Carbonara with Bacon

Carbonara is definitely not a new, inventive dish, but it's a new dish for me to make at home. I'm not the biggest fan of eggs, so I never order carbonara in a restaurant. I decided to make it at home figuring that I could always eat something else if I didn't like it. I was pleasantly surprised with the taste!

The flavors of this dish are a little deceiving if you don't know how it's made. Justin asked me if it had butter or cream in it because the sauce was creamy, buttery, and very smooth. The recipe has no butter or cream - just egg yolks tossed hot pasta along with a touch of pasta cooking water, a tiny bit of fat from the bacon drippings, and salty Parmesan cheese. I also mixed in some crispy bacon and topped the dish was freshly ground black pepper. It was DELICIOUS!

LESSON LEARNED: Reheat any leftovers of this pasta very gently. If you are not carefully, the eggs with conceal to create a scrambled egg sauce.

Recipe for Carbonara with Bacon

Honey Roasted Golden Beets

Every week I try to make a point to buy and eat a new ingredient. I think this is a good way to become familiar with different types of food and I love creating new recipes. This week I picked up a bunch of golden beets. I don't think that I've had the red varietal of beets, so this almost counted as a double new ingredient. :)

I first tasted the beets raw and they tasted tangy and had a similar taste to other root vegetables such as carrots. I thought if I thinly sliced them, toss the beets with yummy flavor boosters (olive oil, honey, cinnamon, salt), and roast until cooked through, I might get my husband to taste them. I was right! As they were baking, the house started to smell like cinnamon and he came to the kitchen to investigate. Ha! My plan worked!

LESSON LEARNED: Adding familiar flavors to unfamiliar ingredients encourages other people to taste them.

Recipe for Honey Roasted Golden Beets

Cherry Tomato & Tortellini Soup

My husband is always willing to try a new tomato soup recipe. He was even more excited when I told him that this recipe has cheese tortellini in it!

I really like the technique of forming the tomato sauce base in this recipe. You begin by heating some oil in a large pot with a lid, add the cherry tomatoes, cover, and shake occasionally until the tomatoes pop open. It really reminds me of cooking popcorn! The sauce is further flavored with minced garlic, salt, and red pepper flakes. Then you add chicken (or vegetable) stock, bring to a boil, and cook the tortellini. I accidentally grabbed pasta that was shaped like little purses, so it really doesn't matter what shape you go with.

The flavor of the soup is very light and pleasantly tomato-y. I garnished the soup with sliced scallions, basil, and strips of Parmesan cheese. It was even better with hunks of homemade bread!

LESSON LEARNED: Adding a little spice really adds depth to the flavor in this simple soup.

Recipe for Cherry Tomato & Tortellini Soup

Chicken Cutlets with Orange & Arugula

I absolutely LOVE using this three step breading method to make crispy & crunchy pan-fried chicken. First, you dredge pieces of chicken in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Next, the chicken is given a quick bath in beaten egg. Finally, the chicken is dipped in a bread crumb mixture flavored with whatever seasoning you choose. In this dish, it was grated Parmesan cheese, chopped parsley, and orange zest. To cook the chicken, you heat about 1/2 inch of oil in a shallow pan and cook until lightly browned and cooked through. It's as simple as that!

I served the chicken along side a salad of baby arugula, sweet oranges, and chopped orange heirloom tomatoes. The salad was simply dressed with a little olive oil and salt. If you ate a piece of the crunchy chicken with the sweet and peppery salad, it was the perfect bite!

LESSON LEARNED: Cook the chicken in batches and keep the cooked pieces warm and crispy in a low oven.

Recipe for Chicken Cutlets with Orange & Arugula

Citrus Noodle Stir-Fry

Looking for a quick weeknight meal? This noodle stir fry dish is sweet, spicy, and chock full of vegetables and chicken. I used red bell pepper, snow peas, edamame, and scallions, but you can change up the vegetables depending on what you are in the mood for or what's in season. The yummy sauce is a mixture of orange marmalade, chicken stock, soy sauce, and hot sauce. This meal was ready in under half and hour and gobbled up even faster in our house!

LESSON LEARNED: The recipe I used called for whole wheat noodles. Even though I'm usually not a fan of whole wheat pasta, I really liked the nuttiness and texture they added to the stir-fry.

Recipe for Citrus Noodle Stir-Fry

Frizzled Brussels Sprouts

This is an awesome winter side dish! I've made this 4 or 5 times because it's so good. I made it for Christmas dinner and it was really well received by everyone in my family - even by people who normally don't care for this vegetable!

The hardest part of the dish is separating the leaves from each sprout. It takes a little bit of prep work because you need quite a few Brussels Sprouts. Just to give you a heads up, from beginning to end, they cook down to about a quarter of the volume.

You begin by crisping pieces of bacon, removing them with a slotted spoon, and reserving the rendered bacon fat. Then, the Brussels Sprout leaves are placed in the pan and cooked in the bacon fat. This is where the magical frizzled part happens! They will begin to wilt, become crispy, and deliciously brown. After they brown a few minutes, you toss in chopped walnuts, red pepper flakes, and salt. Finally, you add the cooked bacon and enjoy!

