get ready to drool

This term has been extremely pasta-intensive. I tried quite a few types of pastas. I made the risotto style pasta that I read about in the New York Times. I never enjoyed cooking with spaghetti or linguine, I preferred the bite sized pastas. I'm a big fan of David Rocco, and he seems to use more of the noodle-y pastas in his recipes. I've always enjoyed watching his show so I decided that I was going to try to make some of his pasta dishes. "Drunken Spaghetti" intrigued me. So here it is:

It was....absolutely delicious. I made it again for D and it was a good meal to have after a long day of work. He'll miss my cooking.


Kale, zucchini, and chicken risotto. Yum.

"Crab" cakes - made it with red snapper, shrimp, and scallops!

Just a tomato sauce pasta dish. The pasta was like a hollow tube. I forgot to record the name of the pasta.

Fusilli pasta. Fresh out of the pot. You can see the steam!

Yummy avec chicken wings!

Thai Coconut Island in Cambridge....sooooooo good. My pad thai was a little too saucy for my liking. The star of the meal was the dessert. Deep fried bananas and coconut ice cream with actual coconut chunks with a honey and peanut drizzle. YUM.

I made risotto pasta with casarecce pasta, which is from the Napoli region in Italy. Lots of vino in this.

As an "end of term" dinner, John, Lyndon and I went out to Ali Baba's Steak House, now called Encore. I had the chicken of course. It was pretty tasty.

Spaghettini with scallops and arugula in a white wine sauce of course.

It's been really fun experimenting all these pastas. I think I'm ready to expand even more though. Summer is salad season. Maybe I'll create some interesting salads. At the moment, I have a red lentil soup on the stove. Lentils are really high in fibre and iron, and females are always in need of more iron.
Happy eating boys and girls.

nom nom nom

I've made it a goal to cook at home more and create some interesting dishes. I said in December that I was going to try to recreate dishes from the New York Times Minimalist section. I did make one, the pasta with chicken and mushroom, risotto style. However, I didn't have my camera to take a picture of what I made. It was super easy though, and the risotto style cooking resulted in a chewier pasta (I used gemelli, which is like a denser fusilli but smaller than rotini). The pasta was also infused with the flavour of the chicken stock and wine. I should make it again so I can snap a photo.

Recently, I've had a few delicious creations as well. I seared some halibut and topped with a pine nut-walnut butter sauce. John and I made orzo as well. Lucy thought it was RICE! haha. Unfortunately, no picture of that creation.

This here is the fried rice I made with the same pine nut-walnut mix, mixed with Lucy's preserved veggie thing and topped with some garlic buttered kale. It was a delicious meal as we watched Up in the Air.

I'm a bit of a pasta fanatic. This is a pasta primavera of sorts, minus the carrots and bell peppers, so I guess it's not so primavera. I used cavatappi pasta, which I also used when I made my pesto sauce over the summer. Here, I just mixed some mushrooms, zucchini, leftover kale, and tomatoes with a bit of garlic butter and topped off with a bit of Parmesan. Yum. No complaints from Lucy!

I LOVE SOBA. John asked me if I could eat any type of food everyday, what cuisine would it be from. I told him, Japanese food. It's healthy and yummy. What more could a girl want?! This is my lunch. Just some buckwheat soba noodles mixed with edamame and carrots. There's also pieces of chicken in this but I guess they're shy and hiding under the noodles. The broth was simple. Ok I cheated. I had a broth mix that my mom brought for me from Taiwan. I'm trying to think of ways to change this noodle combo up. I used to make soba with miso, but got a little tired of that. I wish I had some ebi tempura to top this off!!

I have more food pictures but I'll save those for another post. There'll be more pasta and a certain red wine chicken that I'm bound to make again sometime this week because Lucy actually called it an "orgasm in her mouth". LMAO.

Bon appetit!

P.S. I'm so happy Meryl Streep was nominated for and Oscar for her role in Julie and Julia. She was SO GOOD in it!

Recipe Revival

(I haven't made this yet...)

With winter fast approaching, I've been putting on the pounds...yes by eating a lot more. I crave more food and eat more too. I just hope winter is the reason I'm eating more. I don't want to be one of those people who eat their feelings.

I realized that my "recipe" label is lacking blog posts. I started it over the summer and posted about 3 or 4 recipes. However, a slow day at work led me to browse through the Wine and Dining section of the New York Times. I browsed through The Minimalist - Summer Express section. There were 101 simple meals ready in 10 minutes or less. Obviously the 10 minutes doesn't include prep time. I'm guessing the meals will take about 20-30 minutes. I really liked some of the recipes posted. I'd like to try to make some of the recipes posted on that list, and then post it on this blog. I need to branch out on the things I make. Sometimes I'm caught in a lull and start making similar things all the time. I'll see if the meals from the NYT are actually quick and simple.

