Peas, Parm, and Prosciutto

Isn't alliteration fun? No? You mean you didn't enjoy grammar in high school? Ugh, as much as I loved writing and English in school, I really hated grammar lessons. They were the worst. Sorry, Mrs. Rafalski.

Back to food. This recipe has it all, folks. Pasta. Cheese. Veggies. Meat. Everything you could possibly want is right here, waiting to be made.

I discovered Pasta with Prosciutto and Peas a few years ago, and it quickly made its way into my regular rotation of dishes. It's easy, quick, and tastes delicious. My one word of warning, which I repeat in my notes at the end of the recipe, is that you really should buy nice prosciutto. Not the crappy packaged kind from the deli. Which is what I stupidly did when I made this the other night (hey, I haven't made it in awhile, give me a break). So excuse the disgusting-looking gray prosciutto in the picture below. But don't worry; despite my meat mishap, I still gobbled down my whole plate. Now that is the sign of a good dish.

Pasta with Prosciutto and Peas

 Serves 4

(Recipe from Everyday Food: Great Food Fast)

Ingredients

Coarse salt and fresh ground pepper

12 ounces fettucine

1 tablespoon butter

1 large shallot, finely chopped (¼ cup)

¼ cup heavy cream

1 package (10 ounces) frozen peas, thawed

8 slices prosciutto (about 4 ounces total), halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise (about 1 cup)

1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

½ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving (optional)

1.       In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the pasta until al dente, according to the package instructions. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water; drain the pasta and return it to the pot.

2.       Meanwhile, make the sauce: In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium-low heat; add the shallot and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the cream, peas, and prosciutto; bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Simmer until the peas are heated through, about 3 to 4 minutes.

3.       Stir in the lemon zest and juice. Pour the sauce over the pasta; add the Parmesan, and season generously with salt and pepper. Add enough of the reserved pasta water to thin the sauce as desired. Serve immediately; top with additional Parmesan, if desired.

·         Prosciutto is so much easier to slice if you freeze it for 20 minutes beforehand.

·         Do not skimp on what kind of prosciutto you buy here. Get the good, more expensive kind from behind the deil counter because you can really taste the difference.

·         If your sauce is ready before the pasta, turn the burner off so too much of the cream doesn’t evaporate.

A Garbage Bag of Lemons

So my parents returned from dinner with their friends with a garbage bag full of lemons. What's a girl to do? Make lemonade, of course.

I have tons of lemonade recipes in my binders. I just love the stuff. Actually, I love anything with lemons (you are going to see a lot of lemon desserts on here). Sadly, I used to think canned lemonade and the pitchers made from frozen tubes in the freezer section were "good". Now I know better. Nothing compares to homemade lemonade.

It's so easy to make, too. Seriously, this might be the easiest recipe I ever post (but don't hold me to that). If you love lemonade as much as I do, go out and request a garbage bag of lemons from your neighbors or friends and make this! Or you could just, you know, get a bunch from the store. Whichever is easier.

Old-Fashioned Lemonade

Yields 2 quarts

 (Recipe from Simple and Delicious magazine)

Ingredients

3 ¾ cups lemon juice, divided

2 to 2 ½ cups sugar

5 cups water, divided

1 tablespoon grated lemon peel

1.       In a large saucepan, combine 1 ½ cups lemon juice, sugar, 1 cup water, and lemon peel. Cook and stir over medium heat until sugar is dissolved, about 4 minutes.

2.       Remove from the heat. Stir in remaining lemon juice and water. Pour into a pitcher and refrigerate until chilled. Serve over ice.

·         The recipe claimed 6 lemons would yield 3 ¾ cups of lemon juice, but I found that not to be the case. I needed more like 10, but it will depend on the size of your lemons.

·         I used 2 and ¼ cups of sugar and found that to be the perfect amount. If you like your lemonade less sweet and more sour, just use 2 cups. And if you like a big ol’ sugary refreshment, go for the 2 and ½ cups!

Let's Compare Candy to Crack

Actually, I've never tried crack so comparing the two would be useless. But seriously, how many times have you read or heard the phrase "this stuff is like crack"? Well, the recipe I'm about to share with you is like crack. You can't have just one piece (I know, I know, that's the potato chip slogan) and it's so easy to make, you'll never go back to store-bought butterscotch.

Yes, kids, today we're making candy.

I love candy. Homemade candy especially. But the thing is, I'm lazy. Very lazy. So if I want candy, I usually just grab some at Target or Fry's or whatever store I happen to be in that has a candy aisle. Also, the last time I made candy I broke the thermometer so I couldn't have even made candy if I wanted to (which I didn't).

Then I was looking through Sugarbaby, the delightful cookbook devoted to all things sugar by Gesine Bullock-Prado (yes, Sandra Bullock's sister), and her recipe for butterscotch forced me to get up off my duff and buy a new candy thermometer.

This is some serious butterscotch, folks. I'm talking teeth-breaking, your-dentist-will-hate-you, you'll-want-to-eat-it-all-at-once-and-totally-wreck-your-diet butterscotch. I guess you could always give some away to friends and family. If you must. But I doubt you'll want to. Trust me on this.

Teetotaling Butterscotch

Makes approximately 88 pieces

(Recipe from Sugarbaby by Gesine Bullock-Prado)

Ingredients

2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed

½ cup corn syrup

¼ cup unsalted butter

¼ cup water

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1.       In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter, water, salt, cornstarch, and vanilla paste, stirring constantly until the sugar has melted.

