciation for lobster as I found one of their animal kingdom cousins wandering around my bathroom (which involved quite a bit of screaming and frantic searches for things to throw); however, I am able to ignore the roach-shrimp dichotomy in my head because phobias are nothing, if not irrational, which had left me craving shrimp.

Rewind to a week ago, and I found myself at the downtown farmers market with basil, brussels sprouts, pan sausage, and okra. Basil presented a myriad of possibilities, so I decided to make a cheesy tomato sauce with shrimp and linguine for dinner (in part, because I always wondered what canned tomato sauce actually was.). Nom. Nom. Nom.

1/2 c ricotta cheese
1/3 c grated parmasean cheese
1/4 c basil, chiffonade
8 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 14.5 oz can tomato sauce (note: this is what I used... in the future, I'm using crushed tomatoes)
1 lb frozen shrimp, thawed in water and boiled for 3ish minutes, then shelled
1 lb linguine, boiled in heavily salted water
s+p to taste

combine ricotta, parm, basil and about 1/3 of the garlic and add salt+pepper to taste. The parm is salty enough, so it probably won't need a lot of salt and the pepper depends on your tolerance for heat. set aside. In a sauce pan, add olive oil and garlic and stir around until fragrant. Add in tomato sauce (or crushed tomatoes) and cook for a few minutes. Add cheese mix and cook some more until it's completely integrated into the tomato sauce and heated. Toss with linguine and shrimp.

Home! :)

I'm back! As in, I'm back in Austin for the foreseeable future and I have no travel plans until June, in which a couple of weddings occur in Michigan. Despite vague feelings of homesickness, I'm happy to be back in my own space where I get to be in charge and no one yells at me for not doing the dishes immediately after use. In other words, I'm just glad that there are no more grown ups around to yell at my any more.

We left Austin on the 11th of December, traveled between Stockbridge, Lansing, and Harper Woods, Michigan until January 2 and then headed out early that morning and arrived in Austin at 4:00 PM on January 3rd. I promptly got on a plane the following morning at 10:55 AM and headed to Long Beach, CA and returned on the 8th. Needless to say, I'm glad to be back home. All the traveling made for a lot of eating out, which was okay at first because I missed all of my Michigan eateries including (but certainly not limited to), National Coney Island (which is more "Michigan" than "National", but still the best one around), Menna's Joint (which reeks of college... in the good way), and Old Chicago (which reminds me of falling in love with my husband ::waits for the "awws"::). Substantial changes in my family meant that there were no home cooked meals awaiting me at my house, so meal time at home consisted of me catching up with my friends, though we did have a few nice meals with Colby's family. Other than that, the conference was all eating out, and though I did get ridiculously good seafood and confused at Pinkberry*, I was seriously craving something homemade.

Enter the KitchenAid Stand Mixer. The biggest change in my family, aside from the wedding, is that my dad is now engaged to a really nice woman named Denice. My dad, being tapped out from the wedding, gave us a nice card for Christmas, but Denice got us the sausage/pasta maker+vegetable roto-slicer attachment for the standmixer. What's sounds better than a nice big bowl of freshly made spaghetti and meatsauce? I'm pretty sure the answer to that question is nothing. :)

I found a recipe for fresh pasta from AllRecipes which worked out really well. I had just gotten semolina flour from Whole Foods and it made all the difference! I sifted all the dry ingredients (2 c semolina flour, 2 c whole flour, 1 tsp salt) into the mixing bowl and then added 6 eggs and 2 tbs of extra virgin olive oil (because that's the oil that was closest to me). I guess next time I'll use just plain olive oil so that it doesn't overpower. I mixed it by hand (since Colby hid the flat paddle attachment) and then once it was mostly combined put it on 2 with the dough hook for 10ish minutes. I then covered it in plastic wrap and walked away for about 30 minutes.

