Chomp & Gulp

Supplies: 2 slices hard salami, oil to coat frying pan, 1 bag fresh spinach, 2 cups shrimp de-tailed, 1/2 box large shell pasta, gorgonzola cheese, optional lemon juice & minced garlic.

Dave and I saw a shell pasta salad with spinach in a local market and instead of buying some decided we could make a much better version ourselves.

While waiting for the water to boil for the pasta, heat up oil in a large frying pan. Once hot add sliced or diced salami and a bit of garlic. This gets the flavor of the salami into the oil.

If the shrimp is frozen you should defrost it during this time by running it under warm water. Then take the tails off.

Cook the pasta and don’t burn the salami.

Add the bag of spinach, shrimp and juice of half a lemon to the frying pan and cover when the pasta is about 4 minutes from being cooked.

Drain the pasta and add a small handful of gorgonzola cheese. Toss with the wilted spinach, shrimp and salami.

The shrimp seem to be hiding in this pic but I swear they’re in there.

If you wanna make a veg version of this I think it’d be good with halved cherry or grape tomatoes!

Abby and I were planning a fancy Sunday dinner last weekend. Here’s a hint!

More…

The very best way to eat slightly old challah is to have N come to your house and use it to make french toast. She dips it in egg with a little vanilla and cooks it in a cast-iron skillet until it’s golden brown and delicious.  The secret to delicious challah french toast is the toppings you provide. A few suggestions:  Syrup- just like pancakes, a high quality syrup makes all the difference. Remember that Grade B syrup is actually better than Grade A syrup if you like a dark, hearty flavor. Grade A is generally lighter in both color and flavor. For this morning’s creation we included cottage cheese as a topping option since it paired so well with the central topping: cranberry sauce made with brandy. It’s an N family recipe with raw or frozen cranberries cooked with brandy, sugar, and citrus zest.  If we cook a pound of cranberries we can’t eat them all at one meal. They keep in the freezer very well, although they don’t freeze solid. We heated them before adding on the french toast.  The other suggested topping is fresh fruit. Usually I like banana slices with walnuts on french toast. The week we made this challah there was a sale on mangoes at the grocery store and the co-op had some good looking kiwis available. They were cut the night before and sprinkled with lime juice before they were covered and refrigerated.     A delicious combination with a little bit of powdered sugar on top: 

N and I made homemade pizza a few weeks ago. The dough recipe was from the cookbook “The Enchanted Broccoli Forest” so I won’t reproduce it here. I will tell you that the recipe is dough for two pizzas and I used it all for one to get a delicious, thick crust. I upped the baking time about half an hour and it all worked out. The crust was great- done in the middle and thick as breadsticks on the outer rim. I used Muir Glen canned crushed tomatoes, which are my favorite canned tomatoes. We’re able to order cases of them from the Pocatello co-op for a very reasonable price. Cheese was mozzarella simply sliced, not shredded. You can buy better quality mozzarella whole and shred it yourself or save time and just slice it thinly. After it’s been cooked: 

Delicious wine drunk during a reflective conversation at sunset in Dead Horse Point State Park the night before starting the White Rim Trail in Moab, Utah. An evening of beautiful moments.

This is the sauce i cooked the chicken in. First I defrosted the chicken, cut it into strips and cooked it in a pot with this sauce. After the chicken got less raw i threw in some frozen corn. I added about a cup of water to the pot.

I made half of cup of rice in the micro then threw it all together in the pot until the excess water steamed out.

this is it cooking.. looks soupy for awhile but the water helped spread around the sauce so I didn’t have to use as much. I had some hot peppers from dad’s garden still so i chopped up some of those and threw ‘em in too for a little extra kick.

mmmmm so tasty. I added salt and pepper and ate it all. it was a really good meal and didn’t take more than 20 minutes to make.
This is andrea and her boyfriend, Dave.

Andrea made some spanish rice.

can of chicken and rice soup condensed, extra rice and water, pork chops.

brown the chops first, add flour and garlic and i added some par cheese then add the rice and soup.. simmer for an hour

This is changing directions, Little Sis is going to join in and we are going to do a bit of food blogging for cooking-lazy kids on a budget. I’m just starting out in life, and Wanna is just moving in to a house for college. This means that we are in a not-so-unique position of cooking for ourselves with not much time to be fancy and a desire to be somewhat healthy. Hopefully, by documenting some of our favorite recipes (or some of our flops), we’ll cook in greater diversity and healthier than otherwise.

I am going to try and post pictures of what AB and I cook, along with recipes as much as possible. To give a vague idea of budget constraints, we’re living in Maryland (way more expensive than the Midwest we’re used to), allocating about $85/week to groceries for 2 people. It was more expensive at the beginning, but as we stocked up on some of the staples, each week has gotten a little better.

I also hope this gives a little bit of insight into what my little sis is doing at college, since I can’t check up on her this year.