Day Fifty-eight--Chicken Parmesian with pasta

Woohoo, last night's dinner was a doozy. It filled our bellies up! It took two and a half hours from start to finish but not all of that time was active time. Just most of it.

I started at 4 pm by making the pasta dough. I made the dough and then let it rest for about 45 minutes. While it was resting, I made the sauce and chatted with my mom. The sauce was my fave recipe for sauce my good ol' friend Jamie Oliver. This is my go-to sauce now. I'm very happy that I have left over sauce for pizza on Friday too. The sauce is so easy. I put olive oil in the pan and let it heat up. Then I chop an onion, slice two cloves of garlic and chop up a dried red chili. I cook them all together for 10 minutes. Then I dump in three cans of diced tomatoes with basil in them. Again, thank you Wegmans for carrying store brand organic tomatoes. This cooks for about 30 minutes and then I throw in some fresh basil. I ran outside and grabbed a handful, while noting that my basil is going to seed already. What gives with that?! Once it simmers just a bit more with the basil, I put the sauce in a big bowl and ran my immersion blender through it to get rid of the chunks of onion and tomato. This way, Aidan has no idea that there are actual vegetables in it. =) Now, sauce is done.

I move back to the pasta. I roll it out paper thin and get to cutting thin strips. Right now I am still using my pizza cutter to cut up the pasta, but I think I'm going to look into the attachment for my mixer to cut pasta. Although I still need to replace my food processor. I guess I'll do that first. I'm going to need it soon with canning season upon us. I had four hangers hanging around my kitchen with pasta hanging on it to dry. This took the bulk of my time I think. It was time consuming, but at the same time it was really relaxing.

By this time it was almost 6. Tim and Connor would be home from karate in 30 minutes. It was time for the chicken. I had three beautiful organic breasts that I split in half, ending up with 6 pieces of chicken. I shredded some fresh Parmesan cheese and mixed it with bread crumbs. I dipped each piece of chicken into a bowl with a beaten egg and then dredged it in the bread crumb cheese mixture. Then that chicken went into a pan with hot olive oil waiting for it. It sizzled on each side for a couple of minutes until the crust was a nice dark color, then I flipped it over. I repeated this with all six of the breasts. I poured a little bit of the tomato sauce into a 13 x 9 cake pan and then put the chicken pieces on top of the sauce. Then I sliced fresh mozzarella and put a piece on top of each breast. Ok, ready for oven. Crank up the broiler and slide it in for 5 minutes. Done.

6:30 rolled around. I was just taking the chicken out of the oven and I had a big pot of salted water coming to a boil. As soon as Tim and Connor rolled in the door, the fresh pasta hit the pot. Three minutes it was done. It's amazing that in three minutes Connor can get out of his karate outfit and in clothes, whereas when I need him to get dressed to go out it takes him 30 minutes. Interesting.


Chicken Parmesan with pasta

This meal was enjoyed by all. We shared a plate of it with Nancy because she worked late and we wanted to share. This is a container in the fridge for lunch that I can tell there will be a battle over. Aidan even ate a whole bunch of his salad. He was very proud of himself.

Today's dinner I'm making early in the afternoon. I am going to pack it up and we are eating on the road tonight. We are whisking the boys off to a top secret surprise that is two hours from us. I can't wait!

Day Forty-six--Lasagna

Oh man, tonight's dinner was awesome. It was loved by all. What was it?

Lasagna!

This meal almost didn't happen. Well, it would have happened but it almost ended up being a really late dinner. No worries. It all worked out. My problem was that I forgot to take a pound of ground beef out of the freezer. I momentarily freaked out when I was down in the freezer too. I had to call Tim at work to find out if we had run out of ground beef. It turns out he had stacked it behind a bunch of other steaks. Whew. My problem then turned into the fact that the sauce was supposed to simmer for an hour and a half. It was 2:30 by the time I realized this and I had not started the pasta or anything yet.

I threw the package of ground beef in a cold bowl of water. I then made the pasta dough. While it was resting, I got the other things for the sauce ready. I chopped onions and garlic. I opened all the cans of tomatoes and got all of my spices ready. I got impatient and decided to start the sauce anyway. I cooked the onions and garlic in a bit of olive oil and then added a pound of Italian sausage. Once that was all browned up, I threw in the beef. It was mostly thawed and the heat in the pan quickly thawed the rest. Then I added crushed tomatoes, tomato paste and tomato sauce. That's a lot of tomato! You want to know the cool thing? Wegman's sells store brand organic tomatoes. I love buying store brand and not name brand. This is a total change from a younger me. A good change I think. Anywhooo, I got all of the meat sauce ingredients stewing and let it set for an hour and a half. While the sauce was stewing, I rolled out the pasta dough and cut it into lasagna sized pieces. I've decided that lasagna noodles are the easiest pasta to make. I let them hang out and hangers to dry (I learned my lesson from last time). Then I got to grating my Parmesan cheese, mixing my ricotta with an egg and unrolling my roll of fresh mozzarella.

