Three-Berry Clafouti

It's strange that of the dozen cookbooks I own, I really only regularly use about three of them (two books about baking and a pasta cookbook which contains one of my favorite tomato sauces). Occasionally, I'll pull out one of the four Rachael Ray books I own to look for a new recipe, but most of my favorites from those books I've committed to memory.

A couple of weekends ago, I got the hankering to bake a dessert. We already had cookies in the freezer, and I really wanted something fruity. I immediately thought of the raspberry clafouti we had been served at the bed and breakfast in Montana. "A clafouti is healthy," I rationalized. "If I use blueberries, blackberries, and some raspberries, I'll get my daily dose of antioxidants." So I began my quest for a recipe...

I began searching the internet for recipes. I remembered that clafouti is a French dish, and then I remembered that Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking had been sitting on my bookshelf for over a year. I looked through it for fun every now and then but I had yet to try out any of her recipes. Surely Julia would have a recipe for this pastry in her book. I was in luck, she had several variations on the classic dish.


I decided to use three berries because a) I needed an excuse to use blackberries (my favorite), b) blueberries are in season and somewhat inexpensive and c) I'm not a huge fan of raspberries but like the color.

The recipe couldn't be simpler to make. The ingredients for the "dough" are all combined and blended. Flour, sugar, milk, vanilla, and eggs are processed until smooth.

As you can see, it's kind of frothy.

Next, you pour a thin layer of the batter into the bottom of the pie plate, just enough to coat the bottom. The pie plate goes into the 350-degree oven for a few minutes, just enough time for a film to set on the bottom of the pie plate. Then you remove the plate from the oven, add the fruit and more sugar, and pour on the rest of the batter.

It kind of looks like a giant pancake...

Then you bake the clafouti for about 45 minutes, until it's set. Let it rest for a few minutes before slicing into it.

I really like this dish. It would be great served warm with some ice cream, or with whipped cream. We didn't have either of those in the kitchen, so we ate it plain. It was a light dish that didn't leave a heavy feeling in your stomach. In fact, it reminded me of a thick, giant berry pancake. And with all those great berries, you don't have to feel guilty about eating a big piece!

For the batter...
1 1 /4 cups milk
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon of vanilla
1/3 teaspoon salt
1 cup of flour

For the filling...
3 cups of berries
1/3 cup sugar

Black Bean Chimichangas

Do you have a word that you just love to say? A word that just brings a smile to your face? A word that just wants makes you want to celebrate? If not, don't fear-- I bring to you the word "Chimichanga!" C'mon, say it out loud. You're smiling now, right? Chi-MEE-chang-ah. Chi-me-CHANG-ah. (I know, I'm having a little too much fun with it).

According to Wikipedia, a chimichanga is traditionally a fried burrito that got its name when a cook dropped some dough into a vat of oil, and (instead of saying a very bad word in Spanish), exclaimed "Chimichanga," which is loosely translated from Spanish as "thingamajig" in English.

I had never eaten a thingamajig (that's kind of a fun word, too) until a few weeks ago when my cousin Maria converted leftover chili verde into baked chimichangas. Boy, were they good-- a crispy tortilla crust enclosing pork, onions, tomatoes, and cheese, and topped with a spicy sauce.

Her idea to use leftover chili got me thinking-- what other kinds of foods could one put in a chimichanga? It didn't take long for an idea to come-- black bean and bacon smash! It's one of my favorite go-to meals, but we usually just eat it with rice, or I occasionally will use the beans as a "sauce" for pizza.

The beans are perfect for a chimichanga because they already have a Tex-Mex flavor from the cumin and chipotle in adobo sauce. And turning them into chimis couldn't be easier-- all you have to do is assemble.



So, obviously the first thing to do was cook the black bean & bacon smash in the slow cooker during the afternoon while I was at work (I know, it's pretty ugly, but looks can be deceiving!). Then I reserved half of the black bean mixture for dinner the next night. With the remaining mixture, I mixed in some roasted corn kernels (this is enough filling for 4 chimis). I baked frozen corn kernels in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes to thaw them out and give them a little bit of color. The corn added crunchy texture to the bean filling.

