Oh. My. Gosh. In their weekly sales ad, Publix always has a recipe using ingredients that are on sale that week. Normally, I just skip over the recipes because they usually don't really interest me or it uses a bunch of stuff that either the boyfriend or I won't eat. This week, however, is "Italian week" at Publix (I think they might be conspiring with Food Network Magazine, which as I think I said before, has their Italian issue out right now). This recipe was in this week's ad. As soon as I saw it, I knew we had to make it for dinner, and it just so happened that the boyfriend had last night off from work! Which, in itself, is a bit amazing for him to have a Saturday night off.
I don't have any pictures of the process, and suffice it to say that we weren't exactly organized in our cooking last night, but at least we were able to clean up as we went along, which always makes dinner so much more satisfying, don't you think? You'll notice there are some differences between my recipe here and the recipe from Publix. Mostly because I'm not a huge mushroom fan and the sauce ended up being far too thin for us. Also, they were totally out of fresh sage by the time we made it to the store so we used the dried sage we had at home already.
4 slices of prosciutto, thinly sliced
3 tsp dried sage
2/3 cup red bell peppers, finely chopped (the recipe calls for roasted, we used fresh. It was still delicious)
9 oz Fettuccine pasta (we used the fresh pasta you can buy from the refrigerator section. yum)
2 T olive oil
4 oz baby portobello mushrooms, roughly chopped (or use the slices if you like mushrooms)
9 oz pre-cooked chicken (Publix says chicken strips because they were on sale, but we used the meat of a rotisserie chicken which was delicious)
1 1/4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup Alfredo sauce
1/4 t black pepper
Parmesan/Romano blend to taste
Boil a pot of water, add your pasta and cook until done. For dry fettuccine, it'll take about 8 minutes or so. For the fresh pasta, it will only take 3-4 minutes. Try to time it so that your pasta is done cooking just about the time your sauce is done.
Pre-heat a large (like, really large, the biggest you have) skillet on medium-high heat. When it's hot, add your olive oil and then the mushrooms and cook for 2-3 minutes, or until browned. Add the chopped peppers and chicken and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low, then add your broth and Alfredo sauce and let simmer until thickened. Stir in the sage, prosciutto, black pepper and finished (drained) pasta. If you like, you can add some parmesan cheese to the sauce as well. Dish out and top with parmesan/romano cheese and enjoy!
This pasta is amazing and will make around 6 servings if you use the fresh pasta. The sauce should keep well in the fridge, so if you are only cooking for two and don't like reheated pasta, make only enough fettuccine for dinner that night and simply spoon sauce over your pasta servings, then refrigerate the remaining sauce for tomorrow night's dinner!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Crustless Quiche - Spinach Feta Edition
An update on my challenge. On Sunday, I went to my friend's house to cook dinners for the four of us. She helped me make turkey lasagna (for all of us) and vegetarian lasagna (for her, complete with fake meat!). We also made some couscous and feta stuffed peppers. She loved them, but I actually am not a huge fan of them. The peppers are stuffed with couscous (delicious), thinly sliced zucchini and yellow squash (also pretty tasty), cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, chickpeas (eh), fennel seeds, oregano, onion and tomato paste. I forgot that peppers don't sit well with me, and I definitely would leave out the tomato paste next time and just use more cheese to hold it all together. And I think my couscous got a little dry because the boyfriend called me right when the broth started boiling, so I wasn't paying full attention to what I was doing.