I made Colby put the attachment on, but after that, we dumped walnut-sized pieces into the attachment thing. The most important part is that the pieces are narrow enough to get to the rotating blade. I suppose this description is horribly out of context, but if you have the attachment or if you have the manual, it makes more sense. At any rate, we put this into a large stockpot full of heavily salted water and let it boil for a minute or two after the pasta floated to the top. It turned out really well and was exceptional with the homemade pasta sauce. Though I've posted it before, I feel that I've finally come to a spice/meat decision that makes it work even better.

1 lb ground Italian sausage
1 sm yellow onion, diced
6-7 garlic cloves, minced fine
1.5 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp kosher salt
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
2 tbs basil
1 tbs parsely
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp sage
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
s+p to taste

in a pan brown Italian sausage and be sure to break it up. I did this with the Mix'n'chop that I got as a shower gift. It actually worked really well (Thanks, Franny!). In a stock pot heat the EVOO and then add in the onions + salt on low heat. Stir occasionally until the onions are translucent. Add in garlic and stir for ~1min until fragrant. Add in the tomatoes and then the herbs and then the Italian sausage and let simmer for about 15-20 minutes until the flavors have begun to really meld together. This is actually a modified recipe for a lasagna sauce, so it's meant to be cooked and it's nearly impossible to overcook, so this can be simmered for as long as need be.

Lego my dinner party!

Okay folks, here's the lego party post. Unfortunately, there weren't really any pictures, but I'll do my best to describe.

So the whole thing that started this party was this post that I found on Slashfood and then later on Tastespotting. It was apparently taken from the Betty Crocker website, but it seemed like a fun idea. Shortly thereafter, I was alerted to the existence of Lego gummy candy from Kellog's. Seeing that I'm not actually three, I procured a box. Also, at some random trip to the mall (the one where Colby and Kyle went on a mandate to see the batman movie) I found these hard tablet powder candy legos that you can actually build with! Super cute.


We (Colby, Kyle, and I) used box mixes to make the cake (chocolate, yellow, and marbled) and then used white frosting + food coloring from Hill Country Fare. The interesting thing about Hill Country Fare is that it's one of a few different house brands for HEB, a largely Texan grocery store; given that Texas is beef country, I shouldn't have been surprised when I found out that the main fat ingredient was lard. Oh well. I didn't have any vegetarians at the party. We made the cakes the night before and they came out okay. It doesn't help that I suck at frosting cakes.

To continue on with the lego theme, I made lasagna (which is sort of brick-shaped!) which was topped with homemade croutons that were cylindrical. The lasagna is actually super simple and mostly stolen from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (of which I have mixed feelings):

15 oz ricotta
1.25 c grated parm
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 cup fresh basil, minced
1 egg, lightly beaten
12 no boil lasagna noodles (I used HEB brand)
16 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
3ish c sauce

I made the sauce first which consisted of:
1 lb ground beef
s+p
1/4 c minced onions
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs olive oil
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes (I used Contandina crushed tomatoes with herbs by accident)
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp dried oregano, parsley, basil

Brown/season meat w/s+p, break up into little bits. In a sauce pan add in olive oil and onions and let them soften for like five minutes (or more if you realize that you've forgotten to mince the garlic), add in the garlic and let cook for 30 seconds and then add in both cans of processed tomatoes and whatever herbs you decide. Let that simmer for 15ish minutes or so and that could be a sauce in and of itself. Add the meat (try to drain off the fat) and then let that sit with the sauce for as long as possible.

To construct the lasagna:
preheat the oven to 375. combine ricotta+s+p+egg+1 c parm+basil mix thoroughly until combined. add in like 1/4-1/2 a cup of sauce to the bottom of whatever you're using to cook in. It should be rectangular and deepish. layer on three lasagna noodles side-by-side and spread some amount of the ricotta mixture on it. Add about 1/2 c of sauce over top. cover in mozzarella and do this layering bit twice more. take the remaining three noodles and layer over top the rest of the pasta, cover with the remaining sauce and then cover in the rest of the mozzarella and 1/4 c of parm. cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Take it out and then uncover it and bake for an addition 25ish minutes until everything is soft and the cheese is all melty.

