Pasta

Our favorite pasta dish is a garlic or garden sauce with freshly grilled peppers (green, orange, and red) and onions on top of penne pasta. In addition we add sweet Italian sausage and a mixed Italian cheese on top. It is tasty and easy dish to make. We would prefer a hot Italian sausage, but they don't have as good a flavor as the sweet ones. So far we have been unable to find a sweet-hot variant.

Last week we were a host family for a couple of teenagers at drama camp and Rebekah decided to do a pasta bake version of our pasta dish. It turned out pretty good, not quite as good as the not baked version, but it ended up being more work. I think it would only be worth it with the leftovers from having it "fresh" the first time. The teenagers didn't mind though, they both had fourths.

Cookbooks lie.

We have some apples that are getting old, so I decided to make applesauce. Most of my decision was based on the fact that the big red Betty Crocker cookbook says that it is "Fast." 5 minutes preparation, 20 minutes cooking, stir occasionally. So I could study while making it and not take a ton of time; therefore, I would have a lot of time left to study. I dutifully peeled the apples and cut them into fourths as directed by the recipe. Then I put them in the pan with 1/2 cup water, as directed, and brought it to a boil. I emptied the dishwasher during the 5 minutes that the apples and water were supposed to simmer, stirring occasionally to break the apples up. At the end of 5 minutes, the apples were still happily in fourths and had made no progress toward "tender." So I did the dishes while they continued to simmer for the next 5 minutes (the recipe did say 5-10 minutes of simmering). Then I stood over the stove for the next hour and fourteen minutes stirring occasionally and reading Contemporary Abstract Algebra. Finally, I gave up, added the nutmeg, cinnamon, and brown sugar, let simmer for one more minute, and ate chunky applesauce (in which some of the chunks were still not tender). Not fast. Not at all.

Fun with Strawberries

A while ago some friends had a plethora of strawberries leftover from a funeral reception and we shared the burden and took a large basked full home. We used them while they were still good on granola and yogurt, waffles, and just plain then chopped bagged and froze the rest. I didn't have a clue what we would do with pounds of frozen strawberries until our friends called and said they had made some excellent strawberry lemonade. So we have been making it ever since.

• Make lemonade (fresh or from a can).


• Add frozen strawberry chunks generously.


• Let stand refrigerated.


• Drink on a hot day.

It is amusing to watch how the color changes from a orangeish pink to a mild strawberry red as you get down to the bottom of the jug and the berry chunks have bleed out their juiciness.

Beef Peapods and Friends

We really enjoyed this last night and the leftovers for lunch today. It probably would have been a little better if we had cooked the onions and red and green peppers in a separate skillet, but it was easier this way and still excellent (the difference would have been in less mushy more flavorful peppers). To thicken the sauce we used flour instead of corn starch which worked out well. Next time I think I would like to flavor the beef with a Korean BBQ sauce (sugar, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and sesame oil).

Beans and Rice

Last night we had a staple meal that we both love, black beans with rice. We usually warm the beans out of a can to save time. Rebekah chopped and added red and green peppers to the beans as well as some spices (cumin and chili powder) and green salsa. The rice and beans get mixed together when we serve as well as the optional/to taste ingreedients:

• Cheese (cheedar and/or pepper jack)


• More salsa (usually chipolte)


• Sour cream


• Salt

This morning I am making waffles for Rebekah. I have to go wake her up now (I think I will let mobius do most of the work).

Pride goes before the fall

We went out to breakfast (brunch, I guess) this morning and I had a Belgian waffle with strawberries and whipped cream. My response was, "Ryan, you make better waffles." (He makes really good mixed berry waffles that are excellent with kiwi and/or strawberries and whipped cream on top). Then we went to the grocery store later to get a marinade for our steak and we had sample brownies. My response was, "I make better brownies." Then we had a real American meal: steak and potatoes (I think I once told Ryan that I would probably never make a meat and potatoes meal--so he had to do this one). We started off with a really good salad, and the steak was pretty good, but the potatoes, which were my baby, were not so great. Apparently grilling them is not the best way to go. I'm sure there are many places out there that make better spicy potato wedges than I do!

Grilled Steak and Potatoes

We decided to contribute to the smoke by grilling steak and potato wedges. The wedges got a little burned and a lot dry, but they were ok with catsup. Albertson's gave us a coupon for a free bottle of Kikoman's Teriyaki sauce (and we got another coupon when we checked out) so we marinated our steak in it for about 30 minutes. It was very tasty, bringing back memories of teriyaki beef jerky when I was growing up (not because the meat was over done and dry, it was just right ... ok, a little over done). Our cat Missy used to go crazy over that stuff. We would come home find the bag with bite and claw holes all over it. Speaking of cats attacking bags, it's Mobius' favorite thing to do now. The other day when we got up in the morning we found bite holes all over our bread bag. She doesn't even like bread!

Smoky Sunset

Spices

The chicken needed some other spices, but we followed the recipe. We should have gone with the gouda option as opposed to swiss cheese, but we didn't have any gouda and it was already 6:00 PM (the story of our cooking--though it's often already 7:30 or so before we start thinking about dinner). Next time....

We have a working title

Tonight we had Chicken stuffed with Swiss cheese and spinach. It was pretty good, but was missing something. The chicken came out a little dry after 45 minutes at 375, but it was easier then I thought it was going to be. As an appetizer we had some mixed vegetables with some butter, pepper, and salt.