April 9: Pasta with Three Tomato Sauce

The night before the Shamrock Shuffle, we decided to carbo load a little. We made a beet salad (not pictured) and spaghetti with tomato sauce. I found this recipe in Food & Wine a while ago (I think this is it), and basically work off that to create something similar but slightly different each time.

In the food processor are:

• about 3 plum tomatoes, chopped roughly
• 1 teaspoon/2 cloves minced garlic
• a tablespoon or so of basil herb blend (which is awesome to have around because you don't have to worry about basil going bad quickly, which happens to me a lot)
• 2 tablespoons of sun-dried tomato paste (which was a mistake -- see below)

I love how bright and fresh everything looks.

So the "three tomato" items are: fresh tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes and tomato paste. I accidentally bought sun-dried tomato paste, so rather than inlcude both the sun-dried tomato paste and the actual sun-dried tomatoes, I just did the paste. We thought it tasted similar to using both 2 tablesppons of regular tomato paste and 4 sun-dried tomatoes, which is what we typically do.

You blend those ingredients together for about 30 seconds, then add in extra virgin olive oil to smooth it out into a thinner tomato sauce. I usually add some oil, blend, add a little more, blend again, and taste to make sure it doesn't need more of any ingredient.

We cooked up our pasta, adding the pasta and sauce back into the large pot to mix everything up. We top it with some freshly grated parmesan cheese, and we're ready to go.

Yum. I kind of want to cook this again right now!

It's pretty simple to make, and is very fresh-tasting. It is our go-to pasta recipe, mainly because we have these ingredients lying around more often than not -- especially with the basil herb blend discovery.

April 8: Zucchini Enchiladas

Last Friday, we decided to make some zucchini enchiladas, inspired by this recipe. We didn't have all the ingredients, and I used a canned enchilada sauce, but all in all -- I think it turned out okay.

I started by grating the zucchini. Photos taken by Paul -- let me tell you, that makes documenting the cooking process a lot easier!!

Trying not to grate my hand.

I tossed in about one small diced white onion and 1/2 teaspoon/a clove of minced garlic.

The metal thing in the photo is the "bash & chop." It may have been one of the best purchases we made. Seriously. It's instrumental in moving chopped stuff either into bowls or pans.

To that, I added the two grated zucchini (zucchinis? I don't know). We had some canned black beans leftover from a meal earlier in the week, so I tossed those in as well.

After taking off the heat, we added in about 1/2 cup of grated sharp cheddar cheese. We used some larger tortilla wraps to make the enchiladas.

Midway through the process. Thank you, photographer Paul.

Paul is so proud that I am using some of our wedding gifts. I think this green casserole dish has been collecting dust since October.

I poured the canned enchilada sauce on top, and added some more grated cheese. 

We baked it in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. 

April 14: Chicken Curry with Rice

In preparation for our Indian cooking lesson on Sunday, I thought I'd try to make a chicken curry myself. I've made similar things in the past, but this was my first "go" at doing it without a recipe. 

Ingredients: chicken, frozen peas, fresh ginger, water chestnuts, coconut milk, mild curry paste and carrots.

First, some reinforcements. I am not a good cook while hungry.

Okay, back at it. Decided to add some cubed potatoes and some minced garlic (not pictured).

I got the ginger all ready to go.

I'll get the lighting right eventually.

Cubed chicken in the pan with some olive oil, minced garlic and the aforementioned ginger.

I mixed in four tablespoons of the curry paste. Last time I made a curry, i thought it was a little weak, so I thought by adding the paste directly to the chicken, it would keep it spicy.

This is also the point when I realized that Paul had a curry at dinner the night before. Oops.

I added in the cubed potatoes and poured in about half the can of coconut milk. I used a whole can before, which I also think contributed to the mildness.

Lastly, added carrots, water chestnuts, and half a bag of frozen peas. I did some quick minute rice in the microwave, while this simmered on the stove. I originally had the heat up high to cook the cubed potatoes, but Paul reminded me that high heat would cook off the sauce.