Another recipe I'd like to try is Stracciatella with Spinach. I don't eat enough spinach. Being iron deficient, I need to try to get as much iron from vegetables and nuts since I don't eat beef or lamb, which are meats with the highest iron levels.

I also have a love for risotto. This recipe - Pasta with chicken and mushroom, risotto style - caught my attention. Now I can't wait to attempt this recipe. I love that the recipe calls for gemelli pasta. I bought that pasta over the summer because it was sold at President's Choice supermarkets. I can't seem to find that pasta at Metro. I dislike Metro...overpriced food and not a lot of choice.

Of course, I'll need to try to make my creations as healthy as possible. Or I need to find some time to continue swimming. I am swimming tomorrow...hopefully at 40 minute swim!

Oh and Happy December. I can't believe it's already December. I'll be back in Vancouver soon :)

Pesto Sauce (con pasta)

I was going to post this recipe earlier but it's been a hectic few days. Apartment hunting and packing. All that fun stuff.

I've never made my own pesto sauce before so this was a first for me. I didn't look up any other recipes online so I just eyeballed all the portions. I had a basic understanding of what goes into a pesto sauce, and I decided to make a spinach-basil pesto sauce. I was surprised how successful it turned out and ate pesto 2 days straight. I still have some left in the fridge!

Anyhow, here are the ingredients:

- A bag of baby spinach (approximately 4 cups)
- 7 sprigs of basil, chop off stems
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1/4 cup of toasted pine nuts (I toasted my own)
- 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tsp salt
- 2 tsp pepper
- 1/4 cup grated parmigiano reggiano (optional)

- 5 cremini mushrooms, sliced
- sprinkle of pine nuts
- 100 grams cavatappi pasta

Directions:

Toss the spinach, basil, garlic, and pine nuts into a food processor. Slowly pulse the mixture until the leaves are fine. Then, add in the olive oil, salt and pepper, and the cheese if you'd like, and pulse until well-incorporated. I decided not to add the cheese in my pesto sauce because I wanted to taste the spinach and basil mixture. Cheese tends to overpower certain flavours I find.

While making your sauce, you should cook your pasta. I chose cavatappi pasta (my grocery store has all these cool Italian pastas) because it looked like a giant curly macaroni.
In a pan, add a little oil and add in the sliced mushrooms. Then add in pasta and the pesto sauce. The amounts I made were enough for 3 meals. So just eyeball how much pesto you put in. Let the pesto cook a little bit to release the pungent flavours of the garlic and basil.
Top off your pasta with some toasted pine nuts and pepper.

Pesto was a lot easier than I expected to make. I just never had access to a food processor until my roommate brought her's in to make pie with.

The day after I made the sauce, I made a pesto seafood pasta, and all you do is add some diced onions and seafood to the mix! Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of that meal because it looked too good to wait to eat!

P.S. to toast pine nuts, all you do is throw them into a pan (no oil) and toast them over medium heat until they turn golden brown. Remember to shake them around and keep an eye on them!

Cream Cheese Pasta

This is a great pasta dish to make if you’re short on time and craving something creamy. I first made this one day when I felt like eating pasta but I had no pasta sauce in the cupboards. I am a cream cheese fanatic (I put in my sandwiches and spread it on stoned wheat crackers) so I decided to use my smoked salmon cream cheese in my pasta. Now, I much prefer using cream cheese as opposed to alfredo sauce! I also like to use bite-sized pasta like gemelli (looks like fusilli or rotini) because the sauce gets trapped in the spirals of the pasta. I hope everyone will try it out!

Ingredients

- 5 cremini mushrooms, sliced
- Half a red bell pepper, diced
- 1/3 to ½ an onion of a medium-sized onion, diced
- 1 clove of garlic,minced
- 1/3 of a bunch offresh spinach, roughly chopped
- 3 tablespoons ofsmoked salmon cream cheese
- 100 grams of gemellipasta (enough for one person)
- 2 tablespoons oliveoil
- salt and pepper to taste
- Italian seasoning

Directions

Boil the water for the pasta while you prep the vegetables. I usually don’t like to cook the pasta too early because I prefer to have it immediately transferred to the vegetable mixture. Add in pasta.

Heat the oil in a pan.

Add the onion and sautee for 1 minute. Add the garlic, mushrooms, and red bell pepper and mix around until onion is cooked through. Add the spinach to the mixture and cook until just wilted. Stir in the smoked salmon cream cheese with the mixture. Add in the al dente pasta and coat in the cream cheese sauce and vegetables. Add salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning to taste. Voila, you’re done!



Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes

I made this pasta without meat, but feel free to add shrimp or chicken to this dish!
Also, you can substitute the spinach with another green vegetable such as broccoli or arugula. Just remember, broccoli takes a little longer to cook, so it might be smart to boil it for a minute or two with your pasta.

happy eating :)

Black Pepper Chicken Stirfry

First recipe post! woot!

