Fettuccine Alfredo

Recipe #80: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/fettuccine-alfredo-recipe2/index.html

I'm going to call my version, "Spagheccine Alfredo". As you might have guessed, I didn't have any fettuccine pasta on hand so I used spaghetti instead. I used the "smart" kind which looks like white pasta but has more fibre like whole wheat pasta. As is often the case, I didn't measure it. Instead, I cooked what was in the box and threw in a bunch when the recipe called for the pasta to be added to the sauce. I reserved the rest as cooked pasta for red sauce sometime later in the week.

I ended up using about 2.5 cloves of garlic because they were stuck together. I didn't add any salt and I ground a bunch of pepper into the sauce randomly. If it matters, my butter was salted because that's all I had, and the parsley was of the squeeze tube variety (my version of fresh). I didn't end up measuring the lemon zest, but it amounted to grating the heck out of one lemon and hoping for the best. *See note later on whether that was a good idea or not* I also did not add any of the reserved pasta water to my sauce because I found it to be the right consistancy without.

This recipe took a little longer than anticipated to complete, primarily because I managed to knock a favourite red glass off the counter and it smashed all over the floor. The clean-up took a while... Aside from that incident, the rest went fairly smoothly. Speaking of which, I found that using puree on the blender for a while was the secret to getting the cauliflower sauce to smooth out nicely. You can use a similar blade on your food processor if you don't keep forgetting to use it because it sits right in front of you on the counter...

The Meatatarian and I both noticed this recipe to be rather lemon-y in flavour. Perhaps I added too much? Or perhaps one does not need as much as is called for? Aside from that, it was pretty good. Cauliflower is a good source of fibre along with the whole wheat/"smart" pasta so I'm still full a few hours later. This recipe is a good way to sneak some vegetable(s) in for those who aren't terribly fond of them. Now I just need a recipe to use up the remaining evaporated milk...

Roasted Tomato Soup

Recipe #79: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/michael-chiarello/roasted-tomato-soup-with-croutons-recipe/index.html

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving! If you're looking to escape the turkey grind at this time of year, then here's the perfect recipe for you. I was inspired to try a roasted tomato soup recipe after eating a delicious version in a restaurant recently. Theirs had more kick to it than mine, but both were tasty.

Aside from trying to figure out what exactly a "non-reactive" baking sheet was (I came to the conclusion that it was one which wouldn't be affected by the acid in the tomatoes and vinegar), and attempting to make uninformed decisions about garlic, this recipe was pretty straightforward and simple. I didn't happen to make the crouton part of the recipe, but it seems easy enough for another time.

I ended up using about 8 "regular" tomatoes and 4 roma ones, if that matters to you. I don't think I had quite enough basil although I didn't formally measure it. I was looking for the squeeze-tube basil, but the store only had small packages of fresh so I bought a couple of them. I also added some basil from my half-dead plant in the backyard. I didn't measure the onion either - I just used an entire medium-sized yellow onion.

The only part where I got confused was with regards to the garlic. Yes, I added it to the bowl with the tomatoes, vinegar, etc. at the beginning, but then I didn't know whether the garlic got roasted with the tomatoes or not? I roasted them both. Then I wondered, "Do I add the garlic to the pot with the tomatoes?" Nope, I chucked the garlic at that point. I'm still not sure if it was the right thing to do since the recipe failed to make mention of garlic after the beginning.

In the end, my soup is very tomato-y. I guess that's a good thing since it's a tomato soup. It definitely doesn't have any spice kick to it so you can modify that part on your own if you want. But it's a nice, thicker soup for fall, and a perfect way to boost your vitamin C and lycopene intake. I ate mine with a fresh slice of the Meatatarian's homemade sourdough bread, mmmmm......

Beef and Broccoli Supreme

Recipe #78: http://www.home-recipes.com/recipes/category/casseroles/Beef_and_Broccoli_Supreme.html

Is it bad that I almost never taste my cookings before I finish them? I feel like I should be sampling along the way, like all the great chefs and cooks I know, but aside from eating the bits that I accidently drop on the floor, I rarely sample my creations in progress. Perhaps it will come when I graduate to the "dash of this and splash of that" level of cooking?

I've had this recipe card kicking around for a while. It's one that you pick up for free in the grocery store, and I finally got tired of moving it out of the way. Luckily, to save me from typing the darn thing out, I found a link to it online so you won't have to email me for the details.

