teacher by day - chef by night
So after our tour on Saturday (with the Amazing Scott of Scott’s Pizza Tours), Rich was totally inspired by Scott & his love of pizza AND all of the new techniques/ideas Scott is trying & suggested that Rich try. (I know – this is just …
A preview of coming attractions….. today I took a tour with Scott – the pizza expert of NYC – http://www.scottspizzatours.com/ Please take a look at his site and get excited about my update in the next few days about this tour. (And if you don’t book …
I LOVE chili! From the time I was little, I would always get excited when mom made chili, as I got older I began to help, or doctor mine up to be more spicy. A few years ago I cut out a recipe for White Chicken Tortilla Chili (from a Relish magazine, or something like that?). That recipe is still in my “favorites” binder that I have – but I hardly ever follow it anymore and just go with the flow & whatever I’m in the mood for. I knew I was heading out to the market the other day & asked Rich what he wanted for dinner the next night. One of his choices was Quesadillas. Now I love quesadillas as much as the next person, but to me they are more of a “blech – I don’t have time or feel like cooking something” meal so I couldn’t just cook quesadillas for dinner!
This week has been super cold and I decided that I didn’t need to buy anything special at the market and was going to make this weeks version of my chili (sans chicken – just vegetarian) with some quesadilla on the side!
My Chili (today’s version)
Start off by sautéing the onions & garlic in some olive oil. Then I just went and opened up all of my cans & added in some chicken stock (just a little for now, I just add as I go). Top it off with spices, add in the tomatoes & let it simmer for a bit. Continue to taste this as you cook – you are totally in control here to make it as hot or spicy or chunky or whatever as you want! (top it off with your sour cream & cilantro)
For quesadilla – put a tortilla shell on a pan (I don’t use any oil), sprinkle your favorite shredded cheese (some sort of cheddar or mexican mix is usually it for me), then put some cumin & cayenne pepper on top of the cheese & finally top it off with your other shell. After about 3 minutes: flip & brown. Slice it up & enjoy with your favorite sides!
*another great way to make this chili is to throw everything in the slow cooker, head to work & come home to an intoxicatingly great smell! You can even throw whole chicken pieces in it that way & just pull them out and shred them when you get home
These individual “egg cups” just look SO cool – check it out on AllRecipes.com! Little individual “fried eggs” wrapped in bacon! I am going to have to plan ahead to actually have some bacon in the house next time there will be a crowd for …
There are some days that I just don’t feel like being super inventive and kind of just want some “comfort food”. I usually try to make something that I can at least pretend to be healthy (ok – so I guess my last recipe: ricotta …
I was trying to plan dinner for the other night & wanted to do something with the ricotta I had in the fridge (it was on great sale a week or so ago & with coupon had to buy two containers)! I also knew that I had plenty of frozen ground beef (once again – when something is on sale, you must get it… perfect way to cook delicious things on a budget). The logical choice with those base ingredients would be lasagna but I was not in the mood for it! I decided to try ricotta meatballs and got started on a search to try to get a rough idea of what to cook. Surprisingly, I had a hard time finding more than just a few recipes to go from. Simply Recipes seemed to have the best starter recipe for me to work from 🙂
My version of Ricotta Meatballs:
Combine the ground beef with garlic, breadcrumbs, basil, parsley, parmesan, & some pepper. Then lightly beat your eggs & add in the ricotta. Combine the ricotta mixture into your meat mix (go ahead – use your hands, you get a better mix & it is just so darn fun!!). Heat a pan (you will make your sauce in here later) with a little olive oil & form your favorite sized meatballs. I like to brown them all around (you will have to probably brown the meatballs in at least two batches) and then bake them the rest of the way (Usually about 10 minutes to brown and then about 20 minutes in a 350 oven?). Once everything is in the oven I made a simple sauce of a can (28 oz) of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, some red wine (ehh – it was on the counter, so why not!) Once the sauce was good, in went the meatballs & let it go for another 10 minutes or so.
Add some fresh spaghetti, plate it up, add some fresh basil & the moistest, most delicious meatballs that I have ever made were served!!