Give Peas a Chance

Again, sucker for wordplay.

Tonight we venture once again into the world of "Everyday Contorni" with our first recipe in the "Quick and Simple" section which happens to be Peas and Prosciutto.

I don't hate peas, but they're certainly not my first choice in vegetables. I also don't hate prosciutto, it's just something I like to eat in small doses (it's probably healthier to keep it that way as well). Needless to say, the excitement level for this one was not on the higher end of the spectrum.

I started by sauteing some garlic and a shallot for about a minute. This was my first time working with shallots and they're a really interesting food. They're pretty much mini onions with a more mild taste. I really liked them, and I think I may need to try them roasted or caramelized in the future. I then added some defrosted frozen peas and sauteed those for about five minutes.

The recipe says to stir in the prosciutto along with some parsley, salt, and pepper once the rest of the dish has been cooked and removed from the heat, but I prefer my prosciutto a bit crispier. It take away the ham-like quality of it. I do despise ham. I added the prosciutto in for the last two minutes of so of cooking.

As suggested, I removed all of this from the heat after it was thoroughly cooked, and stirred in the seasoning. And that was it! The dish truly was quick and simple. Kudos, Giada, for sticking to your word (not that I ever doubted you).

As for the dish itself, the peas were a little overcooked and kind of dry on the inside. Luckily the seasoning and the prosciutto made up for it. I was glad I had crisped up the prosciutto because it became the star of the dish and I feel it wasn't quite as salty as it normally would be.

This would generally be served as a side dish, but I find it difficult to cook 1/6 of the recipe just for myself to taste, so I just made a meal out of it. It would be a nice compliment to a meal though. Maybe if I could work on the cooking of my peas. But then again, I don't usually opt for them, so why should I?

That's all I have for today. I will be cooking again this Wednesday when I try out another dessert. Another CHOCOLATE dessert at that :) See you then!

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!