November 2009 Archives

The name Italian wedding soup is a bit misleading. The wedding actually refers to the marriage between the flavor of meat and dark greens. They are a perfect match! This soup is simple to make, as long as you have a nice flavored broth. I used half homemade stock and half store bought. The fact that the meatballs and greens cook in the broth adds nice depth of flavor in a short time. I made this soup on Friday for lunch at the annual tortellini making session. If you want to know more about the tortellinis, you can check out this post from last year, and the post with the final soup.

Italian sandwich dip was a huge success. I can't take credit for it, but everyone seemed to love it. This caused me to want to make every sandwich into a dip. Every sandwich.  Mandi is going to flip out when she reads this because she is very particular with cheesesteaks growing up in Philly after all, but hey, I have to do EVERY SANDWICH. It's a rule. Every sandwich must be a dip. This dip went over well, and I have leftovers, so I might take it to Thanksgiving this week. Speaking of that, I wish all my readers a good Thanksgiving, and I am really excited to come back on Monday. I have tons of stuff I want to cook this week, so I am hoping to finally be ahead of schedule and not be cooking the night before I post every time.

This past weekend I was craving the flavors of tamales, but I did not want to go through all the trouble of making them. I came up with this quicker recipe that will hold you over till the next time you can get the real thing. I have made real ones a few times, so if you are into that you can check the recipes here and here. The pictures of this meal do not do any justice to the food. For one, it is not a pretty meal and does not photograph well. Secondly, I am still learning the ways of my new camera lens.

Wow, it's been forever since I have made anything even remotely healthy! I eat healthier when I have a daily routine. When unemployed, I kinda just eat whatever whenever(like Shakira?). The funny thing is, I have lost 10/15 lbs since I left Bermuda! I THINK it is because my family likes to eat early, so I try and cook for them and have it ready by 6/6:30, as opposed to when I live by myself and spend all night cooking a meal not eating till 9. Just this little change of routine has apparently made a huge difference, because I cant think of anything that has changed!

This Giada recipe has been in the back of my head for awhile. Her newer book is actually pretty disappointing, I love her older books, but this one doesn't have much cooking it it! Half the recipes are drinks, salads, or paninis, so it is more of an assembly book than a cook book. Towards the end of the book is a great chapter about kids food, and this is where I found some of the best recipes. I kept this idea in my pocket, ready to use at a moment's notice. Yesterday that moment came when I was cooking for my sister (an older "kid" in high school), Maya (definitely a kid), and John (the biggest kid of them all). I tweaked a few things that I will mention at the bottom of the post along with the recipe link.

I have seriously been wanting to make a fried fish sandwich for like a year now. I finally did yesterday and I was so happy with how it came out. Making your own tartar sauce makes a huge difference! And don't just mix mayo and relish people, it only takes a few more minutes to make it your own. My own included pickles, parsley, chives, and cocktail sauce. It was fantastic!

THANK YOU INTERNET! Due to all of your generosity last week, I was able to purchase a new lens for my camera. I raised just under $100 on paypal in 2 days!!! To fix the old lens would cost $130, but to buy the same one brand new was $150. Since I got such a big help from you all, I decided you deserved better and I was able to UPGRADE to a $200 lens! I have been playing around with it and I think we will all notice a huge improvement on the pictures starting tomorrow. If you are wondering, it is this one.

In other news, today is the beginning of the last foodie fight of the year! Nick and I decided that with the coming holidays, it would be tough to chase people down for their entries and since each battle is a 2 week process, there is barely even room for one! Much much more on this topic can be read on the foodiefight website this Friday. For now, head on over to this weeks battle and cast your vote, I am pretty impressed with everyone's work!

I am cooking lunch and dinner today, so I hope to finish out the week with 3 posts. see you all tomorrow with nice new pictures!