Now comes the assembly line. I dropped a couple of noodles at a time into the boiling water. I ladle a bunch of the meat sauce into the bottom of my pan and then lay some cooked noodles down. Fresh noodles only boil for like 2 minutes. I had a layer of four noodles and then put a layer of the ricotta cheese mixture down. Then I put a small layer of mozzarella cheese down. I top that with a scoop of meat sauce and then a sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Rinse, repeat. I had 12 noodles, so I had three layers of four noodles. It made for one very heavy pan of lasagna. It baked in the oven for 25 minutes.

This meal was devoured by all. It was delicious. It also made a ton. Everyone will get to have some for lunch today as well. Yay, one less meal I need to figure out. Works for me. I think that is all I have for now. We have one science lab left to do and then we have the summer off. Well, there will be creative writing projects and I'm going to attempt a quilt, and some gardening...I guess it won't be a summer off, but a summer without sit down school. Until later, happy cooking!

Day Thirty-five--Pasta with Vodka Sauce

My oh my, dinner was fabulous tonight. I made fresh pasta from scratch and then I made some homemade Vodka sauce. Tim and I love some vodka sauce.

Pasta with Vodka Sauce

Last week when I was making out the menu for this week, I started procrastinating. I know, I am classic for this. I got to thinking about a blog that my mom used to read and I glanced at it once in a while, but never gave it much thought. For some reason I wandered over there to see what was going on and lo and behold, she had a bunch of recipes online. They looked fabulous so I grabbed three of the recipes for my menu this week. Here is the recipe for the sauce. It was really easy to make. The worst part was when I inhaled the steaming vodka after I put it in the pan. Can we say pass out? Whew.

While the sauce was cooking, I rolled out the pasta and cut it into strips. I made a mistake this time. I thought that since I was going to cook it within a half hour that I didn't need to hang it up to dry. I put all of the little strips into a bowl until it was ready to boil up. Big mistake! We ran out to vote in our primary and came home (10 minutes tops) and by the time we got home it was all stuck together. I peeled some of it apart, but me being the impatient person that I am, ended up just throwing the wad of pasta into the salted water and used a pasta spoon to separate it a little bit. It ended up being ok. Aidan actually said that his favorite pieces of pasta were the big chunks. Everyone loved the vodka sauce. In the past, when we've gotten the jar of vodka sauce, the kids haven't like the flavor. This one they both loved. Connor was funny because he thought he was going to get drunk eating the vodka sauce.

I think that is all I have for now. I'm trying to keep track of the primary results, watch Biggest Loser and blog at the same time. Not very smart on my part. Until tomorrow, happy cooking!

Day Eight--Baked Pasta with Tomatoes and Mozzarella

Tonight's dinner was a huge success. Win. Score. It was so delicious. It took some planning and part of it was a little more work than usual but so worth it. So, on to the dinner. We had:

Baked Pasta with Tomatoes with Mozzarella.

My first issue that I had with this recipe is that it called for a type of pasta that I've never heard of, nor could I find in the store. Thankfully google helped me out. The pasta was orecchiette. Basically it's a pasta that is shaped kind of like an ear. It's got what looks like a thumb print in the middle. I made my normal pasta recipe...and this is where the extra time comes in... and spent 45 minutes making little pasta ears. The whole time I was making them I was worried that it wasn't going to make enough but it did.

The sauce. Oh, the sauce. It was so good and I think I will use this sauce recipe for every pasta dish I make and I might even use it on our pizzas. It was so easy to make and I was able to use organic tomatoes. Did I mention that it tasted good? Yeah, I think I did.

Dinner didn't stop there though. No. Tim has been whining for a pie lately. I picked up some rhubarb at the store on Sunday. I also picked up some organic strawberries. I made a pie crust first thing this morning and then at lunch time made the pie. I was disappointed with my crust. It didn't really stay together while I was rolling it out and I ended up just pushing it down into the pie plate. It had a crumb top so thankfully I didn't have to put a crust on top. Top the piece of pie with a spot of whip cream (which Connor helped make) and it was the perfect dinner tonight.

To wrap up, all four of us loved this meal. It was easy to make... minus the pasta ears. =) Again, Jamie Oliver, you rock!

Cost of dinner: **figuring out**

Day One--Shrimp Linguini

This was our dinner last night. I am going to have to figure out posting. Some days I might post dinner right after we eat it, and then some days I might just post the next morning. Obviously I'm posting last nights dinner now.

This recipe came from an app that I have on my iTouch. It's Jamie Oliver 20 Minute Meals. I love this app and I've used it a LOT. It can flip between serving 2 or 4. It has step by step procedures and it has pictures with each step.

