Homemade Croutons

How many of you like croutons?  They're crunchy, full of flavor, and can add some extra YUM to your meal.  I love eating them plain sometimes as a snack.

Do you usually buy your croutons pre-made or make your own?  I used to buy these bags and boxes of them pre-made for about $2-$4 each.  When you think about it, you're spending a lot on something you might use every day (if you eat salads all the time).  Why not make it fresh from your own kitchen?


Homemade Croutons

Ingredients

• bread
• butter or olive oil
• seasoning (salt, garlic, basil, etc)

If you're ambitious enough to make your own bread, great!  I just use a store bought loaf of plain white bread.  One slice of bread = enough for one salad and then some.

Take the bread and cut it into cubes.  Lay out the pieces on a sheet of foil, drizzle with olive oil or melted butter and then generously sprinkle your desired seasonings.

Toast until browned and there you have it!  Delicious, fresh homemade croutons.  So simple and so fast!

Pasta with Ground Pork and Broccoli

This is my first post with step by step photos!  Yay, let's celebrate with some yummy food.  I am a huge fan of pasta and how versatile it is.  Typically, I mix whatever I want into it and add herbs and spices to enhance my store-bought sauces.

Since I've participated in the farm share program locally, I've been getting a bunch of tomatoes.  I am not a fan of having tomatoes raw or anything so there's only one surefire way to cook 'em--pasta sauce!  Mmm!

So, let's get started.

Meat Sauce Ingredients (total prep: around 30 minutes)
- a few cloves of garlic (minced)
- one shallot (minced)
- a few stalks of broccoli (chopped up small)
- two medium-sized tomatoes (chopped)
- white wine
- some marinara sauce
- 1/4 lbs ground pork
- seasonings (salt, pepper, garlic, powder, basil, etc)
- milk
- Parmesan cheese

Other:
- Your choice of pasta (this one was elbows)
- Olive oil

I had precooked my pasta (in this case, elbows!) and my ground pork so this was a fairly quick affair.  I chopped up the garlic, shallots, and broccoli first, leaving the messier tomatoes for last.  Heat up your pan to medium heat and add some olive oil.  I recently bought a new hard-anodized set from KitchenAid and I love it!  Works wonderfully.  I am using the 3-qt saute pan here.

First, I start by frying the garlic and shallots until fragrant.  Love the smell of these sizzling in the pan!

Meanwhile, I prep the tomatoes.  I sliced off the tops and bottoms and the skin.  Then I cut slices, which I then proceeded to chop into small pieces.

Next, add the broccoli in.

Once the broccoli has softened, throw in the tomatoes.

Add a few tablespoons of white wine.  Let it simmer for about 5 minutes.  At this point, I am also squishing the larger pieces of tomato smaller.

Now here's when I add in a dollop of the store-bought sauce.  I used Prego's pesto marinara for this one.  The reason why I use this is because I don't have any tomato paste or a food processor to make a finer sauce.

My boyfriend is picky about the flavor of the sauce so I always alter it with a bit of milk or whipped cream.  In this case, I added a splash of whole milk and some Parmesan cheese.  I also add my seasonings to taste.  I love adding garlic powder and basil for flavor in addition to regular salt and pepper.

Now because I have already precooked the ground pork, I add it in now and mix up the sauce.

Cover and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes to let the sauce really thicken up.

Check for a nice, even mix and consistency.  Oh, look at that steaminess~

Once you feel that the sauce is done (give it a taste!), you can add in the pasta directly to mix it up.

I love elbow macaroni since they're bite-sized!  I give the pasta a good toss to distribute the sauce.  And there you have it--a hearty bowl of pasta with meat sauce!

Elbows with Italian Sausage and Onions

I have recently adopted a puppy (lab mix!) so it has been ten times more difficult to cook anything extravagant when I cannot spend hours to prep and cook.  So, what are some of the easier things to make in short notice?  Pasta!

I love pasta in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but the classic elbow macaroni can do no wrong.  It's versatile, bite-size, and cooks quickly.

Elbows with Italian Sausage and Onions

Pasta Ingredients:
- box of elbow pasta (I used Barilla)
- Italian sausage
- 1 med/sm onion chopped

Sauce:
- tomato sauce (Ragu traditional)
- seasonings (basil, oregano, garlic powder)
- whole milk

For today's lunchbox, I had precooked the sausage over the weekend.

The way I cook my sausage is fairly simple.  I heat up the pan, put the sausages in whole, let it sizzle, add a splash of water and cover it to simmer on a medium heat.  Once the water is dried and the sausage is brown, I take it out and put it into a container.  Even if the inside is not fully cooked, when I take it out and cut it up to cook, it finishes up nicely.  Total cooking time can vary, usually it takes me about 20 minutes.

First, heat up your water and boil the pasta.  I let this go on the side while I prep my ingredients.  Your total cooking time if pasta and ingredients are cooked simultaneously should take around 15-20 minutes.

I sliced up the sausage and chopped my onions.  I heated up the pan with vegetable oil and fried the onions.  After they were cooked through and browning, I added in the sausage.  Stir and cook it for a few minutes.  Once the flavors are wafting to your nose, add in your desired amount of tomato sauce.  For my sauce today, I mixed in about 1/4 cup of whole milk to make a lighter sauce.  Add in your seasonings to taste and then let it simmer.

Before or close to this point, your pasta should be fully cooked.  Drain it and then you can add it straight to the pan and mix it with the sauce.

Then, put into a bowl to serve.  Enjoy!

Shrimp Scampi

I love making scampi. The best part is the wonderful mix of flavor and aroma!! (And of course, the buttery goodness!) My first shrimp scampi recipe came out of The Costco Cookbook (2004?). Nowadays, I mix ingredients off the top of my mind and just follow the basics for great cooking.

