Chiocciole in a Tomato-Cream Sauce

The Menu: Organic whole wheat Chiocciole in a Tomato-Cream Sauce

Chiocciole (pronounced key-oh-chee-oh-lay) means snail in Italian; look closely at each end of each piece. The pasta almost doubled in size while cooking, and became nice and big. Check out a zillion amazing pasta shapes here: http://www.food-info.net/uk/products/pasta/shapes.htm.

 

The flash did a good job highlighting all the steam boiling off.

The Recipes:
Chiocciole. We used organic whole wheat, so it took about 20 minutes to cook thoroughly. Taste periodically, also testing for texture, to avoid overcooking.
Tomato-Cream Sauce. In a sizeable saucepan, saute a large onion, chopped well and many cloves of fresh garlic in olive oil over medium heat, making sure nothing burns. After 10-15 minutes, add 2 28 oz. cans diced tomatoes, 2 tbsp. dried basil, 1.5 tsp. white sugar, 1/2 tsp. dried oregano, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper. Bring to boil and continue to boil 5 minutes or until most of the liquid evaporates. Remove from heat; stir in 1/2 cup cream. Reduce heat and simmer 5 more minutes. (Adapted from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/tomato-cream-sauce-for-pasta/detail.aspx)

Green Stir-Fry with Quinoa

The Menu: Scallions, Broccoli, Green Pepper, and Chicken Stir-Fry with Quinoa.

The Recipes:
Stir-Fry. Briefly cook cleaned and cut up chicken in hot oil until cooked on the outside. Remove from pan, and add cut and washed scallions, broccoli, and green pepper, and minced garlic. Drizzle with soy sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, etc. Add back chicken and mix well. Add more soy sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, and black pepper to taste. (Be careful with the soy sauce - it will make the food very salty very fast.) 
Quinoa. Follow package directions (Boil 1 cup of rinsed quinoa with 1.25 c water, then simmer 12 minutes).

Farewell Michelle!

The Menu: "Powerhouse" Vegetable-Lentil-Barley Soup and Lemon-Lime-Orange Punch

This is how we test punch:

 

Well miss you, Michelle!

The Recipes:
Punch. Mix approximately equal parts of Sprite and Orange juice; serve over ice.
Vegetable-Lentil-Barley Soup. See post from January 23.

Enchiladas & Cuban Black Beans (Hispanic Food Night)

The Menu: Enchiladas & Cuban Black Beans

Frying tortillas

Covering with sauce and filing

and sprinkling with cheese

 Thanks to Dr. Green for helping with baking soda chemistry magic to get the stains out of the counter.

The Recipes:
Cuban Black Beans. Saute cubed onion and sweet pepper in olive oil for a few minutes with plenty of minced garlic. Add tomato sauce and oregano and cook for 5-10 minutes. (This part is the soffrito.) Add black beans, more garlic powder, oregano, and a few bay leaves to taste, and cook for as long as possible (45 minutes will do but if you can put everything in the crock pot for a couple hours it'll be even better!) Optimally, serve over brown rice.

The beans were SO good we couldn't wait to make them again a few days later. If anyone would like to learn how, don't hesitate to let me know!

Breakfast for Dinner!

The Menu: Banana, Blueberry, Chocolate Chip, Apple Cinnamon, & Banana-Chocolate Chip-Blueberry Pancakes & Fruilt Salad!

The Recipes:
Fruit Salad. Mix washed and cut strawberries, banana, apple (we used red delicious), orange, grapes; drizzle with lemon juice; mix well.
Pancakes. Thanks to Kevin for donating pancake mix! For blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes, simply add to pancake once in greased pan. For banana, mash banana and mix into batter. For apple cinnamon, dice apples (we used granny smiths) and mix into batter with ample cinnamon.

Garlic Black Bean Chicken & Spiral with Homemade Tomato Sauce

The Menu: Garlic Black Bean Chicken & Spiral with Homemade Tomato Sauce

The Recipes:
Pasta & Sauce. See post from January 9th.
Chicken. See post on January 30 (just without vegetables).

Tortilla Pizza

The Menu: Tortilla pizza with broccoli, green pepper, and spinach

The Recipes:
Tortilla pizza. Tortilla pizza is one of the easiest and fastest delicious meals to make. Sprinkle corn meal on cookie sheet to prevent pizza from sticking. Spread tortillas on cookie sheet with some overlap. Spread tomato slices (they should cover the tortillas as no sauce is used), and other toppings (we used green pepper, broccoli, and spinach). Sprinkle on cheese, and liberal amounts of dried basil, oregano, garlic powder, salt and pepper, and drizzle with olive oil. Bake at 450 for approximately 10 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and the tortillas are just beginning to brown.