Creamy Baked Pasta

Thank you thank you thank you to Ivonne over at Cream Puffs in Venice for posting this delightful recipe.  It is one of two recipes I’ve been dying to recreate since our honeymoon.  This one is spot on.  Note to self: Do not ever make more than one batch of this at a time…if that occurs, I will be sure to die a gluttonous, joy-ridden death.  But I will have a smile on my face.

I made a few tweaks to the recipe just so I could use what I had on hand.  Here’s my version:

• 1/2 lb rigatoni pasta
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 slice bacon, diced
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 oz grated Asiago cheese
• 2 oz grated Parmigiano Reggianio cheese
• salt & pepper

Start a large pot of salted water to boil.  Once boiling, add the pasta and cook for 6 or 7 minutes.

Heat oil in skillet and add bacon.  Cook until crispy and remove from pan.  Reserve 1 Tbsp of drippings from pan.

In a large bowl, mix together the cream, salt & pepper to taste and the cheeses.  After the pasta cooks for 6-7 minutes, drain and combine with cream mixture. 

Pour into baking dish and bake in a 500 degrees oven for about 12 minutes, or until the pasta is slightly browned and the cream mixture is bubbly.  Remove from oven and let stand 5 minutes.  Serves 4.

Blueberry Jam

This morning I got this crazy idea to go to the blueberry farm down the road (read: 20 miles up highway 290).  It was really fun and the blueberries were a lot cheaper per pound than I’ve seen in the stores around here, plus we were helping out a local farmer AND getting in some outdoor quality time.  But I was left with 4 pounds of blueberries and not really any particular thing to do with them.

I know: blueberry muffins, blueberry pancakes, blueberry tarts.  But I suck at pancakes and I didn’t want the oven on all day for baked goods.  I ended up freezing half of them for later when I figure out what to do with them.  Plus a extra little packet frozen for my best friend’s son that is a blueberry freak. 

I decided that blueberry jam would be good, and since I’ve never tried my hand at it before, I figured it couldn’t hurt to try with a main ingredient that I had so much of.  So I was jammin.  (I couldn’t resist).

• 2 cups of blueberries, divided
• 1 3/4 cups of sugar
• 1/4 cup water

Mash 1/2 cup of blueberries in the bottom of a heavy saucepan.  Add the remaining blueberries and the water and bring to a simmer over medium heat.  Stir frequently for 5 minutes.  Slowly stir the sugar in.  Bring to a simmer again and reduce the heat to medium-low.  Allow to simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring frequently.

I don’t know how to can things for preserving so I am just leaving mine in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks.  If you know how to can, make a huge batch and be a nice reader and send me a couple jars. 

Mayo-less Potato Salad

I hate mayo.  Like, I will freak out if it even touches me.  The husband likes it almost enough to eat spoonfulls of it *gag*.  I do like potato salad, even though I know there’s mayo in it.  If I don’t make it or see it made with the mayo, then I’ll be okay eating it.  But it’s really hard for me to eat anything with mayo in it if I make it myself.  Like, the fork shakes all the way to my mouth and I resemble a child taking nasty medicine from a spoon: eyes squeezed shut, plugged nose and all.  It’s pretty bad.

So I saw this recipe in Martha Stewart’s recipe finder and thought it would be perfect since it had NO mayo on it.  Anywhere.  I wasn’t needing to make 10 servings, and I only had 5 red potatoes.  So I just kind of eyeballed everything.

• 5 red potatoes
• 1/2 red onion, sliced thin
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• Coarse salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Fresh flat leaf parsley

Cover potatoes with cold salted water in a pot.  Boil for about 15-20 minutes until tender.  Remove from water and let sit until cool enough to handle.

Meanwhile, toss the onions and salt in a medium bowl.  Pour the vinegar over the onions and let sit for about 20 minutes.

Cut up the potatoes into bite size chunks.  Pour the vinegar off the onions, keeping a little bit in the bottom for the dressing.  Place the potatoes in the bowl with the onions.  Toss with olive oil and fresh parsley.  Serves 4.

