This Post is Dedicated to Caitlin...

...for the sheer fact that she actually sounded mad at me when I said I hadn't posted on this in awhile. My dearest Caitlin, this post is for you!!

It definitely felt good to do some cooking tonight!! We start classes tomorrow so I didn't have anything to do today (other than run some errands and sign a lease so that I'm not homeless next semester), ergo I was antsy to start cooking. I always say that I can't eat dinner before 5 p.m. otherwise I feel like an old person trying to catch that early bird special, but I ate around 4:30 p.m. tonight. I am weak.

Tonight I made another recipe from the "Everyday Sauces" chapter in the "Everyday Tomato Sauces" section. It was a Simple Bolognese aka "meat sauce." When it comes to tomato sauces, I generally opt for marinara over meat, but I figured I may like meat sauce more if it were my own creation...and if it didn't say "Prego" or "Ragu" on its jar.

I started by cooking some minced onions and garlic until they were soft. I was only making half the recipe (some for tonight and leftovers for tomorrow) so I used one clove of garlic and half an onion. This whole plan must have slipped my mind in the next step of adding carrots and celery. I should have used half of each, but I was in some sort of daze and just added a whole one of each. I think Common's "Universal Mind Control" on mtvU had me mesmerized. Thankfully you can't go too overboard with either of those vegetables and it didn't make much of a difference. Plus it wouldn't be one of MY recipes unless something went wrong, right?

After I sauteed those over medium-high for about five minutes, I cranked the heat up to high and added some ground beef. In true health nut fashion (side note: I was the opposite of a health nut all winter break. Chocolate and Christmas cookies are my vice), I used 95/5 ground beef. I was a little afraid that this would result in some dry beef crumbles in my sauce, but this was not the case.

Next, I had to add a can of crushed tomatoes, parsley, basil, salt and pepper. I realized I didn't buy crushed tomatoes, but did have some diced ones in burgundy wine. I wasn't sure what the wine flavoring would do to the sauce, but seeing as burgundy is a dark color and I was working with some dark meat, I didn't really see a problem with it (great logic, I know). Diced versus crushed tomatoes would only make for a chunkier sauce which also didn't faze me. Being a college student without my own fresh herb garden, I used some dried basil and Italian seasoning rather than the fresh versions suggested in the recipe.

I then let all of this simmer and thicken for about 30 minutes. In the mean time, I boiled some salted water and cooked up some orecchiette to serve with the sauce. After 30 minutes, I stirred in some Parmesan cheese to the sauce as well as more salt and pepper.

As you can see from the picture, my bolognese ended up looking like some sort of Italian sloppy joe. The consistency was very chunky, but the flavor was surprisingly smooth. It wasn't overpowering and the beef wasn't dry (I think I have the tomatoes to thank for that). It was MUCH better than any jarred meat sauce I had had before (one would hope this would be the case with anything that comes in a jar).

Overall, a successful first night back in Everyday Italian! As I said before, I'll be eating leftovers tomorrow night (which will be nice seeing as tomorrow is my first day of classes), but will be making some marinara sauce to use in some future recipes. I will see you again on Thursday when I put together another "Everyday Pasta, Polenta, and Risotto!"

Mmm...Toasty!!

I know I was supposed to make a dish last night, but a spur of the moment girl's night happened and I ended up eating some excellent, authentic Mexican food instead. I had a California burrito with veggies in it. Delicious!!

Moving on to today I finished the "Fresh From the Pantry" section of the "Everyday Pasta, Polenta, and Risotto"chapter with Orecchiette with Toasted Bread Crumbs. As all the recipes in this section are, it was easy and didn't use too many exotic ingredients. It was also worthy of a "yum-o!"

First things first, I cooked the orrecchiette (aka the pasta). This is pretty much a fancy name for shells. However, thanks to Giada's side note, I now know that orrecchiette means "little ears" which makes total sense.

Once the pasta was added to the boiling water, I began making the "dressing" of bread crumbs. This type of recipe is one that was probably used in order to use leftover stale bread (this is not my inference, it's totally from the side notes). I always think of bread crumbs as more of a coating for meat, so I found this use for it really interesting. I sprayed some EVOO into a heated pan, then added the bread crumbs, salt, and pepper. This only needs to toast for about two minutes and it's very easy to tell when it's ready. You definitely don't want to let this cook too long otherwise it WILL burn.