I peel all my shrimp bare to save the hassle of picking off tails or shells while eating. Heat up a stick of butter in the pan and brown some fresh garlic in it. Squeeze lemon juice into the raw shrimp. Throw dried herbs into the pan for flavor (generally oregano, parsley, basil) and then, when the pan is bubbling with the buttery mix, sear the shrimp. The dried herbs should mix well and add more onto the shrimp as you cook, if it's not spread well. I like to add garlic powder in after cooking the shrimp in the dried herbs for a bit. Once the shrimp are almost done (about 3 minutes), pour in some white wine. I usually pour about 3-4 tablespoons of it for about 25-30 shrimp. Let it simmer more until the heavy wine scent lifts and you're ready for plating. If you like, garnish with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. I was told that my scampi tasted better than Red Lobster's but perhaps because it's made with love. :)

Yum! Serve it over spaghetti or thinner spaghetti. If my pan is big enough, I like to toss the spaghetti with the scampi in the pan over a little heat to get the noodles to soak up the flavor. Otherwise, serving separately stick works just as well.

Seasoned Pork Chops with Rotini and Broccoli

Our grill was quite dirty and filled with crumbs leftover from whoever last cooked on it. So, instead of how I usually do pork chops, I decide to pan sear it this time. I mixed salt, pepper, oregano flakes, and parsley flakes in a small dish and then spread olive oil over both sides of the pork chops. After rubbing in the seasoning, it was ready for the pan. I heated the pan up with some butter and minced garlic and made sure it was hot. To sear the pork chops properly, you need a good hot pan to immediately seal the juices in.

I gave each side approximately five minutes and then flipped the pork chops over until they were no longer pink. Press your spatula into the pork chops to test its squishiness and you'll be able to tell when they're done cooking. I added some chopped onions on the side as the pork chops cooked, and let them help absorb the extra oil.

When they're done, plated, it looks and smells quite delicious. I seasoned my rotini pasta with the same mix of herbs as well as with some grated parmesan cheese. The broccoli was cooked in the same pan after I took out the pork chops so it also collected the same sort of flavor while cooking. All in all, a delicious lunch.

Tortellini

I love the convenience of frozen pasta. I usually buy these bags of tortellini (the round circle pasta usually filled with cheese) or ravioli and it's a quick boil in hot water and then they're ready to eat. This time, I bought some meat tortellini to try since we usually only stick with cheese.

It still takes quite a bit of time to get the water boiling and, being frozen, the tortellini take a little over twenty minutes to be fully cooked. As long as the pasta starts to float and the color doesn't look as pale, it's pretty much done.

I garnished with parsley flakes and grated parmesan cheese for flavor. The end result was a great lunch.

Shrimp & Scallop Scampi

If you're unfamiliar with scampi, you might be better off not knowing the ingredients used to get such a mouth-watering flavor. However, it's really quite obvious most of the time from just looking at it.

First Observation

- It's got herbs.

- The sauce is golden in color.

- Smells wonderful.

Now, if you can distinguish your scents better, you'd smell the tart lemon and perhaps the white wine. If you can really recognize the scent, you'd smell the wonderful aroma of butter.

Now, I'll tell you now, I used a whole stick of salted butter for this bad boy. A stick of butter is nothing though. You may worry but don't, just eat. Indulging once in a loooooong while is okay. And you're not drinking all of the sauce anyway. If you were, about 806 calories from fat just in the butter. So, don't drink the sauce.

I started with browning the butter in the pan on high before adding the seasonings. Fry minced garlic. Throw in oregano, parsley, basil, ground pepper. Mix well and then place the shrimp. For this one, I did scallops separately from the shrimp simply because my pan was too full and I wanted every piece flat for searing. We're searing here so as soon as the shrimp turns color on one side, flip it to the other. Added a little bit of lemon juice as it finished up. Then I took all of the shrimp out to do the scallops as well. You want to adjust the heat if your butter herb mix is turning brown really quickly. (Or you could add more butter but let's not.) Same as shrimp, sear both sides of the scallops.

After all of that is done, put the shrimp back in the pan, add more lemon juice to taste and pour a good amount of white wine to just about equal the amount of the lemon juice. Let it all simmer for a bit before plating. The key here is that you don't add the wine and lemon juice until your shrimp and scallops have been cooked first. Then you'll get the best aromas and tastes from the sauce without overwhelming flavor in your shrimp and scallops. Believe me, lemon juice and wine flavor is strong if you start with it. Also, you won't get a great sear if you add it all in the beginning.

I sprinkled parmesan cheese on top after plating. It doesn't really affect the flavor much but it's makes it a little lighter than just all that butter-garlic-lemon-white wine sauce. I always do scampi over linguine or vermicelli noodles. They are just the right thinness that I like with my sauce. Remember, don't overindulge on that sauce.

Pompano Filleted over Linguine

We made a bold choice in picking up fish at the supermarket. Normally, we don't cook whole fish at home because it's just a hassle to cut, clean, and cook. We picked a smaller pompano fish since it looked simple enough and my sister didn't want to really clean it so she cut out fillets from it. It was a tedious process but we did manage to get two larger pieces of fillet while the rest was smaller chunks shaved off the bone as best as possible.

I took it and patted the pieces dry, thinking we might fry it. Instead, I threw in some parsley, basil, and oregano to season it. Rubbing it down good, I added fresh lemon juice and a splash of white wine. Heated up the pan, seared it nicely over hot butter.

I heated up a little bit of my herb mix with butter to make a small amount of sauce to drizzle over the noodles. The result was, although the portion was small, a pretty nice pan-seared pompano fillets over some white noodles. (Asian-style linguine. Hah!) The fillet was so tender and the flavor hit it just right. A very nice lunch at home!