Beef Stroganoff

Beef Stroganoff

Dump into bag:

·         2lbs stew beef (cheap, whatever kind you want)

·         1lb mushrooms, washed and sliced

·         1 onion, diced

·         ½ cup red wine (cheap)

·         2 beef bouillon cubes

Instructions for Ziplock:

Dump into crock pot along with 1 cup water.  Cook on low 8 hours.  

Stir in ½ cup sour cream right before serving.  Serve over rice or noodles.

Crock Pot Lasagna

No stove for over three weeks?  No problem!  OK...slight problem, but we made it through thanks to the microwave, electric griddle, and of course - the crock pot!

Discovered this recipe for Crock Pot Lasagna Soup and made a few modifications that ended up making it much more like a baked pasta dish than soup.  The FANTASTIC thing about this recipe is that you don't have to brown the meat or cook the pasta - it really is a one pot recipe!

You can see the original recipe here.

Serves 6-8 (if you're feeding normal people...I fed 4 with one small portion left over - but that included two very hungry men!)

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef or turkey (I only partially thawed the meat before adding it to the crock)
3 cups broth (I used chicken)
4-5 cloves of garlic, minced (I used my garlic press)
1 T dried parsley
1 T dried basil
1 onion, chopped
1 - 28oz can diced tomatoes (with juice)
1 - 6oz can tomato paste
1 cup V8 juice (or any vegetable juice)
1 lb uncooked pasta shells
1/2 t white pepper (or black...I just like white better)
1/4 t salt
1 cup water
Shredded mozzarella cheese to top

Directions:
Mix diced tomatoes and tomato paste in crock pot.  Add broth, garlic, onion, V8, and spices and mix.  Add meat and give it another stir.  Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or high for 4 to 5 hours.

When there's 20 to 30 minutes of cooking time left (depending on how soft you prefer your noodles), add the water and noodles.  Stir.  Replace lid and finish cooking.

Serve topped with cheese.

Five Cheese Pasta

This was a throw together meal that Rory came up with after looking through the fridge and seeing that we had a few different kinds of cheese leftover from various other meals.   It was delicious.  It's basically just white sauce with cheese in it!  Don't be freaked out though ... white sauce is EASY to make.  I'm going to teach you how!

You will need:

Pasta, whatever kind you like.  We had vermicelli in the house and used that.
1/4 cup (50g) butter

1/4 cup flour

2 cups milk

1 small red onion, finely sliced 

A couple cloves of garlic, crushed

white wine (optional) It was the bottom of the bottle.  My guess would be about 1 or 2 Tablespoons
salt and pepper

We didn't measure the cheese ... we just had a bunch of bits and pieces left over so chopped them up and threw them in.  You could grate it if you wanted but it's not necessary.  You can use whatever cheese you want ...we used: 

Gruyere
Provolone

Tasty (white cheddar)

Parmesan (fresh)

Jarslberg (like swiss)

Cook your pasta.  While that's happening, make the sauce.

The trick with white sauce is to have everything ready and beside your cooking area because once you start stirring, you can't stop.  So ... once you've go everything ready, throw the onions, garlic and the butter in a pan, over medium heat and cook til onion is soft.  Add the flour and stir until it's completely mixed into the butter.  It will be kind of like a paste.  That's good.  That is how you want it.  Now, start adding the milk.  Just a little bit at a time.  Stir so that the milk mixes into the paste.  Add a bit more.  Stir.  Keep it up til you've added all the milk.  Your paste will not be so much like a paste anymore but more like a sauce.  If you are adding wine, do that too.  Cook, continuing to stir, til the sauce thickens a bit.  Add the cheese.  Stir til melted.  Season with salt and pepper.  Taste.  Adjust seasoning. 

Serve over cooked pasta and eat immediately. 

Agnolotti with Sundried Tomato Tapenade

 

This is a fast throw together dinner that is super yummy !

I use the family pack that serves four of the Ricotta and Spinach Agnolotti.  Cook per package instructions.

As well, you'll need:

Cottage Cheese, 250g

Sundried Tomatoes, 150g

Black Olives, to taste (maybe a tablespoon ?)

Capers, also to taste (maybe a teaspoon or two ?)