I found that the easiest way to spread on the ricotta mixture to the noodles was to take the dry noodle in hand and then spread the cheese on it before putting it in the pan. It caused way too much grief to try to do it the other way.

As a side, I made garlic bread the Heidi Swanson way and at the very end, put 2 little half slices of fresh mozzarella on each piece so that they would look like lego things.

Everyone loved the lasagna and people that that the cakes were clever. I'm not so sure that they tasted all that good, but that wasn't really the point with these cakes. I made a flourless chocolate cake the other night which turned out "better", but that's for a later post.

Patriotic Dinner Parties

Or not.

I love dinner parties. I decided, at mostly the last minute, to throw a dinner party for the 4th of July. It's not normally one of those holidays that I celebrate, but I mostly didn't have anything better to do and I hadn't had a dinner party at the apartment yet, so I was itching to host one again. My friend Chris is in from EL to visit us and so between the two of us, we put together quite a feast. Yay food.

It began with the impulse buying of a baguette to match with the tiniest bit of brie I had left from a previous impulse shopping trip. I kind of forgot about it, so it was good and crusty and so I cut it up into cubes and made croutons.

The Impetus:

most of a baguette, cubed
1/2 c EVOO
1/3 c grated parm cheese
2 tbs dried parsley flakes
2 cloves garlic, finely minced

mix the EVOO, cheese, parsley, garlic. toss the bread cubes in EVOO mixture. bake in an oven at 350 for awhile and turn half way. (I'd check after 5 minutes)

Austin is home to the world's largest urban population of bats. They mostly reside under the Congress St. bridge, so we went to watch one night. It was okay, but the real highlight was a trip to Six Flags over Whole Foods (which is apparently the flagship Whole Foods store for the brand.) which was just down the road. I sort of impulse shopped my way through, getting amazing tomatoes and some mozzarella. This led directly to bruschetta.

The Impulse

1 large salmonella-free tomato, seeded and diced
1/3 c finely chopped basil
3-4 tbs olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1 clove garlic, pan-toasted, minced
1/3 c fresh mozzarella diced

toast the garlic with the skin on in a pan until it softens and the flavor mellows. mince. combine everything and toss it. let it sit for awhile so the flavors all combine.

The initial dinner party was at Kyle's and was mostly devoted to deep fried foods. Whilst completely delicious, it was, alas, quickly approaching one of the Seven Deadly Sins. To repent, we planned a "healthy" party themed "Atonement"; I suppose this was it:

The Penance

2 chicken breasts
some amount of italian-like dressing

marinate the chicken for like a day. pan sear.

lemon-shallot vinaigrette
(combine everything below, shake){
3/4 c extra virgin olive oil
3 tbs lemon juice
1 shallot, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried thyme
2 tbs Dijon mustard
}

some amount of spring greens
impetus croutons
Parmesan cheese

toss everything. eat.

In the day leading up to the party, I was browsing the good old inter-mo-tron and The Minimalist put out a list of 101 quick'n'inspired picnic dishes. This, of course, meant that there was more food blog reading to transpire, so after salivating over tastespotting for awhile, I found a pasta-salad recipe that included items that my guests wouldn't eat (broccoli) and I couldn't afford (pine nuts)... so that sort of morphed into a cous-cous dish with items that my guests would eat (asparagus) and I could purchase without signing away the rights to my first born child (pumpkin seed). This mostly involved some amount of asparagus being pan fried with garlic, shallots, and olive oil until it was just barely tender, toasting the pumpkin seeds and then adding all of that to plain cous cous (that I must admit was made from one of those instant box things.) We also oven roasted corn from Whole Foods because I have yet to see it in any capacity at the farmer's market.

The event concluded with dessert, which chris made, which was mostly the following:

1 bag frozen berry fruits
1/2 c water
2 tbs sugar, more to taste
splash lime juice

boil h2o, berries, sugar in a pot and let it thicken. taste. when it's like oh-holy-crap too sweet, add in a bit of lime juice and then when you add too much, add in a bit of sugar and let it thicken still. Serve over some cake like thing (I used my corn bread recipe) with home made whipped cream.

