I tend to make a lot of mistakes when cooking. I won’t read the directions entirely through or will completely forget to pick up an ingredient and then at the last minute need to improvise. This time around, I actually read through the directions beforehand and had everything I needed, except I waited to long to use the Lobster and it had already gone bad. What an expensive mistake! So this recipe was originally a Lobster Corn Risotto, sigh. Anyways, it was still delicious and worth sharing!
I love a fresh pesto, it brightens up any dish and just screams spring. I made Fettuccine with Seared Tomatoes, Spinach, and Burrata earlier this week and had some spinach left over. Cooking Light’s latest issue had a recipe for Linguine with Spinach Herb Pesto which uses spinach, basil, oregano, and time to make a creamy pesto sauce. How great does that sound??
Ingredients:
4 ounces fresh baby spinach
1/4 cup slivered blanched almonds
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 large garlic clove, chopped
2 tablespoons organic vegetable broth
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice (~1/2 a lemon), plus zest from 1/2 a lemon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated and divided (about 1/4 cup)
There are few things pasta can’t cure. (I’m not a doctor so don’t hold me to this) Pasta is my ultimate comfort food. Growing up, it was literally the only food my grandma (my mom’s mom) would make for me when I would visit, with the exception of Thanksgiving dinner. If I’m in a bad mood, need a pick me up, or feel a cold coming on, I want pasta. So when Cooking Light’s March issue’s photo was of a beautiful bowl of pasta, I was immediately excited for what deliciousness might be inside. Paging through, the issue didn’t disappoint. I plan on making quite a few of these, so expect a bit of a pasta week coming up! (I’m also about to move so my precious kitchen tools are little by little being packed away.) I naturally had to make the one on the cover first, so here is my take on the Fettuccine with Seared Tomatoes, Spinach and Burrata.
First a little background on Burrata, which means “buttered” in Italian (interest peaked? I thought so). Burrata is basically the best mozzarella cheese ever. Why? Because it is mozzarella cheese with cream. Oh yes. You should be able to find it in the specialty cheese section of your supermarket but if not, mozzarella is obviously a fine substitute (if you can, sub in the mozzarella that is still in a brine to have a super creamy version).
Ingredients:
8 ounces uncooked fettuccine (I used a mixture of spinach fettuccine and regular)
Cooking spray
2/3 cup grape tomatoes, halved (about 10 large)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 (14.5-ounce) can fire roasted diced tomatoes, undrained
There is something so fun about having breakfast for dinner. Not only is it an easy way to whip up a meal with things you probably already have on hand, but it is so nice to have something so familiar and yet out of the ordinary.
Lindsay Landis and Taylor Hackbarth (of Love and Olive Oil) have compiled a cookbook filled with breakfast treats with a spin, making them perfect for dinner. The cookbook, Breakfast for Dinner: Recipes for Fritatta Florentine, Huevos Rancheros, Sunny-Side-Up Burgers, and More! is plain drool-worthy. The photos are fantastic and each recipe sounds better than the last! It has a little bit of everything in its pages, including main dishes, appetizers, and desserts. Each recipe has an inventive twist on a traditional breakfast dish, which made it so difficult to decide which recipe to try first! When I asked my boyfriend to help choose, he responded, “Mmm… can’t we just make every one of them?”
Photo care of Quirk Books
We were finally able to decide on the Huevos Rancheros Tacos because we are big taco fans (I have 7 listed on this blog as of this post) and I loved the idea of turning Huevos Rancheros into delicious dinner!
Ingredients:
Ranchero Sauce
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 large jalapeno, seeded and chopped
1 (15 ounce) can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, seeded and chopped, plus 1/2 tablespoon adobo sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
freshly ground pepper, to taste
For tacos
1 (15 ounce) can refried black beans
3 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
8 corn tortillas
1/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese
8 large eggs
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro or oregano
Note: this recipe is reproduced from the Breakfast for Dinner cookbok
I know, I know. You probably read the title and thought to yourself there is no way quinoa can be a tasty breakfast. But hear me out. Quinoa, although a great grain to use as a dinner side, can also hold its own as a sweeter breakfast meal. I actually originally made this recipe so that vegan friends who were visiting for the weekend had a breakfast option. (Vegans have a tough time when it comes to breakfast! Oatmeal, quinoa, fruit. I think that’s about it…) Anyways, I wasn’t expecting much. But it was so tasty I made a batch for my breakfasts all week. That’s right, it even reheats nicely!
I found this recipe on Budget Bytes and made some minor changes. Check out her original recipe here.
