Sunday, July 23, 2017

If It's Sunday It's Pizza

Not just any pizza. This one had the works on it. Onion, Bacon, Sausage, Roasted Peppers, sauce, cheese. Not bad at all. And not a lot leftover. The pizza dough was the Jim Lahey recipe. And I keep forgetting that I have his pizza book on my Kindle. Oh well, next time. Maybe next Sunday.

Saturday, July 22, 2017

Let's Talk Breakfast

This morning I woke up and of course grabbed my phone. Instead of checking emails I clicked on Pinterest. I saw a pin for 1 Hour Cinnamon Buns. I read the recipe and yes I had all the ingredients. I got up and immediately started baking. Well, I did have a cup of coffee first.
And the recipe took me an hour and 15 minutes but who is complaining? Not Chris or I. Darn this was a delicious Saturday morning breakfast. The dough is just amazing to work with. Here is the link to the recipe. I did make half the recipe. No way we could eat a whole batch!

Friday, July 21, 2017

This Is My Favorite Summer Pasta Recipe

Okay, I LOVE this recipe. It is so flexible. I made a couple of changes from the last time I made it. That is what makes this the perfect recipe. Instead of Pancetta I used Andouille sausage and omitted the lemon. I had the homemade pasta in the freezer. Just perfect. Chris loved this. It was just spicy enough. Just remember NOT to toss the pasta water. You will need it for your sauce.

Ingredients-
¼ cup olive oil
2 pounds assorted summer squashes and zucchini, quartered lengthwise, sliced
Kosher salt
1 diced Andouille sausage
12 ounces ziti, or other large tube pasta
2 ounces Parmesan, grated (about ½ cup), plus more for serving
½ cup basil leaves

Method-
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium. Add squash; season with salt. Add the Andouille sausage. Cook, tossing occasionally, until squash begins to break down and gets jammy (they may start to stick to the skillet a bit, which means you are there!), 12–15 minutes.
Meanwhile, cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water, stirring occasionally, until very al dente.
Transfer pasta to skillet using a slotted spoon or spider and add ½ cup pasta cooking liquid. Cook pasta, adding 2 oz. Parmesan in stages along with more pasta cooking liquid as needed, until sauce coats pasta and pasta is al dente. Toss in lemon juice and most of the basil.
Divide pasta among bowls and top with more Parmesan and remaining basil.

Friday, July 7, 2017

My Perfect Vacation Day

Yeah, vacation day! And it was cool out. Not what you are usually looking for in a vacation day. But I was able to make bread, pasta, and sauce. All three were part of very delicious dinner.

The bread was the No Knead French Bread. The recipe can be found on the Noshtalgia website. It is an amazing dough to work with.

The pasta was from Tide and Thyme. The only pasta recipe I use. I had more than enough for tonight's dinner and I was able to put some in the freezer.
 
The sauce was, of course, the Marcella Hazan Onion, Butter and Tomato Sauce. This time I diced the onion after it had cooked for almost an hour. I sauteed some Pancetta cubes and cubed zucchini and added that to the sauce. Wow!!!

Saturday, July 1, 2017

A Very Easy Clambake

I have a couple of food blogs that I follow. One of my favorites is the Proud Italian Cook. Whenever I see the email notification in my mailbox of a new post I know my eyes will be treated to delightful and very delicious looking photos. The most recent post was Easy Clambake on the Grill.

I had to try it. The shrimp were on sale this week and so were the clams. Once the prep was finished the foil packets were ready for the grill. They were on the grill about 15 minutes when Chris popped his head in with the news that we had run out of propane. Yeah, it was low but thought we might have enough for one more night. So we popped packets on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven. I had been baking cookies so it took no time to heat it up to 450˚. Not sure if that was the right temp but I was taking a guess. They took longer than the time on the recipe. We checked twice to see if the clams were opened. Finally, they opened and we enjoyed a delicious dinner. I used Old Bay spice for seasoning. The shrimp was fantastic. Still too early here for the corn but we will try this again in a couple of weeks when the local corn is on sale.
The recipe is the perfect amount for 2 people. I could put the recipe here but I think you should check out the Proud Italian Cook blog. You will not be disappointed.