Blackout

When I was doing my meal plan at the beginning of the week, I asked Roo what he wanted to eat, and he asked for this pasta again. I had actually planned to make it Wednesday night, and have the leftovers for dinner on Thursday. BUT!! Early Wednesday evening, right in the middle of my Fantasy Football (why do I always want to write Final Fantasy instead?) draft, I heard a loud explosion outside, and all of a sudden – a deafening silence. All of our power went out, and first things first, I had to call my brother and beg him to log onto the draft and act as my proxy. Actually, my team is probably ten times better than it would have been otherwise.

As 7pm and impending darkness crept up, Roo and I quickly realized that we have no flashlights or candles in the house (!!!), but remembered we did buy an LED lantern for a camping trip. Of course, we had to dig through our entire storage closet to actually find it, but it was a relief that we wouldn’t have to rely on our rapidly dying cell phones for light all night long!

Thankfully, power was restored at some point in the wee hours, and I woke up on Thursday to blinking clocks and random lights on all over the house. I hemmed and hawed all day over whether the sausage in the fridge would still be ok, but decided it just wasn’t worth the risk and ended up making a trip to the grocery store to pick up some more. On the bright side, I bought everything we’ll need to get us through Tuesday…and then we’re off to Baltimore on Wednesday!

Remixed

Is this thing still on?

Tonight’s dinner was a remixed version of a couple recent meals: pork tenderloin, leftover mac and cheese, steamed broccoli.

This weekend, we’re having some friends over for dinner, and I still get nervous cooking for other people. Hopefully things will go off without a hitch, and I’ll have a bunch of pictures to share. Work has been incredibly insane lately, and I haven’t had much time to sit down and plan everything I need to buy, prepare, and do. Oh well, I guess that’s what Fridays are for!

So cheesy

I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but this is the first time I’ve made macaroni and cheese when it hasn’t come from a box! I used Martha’s Creamy Macaroni-and-Cheese recipe that Leeetz used here – it was so convenient with all the halved measurements! The only thing I did differently was that I decided to include the bread crumbs that she omitted.

So decadent! The lovely aroma of all that cheese wafting through the kitchen made me determined to find something healthy to put on the side. The only vegetables I had left in the fridge were 1/2 of a cucumber, a red pepper, and red onion. I chopped them all up, and drizzled with some red wine vinaigrette.

Dinner is served!

The best part is that there are plenty of leftovers for my lunch tomorrow, and probably another meal after that. The word on the street is that the creamy cheesiness reheats well – can’t wait to see for myself!

Left over

So I had a few slices of the pork tenderloin from last night, and a handful of pasta left from the chicken marsala night. I tossed the noodles in a pan with some butter and garlic, threw in the pork (cubed), diced up a tomato, and added a splash of balsamic vinegar and some salt and pepper. A little sprinkle of parsley later and dinner was ready – seriously took me less than 15 minutes! Roo loved it and asked if I could make this for his friends when they come over for dinner…who knew leftovers could be such a hit?

March menu

Sometimes the hardest part about cooking dinner is figuring out what to make. It’s so much easier (especially after a long, annoying day at work) when everything is already laid out for you, which is why I think it’s nice when Roo asks for a specific dish…OR when one of your friends has the idea of posting a monthly menu for others to try!

Hana’s March menu:

Orzo salad (adapted from Israeli couscous salad)
Breaded pork tenderloin
Greek yogurt with blackberries and honey

SK’s Chicken marsala

After what seems like a really long hiatus, I’m hoping to hop right back on the cooking train. We’ll see how that goes because things have been really stressful at work lately, which makes me want to do nothing but make a beeline for the couch and lounge as soon as I come home.

Same ol, same ol

Is it me or does all of my food look the same??? Same colors, same ingredients, just ever-so-slightly different variations. Anyway, I don’t know if I would consider this a total success. I wish I had a large enough cast iron pan to use, but only had a nonstick, which didn’t let me brown the chicken or vegetables to the nice colors in PW’s photos. The sauce was not quite thick enough either, though I’m not really sure why. It tasted fine though, and there is definitely enough food to last us through the week, so I guess my lofty GOMP has been truncated once again. Work has been killing me, and I’m more than a little relieved that I don’t have to worry about cooking tomorrow, and even MORE relieved that I have Friday off!

Pasta carbonara florentine

What’s not to love about this dish? Seriously: pasta, bacon, spinach, egg, cheese! That killer combo just can’t really go wrong. I haven’t made carbonara in a while, so I was excited to try out this version that I found last week.

Martha’s Creamy Macaroni-and-Cheese

Who doesn’t love mac-n-cheese?  I’ve made this version four times in the past 3 months, which tells you that 1) it is yummy and 2) it’s not that complicated a recipe.  And 3) maybe that I should stop making it so often…

Believe it or not, the first two times I followed the recipe exactly, other than leaving off the breaded crust that the original calls for. The latter two times, I just messed around with the proportions of cheese.  Tonight’s version is a 3-cheese macaroni.  I had a scant 1/2 cup of mozzarella left from ziti last week, and added that to the pre-shredded mix of monterey jack and cheddar.

Speaking of the original recipe — this is Smitten Kitchen’s version, which was adapted from the Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The Original Classics.  It is a full size 9 x 13 pan’s worth of mac-n-cheese.  Seeing as how I can only fit an 8 x 8 pan into my little oven (to match the little NYC apartment), the halved recipe is below the cut for convenience.  Now I won’t have to do the math every single time.  Whew.

Penne with sausage

We had VIP guests (Roo’s parents) come over for dinner tonight, and I was stressing all week about what to make. Saturday morning came, and I still had no idea. Finally, I told Roo to just, for the love of God, tell me what to make, and he came up with the idea of penne with sausage. I have a pasta that I make with sausage and bell peppers, but I decided to google to see if any other recipes jumped out at me. I know it is risky trying a brand new recipe on an important occasion, but since this one looked easy, and the reviews all indicated that it was delicious and there wasn’t much to tweak, I thought it’d be ok.