Carbonara under 500

I am having the most fantastic day. I was headed for church this morning and I was taking my sweet time getting ready, and I was running late. Too late to grab a coffee. Magically, by the time I got close to the church I had time to spare to go to the Starbucks across the street. When I pulled up to the window I went to pass the Starbucks boy my debit card and he said "Don't worry about it, coffee is free for ridiculously good looking people". Ha! In actuality it was free since the car in front of me placed an order that took FOREVER and I was waiting for a very long time. Patiently. (another joke, I was not very patient) After church there was a barbecue, and if there's something I love, it's free food. I went the the gym from there, and my favorite eye candy was also working out. I also went to yoga today and not once did we have to do child's pose, which is my least favorite.

However, Sunday night is fast coming to a close, and it means that Monday morning is coming fast. I do not like Monday mornings...

A while back I made a spaghetti carbonara using a recipe by Nigella Lawson. While delicious, it's completely indulgent. (And if you didn't make it the first time you read about it on my blog, what the heck are you waiting for? It's really fantastic)

Since it is indulgent, I have to consider it as a luxury. And luxurious, it is. The sauce is made from pancetta, cream and cheese. When watching one's waist and heart, the indulgences must be few and far between. I love carbonara though, and when I saw a recipe for a healthier version of it, I had to make it. The recipe comes from Cook Smart for a Healthy Heart. I made it without the roasted tomato salad, those of you who clicked the recipe link.

The recipe replaces pancetta or bacon with proscuitto which is dry fried (without the aid of oil) until crisp. They also replace heavy cream with reduced fat cream, though I went so far as to replace the cream with skim milk. The sauce is given texture with the aid of some ricotta cheese, which I love. One of my most favorite carbonaras comes from a restaurant called Chianti's, where you can order it dry (not creamy and saucy) and I think it's so good this way, and the ricotta in the recipe is reminiscent of that.

Since the sauce is light, I didn't use whole wheat, I used Catelli Smart spaghetti instead. And even with proscuitto, eggs, cheese and pasta a hearty sized serving comes in at 471 calories. Amazing.

Though it isn't nearly as good as Nigella's version, I did find it incredibly good and a decent substitution.

Pizza Pasta Bake

My youngest sister, R, moved in this weekend. The first few days haven't been too bad, though it will be an adjustment. I have lived on my own for about 4 or 5 years now, and have gotten used to doing whatever I want (like playing the radio when I get ready for work at the ridiculous hour of 6 am).

On Saturday I had made us pizza. I used C's pizza dough, using half whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour. I topped the pizza with store bought sauce, pepperoni, red bell pepper (I wanted green but the green bell peppers were pretty icky at the store) , onion, mushrooms, and some mozzarella cheese.

The pizza was great, but the problem is I am left with half an onion, half a red bell pepper, pepperoni, mushrooms, sauce and cheese. I don't want to waste the leftovers, but I also don't want to have pizza two nights in a row.

So I made a pizza pasta bake. Which also gave me a chance to use my 3.5 quart KitchenAid dutch oven.

I made nearly the entire bake in the dutch oven, which included stirring the pasta and sauce together, which is why the sides are so messy. Sorry.

The pasta bake came from my head, so the recipe is mine. This was made to use up leftovers, so the amounts are "half of this" or "roughly this". The pasta bake will serve four or five.

Rebekah's Pizza Pasta Bake

1) Set a pot of water to boil and cook a box of whole wheat penne according to instructions. (It's ok to under cook a bit, as it will finish cooking in the oven)

2) Meanwhile, in a dutch oven, heat a small amount of extra virgin olive oil. Add half of a minced onion. Saute for a couple minutes, add roughly four or five sliced mushrooms.

3) For this step I used pizza pepperoni (which I can only find at Safeway sadly). I took about 10 slices and cut them into four like so:

Yes. I did this in Paint. Why? Because my skills in Paint are awesome.

Add the cut pepperoni slices to the mushrooms and onions, after the mushrooms have cooked down (about two minutes), heat the pepperoni slices for a minute.

4) If you had made pizza the night before this is when you could add the leftover pizza sauce. Mine equaled out to about a cup of sauce. You could also add a jar of any kind of red pasta sauce.

5) Add half of a red pepper, minced. (or chopped if you don't mind large pieces of soft red pepper)

6) Add the cooked pasta. Stir together, and add about a tbsp of grated mozza cheese. I did this to sort of bind the pasta and sauce. Top with more cheese. I had used a little over half a cup of cheese in total.