1 c heavy cream
2 tbs sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

mix until soft peaks form.

nom. nom. nom.

Pandora just picked "sunny came home" also, "Greek" salads and wedding dresses

I woke up at the crack of dawn (8:15) to spend 45 minutes to get to work for a skype conversation that never happened. Oh well. This meant that I got to have *real* pop for the first time in weeks. Yes, I find it necessary to self-congratulate with high-fructose corn syrup and carbonated water. The other real reason for coming into the office today when I could have been otherwise sleeping is the promise of free food stolen from the honors-type undergraduate association for the college of natural science at the University of Texas. I find it a bit scary how quickly my life is approaching PhD comics.

This Saturday will be four weeks in Texas. It still hasn't really sunk in that I've moved halfway across the country for at least the next five years of my life. It also hasn't sunk that I'm getting married in less than six months, but I've finally got my dress and veil. That was a bit of a relief. Thankfully, most things are coming together. My friend Chris is coming to visit on Wednesday and Colby has a job interview later that day. I suspect that there will be much tasty food making in the upcoming couple weeks. :) We've been cooking almost every night, so we've made a few things that I haven't really updated with yet including abomination pie, oatmeal cookies that weren't really noteworthy, and a host of other things that may or may not get mentioned later

Orzo Salad

1 lb box orzo
chicken stock
2 small tomatoes, deseeded and diced
1/4 medium red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
5 tbs olive oil
3 tbs lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp dried oregano
3 tbs roasted red pepper, diced
1/3 c crumbled feta cheese
salt+pepper

Boil ozro in a combination of half water and half chicken stock. drain, save some liquid for thinning. combine lemon juice, lemon zest, 4 tbs olive oil, oregano, and salt+pepper to taste. Add 1 tbs olive oil to orzo and combine dressing and everything else.

This turned out to taste mostly the way I expected. It was way too salty the first day, but after it sat in the refrigerator for awhile it was pretty good.

Goulash

The essence of certain dishes is patience. These are not ideal for me. Also, we got the internets today! Yay internets! More on goulash later, though (i.e. expect an edit on this later). I'm preparing myself for a washer/dryer set tomorrow. Onto discount shopping, for now.

-->addendum<--

that probably looks way cuter in ascii.

So, back from the discount (but NOT Evil-Mart) shopping, I've acquired laundry materials, a coffee maker, and coffee from Caribou!! The coffee was, sadly, not discounted, but it's still going to be super tasty (and probably a big regret when I'm totally wired after drinking it!)

Dinner tonight was a feeble attempt at my Dad's goulash, which was just given to me in email form like... about 45 seconds ago:

Gram K would be proud of you, that was one of her standard dishes. We had it home, we had it at Barton City, we had it at the campground in Tawas when I was a kid. My recipe is 1lb sirloin hamburg chopped and browned with fine-cut onions, 2 cups macaroni noodles slightly undercooked (like 20% reduction in recommended time), 1 large can diced stewed tomatos, 1 small can sliced mushrooms, 5 1/2" thick slices of Velveeta cheese. Brown burger with onions, drain. Add tomatos, mushrooms, macaroni and Velveeta on lowest heat, cover, stir occasionally until Velveeta melts into a thin sauce, serve hot, salt and pepper to taste...

my version was slightly different:

2 medium portabella mushroom caps, roughly chopped
1/2 onion chopped
3/4 lb ground chuck
1 sm can diced tomatoes
2 tbs flour
2 tbs butter
3/4 c milk
handfuls of cheese
olive oil
chili powder/paprika/oregano/garlic salt/onion powder
s+p

sautee onions and mushrooms... and by "sautee", I mean turn on the wrong burner and wonder why the hell the pan isn't getting hot. Then sautee. Add in the GB and then after it browns, drain some of the fat (because, yuck) and then add in the tomatoes. In a different pot, make a roux (butter+flour+salt...+milk) add cheese after it thickens and then add the cheese to the pot. Then taste it and be all like.. hm.. this is missing something and add in the spices at random.