As usual, there are a few alterations in my version. In lieu of ground beef, I dug some lean ground pork out of the freezer, thus freeing upa mere 3 cubic inches of space in an otherwise packed environment. It might be time to plug in the deep freeze soon, but we're trying to avoid it if we don't have to. I didn't add the ginger to my recipe. Unlike my grandma, I dislike ginger. I tolerate in the form of gingerbread and my mom's gingersnap cookies, but only in the winter during the holidays. Blech. We happened to have brown jasmine rice in the cupboard, not white, and my cream of chicken soup can was a low-fat version. I eyeballed the cheese measurement - not a bad thing to go over the recommended 1 cup when you live with a Cheese-a-tarian. I skipped adding the salt and was delighted to be able to measure my black pepper properly, now that I finally bought some in bulk. I got tired of grinding and grinding and grinding and grinding....

I struggled to cook the rice a bit (part of why I don't make rice very often), but eventually I coerced it into behaving properly. It might have been a smidge still watery when I was done, but not nearly as soupy as most of the rehydrated food I ate on a recent mountaineering expedition. Alas, I digress. As for the rest of the recipe, it actually came together pretty easily. I didn't accidently rub onion into my eye this time! I only ended up baking it for 30 minutes and the edges were quite bubbly by then. It's a teeny bit runny if that matters to anyone, but it's hot and delicious so I ate it anyway. The Cheese-a-tarian liked it too, and not just because I instructed him that he was going to like it whether it was actually good or not. Lucky for us, we've got leftovers for tomorrow now. Enjoy!

STOVE TOP Spinach Balls

Recipe #77: http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/stove-top-spinach-balls-62452.aspx

Well, here's a peek at a recipe that just came out in the latest issue of What's Cooking, in case you don't get the magazine yourself. I thought it would be a good way to ingest some more vegetables in my diet.

As far as ingredients go, this was not a challenging recipe. The magazine version recommended the "low sodium" version of the stuffing mix and "light" parmesan cheese. I used regular stuffing mix because it's all I had. It also only called for 1 cup of hot water, 3 eggs, 3/4 cup of onion, 1/4 cup of margarine (I used butter), and 1/2 cup of the parmesan. The magazine recipe says to cook for 25 to 30 minutes, or until lightly browned, rotating the pans after 15 minutes. Mine were done in 25 minutes.

I added a little something extra to my version of this recipe: roughly 1 lb of extra lean ground chicken. I cooked it thorougly first, let it cool a bit, then added it to the bowl with the spinach, eggs, etc. A nice little bit of lean protein to make this meal a little more complete and to go well with the salad I made.

I had some mixing issues and ended up combining the ingredients by hand. It was more fun anyway. Some of my spinach balls didn't stay together very well so you may have to use a firm hand. I thawed the spinach in the fridge overnight last night, then out in the sink while I was at work today. To get it drier, I squeezed and squished the water out of it in a colander. Mauling spinach was fun too.

The resulting spinach balls were fairly tasty, if a tiny bit bland. That could be fixed with some spices next time. They're an interesting shape for dinner and the spinach is very good for you. I'm not in love with the amount of onion I'm crunching on when I eat them, but that's because I don't like onion unless it's blended in and virtually unflavoured. The Meatatarian said they were good so at this point, I'll make them again. Try them yourself and let me know if you like them.

Cheese-Topped Grilled Tomatoes

Recipe #76: http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/cheese-topped-grilled-tomatoes-106348.aspx?cm_mmc=eml-_-rbe-_-20110810-_-1047&cm_lm=0DF8141E8E0397C1FD58818F062D2729

This recipe was suggested to me by the Meatatarian, and since I like warm/hot tomatoes, I was game to try it. I'm glad I did.

A very straightforward recipe, this one. Not many ingredients and all I had to buy were the tomatoes since I am growing a tomato plant out back that refuses to produce any tomatoes as yet. With hindsight (and a full belly), I will be choosing more reasonable-sized tomatoes next time, not always the gigantic ones that are on sale. Not that there was anything wrong with the gigantic ones, but they take longer to heat through. Something to keep in mind. I was excited, however, to use some of the basil that has co-operatively been growing in the back. It is not the basil pot pictured in the photo above.

As far as modifications go, I guess you could call the gigantic tomatoes one of them. We gave our BBQ to my parents when we moved to Calgary last year so I had to put in a call on the batphone to my parents to figure out how to make this recipe in the oven. In the end, my mom reminded me I own a toaster oven which I used. I also didn't have a square foil pan so I ended up putting aluminum foil (into an improvised pan shape) on my toaster oven rack to contain the tomato mess.