7) Bake at 350 F for about 30 minutes until the cheese is melted, and golden.

This was a great way to use up the leftovers, and it doesn't taste like pizza leftovers.

Steak Sandwich

I was talking to an idiot the other day. How did I know he was an idiot? He said "I don't eat red meat very much, and when I do it has to be well done. Like burnt well done" This never ceases to amaze me. How can you take something as beautiful as a steak, and do something so terrible like overcook it? You might as well eat shoe leather. I feel very strongly about this, and those of you who know me, know that I have a hard time keeping my opinions to myself. Especially when someone does something terrible like order a steak well done. There is nothing "well done" about it.

The other day I made a steak sandwich. And it was beautiful. The following recipe made enough for 2 sandwiches.

Rebekah's Steak Sandwich

1) I took a New York strip (my favorite) rubbed it with olive oil, and seasoned with salt and pepper. I placed it in a skillet over medium high for 3 minutes on each side.

2) Remove the steak from the pan and place it under foil. Add half a sliced onion to the skillet with a small amount of extra virgin olive oil, lower heat to medium.

3) When the onions have been on for a minute or two add some sliced mushrooms. (I used 4)

4) When the onions and mushrooms are slightly browned (2 or 3 minutes), remove from heat and sprinkle with a bit of dried thyme.

5) Slice the steak thinly removing the fatty pieces. The steak should be medium rare. If you desire to cook it more, do not waste your money on a New York strip. Buy some cheaper steak to ruin.

6) Take the bun of your choice (I used multi grain ciabatta rolls) split it open and toast under the broiler until golden brown.

7) Mix together horseradish and Dijon mustard. I used roughly a tbsp of horseradish, and roughly 4 tbsp of Dijon mustard. Spread as much as you desire on the toasted bun.

8) Place about half of the steak meat on the bun, and top with about half of the onion and mushroom mix.

DELICIOUS! No joke, this sandwich was pretty awesome.

You must make this!

To go with it I debated a few things. I thought about sweet potato fries, but anytime I make something like fries in the oven that are crisp when they come out, they are always squishy when I heat them up the next day.

Then I remembered a dish that my aunt makes. And I love it. So here it is, and this should serve roughly 4 people.

Tante's Beans:

1) In a sauce pot (sort of large), fry up 2 slices of chopped bacon. You do not want them to be crisp, once they start to turn brown add half a cup of chopped onion to the pot.

2) After about a minute add a can of pineapple tidbits. (I drained the pineapple first, but you can do what you like)

3) Add a can of rinsed kidney beans, and a can of brown beans (I used the Heinz maple kind)

4) Add 1 tsp of mustard (I used mustard powder), 2 tbsp chili sauce (I didn't have any so I used ketchup) and a tbsp of brown sugar. Since the beans and ketchup were sweet enough I added molasses instead. Call me crazy.

Lower heat, cover and let simmer for 30 minutes.

I love love love love love these! They are sooooo good! I would recommend that you stir the pot every few minutes. I just let mine simmer and then after a half hour I went to check it, and a layer had burnt to the sides. I managed to salvage a fair bit, but if you don't stir it, you will end up with something like this:

Not good.

Buffalo Chicken Wraps

I love buffalo sauce. If I had my choice any time I had wings, I would always order the buffalo style. Usually though, I am having wings with anti-buffalo flavor people and have to settle on one that we both like.

One of my biggest pet peeves about recipes with buffalo sauce, they feel that taking any hot sauce and adding some butter results in the same flavor as buffalo wings that you would order in a pub or restaurant. It doesn't. It still tastes exactly like whatever sauce you used. Only a bit richer. This made me a bit frustrated, as I tended to avoid recipes that I would have loved to try. Then one day I was at the grocery store and saw:

There is no need to add butter, and it tastes exactly like how a buffalo wing should taste! Although in the image above, the seal looks weird to me. Like someone used Paint to make it look like there is a seal. Am I wrong? (It wasn't me, obviously, since my skills in Paint are awesome, and no one would be able to tell it was fake)

I received my new Everyday Food in the mail the other day, and they had a section of sandwiches and wraps recipes. There are no links to the actual recipe, and I tweaked some things around, but the following is an adaptation from the recipe in EF for Buffalo Chicken Wraps.

I had planned on using actual chicken breasts, like in the recipe. I order chicken breasts through work, and I just got a new box on Monday (when I was making the wraps), but I left it at work. Of course. So I bought a rotisserie chicken and shredded the meat. Since I was only making two wraps, I reserved half the meat for later this week.

