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. 

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. 

Alfredo

Ok. I promised. No pictures though. I will put them up when I make this again.

This is the base recipe. I add lemon juice and other yumminess as the mood suits.

1/2 pint heavy cream

Ok so this particular day I had no Moz. so I used laughing cow cheese we buy in large quantity. It worked.

Anyway.

wedge of parmesan cheese, grated. Yes the fresh stuff. Not the powdered. Ewww.

Mozzarella...um...4 oz maybe. Ok 1/2 a normal block. Geez.

Grate that too.

Garlic.

Garlic.

Garlic.

You can roast the whole garlic clove in the oven and its extra yummy. Coat in olive oil and wrap in foil. Bake at 250 till it smells good. Squeeze the pods (cloves) into the mix when ready.

Easy.

Heat up the cream. If you are watching your waist line, don't look too hard, you'll go cross eyed.

Kidding.

Use 1/2 n 1/2 or better yet fat free half n half (gasp!). This is my coffee creamer actually. Coffee. Elixir of the gods.

I digress. Alfredo.

Heat creamy liquid substance.

When warm, not boiling, add in cheeses. Stir until melty. Squish garlic. Stir.

Done.

See? Easy.

I do on occasion, as mentioned above, add extra things. Lemon is my favorite for a classic recipe involving fresh, made from scratch noodles and chicken.

Ok. I am really going to bed now.

Night.

Tortellini Primavera with Orange-Ginger Carrots

After tomorrow, if I pass my exams, I will begin the life of a sales rep for an insurance company...out of the world of retail and into the real life of corporate america. Goddess help me.

It will mark my last day to be able to cook beyond the box for awhile, if things go as planned. We can always hope for more free time than planned, but, well...so ya.

I made pasta. And veggies. A simple, easy meal. And I did it while studying for my exams. Stir. Study. Chop. Study. Stir... you get the idea.

Let's call it... Tortellini Primavera with Orange-Ginger Glazed Carrots.

OOOOOH. That sounds fancy!

Ok so, don't do what I did. You WANT to start with the carrots. They are hard. They take too long to cook. They are yummy when lubed well with butter, brown sugar and ginger.

Oh ya! Start the ginormous pot you use for noodles with water or broth.

Grab some regular sized carrots. I feed a family of 5 (3 adults 2 monkeys) so I grabbed 5 or 6. Chop the carrots thinlyish if you are thinking you will be short on time (for instance, forgetting to cook carrots until the noodles were mostly done and then crying holy shit! The carrots!). Chop evenly about 1/4" thick if you remember to do it before the noodles.

You'll also want:

1/4 c Brown Sugar

1/2 t Ginger

1 Orange (squeeze juice into pot with carrots)

Salt and pepper

Dump all ingredients together in small pot with maybe 1/2 c water. Medium heat, cook until tender. Or until noodles are done, whichever.

Move on, move on. "Clean cup, clean cup, move down move dooooowwwwwn"

Sorry. Channelling my inner Mad Hatter.

Snack.

Gasp! Is that? Why yes, yes it is. The leftover mango salsa (the guac was gone). And a few chips.

I was starving, so sue me.

You will want to add vegies to your noodles. Because you do. Trust me on this.

Sorry, it was steamy. Lenses on cameras and steam don't mix.

See it looks yummy!

Just add the darn veggies, k? K.

My sis is vegetarian, so usually I don't do meat. It's expensive and it's a pain in the butt to make multiple versions. If you want to add chicken, oooh or ham, go for it. No hard feelings. I buy the big bags of frozen, pre-cooked chicken strips at Costco to add in small amounts on occasion.

Back to the vegies.

Chop into chunks the broccoli, mushrooms, artichokes ('cause they are yummy and Costco sells them in big jars and when all else fails for additions to noodles, you have them!) and frozen peas. Yes, peas. Just trust me, will ya?

Don't chop the peas. That would be... interesting.

If you have other veggies hangin' out in small amounts in the frig, toss them in. Squash, cauliflower, carrots, spinach. They all work well. I happened to just want these in today as I have freshly procured them from the local market. (Remember, buy local!)

Saute over medium heat.

At this point your carrots should be good and bubbly. If they aren't cooking fast enough, throw a saucer (or lid if you actually remember where you put them) to speed the cooking.

Next. Noodles. The star of the show.

I am a noodle-a-holic and a sauce making aficionado.

Grab a jar of alfredo from your favorite brand out of the pantry.

Sigh.

Yes, if you want, I will supply a recipe for making it from scratch. It's easy. No really, it is. It just requires more time and more ingredients.

Onward.

Grab noodles of choice. I found, on sale even, dried organic tortellini, the multi-colored kind. Everything should be multi-colored! It makes life more entertaining!

Stupid steam.

Dump noodles in water. Toss in some salt and oil. Olive is my fave, but any will do. If you are feeling REALLY adventurous, you could have heated up some broth instead. MMMMMMMM.

Nom nom nom. Crunch. Nom nom nom.

Oh. Sorry. Chips.

Hum a song. Go study for 5 or 10 minutes. Remember to stir the veggies so they don't burn. The water from the frozen peas and the sweat from the mushrooms should be enough lubricant to prevent that, but you never know.

I'm obsessed with cast iron. It gets hot fast.

.

.

.

Ok. Noodles are done. Dump the sauce into the vegies. Darin the noodles. Or heck, drain them even.

Turn off the stove. (Important tip)

Assemble on plate. Noodles with sauce and vegies over top, carrots on side. If you have bread, use the damn toaster spread it with butter, sprinkle over some garlic powder. Instant garlic bread.

I didn't have bread. I keep forgetting to go to the used bread store by work.

I didn't mix the vegies in the sauce 'cause I have some picky eaters. They need to be able to pick out the mushrooms with ease. Crazy people who don't like mushrooms. I mean really.

So there it is. My simple, final meal.

Wish me luck on the test tomorrow. Now I must go die. 4 am wake up to go to work.