Ok, I decided to start off with one of my favourite staple meals as a student. It's so quick and simple, and it helps that it's tasty too. I try to mix up the vegetables to keep things interesting. It's also good to use vegetables of different colours. A quick nutrition tip is to try to eat fruits and veggies of different colours to get the different vitamins and minerals. I also always use broccoli in my stirfries. Broccoli is a great source of Vitamin, Iron, and Calcium. It also has cancer-fighting agents!

Here are the ingredients:

1.5 cup chopped broccoli - I usually use about half a head for one meal
1/3 of a small onion, diced
1 clove of garlic
1/2 yellow zucchini. Green is fine too
4 cremini mushrooms, sliced
1 piece of chicken thigh, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons olive oil/vegetable oil
1 tablespoon of black pepper sauce

You can most likely find this sauce at your Asian grocery stores

Method:
- Mix the chicken pieces with the black pepper sauce. Let it sit and marinate while you prepare the other vegetables.
- Heat the oil in the pan. Put in chicken and cook until one side is browned. Turn chicken over and add the onion, garlic, zucchini, and mushrooms.
- an fry for about 2 minutes on medium heat.
- Add in the broccoli, stir it around to incorporate with the other vegetables the black pepper sauce.
- Add a small amount of water, and cover with a lid for 2 minutes, or until broccoli is done to your satisfaction.



I have not added any additional salt or pepper to this dish because the black pepper sauce should be plenty of flavour for the stirfry. If you use more chicken, use more sauce.
Remember, the vegetables and the chicken can be substituted. The addition of red bell pepper is great. I usually use red bell peppers but I didn't have any that day. I've also tried this dish with pork, and it tastes pretty awesome as well!

Enjoy everyone!
Next recipe will be a pasta dish

Rosa's Recipes

Because I have time and I enjoy cooking, I'm going to start writing about some of my cooking experiences. By no means am I a professional chef, but I have been complimented and praised on multiple occasions on my cooking abilities. Most of my cooking is meant for one, quick, healthy and simple. Perfect for the student lifestyle.

A few things that I do not do in the kitchen:

• I used to bake cookies and pastries when I was in high school. But now, I seem to lost interest in baking sweets. Perhaps its due to the small student apartment kitchen and the lack of equipment. I miss the Kitchen Aid mixer at home dearly.

• I don't cook or eat beef at all. I rarely cook pork. This all started when I was in high school and decided that I was going to stop eating red meat. I was afraid of E. coli and the cholesterol. So I stuck to only eating white meat like chicken and turkey and seafood. I know chicken has loads of hormones and seafood may have mercury contamination, but I couldn't give up on meat entirely as I have anemia. As for seafood, I enjoy Japanese food and sashimi to give up on red tuna, clams, and crab.

I started cooking when I was in elementary school. Simple things like frying an egg and boiling water for dumplings or noodles. I've always enjoyed food and cuisine since I was young so I took a foods and nutrition class in Grade 9 and that started my self-taught cooking escapade. I learned how to bake cakes, make jam, whip cream, dice and slice, and learned a lot about nutrition. I used to take recipes home and make dinner for my family with a bit of help from my mother. I recall my favourite things to make were pineapple upside down cake, mac and cheese, and oatmeal cookies (my oatmeal cookies were to die for).

My cooking evolved as I watched shows on the Food Network. My favourite chefs to watch was David Rocco, a Canadian-Italian ex-Armani model who did his show from Florence. I was so in love with his show, and maybe him a little bit. I also enjoyed watching the Surreal Gourmet, Iron Chef Japan, Everyday Italian, and Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals. I also grew to appreciate vegetarian cuisine and Japanese foods.

When I went to France for 2 weeks, I stayed with a local French family who opened up the world of homey French food. I tasted things I've never tasted in my mom's traditional Chinese cooking. Since I lived in Dijon, the home of Dijon mustard, so many dishes were made with Dijon mustard. From salad dressings to rubs for meats. It was also where I tried pate, ratatouille, ate baguettes everyday, and tasted proscuitto-wrapped melon. It was divine. I returned home with a big jar of Dijon mustard, some locally dried herbes de provence, a delicious jam called Coign, which is made from "quince", and just a new appreciation for food.

The next few summers, I cared and cooked for myself as my mother was away in Taiwan and I had summer jobs. I had a lot of hits and misses, but it was from my mistakes where I learned not to add certain spices or sauces to my food.

Now that I'm in my third year of college, I experienced cafeteria food in first year and vowed never to go back to eating that fatty crap that made me gain 7 pounds in first year (thank god I didn't get the freshman 15). I moved out of residence and started cooking for myself as well as with my roommates.

I'm looking forward to posting some of my recipes. The idea was floating around in my head for a few months but I've never got around to recording and taking photos of my meals. I've decided that my first recipe will be a staple in my student diet - Stirfries.

Until then,
Rosa