Garden Linguine

I hope you’re all enjoing these! I’m having trouble remembering to post and keep getting down to the wire. Had a couple days where I didn’t cook dinner at home and that messes me up.

I’ve been wanting to cook this for days. I even thawed chicken on Monday. But it required me to go to the store and I really hate that. I finally went today though and it was worth it.

I’m making some changes from the way I made it when I write it down for you. Namely, I’m adding more tomatoes and I think it needs salt.

Things to think about before you start, pouring a whole bag of fresh spinach into a pan is almost impossible so if you only have one large pot (like I do) plan ahead and cook your pasta first. A little hot water on it right before serving helps loosen any stickiness. I put mine in a glass bowl with aluminum foil while I cooked the sauce

 

Yet Another Chicken Salad

I love Chicken Salad. Just about any kind. I don’t like having to cook a chicken for it. This is why I use rotisserie chickens. I’m starting to think the hard thing about doing NaBloPoMo is going to be coming up with something clever to write before my recipe. There’s nothing really to say about this. I bought a chicken and needed to make it into something. My favorite thing is to make it into chicken salad.

(edit: I’m really an airhead sometimes and can’t remember to tag or categorize my posts…)

 

Umm can you bring pumpkin cookies?

Last year my brother asked me to bring pumpkin cookies to a Halloween party. I think he was imagining pumpkin shaped sugar cookies or something because when I showed up with these he was amazed, and fell in love.  So at least once a year I make these cookies for my silly little brother. These are some of the most cakey cookies I’ve ever had and they bake in almost the exact shape dropped on the pan.

 

Lasagne

As part of dia de los muertos, we try to cook foods that our family loved. My Sizzy, mom’s mom, evidently used to make a great lasagne with red wine in it. Sometime in the almost 20 years and 10 moves since Sizzy’s death the recipe got lost. Mom remembered it had red wine in it and we went from there.

 

Dia de los muertos

Last year my family started celebrating el dia de los muertos, the day of the dead. It’s a hispanic holiday, which we’re not, but it celebrates and honors your family that has passed. We build an altar with their photos and some of their belongings, light candles for them and share memories. One of the Mexican traditions associated with it is a sweet roll called pan de muerto. This year me made them ourselves since the bakery in town didn’t have any.

I found a recipe on About.com and started there. Their recipe either is broken, or I screwed up. Pan de muerto is an oven baked yeast roll, the recipe called for the dough to rise for one and a half hours before you make it into the rolls. For some reason mine never rose. So here we are staring at this puddle of bread dough wondering what to do when it occured to me; we’re southerners, what do we do that makes everything better? We fry it. And donuts de muerto were born.

 

NaBloPoMo

I’m going to go for it! Post every day for a month! Here’s wishing me luck. Also, if there’s not a post up by nine, email me please!

Chesh

 

Bento explosion

So I have no real cooked food for you today. I’m taking 17 credit hours this quarter and it’s murderizing me. I don’t have time to cook dinner much ( don’t get home till after eight most nights) but I do try to pack a bento lunch for Brian and I as often as I can. so you get those pictures!

This really turned out tastier than I expected when making it.

 

Smoked Gouda Mac and Cheese

This is not your box macaroni. This macaroni is amazing. It’s gooey, cheesy and very grown up. It has vegetables in it! And perhaps even better, it makes your kitchen smell like smoked cheese.

Why aren’t you making this already?!?! I’ve been craving this mac and cheese for a month but haven’t gotten around to making it. I made this for thanksgiving last year and it was extremely well received, one of my sisters was still talking about it when I saw her for Christmas.

 

Chicken salad and bacon chowder

So it’s been a while. My classes have started back and I’ve been really busy. I have been cooking though, even if not as much as I want. It’s been really cold here and it’s snowing now so for dinner last night I wanted to make something warm and heavy. I made cheesy ham chowder from Kitchenette’s blog. Very yummy. It was so full of cheese and bacon that my husband has decided to call it heart attack soup. Worth every calorie in my opinion. I did add some Cajun seasonings that I had in the spice rack, may try it with Tabasco in my next bowl…

I made rotisserie chicken salad for this post because it’s simple.

Not exactly photogenic, but easy. The trick is using a store-bought rotisserie chicken, I prefer the lemon pepper ones, and getting all your meat off of it.

 

Tenderloin with Warm Potato Salad

My girls came over for dinner Friday night. Poor Laura has no kitchen up in NY and she’s starving for home cooked food. I think this went over well.

This is a pretty good beef recipe for people who like meat in varying degrees of doneness. It’s nice and pink in the center and more done towards the ends. The potato salad is full of Dill which I really love in potatoes of any kind. Served with salad, bread and a Petit Bistro Syrah red wine I was quite satisfied. Recipes serve 5-7 today.