Pasta in Cream with Butternut Squash and Sausage

Pasta in Cream with Butternut Squash and Sausage
By: Cristina Bancheri

Outta 10: This is a recipe that Andria's mom randomly came up with a few years ago trying to figure out what to do with some leftover butternut squash. It is SO FREAKING GOOD. Since then, we request this all the time and vary the kinds of sausage we throw in it. This is for sure our first 10/10.

Comments and Substitutions: We always change the kind of pasta, the kind of sausage and the type of cream. It's like a mix-and match. This time we used light cream, chorizo sausage and fetuccine (gluten-free).

Recipe:

Butternut squash
4 Sausages (any sausage that you enjoy - Mild italian, spicy italian, chorizo etc.)
2 cups Cream (light or heavy - you can also change amount)
Pasta (your choice of what kind)

1. Peel and chop up a butternut squash into cubes.

2. Remove sausage from casing and brown in a large sauce pan.

3. Once sausage is browned, add squash and cover, cooking for about 15 mins until squash is tender.

4. In the meantime, boil a pot of water and cook pasta according to directions.

Rice pasta

Finished!

5. Once squash is cook add cream and heat through.

6. Mix pasta with sauce and enjoy!

Stay Hungry!!

Shrimp with Chunky Fresh Tomato Salsa

Shrimp with Chunky Fresh Tomato Salsa
Cookbook: Mexican Everyday

Outta 10: This salsa was very fresh, and we will probably use this recipe again for salsa. The shrimp didn't add much except for substance. In retrospect it probably for have been better to serve this as a side, rather than the main dish itself...but we needed something to use up all our tomatoes fromt he garden...so yeah. In the end we give this a 7/10.

Substitutions and Comments: We used green chili paste instead of fresh chilies. We used a mix of yellow tomatoes and red roma's since we were trying to use a bunch of ripe garden tomatoes. We used way more than 2 because the tomatoes weren't that big, but also because we doubled the recipe for the salsa. We opted for the lime juice. We used a hand mixer rather than a food processor. We also seeded all of the tomatoes except for the ones we put in the food processor. We didn't use all the salsa for the shrimp, we left some cold to have as a side dish.


Recipe:

1 garlic clove, peeled
Fresh hot green chiles to taste, stemmed and halved
2 medium-large (about 1 pound total) ripe round tomatoes
1/3 cup (loosely packed) roughly chopped cilantro
1 large green onion, chopped
1 tbsp fresh lime juice (or light flavoured vinegar)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

1.  Drop the garlic and chile pieces one at a time into a running food processor, letting each get finely chopped before adding the next. Turn off the food processor and remove lid.

Our garden tomatoes.

2.  Cut 1 tomato into quarters and add it to the food processor, along witht he cilantro. Pulse 4 to 6 times, until you have a coarse puree. Scrape the mixture into a bowl.

3. Cut the other tomato into 1/4 inch pieces and add to the bowl along with the green onion. Taste and season with lime juice and salt. Salsa is best served fresh.

4. Heat a skillet or wok with olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add in the shrimp and stir fry until half cooked, about 2 minutes.  Douse with the salsa. Stir-fry for another could of minutes, until shrimp are cooked. Sprinkle with extra lime juice and cilantro.

Shrimp and salsa in the skillet

C'est fini!

Stay Hungry :D

Thanksgiving Extravaganza

OK...so we made a TON of food for Thanksgiving. We're gonna put the recipes and comments up only for the stuff we made, not for everything we ate. There are a few pictures of the other food though. It's gonna be short and sweet
OK, so here we go.

Carrots with Maple Dill
All recipes.com
Outta 10: As weird as this recipe sounds...it was quite tasty. We are gonna give it 8/10.

Substitutions and Comments:  Nothing really. We used dill paste isntead of fresh dill cause it lasts longer. Again, strange sounding recipe...but really really tasty. We listened to the suggestions to drain the remaining water before putting in the sauce.

Recipe
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/maple-dill-carrots/Detail.aspx

Carrots with dill

Butternut Squash with Onions and Pecans
Allrecipes.com

Outta 10: Good, but we added some stuff to it to make it good. It was a bit bland without the add-ons. With the additions it gets a 7/10.

Substitutions and Comments:  We added about 2 tbsp of honey to this to give it some flavour. Also we added a healthy amount of crasins. Maybe 1/4-1/3 cup. We toasted the pecans just a tad too much, but they were still ok.