Asiago Turkey Burgers

I saw a recipe in Everyday Food magazine that inspired these delicious gems of low-fat protein.  That recipe used Gruyere, but I only had Asiago.  That was really the only tweak I made, expect I didn’t use as much of the ingredients as the EF recipe called for.

• 1 lb ground turkey breast (I used 93% lean)
• 3 tbsp dijon mustard
• scant 1/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs
• 2 scallions, sliced
• 2 oz grated Asiago cheese
• Four hamburger buns, toasted

Mix all ingredients together and form into four patties.  Grill or broil 5-6 minutes per side, flipping once.  Serve on buns.  Serves 4.

Honey-Lime Fruit Salad

I kinda just whipped this up today because I had a giant bounty of fruit from the farmer’s market that I wanted to get a head start on.  I threw together some ingredients on a whim, and usually I’d just throw the whole thing in the fridge to love on itself to get all tasty.  But today I thought, “Why don’t I use some of that eight dollar raw hibiscus honey the husband just had to have?”.  I grabbed a lime and a Microplane and set to work on my task.

• 2 cups watermelon balls
• 1 gala apple, diced small
• 1 mango, peeled and cut into chunks
• Juice of one lime, divided
• Zest of one lime
• 2 tablespoons raw hibiscus honey (or whatever variety you have on hand)

Toss the apple chunks in half of the lime juice to prevent oxidation.  Toss with mango and melon in a medium sized bowl.  In a small bowl, whisk together the honey and remaining lime juice with a fork until fully combined.  Pour over fruit mixture.  Sprinkle with lime zest.  Toss to coat.  Serves 2-4. 

Marinated cucumber salad

This is something I remember having in our house all summer long as a kid.  I love this dish so much and it’s so simple, there’s not much more to say.  Enjoy!

• 1 cucumber, halved lengthwise and sliced thin on the horizontal
• 1/4 red onion, sliced as paper thin as possible
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp dill

In a medium sized bowl, combine the sugar, vinegar and dill.  Toss the onion and cucumber together with the vinegar mixture.  Serve at room temperature or chilled.  The flavors meld and the salad tastes better the longer it sits.  Serves 4 (or 1 if it’s me eating it).

Bacon-tastic pizza

This pizza is seriously to.die.for.    You have to try it.  You have to.  If you don’t you’ll be so sorry one day when you’re dying of old age and you realize you forgot to try it.  Kind of like the commercial for that faucet where the old lady is dying and trying to console her children that she led a long, fulfilling life and that she was dying a happy woman.  Then she looks out the window and sees someone filling a bathtub using a fancy faucet and she dies right then and there without ever getting to take a bath in water from such a glorious aparatus.  Yeah.  Try the pizza.

I got the recipe for the dough from a Canadian internet buddy named Allison.  I’m not sure where she got the recipe, so for now I’ll just credit it to her.

Allison’s Whole Wheat, Flax and Honey Pizza Dough

· 1 Cup all-purpose flour
· ½ Cup whole wheat flour
· 2 tbsp flax meal
· 1 envelope (8g or 2 ¼ tsp) quick rising yeast
· ½ tsp salt
· 2/3 cup very warm water
· 2 tsp olive oil
· 2 tsp honey
· Nonstick Cooking spray
· Cornmeal

In a medium bowl, combine flours, flax meal, yeast and salt. Mix well.

Measure warm water in a measuring cup, stir in olive oil and honey. Pour mixture over dry ingredients and mix using a wooden spoon to form a ball. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface, knead for 2 minutes. Spray another bowl with nonstick spray and place dough inside. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until double in size, about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, spray a 12-inch cookie sheet with nonstick spray and dust with cornmeal.

When dough has risen, turn out onto a lightly floured surface and, using a rolling pin, roll dough into a 12 inch circle.

 Transfer dough to prepared pizza pan. Top with pizza toppings and bake for 15 minutes in a 425 degrees F oven.

Or, prick crust with a fork and baked untopped for 6 minutes. Remove crust from oven, top with pizza toppings and bake for an additional 8-10 minutes. 

