Saturday, December 14, 2013

Leeks and Mushrooms

Martha really knows her stuff. I do not have near enough free time to be Martha Stewart, but whenever I use one of her recipes or techniques or whatever, it is always pretty damn awesome.

I bought some leeks at Trader Joe's when I was in there the other day because they looked good even though I didn't have a plan for them. They were nice big ones and were pre-cleaned without the giant extra green part that you can't eat. When I had a free night to cook them I looked around for a recipe and Martha had a nice simple one here. It looks really simple, and you think, eh, how special could it be, but I am telling you, this was awesome. Easy to make, and I didn't even include the parmesan because it was so delicious without it (and I was so hungry I forgot it)!



Ingredients (sweetened with some Taye Diggs in the background):
Leeks
Mushrooms (I used baby bellas)
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

That is it! And guess what, toss it all together and saute it until carmelized. That is also it!


Martha said to put in the mushrooms first and do some fancy stuff, but I just threw it all in together and it was fabulous. That way the mushrooms still had a little firmness to them when they leeks were good and browned. I think I deglazed the pan with some water, maybe a 1/3 cup; if you like white wine, that would be good too, but I hate white wine.


Plate it and gobble it! I truly looked forward to eating the leftovers. That is how good this was. I love finding a new (to me) vegetable side dish that is easy to recreate.

Monday, December 9, 2013

Spinach and Artichoke Wonderpot

I've been seeing the wonderpot pop up on Pinterest and Facebook.  To digress a bit, is anyone else a bit annoyed by people sharing recipes on Facebook?  I don't know why it bothers me but it does.  Anyhoodle, the wonderpot seems like a genius idea.  Throw pasta and sauce fixin's in a large pot and let it do its thang.  Easy peasy, right?  I made this for dinner and it was solidly okay.  I asked Dave to rate it and he gave it a B+.  Which is to say that we both ate it but weren't terribly impressed with it.  Don't get me wrong, it's not bad.  It just didn't earn rave reviews.  I may still play with it and tweak it because it has potential though.




Ingredients:

1/2 onion, sliced
1 cup frozen artichoke hearts, thawed
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
5 cups chicken broth
12 oz box of fettucine
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
salt
pepper
5 oz frozen spinach (about half a bag)
cooked bacon, for garnish
parmesan

Put sliced onion, artichoke hearts, garlic, olive oil and chicken broth in a large pot.  Break the fettucine in half (I did this in batches because my puny arms couldn't break the entire boxful in one stack) and add it, your dried spices and salt and pepper to the pot and stir well.  Bring to a rolling boil and cook for 10-15 minutes, until pasta is cooked through.  Stir every couple of minutes to make sure pasta doesn't stick.  Once the liquid has mostly absorbed, dish up and top with crumbled bacon and grated parm.

Adapted from Budget Bytes