I shall tell you all

One night Brent and I were walking in our old ‘hood down a stretch of Broadway that goes from “nice commercial street” to “sketch neighborhood” to “questionable neighborhood” to “nice commercial street.”  It’s million dollar homes to motels by the hour by just a few blocks.  In between the “sketch neighborhood” and the “questionable neighborhood” we found a little Italian restaurant that was completely empty.  We were hungry, so we gave it a try.  It. Was. Awesome.  It wasn’t fancy or fussy, but it was just simple food that was extremely well executed.  

That was the only time we actually ate at the restaurant, but they also delivered, so we were able to try almost everything the menu on those cold winter nights when all you want to do is eat comfort food and watch tv.  One of my all-time favorites on the menu was the conchiglie alla sugo de salsiccia.  One night, after we moved across town, I wanted the dish so I came up with a recipe.  It’s not as good, but it will do in a pinch.  This also freezes well, so you can use just half the sauce and freeze the rest.

INGREDIENTS

Olive oil

onions, garlic, shallots (optional:  bell peppers), all finely diced*

3 links of spicy Italian sausage

1 jar of marinara

1 c. of frozen peas

Cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes and cinnamon

1 package of marscopone cheese

Pasta of your choice (I usually use a medium or large shell)

DIRECTIONS

Heat the oil over medium heat, add onions, garlic, and/or shallots.  Squeeze the sausage out of its casing and crumble into the pan.  Cook until the meat is cooked through, about 5-7 minutes.  Add the jar of marinara, add the spices** and bring to a boil.  Add the peas and let simmer until the peas are cooked through.  Remove from heat and stir in the marscapone until it melts.  Throw in the cooked pasta and top with shaved Parmesan.

* I use whatever is around; sometimes only onions, sometimes no garlic, sometimes all three.  If I have a bell pepper around, I’ll add it to the mix for extra veg.  You could add some spinach or other leafy green at the end, too.

**I never measure out the spices, but its usually 3 shakes of the red pepper flake, a shake of the cayenne pepper and 2 shakes of the cinnamon.  I’ve added nutmeg to the mix before, too.  

I found this recipe from my near-daily perusal of 101cookbooks.com- a collection of wonderful vegetarian recipes. This soup is adapted from a recipe in “Love Soup” by Anna Thomas.

I made a few tweak to the recipe- mainly, I used about 8 oz. of rainbow chard and 12 oz. of spinach because my grocery store didn’t have the green chard the recipe called for.  I typically go to a produce market a few blocks from my house to fulfill all my fruit and veggie needs, but I was in a time crunch and just stopped at the local megamart on my walk home from the train. 

This was my first time cooking with chard and overall it was a success-the rainbow stems looked so pretty with the dark greens and sweet potato in the soup.  If you plan on leaving the soup “chunky”, however, I would recommend either forgoing the stems or cutting them up rather small, they were a bit bitter and tough for my liking.  Also, I added about a teaspoon of miso at the end, I think the soup would be a bland without it.  I think soy sauce would work, too.

I didn’t think to take a picture with the bowl full.  The pureed version of the soup turned out more brown than green, but I think that’s because I used rainbow chard rather than the green stuff.  It looks a little funky here, but, trust me, it was delicious.

This is an adaptation of a recipe I found years ago and I can’t even remember where it’s from.  It was one of the first recipes that started playing around with; once I had the technique of the recipe down, you can adapt it to almost any meat, veggie, sauce combo you want to try.  And since I usually eyeball the proportions, all measurements and timing is approximate.

INGREDIENTS:

2 T. oil

2 skinless boneless chicken breasts*

1 c., plus 1 T. flour

salt and pepper

1 shallot, diced

3 T. onion, diced

1 clove of garlic, diced

2 c. sliced mushrooms

2 c. chicken stock**

2 T. Dijon mustard

1 T. butter

DIRECTIONS

Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat.

Put 1 c. of flour, salt and pepper in a ziploc bag and mix it together.  Put the chicken in the bag and shake, coating the chicken.  Shake off excess and put in the pan.  Cook until the chicken is cooked through, 3-5 each side (NOTE:  the cooking time depends on the thickness of the chicken.  If you’re scared of under-cooking, slice the breasts in half).  

Once the chicken is cooked through, remove the chicken from the pan and put on a clean plate.  Add the shallots, garlic, onions, and mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms are soft, about 8 minutes.  Add the additional 1 T. of flour to the pan, making sure to coat all the ‘shrooms.  Cook for a minute or two, just to make sure the raw flour taste is cooked out.  