Then I set about getting the rest of the ingredients together: tortillas, a bag of Mexican blend shredded cheese and cooking spray.

I wrapped the tortillas up in a damp kitchen towel and nuked them for about 30 seconds in the microwave, just to get them very pliable. I also sprayed a small baking sheet with the cooking spray.

Next, I spooned about a 1/4 cup of the bean filling onto the tortilla...

... and then sprinkled on the cheese...
... and then rolled them up, just like a burrito, and placed them on the baking sheet.
(obviously I need a little more practice rolling them up! Fortunately the taste wasn't affected.)

Before putting these in a 350 degree oven, I sprayed the chimichangas with cooking spray.. I baked them for about 15 minutes. They were crisp (not quite as crispy as a fried one would be), but I think you could achieve mucho crispiness if you baked them in a hotter oven (around 425-450 degrees).

I didn't have a recipe for sauce, so I set out two jars of salsa from Frontera Foods instead: the salsa verde and the Guajillo salsa. The side dish is sauteed peppers and onions seasoned with chili powder and cumin! Yummy!

I have to come clean. From July 28-August 7 I didn’t cook AT ALL. I ate ice cream almost every day. I ate foods with no regard to their nutritional content. And I loved every minute of it. Of course, my waistline would beg to differ now that it is holding up an extra 5 pounds (5 is just a guess—it could be more but I’m scared to step on the scale!)

During those 12 days, I was on vacation in Montana with my hubby, Will, and my parents. We had a fantastic time, and enjoyed great restaurant and home-cooked food along the way. I’m not sure if we hit the “best of the best” restaurants during our visit, but I would highly recommend all of the restaurants where we ate.

At any rate, here is a recap of our travels!

South Carolina/Georgia

My husband, Will, and I began our trip with a breakfast stop at Chick-fil-A, the home of the best chicken biscuits in the world, on our way to my parent’s house in Georgia. From there, the four of us departed for Atlanta and the airport. But, before we headed to the airport, we ate a late lunch at the OK Café. This place is great if you want to quelch a craving for classic southern food. I usually get the broiled salmon, but on Tuesday I got the veggie plate with squash soufflé, macaroni & cheese, a baked sweet potato, green beans, and a corn muffin. They have fabulous desserts, but since we were so full from our meal, we decided to forgo the brownie sundaes, chocolate ice box pies, and carrot cake. I did pick up a super-sized Rice Krispie treat from the OK Take Away for a snack on the plane.

Red Lodge, MT

After arriving in Billings on Tuesday, we went straight to the hotel for a good night’s rest. The next morning, my Aunt B picked us up and took us to Red Lodge, which is at the foot of the Beartooth Mountains. We ate at a cute little café in Red Lodge (I can’t remember the name, but will post it once I do). I had a bison burger with sweet potato fries, which were surprisingly crispy.

Will is enjoying a Moose Drool ale from Montana's Big Sky Brewing Company. We decided that we would only drink MT beer during our trip (but that ended for Will when he met Cousin D and got free Busch Light).

Before we roamed the streets of Red Lodge and took a drive up the Cook City Highway, dear hubby and I split a rich piece of chocolate cake. By the way, if you ever are in Montana and want a scenic drive, take this road. The views of the mountains are spectacular, and you may see a bear like we did!

View from an overlook on the Cook City Highway.

The bear!


Lewistown, MT



After a day of sightseeing outside of Billings, the four of us headed to Lewistown, MT, for our three-day family reunion! It was very exciting to see all of our relatives, many of whom we hadn’t seen in several years!


We stayed at the Pheasant Tales Bed & Bistro, where our rooms were very spacious, and breakfast was included. Among the offerings were scrambled eggs, bacon, French toast, raspberry clafouti, pancakes, and breakfast casserole.

Pheasant Tales Bed & Bistro


Needless to say, we got off to a great start each morning (and so did the turkeys).

Since Pheasant Tales is located a bit off the beaten path, so we got to see lots of deer, a porcupine, turkey, and a garter snake (well, I didn’t see the snake but I heard all about it).

The ownersof the B&B also breeds English Setters, so we always received a warm, rousing welcome from the four-legged residents.

