Hello Lovely

My mother ruined me for life by teaching me how to cook on a gas range. 4 years of college and 2 years of an apartment with wobbly electric ovens have been holding me back.

Meet my new darling. She came to live with us on Saturday and has performed every task I've asked of her so far. I took this picture on Tuesday night when I sighed with pleasure realizing I was using all four burners making tilapia and risotto. My husband took one look at it, shook his head, and said "You're spoiled!"

I must learn more photography skills. I tried without the flash and it didn't look so good. But tilapia looks awfully unappetizing in the flash glare. Perhaps I should not take my pictures once the sun has gone to bed.

And of course I had to take a picture of the beautiful blue flames, to prove she's the real deal!

Shrimp and Bacon Vodka Pasta

It's much too late for me to come up with a clever name for this. It started out with James wanting Penne a la Betsy, but I have vodka I really needed to use, so I decided to make a Vodka sauce, which I have never even tasted. So I researched and found that all good vodka sauces start with pancetta. Being lazy and cheap, I decided to use bacon and make it up as I went along.

What resulted was a slightly sweet, slightly smokey, very flavorful vodka sauce that James liked even better than Penne a la Betsy (but isn't everything better in the variation with bacon??)

Shrimp and Bacon Vodka Pasta

1/2 lb pasta (we used spaghetti. use whatever you have)
6-8 slices of bacon (we used turkey bacon) cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1 lb raw shrimp, peeled without tail

1 pinch smoked paprika

1 dash cayenne pepper

1 dash salt
1/3 cup vodka
1/2 cup half and half
1 1/2 cups prepared tomato sauce

1. Boil pasta per directions

2. Fry bacon over medium heat in a skillet until it starts to get crispy, but not completely finished.

3. In the pan with the bacon, stir in shrimp, paprika, pepper, and salt. Cook shrimp until opaque and pink. Remove shrimp (but not the bacon!) from the pan.

4. Add vodka to bacon, bring to a boil, and let it simmer until reduced by half.

5. Add half and half and tomato sauce. I used a storebought (GASP!) spaghetti sauce. If you're using the pure plain stuff, add some seasonings here.

6. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes.

7. Combine shrimp, pasta, and sauce, and serve!

Fruit Pizza

I've had fruit pizza several times and I've always hated it. I think the version I've always had was the sugar cookie crust with cream cheese "sauce" and then the fruit on top. Something about how dense it was always turned me off.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived at a friend's house recently, tried her fruit pizza and wanted seconds and thirds! It was a little lighter, with a thin crispy crust, so good! Here's the one I made, but I didn't alter her recipe at all except for the fruit, so full credit goes to my friend Tenneal.

Fruit Pizza

Recipe from Tenneal Reus

1 refrigerated ready to use pie crust

1 tsp cinnamon sugar (3/4 tsp sugar and 1/4 tsp cinnamon)

1 1/4 cups of half and half

1 pkg Jello Vanilla Instant Pudding and Pie 4oz

1 c thawed cool whip (they make it in a spray can now! That's what I used!)

2+ cups of fresh fruit, sliced

Preheat oven to 450, unroll pie crust and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and bake for 8 to 10 min, cool completely
Pour half and half into medium bowl and dry pudding mix, beat until well blended. Gently stir in whip cream.
Spread pudding mixture over top of pie and top with fruit, refrigerate until use
Enjoy!

Penne a la Betsy

Happy Mother's Day!

We had both families over yesterday to celebrate mother's day and I used it as an excuse to make something wonderful and fattening that I've been wanting to try.

If you haven't been to Pioneer Woman's cooking blog, you're missing out. Check it out. Then buy a case of butter at Sams, because your adventure is about to begin! For Mother's Day dinner I made her famous "Penne a la Betsy," a tomato cream sauce with shrimp and penne pasta. It was a huge hit. I might try it again at a later date with half and half or something, but most likely I'll just save it for very special occasions.

This picture is from PW's site, mine got eaten too quickly and I forgot to take pictures!

Penne a la Betsy

Full credit for the recipe and the photo go to Pioneer Woman

Since there isn't a printable recipe on PW's site for this, I copied the instructions from Dinner and Dessert. Thanks!

Ingredients:

¾ pound penne pasta

3 tablespoons butter, divided

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 pound large shrimp

1 small white onion, finely chopped (I used shallot)

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ cup white wine1 (8-ounce) can plain tomato sauce

1 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped

basil leaves, to taste, chiffonaded

salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

Boil water and cook pasta according to package directions.

Meanwhile, while water heats and pasta cooks, make the sauce. Melt 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet. Add the shrimp and cook for a few minutes, until opaque. Remove to a plate to let cool. Heat 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons olive oil in the skillet. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally.

While the onion and garlic are cooking, chop the shrimp into small, bite-sized pieces.

Add the wine (or chicken broth) to the pan and allow to reduce for a few minutes.

