Knotted soup....aka more pasta!

Ok, watch out world, I'm a dough making machine now!

Matt told me about a soup his grandmother used to make, knotted soup. Pasta knots filled with fried onions and paprika. Sounded easy enough with my new found dough confidence!

To a saute pan, I added a finely chopped onion, a generous seasoning of paprika along with salt and pepper and watch the magic begin.  I love the smell of fried onions! Yum!

Since I never saw this being made before, I was going with my gut, and my gut had me making a big mess!
I rolled out dough and put ALL the onion mixture onto and then tried rolling it up...WHAT. A. MESS.  I was rolling about 2inches of dough, cutting it and trying to pinch it closed all the while onions were spewing out the ends and all over! Notice you will see no photos of said mess. :)  I wound up having to cook up more onions!

Finally, I figured out how to roll the dough with the mixture and not make a mess.  Use the onion mixture sparingly! That is the key! The photo below demonstrates a good amount.  I also rolled the dough out and cut it so that the piece I was working with was only about 6 or 7 inches wide.  Perfect length to roll and tie into a knot!

I made some pretty knots, and some not so pretty knots.  And maybe a few knots found their way into the trash! But all in all, I impressed myself and the soup turned out really well!  I made a basic chicken soup with chicken stock, onions, carrots, celery, potatoes and chicken to which I added the knots too.  I could have either used a larger pot or I should have only used  a quarter of the amount of vegetables that I did! Oh well, live and learn.

I'm pretty much obsessed now with all the possibilities of making my own...raviolis! Tortellini! Dumplings! Empanadas! Periogies! Stay tuned!

The onion mixture cooked up.

The rolled out dough with onion mixture ready to roll!

Pasta filled knots just a chillin'.

My soup almost cooked over! 

The finished dish! It really was delicious.  :)

Handmade pasta

I made pasta! And you know what?...it was pretty easy!

I have to admit, I was a bit worried! I was making it for a dinner for my parents and brothers, but I knew there was boxed pasta in the house if I really messed it up, so not all would be lost!

Turns out though, it worked out and it was quite tasty!

Most of the recipes you can find on the intent are relativity the same.  Pasta is flour, egg and a bit of oil. And elbow grease! Can't forget that!!

You can use all purpose flour, semolina flour, whole wheat flour...it really depends on what you want to do. I made 2 batches-one was half all purpose, half semolina and the other was all all purpose.  Honestly, I didn't taste much of a difference. Play around and see what you like best.

Serves 6
5 cups flour ( AP, semolina, mix)
6 eggs
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt

On surface, mound flour. Make a well in the center of the flour and break the eggs into it along with the oil and salt.

Beat the eggs and oil and gradually add in the flour.  It will be sticky and goopy, but keep adding in flour until it all comes together and is no longer a sticky mess!  You should wind up with a ball of dough.

Place in a bowl covered with a towel, or wrap the dough call in plastic wrap.  Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.

After time passes, pull up your sleeves and get ready to roll! Cut the dough ball in half, cover the other half so it doesn't dry out and get rolling! If you have a pasta machine or a Kitchen Aid with the pasta attachment, use that! If not, get your rolling pin and start rolling. Add flour to your pasta and rolling pin as needed so that nothing sticks.  Roll, roll, roll. You want it thin, but not sticking to your work surface thin. Use a sharp knife to cut it into strips.  Pile it up and toss it with some flour do it doesn't dry out.

Get yourself some boiling water, toss it in, give it a good stir to reduce sticking, (sticking is the enemy with pasta!!), and give it a good 3 to 4 minutes and you'll have yourself some handmade pasta.  And you know what, it's good. It's good and hearty and tastes extra good because you know you made it yourself.

I made a shrimp and scallop scampi and a tomato sauce for our dinner. Delicious! Also had eggplant caponata on crostini with ricotta. Yum! Recipe found here!:
http://katcooksbakeseats.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-little-italian.html


What's next?? Ravioli's!

Martini is ONE!

I should post some pictures of my little baby girl, Martini! She is one now...She just had her first birthday!

These are pics if her and Stoli getting into the PetSmart bag to get her presents. I know it's cheesey that I didn't wrap her gifts. Sad part is that I almost forgot to give them to her!

I can't even take credit for the cookie! I bought it!

More praise for Pinterest!

Really, what did we all do before such a valuable tool was invented! :)

Two more successful pins...