When we weren’t at the B&B, we were at my Aunt M and Uncle L’s house, which was a relatively short drive from Lewistown. We had some of the best food of the trip there because most of it was homemade by my aunt and cousins, who were kind enough to share their recipes with us. (Look for those on upcoming blog entries!)

Of course, no summer vacation would be complete without ice cream! We soon found that the best place to swing by and pick up an ice cream cone or an Artic Freeze (similar to a DQ Blizzard) was the Dash Inn, located on the main street of Lewistown. Not only was the ice cream good, it was lots of fun to sit in the parking lot and watch the local teens and Harley Davidson enthusiasts cruise the strip.

On our final night in Lewistown, we were treated to dinner at Pheasant Tales by my parents. Aunt B, Aunt M, Uncle L, and Cousin M joined us for a fabulous meal that began with pheasant and duck ravioli in a sun-dried tomato, basil, and garlic sauce (this may be my favorite dish of the trip).

Pheasant and duck ravioli

Next, we enjoyed freshly sliced cucumbers and tomatoes with a poppy seed dressing. The main course was a beef tenderloin with a sauce (sorry, I can't remember what kind), but it was made with Madeira and plum syrup. On the plate it looked like a plain brown gravy, but when it hit your mouth you got a subtle sweet flavor that was wonderful surprise! On the side was a zucchini cake that was comprised of pine nuts and bread crumbs, and topped with a remoulade sauce.

Dessert proved the point that simple is sometimes best-- it was a raspberry crepe with a brandy cream sauce.

Chris, the chef, said it best: "Everything is better with brandy cream sauce." I couldn't agree more and am definitely hitting the internet to find a recipe for it!

Great Falls

On Tuesday morning, we bid a fond farewell to our family and Pheasant Tales and headed to Great Falls to visit the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center on the banks of the Missourri River.

After a jaunt through the museum, we headed to Dante's Creative Cuisine for lunch. Everyone was very pleased with their dishes. My hubby had shrimp pasta with a four-cheese whiskey sauce, my dad had broccoli and pasta with a Gouda cheese sauce, my Mom got a great bowl of hot & sour soup, and I had a veggie burrito with salsa verde.

Helena

We drove from Great Falls to Helena, and made another stop at an educational site in Ulm, MT, at the First People Buffalo Jump.

That's me standing in front of the buffalo jump!

We stayed at the Best Western Great Northern in Helena--it is a very nice hotel and I would highly recommend it. My husband and I headed out on our own for dinner that night, and ended up at the Brewhouse Pub and Grille on Lyndale Avenue, a very short walk from our hotel. The beer was okay and the food was good by bar standards.

We stopped at the Great Northern Carousel to get ice cream for dessert. I had a scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough and "hot" chocolate (chocolate ice cream with cayenne pepper-- it was interesting but left a burn in my mouth). While the ice cream was good, the price was a little outrageous. Each of us got two scoops in a waffle cone, and the total was over $10! We failed to see that the ice cream shop charged by the ounce, not the scoop! The next night we had ice cream at Dairy Queen.

Can you find the Sleeping Giant in the distance? I took this photo while hiking up Mount Helena.

On Wednesday morning in Helena, the four of us got a brief tour of the city from a Helena-native, and then headed out to the Gates of the Mountain boat tour. But, before driving to the dock, we picked up sandwiches for lunch from the Staggering Ox. I wish I had thought to take a photo of these specialities (there is one on the website). The sandwich loaves are baked in a cylinder, and then hollowed out. The bread is filled with any kind of filling you want. I got the the vegi sandwich which included veggies (duh) and cheese. The Staggering Ox has several sauces (really, they are more like salad dressings) you can drizzle on your sandwich as you eat it. Our clerk gave us lots of different sauces to try, and my favorites ended up being the sesame dressing and the wasabi.

Will and I split off from my parents that afternoon to go hiking on Mount Helena. Following our hike, we were ready for a good meal so we went to On Broadway for dinner. We had a great meal-- we split a crab and potato cake appetizer. Will got seafood alfredo for dinner and I had pasta puttanesca. While the $16.95 price tag for pasta seemed steep, the portions where HUGE, and a roll and big green salad were included in the meal. After dinner we walked around Helena for a bit before retiring to the hotel to prepare for our last day on the road in Big Sky Country.

