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Pasta Bake

February 4th, 2010 by meg · food

In our house we have a couple go to week night meals. Things that are easy and relatively healthy. Something that is even more of a bonus is if it is easy to change up. Pasta Bake used to be something we would make one night and eat for three. I don’t know why we stopped making it, maybe it was a burn out, but it is slowly making it’s way back up in standing. Another thing that adds to its popularity, it freezes surprisingly well. I made a batch over the weekend for my sister and brother in law. I have a feeling it will be much appreciated after the new addition to their family arrives.

Pasta Bake

1 lb Italian sausage, casings removed

1 zucchini, diced

1 summer squashed, diced

1 package of mushrooms, sliced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 onion, diced

3 garlic cloved, minced

2- 32 oz cans of tomato sauce

1-2 Tbs fresh basil, minced

1 -2Tbs fresh oregano, minced

1 box of penne (cooked to box directions)

Shredded mozzarella (use how ever much you feel like)

salt and pepper to taste

olive oil

pre heat oven to 350, heat a saute pan over medium high heat

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brown sausage completely and set aside on a paper towel lined plate

IMG_4670Add a small amount of olive oil to the pan, about 2 teaspoons.   saute your onions until they start to sweat (3 minutes). scrape up the brown bits on the bottom of the pan as the onions release moisture. Next add the mushrooms and garlic, saute 3 more minutes. Throw in the squash, zucchini, and red pepper. cook  an additional 3 – 5 minutes.

IMG_4675Add to the pan the browned sausage, the cooked pasta, the tomato sauce, the fresh herbs and salt and pepper to taste.

To truly complete the dish top with mozzarella, put the lid on your pan and pop it in the oven until the cheese is melted and gooey (about 30 minutes)

If you are like me and are freezing it for later,  divide among disposable pans (4 deep dish pie pans), cover tightly with aluminum foil and let cool to room temp. Then pop them in the freezer for later use.  To bake defrost, top with cheese and bake until heated through and cheese is melted (will probably take 45 minutes to and hour).

Notes: Chicken sausage will work very well in this recipe, just add a little olive oil before you start to cook it to prevent it from sticking to the pan . If you don’t like my vegetable selection,  it is not a big deal. Change it up to your taste! As for the sauce, if you don’t want to deal with the herbs and cans, use your favorite jarred sauce.

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Update on the Cheese and Wine Tasting

February 1st, 2010 by meg · food

I have heard back from manager friend of the Anderson Kroger.  Here is an excerpt of what she had to say

I’m so glad that you were able to meet Liz Thorpe and attend my wine and cheese tasting! As for tastings at Kroger, they (for the most part) are store specific. Most stores offer a wine tasting which is usually on a Friday. Some stores, such as Marketplace Stores, will offer tastings on weekends as well. I plan all the wine tastings at my store and have developed monthly wine dinners which include chef prepared meals and wine vendor participation in presenting the wines. All of my wine tastings have a different food paired with the wine, it is not always cheese, and the food is planned and prepared by one of my chefs. In general, Kroger shoppers seem to be loyal to one or two kroger stores that are convenient for them, therefore my advertising is in store. But I am developing a bulk email list in which I plan on sending out a newsletter to those who have already attended my tastings or dinners with future events at Anderson Kroger. Please let me know if you have anyone that would like to be included on that email list.

If you would be interested in getting on the event mailing list leave a comment, but please don’t put your e-mail in the comment. I will send it to her privately.  If I get more information about other locations I will let you know too…Is it weird that I am curious about the wine dinners? I might just have to check one of those out too.

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Murray’s Cheese, Cheese Tasting

January 28th, 2010 by meg · food

While the ladies and I  were sipping wine and getting to know each other night at our wine group the conversation naturally turned to cheese.  One of the women said she should run to her car and get her cheese book. I was like, what cheese book do you have in your car? As I pulled out The Cheese Chronicles from my purse. She started laughing and said, I have that book.  Then she told me I need to come get it signed.  What, get my book signed!

On a very dreary Thursday evening Jess and I tracked to the one place what we don’t go very often, the suburbs. As we shook the rain off of us as we pull up a stool at the Anderson Kroger’s very nice tasting bar. There standing behind the bar was, Liz Thorpe.  I was so freakin’ excited, but I played cool.  The girl from wine club saw me and came over and introduced us.  Apparently she had already heard about me carrying my book in my purse. I will admit that I was slightly embarrassed, but if I didn’t carry it in my purse, I would never have knows about the cheese and wine tasting…or got this

Yes, I was a dorky fan!
I wanted her to write Molly gives great presents, but this is what she wrote

Lets get down to business of the cheese and wine tasting.  Overall we don’t keep updated on what is going on at the different grocery stores. If it wasn’t for reading The Cheese Chronicles, I wouldn’t have known that Murray’s Cheese had contracted with Kroger to begin with.

