Lasagna Soup

This was wonderful!

And it gave me another plus for the Instant Pot

over a slow cooker.

I'm in and out of the house most days.

When I have something cooking in the slow cooker,

while it smells wonderful,

it makes me hungry ALL day!

 This would have done me in.

https://temeculablogs.com/instant-pot-lasagna-soup/

The only change I made to the recipe was that

I used bulk Italian sausage 

instead of ground beef.

I say, when you see a chance for more flavor, 

take it!

Super Simple Spiral Spaghetti

But it's not really spaghetti.

Or even pasta.

It's zucchini "noodles" made possible by 

a Spiralizer.

You can spiralize just about anything.

So far I have done

sweet potatoes,

 butternut squash,

and now zucchini.

This is a win!

It's just a couple of tablespoons of

jarred sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil,

olive tampenade,

garlic 

and zucchini noodles.

Put them all in a skillet and saute till the 

zucchini is tender but firm.

So good!

Sun Dried Tomato Tapenade Pasta

How's this for a dinner on the fly?

This part was not on the fly.

Most decidedly not!

I found myself with an overabundance of cherry tomatoes.

I decided to dry them in the oven and worry 

about what to do with them later.

This picture is a bit deceiving because

after I set them out so nicely on the pan, 

I decided 

to squeeze the seeds out. 

All that wet was gonna take forever to dry out!

So, squeeze I did and then I tossed them with 

olive oil, salt, pepper and oregano.

I lined the pan with parchment paper and began roasting

away at 250 degrees for a couple of hours. 

But then I had to make dinner, so they finished 

up at 375 for about 15 minutes. 

They were beautiful.

Now for the pasta!

I cooked off 

1/2 pound of spaghetti 

to al dente and then tossed with about

 1/2 a 6 ounce jar of olive tapenade, 

1/2 of the dried (chopped) tomatoes,

1/2 a shake of red pepper flakes and

1/2 cup of shredded parmesan. 

Actually the name should be the 

half-a, half-a, half-a, half-a, half-a

pasta.

Meatless Tuesday

I know 

Meatless Monday

has a certain ring to it, 

but, 

life happens.

I hadn't really thought ahead for dinners this

week and doing the whole

vegetarian days

kind of requires some forethought.

But here you have a meal on the fly and

it was actually (actually)

pretty good!

 I started out making a basic red sauce.

As long as I have a 28 ounce can of tomatoes 

around, I'm pretty much good to go. 

I sautéed a red onion in some olive oil, 

added a couple of cloves of garlic, 

chopped up a red pepper

I had roasted and then threw in some

sliced black olives.

All good but I really wanted to bump up the nutrition 

and I thought, a lot of my creamy soups have

you blend the ingredients, be they 

vegetables or, say, beans.

So, I blended up some northern beans 

and added them to the sauce.

It's hard to see but it made the sauce kind of creamy.

And, I figure our meal some protein and fiber.

 Nice!

I like it when that happens.

Meatballs a la Pizzaiola

I'm not sure if this was a hit or a miss.

It's from my good friend Giada .

These are supposed to be served with toothpicks as an appetizer.

Some how I missed that and thought they would

just be the meat of a meal. 

You know, like mini, Italian style, meatloaves. 

That you dip. 

They aren't. 

Whereas they are good, they would be far better

with the mindset that they are appetizers. 

Here are my comments;

I used dried sun-dried tomatoes and just added 

a hit of olive oil. 

I read the comments on the recipe and so baked them 5 minutes 

longer than recommended.

That was 5 minutes too long. 

For once, it would appear, I made 

meatballs the size they were intended to be. 

It's a good meatball recipe, I wonder if it would be a good

meatloaf one as well?

Vegetable Lasagna

Or, creating havoc.

You see, I had these monster zucchinis. 

I thought it would be good to do the whole lasagna thing

with zucchini ribbons in place of the pasta.

But then, it's Meatless Monday so why not

go all veg?

And then why not go white?

So, here's the line up:

zucchini

sweet potatoes

onions

mushrooms

roasted red peppers

kale

asparagus

basil cream sauce

ricotta

parmesan

mozzarella.

Between the blanching, roasting and sautéing, 

the prep was a little intense.

But totally worth it!

Can You Do It?

Yes, you can!

I am loving my Avocado Chimichurri these days.

http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/10720

I am certain there is nothing that couldn't benefit from having this added to it.

Here I put it on top of a smear of roasted red pepper hummus

on a toasted baguette. 

Last Friday I had the bright idea to swap basil for the cilantro.

It was great!

I wound up with some left over and was wondering what 

to do with it when I caught this recipe from Giada.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/linguine-with-avocado-and-arugula-pesto-recipe/index.html

Pretty much everything that is in the chimichurri is in this

with the addition of arugula which I happened

to have some of getting ready to wilt away in the fridge.

So I asked myself, 

Can you do it?

YES!

You can.

Smiley does it again. 

I'm gonna have to start showing her more respect at some point.

You Say Timbale I Say Timbale

And my point is, 

I don't know the correct pronunciation for this

but I do know it's gooood!

I made this at Shanna's house this past week 

for the first time and knew Honey had to have it.

Check this out:

It's from Food Network Magazine.