LESSON LEARNED: Don't be afraid to let the leaves brown while they cook. This is where all the flavor comes from!

Recipe for Frizzled Brussels Sprouts

Cheddar Cheese Chicken Pot Pies

Whenever it rains I feel like comfort food. I think it's because makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside whenever it's cold and damp outside. Last week, it was cold outside and I was in the mood for this chicken pot pie: especially after I thought about the delicious lobster pot pie I made last month. :)

I made individual pot pies because I feel that this achieves the right crust to filling ratio (being food nerds, my husband and I have frequent conversations about the correct ratio of ingredients in many dishes I make!). Instead of using a plain pie crust recipe, I decided to add in a good amount of shredded cheddar cheese. This was definitely a great decision! While these guys were in the oven, the whole house smelled like cheddar cheese crackers. Seriously! I used up some cooked chicken from a roasted chicken along with my homemade chicken stock and some leftover veggies from the refrigerator. This is the way I like to use leftovers! DELICIOUS!

LESSON LEARNED: When adding cheddar cheese to the pie crust, mix it after the dough is formed. If you mix it in before the water, it makes the cheese stick together and not distribute evenly throughout the dough.

Recipe for Cheddar Cheese Pot Pies

Mac & Cheese Soup

My husband LOVES mac and cheese. I think I could make just about any type of mac & cheese and he would happily eat it. We discovered this recipe in a food magazine last year and we've made it 4 or 5 times. This is a lot in our house because we try new recipes for almost every meal. I do a majority of the cooking, but he has made this by himself about half the times we've had it. That's how much he loves this recipe! Personally, I could take or leave mac & cheese, so he usually makes this when I don't feel like eating much for dinner.

The base of this recipe has much of the same components of a soup (sauteing onion, carrot, celery & adding chicken broth) and some components of a traditional mac & cheese recipe (milk, cheese, and macaroni). The soup isn't as dense as typical mac & cheese and it has a lighter, fresher flavor from the added vegetables. I would almost dare to say this is healthier since there is less pasta and milk compared to a traditional mac & cheese!

To add extra flavor, I chopped up some roasted tomatoes for my bowl.

LESSON LEARNED: As you make the soup, make sure you taste the soup for salt. It can go from being bland to overly salted pretty fast. One time when my husband was making this soup by himself, he asked for my opinion for flavoring and I was a little heavy-handed with the salt. Opps!

Recipe for Mac & Cheese Soup

Roasted Tomatoes

This is my absolute favorite way to eat tomatoes in the middle of winter! They are so DELICIOUS and SIMPLE to prepare. I sliced Roma tomatoes in half and sprinkled them with salt/pepper and olive oil. Then, I roasted them in a low temperature oven until they appeared dried out and smaller.

The tomato flavor is very concentrated and tastes 1000 times better than their fresh counterpart during the winter months. Sometimes I used cherry tomatoes (they just take less time to bake) and sometimes I drizzle them with pure maple syrup (they are additively sweet like candy). You could toss them in pasta or on top of a salad. There are so many possibilities!

LESSON LEARNED: This is such a simple preparation, but the results make you look like a culinary genius!

Recipe for Roasted Tomatoes

Orange Roughy in Paper

This dish looks deceptively fancy. It's really easy to make and extremely versatile. For example, I used orange roughy, but you could use any whitefish. For the veggies, I used zucchini, yellow squash, onion, red pepper, and green pepper, but you could use any veggies you have on hand.

The fish and veggies are encased in parchment paper with a slice of lemon and white wine, then baked in a hot oven until the fish is gently steamed. The fish was buttery, light, and slightly lemony. The veggies were swimming in a white wine sauce. So DELICIOUS!

Incidentally, the recipe idea came from Anne Burrell's Cook Like a Rock Star cookbook and after I tasted the fish, I proceeded to dance in the kitchen signing "I cooked like a rock star". Sometimes I get a little excited when I make good food :)

 LESSON LEARNED: Steaming fish in parchment paper adds a ton of flavor! Shhh...don't tell anyone that this could be considered diet food!

Recipe for Orange Roughy in Paper

Spice-Roasted Cauliflower

My love of roasting vegetables continues! First, it was these roasted brussels spouts and now it's cauliflower. This is the perfect side dish for any dinner and it only requires a few ingredients. Cauliflower florets are tossed with olive oil, salt, cumin, and cayenne pepper. After they are cooked for 50 minutes in the oven, the cauliflower becomes brown, crunchy, and so DELICIOUS! The cauliflower is sweet, smokey, and slightly spicy. I think I could eat a whole bowl by myself :)

LESSON LEARNED: Roasting vegetables make them extra delicious! You could easily change up the spices and the vegetables. There are so many possibilities!

Recipe for Spice-Roasted Cauliflower