Also, Jon and Kate plus 8 is like a ridiculously adorable show and makes me want my future hapa babies like.. yesterday.

Stuffed Shells

Finally, a recipe! After the ravioli fiasco (oh yeah, they definitely didn't turn out that well. Sadness... and I have all these left over wontons. What to do? What to do?), I wanted to do some sort of stuffed pasta right, so I opted for jumbo shells stuffed with ricotta cheese.

4-5 cloves of garlic, minced
1/3 c mushrooms chopped
fresh basil
10 oz? ricotta
8 oz shells?
spinach

I've stopped following recipes. I took minced garlic and mushrooms and sauteed them in butter and olive oil with a little bit of salt. When they were almost done, I added some finely chopped basil and then incorporated this into the ricotta which I then put into the shells which I then covered with (gasp!) jarred tomato sauce added some mozzarella and parm over top and then baked at 375 for 15 minutes. Serve over wilted spinach and w00t. The sauce that I used was terrible. So next time I'm not going to dick around with that. I have about 5 oz of ricotta left and I'm not sure what to do with it. I was thinking about something along the lines of a berry dessert.

why I shouldn't go grocery shopping whilst hungry or stressed

I can't control food purchases. I can only control my nail polish-buying slightly better... which is why I walked out of Meijer without the four dollar bottle of Sally Hansen, but was armed with baby corn, blackberries, and ricotta. *However* I intend to make Thai-something-curry soup with chicken, potatoes, and other stuff; stuffed shells with ricotta+garlic+basil+mushrooms atop a bed of wilted spinach?; and stir-fry with lots of baby corn, broccoli, mushrooms! Go me. We'll see how much of this I actually cook before it all rots. I forgot the mozzarella!!

I need to make corn bread again soon. I think it's draining my soul.

Mushroom Stuffing+Mushroom Pasta

Hokay. So what I'm supposed to be doing right now is a literature search on the observed radii of white dwarfs, but it turns out that that's boring and even though they were stars, they're dead and therefore dead to me. Anywho, Easter was an interesting weekend beginning with horribleness, but ending with a lovely pot-luck dinner party which required some sort of dish. Yay for mushrooms.

I made a mushroom stuffing that turned out *okay*. I think there were too many bread crumbs. Also, I would have liked stronger notes of garlic, shallots and something to "freshen" the taste. Anywho recipe:

portabello mushrooms, roughly chopped
shiitake mushrooms, de-stemmed, roughly chopped
1c bread crumbs (next time, I'd probably use like.. 2/3 c, maybe even less)
6 cloves garlic
1/2 shallot
lemon
butter
olive oil
oregano
Parmesan
fresh basil
salt, pepper

mince 3 of the cloves of garlic, all of the shallots and sautee them in oil. Add in the mushrooms, about 2 tbs butter, and some salt. cook cook cook. when it's almost done, add in the ripped up basil to wilt+flavor and some oregano. Add in a bit of lemon as well also, pepper and more salt. Remove from heat

put in 3 tbs butter + bread crumbs + remaining garlic in the pan + olive oil (because fat is tasty). This is to "toast" the bread crumbs, and is probably ill-advised. Maybe you don't want to do this step and maybe you want to put in all the garlic and butter at once and double the amount of shallots. So combine all this in a bowl, as well as a good dusting of grated parm cheez and mix. yay? Squeeze on some more lemon to make it a brighter flavor. I know that this could be really tasty, but I don't know how. I actually think that this would actually be pretty awesome with couscous instead. Maybe I have my answer.