The tastes were $.50 each up to 4 tasting. I know that Ohio has some weird law about paying for tastings. I don’t know what was up with the only 4 tastes. 4 whites and 3 reds were offered. They made suggestions on the order, but nothing was set in stone. There were 4 cheese and all but one paired with the red wine, which was a score for us. The selection of cheeses were fun, but still familiar. It is always nice seeing what flavors work well with other flavors.  The value of the tasting was spot on, but if you go to a lot of wine tastings there is a good chance you would have tasted most of the wines. Overall though I was presently surprised buy how nice the tasting was.  It  made me wonder if other grocery store tasting are like this.

As and FYI: I have an e-mail out to my manager friend about learning more about the tastings. I have search the Kroger website, but have found nothing so far about when tasting happens. I recieve a flyer when I got to the store, but I am thinking that can’t be their only advertising.  Plus, I would never learn about them

As for Murray’s, the selection of cheese is amazing. My new favorite is the lemon stilton, you should give it a try. The staff is very knowledgeable if you have any questions. If you like to just browse freely, the descriptions are spot on.  I even took a picture of one because I thought it was so good (it is a little hard to read tough).

Flyer Wine SignMalbecAged Gouda Gruyere a spot on discription

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Valentine’s Day

January 26th, 2010 by meg · food

If you are planning on going out to eat for Valentine’s Day it is about time to make some reservations.  Jess and I are not much for tradition but Valentine’s day is the one tradition that we are pretty hard core about. I can’t remember, but we might have gone to the same place every year (at least the last three years).   If you are unsure of where to go, I  recommend checking out a one of the locally owned Cincinnati restaurants.  Many restaurants will be running specials. I know Jags has already has a pre fix menu on their website. It would be nice if Jean Ro was still having half price wine night. Whatever you choose, I hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

While you enjoy your meal. Jess and I will be enjoying a soda and a slider.

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Renaissance West or Eating with Grandma

January 25th, 2010 by meg · food

In October my grandma moved into a retirement community, Renaissance West.  The move has been a bit of an adjustment and it seems like the food has been the biggest one. Now, my grandma and I don’t always see eye to eye when it come to food.  She says my food is  fancy.  To explain how bad it is, we were talking about asparagus one day. She said she never liked it, but my grandfather loved it. I asked, how did you cook it? Grandma, I opened the can. I can’t even type what my response was, it was too vulgar. I am also starting to realize why I hated vegetables as a kid!

I  had dinner with my grandma recently. I don’t normally eat until 7, but I rushed out to make it by 5:30. When I arrived I was told that the table had already ordered me the stuffed pork loin, I just needed to order my soup and salad.  After the waitress rattled off a list of soups and salads, I settled on butternut squash soup. The spinach salad with hot bacon dressing sounded delicious, but probably not a smart choice when you are watching what you eat.

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not the best picture!

When I ordered the butternut squash soup I asked what else was in it. I was answered with a dumbfounded look.  When it arrived I was presently surprised that it had curry in it.  Over all this was a pretty typical butternut squash soup, nothing to write home to mom about. My major issue was that I like my soup smooth, where this one had chunks. They were soft, melt  in your mouth chunks, but they were still chunks.

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The pork loin had so much potential! It was stuffed with asparagus and mushroom dressing.  The mushrooms were earthy and the asparagus was a little sweet. Unfortunately the dryness of the meat was an epic fail! I honestly don’t think I have eaten anything that dry in a long time. When the chef came out to greet the diners I couldn’t keep my mouth shut on this one. He told me that anytime you stuff meat the meat dries out.  If you knew the meat was going to be so dry that it bordered on dehydrated, why did you stuff it in the first place? This one really had me scratching my head.

After talking to Grandma and her friends about the food they like, I understand why they might not like everything they are served.  If grandma drove, I could send her to the store and she wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for curry powder.  This is a women that likes her steak well done and and mashed potatoes whipped.  All she wants is good simple food and there is nothing wrong with that.

As an FYI, talking about the food at Renaissance West is all in good fun. I hope that when the time comes, many years from now,  Jess and I check into a place that has as creative food as this place… For those of you who still have grandparent living, this is your friendly reminder to call them or have dinner with them. I can’t tell you how nice it was to have dinner with my grandma and her friends.  They might complain about the food, but their stories are always good.