Baby Spinach, 60g

Parmesan Cheese, to be grated on top

I used to be able to get a sundried tomato tapenade that made this even simpler, but I haven't been able to get that lately, so I make my own.  Doesn't take long.

I use a stick blender to blend the sundried tomatoes, olives and capers.  Just keep tasting it til it tastes yummy.  

Mix the tapenade and the cottage cheese.

Drain the pasta, put back in the pan and stir in the cottage cheese/tapenade mixture.  Throw in the spinach ... it will wilt.  Serve and top with Parmesan cheese. 

So easy. 

So yummy.

Jaylen's Gnocchi & Craig's Bacon Mushroom Sauce

This is the yummiest gnocchi.

Our friend Jaylen taught us how to make it.

His dad taught us how to make the bacon mushroom sauce that goes on top.

This last time we made it, we also topped it with the Winter Veg Sauce ....

You will need:

500g fresh ricotta cheese

150g pecorino romano cheese

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

2 cups flour

Mix the first 4 ingredients and 1/4 cup of the flour.  Season with whatever you like.  Mix into a soft dough.  Add the remaining 1 & 3/4 cups flour and incorporate to make a stiff dough.  Separate dough into 4 pieces and roll them into big long logs.  Cut each log into pieces and then roll the gnocchi using a gnocchi board or the back of a fork.  The gnocchi board is a hundred times easier and they are cheap. (I think I paid $10 for mine, including shipping !)

While you are rolling, boil your water.  Once boiled, add gnocchi.  It will rise to the top when it's done.  Scoop it out and keep cooking in batches til they are all done.  That's it !  Top with whatever sauce you like.  (I'll give you a great recipe below ...) And some more of the pecorino romano cheese !

 

 Craig's Bacon Mushroom Sauce

(the way I did it)

1 onion, diced

Garlic, as little or as much as you like, diced

Mushrooms, sliced

Bacon,  250g, sliced

Chicken stock, 1 cup

White Wine, 1 cup

Cream, a cup or two ... 

Fresh Basil, chopped

Fry those first four ingredients together with a little bit of olive oil.  Add chicken stock.  Reduce.  Add wine and basil.  Reduce.  Add cream.  Stir and cook til thickened. 

Winter Veg Sauce

I made this for the first time a year ago and LOVED it.  I have modified it a bit to suit our own tastes.  You can find Tribeca Yummy Mummy's Winter Vegetable Tomato Sauce over on her blog.
Here's how I do ours ....

1 big red onion, diced

4 carrots, peeled & shredded

2 parsnips, peeled & shredded

5 cloves of garlic, diced (adjust to suit your garlic tastes)

olive oil

pinch of salt

dash of garlic powder

fresh herbs ... oregano, basil, thyme

4 x 400g cans crushed tomatoes

2 x 400g cans diced tomatoes

salt and pepper, to taste

brown sugar, 1 Tablespoon (or more)

honey, to taste

Saute garlic and onion in olive oil, in a large, heavy bottom pot, until garlic begins to brown and onion is translucent. Add carrots and parsnips, pinch of salt and cook til veggies are soft. Add herbs.  Let cook just while you open up the cans of tomatoes.

Stir in the tomatoes and garlic powder. Bring this sauce to a simmer. Turn the heat down to low and partially cover. Let simmer for an hour or longer, stirring every 15- 20 minutes. Taste as you go. After a while, once the sauce has cooked down some, add the brown sugar and/or honey.  You don't want it super sweet but the sugar/honey give a great flavor and cuts down on the acidity in the tomatoes. 

Season with salt and pepper.

Done.

Serve over pasta, gnocchi (that recipe coming this week !), in a calzone, as a pizza sauce, on a baked potato !  The options are only limited by your imagination ...

 

A New Challenge & Pearl Cous Cous

I mentioned in my post on Sunday that I was going to start feeding us out of what we have here.  I said it like this:

Every now and then I decide that we need to try and eat out of our pantry, freezer, fridge and garden. There are often a few factors that go into my deciding this. One is that sometimes when we are extremely busy, I feel like planning a menu and then going to the grocery store could send me over some sort of imaginary 'edge' ! Two is when we've made a large purchase (like putting solar panels on our house!) and not shopping for a week would help pay for them. Three is when I look into my pantry and freezer and see that what's in there could probably feed a family in Africa for a month. And so, I get creative .... 