Taco pasta bake and Cool Whip cookies.

The taco pasta bake was delicious! I've yet to make my own taco seasoning, which is another pin!, so I used some quesidilla seasoning by McCormick that I had leftover from something else. To the meat and pasta mixture, I added olives, chopped peppers and onions and a can of Rotel diced tomatoes with lime and cilantro. Something gave off a nice touch of heat...the seasoning mix or the tomatoes....I don't know, so sour cream was in order as well to cool things off.

Now, the cookies. You want easy? You want fast? Cool whip cookies are the way to go!  Four ingredients! You can't beat that! They're fun as you can make them in any flavor that you can get a cake mix in! And them I was thinking....Cool Whip sometimes comes out with seasonal/limited flavors such as vanilla or chocolate...what if..what if!! Maybe next time!

Pinterest rocks!

Ok, I admit it, I'm addicted to Pinterest! It's nice not having to print out every recipe I want to make or keep prints of all the knitting patterns I hope to someday knit.

Pinning is painless, pinning also is only good if you go back and actually do something with those pins! This weekend past, I decided that my dinners would be solely from Pinterest.

First up was "the world's best chicken" and hulaski.  The chicken was good, honestly, not the world's best, but good. Pretty much like a honey mustard chicken but maple syrup takes the place of honey, which I found to have a milder taste than if you used honey.

Hulaski is noodles and cabbage fried up in a pan with onions and butter with a touch a brown sugar. I'm a sucker for cabbage and I was hoping for leftovers but, sadly, there was none.  What we didn't eat collectly, I ate while "cleaning up"! :)

Sunday was buffalo turkey meatballs and a savory potato salad.  The buffalo meatballs were really good!  The one cheese I am not real fond is blue cheese so I did substitute goat cheese for the blue cheese and ranch dressing in place of the blue cheese. Really good really fun really easy! Definitely going to be a repeater.

The potato salad uses  powered  vegetable soup mix as the flavoring base and I found it lended a "meaty" taste, and I mean that in a good way.

We are now stretched into Monday, and I made hamburger soup, but we don't eat hamburger, so it was in fact, ground turkey breast soup. I added mixed vegetables in place of just corn and a few chopped yukon gold potatoes.  Another winner. Very tasty and easy. This will definitely make more appearances in the fall and winter seasons.

Pinterest. What did I do before it?!

http://pinterest.com/pin/152629874842562144/
http://pinterest.com/pin/152629874842562133/


http://pinterest.com/pin/152629874842702573/



http://pinterest.com/pin/152629874842628427/
http://pinterest.com/pin/152629874842486248/

Fall

Fall is finally here! Well, to be honest, to see some colorful fall foliage, I had to drive to New York!

I went up to Stanfordville, New York for a long weekend to visit a friend. Stanfordville is in Dutchess County which is home to many a quaint little towns...Rhinebeck, Millerton, Red Hook, just to name a few. Rhinebeck may ring a bell as that is where Chelsea Clinton was married.

Lots of antique stores, boutiques, cafes...and inbetween each town you'll find trees, trees and more trees. A really pretty area!

I can't wait to visit again!



...around Stanfordville, NY


Millerton, New York











View of the Hudson River from the Walkway Over the Hudson


Millerton, NY

Stuffed portobella mushrooms

This is good stuff! And it's open to variations in case you don't like a certain ingredient or don't have something.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and get yourself a sheet pan with cooking spray on the ready!

This will make one serving with 2 portobella caps.  Remove the stem and clean out the caps. Chop around 3 artichoke hearts, a small seeded tomato, and as many kalamata olives that you like. Toss in some feta cheese, 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Again, if you want more of something, add it! It's up to you! You can pretty much eyeball the amount of mixture you have in proportion to the size of the mushroom caps you have.

I find additional seasonings not really necessary if your ingredients are tasty enough on their own.

Place the mushrooms cut side up on the sheet pan and pile up the toppings!  I like to add a little drizzle of olive oil over the toppings and then pop them in the oven for about 20 minutes.  The breadcrumbs should get a wee crisp and the topping will get hot.

Grab a fork and eat!

Cheesy italian chicken florentine

I'm addicted to Pinterest at the moment, and one recipe I've seen pinned and pinned again is this easy chicken crockpot meal.