Shrimp Linguine

This did take only 2o minutes to do. I used my fresh pasta. It had garlic, basil, a green chili, cherry tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper. The cherry tomatoes were organic and were so sweet. The basil was off our one of our many basil plants. Tim and I loved it. Connor liked the pasta and the shrimp but does not like the texture of the tomatoes. He ended up mixing a little pesto in with the noodles. Aidan, my tough to please little guy, liked the noodles and ate a shrimp and some basil. He liked the noodles but was not fond of much else. Not surprising. I will say that he is much more adventurous with his "no thank you bites" these days. As for the cost of this meal, I'm not sure. I will probably start tracking cost next week when I'm more organized. I don't have my receipt from this weeks shopping. I know I spent roughly 4o dollars at the dairy for milk, eggs and ice cream. That cost includes my bottle deposit because I forgot to take my empty bottles back. I think Wegmans was 140 dollars. Not too bad considering it included fresh flowers. Next week I'll keep my receipts and track what each meal costs.

Organic food. There is a lot of angst when I buy organic. Obviously there is the cost issue. We all know that buying organic foods is more expensive. There are weeks when I buy exclusively organic and then I have shell shock when I check out. Then there are weeks that I pick and choose what I buy organic. There are some things like carrots and celery that I buy organic all the time because they are top offenders for use of pesticides. For now, I'm going to put what I use that is organic. If I can get to the point of using exclusively organic then I'll let you know and won't feel the need to say it. I have a lot of thoughts about buying organic that I will share through the year. I must pace myself now though. =)

Well, I suppose that was day 1 of 365. I wasn't sure when to start this but I might as well just start it now. I'm a classic procrastinator and my fear holds me back sometimes, but not this time. I'm hoping I'll be able to post day 2 tonight. If not, I'll post it tomorrow morning.

Homemade Pasta

I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who wonder what's the big deal about homemade pasta? Sure, you can get a box of pasta in the store fairly cheaply and it sits in the cupboard until you need it. Shouldn't that concern you though? The fact that you can put something away and it won't go bad. Food (real food) will go bad.

Up until last week I had never made my own pasta. I'm not sure why. I'm usually pretty adventurous in the kitchen but had not tried pasta yet. Last week I finally did. I was scared to do it, but I wanted to try it and conquer my fear. I found an easy recipe for it in the River Cottage Family Cookbook. Two ingredients. Flour and eggs. That's it. I went to the cupboard to look at a box we had in there and there were seven ingredients in it.

So, I Facebooked my trepidation and let all of my friends know that I was going to make pasta. Then I went out into the kitchen and did it. You know what? It was easy. I was worried I wouldn't be able to roll it out to the desired thinness the cookbook said. It said I had to roll it so thin that if I put a newspaper under it I would be able to see the print. I've never worked with a dough that did that. It is usually too sticky to do so. This wasn't. This was the most fun I've had in the kitchen for a while. The dough was so stretchy. I was able to move it around and it didn't tear. I was able to get it so thin that I was sure it would either stick to my board or fall apart as I moved it. None of that happened. When I cooked it up I was so excited that it only took two minutes to boil. And when we ate it, oh my, so good.

Today I made it again. I took pictures of the steps so that I could share with you how easy it is to do.

Step One:

Sift the flour into a bowl. I don't have a sifter so I used my strainer. Works like a charm.

Step Two:

Make a well in the center of the flour.

Step Three:

Add the eggs. Organic Free Range eggs from our local farm.

Step Four:

Whisk the eggs and start pulling flour into the middle. I whisk it a bit and then just use my fingers to mix it all together.

Step Five:

Drop the dough out onto a floured board and knead for a few minutes, until it's not sticking to your fingers.

Step Six:

Wrap the dough in a damp tea towel and let sit. The cookbook says to sit for 15 minutes, but I usually let it sit for 30 minutes to an hour. I've read that the longer it sits, the better it is for making the dough stretchy.

Ok...break time. Your dough is resting now. This process has taken me about 10 minutes to do. Probably just under ten minutes. During the break time I clean up the mess I've made with the flour. I am a messy flour thrower in the kitchen.

Step Seven:

Unwrap the dough. I cut my dough in half so that it is easier to work with. I do not have a pasta making machine. I don't have the thing that pulls the dough through and then cuts it. I can buy a a pasta attachment to my mixer if I want, but right now I'm having fun doing myself.

Step Eight:

Roll that baby out. It really is a lot of fun to work with. It doesn't tear. It stretched right out, no problem.

Step Nine:

I cut my dough in half and flipped one half over on top of the other half and then just sliced the dough into strips. The recipe I was making tonight called for fettuccine so I made them thick slices.

Step Ten:

It's drying time. Don't you love my handy dandy hangers? I work with what I have. I'm not sure about the purpose of drying it out. If you are going to use your pasta right away I don't really think there is much of a need for it. If you are going to store your pasta for a couple of days then you should dry it out. I dried it because it told me to...plus I liked walking into my kitchen and seeing it all hanging. It made me feel all domestic.

That's it. That is all there is to making pasta. It is so easy and fun to do and tastes great. I hope everyone will try it at least once.