This is usually the point in a recipe where Paul gets home from work and tells me what I did wrong. You know, when it's almost done.

Final product! Chicken curry on some white rice. 

The spiciness was right on for me. Paul ended up adding some Sriracha to kick it up even more, but he is a crazy person. The larger cubed potatoes were a little crunchy (which frankly, I didn't hate), but if I was going to include them again - I'd probably do a quick boil for them in water so they are a little softer before adding them to the mix.

Sunday Night: Indian Food Cooking Lesson

So Paul and I are taking an Indian food cooking class on Sunday night with some of his coworkers. I was just told that the tentative menu includes:

• shrimp tikkas (grilled shrimp marinated with spices)
• chicken curry
• began ka bharta (boiled eggplant with tomatoes and ginger)
• chili paneer (bell peppers and Indian cottage cheese with ginger)
• rice 
• mixed vegetable salad

I am SUPER excited. I'm going to try making my own version of a chicken curry tonight for dinner, so we'll see how the two compare. Photos and updates posted later!

Beet salad and homemade pappardelle with eggplant ragu and ricotta

For a Sunday dinner, we decided to make our own homemade pappardelle to include as part of an eggplant ragu recipe. Paul got to work making the pasta.

Check out our mixer in "pear." When we got it, Paul's aunts were like, "Pear is the new 'avocado' in appliances!" Is that a 70's reference? I just liked it in green.

There was pasta EVERYWHERE. Paul made me clear my clothes off the
drying rack so we could hang pasta. I am not kidding. 

I started on the eggplant ragu. In the pan are cubed eggplant, red pepper slices, onion, garlic, chili flakes, salt and red wine. I would tone down the salt used in this recipe -- they ask for 1 1/2 teaspoons of Kosher salt, which we used. I am wondering if I put it in at the wrong time because I thought the eggplant became way too salty. I think eggplant soaks up everything, so it may have been better to mix it in differently! 

 

The photos that go along with the recipe look a lot better than mine!

The one cup of red wine did this. It seems extra colorful in comparison with the recipe photos.

I absolutely love beets, and am big into including them in salads. We cook ours by roasting them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes. I wash them, place them on a small sheet of foil, add a little olive oil, pepper and salt -- and they are good to go! Once they are roasted, they are so easy to peel. Messy, but easy.

Beets are always good for faking a murder scene. Just kidding.

We added the sliced roasted beets to a green salad mix, topped it with some crumbled goat cheese, pepitas, some white wine vinegar and olive oil. 

Yay. Pepitas!

Here is the final result! After the pasta is cooked, you mix in the eggplant ragu so it coats the pasta a little. I forgot to get an orange, so we are missing the "orange zest" piece of the recipe, but the pappardelle is topped with ricotta cheese, a little Parmesan and some chopped parsley.
 

We made the meal complete with a glass of red wine (much of which was drank during the eggplant ragu-ing, and pappardelle-rolling portion of the evening).

We'll do better with the lighting next time.

After adding the ricotta, Parmesan and parsley, the salt was toned down, but I'd still reduce the amount earlier in the recipe. I would also not suggest starting to make your own pasta at 7 p.m. to eat that night. We ended up only making about half the dough into pappardelle, and saved the rest to roll into spaghetti another night that week.

Welcome to Bissler Bites

Look we're having fun! And eating!

Main reason for blogging: I like food. My husband likes food. We like cooking food together and talking about food.

Secondary reason for blogging: We decided to get a weekly organic produce delivery last month. We are getting crazy new vegetables and fruits, and as a result are trying tons of new recipes and really trying to expand our normal meal plan (which is typically: tacos, pasta, some sort of fish, another kind of pasta, takeout falafel, repeat). 

Since a typical Friday night includes wine-drinking and 45 minutes of recipe-searching and meal planning, we thought maybe someone else would benefit from keeping track of it all. We'll hopefully keep you entertained, either with some recipes gone wrong or kitchen meltdowns (see: epic gnocchi meltdown of 2010. Story forthcoming.). And hopefully inspiration from looking at yummy food photos. Enjoy!

Christine & Paul