Here it is:
4 chicken breasts
8 oz. cream cheese
1 packet italian dressing mix (regular or zesty)
1-2 cans cream of chicken soup

And then my twist was to add:
1 onion chopped
spinach (I had frozen)

Here is what you do:

In crockpot, put in chicken breasts and sprinkle the italian dressing mix over the chicken. Online, it says to add the cream cheese and soup to a pot and cook until the cheese melts, BUT I thought why dirty a pot! I poured the soup over the chicken and chopped the cream cheese into little chunks and placed then over the mixture. Cook on low for 4 hours. Serve over rice or pasta.   I chose pasta.

You can keep the chicken whole or take it out and cube it or shred it.  I shredded the chicken into bite size pieces.

For my twist, after 3 1/2 hours, I then tossed in the chopped onion and roughly 1/3 of a bag of frozen spinach I found in my freezer.  I was looking for peas, but didn't have any. :(  But, upon further investigating, I found spinach. :)....and let me tell you how good this was!! It was almost like spinach dip....mmm, the addition of artichokes (if Matt liked artichokes!), and this would taste like spinach artichoke dip! Over pasta! Oh baby!! Can you taste it?!?!....DELISH!

The beach

Matt and I were lucky enough to get away for a little overnight trip to the beach! To Ocean City, Maryland. We hadn't been there in 5 years and I was very happy to be heading down again,  even if it was for only an overnight trip.

We left at the crack of dawn and my feet hit the sand by 9:30 am.  Booze hit my lips by 10:30 am! -hey, it's vacation, it's allowed!! Plus, the vodka had a partner, o.j., very healthy stuff!

We had breakfast on the boardwalk right along the ocean. The weather was spectacular, temps in the high 70's-low 80's. Crowds were gone since it was after labor day, which is just how we like it.

Here are pics of the beach, along with one of a very peculiar couple I spotted sitting outside a candy shop on the boardwalk!

Non traditional meal

Headed to the folks for a labor day weekend lunch. Some people make hamburgers or hot dogs, but no, not me. I make crepes.

I'm not completely sure how I came up with this idea except that I was looking for something quick and easy.

This was only my 2nd time making crepes, and I won't be my last! I was really happy with how they came out.

I made 2 savory crepes, spinach and mushroom and prosciutto and mozzarella cheese crepes.

http://www.food.com/recipe/savory-mushroom-spinach-cheese-crepes-373390
This is the recipe I followed for the spinach and mushroom crepes.

http://spinachtiger.com/cooking-italy-crespelles-with-prosciutto-fresh-tomato-and-mozzarella/
This is the recipe I followed for the prosciutto crepes.

Of course I took some liberties with each recipe. I added some onions to the mushroom and spinach mixture and I made individually wrapped crepes for the prosciutto crepes.  My quick tomato sauce came out really well too. I used a 28oz. can of diced tomatoes and had plenty of sauce.

I sauteed 2 minced garlic cloves and  diced onion in olive oil for a few minutes.  Added in the can of tomatoes, seasoned it with italian seasoning,  brought it all to a boil and then let it simmer for 20 minutes.  I ran half of the mixture through the blender to puree it and added it back to the other half so the result was a light chunky sauce.

I also made baked chicken drumsticks. I know it's a weird addition, but I needed something "meaty" and it's something I would never make at home...and you know what, I made some kick ass drumsticks! Removed the skin and marinated the chicken with some salt, pepper, garlic powder and seasoned sea salt.  I also seasoned the flour, egg and panko used as well.

Oompa!

Chicken gyros. My take on the traditional greek gyro since we don't eat little baa-baa-sheeps!

It's simple and delicious. Chicken, pita, and a few bits of produce is all you need!

And what's a gyro without tzatziki sauce? Cedars makes a very good tzakiki sauce so that is what I use. I really should though make my own. I should make my own pita too, but I've yet to really delve into the world of bread.

All you need then is some lettuce, tomato, red onion & feta.  I marinated the chicken in olive oil and McCormick greek seasoning! How easy is that??

I made a greek inspired chopped salad to go with it and viola!...yummy deliciousness!

A twist on tomato pie

It's no lie that I loved the tomato pie I made the other week.  And lucky for me, the pie crust I used came in a package of 2 and that 2nd crust kept calling my name , begging to be used again and soon!

I think all that thinking about tomato pie lead me to thinking about a twist on the recipe, what else could I make a pie from....hmm. This recipe almost sounded like a quiche recipe to me, great on it's own, but at the same time, open to other possibilities.