The half for the wraps I placed in a sauce pan, drizzled some of Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Sauce on top, and heated it over medium just to warm the chicken and sauce.

The original recipe made a blue cheese dip by combining crumbled blue cheese and plain yogurt. I had some sour cream on hand instead. I crumbled the blue cheese, and put it on my food processor with about 4 tbsp of sour cream.

I own one of those mini food processors, and it is my favorite thing. I use it all the time, since it is small and doesn't take up a lot of room in the dishwasher. I think everyone should own one.

I spread some of the blue cheese mix on a tortilla, and then topped it with some of the chicken mix, some sliced celery, carrot ribbons and shredded iceberg lettuce. (Luckily this time I bought the inorganic and it wasn't brown)

To make carrot ribbons, use your vegetable peeler as if you are going to peel the carrot, only just keep going until there is no carrot left.

These were really good. I think what I would do next time is make sure I used chicken breasts that were cut into chunks and then cooked in a pan. Rotisserie chicken was good in a pinch, but I think it would be better the other way.

I am also not the biggest blue cheese fan, I find it to be very overpowering so next time I might use a ranch dressing instead. Overall though, I really thought this was a great summertime supper.

Lettuce Wraps, Take 2

I found a recipe for chicken and cashew lettuce wraps. Cashews are possibly one of my favorite things. I used to think that a stir fry isn't complete without peanuts, but peanuts don't even compare to the deliciousness of cashews.

The wraps were easy enough to make. The recipe called for using an onion, but I used green onion instead. The sauce on the chicken is made with soy sauce, rice vinegar, and brown sugar, and I think that green onions really compliment those flavors. Not too mention, green onions taste great.

I also served them with matchstick carrots, as the wraps themselves seemed to be lacking in the vegetable department.

My biggest problem with this recipe was the lettuce. Sobeys had moved things around and the iceberg lettuce wasn't where it usually is. I finally found some that looked decent, but once at the till I figured out that I had accidentally grabbed the organic lettuce. I have no problem if people want to eat organic, but I don't really buy into it. Especially since it costs a RIDICULOUS amount of money. $2.49 for a head of lettuce? Get real.

I brought the stupid thing home anyways, and when I started to take it apart I realized close to every leaf was covered in brown spots. Oh, how appetizing. I managed to salvage some of it, but overall most of it went into the trash.

I'll take my chances with the inorganic from now on, I haven't ever bought a head of lettuce that was covered in so much brown.

Besides the disappointing lettuce, the wraps were really good. I recommend adding some more veggies like julienned bell peppers, or matchstick carrots to them. If you use green onion, keep some of it aside to sprinkle on top in their raw form.

Bean "Burgers"

Sometimes I can hear myself talking, and in my head I am screaming "shut up already!", but the words keep pouring out. I have become the person I have always dreaded being. The person who talks about the amount of calories food has, and talks about going to the gym all the time.

Before, if I ever heard someone say "do you KNOW how many calories cheese has?", I would roll my eyes and loathe them. And now I am "that guy".

This time last year, if someone said to me "what did you do last night?" My answer would have most likely been "watched TV while sitting on my giant behind". Now my answer is "I went to the gym" or "I went to yoga". I think it's funny how things change. On my wish list at this point last year were these:

Now I would love to get my hands, uh...feet, in these:

I haven't had a complete lobotomy though. Even though there's a gym right by my house, I prefer to travel to the one that is further away because the cardio machines are set up so you can see the eye candy if you're working out on one of them. Might as well enjoy the sights while working out, right?

The other night I was flipping through a Cooking Light cookbook, and I saw a picture of a burger and it looked delicious. However, I cannot actually call it a burger. A burger, to me, contains meat. This one did not, so I will refer to it as a sandwich. When I pointed it out to C, she said that the Southwest Pinto Bean Burgers with Chipotle Mayo did not look delicious. I disagreed, and made them, and frankly, they were very very good.

The patties are made with pinto beans, bread crumbs, jalapeno, onion, corn, cilantro, hot sauce, cumin, egg, salt and pepper. I used white kidney beans instead of pinto beans, and panko bread crumbs instead of regular breadcrumbs. My grocery store didn't have any jalapenos that looked healthy, so I used a habanero pepper instead. If you go that route, be careful as habaneros are very hot. I omitted the cilantro, since I am not a big fan of it. Lastly I used about a 1/2 cup of frozen corn that I thawed, instead of the canned corn.

