Penne with Pesto Cream sauce and Stuffed Mushrooms

I have made a decision regarding the food blog.

I originally started posting as meals, because everyone usually makes a meal. Then I went to the individual recipe thing as that seemed to be the format many liked. Then I realized that everyone who writes a blog is doing the same thing as everyone else. They are either copying the Pioneer Woman's format on their food blogs or just post individual recipes.

I have decided that most of us make more than just one thing when we cook, and a good majority of people who look at recipes and new ideas are women or parents or people who cook for more than just themselves.

This makes things easy on me as well as my readers. You guys get a one page meal with multiple recipes and how to get everything ready in sequence, AND I don't have to make a million posts for individual recipes. This saves us both time in our busy, hectic lives.

There is a search option, so I am guessing people will use that if they are looking for something specific.

That being said, here is the next meal-like recipe. Jill, I made the stuffed mushrooms just for you so I could fulfill the request for the recipe :-)

I needed something to go with the Stuffed Mushrooms and pasta or steak is always a good option. As steak is not in my budget, this became a vegetarian meal.

Now, before you run off, adding steak or chicken is a cinch and is very yummy. That makes this meal easy for split households as well. Cut your meat up into strips and saute with some olive oil and garlic and serve over the top of the noodles. Or grill/fry/bake your meat of choice and serve off to the side. The steak with blue cheese butter is a good meat dish to go with this.

Looks totally yummy right?

So... Grab your ingredients. You'll need 8-10 large mushrooms, frozen spinach, bread crumbs, an egg, cheese of choice,  medium sized onion, noodles, alfredo sauce, pesto sauce and capers if you have them. Also grab some chicken or vegy bouillon or better than bouillon if you have it. 

Ok. Now. Micro-nuke the spinach. My 8 mushrooms took about 1/2 c of thawed spinach. 

Stem the mushrooms and clean out the fluffy white flesh the stems leave on the inside while the spinach is getting de-icy. Chop 1/2 the onion and the mushroom stems into tiny bits. 

Get out your cheese and shred if needed or in my case, using goat cheese...

I crumbled it. 

Like this. Amount is up to you. I used about 1/2 c.

Mix the ingredients together. Spinach, onion, stems, cheese, 1/4 c bread crumbs, 1 egg, 1 tbs garlic powder and a pinch of basil. 

Oh yeah, forgot to mention those. 

Spoon stuffing into mushrooms and mound. Yes, your hand will get dirty 'cause you have to kinda mold the stuffing to the top a bit, but its ok. That's what sinks are for. 

Mushrooms stuffed, pop in oven at 350 for maybe 20 mins.

Meanwhile, as the mushrooms are getting all happy boil some water and get the pasta going. Pop in a couple of teaspoons of bouillon to make it taste even better.

Mix half the pesto and half the alfredo together in a microwave save thingy.

Get a salad made or whatever veggie you intend on making.

Check the mushrooms. Now top with some more cheese, and put under broiler for about 2 mins. 

When they come out they should look like this. Ish.

When the noodles are done cooking, drain them and nuke the sauce.

And then you are done. Plate the noodles, top with sauce.  

And see what the beautiful mushrooms look like inside... MMMMMM.

Stuffed Mushrooms
8-10 large mushrooms
1/2 c spinach, thawed
3/4 c goat cheese crumbled or mozzarella shredded plus 1/4 c.
1 Tbs garlic powder
1/4c bread crumbs
Mushrooms stems, minced
1/2 onion, minced
1 egg

Stem the mushrooms and clean out cavity or any remaining stem parts. Mix together rest of ingredients except 1/4c of cheese. Spoon into mushrooms and mound slightly over top. Bake at 350 for 15 mins. Top with other 1/4 c of cheese. Broil until cheese melts and is slightly browned. 

Penne with Pesto Cream Sauce
1 lb Penne
Jar of pesto
Jar of alfredo sauce
3 Tbs capers

Boil pasta. Mix 1/2 jar pesto with 1/2 jar alfredo. Drain pasta. Add capers. Top with sauce. 

Serve with salad, bread or other vegetable. 

Calling all Bachelors - Eggplant Parmesan - An easy meal to impress with

You go to an italian restaurant. You order the eggplant parmesana. It comes to you all soft and covered in cheese and sauce with a side of noodles. Melt in your mouth yummy right?

You go home thinking, "I wish I could make something that yummy". But alas, you think your meager cooking skills are too lacking to make something so complex and delicious. 

Or maybe you're having your new girl over and want to impress her with your suave cooking skills but are truly clueless. This would definitely impress her but too hard right?