Tonight, I made Spinach and Feta crustless Quiche. I used whole, uncooked spinach but I think next time I might cook the spinach first. Also, the feta cheese can be pretty salty. If you don't like salty food, I would leave out most of the added salt. That's reflected in this recipe:
4 eggs
1 cup whipping cream
1/3 cup diced onion
1/8 t cayenne pepper
1/2 t salt
4 oz feta cheese
2 oz parmesan cheese
3-4 oz chopped spinach
Preheat the oven to 425F. Lightly grease a 8" pie plate (if using an 9" pie plate, use an extra egg). Steam your spinach: place in a loosely covered bowl with about 1/8 cup of water. Microwave on high for about 2 minutes. Drain well. In a bowl, whisk all ingredients together. Pour into the greased pie plate. Bake at 425F for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 300F and bake for another 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool about 10 minutes before serving. To store, cover with foil and refrigerate. A quick zap in the microwave (about 30 seconds) should be enough to reheat a slice for breakfast the next day :)
You can also make this with crust, if you prefer. Just make your favorite pie crust recipe, grease your pie plate, then place the crust (to transfer from rolling mat to pan, I like to loosely roll about half of the crust around my rolling pin, then lay it over the pan). Then just pour your egg filling in and bake it just the same way.
Tonight, I made Spinach and Feta crustless Quiche. I used whole, uncooked spinach but I think next time I might cook the spinach first. Also, the feta cheese can be pretty salty. If you don't like salty food, I would leave out most of the added salt. That's reflected in this recipe:
4 eggs
1 cup whipping cream
1/3 cup diced onion
1/8 t cayenne pepper
1/2 t salt
4 oz feta cheese
2 oz parmesan cheese
3-4 oz chopped spinach
Preheat the oven to 425F. Lightly grease a 8" pie plate (if using an 9" pie plate, use an extra egg). Steam your spinach: place in a loosely covered bowl with about 1/8 cup of water. Microwave on high for about 2 minutes. Drain well. In a bowl, whisk all ingredients together. Pour into the greased pie plate. Bake at 425F for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 300F and bake for another 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool about 10 minutes before serving. To store, cover with foil and refrigerate. A quick zap in the microwave (about 30 seconds) should be enough to reheat a slice for breakfast the next day :)
You can also make this with crust, if you prefer. Just make your favorite pie crust recipe, grease your pie plate, then place the crust (to transfer from rolling mat to pan, I like to loosely roll about half of the crust around my rolling pin, then lay it over the pan). Then just pour your egg filling in and bake it just the same way.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
A Challenge
As a graduate student, I get paid only once a month. In some ways this is great, because it helps with budgeting. In other ways, it's awful. My pay got screwed up this month due to some paperwork issues, so in order to ensure I can eat, my awesome running partner Julie made an interesting proposition: she'll buy the groceries if I'll cook meals for her family and mine to share. Here's where things get interesting: Julie's a vegetarian, her husband doesn't really like beef, I'm not a huge chicken fan and my boyfriend doesn't like leafy vegetables (lettuce, spinach, broccoli, etc. and also whole tomatoes. He's weird, what can I say?). So the question is, can we find meals for four for a whole month that we can all agree on? I will be making some meat dishes, but will include lots of healthy sides for Julie because the rest of us need our protein and I think there's only so much beans and nuts we can eat. Fortunately, eggs and cheese are loved by all!
The deal is, I'll cook on Sundays and Thursdays, so I only need to cook enough at once to last for a few days. Up first? I'm thinking pizzas (maybe individual-sized pizzas? Perhaps I can find a way to freeze them with toppings to avoid that re-heated pizza deal), lasagna (one meat, one vegetarian) and perhaps some salmon pasta, which is a recipe I need to post about here anyway... it's a family favorite! I'll keep you all updated on how well this works... perhaps if research doesn't work out, private chef is in my future...
The deal is, I'll cook on Sundays and Thursdays, so I only need to cook enough at once to last for a few days. Up first? I'm thinking pizzas (maybe individual-sized pizzas? Perhaps I can find a way to freeze them with toppings to avoid that re-heated pizza deal), lasagna (one meat, one vegetarian) and perhaps some salmon pasta, which is a recipe I need to post about here anyway... it's a family favorite! I'll keep you all updated on how well this works... perhaps if research doesn't work out, private chef is in my future...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)