Simply Me

pasta noodles (cooked)

1 pound whole raw prawns
Quart of whipping cream
2 tbsp. minced white onion
1 teaspoon crushed garlic
1/2 cup of white wine

Saute onion until soft, deglaze pan with half of wine. Pour cream into pan and simmer for 10 minutes.  Add prawns, rest of the wine, garlic and salt and pepper to taste.  Remove prawns and simmer noodles in sauce for  3 minutes.    Remove noodles and add parmasean cheese to sauce and let sit for 2 minutes, ladle sauce over noodles.

My first real job was working in the same real estate office as my mom, awkward at times, but it had some perks.  Lunch was one of them.  We’d often go to this Mexican restaurant and I ALWAYS ordered the same thing.  A chicken chimichanga.  I’ve never been able to find another to compare, and since that’s the only thing I like from that restaurant and that restaurant is 250 miles away, I had to come up with my own recipe.   The most important thing for me is large amounts of jack cheese.  YUM that’s my favorite part lots of cheese.  Unfortunately there is one hard to find ingredient…GIANT 13 inch flour tortillas.  I get mine from Winco, they also make great salad wraps that I send my husband to work with. (more…)

Most of the time when I’m cooking I try and avoid too many fats, but every once in awhile you have to have something naughty…The first time I made this the hubby went back for seconds.  Everytime he asks me to make he asks for more and more bacon to be added.  I usually end up adding an entire package now and it still isn’t enough…he likes his extra bad for you. 

1 pckg. of elbow noodles
2 cups each of shredded cheddar, fontina & smoked Gouda
8-12 slices of bacon chopped
flour
Milk
Potato chips, thicker is better (I use kettle chips)

Boil noodles until just before the al dente stage.  Fry bacon pieces until crispy and drain, reserving 2 tbsp. of drippings.  Add flour to drippings until it makes a soft paste (roux), do not add so much flour that the paste forms a ball or clumps.  Add 1 cup of milk to your roux and stir until creamy.  Add fontina and gouda and half of the cheddar, stir until melted.  Laddel a little of the sauce into the bottom of the baking dish, mix remaing sauce and noodles together and pour into the baking dish.  Top with the remaing cheddar the bacon bits and crumble the potato chips on top.  Bake at 350 degrees for at least 30 min.  Baking time will vary depending on the dimensions of your baking dish.  Enjoy!

My mother’s family is primarily of Italian descent, and food was a big part of my childhood.  Grandpa ran a restraunt and everyone considered themselves a self employed food critic.  It’s no wonder that as an adult I equate love and caring with food.  Shortly after my husband and I set up our own household I contacted my mother for a family recipe for marinara or meat sauce.  Amazingly to me at the time, my mom told me that I already knew the recipe…add meat to a can of prego, toss some seasonings in, and simmer….WHAT!!!  I suppose that fits into my mom’s frame of mind; She loves Sandra Lee’s semi-hommade mind set.  Let me say my mom’s pasta sauce rocks,  She’s a great cook.  But, that being said, it’s not my favorite approach to cooking.  I think that most dishes can be simply prepared and cooked and deliver great results while still be created from scratch.  I also think that “recipes” should be easy to adapt to different ingredients, portions and servings.  Which usually means that the recipes I create are guidelines rather than hard and fast rules.  Remember in cooking you can usually do whatever you want…it’s in baking that you really need to follow the rules.  I suppose that’s why I LOVE cooking I can break all the rules I want.  I exasperated my mom growing up…she tried to tell me that there was only one way to do something.  She was wrong. 

Ingredients:
6 Italian sausages (removed from the casings)
1 large yellow onion halved and sliced
1/2 cup of red wine
1 package/can of STRAINED tomatoes
1 cup of roasted garlic puree
1/8 cup of parmasean cheese
1 TBSP balsalmic Vinegar
Sea Salt
Fresh Ground Pepper

Directions:
In a stainless steel pot, brown and chop sausage, pieces should be small bite sizes.  When meat is browned add onions and cook until the onions are completely soft and carmalized. Deglaze the pan with wine and add tomatoes and garlic.  Simmer for atleast 30 minutes or as long as you want (longer is usually better with sauces and soups). 10 minutes before ready to serve add vinegar, cheese and season to taste with salt & pepper.  Serve over noodles tossed with olive oil.  Yummmy.

I bought a beautiful piece of wild caught salmon at costco, but I hadn’t gone to the grocery store in awhile so I was short on things to cook it in/with.  I had guests over and needed something to go with ravioli with a red sauce.  I also had some asparagus that I needed to go with the meal.  I started thinking Italian food after opening my fridge I pulled out some of the only ingredients in the fridge, sun dried tomatoes and parmesean cheese.  The following is what I came up with…Quite delicious.

1-2 pounds of Wild Salmon (do not use farmed salmon…ever. please.)
Parmesean Cheese
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil

Season the salmon with salt & pepper.  On one side press parmesean cheese into salmon covering one side.  Heat Oil in a frying pan until sizzling hot and place salmon cheese side down, flip when browned.  Cook until fish is cooked through and garnish with sun dried tomato sauce.

Sun dried tomato sauce

This was one of those recipes that evolved.  I bought a piece of meat on my way home from work, but I didn’t really have anything in my fridge to go with it. The meat lent itself really well to stuffing. I cut an “x” into the middle of the meat and filled it.

2 lbs of beef eye of round
1 cup of chevre
1/3 cup of sun dried tomatoes in oil coarsely chopped
Salt
Pepper
Balsamic vinegar

Slide a knife into the middle of the meat going all the way through, Turn the meat and repeat, creating an “x” in the middle. Mix Chevre with tomatoes and stuff in the meat. Season outside with salt & pepper. Place in a rotisserie or into an oven at 350°. After 10 minutes pour some balsamic vinegar over the top of meat. Repeat once more. Remove meat from oven when you have reached the level of doneness you prefer, test using a meat thermometer. Let the meat rest for 5-10 minutes before carving. Slice meat into 3/4 inch slices.
Medium rare- 130°-135°
Medium- 140°-145°
Medium Well-150°-155°