Bozeman/Billings

The day before we flew home, we left Helena for Billings. However, we had to make a stop at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. The Museum of the Rockies has a terrific exhibit on dinosaurs and has great displays about the region's geological history.

One of my favorite parts of the museum is Mike the T-Rex, who greets visitors at the museum's entrance.

My mother got a suggestion from a museum employee for lunch, and we hit The Nova Cafe in downtown Bozeman for a late lunch. We all really enjoyed our food (Nova serves breakfast all day as well as lunch items) even though the service was slow. I had a California sandwich that was comprised of roast beef, avocado, lettuce, and tomato on ciabatta bread. It came with baked fries that were actually crisp (my baked fries at home always come out kind of soft), so I ate up! We walked off our lunch downtown and got ice cream cones before getting on the road to Billings.

Aunt B was kind enough to take us out to eat at the Windmill Restaurant in Billings on Thursday night. We all had fantastic steaks for dinner, along with salads and rolls. I had chocolate lava cake and vanilla ice cream for dessert.

Even though our trip lasted almost two weeks, it still wasn't long enough. it was great to see our grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers & sister, but parting ways again just reminds us how spread out across the country we are.

We've been back from vacation for almost one week now, and my mind still drifts to the wide open spaces and mountains. I think it's time to start planning a return trip...

Three-Bean Chili

The heat of summer is sweltering, the humidity is suffocating, and the best place to be is inside with the AC cranked up and the ceiling fans whirring away. So what better time of year to make a huge pot of spicy chili?

Yeah, I know, it's a little too hot for a bowl of spicy peppers, onions, and beans, but boy is it good!

Despite cooking soup/chili/stew at least 3-4 times a month during the winter, I rarely make the stuff during the summer since it is so hot outside and you don't really want to eat anything too heavy because of the heat. But, it was time for a vegetarian meal (especially after eating potato chips, burgers, and sour cream & ranch dip for dinner the night before at our first pool party of the year). I didn't feel like making black bean and bacon smash, which graces our table at least every other week, so I turned to my favorite vegetarian chili recipe.

This is yet another adaptation of a Rachel Ray recipe (the original can be found here). I was forced to make some changes after some of the ingredients were not to be found in the cupboard. This chili is spicy, but you can always adjust the spices to suit your taste.

Start out by heating a couple tablespoons of oil a big pot over medium heat, and then add the chopped onion (if you love onions like me you can use 1 1/2 to 2), bell peppers, and garlic. Season with salt and pepper, then saute for a few minutes until the veggies soften. Then, deglaze the pan with beer or stock. Fortunately for my dinner, some poor person had left behind a bottle of Corona Extra after our pool party on Saturday. His loss was my gain-- the beer gives the chili a little kick.

After deglazing the pan, add the tomatoes (please use the fire-roasted! They taste so much better. But, if you can't find them, use regular tomatoes-the dish is still great.). You could use crushed tomatoes, but I like a chunky chili so I use the diced.

Fire roasted tomatoes-- good in chili, tomato sauces, soups, and any other recipe that requires canned tomatoes.

Follow that up with the two cans of whole beans (we'll add the refried beans later), the can of Rotel (or can of green chiles), the cumin, the chili powder, chipotle in adobe sauce, salt and pepper. Bring the pot to a boil and let it simmer for at least 20 minutes. In the meantime, mix up a batch of Jiffy corn muffins to serve on the side.


About 10 minutes before you serve, mix in the can of refried beans. It helps if you add the refried beans in spoonfuls, that way they beans "dissolve" into the stew faster. The refried beans help thicken the chili.




Last night I ate my bowl plain, with a Jiffy corn muffin on the side, in front of the TV. In spite of the fact I was overheating by the end of the bowl due to the spiciness, the chili hit the spot and providing a filling (and guilt-free) meal.

This is also good topped with cheese (Monterrey Jack, please), and I'd imagine sour cream and guacamole would be good, too.

