Caprese Pasta

If I had to pick one food to eat for the rest of my life, it would be pasta.  There are so many varieties, so many things I can do with it.  I can have it hot or cold, long or short, stuffed or non-stuffed.  The options are endless!

Despite the many, many, ways I can eat pasta, I sometimes forget to shake it up.  I get in a rut with my favorites.  Currently I’m in a rut with Caprese pasta.  It’s so fresh and light and perfect for this time of year.

Ingredients:

Pasta (short cuts work best, so pick your favorite!)

Fresh mozzarella

Fresh tomato

Fresh basil

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Boil the water and cook the pasta until it is al dente.  Drain and set aside (either back in the cooking pan to save on dishes later or in a serving dish).

While the water is boiling, chop up a very ripe tomato (you can use a just ripe tomato and it works fine, but very ripe tends to be juicier and you don’t risk wasting the tomato!) and toss it into a  sauté pan with a little bit of warm olive oil and salt.  Let the tomato chunks cook up a bit in the oil and then turn the heat off.  Basically you are making a very basic tomato sauce so you want to let the tomatoes get a little mushy so you get some liquid in the pan (a mix of the tomato guts and the oil).

While the tomatoes are cooking, cut the fresh mozzarella into bite-sized chunks and set aside. Chop the basil into bite-sized pieces as well (if you leave the basil leaf whole, well, that’s a whole lot of basil in one bite!).

At this point, everything should be cooked so you just need to assemble.  Pour the tomatoes over the pasta and toss.  Then add the basil and the mozzarella and toss again.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

This dish could not be simpler to make and could not be tastier.  It’s an absolutely yummy dish and the best part is that it is super quick to make, so it’s a great option for a night when you don’t really feel like cooking.

Mrs. G’s Guacamole

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I thought today would be the day that I post my insanely easy and unbelievably delicious guacamole recipe.

Ingredients:

Avocado (1 makes enough for me and Boo with a little extra, so keep that in mind when doubling, etc.)

Salsa

Lime juice

Salt

Pepper

Garlic powder

Directions:

I meant what I said about this being easy.  It’s like embarrassingly simple but all of my friends and family asked for the recipe!  To start, scoop the avocado out of its shell and into a bowl.  Is it called a shell?  Skin?  Whatever, get the edible part out!  Scoop with a spoon but then mush it down with a fork.  Add a little salsa to the bowl.  The salsa is there to add a little liquid which helps smooth out the guacamole but it also adds a little flavor and crunch, so anything from mild to spicy, chunky or not will work.  It’s all about what you like.  After you mix the salsa and avocado together add a few squirts of lime juice plus salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste.

That’s it!

See, embarrassingly easy, right?  But it looks really impressive and is just as yummy as the stuff restaurants are charging you $11 a bowl to order!

Crackeroni and Cheese

When I lived in NYC, I lived just blocks from a restaurant called Fetch.  And aside from super cute doggy-decor, Fetch had one really amazing thing to offer.

Individual baked macaroni and cheese.

Oh, and they delivered.

So basically, during my last month in NYC I had Fetch mac and cheese once a week, at least. I think that you think that I’m kidding when I say “at least” but I assure you that I am not.  I would order Sunday night when I got back from CT and then by Wednesday I’d have another craving for it.  I’m fairly certain that this is because (as you may have inferred from the title) it was laced with crack.  There is no other reason for how addicting this mac and cheese was.  But it wasn’t just a lack of self control that led me to order multiple times a week.  Oh no, it was for more noble reasons.  It was to see if I could crack the secret of Fetch’s recipe!  And I think I’ve finally done it.  Thanks to this recipe (with my notes in parentheses and red type).  All photos in this post were taken by me during the cooking process.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