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What’s playing in your kitchen?

January 20th, 2010 by meg · food

As I was preparing my appetizer for my new women’s wine group last night I was listening to a cd and wondering what other people listened to while they are cooking. Jess always listens to NPR. This is not a favorite for me because I can never concentrate on the radio show and cook. Then when I do get interested, there is no rewind so I can hear what I missed.

I asked a couple ladies last night what they listened to. Ones said she doesn’t listen to anything, she normally talks to her dogs. Another girl apparently doesn’t cook much. Why don’t you leave a comment and let me know what you are listening to.

For your listening pleasure, this is what is currently playing in my kitchen.

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Measuring

January 19th, 2010 by meg · food

Have you ever asked your grandma how to make something and she said,  “A little of this and a little of that.” I can tell you that Jess’ grandma is like this. Maybe one day I will tell you how she taught me how to make fried apple pies, it wasn’t pretty and the family still talks about it.  Since starting this blog I have realized that I don’t measure. On occasion I will, but for the most part I pour it in my hand and in the pot it goes. When a friend of mine asked me how I knew it was enough, here I was like a grandma and replied, “I just do.” In my mind it doesn’t really matter, if it isn’t enough I will just add more. If it is too much, I will remember for next time.  I don’t know about you, but I like cooking to be instinctual. So, I will give you advice that I gave my friend when she said she didn’t want to measure. The next time you have a tablespoon of something measure it and then pour it in your hand. Feel the weight and see what it looks like in your hand.  Pretty soon you won’t have to measure either.

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Baked Eggs

January 18th, 2010 by meg · food

Bacon wrapped baked egg

I discovered baked eggs on a blog, which at this point in time I don’t know what blog it was. I have since read about them on probably 10 blogs. You could say that I have become slightly obsessed with them. If cooked correctly they are creamy deliciousness. For me each bite is a little bit of heaven.  To top it all off they are so easy and versatile.  I have made these as a quick weekend breakfast or to feed a group for brunch.

As always there were variations in the recipes that I read. Some say you need to bake them in a water bath, which I did a couple of time. Some recipes say that heavy cream is a must, which I use most of the time. The hardest part of the recipe is getting your time down.  My oven takes 12 minutes.  Once you learn your timing the possibilities are infinite.

Baked Eggs from Christmas Diner (you will need 4 ramekins)

4 eggs

1 T chopped  fresh thyme and rosemary

1/2 cup cream

1 cup Gruyere (grated on a micro plane)

4 T Parmesan (grated on a micro plane)

dash of nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

about 6 stripes of bacon (depends on the length of the bacon)

  1. Preheat over to 350
  2. put bacon in a glass bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap, microwave one minute.  Continue in 30 sec intervals until bacon is partially cook , but still pliable.  Please note the bacon and grease will be very hot!
  3. Once the bacon has cooled, line the outside of your ramekin with bacon, then put a small piece in the bottom.
  4. next sprinkle about 3 T of Gruyere in the ramekin, followed by a bit of pepper, herbs and nutmeg
  5. crack one egg in each
  6. top each with 1 T of Gruyere and 1 T of  Parmesan, followed by salt, pepper, and nutmeg
  7. pour about 2 T of cream on top of each and a little dash of herbs (be careful not to overflow)
  8. place ramekins on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. The whites should be just set. If they are not check on them every two minutes
  9. once removed from the oven, let sit for 5 minutes

Variations:  On a normal weekend I will fry the bacon, crumble it and add it with the cheese on the bottom. Say, you have sausage, just use it instead.  Meat really isn’t a necessity,  I have also added carmelized onion. Spinach would be good too.  Make the seasonings work for you. We like things a little smoky and spicy, a pinch of cyanne and paprika do the trick.  Don’t let the recipe inhibit you. The only thing that should inhibit you is the size of your ramekin.

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Eating Seasonally

January 15th, 2010 by meg · food

You could call it a food trend or just a very smart way to eat. Eating seasonally is going to mean that your food is more flavorful and probably a little more economical.  Today while I was going through my backlog of posts in my google reader I came across a really cool free calendar that lists what is in season for the month. So jump on over to Cottage Industrialist and grab yours for the first 6 months of the year.  Now if that wasn’t exciting enough, you can also check in with Home Ec 101 for matching printable recipe cards.  I have a feeling you are going to have to check back for recipes each month, but I think it will be worth it!

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New RSS Feed URL

January 15th, 2010 by jess · food

If you are subscribing to this blog using a news reader, please update the feed URL to be:  http://feeds.feedburner.com/cincyeats.  Thanks!

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