Pesto Please

Hey everyone!  Sorry it has been so long since I have written  – life has has held me hostage.  However, on the brights side Drew and I made a great meal last Sunday and here I am to share it with you! Drew has been studying non stop for his CPA exam lately, so we wanted to make a meal that was nice and fast, but packed with flavor.  We decided to go with pesto, it took less than ten minutes to make.

Traditionally pesto is made with pine nuts, but holy cow are they expensive!  I went to the store and they were $23 a pound, so no Pine Nuts for us, but almonds served as the perfect substitute.  I have recently started making changes in my diet in order to make healthier, more informed decisions about the food I put in my body, and eating less meat is one of those changes.  Almonds were a great way to replace chicken while still keeping a great source of protein in the dish, plus they gave the pesto a hint of sweetness with the spiciness of the basil.

This pesto was so great, and made for fantastic leftovers the next day!  Want the recipe?  You don’t even have to ask…

1/2 cup of skinless almonds, slivered

1/2 cup of freshly grated parmasean cheese

1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil

2 garlic gloves

1-2 cups of fresh basil

salt and pepper

Toast the almonds for about a minute, but make sure not to burn them.  After that, put them in a food processor and pulse it to chop them up a bit before adding the rest of the ingredients.  Afterwards add the olive oil, garlic and basil.  I would suggest adding a little less basil at first and then adding more until you reach your desired level.  Blend until smooth put in another bowl and add the parmesan, salt, and pepper to taste.  Add to pasta and serve up!

Make sure to keep the extras, they will be fantastic left overs – I know those are always my favorites.

Gnocchi Gnightmare

There are some days when I get in the mood to cook, to try something new.  Friday night I had this “great” idea to make gnocchi (potato dumplings) for dinner.  Drew is studying for the CPA exam, and I thought it would be a nice treat to make a homemade meal for him.  Four hours later it wasn’t such a “great” idea…

Normally when making gnocchi you boil the potatoes and pass them through a vegetable mill, creating veggie spaghetti noodles if you will, but I didn’t have one.  This is pretty much where I should have turned back or bought a dang vegetable mill, but no.  Drew suggested we use a meat tenderizer to pound out the potatoes.  Yes, you can start laughing here.  Well a few minutes later potatoes are done and pealed and here I am unsuccessfully trying to pound out potatoes.  This was a terrible idea, some of the potatoes were mushed to oblivion and others were just chunks.  Getting even more frustrated because I am not even 1/8th the way through 3lbs of potatoes I think it just might work to use a citrus juicer to “squeeze” the potatoes out.  For your enjoyment I included a link so you can visualize the impending failure and mess that is on its way.  As you guessed, the juicer sure didn’t work… finally Drew comes out for a study break and I decide to ask if he has a cheese grater.  Thank God he did, the grader was working wonders for a while until… I managed to shave a chunk of my knuckle off.  Awesome, blood everywhere and no Band-Aids in the house.

This mess was building on one side of the kitchen while on the other I was making bacon and trying to roll out dough.  Imagine an entire 2 ft x 2 ft area covered in flour, potatoes, bacon and looking nothing like dough.  Below is the well I made of potatoes to mix in the egg.  This was the onset of another mess…

Eventually I am covered in mushy potatoes and trying to make actual dough.  Because I was not able to smash/squeeze/shred the potatoes into consistent parts the dough ended up being smooth/lumpy and an overall mess.  I managed to get flour all over the counter, the floor and me.

I eventually managed to make actual dumplings and got them into the water to cook.  While this disaster was happening I did make a great homemade Alfredo sauce.  In the end I was able to make two batches of the gnocchi, but not restaurant quality by any means.

Once I called Drew out for dinner I was laughing, on the verge of tears and begging him not to go into the kitchen.  The mess was terrifying. Drew ate it, whether or not he actually liked it I’m not sure.  By the time I got to actually cleaning the kitchen I was drinking wine straight out of the bottle.  Don’t judge, I know you all have done it at least once, and in my defense I already had enough dishes to clean.

Overall I made it through, but not without my fair share of battle wounds and frustrations.  It may be another 10 years before I brave this recipe, but from one amateur chef to another… don’t try this at home.

Channeling Our Inner Italian

For this weeks dinner and technique class, it was all about pasta. I often tell people my favorite food is carbs, so pasta covered in cheese with another layer of more carbs is ok by me!

One of the great things about being with someone who is good a keeping time (cause I am most definitely am not) is that for the first time in my life I am actually early. My best friend used to tell me that she would tell me to come over to her house 15 minutes before she actually wanted me to arrive to counteract my lateness.  Thanks to Drew I have outgrown and learned to fix this problem.  But arriving early provides for the perfect time for me to get us Starbucks – this is part of my secret plan to get Drew to like the brand.  He used to work as a barista at a local coffee shop, while I was a Starbucks barista.  Somehow our relationship has manage to work even with this small conflict between us.

Getting back to the story, this week in class was “Fast and Easy Pasta,” and we learned how to make homemade pasta, alfredo sauce and Drew’s favorite Bolognese sauce.  It was so delicious – the homemade alfredo was especially great!  With half a stick of butter, heavy cream and tons of Romano cheese, the sauce was everything you want.  Creamy, thick (great mouth feel) and would pair wonderfully with a Barbera or my personal favorite, a big red Barolo to cut through all the cream!

After class we decided the perfect dish would be lasagna.  Much easier than one would think, it turned out great.  Tricks to a great, easy lasagna: no bake lasagna noodles, fresh mozzarella, and a great sauce with big flavors.  We chose to go with a caramelized onion and garlic, you can never go wrong with garlic.  We layered it all up with sauce, cheese, more cheese, meat and toped it all off with fresh basil.  Making lasagna instead of pulling it out of the freezer is well worth the extra couple minutes of effort and taste much better in the end.

We decided to saute some zucchini and make garlic bread to go with the layers of lasagna goodness.  Every bite was delicious and made for great left overs the rest of the week.  Nice part for cooking for two or even one most nights it that there are always leftovers.  So your few extra minutes one night can really save time later in the week when it comes to dinner or lunch.

No cooking class next week, so we will see what Drew and I can do on our own.

Bon Appetit!

First Adventure

Day number one of my New Years resolution turned out wonderfully…. nothing caught on fire and nothing was burnt.

Bright and early Drew and I got up and went to Williams-Sonoma for our first cooking class.  It was time to learn how to grill.  Third in line got us right in front of the stove.  I loved it!  I was there with my man learning how to make delicious meals.  They made steak and chicken with some great grilled veggie.  Did you know its best to butterfly your chicken breasts when grilling them so they cook evenly?  I didnt’, but later that night when we made chicken, butterflying that chicken breast made me fell like a real chef!

Another tip, when you grill you should use a grilling oil as it has a lower smoke point.

After the class we of course had to spend $50 on new toys.  We will see if we get out next week with a few dollars still left in our pockets.

There is our delicious Panko and pecan breaded chicken with baked garlic Alfredo pasta!  Looking at this just reminds me how much I love to eat!

I love cooking for Drew, but there is something about cooking with him that makes me feel so close to him.  Without even having to say anything we both just found our spot and started cooking – it was great.  I started on the chicken and he started on the breading.  There is just something about cooking with my man that just makes me smile.  It’s good to know we worked well in the kitchen together, but it probably helped that we weren’t at my house in my tiny little one.

From cooking class in the morning, to picking out a recipe, and then putting fork to mouth, the day and the experience was perfect.  I can’t wait for next Sunday.

Hmm, what are we going to make then…?