Recipe
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Butternut-Squash-with-Onions-and-Pecans-2/Detail.aspx

Squash with onions and pecans

Cranberry Sauce
Allrecipes.com

Outta 10: Very good. It actually tasted very similar to what you get canned. It didn'thave any extra YUM to make it stand out. We will probably make it again next year, cause its nice to have fresh sauce. It was just slightly runnier than the canned stuff. We give it a 8/10.


Substitutions and Comments:  Like I stated above, it was a slight but runnier, so if you like thicker cranberry sauce either cut down on the OJ or cook it a bit longer. It tasted practically the same as canned Ocean spray sauce otherwize, so we were impressed. We were a bit dissapointed it didn't noticably taste better than canned cranberry sauce, but canned cranberry sauce is kickass, so maybe we are being too picky. It's hard to improve on awesome.

Recipe
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cranberry-Sauce/Detail.aspx

Cranberry sauce

Sweet Potatoes with Orange Pecan Butter
Grilled to Perfection

Outta 10: Really unique and interesting recipe. The potatoes came out really nice and tender, and the pecan butter had a nice complimentary flavour. 8/10
Substitutions and Comments:  Nothing much to say.

Recipe
6 small sweet potatoes
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Orange Pecan Butter
1/2 cup unsalted softened butter
2 tsp liquid honey
Juice and zest of 2 oranges
1/4 cup chopped roasted pecans
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp dried
salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat BBQ to 220.
2. Scrub sweet potatoes and prick with a fork. Rub with oil and season with salt and pepper, wrap in aluminum foil.
3. Put potatoes on grill and cook for 2 hours or until tender.
4. Meanwhile, prepare Orange pecan butter. Combine all ingredients into a small saucepan and cook over low heat for one minute.
5. Remove foil from potatoes, slice lengthways and drizzle butter over potatoes.

Orange Pecan Butter

Sweet Potato with butter.

Yellow Wax and Green Beans in Shallot and Mustard Vinaigrette
The Bride and Grooms Menu Cookbook

Outta 10: Andria really didn't dig these, cause she didn't think they were Thanksgivingsy enough. They were ok. The sauce didn't really stick to the beans very well, and we had to put extra salt. 6.5/10
Substitutions and Comments:  These beans were not bad. They just weren't good either. They just were. If you like beans in vinaigrette, then chances are you will like these. But there is nothing that makes this recipe stand out from a normal bean salad with oil and vinegar and garlic. We couldn't find any yellow beans so we did all green. Also all the food processor instructions seemed kinda stupid and pointless, so we just whisked by hand.

Recipe
1 pound yellow wax beans, trimmed
1 pound green beans, trimmed
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp whole-grain mustard
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 medium shallot, finely minced
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper

1. Bring 6 quarts of salted water to a boil over high head. Add beans and lower heat to medium. cook beans, uncovered, until they are crisp to bit, 4 minutes. Drain beans and shock them with cold water, redrain. Reserve at room temperature.
2. Put lemon juice, vinegar, mustard in food processor and process. With food processor motor running, add oil slowly through feed tube until dressing thickens. Stire in shallot and season with salt and pepper.
   Note: Beans are served best a room temperature and can be made the day before.

Beans with Shallot Vinaigrette

WHEW. Thats all. Too end here are some other pics of other dishes we had.

Mr. Turkey

Cauliflower casserole

Stay Hungry :D

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Saucy Pulled Pork
The Slow Cooker Collection

Outta 10: Let us preface this with the following. We tried another pulled pork recipe a while ago and it was AWESOME, so this had a lot to live up to. This smelled really good while we were preparing this and while it was in the slow cooker. We're not gonna lie, at first we weren't super into this, but it kind grew on us while we were eating. I still don't think its as good as that original recipe we had a while back, but it holds its own. So we have decided to give this a 7/10.

Substitutions and Comments: We don't know if the cut that this recipe suggested was the best one. We think if we were to make this again, we would use a loin roast instead of a shoulder blade roast. We found that this roast was a bit too tough to pull apart. Although by the time we ate it, it was nice and soft. Also a 3 1/2 lb pork roast was WAY too much, so we got a 2.5lb one. This was still way too much, but they didn't come any smaller. We browned the meat and prepared the sauce the night before and then just put it all in the slow cooker in the morning. We also let it simmer for 15 minutes at the end instead of just 4. We used our own homemade sauce which since it is naturally thicker also replaced the tomato paste. We used gluten-free Worcestershire sauce. Also, shame on us, we totally forgot to add the green onions at the end.