Anywho, what was kind of interesting about this is that I made something super similar on Thursday night. Chris suggested the mushroom dish. I decided that it was going to be a stuffing. Sometimes I'm afraid that all my food tastes the same. Woo hoo insecurities creeping into my cooking. So yeah, on Thursday:

2/3 box pasta (not long noodles, I used rotelle)
1/2 tray pre-washed, cut white mushrooms roughly chopped (yes, I'm lazy)
3 cloves garlic
1/2 poblano pepper, roasted, skinned, chopped
1/2 shallot
some amount of lemon
parm cheese
mozzarella cheese
butter, oil
fresh basil, torn
salt/pepper/garlic salt

boil boil boil pasta. sautee garlic, shallots in oil. Add in butter, mushrooms. Add in pepper, lemon, salt+pepper, garlic salt. stir stir stir. Add in mixture to hot, drained pasta. Add in cheese... mix mix mix. I think that one turned out better. Also, it turned into a one bowl dinner which is pretty much amazing and my favorite thing ever

So I guess I was inspired by the pasta dish and is probably the reason why it'd work better with couscous. Also, the reason why i used 1/2 a shallot for the second dish is because I used the other half earlier. Heh. I usually have them on hand because i hate hate hate onions, so they're nicer (for me) to have to eat around.

semi-home made ravioli (but way the hell more home made than sandra lee)

So after traveling around over spring break, I came home to a bag of rotten potatoes, some frozen broccoli (because I actually have a refreezerator), and the sad, sad remnants of mire poix fixings. Suffice it to say, I needed to go to el supermercado (which, sadly, does not sound as cool as el gran mercado, but has a helluva lot more food in it). Anywho! I ended up buying a bunch of "random" things, which I thought were random, but apparently make for a fairly standard shopping trip which included wonton wrappers and ricotta.

So tonight, I'm going to attempt to make garlic+mushroom+basil ravioli with the leftover bolognese sauce. Go me!

This is how I think it'll work: (also, someone slap me. I got the sudden urge to do this in LaTeX in math mode... la la la physics is eating my brain)

Drain the ricotta (via magic).

sautee mushrooms + garlic in butter
add M+G, B to the cheese+more (mozzarella) cheese (slap me again. I'm thinking of trying to do this in terms of nuclear reactions... like, you know... MushroomGarlic(Butter, tasty)sauteedmushroomgarlic)...)
put a bit on a wonton wrapper
brush edges with egg wash (and more magic)
put another one on top
boil boil boil

eat eat eat

We'll see how it goes. And I've shamelessly stolen the idea from my new favorite food blog the delicious life.

Lazy-man's Alfredo Sauce

So given that I had all this leftover pasta, I wanted to do something with it because, mostly, I had been watching cooking shows all night (with the wonderful exception of a two hour stint of Law & Order SVUUUU) and so I kind of wanted to cook. This ended up being alfredo-y and not that good, but I have a feeling that it could be easily modified to != suck.

What I did:

2 Tbs butter
2 Tbs flour
1 tsp kosher salt

some amount of chicken stock
some amount of milk
3 cloves minced garlic
~1.5 oz grated Parmesan cheese
2 slices provolone

so I melted the butter+flour+salt to make the base of a roux, added in the wet ingredients, let it thicken, add in the garlic, added in the parm cheese because it was the rest of a container that i had sitting there, and then decided that it was too salty, so I added the provolone, more chicken stock (realized that that made it saltier), more milk... boil boil stir stir. It's edible. Maybe not for me what with the dairy, but it's not spectacular.

This is my theoretical Lazy-Man's Alfredo

2 Tbs butter
2 Tbs flour
1 tsp kosher salt

1 c heavy cream
3 cloves garlic (because, hey, who doesn't like garlic? [also, CLOVES, Kyle, CLOVES])
2 oz Parmesan
2 oz Mozzarella
black pepper to taste

mix mix mix stir stir stir. It should come out way better. Also, sauteed mushrooms would make this better

Flying Spaghetti Monsters sans the flying and monster-y bits

So I haven't written in this in forever. There's a good reason. Actually, no there's not; however, there are always a lot of excuses, including: I was sick for a month.

Things I've cooked since last time... pan fried chicken (not actually a departure from too much, but I learned the lovely process of dredging). Beef bolognese (lots of time, minimal effort, pleaser of crowds). Um... a lot of corn bread, almost weekly. Cupcakes (not from scratch). Stir-fry. Packaged hot dogs. I eat pork again.

So let's go with the bolognese and I'll update the Christmas stuff at some point so I can remember how to do things in the future.