Making a large batch of marinara sauce and freezing it for later use makes dinner on really hectic weeknights significantly easier. My mom used to make pots upon pots of tomato sauce during the first snow of the season which always made the house smell oh so good, especially after coming in from the cold. We haven’t had our first snow yet, but that’s not going to stop me from trying out this slow cooker marinara from Cooking Light. The sauce can be frozen and used for months.
The original recipe used fresh tomatoes but I hate peeling tomatoes and the plum tomatoes this time of year just aren’t very attractive. So I used the next best thing, canned whole peeled plum tomatoes. If it’s summer when you make this, go for the fresh ones!
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 cups chopped onion (about 2 onions)
3/4 cup sliced carrot (about 2 carrots
1/2 cup diced celery
1/4 cup minced garlic (a good dozen garlic cloves)
I made a realization this weekend. Chili is so hearty that I really don’t realize if there is even meat in them. So why add it in?
With a bunch of different beans and peppers, you can still deliver an absolutely delicious chili that doesn’t even need meat! (I’m not knocking those that like meat in their chili, I just apparently prefer the vegetarian version)
Katherine Martinelli had a chili link up last week on her blog and I couldn’t stop thinking about chili. Her Three Bean Chili in particular looked so fantastic, I decided to make my own version of it below. It is based off of her recipe but I did make some changes, so to see the original recipe, check it out here.
This Tri Vegetarian Chili is aptly named. It uses three types of beans, three types of dried peppers, and three types of bell peppers.
I love recipes that make it easy to serve a bunch of people with minimal effort. A slow cooker is usually a go-to for those types of recipes but I’ve never considered using it to make breakfast before. The Ninja Cooking System is the perfect tool for it though. They sent over this recipe for a Slow Cooker Apple French Toast Casserole and I couldn’t wait for the weekend to come so I could make it.
This recipe makes 8 servings so it would be great for breakfast for a larger group but I also packed up the rest of my servings to reheat during the week.
Ingredients:
½ cup butter
2 Granny Smith apples, cored and chopped
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ cup pure maple syrup
1 loaf challah bread (about 1 pound), cut into cubes
I am a huge fan of coffee and coffee-related foods, so tiramisu is obviously a favorite of mine. When the concept of Tiramisu Brownies was mentioned, I was immediately excited. What a fantastic combination of desserts!
Barista Prima Coffeehouse® K-Cup® (paid link) packs are four dark, rich coffee blends that really deliver an intense flavor that are more bold and robust than other K-Cup offerings. The four flavors offered are: Colombia, House Blend, Italian Roast, and French Roast. I’ve had a Keurig for years now (I just had to retire my original Keurig and buy a replacement, sniffle) and am always really pleased with the coffee choices that can be found in K-Cup form. I tend to use coffee grounds in a bunch of recipes, especially ones that use chocolate, to really up the flavor.
Barista Prima was nice enough to send me a box of their House Blend K-Cups so I naturally wanted to make a dish that used these delicious grounds as well as a dessert that would be perfect paired with a cup of House Blend coffee. Many thanks to Barista Prima for also sending me this mouthwatering recipe!
Ingredients:
12 oz. chocolate chips
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
4 whole eggs
4 egg whites
1 cup cake flour (or normal flour if you can’t find it)
If you’ve never heard of these lovelies, you are not alone. Rainbow cookies are made of almond cake dyed fun bright colors with apricot preserves all sandwiched in between two thin layers of chocolate.
They really aren’t cookies at all, more like thinly packed cake. But whatever the heck they are, they are delicious!
I don’t really recall these cookies growing up, but my boyfriend (who is from Long Island) absolutely loves them. In fact, he was kind of taken aback when I mentioned I didn’t really know what they were. One of his friends was absolutely horrified; he basically forced me to eat one right then and there which I didn’t complain about. I love them now!
So I wanted to try to make these little guys… I’m not sure why. They are awfully difficult (well, more time consuming than difficult). But I was so darn proud of myself when they were done, I don’t even care about the effort I had to put in! The cookies go by a ton of names… Rainbow, Seven Layer, Neapolitan, Tricolor… but I’m pretty sure they tend to be a Christmas staple in Italian households. I found this recipe on Epicurious.
Ingredients:
1 (12 oz) jar apricot preserves, heated and strained
I need more sides in my life. Couscous is a great weekday choice because it’s so quick to make, maybe 20 minutes in total. This recipe is from the Fresh & Healthy DASH Diet Cooking Cookbook which I absolutely love. The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet was developed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute a encourages increasing whole grains, nuts, fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy and lean proteins and minimizing processed gains, high-fat meats and dairy, sugars and sodium… which is basically more just eating healthy versus a diet.