The patties are pan fried in a small amount of oil, placed on toasted whole wheat buns, and topped with romaine lettuce and chipotle mayo. Chipotle mayo being mayo that is mixed with some chipotle in adobo sauce.

These were really good. Mine were a bit spicy, but I like it that way. I didn't even mind the corn, and ordinarily I hate having corn mixed in anything. The only problem I had with the patties is that they didn't bind together well, and fell apart easily in the pan. However, it was a small annoyance and I do plan on making these again.

For dessert I took a pineapple and cut off the peel, top and bottom, and sliced it into rounds. I placed the rounds on a baking sheet and topped each one with a small amount of brown sugar. I baked them at 350 F for about 15 minutes. I topped the rounds with sweetened coconut that I had toasted. (The coconut is toasted by placing it in a dry skillet over low heat until it is golden brown). Also very delicious!

Rebekah's Curry

On Monday night, after my terribly long day at work, I wanted nothing more than to just crawl into bed and sleep for the entire night. However, I knew that I would end up waking up a few hours later and unable to sleep for the rest of the night and I would feel worse the next day.

The weather was sort of chilly, so I thought I would make something warm and spicy. I made a curry, without using a recipe, so this recipe is my own.

Rebekah's Curry

If serving this with brown rice, put the rice on to boil before starting to assemble the curry. If using white rice, start making the rice after the curry has been assembled.

The following serves 4-5

1) Cut up two chicken breasts into bite size chunks. Heat just enough oil in a pan to cover the pan, on medium high. Add the chicken to the pan and brown on all sides (roughly 2 minutes)

2) Add an onion that has been cut into thin strips. Saute until the onion is soft and brown (roughly 2 minutes)

3) Add 4 tbsp of Patak's Madras Curry Paste. Stir to cover the chicken.

4) Add a can of coconut milk. Stir to melt the thick cream that forms at the top of the can.

5) Add a can of chopped tomatoes and a chopped bell pepper.

6) Bring to a boil, lower heat, and cover.

I simmered mine until the rice was ready, for close to 40 minutes, and it was delicious. It would probably still be delicious even if it only had simmered for 20 minutes. The only thing I would have changed from the above recipe, is I would have added the bell pepper close to the end, instead of letting it get so soft from being in there so long.

If you wanted you could also add diced carrots, or some frozen peas. (Add the carrots with the curry paste, add the peas 5 minutes before taking it off the heat). I also wanted to top it with some cashews, but I forgot to get some at the store. It wasn't too spicy, so if you wanted more bite to it, add a sliced chili.

Overall though, this dish was great.

NOTE: This curry is gluten free. I double checked all the ingredients.

Pasta Salad

Monday mornings are a terrible time for me. To make things easier Monday morning, I usually try to go to sleep earlier on Sunday night. Last night I turned my light off at 10:30 pm (or, as I prefer, 22:30). At 1 am I was still lying in bed wide awake. I fell asleep shortly after that, only to wake up every half hour. I have no idea why this happened, I didn't have any caffeine in the afternoon, and I was pretty tired when I went to bed. Today has been a very rough day. I just keep looking at the clock and wishing it was time for me to go to sleep for the night.

In the meantime, I promised K I would write a blog post today. The recipe can be found here. Because I was eating it for dinner, and planning on having some leftovers, I didn't mix everything altogether, I kept the noodles, dressing and baby greens in separate containers.

I made the noodles by cooking up some Catelli Smart linguine. You could also use whole wheat spaghetti or soba noodles. I used the Catelli Smart ones because that is what I had on hand. Once the noodles are cooked, they are drained and run under cold water to cool them down.

I tossed them with 1 tbsp sesame oil, the zest from a lime and an orange, chopped cucumber, carrots, green onion, and red bell pepper.

I placed some mixed baby greens on a plate, topped them with the noodles, and drizzled the dressing over top. The ingredients for the dressing included peanut butter, lime juice, orange juice, rice vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and red chili flakes. The original recipe called for adding 1/2 cup of oil, but I omitted it because I didn't see a point to the oil.

The recipe was pretty quick to put together. The hardest part was chopping up the produce. The sauce was tangier than what I expected though. I think next time I would only use the juice from half of an orange, and use less rice vinegar. I also used chunky peanut butter, which added some extra crunch to the salad.

Overall I enjoyed it, and it didn't really feel like I was eating salad for dinner. It would be a great recipe on a hot day since the pasta is eaten cold.