I drained the pasta (but not completely) and tossed it into the pan with the bread crumbs. Some of the pasta water stayed in the little ears which I think helped since the bread crumbs stuck to the pasta a lot easier. I also tossed in some finely chopped prosciutto.

Prosciutto is another new thing for me. I'm definitely not a fan of ham (though I could probably eat my weight in bacon or ribs) and I know that prosciutto is a type of ham. For years, people have told me that it doesn't taste like ham and that it's just salty. Me being me, I didn't believe them and refused to try it because I KNEW it tasted like ham. Well, I was wrong again. I tried a little piece of it before adding it in with everything else and alas, it really just tasted salty. You win again world.

After tossing all this together, I transferred the food to a bowl and added some chopped fresh parsley and Parmesan cheese, then dug in. It was really good, though I think next time I need to go a little easy on the salt. Between the bread crumbs, prosciutto, cheese, and actual salt, it was a bit much, but not enough to ruin the dish. I also needed some other wet element in it since the bread crumbs make it very dry (this may not have been the case had I used the amount of oil called for in the recipe rather than spray oil). With a few tweaks, I could probably make this dish even better, but for today, it was just fine :)

I'm off now to make some more pumpkin cookies to bring over to a friend's house tonight. I'm going to try putting a glaze on them this time instead of using cream cheese frosting since it dries much quicker. Wish me luck and check back tomorrow (so soon!) for my next dish: Grilled Seafood Salad!

Insert Clever Title Here

Good evening faithful foodies! Please forgive my lack of creativity, but I just couldn't think good word play around "Eggplant Rollatini" that wasn't the epitome of cheese ball. Moving on, tonight we plunge into more "Everyday Contorni" with the second recipe in the "Stuffed Vegetables" section; Eggplant Rollatini!! I'm a HUGE eggplant fan, so I was pretty stoked for tonight. More often than not, I will opt for eggplant Parmesan over chicken Parmesan. It's not even for healthy reasons (because a breaded and fried piece of eggplant is pretty much on par with a breaded and fried piece of chicken), I just LOVE eggplant.

Bottom line: I was excited. I began to gather all my necessities once I got back from field hockey practice. As I was packing my little kitchen travel bag, I realized just how much was involved in this recipe. I figured it would be worth it in the end so I continued up to the kitchen with a ten pound bag on my shoulder. On my way up, I couldn't help but think I had forgotten something. It's a familiar feeling for me, and I don't know why I didn't pay more attention to it, because more often than not I get this feeling because I have forgotten something (I once left my field hockey jersey at home when it was needed at a tournament across the country. I will never live it down).

I made it to the kitchen, started unpacking (the other girl in the kitchen probably thought I had packed to spend the night in the kitchen), and realized that I had indeed forgotten something. My cutting board. After approximately two minutes of standing and staring at everything, I decided against venturing back downstairs and instead took on the role of the Great Improviser.

My first order of business was to slice the eggplant. You need to slice it lengthwise, then make 1/2 inch thick slices. In place of my cutting board, I turned my baking dish upside-down and cut the eggplant on top. After cutting it lengthwise, I saw how difficult it would be to make slices of the eggplant with the open half facing one side without losing some fingers in the process. Instead, I put the half cut side down, and cut horizontally. I won't lie, my first cut was pretty jagged, but I really did get better as I went on. I made six slices and discarded the "heels" of the eggplant. I then put salt on each side of the slices and set them aside for 15 minutes (according to Giada, this helps take some of the moisture out of the eggplant. I wish I had known this sooner).

I should probably mention that I made this recipe completely out of recipe order. Rather than bore you with how it should have been carried out, I'll just tell you how it all played out. As the eggplant sat, I mixed the ricotta cheese with the egg. The recipe calls for two eggs, but I wasn't making six servings so I used only one egg. I beat the two together, and realized I probably shouldn't have used the entire egg. Giada didn't indicate what color the mixture should be at this point, so I didn't have anything to compare mine to. I added a little more ricotta, but it didn't make much difference, so I made the executive decision that it WAS supposed to be that yellow.