Stir in tomato sauce. Add the heavy cream and stir well to combine. Add shrimp back to the skillet and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add the parsley and basil and mix well.

Drain pasta and return to pot. Add the sauce to the pot and stir well to combine. Serve.

Million Dollar Peanut Butter Cookies

Pillsbury holds a bake-off every year and gives away $1 million for a great new recipe using their products. This year's recipe was from Carolyn Gurtz in MD for her Double-Delight Peanut Butter Cookies. The recipe looked so simple, I was kind of blown away that she won. Until I made the cookies.

These were so great! It's essentially a peanut butter cookie wrapped around a smooth peanut butter filling, and nothing could make my peanut-butter-lovin' husband happier. I've been on a cookie binge since I got my baking stone, and my not-so-chocolate-lovin' husband has given mediocre reviews to my last several batches of chocolate, chocolate chip, and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. These were a HUGE hit.

The only changes I made were to omit the peanuts on the outside, and I used a break-and-bake pillsbury cookie dough with reese's pieces instead of the roll of dough.

Million Dollar Peanut Butter Cookies

Adapted from Carolyn Gurt's $1,000,000 prize-winning Double-Delight Peanut Butter Cookies

INGREDIENTS
1/4 cup Granulated Sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup Creamy Peanut Butter
1/2 cup Confectioners Powdered Sugar
1 package Pillsbury® Ready To Bake® refrigerated peanut butter cookies with Reese's mini pieces, well chilled (24 cookies per package)

DIRECTIONS
1. Heat oven to 375°F. In small bowl, mix granulated sugar and cinnamon; set aside.
2. In another small bowl, stir peanut butter and powdered sugar until completely blended. Shape mixture into 24 (1-inch) balls.
3. Shape 1 cookie dough piece around 1 peanut butter ball, covering completely. Repeat with remaining dough and balls.
4. Roll each covered ball in cinnamon sugar mixture. On ungreased large cookie sheets, place balls 2 inches apart. Flatten each ball to 1/2-inch thickness with bottom of drinking glass or measuring cup.
5. Bake 7 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets to cooling rack. Store tightly covered.

Balcony Herb Garden

My newest adventure, or my "babies" as James has taken to calling them are my herb plants on the balcony. I find myself wanting fresh basil ALL the time, especially as we get into summer, and I got two full plants for the same price as a small semi-fresh package from the grocery store!

The lady at the nursery where I got the seedlings had only one piece of advice "FULL sun, all the time!" So I installed this window box (from walmart) over the side of the balcony. It's really my first experience growing anything, so we'll see how long I can keep them alive! I'm watering every day. I read that you can skip a day with basil, but they instantly got wilty and sad the day I tried skipping.

So far I've got basil:

Rosemary:

Cilantro:

and some thyme that I didn't a great picture of.

Pancetta Frittata

I tested the following recipe out last night because I want to make it for easter brunch. James's comment "That's one of the best flavored things you've made in a long time!" Sorry, pictures to come after I make it for Easter!

Pancetta Frittata
by me! :)

1 1/2 cups of egg beaters (or 6 eggs lightly beaten)
2 oz of deli counter pancetta, sliced thick, diced fairly small
2 oz of crumbled feta cheese
2 oz shredded cheddar cheese (I used the 2% milk sharp cheddar)
1-2 Tbs chopped fresh basil
Black pepper
8 inch oven/broiler safe skillet

In a dry 8 inch skillet, crisp up the pancetta over medium heat. It has plenty of its own fat so I didn't add any oil. The pancetta from the deli is really already cooked, so you're just browning it up and drawing out some of that salty ham goodness. This would be a good time to add some onion too, but then James wouldn't have eaten it.

Turn heat to medium low and pour all of the eggs over the pancetta. Sprinkle with the feta cheese and black pepper to taste. (I didn't need salt because the feta is so salty).

Turn on your broiler.

Let it cook on the stove for a minute or two, and when the bottom is starting to set, lift all the edges with a spatula so the uncooked egg floods underneath. Do that a couple of times until the egg is mostly set, but still fairly wet.

Sprinkle cheddar cheese and basil on top, move to oven 5 or 6 inches from the broil. Broil for 3 or 4 minutes until cheese starts to brown and everything sets.

The frittata should slide out easily onto a cutting board so you can cut it with a pizza cutter. For easter, I plan to do 12 eggs with a large shallow saute pan.

Nutrition facts for 1/4 of the frittata (not a huge serving, but we ate it with veggies, etc)

Nutrition Facts
4 Servings
Amount Per Serving
Calories 193.1
Total Fat 12.1 g
Saturated Fat 5.7 g
Cholesterol 27.2 mg
Sodium 595.8 mg
Potassium 321.1 mg
Total Carbohydrate 0.9 g
Dietary Fiber 0.1 g
Sugars 0.6 g
Protein 17.8 g