Beef Bolognese

6 Tbs butter
6 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

3 c mire poix:
3/4 c celery, chopped fine
3/4 c carrots, chopped fine
1 1/2 c onion, chopped fine

3 cloves garlic chopped fine
salt + pepper
1 lb beef
1/3 lb pancetta cubed
1 1/3 c tomato paste
1 1/2 c whole milk
2 c red wine
2 2/3 c whole canned tomatoes, torn and seeded
4 c stock
handful of spices
mushrooms

So... melt the butter+oil and, when hot, add in the mire poix mixture and season with salt and pepper. I stole this from a NYT Magazine article on ragus. Simmer in the butter until the colors "brighten" (~20 minutes). Add in garlic and let it cook and get fragrant. Add in the beef+pancetta and let it brown (~25 minutes, longer if frozen). Add in the tomato paste, mix, and let it cook for 5 minutes. Add in the whole milk until the mixture really "takes it" in (10-15 minutes). Do the same with the red wine. This bit takes awhile. The key point is getting it all to reduce well. After that, add in the canned tomatoes, the stock, the mushrooms, and the spices. Mm mm spices. I used basil, thyme, oregano, and sage in dried form. Let it simmer for 3 hours. Stir it once in awhile. Perhaps at the end, you should skim the fat and stick blender it. This is if you're too impatient to let the tomatoes break down and such (I was). Eat-y eat-y yum yum.

Serve with garlic bread... which is made by chopping up garlic, melting butter+garlic in the microwave, letting it get hard-ish in the fridge, and then smearing on a loaf and baking it at 300 in the oven til when you feel like it.

Enjoy.

Spinach Tomato Pasta

Since my Thanksgivings are usually a lot more brief than everyone else's, I spent a lot of time staring at the TV. We were watching when Giada De Laurentis came on and she made this pasta which seemed super simple... and now that I've stolen my dad's huge ass pan (or what I've been calling a wok), I had something to make it in and it was yummy. Even Colby (who I made eat it) thought it was good.


1 lb pasta

1 clove minced garlic
1/4 c olive oil
8 oz cherry tomatoes, halved
1 bag pre-washed fresh spinach coarsely chopped

1/2 c Asiago + Parmesan or some other hard, salty cheese
salt and pepper to taste


boil the pasta until al dente in heavily salted water. Save 1/2 c of the boiling liquid. Drain. Cook the garlic in the olive oil until you can smell it, then add the spinach and tomatoes until the spinach starts to really wilt. Add in pasta, pasta water, cheese and toss. Season with salt+pepper to taste.

It was super simple and really good. I was going to add chicken, but my refreezerator got to the chicken before I could. :( Damn freezer burn.

Kyle, you should make this.

Pretentious Mac'n'Cheese

This one may make me sick. It has so much dairy in it, I'm apt to explode, but it's okay because I learned what a roux is *actually* supposed to look like so... go me!

I've been buying random cheeses at will at the grocery store lately and then trying to incorporate them into my cooking. It's been somewhat amusing, although I have to admit that a lot of the cheese is put on crackers and then into my tummy which is way easier than cooking. The last time I got fontinella cheese, which is fairly strong.

I've also taken to not really measuring things for cooking anymore. Mostly I've been eye-ing things and then tasting, but that only really works when you're not cooking for anyone else... but lo and behold, I'm not.

2 Tbs butter
2 Tbs flour
2 c. warm milk
Fontinella cheese (or any cheese, really)
elbow macaroni

Boil water, add mac, clean up the sink whilst you're waiting for things to boil. Melt butter and then add flour and stir so things don't burn. Add milk a little bit at a time and let it heat until the mixture thickens. Add mixture to the drained noodles and then add cheese.

It came out tasty. I assume I didn't use enough cheese, though. It was okay, because I added breadcrumbs and pepper... so it was less bland. Given that this occurred several hours before, I also ate the leftovers and added tomato sauce to make it a palomino. Mm mm good. Or something. I guess the next time I'll use a higher moisture cheese.