Add the chicken stock to de-glaze the pan.  Stir the mustard into the sauce.  Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer until the sauce thickens, about 5 minutes.  Put the chicken back in the pan, coating with the sauce, until the chicken is warm (about 2 mins).  Check the seasoning of the sauce; you may need some salt and pepper.  Add a tablespoon of butter to melt into the sauce and serve.

*This time around I used skinless boneless chicken breasts, but I’ve used chicken with skin, without skin, with bones, without bones.  Chicken thighs work really well in this, too.

**You can use wine or vegetable broth instead of chicken broth, just depend on what you have in.  I also ALWAYS use no sodium broth.

NOTES

We usually have this with a seasonal veggie and either noodles or potatoes.  This makes quite a bit of sauce, so make sure you have something to sop it all up.  This time around I made red potatoes that were microwaved until soft and then roughly mashed together.  I added a bit of salt, pepper and butter to finish it off.

Inspired by some other Tumblrs who post their weekly menus, I thought I would do the same.  It’s an easy way to share recipes and, if nothing else, can serve as a catalog for my recipes.  So, here it goes!

Lunches:  for me- green soup with ginger, for Brent- sandwiches on homemade whole wheat oatmeal bread

Monday:  for me- raw fettuccine alfredo, for Brent- Chicken in dijon mustard sauce with mushrooms with “smashed” potatoes and asparagus

Tuesday: PF Chang’s chicken lettuce wraps, for me- leftover raw fettuccine alfredo, for Brent- frozen egg rolls

Wednesday:  Pasta in spicy and creamy tomato sauce with spicy Italian sausage and peas

Thursday:  Leftover roundup!

Friday:  me- dinner with clients, Brent- anything that will get him through his trial prep

Is it weird that I want to burrow under some blankets and read Baby-Sitter Club Super Specials?  It just sounds really comforting and appealing right now.

This past Saturday I hosted the inaugural meeting of the Girls Only Book (and Drinking) Club.  The members consist of a few girlfriends and, since it was my brainstorm, I offered to host the first meeting, which also meant I could pick out the first book.  I really, really, really wanted to have a bloody mary bar and to use all the mason jars I bought at Christmas for a holiday craft project I didn’t complete, so I picked a southern book, “The Secret Lives of Bees.”  Out of the 4 members that attending the book club, 2 read the book (myself included), one read the first and last 30 pages, and one started the book and ended up just reading the cliff’s notes.  We spent about 15 minutes “discussing” the book (which consisted mostly of the reader quizzing the non-readers to see how much they knew about the book) and a good 3 hours drinking and eating.  

Me, showcasing the food station.  There were drink garnishes (lemons, limes, pickles, celery, cheese, summer sausage, olives, pickled peppers, shrimp, etc.) and everyone made their own skewers.  I also had fruit skewers with doughnut holes and (homemade!) buttermilk biscuits.

Our bucket-o-booze.  This was a housewarming gift and we use it about once a month.  Brent posted this pic (actually, all the pics, he was the photog of the afternoon) and said that this is how I greet him everyday after work- a bucket of booze and a skimpy skirt.  He wishes!

I had blue and white as the “theme” colors, mostly because I have mostly blue or white dishes.  I tied various blue ribbons on the mason jars and that was pretty much the extent of the decor.

For dessert I made a red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting and layered it in mason jars for everyone.  

So I think Brent was trying to capture the centerpiece, but wanted to show off our living room at the same time.  I had blue hydrangeas in a mason jar with a large blue ribbon.  I also bought a blue plastic table cloth for the coffee table because it scratches and gets watermarks super easy. 

All photo credits go to my darling husband who didn’t mind (too much) that I had a group of giggling girls over while he was prepping for his trial this week.  Actually, I think he liked it because he kept running downstairs to run ideas past us.

and it causing my allergies to act up.  I just want to go home and eat cheese.

I”m doing the same thing.  I had a cupcake with breakfast, a piece of birthday cake BEFORE I ate lunch, and will likely have a paczki and cookies before I leave work.  And another cupcake at home.  No judgment here!

megburns:

even though I don’t identify as one religion or another (see my post about that here), I give something up every year.

because of this, I plan to finish le brownies tonight. and perhaps bake a funfetti cake?

judge away.