A Girl's Gotta Eat!

So, we were lounging about yesterday morning, thrilled at having no plans for the entire weekend (a rare occurrence indeed). We were enjoying some (deer) steak and eggs for breakfast and watching The Pioneer Women on the Food Network channel. We like Ree a lot. They seem to have a really cool family, and her recipes sound delicious and totally make-able. Anyway, while we were eating breakfast yesterday, Ree was making Rigatoni and Meatballs. The meatballs looked amazing, and the more we watched, the more we thought we needed meatballs for dinner last night. I've made meatballs plenty of times, but have always used either my mom's recipe or no recipe at all. We decided we needed Ree's meatballs. And so, as we ventured out in the rain and drizzle for a few Christmas things, we stopped by Kroger for meatballs fixin's. And nothing against rigatoni, but decided we really wanted spaghetti with our meatballs. Three things we did differently: We used 3/4 cup breadcrumbs...

It’s the time of year again for Christmas parties and company potlucks. Our company Christmas luncheon was today. After seeing plenty of people signed up for vegetables and desserts, I decided to bring macaroni and cheese. After all, you can’t have ham without it! The glitch to bringing this dish, however was two-fold. 1) Mike and I have had a lot going on with finals, visiting with friends, and our new German Shepherd pup, Leopold, so I needed to make something quick and easy; and 2) warming up large portions of food in our work microwaves is tedious and frustrating. Cooking something in a slow-cooker solved both these problems in one fell swoop. I was pleasantly surprised. It was very easy to whip up, and I thought it was very tasty. The sauce would have been a bit creamier if I had served it 30 minutes earlier, but it was still very good. And had I been at home cooking it, I could have simply stirred in some extra milk or margarine.  Before Cooking  The original recipe cooks ...

Mike and I first tried this dish long before I ever thought about doing a food blog. When I realized I had not yet shared it on my blog, I decided we just had to make it again, if not for ourselves, for those out in the world who had never tried such tastiness. We originally found the recipe in an issue of EveryDay with Rachael Ray, and have left a sticky note on the page so we always have quick-and-easy access to it. When Wednesday rolled around this week, Mike was supposed to have his flag football tournament. The weather had another idea, and after raining for about 36 hours straight, they decided to postpone for a drier time. Because of this, I needed some easy to shop for and make (I don’t normally cook on football nights), and I wanted something warm and comforting after have a very soggy couple of days.   We do everything by the book on this one, although we rarely use the amount of horseradish called for in the recipe, opting instead to add plenty of extra. And coo...

I meant to post this one two weeks ago, so I'll keep it short. Mike had drill, and he had been hungry for "regular spaghetti." I decided to take it up a notch and create homemade marinara and meatballs. I wanted a recipe for marinara that was reliable, but easy. We have a cookbook from Mario Batali that came in handy. The following recipe was super-easy and super-tasty. I don't know that we'll buy marinara again. I'm not a fan of big tomato chunks, so I used my immersion blender to smooth out the chunky bits. It's really up to your personal taste, though. I doubled the recipe, mostly due to the fact that I love really saucy pasta. It was fantastic having leftovers. The sauce especially turned out extremely scrumptious, and the original recipe specifies that you can freeze the sauce for up to 6 months. We didn't have any to freeze after a week, but it's duly noted. :) I didn't use a recipe for the meatballs, but I used 1 pound of lean ground...

I’ve wanted to try this one for a while, and with the arrival of the first tomatoes in our CSA yesterday, decided today is the perfect time! (Also, Mike’s mom is coming over for dinner, and she doesn’t mind when I try out new recipes on her.) Remember the Amaretto Fruit Salad I made for Easter? This pasta is from the same book, Seasoned to Taste . I told you it was good one and that you’d see more recipes from it…I’d hate to not deliver on a promise. With tomatoes in the farm box, basil growing one our deck, and pasta always in our pantry, all I really had to pick up was the Brie. I didn’t want to be eating too late, so I chopped the tomatoes the night before, put them in a medium bowl so everything else could be added tonight, and stored them in the fridge overnight. I thought about chopping the basil early as well, but didn’t want to run the risk of it bruising overnight. We made everything as directed, with the exception of adding a bit of extra garlic. We have a ton of it from o...

