Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bacon, bechamel, cheese, Chevre, cooking, food, foodie, pasta, radiatorre, Romano, sun-dried tomatoes on September 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The base is my staple pasta, radiatorre. The sauce started with a bechamel (made with some more of my real buttermilk). To that, I added some romano cheese and garlic. I topped the finished product with my trinity (bacon bits, chevre and sun-dried tomatoes).
I really need to find some new tricks, because someday these are probably going to get old. But not yet, it was fantastic!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cheddar, cheese, cooking, food, foodie, grilled cheese, mac'n'cheese, macaroni, radiatorre, sun-dried tomatoes on August 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The mac’n’cheese was deconstructed because I didn’t have enough clean pans to make normal mac’n’cheese. I cooked the radiatorre pasta in my only clean pot. When it was finished I transferred it to a bowl, then added some shredded sharp cheddar (I knew from past experience to use less than for regular mac’n’cheese), diced sun-dried tomatoes, bacon bits and some of the olive oil from the tomatoes. The grilled cheese was made with some of the same cheese.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bacon, cheese, Chevre, cooking, food, foodie, Manchego, ravioli, sun-dried tomatoes on May 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Dinner tonight was Manchego ravioli. I made the ravioli with 3 month aged Manchego cheese. I topped it with sun-dried tomatoes, bacon, Chevre and extra-virgin olive oil. It tasted great, but the pasta was a little tough. I definitely need more practice, and probably a machine to roll out the pasta.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cheddar, cheese, cooking, food, foodie, ravioli, sun-dried tomatoes on March 19, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Well, I made ravioli again. This time I stuffed them with extra-sharp cheddar and sun-dried tomato. The taste was really good, but I need to work on getting the dough thinner. I also need to use a contrasting sauce. The cheese sauce that I used was too similar to the ravioli themselves. And…large ravioli should be served on a plate, not in a bowl. You have to cut them and a bowl just doesn’t work for that.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beef tenderloin, Bordeaux, butter, Chateau Bellefont-Belcier, Chevre, cooking, food, foodie, mashed potatoes, Saint-Émilion, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, vinaigrette, wine on March 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »
I had originally planned this for Friday, but that just didn’t happen. I picked up the spinach on Saturday and the beef tenderloin on Sunday.
As soon as I got home from work, I turned the oven on to preheat (because it seems to take forever) and put my cast iron skillet inside to heat as well. I got the beef out of the fridge and starting working on the spinach salad. I mixed up a variant of my usual mashed potatoes, this time using butter in place of olive oil and eliminating the garlic. The salad was topped with Chevre and sliced sun-dried tomatoes. I used some of the oil olive from the sun-dried tomatoes (which are so much better than the dried kind) to make the vinaigrette.
I lightly oil the tenderloin and hit it with salt and pepper. When the oven was hot, I took out the cast iron and put it on my hottest burner. I seared the beef on both sides (flipping it as soon as it released) and put it in the oven to finish. I took it out when my thermometer read 125deg F. I transferred it to a warm plate and the temp was at 135 before I got it tented with foil. In five minutes, it was almost at 155. I’m not sure what to make of that. It was a little more done than I wanted, but it was more red than than it looks like in the pic. I served it with a 2004 Chateau Bellefont-Belcier Saint-Emilion Grand Cru (a right-bank Bordeaux), which just exquisite.
(Unfortunately, it will be water and ramen noodles for the rest of the month, but sometimes you just have to live!)
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cooking, crimini, food, foodie, sun-dried tomatoes, tomato, tortellini, wine on February 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »
I used the last of a bottle of white wine (of unknown age) to simmer some crimini mushrooms. I added some sun-dried tomato paste, basil and salt. When the timer went off for the tortellini, I turned off the heat under the mushrooms, added sliced grape tomatoes and covered. It looked pretty good, but was really sour (I think the wine had turned).
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bacon, cheese, Chevre, cooking, food, foodie, Parmigiano-Reggiano, sun-dried tomatoes on June 10, 2009| Leave a Comment »
I didn’t get home from work until late, so I had to quickly throw together dinner. Here’s what I came up with.
I started with a can of diced tomatoes. I heated it until most of the liquid was reduced, then added a mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and capers, finally seasoning it with some Italian herbs. Before throwing it under the broiler, I added some Rotini and put bacon, Romano, Parmigiano-Regiano, Chevre and Panko on top. After broiling, I added some fresh basil.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged butter, cheese, cooking, cream, food, foodie, garlic, mashed potatoes, olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes on May 11, 2009| 1 Comment »
Let me start by saying that I’m a fan of instant mashed potatoes. As I see it, there are two differences between instand and from-scratch mashed potatoes:
For those of you still reading, we will continue.
Garlic & Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes
Combine flakes, water and milk in a 4 cup glass bowl. The chicken bouillon is used in place of salt, so add to-taste. Mix thoroughly, cover with plastic wrap and microwave for 2 minutes (plus or minus, depending on your microwave). Remove plastic and add garlic. Add olive oil and stir until reaching desired consistency.
This is just the basic recipe. You can add additional spices (like rosemary) or cheese (cheddar, pepperjack, goat cheese, etc) after cooking, or sun-dried tomatoes (before cooking).
Feel free to eliminate the garlic and/or replace the olive oil with butter and/or cream.
Ravings of an Amateur Foodie 