Posts Tagged ‘spinach’

No Cook Pasta Sauce

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Here is a quick pasta dish to whip up on a hectic weekday night.  The sauce can be prepared in the the time it takes for the pasta to cook, check it out:

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Penne with Spinach Sauce

I’ve had this in my recipe queue for some time now but I was waiting until I had all the ingredients on hand to try it out.  Either I had the spinach and no

No Cook Sauce

No Cook Sauce

cheese or vice versa.  Fortunately since I used very little creme fraiche on the black bean soup I made last week I decided to substitute it in for the cream cheese-definitely a tasty upgrade.  The only other change I made was in the pasta- I didn’t have any penne on hand so I used some gemelli which has a nice bite to it when cooked al dente.  If you like things more acidic add either some lemon zest to the sauce or a squeeze of juice to your individual bowl.  I also like the fact that this recipe incorporates pureed spinach as well as whole to give it a balance of texture and color.

Birthdays, and post-guilt

Saturday, November 21st, 2009

Hello all! Coming to you from recently employed land! I’ve been so stressed lately that rather than take advantage of my free time, I became even less productive than usual- as a result posting has taken the back burner. Below is a stock pile of awesome photos and tales of the last 2 weeks in my kitchen in Oakland.

Billy and I both celebrated our birthdays this month (1st and 9th, respectively) and so much delicious food came out of the two weeks of birthday celebration. For his b-day I made the standard Beer Fondue! On my birthday I was supposed to be cooked a delectable eggplant parm, but silly billy didn’t realise that eggplants are hard to come by this time of year. 3 grocery stores later, he admitted defeat and had to re-think his plans. Below is the delicious result!

Spinach, Feta and Pine Nut Sausage with Smoked Oyster Potato Cakes & Beans

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Check out this little friend we found living in one of our greenbeans!

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DSC00246and the happy kitty who ate him

The part the was truely amazing about this years birthday festivities was that I got 3 nights of man-cooking. 1 night of delicious salad, 1 night of bangers & mash billy style, and 1 night of eggplant parm, which came about thanks to Trader Joes ability to have out-of-season produce when even Safeway does not.

Here is proof of the rare sighting of man-in-kitchen-and not getting beer- or orange juice….

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A special thanks goes to my sister for getting me some much needed new pans for my birthday!

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Fall Salad

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

After all that chicken soup, I needed a little fresh greenery to cut the liquid swooshing around in my belly. Inspired by my mom’s dinner of Gorgonzola salad (from god’s gift to grocery stores- Stew Leonards- I’m looking at you NY and Western CT residents to fill our friends in on its glory) and roasted chicken, I decided to make a Gorgonzola salad with the contents of my refrigerator that despite my financial shortcomings, has far to much perishable food in it right now. Below is my creation:

Fall Salad with Gorgonzola

Fall Salad

spinach
radicchio
napa cabbage
sliced mushrooms
diced onion
celery
cucumber

Dressing: a simple vinaigrette of white vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, s&p, dried basil, dried oregano, grated garlic, and finely diced onion