Then yesterday I was looking around on the internet and I stumbled upon this challenge ! It starts Monday and I'm going to join them !  It goes for four weeks and basically it's about eating out of your freezer and pantry in an effort to save money.  Tomorrow I will make an inventory of what I have in the house ... I will share that with you.  At the end of each of the weeks (I'm going to do the whole four week challenge) I will share with you what we ate (as per usual) but I will also share with you what I had to buy (I do plan to keep feeding my family fresh fruit, veg, milk etc ...)  and how much I spent each week.  My grocery budget, including toiletries, is $350 a week.  I do pretty well keeping within that most weeks.  I'm very interested to see how much I can save over the four week challenge !  And also what interesting meals we will come up with ...

Tonight's meal was just something I threw together in a hurry.  It was nice.  Simple. Easy.  I had all of the things in my fridge, pantry and garden.  I made it in the afternoon and refrigerated til we were ready to eat.  It was only the kids and me tonight.  Had Rory been here, I probably would have grilled some chicken to go with it.

Pearl (Israeli) Cous Cous

1 Roasted Red Bell Pepper, chopped small

1 Tomato, chopped small

1 Spring Onion, sliced

A couple spoonfuls of sliced black olives

A small handful of salted capers

Garlic, chopped,  to taste

Juice of 1/2 a lemon (or more to taste)

Boil cous cous according to package instructions.

Sautee garlic in olive oil til golden brown. (maybe 1/2 tablespoon of oil)

Drain cous cous.  Mix cous cous with other ingredients, including oil you cooked the garlic in.  Squeeze lemon juice on top and mix. 

Can be served hot or cold.

PS ... If I'd had feta in the house, I would have put that in too ...

Slow Roasted Pasta Sauce with Meat

 

Sometimes, when you throw something together, it just works OUTSTANDINGLY. 
This was one of those times.

It was a tag team effort.

I cooked a package of ground beef (mince).  Just in a fry pan with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.

Rory roasted a big roasting tray full of tomatoes (halved), garlic cloves, and red onion. 
Again ... with olive oil, salted and peppered. 180C/375F for one hour.

When the tomatoes were done, I threw them in the blender, whizzed them up til they were done.
Oh ... yeah ... we added some fresh herbs to the blender too.
Oregano, parsley, rosemary and thyme.
Maybe a bit of basil too ...

We put that in a small pot with the meat. 
Probably only left it on the heat for 10 or 15 minutes. 

Rory added a bit of water to thin it out.
(We thought about wine but we didn't want to mess with the flavor because we loved it !)

Served on pasta with fresh Parmesan.

Delish !

Spaghetti Carbonara (ala Mama S.)

Spaghetti Carbonara (ala Mama S.)

1lb of Pasta (any long spaghetti pasta of your preference)
3/4lb of Bacon
½ cup of Heavy Cream
2 tablespoons Butter (melted)
4 Eggs
1 cup of Parmesan Cheese (the type that comes in a plastic
can in the pasta aisle)

Start pasta water boiling, but don’t add the pasta yet.

Chop bacon into half inch pieces and fry it till it is very crispy. Drain the grease off a couple
times during the cooking process so that the bacon fries and does not simmer. You need to have approximately 2 tablespoons of the grease left in the pan when the bacon is crispy. Add cream to the pan with the bacon and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the cream cooks down to just a coating over the bacon.

Melt butter and set aside.

Beat the eggs well. Stir parmesan cheese into the beaten eggs. Let it set for a few minutes to allow the cheese to soak into the eggs. If there is liquid (eggs) remaining after the cheese has been allowed to soak for a bit, stir in more cheese and repeat the process until the mixture resembles cooked cream of wheat.

When all of the above steps are completed, cook the pasta according to package directions (make sure it stays al dente).

The next steps need to happen quickly, so BE READY!

Drain pasta. Don’t rinse! Return pasta to the hot pasta pot. Stir butter into pasta. Pour egg mixture onto hot pasta and quickly stir until all of the pasta is coated with the egg mixture. (Eggs will cook from the heat of the pasta) Stir in bacon mixture.

