Crows in the Kitchen » spinach

No Cook Pasta Sauce

Holly — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:06:00 +0000

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:

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

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

emily — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:40:24 +0000

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

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

and 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….

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

Fall Salad

emily — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:12:00 +0000

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

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