Broccoli. That sounds like the winner. I blanched some broccoli and cut up a Black Krim heirloom tomato picked right from the vine in my backyard! Now there is a winning combination! Seeded and salted the tomato slices and let them sit for a bit. Seeding the tomatoes I think is a good tip to keep things from getting too mushy.

I didn't use the basil this time around, instead I used McCormick's seasoned sea salt to season the pie, which is a great discovery thanks to my good friend and fellow foodie, Amanda. :)

Everything else was the same as the original recipe (see August 20 post for that link).

The end result?....DELICIOUSNESS!



The broccoli just chillin' while the tomatoes are salting.

It may have been a weird combo, but I made pork cutlets with sauerkraut that day as well.

Green smoothie

I've been making green smoothies for  breakfast...and as you can see from the picture, green it is! I drink mine on the way to work.

For anyone doubting, you really can't taste the spinach.  Not that I would mind, I love spinach, especially raw spinach, but you really don't taste it and I use a generous handful of the green stuff!

I don't drink regular milk so I use almond milk or coconut water, you could use any liquid really...water, orange juice, whatever! Now the fruit!... I tend to use mainly frozen fruit because it's easy to keep on hand, but I do use fresh too! Frozen also helps thicken it up! Then you can add in any extras such as chia seeds, or flaxseed. Again, it's whatever you want and whatever is easiest for you! Lastly, the greens!

My green smoothie:

8 oz. liquid
1 cup of any fruit
1 banana
1 Tbsp flaxseed, ground
Generous handful of baby spinach

Put it all in a blender with maybe a couple of ice cubes and blend away!

It really is delicious and what a great way to start the day!

Dinners

Here's a couple of dinners we've had this week. They'll give you ideas should you need any. No fancy recipes, but good ideas none-the-less, and that is sometimes the problem with meals....trying to come up with something new or different.
Ground turkey soft tacos. Used Rick Bayless' Frontera taco skillet sauce. I've tried a couple of them and they are quite good! All the fixings...cheese, lettuce, chopped tomato, avocado. Pure yum.
Buffalo chicken salads. Had some not all that bad for you breaded chicken tenders in the freezer I was looking to use up and tossed them with Frank's buffalo sauce after baking. I used crumbled goat cheese since we aren't big bleu cheese eaters and I made Hidden Valley Ranch dressing the night before just for the occasion! And for that bit of "authenticity", I chopped up some extra celery for our salads just to get that "real" buffalo chicken feeling! :)

Books!

I read! In case you were wondering if I do anything else besides cooking. I actually just started reading for pleasure in the past year. I'm also into the e-book thing.  While not having anything physical to show after spending all this money is sometimes something I think about, not having anything physical to put away or clutter the home is nice!

Here is a sample of what I've read and recommend:

J D Nixon: Heller series (4 books)
J D Nixon: Little Town series (2 books)
Caitlin Moran: How to be a woman
Jaycee Dugard: A stolen life
Todd Burpo: Heaven is for real
E L James: Fifty shades of grey trilogy
Lolly Winston: Good grief

Quite a mix, wouldn't you say?! I'm trying to figure out what genre I like. Most people can say they like "mysteries" or "autobiographies"...turns out I just may like a little bit of everything!

And just for the hell of it....pictures of our dogs!....That is Stoli standing and Martini catching bubbles.
And a picture of a beautiful blue sky. I don't want to jinx things and say the really humid, 90-100 degree weather is over here in PA, but I'll say we are all enjoying the cooler temps of the mid-80's lately!

Tomato pie

While surfing the net the other day, I came across this recipe for tomato pie. What luck as I still had a few tomatoes left from Tim, and I came across a roadside stand where I got a few yellow and orange tomatoes. I had high hopes for this and it did not disappoint!
The recipe really is easy and comes together in no time. Don't rush to cut it after it bakes, it really needs to set up and firm up a bit.
It would make a great light dinner with a side salad, our even a lunch or brunch.  I had the leftovers for breakfast and the only bad part was when it was gone! For dinner, we had salad and grilled chicken with it.
This was delicious! The basil! The cheese! The tomatoes! Luckily, the pre-made crusts I bought come 2 to a package so I wil be making this again and soon!
Tide and Thyme » Tomato Pie

The lovely tomatoes before making their way into the pie....

YUM!