Nope. You're wrong. Eggplant Parmesean is the easiest thing in the world to make. No really. It is. It involves slicing, a few herbs, some cheese and an oven. You can do that right?

Sure you can.

See easy. And fast too. And you can continue playing on Facebook and Pinterest while it cooks. Triple bonus!

So first you need an eggplant. There are multiple types and any will do. The long skinny ones I reserve for thai cooking, but would be fun for an appetizer or kid sized pieces. I used a regular old purple eggplant. 

I lied. First, get your oven rarin' to go by setting it to about 350. If your oven is retarded like mine, 375ish.

Now, chop off the ends of your purple orb. Oooh. Orb. Giggle. I like that word. Sounds dirty and silly all at the same time. Giggle.

Ehem. Sorry. Slice into 1/2 inch sized pieces. 

Lay them on a baking sheet in a single layer. One eggplant was enough for 2 adults and 2 kids here. 

Next, spray with olive oil and sprinkle with some herbage.

Herbage used this day was:

Basil

Oregano

Lemon Pepper

Salt

Garlic

Just shake it on, being messy is ok!

No really. It is!

Ok. If you want clean up to be easy 'cause your lazy like me then use a piece of tin foil over the pan before you lay your slices down. Makes clean up a snap.

Just recycle the foil k? K.

Wax paper is a good option too. Recycle that too when your done.

Look at you being all green and stuff!

*Sniff* I'm so proud.

*Clears throat* 

Ok. So. Your eggplant is almost really happy. Its crying for cheese. 

Mozzarella to be exact.

Be prepared, I am going to go Alton Brown on you...

Ready?

Are you sure?

There are a few types of Mozzarella out there. I usually use either the kind you get in a block that is half plastic or the kind you get in a roll that is 100% mozzarella, no plastic involved. 

They both get yummy and melty. The fresh mozz is creamier, meltier and well, better for you. (No plastic). It is also about the same price as the blocks.

Ok. I'm done doing Alton Brown. He'd probably go into a lot more scientific detail. I won't subject you to that. :-)

Where do you get them you ask? Oh.Well. Any decent grocer has them, usually located by the ricotta cheese. I get it from Costco. Double pack for $6. Lasts through 3 pizzas and this plus a little for snacking.

Spread on your mozz. If you are using shredded, it is doubly important, for ease of cleaning up, that you use foil or wax paper to line your pan. Burnt melted cheese is a bitch to get off.

Trust me.

Ooooh. See. Can you here the eggplant rejoice at the yumminess layered on? 

You can't? 

Well, put your darn ear closer to the picture...

See? Amazing right?

So then you slide those puppies into the oven. It should be hot by now.

Let them cook for 15 mins or so.

In the meantime, you can dump in your noodles into that pot of boiling water you started. 

You can get out your jar of sauce too and get it nuked. If you were feeling adventurous and made it from scratch, then use that. Make it before you start the other stuff. It would be step 1 in this meal.

Scratch Marinara Sauce Recipe Here

Go play on your computer or watch T.V. while waiting.

Or you could chop some lettuce and tomato and onion and cucumber and make a salad to go with dinner. Then you would be really impressing the girl.

Oooh. Or make some garlic bread. Slices of bread, add butter, sprinkle with garlic and stick  in the oven.

When your eggplant is done is should look like this...

Put a couple on a plate, douse with sauce, add some noodles on the side and douse with sauce. If you got REALLY fancy for that special girl you are impressing, put the salad in a small bowl, and a put the bread in the middle of the table on a nice plate. No, not the poker one. A NICE one. 

Crack open some red wine, light a couple of candles and you are set to impress. 

Bet you even get a kiss for your troubles!

Penne with Marinara and Meatballs, Orange-feta salad.

A simple italian-esque meal for a weeknight. Mildly healthy, very yummy, and kid approved. I like kid approved and easy. 

Start with noodles. I picked penne this round. Get your pot of water boiling with a little salt and oil added to it.

Because it keeps noodles from sticking, makes the water boil faster and adds an little something extra.

Geez! So many questions!

Ok. So while the water is getting all bubblyish, chop one onion, 2-3 mushrooms, 1/2 bell pepper and 1/2 a summer squash into chunks. You can add whatever veggies you have in bits and pieces. 

You know the ones. There is not enough to make a side, but too much to just pitch.

This is one of those later in the week meals to get rid of the bits and pieces of other stuff you made.

Throw the veggies into a skillet with a little olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

The water should be close to ready now, so add in your noodles.

Un-bag some meatballs too and get those in a pot or in the nuker. Add a little sauce to them to keep them form getting dry on the edges.

Meatballs you ask?