1/2 pound elbow macaroni (I use the whole pound.  And I use Mezze Penne…it’s super yummy!)
3 tablespoons butter (To Fetch-ify it, I add fresh parsley and thyme as well as a bit of garlic powder.  Fetch makes their mac and cheese with their really amazing lemony-herb butter and the herbs really brighten it up!)
1/4 cup flour
3 cups (skim) milk (I use Lactaid milk.  It doesn’t affect the sauce…just makes it a little easier on the tummy!)
1 tablespoon dijon mustard (I never measure this, just squeeze until it looks right to me)
A couple dashes worcestershire sauce (ditto for this)
1/2 teaspoon paprika (and for this)
12 ounces sharp cheddar or other cheeses, shredded (shred it yourself, it’s way better.  And use extra sharp cheddar.  Like black diamond triple extra sharp.  TRUST ME!  I also add a handful of a Parmesan/Asiago blend; since it doesn’t fully melt, it keeps everything gooey and delicious!)
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Topping:
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup panko bread crumbs

(I usually just Italian seasoned bread crumbs.  They make it more Fetch-like!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook pasta in heavily salted, boiling water until al dente (be careful about over-cooking b/c the pasta will cook a bit more in the oven), as directed on the pasta box. When done, drain (don’t rinse), set aside in a medium casserole dish, and toss with a little butter, so the pasta doesn’t stick together.

Melt 3 tbs. butter over medium heat in a saucepan. Add flour and mix into the butter with a whisk. Cook for a few minutes over medium-low heat to cook the floury taste out.

Increase heat to medium and slowly add milk a little at a time, whisking to incorporate. Go slowly, adding 1/4 cup at a time at first, whisking continuously, and then 1/2 a cup at a time, so that the flour has a chance to absorb the liquid and your sauce will be smooth. (It will look like paste and get really glumpy and you will freak out.  MOVE THROUGH THAT.  It will pass and the sauce will smooth out, I promise!)

Add paprika, mustard, worcestershire sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. Slowly whisk in cheeses. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Add pasta to the sauce and mix together. It should be saucy. Add the pasta and sauce to the casserole dish. (I just pour the pasta straight into the casserole dish to begin with and then mix it in the dish.)

Melt a tbs. of butter in the microwave in a bowl. Add panko breadcrumbs and stir until coated. Spread panko mixture evenly over pasta.

Cook in the oven for 30 minutes or until it’s browned on top and bubbling on the edges. If it’s bubbling but not fully browned, you can put the dish under the broiler to quickly brown the top.

Oh yes, that’s the stuff!

Dinner is served.  But don’t kid yourselves–this is just round one.  We always go back for seconds!

The world’s best chocolate chip cookies, and no, I’m not kidding

This weekend I made the world’s best chocolate chip cookies.  I’m not joking, they were completely, unbelievably amazing.

And I used the recipe on the back of the bag of chocolate chips.

I’ve been baking chocolate chip cookies on my own for years.  Each and every time I baked them, I used the recipe on the back of the Nestle Toll House chocolate chip bag.  And they always turned out fine.  I mean, they were good, but they were never “drool at the thought of them, threaten anyone who stands in the way of you and these cookies, I’m serious, move now or I’ll kill you” good.

These cookies are that good.

I’m not bragging either.  Trust me.  I know when my food is good, when it’s REALLY GOOD, and when it’s “yeah, that could have turned out better.”  The last time I made cookies was around Valentine’s Day.  They were oatmeal chocolate chip and they were just “eh.”  They were really flat and crispy and that’s not what I was in the mood for at all.  I took a baking hiatus until after the cruise because really, we were in training mode.  There is a LOT of food to be eaten on these ships and I needed to make sure that I was in prime eating condition.

Anyway, after planning on making these cookies for like, a week, we finally did it on Friday night.

And we’ve been gorging ourselves since then.

These cookies were amazing and perfect and fan-freaking-tastic and they came from that same off the bag recipe that I’ve been using for years.

With a few modifications of course.

