Roasted Pepper Macaroni

Ever since I started working again I have felt really adverse to cooking. I always think about making wonderful yummy recipes but when it comes down to it I'm too tired and lack much extra time. This weekend, we spent all day home on Saturday and I got a cooking bug. We had the cinnamon apple cornmeal waffles from here for breakfast and for a late lunch we had roasted pepper macaroni and seafood sausages. Man oh man do I love macaroni and cheese but its really unhealthy for you! I wish I could take credit for this recipe but a friend made it for me and I've been hooked ever since! I don't have a specific recipe but I follow a loose guidelines of this:

Roasted Pepper Macaroni

• 2 peppers ( yellow, red, orange) cut into slices
  
• 3-4 cloves of big garlic cut in half or quarters
• Olive Oil
• Walnuts/Pecans (1/4-1/2 cup)
  
• Parmesan Cheese (1/4 cup)
  
• 2-3 cups of Farfalle / Rotini

On a baking sheet covered in foil place the peppers and garlic cloves and drizzle with olive oil.
Peppers waiting to be roasted!
Roast at 350 for 10-20 minutes. This part is tricky as I'm not a fan of the roasted aka burnt peppers so I roast mine until they are soft and light brown but you can go the whole way and dark roast them. Take out of the oven and let cool a bit, otherwise I seem to have problems with my chopper not sealing but if you don't go ahead and go to the next step. I reserve the oil from the baking and put into my chopper in the next step but you can throw it away but why!? its Roasted pepper and garlic olive oil yum.

Place the peppers and garlic in a blender, chopper, etc... with a handful of nuts (from whichever you have chosen), drizzle a bit more olive oil and Parmesan cheese.

Blended pepper concotion
Blend until smooth ( usually a few minutes) and voila you have roasted pepper sauce. While the peppers are roasting I will start the pasta and they usually end up being done at the same time. I combine the sauce with the pasta. I had enough for 2-3 cups of pasta and than I saved about 1 cup of sauce for pizza/dipping.


L-R and starting at noon - roasted pepper mac, steamed snap peas with salt, pan fried seafood sausages from Trader Joes ( shrimp, crab, red peppers, cilantro yumminess!!)

Also, don't forget to get your names and addresses if you're interested in doing the ornament swap! Deets here

Impromptu Wine and Cheese Dinner

I went to the grocery store in mind to have BBQ chicken and maybe some light summery salads - caprese and watermelon & jicama. After we got home and unpacked the bags all I wanted was cheese, fruit, and wine. So we saved the chicken for another meal and went to town throwing together an impromptu cheese platter. This is what we came up with! Starting from the cantaloupe slices going L-R ( once for the outer circle which stops at the balsamic cippolini's and then a second circle for the fish/meat area.)
Cantaloupe, An Italian Cheese ( similar to a Gouda), Espresso Lavender Cheddar, Candied Pecans, Boursin Gourmay Cheese, Red Grapes, Strawberries, Balsamic Soaked Cippolini's, Smoked Fish, Roast Beef, and Rosemary Ham

A close up of one of my little platters - cantaloupe wrapped in ham ( similar to cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto) a few grapes, and bread with roasted garlic and boursin cheese with a glass of rose. That's some serious yum right there.An awful picture of us. We went for a 90 minute hike/walk/stair climb and it was upper 70's/80's here and hot. I got a bit of a sunburn going on and I need a shower but who cares right?


To end the meal, we had homemade vanilla bean ice cream with fresh strawberries. I haven't quite figured out how to make homemade ice cream without it getting a bit icy/slushy and not quite smooth and fully frozen. It just is more slushy and milky but still tastes yummy none the less.

I might add part of my favorite part of the meal was that we left the TV off and we listened to some of our favorite records and lit a candle. It was nice to spend some quality time together, talking, snuggling, eating and relaxing!

Cheers-

Raechel

Roasted Broccoli with Shrimp

So one of my daily blogporn reads is The Wednesday Chef
I started reading her blog a few months ago and have been making various items off of it. First let me preface this by saying Jack and I have been trying to cook more at home for various reasons: 1) we are both vegetarian now and its harder to find healthier meals at a restaurant and 2) its a good way to save lots of cash.

So anyways back to the The Wednesday Chef. I made this kick ass Roasted Broccoli with Shrimp served over a bed of brown rice. Yumm yumm!



The Recipe