Recipe:

3 1/2lb boneless pork shoulder blade roast
1/4 tsp each salt and pepper
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp ground coriander
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 can (14 oz) tomato sauce
2 tbsp each packed brown sugar and cider vinegar
2tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 green onions, sliced.

1. Sprinkle pork with salt and pepper. In dutch oven, heat oil over medium-high heat; brown pork all over. Transfer to slow cooker.

Browned Pork

2. Drain all but 1 tbsp fat from Dutch oven; reduce heat to medium. Fry onions, garlic, chili powder, coriander and bay leaves, stirring often, until onions are softened, about 5 minutes.

3.Add tomato paste; cook, stirring, until darkened, 2 minutes. Add tomato sauce, sugar, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce; bring to boil, scraping up brown bits. Scrape into slow cooker. Cover; cook on low until tender, 8 to 10 hours.

Sauce and pork in slow cooker before cooking

4. Transfer pork to cutting board; cover and keep warm for about 10 minutes. With 2 forks, shred or "pull" pork.

Shredded pork - no sauce

5. Meanwhile, skim fat from liquid. If liquid measures more than 3 cups, bring ot boil in shallow saucepan over high heat; boil until reduced to 3 cups, 15 minutes. Discard bay leaves. Add pork.

Reducing Sauce

6. Reduce heat and simmer until hot, 4 minutes. Sprinkle with green onions.

Finished Sammich

Stay hungry :D

Zuppa Toscana

Zuppa Toscana
Source: Allrecipes.com

Outta 10: This is probably the tastiest soup we have ever made. It is one of the few recipes that we repeat on a semi-regular basis. Our friend Geri Rockwood introduced us to this recipe about a year ago. It is not that hard to make and sooooo good. If you don't believe us check out its perfect 5 star rating after 529 reviews on allrecipes. We give this a 9.5/10.

Substiutions and Comments: We don't really make any substitutions to this recipe. We use spicy Italian sausage instead of mild, and we just cut open the casing and take out the meat. We buy bagged baby spinach so that we dont have to cut and trim it. Regular spinach can also be quite gritty, bagged spinach is relatively clean, it just needs a quick rinse. We used to make this in a big pot since we didn't have a dutch oven, but we recently bought one at Ikea so now we use it for this recipe. It tastes the same either way so don't worry if you don't have a dutch oven.

Recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Super-Delicious-Zuppa-Toscana/Detail.aspx

Pork out of its casing and browned

Onions and bacon

Finished soup. SO FREAKING TASTY.

Stay Hungry :D

Homemade Mac and Cheese

Homemade Mac and Cheese
Gluten Free Everyday by Robert Landolphi

Outta 10: (Note: On the suggestion of Andria's friend Catherine Del Duca, who is tired of seeing yay after yay, we have decided to change this part of the blog to a scale out of 10) This Mac and Cheese dish is pretty good, and for gluten-free it is pretty amasing. However, its still just plain old mac and cheese in the end no matter how good. Also, on the healthiness scale this is a big faux-pas! Sooo much cream......So we are gonna give this recipe a 7.5/10.

Subsitutions and Comments: This is a really delish recipe and its entirely Gluten-free. However, if you aren't into the gluten-freeness you can made this normal styles with regular pasta and regular breadcrumbs. The only subsitution we made was putting chili powder instead of cayenne pepper, cause we didn't have any. We used shell pasta, and for the bread crumbs we buy Molly B's gluten free olive oil bread and then just cut up the whole loaf and toast it and crumble it up. For this recipe we like smaller chunks of bread though rather than really fine crumbs. We used old yellow cheddar and opted for the green onions.

Recipe:

1 pound brown rice elbow or shell pasta
2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup gluten-free dried bread crumbs
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp dijon mustard
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
3 cups shredded sharp yellow or white cheddar cheese
1/4 cup sliced green onions (optional)



1. Preheat over to 375 and butter a 9 by 13 inch baking dish. In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook the pasta until al dente according to package instructions. Drain and return to pot.

2. Stir together parmesan, bread crumbs and oil in a bowl.

Topping mix

3. In a medium saucepan whisk cream, mustard, salt and cayenne pepper.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Decrease heat and whisk in cheddar cheese until smooth.

Cheese sauce

4Pour sauce over the pasta, stir in the green onions, and pour into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle evenly with the topping and bake until the edges are bubble and the top is golden brown, 20-25 mins.

Ready to bake in the oven

Yum!