Modifications that I’m going to share because I like all of you.  And even though Boo is really angry at me right  now for sharing (when I reminded him that he wanted me to send the recipe to his brother, he said this was GOLD and needed to be kept in the family, man) I am sharing anyway because I am just really nice like that.  Plus, if I don’t share, I’ll be the only one gaining cookie weight and that’s just wrong.

So the original recipe, which can be found at the Nestle Web site, is as follows (but to make it easier for me, I’m going to put what I did in red):

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt (I used like, a teaspoon and a half.  Not even a full half.  But that extra pinch of salt is KEY!)
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened (I used 1 full stick and 5 tablespoons from the 2nd stick)
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (plus an extra splash)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
• 1 cup chopped nuts (no nuts, I never use them and I feel they sully the cookie.  Sorry Nestle recipe people.)

Directions

PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. (Okay, this was a big whoops, I put ALL of the “wet” ingredients in at once.  I don’t know if this mattered or not though….) Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown (We cooked for 8 minutes.  5 and then we switched the cookies to the opposite racks for the last 3). Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes (uh, yeah, we skipped this step and removed them right away); remove to wire racks to cool completely (we skipped this step too.  What?  We had to taste them right away while they were still gooey and amazing).

Now that’s the gist of what I did.  Actually, that’s everything I did.  Except for this one teensy addition.  I added about 3 shakes of cinnamon to the flour mixture before we blended it in.

The result?

Cookies that were thick and delicious, slightly salty (but mostly just not overly sweet), and with just a tiny hint of cinnamon–not enough for you to realize that it’s cinnamon but enough for you to realize that there is something different about these cookies.

And the best part?  They are still just as moist today as they were on Friday.

So go, little ones!  Go and bake!  And when you do, please come back and tell me how amazing they are!

I didn’t think there was such a thing as bad pesto

I was wrong.  There is such a thing as bad pesto.  I guess that’s what I get for grabbing the first pesto I found while sprinting through the Genuardi’s yesterday.

Thankfully though, it didn’t totally wreck our dinner.

After hearing a lot of excitement from you guys last week when I shared that souper (oh my gosh of COURSE I would make that pun!!!) recipe for Rachael Ray’s tortellini soup, I thought that maybe I would start posting easy recipes over here.  The basic stuff that Boo and I eat on a regular basis, our go-to dinners.

That being said, here is what I made with the not-so-tasty pesto.

Italian Quesadillas (on a bun!)

This recipe is actually an adaptation of one of my staple dinners from college, hence the name.  But, to make it a little more filling, we used kaiser rolls instead of tortillas.

Ingredients:

Chicken breast (we used 1 breast for both of us)

Roasted red pepper strips

Shredded mozzarella

Pesto

Mayonnaise

Kaiser rolls

Directions:

Grill/saute the chicken breast (We sauteed last night because the pan was already out, we’re that lazy.  But yes, the grill pan will work just as well for this sammie).

While chicken is cooking, cover the bottom bun with the shredded cheese and place under the broiler (oven or toaster oven, whichever you have) until the cheese starts to melt.

Spoon some mayo into a bowl (about 3 tablespoons) and then add about 1 tablespoon of pesto.  Mix together.

That’s it for prep.  The cheese should be melted before the chicken is done so pull the bottom bun out from under the broiler and plate.  Then spread the pesto mayo on the top bun.  When the chicken is done, shred it up into bite-sized pieces.

Stack onto the bottom bun and (if you’re fat kids like me and Boo) sprinkle more shredded cheese onto the chicken.

Top with roasted red pepper strips and enjoy!

Now, if you like a little green on your sandwich, fresh spinach would be a perfect addition to this sandwich.

If you want the lighter version of this, you can assemble it on a tortilla the way I used to in college.

Sprinkle the cheese and chicken onto one half of the tortilla and put under the broiler.  When the cheese is melted, pull the tortilla out and spread the pesto mayo on the other half of the tortilla and fold in half.  Put back under the broiler for a few more minutes (but not too long because hot mayo is just grosssssss!)