This couscous recipe is made with vegetable broth to give it some flavor with bites of pine nuts, dried cranberries, and scallions.
Oh pasta, how I love you. Pasta, or any Italian food for that matter, is my ultimate comfort food choice. I was sent Lidia Bastianich’s newest cookbook: Lidia’s Favorite Recipes– 100 Foolproof Italian Dishes, from Basic Sauces to Irresistible Entrees, which after my first page through, I already knew would be one of my favorite cookbooks. Lidia Bastianich obviously knows her Italian dishes, she’s been in the cooking industry for most of her life; she has a number of best-selling cookbooks, owns 6 restaurants, and is basically the face of Italian cooking on PBS. I’m also happy to let you all know that I will be giving away one copy of this awesome cookbook! More on that after the recipe…
The cookbook makes Italian recipes approachable. A lot of the recipes include childhood favorites of mine, Chicken Parmigiana, Spaghetti and Meatballs, and Italian Wedding Soup. There are recipes that the photos look so fantastic I can’t wait to try them (I’m specifically talking about the rice balls. Oh. My. Goodness.)
But I had to test out the cookbook with my favorite Italian staple: a pasta dish. The Tagliatelle with Wild Mushroom Sauce sounded just wonderful. But something didn’t want me to make this recipe. My supermarket didn’t have wild mushrooms or tagliatelle! Well, the show must go on. This is my somewhat adapted version of the recipe, Pasta with Wild Mushroom Sauce.
“The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it. … If you’re convinced that cooking is drudgery, you’re never going to be good at it, and you might as well warm up something frozen.”
– James Beard
James Beard is basically the father of American cooking as we know it today. He, along with the beloved Julia Child, is basically the “foodie” community’s version of The Beatles. As Julia Child put it, “in the beginning, there was James Beard.” So when I was offered to review a new compilation of some of his best recipes, I couldn’t wait to dig in. The cookbook, The Essential James Beard Cookbook: 450 Recipes That Shaped the Tradition of American Cooking is in stores beginning today.
The cookbook is filled with what we think of today as quintessential recipes: coleslaw, potato salad, pot roast, chicken pot pie. But James Beard’s travels through France as well as inspiration from the Chinese cooks who worked at the hotel his mother owned. Each page is filled with both new and different recipes as well as classic approaches to everyday food (ex. roasting a chicken). The editors did a great job of going through and adding notes to help enhance the recipes as well, including insight into what an ingredient is and what can be substituted.
I really had a tough time choosing a recipe to do this post. It’s really tough to pinpoint what James Beard is known for, because, well, he’s known for everything! I finally settled on his Cream of Tomato Soup recipe.
This recipe, passed down from his mother, is a classic comfort food choice. I loved the idea of making a family recipe and was intrigued by the process. (The onset of Hurricane Sandy may also have had some input into my decision.)
Ingredients:
2 28-oz cans of Italian plum tomatoes, undrained
1 cup Beef Stock
1 small yellow onion, roughly chopped
2 whole cloves, smashed
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoon all purpose flour
1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons unsalted butter, melted
2 cups heavy cream
Chopped fresh basil or fresh flat-leaf parsley, for garnish
This recipe is adapted from James Beard’s The Essential James Beard Cookbook
This past weekend was one of my favorite September events: the Kennett Square Mushroom Festival. That’s right, an entire festival dedicated to fungi. And it’s amazing. Kennett Square’s main street (State Street) shuts down to accommodate blocks of vendors, there are cooking demonstrations, soup contests, and mushroom eating contests. There is even pumpkin mushroom ice cream. All in celebration of the mushroom. (Fun fact: Kennett Square is considered the Mushroom Capital of the world).
Naturally, I picked up a bunch of mushrooms which I will now be using to cook all week. mmm. Because today was the first “fall” feeling day, I decided to use some of the mushrooms to make a soup. I wanted to stay away from a creamy soup so I used potatoes to thicken it up. I found the inspiration for this soup in The Flavor Thesaurus by Niki Segnit (one of my favorite books for food pairings).
As I hear rumblings of all things pumpkin just around the corner (yay!), I realized that my days of beautiful, fresh vegetables are numbered (boo). Which means I needed a recipe that used some of summer’s best. This risotto recipe from Cooking Light fit the bill: Asparagus, Sugar Snap Peas, Zucchini, Yellow Squash.. mmm.
Ingredients:
8 ounces asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
8 ounces sugar snap peas, trimmed and cut in half
5 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 (8-ounce) zucchini, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices
1 (8-ounce) yellow squash, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices
