Recipe Rally: Pasta

Summer is here, and I bet mommies get even less time to prepare dinner with all summer activity. I have learned to rely on pasta for those must-have-dinner-now moments when kids are starving.

I saw this recipe on Everyday Food program on PBS and it's great. Fancy enough for the good dinner plates, but won't cost you any time at all. This is great served with any recipe from our desserts and/or appetizer themes a few weeks ago.

Spaghetti Carbonara
Serves 4 Prep time: 30 minutes Total time: 30 minutes

A carbonara sauce is typically made with bacon, eggs, and cheese. We've added a little half-and-half for a silky texture.

Set a large pot of water to boil (for pasta). In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until crisp, 8 to 12 minutes; transfer to a paper-towel-lined plate.

Salt boiling water generously; add pasta and cook until al dente, according to package instructions.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together eggs, Parmesan, and half-and-half. Set aside.

Drain pasta, leaving some water clinging to it. Working quickly, add hot pasta to egg mixture. Add bacon; season with salt and pepper, and toss all to combine (heat from pasta will cook eggs). Serve immediately, sprinkled with additional Parmesan cheese.

Go here to link your pasta recipe at Crazy Hip Blog Mamas.

Recipe Rally! Desserts

Have you ever had days where you only get through dinner to reach desserts? I do. In fact, when we go out for lunch or dinner at someone's house, I always look forward to dessert because they're almost always fancy. When you're an Orthodox Jew at some point, you know what I mean about really nice dinner on Shabbos.

Here's my next favorite recipe for dessert when I am really lazy, as I am feeling lately. This is one of best "Just beat, melt, stir, and refrigerate...these bars are that simple."

No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

Level: Easy

Estimated Times:
Preparation - 15 min Cooling Time - 1 hrs refrigerating Yields - 60 bars (5 dozen)

Ingredients:
2 cups peanut butter, divided
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks)
butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
3 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Mini Morsels,divided

Directions:
GREASE 13 x 9-inch baking pan.

BEAT 1 1/4 cups peanut butter and butter in large mixer bowl until creamy. Gradually beat in 1 cup powdered sugar. With hands or wooden spoon, work in remaining powdered sugar, graham cracker crumbs and 1/2 cup morsels. Press evenly into prepared baking pan. Smooth top with spatula.

MELT remaining peanut butter and remaining morsels in medium, heavy-duty saucepan over lowest possible heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. Spread over graham cracker crust in pan. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or until chocolate is firm; cut into bars and store in refrigerator.

Check out other entries at CHBM.

Recipe Rally! Chicken

Welcome to the second week of Recipe Rally! Thank you so much for participating.

Today's theme is chicken! Have you noticed that everything is supposed to taste like chicken? I probably shouldn't mention this, but wasn't frog and snake supposed to taste like chicken too? I don't really know because I haven't tried it. Why should I when I can just eat the chicken?

So, without further ado, let us bring out our chicken recipe. Be is easy and fast, or fancy and slow, let's get creative with chicken!

Duck Sauce Chicken (perfect for chicken thighs)
2-3 lbs chicken thighs (skinless or not)
Baking pan
1 16 oz jar Duck sauce (mild or spicy)
Seasoned salt to taste

Turn oven on at 375F or 190C. Arrange chicken in a baking pan, disposable aluminum foil is perfect, unless you're avoiding aluminum because of the Alzheimer scare. I am not sure what the latest verdict is, but last time I checked, it was inconclusive. Pour duck sauce over chicken until fully covered. Sprinkle with seasoned salt. Cover and put in over for 40 minutes. Bake uncovered for another 15 minutes.

This can also be prepared ahead of time and bake the following day. You may also bake potato and other vegetables while chicken is baking, that way you get two things done in one go.

Next weeks theme is: fish

Thursday Thirteen #16 - Minestrone

This week, I'm going to share with you my favorite and easy Minestrone recipe. My kids love it, and I love it. It tastes great, and for least amount of effort. Just the type of dish I like to make lately.

It has 13 ingredients, plus the cheese. If you don't have Northern beans, you can replace it with some white beans, and for kidney beans, another reddish-looking beans.

1. 1 cup thinly sliced celery, about 1 small stalk
2. 1 cup sliced zucchini, about 1 small
3. 1 cup shredded cabbage
4. 1/2 cup chopped onion, about 1 medium
5. 1/2 cup uncooked elbow macaroni, or broken up spaghetti
6. 1 1/4 cup water
7. 2 tsp vegetable bouillon granules
8. 1 tsp Italian seasoning
9. 1 clove garlic, crushed
10. 1 can (28 oz) whole tomatoes, undrained
11. 1 can (15 oz) Great Northern beans, undrained
12. 1 can (8 oz) kidney beans, undrained
13. 1 can (8 oz) whole kernel corn, undrained

and grated Parmesan cheese

Heat all ingredients except cheese to boiling in Dutch oven, breaking up tomatoes; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until macaroni is tender. Serve with cheese.

6 servings
305 cal/serving
3 g fat/serving

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THURSDAY THIRTEEN #9

Thirteen Things about Shoshana I am slowly going back to cooking. So, I dusted up my recipe books, of which I have plenty, deciding what things to cook that's easy and fast. As always with these things, all the food I wanted to make requires extensive shopping. My two-year old son, let's call him "R", disposed of my large collection of spices. I did find some cucumber in my refrigerator though. So, tonight's Thursday Thirteen is going to be about Cucumber salad that's real easy to make. I have no idea who originated this one, but it was in my head, and I have the ingredients for it. I'll have to shop for my recipe-book dishes another time. When I am not going to be carting around sick little baby. For Ingredients: 1. 4 medium cucumbers 2. 1 small onions, optional if you don't like these things 3. 1 small green bell pepper, optional too 4. 1/3 cup vinegar, you can use apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar, but I'm not sure with Balsamic. It's too dark, and I am not sure how it will look. I like my cucumber all nice and natural. 5. 1/3 cup water 6. 1/3 cup sugar, can use Splenda if you're into sugar-free Instructions: 7. Slicer is much easier to use because you can cut the cucumbers and other ingredients into uniform sizes. 8. Peel cucumber, make sure to leave little strips of skin for decorative purposes. 9. Make think slices out of cucumber, onions, and green bell pepper, with a slicer if you have it, or with a knife. 10. Layer cucumber, onions and bell pepper in a casserole dish 11. Mix vinegar, water, and sugar. 12. Pour over cucumber layers 13. Marinate at least an hour. This tastes better the longer it sits in marinade. I even included a picture for you. :) Enjoy!

Lazy Winter Soup

I haven't been really cooking in a long while. The chefs at Boston Market, Chipotle, McDonalds [chief might be stretching it here], Wendy's and the likes have been really busy making food for me.

My baby is now eight months old. He's still having a fever, but now I know that he's caught the winter virus (not quite flu), and his ear infection is making his temperature higher than a viral infection would indicate. No infection showed on his blood test.

Anyway, back to my soup. It's not because it's ingredients were "winter" related. I only titled it such because right now, it's wintry cold for my part of Texas, and I am feeling lazy, but I need to make a soupy dinner.

Let me see if I can remember the ingredients correctly because I was making it up as I went along, and wasn't keeping a close enough attention.

Engredients:
1/2 pound ground beef, shaped into tiny balls*
2 med. potatoes, diced finely
1 med. onion, diced finely
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can whole kernel corn, drained and rinsed
1 can tomato sauce
3 cups water [aka 24 oz of liquid]
dash of powder garlic
dash of paprika
salt to taste

1. Saute ground beef in a dry hot soup caserole. Swish it all around until it's brown. No need for oil, the ground beef will have enough.

2. Add the onions, swish it all around.

3. Add the potatoes until both are transluscent.

4. Add tomato sauce, beans, corn, and water

5. Boil high for 15 minutes.

6. Simmer in medium flame for 20 minutes.

7. Simmer in low flame for 10 minutes. Turn off fire, and let stand for another 10 until cool enough.

Serve.

I don't know how many servings this is, and I also didn't count calories. Half the quantity was enough to serve my 4 kids. It's actually quite tasty, especially if you're hungry and too lazy to go anywhere or make anything.

Can be eaten by itself, or with rice, or rolls, or other stuff.


*only if you have time because the little balls will unravel, and you're back to ground meat anyway.