I next added some mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese and "gently" stirred it in as recommended. I was then supposed to add in the toasted pine nuts. Well, I hadn't yet toasted the pine nuts. I quickly threw some in my pan and cranked up the heat. Luckily, they toast up and turn golden brown relatively quickly (and as Rachael Ray says, your nose will know when they're done). Then, I had to play the waiting game and wait for them to cool off. Had I just thrown them into the cheese mixture, I'm pretty sure the egg part would've cooked or the cheese would have curdled or caused some other minor disaster.

As I waited, I added some fresh basil to the cheese mixture. I was feeling kind of lazy so rather than chopping it on my absence of cutting board (the eggplant was currently in the baking dish so that was a no-go), I just tore it apart. Giada cautions not to over-mix the mixture, but I'm pretty sure I did. I don't know if it would have tasted any different if I had mixed it any less. Finally, my pine nuts cooled enough and I tossed them in and continued to over-mix.

After the 15 minutes had expired, I rinsed each piece of eggplant and patted it dry (I should mention here that I hadn't brought anything to dry these with, so I settled with my terry cloth oven mitt). The recipe says that you're supposed to grill the eggplant slices for about four minutes on each side. Well, I didn't feel like schlepping the Foreman grill all the way up the stairs, and I really try to keep my cooking in one room if at all possible (side note: this will be more possible now that we have a double burner in our room! Woohoo!). Instead, I decided to cook the eggplant in the frying pan with some EVOO spray. It cooked up just as well and became tender enough to roll up.

Next, I let one batch of eggplant cool (I had to cook three slices at a time seeing as my pan isn't all that big), and put the other in the pan. Once it was cooled, I put about one tablespoon of the cheese mixture on the smaller end of the slice, then rolled it up and put it seam side down in the baking dish. Of course, me being the slightly impatient cook that I can be, I didn't let all the pieces cool enough and burned myself a little when rolling the slices. You live and you learn.

After all the slices had been cooled (well, let's be honest, not completely cooled) and placed in the baking dish, I covered them with the remainder of my marinara sauce from last week (yes, I did freeze it for the week. I've had too many run-ins with improperly preserved food to take any chances. It only took eating bad chili once and eating Ponderosa and puking all the way back home on a bus to learn this). I then baked the rollatinis for 15 minutes in a 375 degree oven.

I made some friends in the kitchen today and saw that college students DO cook more than mac and cheese and ramen. These girls were cooking pasta with chicken and pesto. YUM. It looked really good. Between the three of us, we made the kitchen smell pretty awesome.

While my dinner was baking, I re-packed my bag. Luckily, most of the food I had brought up was the last of its container so I ended up packing up less than I had brought up. Once it was ready, I took the eggplant rollatini out of the oven, and carried it downstairs. My oven mitt was feeling pretty worthless at this point because that dish was HOT. However, rather than running back to my room, which I was given considerate thought, I walked briskly back and practically threw the dish onto the counter upon my return.

You have to trust me, the picture above doesn't really do the dish justice. It just kind of looks like a plate of marinara sauce. I tried to get a close up of my beautiful rolls of eggplant, but my room unfortunately does not have adequate light as a photo studio should, and it simply wasn't feasible.

This dish, was AWESOME! It was like eggplant Parmesan, but without the breading or frying. The cheese mixture was prefect and not too egg tasting. It started seeping out the sides and crisped a little at the edges (so delicious!). Between pan-searing the eggplant and baking it in the oven, it was so tender that I could cut it with just my fork and the sauce and cheese flavors really enhanced the natural eggplant flavor. De-lish!

For dessert, I decided to finally break into my low-fat vanilla frozen yogurt :) Rather than topping it with chocolate syrup, or caramel, or whipped cream, I opted for a teaspoon of Nutella and a dash of cinnamon. I mixed it up, and it was like an entirely different flavor. I HIGHLY recommend it!

The complete meal was absolutely fantastic! I can't wait to make this one again. My next day of cooking with Giada will be this coming Monday. I will be doing my second dessert, Grilled Peaches with Mascarpone Cheese! Check back soon!