Kristan’s Bacon-tastic Pizza

• 6 oz. uncooked bacon, diced
• half small white onion, diced
• 2 oz. grated asiago cheese
• 1 whole tomato, sliced kinda thin
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• salt
• olive oil
• fresh basil
• 1 recipe Allison’s Whole Wheat, Flax and Honey pizza dough

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Place prepared pizza dough on a pan lined with parchment and dusted with cornmeal. 

In a dutch oven, brown bacon.  Add onion and cook until soft and golden.

Drizzle some olive oil on the pizza dough and rub it in with fingertips.  Place tomato slices on the pizza dough in one layer.  Sprinkle salt with minced garlic.

Spoon bacon and onions over the tomato slices.  Top with grated asiago cheese.  Tear basil into small pieces and spread around evenly on top of other toppings.

Place pan in oven and bake for about 15 minutes.  Allow to cool slightly and slice into 8 pieces.

Proceed to stuff face with delicious-ness.

Crumiri cookies

I stumbled across this recipe on the Cream Puffs in Venice blog.  I didn’t tweak the ingredients at all, but I did pipe them out differently.  I didn’t have the 3/4″ star tip that was recommended for this recipe, so I went to the store to find one and had no luck there, either.  I did, however, come across a Wilton #32 tip that seemed like it would work and it was nicely priced with a red 75 cent clearance tag.  Can’t beat that!  I snatched it up and headed straight home to try out these cookies.

When I first saw this recipe, I was intrigued because I had never had a cookie with cornmeal as an ingredient.  I also knew I had plenty of cornmeal due to an error I made while grocery shopping.  I had bought a container of it thinking I didn’t have any when I really had an unopened bag in my pantry.  I knew that if these cookies were as delicious as they looked, that I’d make a ton of them with my over-abundant cornmeal supply and send them with the husband to his place of business.  His co-workers love it when I send cookies.

I also thought these cookies would be nice to try because I am half Italian per my dad’s side of the family.  My mom’s side is a mixture of English and maybe German (but I could be making that up…) and so is my husband’s family.  I always figured that if we have children of our own then they’d likely have more German and English characteristics and the Italian would fade away in the background.  I know cookies don’t really have anything to do with my future children, but the more heritage I can grab ahold of now would be benificial in the future for teaching the kiddos about their background.  How’s that for future planning?!

Okay, now for the recipe, taken from the Cream Puffs in Venice website, and also credited to the original recipe author, Father Giuseppe Orsini from his book Italian Baking Secrets:

Crumiri

1-3/4 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. vanilla
2/3 cup fine yellow cornmeal

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, using a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar for about 5 minutes. The mixture should be very light in colour.

Add the eggs, one at a time, scraping the bowl after each addition.

Mix together the flour, salt and cornmeal and add slowly to the butter mixture, with the motor running on low speed. As soon as the flour mixture is added, add the extract.

The cookie dough will be thick. Spoon into a piping bag fitted with a star-shaped tip (3/4 of an inch to an inch in width).

Pipe the cookies onto the prepared baking sheets in whatever design you like. The cookies shouldn’t be longer than 3 or 4 inches and should be spaced 2 inches apart.

Bake until the cookies are golden around the edges, anywhere from 12 to 14 minutes.

Let cool on a wire rack.

As I mentioned before, I used a Wilton #32 tip.  I made quite a few different shapes of these cookies.  My favorite are the curly ones, or the suino code.

 

Broiled Tilapia with Thai Coconut Curry Sauce

The sauce from this recipe from Cooking Light is so delicious.  I will be making it often and adding it to different dishes.

 

Also shown: Grilled Corn with Lime Butter, also from Cooking Light.  Also very delicious and a nice change from drowning it in salt and butter like usual.

Cooking

I try really hard to cook yummy food.  I usually follow recipes, but I try to make them my own a lot.  Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.  It’s a learning process.  Hopefully I’ll be really good (or at least just better) by the time we get to Madrid later this year.  Then I can let the market inspire me.