2.       Increase the heat to medium-high. When the temperature reaches 280 degrees F, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the baking soda. The mixture will foam.

3.       Pour the mixture onto a parchment-lined sheet pan liberally sprayed with nonstick cooking spray, or transfer to a heatproof pitcher (a large glass measuring cup works well) and carefully pour into the individual compartments of a silicone mold sprayed with nonstick spray. If pouring onto a sheet pan, score (or scotch) lines into the still warm candy so that you can break it apart easily after it has cooled.

4.       Allow to cool completely. Break into small pieces and store in an airtight container for up to 4 weeks.

·         If you don’t have vanilla bean paste on hand and don’t want to run out and buy some, just use vanilla extract.

·         It’ll take about 20 minutes for the candy to reach the right temperature; be patient. Candy-making is all about patience.

·         I swear I scored the candy while it was still warm, but the lines I made completely disappeared by the time it cooled. And then I struggled to break the rock-hard sheet into pieces. Luckily, my brain was working and I decided to see if a rolling pin could help me out. It could and it did. Beautifully. Just make sure your loved ones aren’t around because chances are they’ll find themselves ducking flying pieces of butterscotch.

Eggsellent

I love deviled eggs. LOVE them. If I'm a party and I see a tray of deviled eggs, I head straight for them and eat, eat, eat. So it's a little surprising that I don't make them all that often. The truth is, there's just not really a time when I think, oh, hey, I should totally take this entire carton of eggs and hard-boil them! I'm usually more focused on if there's enough left for me to make waffles or cupcakes.

Until about a month ago when I was flipping through Rachael Ray's newest cookbook, My Year in Meals. My mouth started watering as I read through her recipe for Bull's-Eye Deviled Eggs and I could not get the thought of them out of my head for the rest of the day. So what if I didn't have a party to make these for? I would just make them for myself. For lunch. And I totally did. And it was glorious.

If you like deviled eggs, you are going to love these. But I'm warning you, you won't be able to eat just one. In fact, just double the recipe and save yourself some time.

Bull’s-Eye Deviled Eggs

Makes 12-24

(recipe from Rachael Ray’s My Year in Meals)

Ingredients

1 dozen organic hard-boiled eggs

3 to 4 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 tablespoons grated onion

2 tablespoons pickle relish

1 clove garlic, grated

1 tablespoon mustard, yellow or Dijon

2 to 3 teaspoons hot sauce

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

Salt and pepper

Thinly sliced fresh red chile, such as Fresno, for garnish

1.       Peel eggs, then halve them lengthwise. You should have 24 egg halves.

2.       Remove the yolks and transfer to a bowl. Add the mayo (start with 3 tablespoons), the grated onion (grating directly over the bowl to catch the onion juice), the relish, garlic, mustard, hot sauce, Worcestershire, paprika, salt, and pepper. Mash until very smooth, adding the final tablespoon of mayo if too dry.

3.       Spoon the egg mixture into a resealable bag, snip off a corner of the bag, and squeeze the filling into the egg whites, overstuffing them a little (or you could just do what I did and spoon the mixture directly into the eggs—not as pretty to look at, but they still taste good). Garnish eggs with a bull’s-eye of thinly sliced red chile.

You Need to Make This Vegetarian Bolognese

Hello, everyone! Welcome to my little cooking/baking blog. I love finding new recipes. So much so that when I print one off a blog, or tear one of out a magazine or newspaper, it goes right into a binder. As of now, I have six binders. Yes, six. Four are comprised entirely of baking recipes.

As you can imagine, these recipes pile up. It's time to buckle down and start making some of these suckers. Join me on my journey as I attempt to whittle my ridiculous collection down.

Today I'm sharing a recipe I've made before, many times. It's in my "Approved Recipes" binder and is crinkled and stained and full of love.

It's Cooking Light's Vegetarian Bolognese with Whole-Wheat Penne.

(Sorry for the horrible lighting, but my kitchen does not care about shadows.)

Anyway, I discovered this recipe in the December 2009 issue and this was around the time my sister was a vegetarian. We all loved meat bolognese and figured it couldn't hurt giving the vegetarian version a try. And it didn't hurt at all, because this recipe is yummy. You must make it.

A word of warning, though. If you don't like mushrooms, skip this one. It's heavy on them. While I'm not a huge fan, I can make an exception for this sauce because the flavors meld so beautifully. But you can still taste the fungi (that sounds really gross, doesn't it?)

If you're not afraid of mushrooms and love a good hearty sauce, I highly recommend you make this!

Vegetarian Bolognese with Whole-Wheat Penne

Serves 6

Ingredients

¼ cup dried porcini mushrooms (about ¼ ounce)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 ½ cups finely chopped onion

½ cup finely chopped carrot

½ cup finely chopped celery

1 (8-ounce) package cremini mushrooms, finely chopped

½ cup dry red wine

¼ cup warm water

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 (28-ounce) can organic crushed tomatoes with basil, undrained

1 (2-inch) piece Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese rind

12 ounces uncooked whole-wheat penne

½ cup (2 ounces) shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano

1.       Place dried mushrooms in a spice or coffee grinder and process until finely ground.

2.       Heat oil in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrot, celery, and mushrooms then sauté for 10 minutes. Add wine, simmer 2 minutes or until liquid almost evaporates. Add ¼ cup warm water and next 4 ingredients (through cheese rind) to onion mixture. Stir in ground porcini. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 40 minutes. Keep warm and remove rind then discard it.

3.       Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Place 1 cup of pasta in each of 6 bowls, then top each portion with ¾ cup sauce and 1 tablespoon cheese.