Last night I made this carrot sauce for pasta. The people I was serving it to were really skeptical of the whole idea, but in the end everyone seemed to like it. I thought it was awesome, but just needed a little more depth of flavor, perhaps from more parm, wine, or cooking time. There is lots of leftovers of the sauce, some I will probably turn into soup, but also use some for more pasta. I had fun making this because I do not get to experiment as much as I like in the kitchen these days. I have to say that this whole recipe was Mandi's idea. She mentioned it to me awhile back and I couldn't wait to finally try it. We had a ton of carrots in the fridge that we probably would never use, so I thought now was a perfect time.

On Sunday, Rich had us over to his new condo that he (finally!) moved into 2 weeks ago. I love the place, and think it is perfect for a food blogger. There are a ton of windows and natural light everywhere, Brand new appliances, and the kitchen is wide open and near the hang out area. I had a great night that night with friends, we laughed a lot and the food was awesome! Now I know I made a similar buffalo chicken soup in the past, but this was more of a stew, much thicker and creamier for in the pot pies. My camera broke 3/4 of the way through this post, so that's why the pics get weird at the end. I even missed the whole covering of the pies with the puff pastry! Speaking of that camera, thanks so much everyone for the donations yesterday!  The requested thermometer pic has been added to that post!

There was a camera mishap this past Sunday, and my nice SLR is currently out of commission, hence the slacking this week.  I feel weird doing this, but Nick at Macheesmo suggested it, and told me he would give me 10 bucks if I did it.  Then I started thinking that if every person that comes to the site on a daily basis gave me 1 dollar today, I could fix my camera in no time!!!  You know I am unemployed and all.  Seriously guys, no more than 5 bucks.  That includes you Nick!

New Lens Fund.  Thank you all sooo much!

Update - the requested thermometer pic!

For the record, I never thought this would give me a full new lens, just put a dent in the cost, and so far it has put an awesome dent!!! Thanks to everyone who helped out.

My mom gets food network magazine, and it is actually pretty good. When I saw this recipe in last months issue, I was all over it. It's pretty simple and would be perfect for a weeknight in a slowcooker, especially cause the noodles I got were pre cooked, so once the pork was done I just shredded it up and poured it over the noodles. The other thing I liked about it is that I can't cook as spicy as I want to at my parents house, so it was nice to have chiles as condiment.

WARNING!!!!! Today's post is extremely graphic. My friend is an avid hunter and he recently caught a deer. He and Kim asked me to come over and help them butcher the deer and pack the meat away. I jumped at the chance to help and learn more about the butchering art. I feel strongly that people should understand better about where their food comes from. I normally don't talk about it on here because I don't want to be preachy, but today I think it is ok. I wasn't sure about posting these pictures today, but in the end I decided it was relevant. Jamie Oliver killed a chicken on live TV. Gordon Ramsay raises and kills different animals on each season of The F Word (the best food show on TV.) Why can't I show some pictures of butchering a deer? Again, these pictures are very graphic, and I urge you not to click through if you don't think you can handle it.

Blogs have been making this recipe like crazy for the past year or so. I have always wanted to try it, but didn't think I would post something so simple that so many other people make all the time. I decided to post it in the end because I honestly wasn't that sure how I felt about it and wanted some peoples feedback. Do blogs just make it cause it looks pretty? Cause I honestly don't think it was much of an upgrade to a nicely baked potato. The cutting of the slices wasn't much work, but shoving the onion pieces in there was a pain. I do like the IDEA of these, and I think next time I am just gonna drop the whole mess in a deep fryer and slop on some cheese sauce. Has anyone else made these? Do you have an opinion?

There is a great Foodie Fight today, all 6 competitors put up great entries!  The battle is Pumpkin and Bulgur.  Go check it out and vote for your favorite dish!

I brought these candy bars to a Halloween party this Saturday and they were a big hit. The recipe is very hard, but they were fun to make. I made them on Friday afternoon and the whole deal took about 4 hours including waiting times. My thermometers weren't very accurate, but everything still turned out great.