Mike and I returned home from vacation a little over a week ago to a very full farm box. We were very excited to find some tiny yellow squash in there and decided we would purchase a zucchini from the store to stretch the squash a bit further. I had already picked up some chicken tenderloins, so the plan was to grill those and have veggies as a side dish. However, when I got to store, the zucchini were also looking a bit smallish. I started thinking: why not combine the zucchini, our squash and maybe a few other veggies, then toss it with pasta for a Pasta Primavera dinner? I've certainly read enough recipes for it that I felt confidant in winging it this time. Here's what we started with....  1 small zucchini, 2 small squash, 1 green bell pepper, 3/4 pound chicken tenderloins. You'll also need 16 to 32 ounces of pasta sauce and 1 pound of pasta.   Chop all the veggies. We started by sauteing the bell pepper since it typically takes a bit longer. Drizzle about 2 to 3...

Mike had the lead on choosing dinner last night. I find he always chooses something tasty, and many times finds recipes I may have skimmed over for some reason. This time, as soon as he was telling me his choice, I knew the exact one. I had been eyeballing it myself ever since last month's issue of Food Network Magazine came in. It was practically calling for us to eat it...Grilled Shrimp and Noodle Salad. We love eating Asian cuisine, but rarely find ourselves making it at home unless it's an Asian sauce or other condiment on some seafood (particularly salmon.) This, though, looked too scrumptious not to try. Frustratingly, we hit a snafu before even beginning. The recipe calls for (and this was a big draw for me) flat rice noodles. Easy to pick up at your neighborhood grocer, right? Wrong! Unable to find said noodles while shopping, Mike bought very authentic, very wheat-based Japanese noodles from the international aisle at Kroger. Certain I could find them, I headed out ...

A Facebook friend recently asked the FB world for help finding tasty vegetarian recipes to help her keep her New Year’s resolution to become a vegetarian. I remembered that the Junior League of San Fran’s latest cookbook had a vegetarian chapter, so decided to try out a new recipe… just to be helpful, of course J I decided to give Penne with Kalamata Olives and Cheese a try. It was really easy to mix together and VERY tasty. I bought my Havarti cheese from the deli counter (just ask them to cut it as thick as possible.) It was difficult to shred, so I just sort of crumbled it up into the sauce. I forgot to grab asiago cheese at the store, so we used Parmesan cheese instead. We also used chicken broth instead of vegetable brot; it’s what we keep on hand, and neither of us is a vegetarian. Last thing… recipe doesn’t specify to cut up the olives, but I did cut those I mixed in with the pasta into halves so they’d be more spread out. I think you would be fine either way. Hope you enjo...

And by Guinea pigs, I mean friends who are ever so nice as to let me experiment and try out a new recipe on them. (Thanks again, by the way.) Tonight’s menu was Greek Shrimp Linguini, salad, rolls, and a very tasty chocolate/banana/peanut butter pie that I’ll need to get the recipe for. I spotted the pasta recipe several months ago and decided it was high time to finally try it. Plus, I figure with it being Thanksgiving week, we’re going to be dining on plenty of poultry, and seafood would be a nice change of pace.   I thought it was quite scrumptious and not difficult at all. We used Barefoot Pinot Grigio for the white wine, and I may have sprinkled in just a little extra dry mustard. The recipe only calls for 8 ounces of linguini, but that seemed like it wouldn’t be nearly enough for the 2 pounds of shrimp, so I went ahead and cooked the entire 16-ounce package of pasta. Then I tossed just a little over half with the shrimp to serve, and packed up the unused noodles with the le...