It was really pretty easy to make, just a little pots

and pans intensive, if you know what I mean.

Shanna did not have a springform pan and I was not 

inclined to get one for her

 (I'm pretty sure I would be the only person who would ever use it.)

I used an 8 inch square pyrex dish which 

worked just fine but being able to unmold it

really was cool.

My family loves all things starch so this is terrific for us.

That's a lot of sticky rice in there!

I'm not sure if it might be a bit much for the public at large.

It is my understanding that these are also traditionally made

using pasta and I could totally see swapping 

the rice for some broken up bucatini.

I messed with the filling tonight by 

adding some calamata olives.

I wonder if every culture has some variation of this.

I'm thinking Shepherd's Pie.

Hey, Mark, what do think?

He's my food encyclopedia.

And my brother. 

Convenient.

Bet he lets me know how to pronounce it too :o)

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/sausage-and-rice-timbale-recipe/index.html

Gnock, Gnock

You can call me Gnocchi or you can call me dumpling.

But ya don't have to call me pasta.

I crack myself up.

Anne Burrell made Gnocchi this weekend.

So I did too.

Turns out Gnocchi is a dumpling that can be pasta-like

or as in this case, little cheese clouds.

Think ravioli without the pasta.

Who knew?

It was a fun little process.

Finding the semolina was probably the hardest part.

You pipe the little balls as opposed to scooping or 

forming with your hands.

I think the reason is to keep from compacting the cheese. 

They really are just little fluffy things.

That being said, if you're going to serve these for dinner

and you're feeding a "manly" man, you may want

a side of MEAT. 

Mike's only comment was that he would really have liked 

to have had something to chew.

He cracks me up too.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-burrell/spinach-and-ricotta-gnocchi-with-quick-tomato-sauce-recipe/index.html

Best Chicago Style Pizza at Home

An Ode to Pizza

I love pizza. 

I love good pizza. 

I love bad pizza.

I love thick crust.

I love thin crust. 

I love to eat the corner pieces on the way home. 

They're appetizers. 

 If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, 

I believe I would choose pizza.

One time a bunch of us had a pizza pot luck.

It was so much fun to try all the different styles, 

combos and pizza joints people used. 

No two pizzas were the same. 

BTW, why are they called "joints"?

Oh, and, if you should decide to have a pizza pot luck,

tell everyone to not get any pizzas larger than a medium. 

There was a ton of leftover!

I like to make pizzas.

 I have a couple of different pizza stones

and a couple of different recipes for the dough. 

My regular stand-by recipe needs to rise twice and 

so you kind of need a couple of hours lead time. 

This pan style one only needs 30 minutes to rise so it's

a good one when you don't have a lot of time.

It originally came from America's Test Kitchen. I'll post the 

recipe over on the left there. The only thing I've changed over time

is the amount of oil you put in the pan. It calls for

3 tablespoons so you get that really crunchy outside 

of the crust, but that just seems excessive to me. Last 

night I used probably 1 1/2 tablespoons and it was just as good. 

Oh man, I'm getting hungry looking at this.

Look at those hunks of red onion.

Chunks of black olives.

And you know there's bacon hiding in there.

MMMMMmmmmm

Pacific Natural's Everyday Chef Challenge Part Two

   I have my second recipe up on the Pacific Natural's site.

It's kind of complicated but it looks way cool and tastes pretty darn good too!

Surprise!

It's the first time I used egg roll wraps in a pasta kind of way. I have seen bunches of recipes that call for them when making ravioli so I figured they may work here, and they did. They are in the refrigerated section of the produce department at Meijer. 

http://everydaychefchallenge.com/everyday-recipes/floating-mini-lasagnas/

The other part of this challenge is for guest food bloggers, one of whom is my friend, Aggie. She has an amazing recipe up for Creamy Butternut Squash and Shrimp Pasta Bake. It looks amazing and I'm pretty sure I'll be trying it tomorrow. 

Here's the link for it for you convenience :o)

And while you're there, vote for her, K?

And then, go vote for me too, K?

http://everydaychefchallenge.com/everyday-recipes/creamy-butternut-squash-and-shrimp-pasta-bake/

This gives me the perfect opportunity to share a little something, something with you.

You know those recipes that call for 2 teaspoons of tomato paste, but those cans have what, 20 teaspoons in them? 

Here's what I do:

I use the scoop that I use to make cookies and scoop out the rest of the can, place them on foil, or parchment, or whatever, freeze them and then transfer them into a zipper bag. Each one is about a tablespoon. 

Genius!

I know.

You're welcome.

;o)

Can You Make Zucchini Parmesan?

Why, yes, you can!

How many of you out there have been gifted with the great zucchini?

Or, 3 or, 6?

I received what may have been the most beautiful zucchini

I have ever seen by my even more

beautiful daughter in law.

(Mother in law points alert)

After making the requisite zucchini bread, roasted zucchini, and

chocolate zucchini bread with past gifts,

I had this little brainstorm:

Why couldn't I just take my chicken parm recipe and exchange

zucchini for the chicken breast?

The answer is,

No reason why not!

And, it turned out pretty darn good!

So, go, do it! You know you wanna!

And then, riddle me this, why are there so many

zucchini plants out there?

And why are they so BIG?