Serve.

Eat.

Enjoy!

(serves approximately 4 people)

It is good as it, but some people enjoy topping their carbonara with red pepper flakes and/or garlic powder.

"Spicy" Spaghetti

A favorite in our house.
But it doesn't photograph well . . . ;)
So here it is, picture-less.


Spaghetti All'Arrabiata
Jamie Oliver-Style
Serves 4

(Lucky for all you Non-American readers, there were European measurements with this recipe! ;)

7 tablespoons / 100 ml olive oil, plus more for drizzling
2 dried red chilies
4 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 red onion, finely chopped
3 14-ounce / 400-gram cans of plum tomatoes, sieved, or 3 1/2 cups / 800 ml passata
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
18 ounce / 500 grams spaghetti
1 teaspoon / 5 ml red wine vinegar

Pangrattato
3 tablespoons / 45 grams stale bread crumbs
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped (optional)
Fried sage leaves (optional)

Heat about 5 tablespoons / 75 ml of the oil in a large sauté pan over low heat. Add the chilies, garlic. and onion, and cook gently for around 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and let them cook until the sauce is quite thick, about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, bring a large pan of salted water to a boil. Cook the spaghetti in the salted boiling water according to the packet instructions. Drain the pasta, reserving about 1/4 cup / 60 ml of the cooking water. Once the sauce has thickened, add the red vinegar and season to taste with salt and pepper.
To make the pangrattato, heat the remaining oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the bread crumbs and thyme, if desired, and fry until the bread crumbs are crispy, about 3 minutes. Add the drained pasta and the reserved pasta water to the sauce, and toss to coat. Drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and serve with the pangrattato over the top. if you like, you can garnish with fried sage leaves.

Jono's Roasted Pepper and Chicken Pasta Salad

We have a guest blogger today ! My boy Jono, who is nine, almost ten (!) cooked dinner for us last night. He got the recipe out of a cookbook he was given for is his birthday, but he made a few small changes.  I asked him this morning if he wanted to write a blog post about it and he was pretty excited to do it ! So ... here you go, in his words ...

hi i am jono and i am going to tell you how to make a roasted pepper and chicken pasta salad

you will need:

2 chicken breasts

1 yellow bell pepper

1 bag of any pasta

1 red bell pepper

a handful of rocket

for the marinade:

2 tbls olive oil

lemon juice from 1/2 a lemon

1 clove garlic, crushed

salt and pepper

for the dressing:

4 tbls olive oil

3 tbls rice wine vinegar

2 tsp dijon mustard

1 tbls green pesto

a bunch of chives

a handful of chopped parsley

first boil some water then get your two chicken breasts and wrap them in cling film. then bash the chicken with a mallet until flat put the chicken in a container and mix in the olive oil lemon juice garlic salt and pepper put in the fridge for 20 minutes. cut the peppers in half and take out the inside then put them under the grill until skin is black. then soak then in water until ready to pick up then pull off the skin and slice them. cook pasta according to packet heat a frying pan to a medium high heat put chicken in and pour marinade on top. once cooked cool for a couple minutes while cooling chicken put pasta in a bowl with peppers and rocket slice chicken and put into the bowl pour the marinade on and mix and it is done. 

Notes from Mom : I didn't want to change any of how he wrote his instructions so here are a few tips (translations) from me ...

bell peppers = capsicum

rocket = arugula

cling film = glad wrap.  saran wrap.

grill = broiler

We made the pesto for the dressing.  We used sweet and greek basil, just a handful or so.  Then added maybe a tablespoon of pine nuts, maybe the same of freshly grated parmesan, added a blub or two of olive oil.  A bit of salt and pepper.  We used the stick blender on that.  Then we just added the rest of the dressing ingredients to that and blended it some more, again ... with the stick blender.

This was DELICIOUS !!!  It served four of us for dinner, and there were three small portions left over for lunches .... luckily I didn't need a packed lunch today since it's my day off !!  Wooo Hooo !!!

my birthday dinner ....

it was my birthday a couple of days ago.

my husband planned the most amazing surprise !

you can read about the whole day over on my simple beauty blog but

i'm just going to cut and paste and share the food bits of the story for you here ...

let's start with ... my neighbors coming over with birthday cocktails

i love having neighbors who are such a bit part of our lives !



when rory gets home, he says

'would you be totally disappointed if i told you i've made a reservation for us at a restaurant ?'

ummmm ... let me think about this for a minute ?!

i still don't have to cook ?

i get to go out ?

yeah ... i'm good !

rory got a phone call just as we were ready to leave, from our friend craig

he said 'we've got a present for bonnie,

would you guys swing by and pick it up on your way to dinner ?'

up until that phone call, i had NO IDEA anything suspicious might be happening

after that ... i wondered if all wasn't as it appeared !

but ... i had NO IDEA of the amazing surprise that lay in wait for me

weeks of planning, international conversations, importing of food

so ... we get to C & J's place to 'pick up the present'

and the house is all decorated

and something smells incredible ... (and very familiar)

and then there were shouts of surprise and the faces of other friends i love

rory hands me an envelope and says

'this is my present to you'

inside the envelope is this menu .........



the foods of my childhood !

and VONGOLE !

(my requested birthday dinner every year since we had lived in Italy !)

now ... this is no easy feat ... because in my little girls mind, the vongole (clams)

HAVE TO BE IN THEIR SHELL

well ... you can't get that here ...

in fact, you can't get clams here at all, unless they are in a can

so Rory IMPORTED them from New Zealand

can you believe that ?!



the food was amazing.

APPARENTLY, they had been cooking all afternoon ... I thought Rory was 'working late' !

Here's the Patatas Alioli and the Champinones Al Ajillo con pan (with bread), of course.



And then came the never ending supply of Gambas Al Ajillo ... OH YUM !!



Master Chefs in action ...



Amazing team work ...



And here's the Traditional Vongole ... with homemade fettucine ...

I'll have to find out what recipe he used for this ... he said it was a Jamie Oliver one.



And the Vongole like my Mom used to make, only with a spicy Casa de Ross twist.

And this recipe too, I'll have to write it down and share it with you ... it's a spicy tomato sauce ...

mmmmmmm !!!



Do you know one thing I loved about this night ?

There were so many things I loved ... but here's just one.

I loved that I was the only known clam lover of the bunch but they still cooked this for me !

And (almost) everyone tried the clams ! Some even liked them !

All of these dishes were new to everyone besides me and Rory, and everyone tried them !

And again ... liked (and even loved) them !

I love the adventurous nature of this group of friends !

And I love that they love to celebrate life.

**

Mom ... Rory insisted that I take this photo for you ....

**

Empty shells !!



Cheesecake.

When we were little, it was tradition in our house that all birthday cakes had to be chocolate.

So ... we have gazillions of birthday pictures of us COVERED IN CHOCOLATE !

BUT, once we were old enough to request our own birthday cake preference ... mine was

ALWAYS cheesecake (with cherries on top) !

My sweet friend Donna recently learned this about me and though she had never made one

before, she baked me the most wonderful birthday cheesecake ! with berries ! oh my !



and Jodie made cupcakes

that I have yet to try

but some came home with us and I will be having one for breakfast !



I was crowned 'birthday queen' and actually wore my 'crown' for a good hour.

Not the mask though ... it was way too hot for that !



Spoiled ? Yeah ... I can't disagree.



I have an amazing, thoughtful, selfless husband,

kind, encouraging and giving children,

enthusiastic, creative and (SNEAKY!!) friends,

an extended family like none other,

friends all over the world (thanks to the Navy and now facebook !) that i love

AND

to top it all off ....



my very own website !!



I cannot wait for you all to see it !

Well ... you can sort of see it here but I've crossed off it's name (which you are going to LOVE)

because I don't want you to go there just yet.

I'll let you know when you can !

Craig and I are going to play with it a bit more first ...

by the way, Craig ... who is a music lover, not a web guru, designed this !

Look out world !

**

All in all ... this has been my best, most favorite birthday ever.

Thanks to everyone who was a part of it !

~ bon ~

Triple Tomato Sauce Pasta

Mom posted this a while back ... I'm re posting it because it had kinda gotten lost.
I just tried it tonight ... here's my photo.
It's delicious.
AND
SUPER EASY to make !
Try it ....

