Let's eat Grandpa!

Despite a bout with a stomach bug last weekend (ew), my kitchen got quite the workout this week, as I made several different things. Commence drooling:

Fettuccine and Mushrooms (Cuisine at Home recipe adapted at the Noble Pig blog, which you should check out because it looks like it’s all things delicious. And there’s a pig wearing a crown.)

Photo courtesy of Noble Pig

I still wasn’t feeling stellar the evening that I made this, but after I ate it I felt magically better! Literally, all traces of my queasiness was gone. I’m not sure what kind of magic ‘shrooms I made, but it worked.

I bought regular white button mushrooms because I couldn’t find cremini. But as I was writing this post, I read that white button, cremini (also called baby bellas, would have been good to know when shopping), and portobello mushrooms are all the same variety. It just depends on how long they’ve been allowed to grow. Can anyone else confirm this? Very helpful for future cooking adventures.

This recipe was a breeze to make. Just boiled the pasta and cooked up the mushrooms in butter, oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes, adding a bit of wine late into the process. The result was quite good, especially for the super easy cooking process. I used just over 1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes — it had just the right amount of heat, but you can add or subtract if you like it more or less spicy. It was also surprisingly filling (though this could have been an effect of the stomach bug), even though it had no meat.

Had the leftovers the next day and they were just okay. It was much slicker and creamier right out of the pan.

Rating: seven out of ten magic ‘shrooms!

Spaghetti alla Carbonara 

I had some friends over for dinner with me and the boyfriend on Wednesday, and they specifically requested something I learned to cook while I was in Italy in May. Many of those recipes had handmade pasta, but I didn’t have time to make pasta from scratch, so I went with the Carbonara, which uses dried pasta (the Italians use a lot of dried pasta. They invented it.). It’s actually a fairly easy, quick meal. Here is the recipe from my vacation cookbook:

Ingredients:

1lb spaghetti
3 fresh eggs
1 tbsp milk
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup diced Swiss cheese
4 – 6 slices pancetta or bacon, cut into small pieces
1 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp grated Reggiano/Parmesan cheese

 Preparation:

1. In a large skillet, saute the pancetta pieces in the olive oil.
2. In a small bowl, beat the eggs with the milk, salt, and pepper.
3. Add 1 tbsp Reg/Parm cheese to egg/milk mixture. Set aside.
4. Cook the spaghetti until almost done (very al dente)
5. Drain spaghetti (reserve 1/2 cup pasta water) and add to the skillet with the pancetta.
6. Return skillet to low heat and add the egg/milk mixture and the Swiss cheese.
7. Toss the spaghetti to coat with the eggs/milk mixture for about a minute.
8. The dish is ready to serve when the spaghetti is still moist, the egg is no longer runny, and the Swiss cheese is beginning to melt.
9. Sprinkle remaining Reg/Parm cheese on top.
10. Serve immediately.

I added that last step because I didn’t do it. Due to a sick dog, we didn’t eat right when the food was ready. Unfortunately, the pasta dried out a bit and it wasn’t nearly as creamy as it should have been. But the flavors were really delicious, and we all added a bit of olive oil to cream thing up and it was pretty good all around! (I forgot to take a photo. Boo.)

Rating: when cooked properly, it gets a ten out of ten bacons. I think my version was a seven or eight.

With it, I served:

Haricot Verts with Warm Bacon Vinaigrette (recipe adapted from Cooking Light)

Holy cow, these were some frackin’ delicious green beans. Yes, I realize things cooked in bacon are just better, but these were really some of the best veggies I’ve ever made.

I did modify the recipe a bit — I have an allergy to walnuts, so I used regular olive oil (not walnut oil) and didn’t add the toasted walnuts. I went ahead and bought the champagne vinegar – it was pricey ($8 for a small bottle). I’m not sure if it made a difference compared to regular vinegar. But since I will definitely be cooking this again, I know I’ll use it. This recipe made SO MANY BEANS. The four of us only ate a little over half the beans I cooked. And that’s four people who eat mostly vegetarian diets — we all LOVE green beans! I’ll have the recipe next time. We thought this would be especially delicious for the holidays (when you probably want to make the full recipe)!

Rating: ten out of ten beans! I’ll be making this again.

ALSO: my friends brought over dessert, and I must say that it was excellent. As I’ve said before, the boyfriend loves ginger so they made white chocolate and ginger ice cream. Strange? Yes. Good? Definitely. Served over plum crumble? DELICIOSO.

* * *

Couch to 5K, Week 5: My first run of the week was a nightmare. I felt AWFUL from my stomach bug, and halfway through my run (when I was the farthest from my house), I thought to myself, “I made a bad choice.” I did manage to complete that day’s sets, but I immediately went home, crawled into bed, and slept for two hours.

Days two and three were much better. Eight minute runs on day two were hard but not too bad. I find that the blades of my feet (the outside edge) get a little tired and sore. I didn’t think I could do the complete twenty-minute run on Friday morning (sleeeepy), but my body seemed to be it okay with it, so I just kept going (I’m trying to pay close attention to what my body is telling me — I’m scared of injury). And I finished! Twenty minutes! 2.3 miles! Heck yeah! Awesome sauce!

I also did my first spin class this week, as part of my other training (which I swear I will tell you more about soon). I love, love, loved it. My body knows what a bike feels like, so while it was a very difficult class, I felt so good and natural. I wish I could afford to do it more often. No extra training this weekend — going wine tasting instead! Perhaps I’ll report on my wine-findings in next week’s I Made It Myself post.

Posted on October 15, 2011 at 4:28 pm in Food + Exercise   |  RSS feed |   Respond   |   Trackback URL