Since my toaster oven is cute and small, and my tomatoes were gigantic, I could only bake two halves at a time. This gave me a chance to fiddle with baking times and temps. At first, I baked the halves at about 350 for 12 minutes which warmed the tomatoes through and melted the cheese. They weren't hot, but they were still good. For the second two halves, I baked them at 400 for 12 minutes, and to combat the tendency for the tomatoes to tip off their toppings, I hollowed out a section of each middle prior to topping them. It seemed to work pretty well along with propping them against each other in the oven.

When it came to eating my hot, gooey mess, my tomatoes seemed to slip and slide all over my plate. I cut them into pieces with a knife and fork, but I had to chase them around a bit. The cheese also had a tendency to fall off the tomato onto the plate so there was some scooping involved too. All in all, it was a hot, tasty meal with some entertainment value added. I will make it again!

Zucchini Bread

Recipe #75: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/zucchini-bread-iv/detail.aspx

I should probably make this clear from the start: I don't normally eat zucchini because I don't normally think I'll like it. However, I've been trying to eat more vegetables lately as part of eating healthier all around, and when I made a minestrone soup last week that had zucchini in it, I discovered that I might not hate it quite so much. Thus, another zucchini recipe tonight.

I made a few modifications to this recipe. If you expand the first two reviews at the bottom of the recipe page, you'll see some suggestions I tried. I meant to substitute 1 cup of oil with unsweetened apple sauce, but it turns out I had less than 1 cup of oil on hand so I used it up and made up the difference (just over 1 cup) with unsweetened apple sauce. I also added an extra cup of zucchini (although I admit I was hesitant to do so). I made the crust as suggested by one of the reviews, but in hindsight, if I make it again, I will make half as much. There's crust crumbs falling all over the place now. At the suggestion of my friend Frankie, I added semi-sweet chips to each loaf. If it matters to you, the vanilla extract I used was artificial :)

I had to put in a call on the batphone to my kitchen-friendly relatives at the cottage to find out whether I needed to peel the zucchini first (no, keep the peel on). Then I had to ask whether I still needed to grease & flour the loaf pans if they were non-stick (yes, do it anyway because it can't hurt). Oh, and I discovered that my two zucchinis (totally 0.545 kg at the grocery store) will yield about 4 cups when grated so if anyone needs 1/2 a zucchini, I have some for free. My final question was to ask whether to stir the chocolate chips into the batter, then pour into the loaf pans, or vice versa, and to get an estimate of what amount to use (1/4 cup per loaf, added to batter after poured into loaf pan). It also gave me an excuse to chat with my family for a bit :)

Overall, this recipe was pretty easy to make. It was also pretty easy to make a hideous mess in my kitchen. I'm amazed at how many places zucchini can end up while being shredded, and how many walnut pieces can leap off the counter to end up under my feet. The other reason I like this recipe is because the only things I had to buy for it were the zucchini and apple sauce (the latter by choice) so it used up a lot of ingredients I already had on hand. Amazing how tasty vegetables can be!

Low-Cal Oatmeal Cookies

Recipe #74: http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/healthy/recipe.html?dishID=11678

This is a simple recipe to make, but I have one major problem with it: when was I supposed to add the raisins? Maybe I was supposed to eat them while I baked? Dear Food Network, please make that part of your instructions much more clear.

I think this might be the first recipe I've made with booze in it. Our ceilings started leaking on two levels of the house yesterday, causing a lot of damage and inconvenience so far, so I figured today would be a good day to add the booze to these cookies. If it matters to you, I used rum, not whiskey.

I didn't measure the amount of raisins I had. I just found a small container of them in the cupboard and used them up. When I added the rum to the raisins, I discovered that there were some dried cranberries in there too. Cool! As a matter of convenience, I bought the small individual packs of applesauce so that I can take the rest in my lunch. They were also on sale. The 1/4 cup you'll need is less than one little individual size so you'll have a little snack while you bake, especially if you eat the raisins. Since we're on a budget these days, I used the artificial vanilla that we already had.

Really simple cookies to make. And how have I never used parchment paper before? So easy to use, simple clean up, and it's recyclable when you've removed the cookies. The one who does most of the dishes (ME) loves parchment paper!

Now that they're cool enough to eat, these cookies are really yummy. The edges are a bit crispy-crunchy, and the middles are soft and chewy. I think I need to eat a few more to make sure that the quality is consistently delicious...