Yin and yang

So, my garden is full of the liberally maligned arugula. It's getting more and more peppery as it gets older, and it's a little too strong to eat very much of it raw.

I love chimichurri on steak. I wanted to make a chimichurri inspired garnish for the porterhouse we were having for dinner tonight. But, with the arugula, which was too peppery to have raw. So, I sauteed onions, diced small (too bad I used the shallots last night!)in olive oil and butter and added finely chopped arugula. I added red wine vinegar and garlic and pepper. Yum yum!

So, does arugula get more conservative cred if it is paired with steak?

I ended the meal with a great combination: a yummy red Spanish wine and chocolate zucchini bread.

Chicken soup

Picky revived the camera, so I wanted to post a picture of this beautiful soup I made in the middle of last semester. A friend from school turned puppy dog eyes on me and told me "I'm sick. Take care of me." So, I made her (and the family) my basic chicken soup recipe, but this time with shells and spinach instead of egg noodles and cabbage.

It was delicious, and she gave me caramel apples in return when she felt better! That's a good trade.

On vacation and cooking again!

And, my camera seems to be working again! Hooray, more crappy pictures!

Tonight was yummy. I made the cheesy broccoli and rice casserole from Cook's Country magazine. I substituted shallots for the onion. Sorry the full recipe isn't available. You make the long grained rice like risotto in half and half and chicken broth, and precook the onion (or shallot) and broccoli before baking it with a crumbly breaded topping.

I served it with shrimp skewers (S's favorite) and chicken wings (Z's favorite).

Picky even had two shrimp!

Experiment that paid off

I bought some acorn squash, planning to roast them with sugar and butter. But, tonight I got a wild hair (is that how that saying goes?) and decided to cube it up and add it to pasta. It was delicious. Peeling and cubing even half an acorn squash is a royal pain in the arse, however, so if you can get it already prepared, go for it.

So, I will try to remember everything that went into the dish. It was really tasty, even though Picky did his best to hide his worried face when I said I was putting acorn squash in the pasta.

I sauteed the cubed, peeled acorn squash (1/2 of a large one was all I could handle, but a whole one would have been better, in retrospect) in 2 T of saved bacon grease (if that grosses you out, just use butter) and 2 T of butter
I added half of a diced onion
Just over a pound of mild Italian chicken sausage, whole
and few handfuls of mild rainbow colored mini peppers, cut into thin rings

After the sausage was browned on both sides, I added a few T of concentrated tomato paste, a few T of diced garlic, 1/2 cup of chicken broth covered it and let it simmer

I made a pound of angel hair pasta

I added cup of water when the sauce reduced, and cut the chicken sausage into bite sized discs and put them back in the sauce and made sure they were cooked all the way through. I sprinkled a T of flour over the sauce and sausage and added a cup of sour cream and salt. I tossed in the pasta and put lots of fresh grated parmesan over it. Yum yum, and everybody ate it. S picked around the squash (you can't win 'em all), and Picky had three helpings!

It's a sign!!!

It's a sign from above.

Sarah Silverman, The Great Schlep worked!

My husband bought a loaf of challah bread, a traditional Jewish egg bread, at our local grocery store. This store is west of Fort Lauderdale, and it has total Jewish grandparent cred. I have run into more than one Holocaust survivor there.

Well, when I opened the loaf yesterday for breakfast, lo and behold, one of the pieces bore a striking resemblance to a certain presidential candidate. I decided to go ahead and toast the bread, and my piece of crap eccentrically cooking toaster oven came up with this browning pattern completely on its own.

Hosannah!

I probably should have saved it, maybe should have tried to make a run of the talk show circuit or I could have sold it on eBay. But, I ate it with butter and blueberry preserves. Obama toast is just too tasty to resist!

I love this recipe!

I found a recipe for butterflied chicken over potatoes that I love. Roasted chicken with crispy skin is total comfort food for me. And, it's something I totally do not have time to make. I made it with TWO chickens last night and it still only took 50 minutes to cook. I throw carrots in the bottom with the potatoes.

Ironically, I was looking the recipe up online last night to use again, and read the intro a little more carefully. It's from my favorite cookbook, the New Best Recipe, which I have. On my shelf.

I highly recommend it. With the carrots added, you have your main dish, starch and veggies all done with little to no hands on work.

Z's birthday meal

So, on the morning of his birthday, Z asked for macaroni and cheese and bacon. I had to add peas, because I am like that. Picky asked three times if Z asked for the peas. I almost threw peas at him.

It turned out really yummy, and it was actually quite popular. So was the ice cream cake!