Here is a super easy recipe I tried last evening. It was yummy! It took only the time needed to cook the pasta. A side caesar salad and dinner was ready!

Penne with Triple Tomato Sauce

Ingredients
1 pound penne
2 medium tomatoes (5 ounces each), cut into 1-inch dice
4 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained
2 tablespoons tomato paste (I had half a can, so used it all...then needed an extra drizzle of olive oil to make the blender whirl it all)
4 large basil leaves
1 garlic clove (I of course used more!)
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
Directions

In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the penne until al dente.
Meanwhile, in a blender, combine the diced tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, tomato paste, basil, garlic and olive oil. Puree until smooth. Drain the pasta, put it back into the hot pan. Pour the sauce over it, add the salt and pepper, and toss well to coat. Serve the pasta piping hot. (If you are going to serve it in a bowl, I'd suggest heating the bowl in the oven first.)

I grated lots of fresh romano cheese to lavishly sprinkle on as it was the only protein of the meal. Good call, I thought!

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/august-2007-penne-with-triple-tomato-sauce This is the site where I found the recipe...I'll visit there again!

SLUMGULLION

This is one of the recipes that my husband requested that I get from his Mother when we first got married all those years ago. It's one of his favorites and the last time I planned to make it, it occured to me that the all day simmering of the sauce could take place in the crock pot. I tried it, and I was right!

Ingredients:

generous one pound ground beef

large onion, chopped big

as many cloves of garlic as you like, quartered or so...biggish chunks (I used 8 or so last time)

a big can of tomato juice

a big can of crushed tomatoes

salt and pepper to taste

about a tablespoon of chili powder

2 pounds of sturdy macaroni of some sort (Mom always used elbows, I like something bigger, I forget the name of the one I used in the photo, shells are also good)

How to:

Brown the meat, throwing in the onion and garlic when it's about half browned.

Throw this in the crock pot, then stir in everything else but the pasta.

Cook on low all day. It should cook down about 1/3 or so.

When it's nearly time to eat, cook the pasta al dente. Don't let it get too soft.

Stir the pasta into the sauce.

Dig in!

We like lots of pasta, and we like it the next day for lunch, so I always make a lot. If you want to use 1 pound of pasta, I'd use a bit less meat, and cook on high for a while so that the sauce cooks down more.

(If you don't have a crockpot, you can cook it the old fashioned way, simmering the sauce on the stove for several hours. The long slow cooking of the sauce makes a difference, don't try to hurry it....)

Tuna Mac

I can't believe I haven't posted this recipe before.
It's one of my favorites.

And so easy ...

1 bag of shell pasta
1 small jar of pimento stuffed green olives, I chop mine in half
1 small red onion, finely diced
1 can of tuna (i like it in spring water but whatever), drained
1 cup mayo (i make mine like this), add a bit at a time, you may not need this much ~ or you may need more ... you just want the pasta nice and coated ! (not like mine looks in the photo !)
a couple squirts of american mustard

Cook the pasta al dente. Drain. Cool a teensy bit so the mayo doesn't go icky. Add all ingredients and mix. And that's that. I love this warm ... and I love this cold and leftover !!

Pastina in Brodo

This is a favorite from my childhood.
I hated soup as a child.
I loved this soup.

I don't know if I made it the way my Mom made it but I loved this.
Alia requested it for her night ...

I started with a 2L box of salt reduced chicken stock. Added to that 4 cups of water (next time I think I'll add about 6 or 8 cups ) and 3 tsp of chicken stock powder (you could use boullion/stock cubes too). Threw in a carrot, 3 big cloves of garlic and a quartered red onion. Salt and Pepper too. Brought that to the boil and then let it simmer til I had finished the other parts of dinner ... 30 minutes ? an hour ? I then removed the veggies, added the pastina (tiny star shaped pasta that I've found in whole wheat !) and boiled til the pastina was cooked. Served in bowls, topped with parmesan cheese.

Garlic Chicken Pasta

So ... this recipe starts out as a crock pot recipe. The original recipe that I found called for Lawry's Mesquite Marinade with Lime Juice. I can't get that so I made my own marinade.

