Vegetable Mix (Some Might Call It a Salad)

We got a cucumber at the grocery store because I wanted to try the recipe that Catherine suggested in her comment a long time ago. So for lunch today, I made it. Well, kind of--we didn't have any green peppers (they're $1.29/each at the cheapest right now and our pepper plants aren't even flowering yet, so it will be awhile before we're eating homegrown green peppers), so I used some red pepper and just cooked it with the onion. I'm also not a huge fan of vinegar, so I used our new salad dressing (we had a coupon--you can print one from that website--and it was on sale). We had leftover pasta and garbanzo beans in the fridge (separately), so I added some of each. It was very good. Thanks, Catherine!

Sun Dried Goodness

Ryan picked the title, but I agree. We bought a bag of sundried tomatoes at Costco today, so we had to do something with them for dinner. This is the result. We put the pasta on, sauted the chicken with onions, garlic, sundried tomatoes, sundried tomato vinagrette, Italian seasoning, and oregano. When things were looking close to done, we added a bit of white wine for more flavor (I couldn't taste the wine, which is always the goal). About a minute before the pasta was done, we threw some spinach in with the chicken mixture. Then we put the finished pasta in the fancy bowls and topped it with the chicken mixture and feta. It was excellent. Next time (yes, there will be a next time), we'll use more spinach and less pasta.


Update: The picture didn't work the first time. And we forgot to mention that this was really easy. And fast.

Italian Chili or The Spaghetti Western's Long Lost Brother.

Tonight we took inventory of our pantry and found that we had about six cans of stewed, diced, or whole tomatoes, everyone different. Some how that inspired Rebekah to propose Italian Chili. We both think the best thing that Johnny Carino's has to offer is their Italian Chili soup so we were already sold on the idea. The recipe called for Italian sausage (out of it's casing), onions, and garlic (we added red peppers too) all sauteed until they were done. Next we added some leftover pasta sauce (roasted garlic) which Rebekah thought wasn't sweet enough so we added some sugar. While that warmed we added pasta (Fusilli Bucati, it would be better with something shorter though) and some beef broth. When the pasta was just about done we added zucchini (which is listed under "squash zucchini" in the Albertson's self checkout). Oh I almost forgot, basil and cayenne pepper. The results were exquisitely delicious!

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.