Costco carries in giant bags. You can also get them from a normal grocer. I like the big bags because we use them for all sorts of meals.

Next add a red sauce of choice. This one was the 3 cheese by Ragu.

Remember that blue cheese and garlic butter you made waaaaaaay back when?

Probably shoved in the back of a drawer in the fridge completely forgotten. 

Ya. I do it too. 

Fish it out and throw in the sauce mix. May as well use it for a good purpose right?

By now it smells yummy and you need a snack.

Have a snack.

If you haven't had this before, you must. It's crack in popcorn form. Don't get out the whole bag. Trust e. You won't eat dinner.

Now you cut up the veggies and stuff for the salad.

I generally use, for the 5 of us, 1/2 head of romaine, 1/4 onion, 1/2 bell pepper, some sort of fruit  (in this case and orange) and a sprinkle of a salty cheese like gorgonzola, bleu cheese or feta. In this case, it's feta.

Oranges

Oh. Tomato and cucumber too. 1/2 of each. If you have them. 

Assemble to make this gorgeous salad.

Have another bite of popcorn.

The noodles should be done by now, so drain them.

Put a few in a dish, top with meatballs and sauce. Get your salad on there too. A vinaigrette works the best IMO. But if you are a hard-core ranch person, I won't tell.

Now go sit down and watch some Big Bang Theory. Try not to snort sauce out your nose. Trust me, it hurts.

Homemade Marinara Sauce

This is a long task. Be forewarned. Long task.

Its worth it though. This is one of those things you start on a Saturday morning and let cook all day as you do your weekly housecleaning.

It makes the house smell yummy too.

I suppose you could do this as a slow cooker thing. No reason why not.

First and foremost, pour yourself a nice tall glass of Wild Cherry Pepsi. Or wine. Wine is good too.

Ready?

Ok.

The ingredient list is long.

Tomatoes-Roma 6-10.

1 onion

1 bell pepper

5-6 cloves garlic

Some sort of squash, zuchinni or yellow squash. 1 should be fine

Carrots, 2-3.

Celery, 1 or 2 stalks

Mushrooms. 5 or 6 pounds. Just kidding! Geez! 5 or 6 should be fine. Baby Bella's if you can find them for a reasonable price or wild mushrooms work well too.

On occasion I will throw in broccoli, artichokes, sun dried tomatoes, or eggplant. This can totally be one of those whatever is left of my veggie drawer kind of thing.

Wine. A little for you, a little for the sauce.

So let's start with that.

Chop onion, pepper, and celery (trinity) into bits. Chop garlic coarsely.

Saute in olive oil until translucent and smelling yummy. Sprinkle some salt and pepper in there.

While getting all happy, chop everything else into bits or chunk. However you like your veggies. I like mine chunky.

These are examples of chunks. 

Asparagus. I totally forgot to mention asparagus. This works too, or you can use it as a side for the noodles later.

Toss everything else but tomatoes in and saute for a few minutes. 

Put in tomatoes. I usually end up using more than I think I need. I said 10 above. Sometimes its more. Depends on how many other veggies I put in.

Beautiful makings this is. In the above picture, I cheated. I used some tomatoes and a can as well. I didn't have a ton of fresh left and didn't feel like getting out for just mater's.

No worries. You can do the same. I won't hunt you down, I promise. (Fingers crossed behind back)

Add a dash of red wine. Take a sip. Ok another. Maybe one more.

Add a tablespoon of sugar.

Now on to the herbage.

Important stuff, herbage is.

Here we have...

Oregano

Basil

Garlic powder (cause you can never have too much garlic)

Lemon Pepper

Here's how much to use of each.

About that much. Can you tell I don't like measuring herbage?

Measuring is overrated. 

Ok. Baking is the ONLY exception.

Err on the side of too little and you'll be fine.

If you are anal about measuring...this is about 1.5 tsp, give or take.

So for the oregano, 1 of those is fine. For the garlic 2-3, basil 2-3, lemon pepper 1 or 2. If you have rosemary, 1 is good. 

Fresh is always better, but its not quite time yet to be able to have fresh unless you want to pay out the nose at the store or have and indoor herb garden.

Sigh.

One of these days.

Cook the sauce slowly, on lowish for awhile. The longer it cooks, the better it is.

When you are ready to use it, cook your noodles in salted boiling water (I used ravioli this night)

Fix a veggie (Asparagus this time)

And maybe some bread - Freddies had foccacia in the used bread section so I used that. Have I mentioned my love of used bread? Seriously. Why pay full price?

This is what the whole she-bang looks like. So worth the wait. 

I generally make a huge recipe and freeze it for later. The measurement above feed a fam of 5.