My marinade ~ mix in a bowl :
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup brown rice vinegar
1/8 cup red wine
garlic ~ to taste
lime juice and rind ~ one or two limes
honey
salt and pepper
paprika
liquid smoke
onion powder

I have no idea how much of each thing I used. When I make it again, I'll let you know exact measurements ...

Add to crock pot :
3 or 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
Marinade from above

Cook on low for 6 hours.

Other ingredients :
Whole wheat spirals pasta
1 cup thickened (heavy) whipping cream
2 or 3 garlic cloves, crushed
pepper, to taste
1/2 cup butter
500g bacon, chopped
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Shred chicken, and set aside. When ready to prepare dinner, cook pasta. In large fry pan, cook bacon. Add butter and melt. Ad garlic, cream, pepper and parmesan cheese. Whisk together on low heat for 3-4 minutes. Add cooked pasta and shredded chicken. Stir. Top with extra parmesan.

Pasta Primavera

Primavera means spring. So this is spring pasta.
Basically, all you do is chop/slice/dice a bunch of whatever veggies
look good
are in season
are on sale
or you just like

and saute them in a little olive oil
with some salt and pepper


Add a cup or so of grated Parmesan cheese
and some cream.
Cook at a very low heat, stirring constantly until sauce thickens

Pour over hot pasta.
I like angel hair, but linguine is nice too,
or whatever kind you like best!

Sprinkle with some more cheese
and a dash of crushed red pepper flakes.

Cannelloni

What you will need:
Uncut strips of pasta made according to
these directions
(For tips on how to made the pasta without
a pasta maker, see the video at the end)

Mix together cottage cheese
parmesan cheese
one egg
pepper and italian seasoning

Cut pasta strips into sections
add filling
roll and seal with a little water

Place in lightly greased glass baking receptacle
Cover with spaghetti sauce of your choice
Cover THAT with mozzarella cheese
and a wee bit more parmesan.

Bake at 375 F
for 30 minutes.
Or until cheese is brown and bubbly
and you're dying of hunger!

Let rest a few minutes
or risk burning your tongue
most severely.

Serve with garlic bread

Home-made Pasta

What you'll need:
*A pasta maker (we picked one up at a local thrift store and it just so happens to be an authentic Italian pasta machine. Sweet action.)
*Flour
*Eggs
*Salt
*Clean towels
*An assistant (it's probably not impossible to make this solo, but it sure is a TON easier to do with help)

On a clean counter top, measure out 1 and 1/4 cups flour (we haven't experimented with any type of whole wheat flour so I can't say how it would do in this). Make a well in the center and shake in a bit of salt. Add two eggs (if you have tiny eggs, you may also need to add a little bit of water, but most likely you won't. Resist the urge to overwet this!). Using a fork, mix the eggs into the flour. At this point it's nice to have an assistant to help you throw flour at any escaping egg. Be sure to shout "Dam it [assistant's name]!" at every opportunity.
When it gets too difficult to continue mixing with the fork, switch to hands. Knead the dough until it is smooth like a baby's bottom. Your hands may fall off. If you feel this might happen, make your assistant knead a while. Cut dough into 6 equal pieces. Take one of the pieces and run it through the widest setting on your pasta machine. Fold in thirds and run through again. Repeat this until it seems good to move on (seriously, I can't really describe how I know when it's done being kneaded by the machine. You'll just have to figure out what "right" feels like). Run the dough through the machine (without folding) setting the machine to the next narrowest setting each pass. Here is where you DEFINITELY want help. We have found with our machine that the second to skinniest level is the stopping point - any thinner and the pasta gets hard to cut.

Lay out the giant noodle on a clean towel and let dry for about 10 minutes (it will darken slightly). Repeat the flattening with each piece of dough. You can now do whatever you want with your noodles. We have an attachment that makes fettuccine, spaghetti or ravioli. You can also roll it up and cut it to the desired width with a very sharp knife (I've never done this, but I saw it on the travel channel).

Once the noodles are cut they can be thrown immediately into a giant pot of raucously boiling water. The noodles are done when they float. This will take approximately 4.7 seconds. No, seriously, they are done in a heartbeat.

Top with a simple sauce and enjoy!

One recipe feeds 2 adults. Three of this recipe feeds 7.