Three-Bean Chili (serves at least 6)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt & pepper to taste
1 onion
2 or 3 bell peppers (any color)
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 16-oz. cans of beans (any kind you like- I usually use black, pinto, or kidney)
1 cup of beer or chicken stock
1 small can of minced green chilies OR 1 can of Rotel
2 16-oz cans of fire-roasted tomatoes
1 can of vegetarian refried beans
1 tablespoon of cumin
2 to 2 1/2 tablespoons of chili powder
1-2 teaspoons of chipotle in adobe sauce (you could dice up a chipotle and toss it in)

Pizza

Pizza! Pizza Hut? Papa John's Pizza? Papa's Pizza to Go? Domino's Pizza? Mellow Mushroom Pizza? Homemade pizza?

Yeah, that last one sounds just right. No need to worry that the customer service rep answering the phone will mess up the toppings, no need to go pick it up, or hope that the delivery guy will find his way to your house before the pizza gets cold. Nope, homemade equals all the toppings you want and piping hot from the oven and a crisp crust.

Hubby and I haven't had pizza in forever, and I had just enough tomato sauce left over from last week's spaghetti and meatballs to top a couple of pizza crusts. Due to my new-found love of baking, I just had to make a homemade crust. I turned to one of my favorite Food Network Chefs for a recipe. A very time-consuming recipe. After mixing the dough, I kneaded it in the stand mixer for 20 minutes, keeping an every watchful eye on the KitchenAid to make sure it didn't walk off the counter.

After all that time, measuring ingredients, babysitting the mixer, the darn dough didn't rise. The recipe advised to put the dough in the fridge overnight, but the darn stuff didn't puff up one bit. Terrified the pizza wouldn't be the best it could be, I discarded the dough and turned to The Bread Bible, hoping Mrs. Beranbaum wouldn't steer me wrong. It was the third recipe I have made from this book, and the third time was the charm.

This dough was so simple to put together. All I had to do was mix water, flour, yeast, and salt until it just came together to form a dough, put it in a measuring cup, coat it with olive oil, and LEAVE IT ALONE! No kneading involved!

The dough right after mixing. It's not very pretty.

Since my dough wasn't rising fast enough for me (remember, I was making up for lost time after the first dough debacle), I put it on a heating pad to warm it up. It worked rather well.

You don't leave it alone forever. Since I made mine the same day, I let it rise on the counter for an hour before putting it in the fridge for the afternoon. About an hour before you want to eat, you take it out of the fridge, and divide it into two pieces (well, you could leave it intact for one 10-inch pizza, but personal pizzas are more fun).

Tuck the edges of the dough under to form two balls and place them on an oiled baking sheet, and leave it be for 15 minutes. Once the 15 minutes is up, shape the dough into two discs, and let those rest for at least 30 minutes.

The shaped dough. I was going for rustic.

Next, put the baking sheet in a 475 degree oven (one that preferably has a pizza stone on the bottom rack), and bake for 5 minutes. Remove, and top the dough with your desired toppings.

I topped our pies with leftover tomato sauce, fresh parsley, thyme and basil, and mozzarella, Parmesan, and provolone cheeses. The fresh herbs made a huge difference in the flavor.

If you have a baking stone, place the pizzas (which are on the baking sheet) on the stone for two minutes. Then, using a large spatula, transfer the pizzas to a higher rack in the oven for three minutes. Then, remove, slice, and enjoy!

B-A-G-E-L=Comfort

Chicken pot pie, roasted chicken, mashed potatoes-- that's what a lot of people think of when "comfort food" comes to mind. Not me- one of my favorite comfort food would have to be a bagel. I'm not sure where this comes from-- my family lived in a small town when I was growing up where it was nearly impossible to get a real, chewy bagel. You know, the kind with the thick crust where you have to really sink your teeth into it and tear off a taste of the chewiness inside. We did get them occasionally, though, usually after a trip to Atlanta.

I remember my dad eating a bagel ripped in half with a big dollop of cream cheese on his plate. I remember my parents eating bagels with lox. And I remember that while my parents topped their bagels with cream cheese and salmon at dinner, I usually ate a bagel slathered with deli mustard or peanut butter. (Yes, deli mustard-Hebrew National please!)

Fast forward a couple of decades-- those big hunks of dense bread that try to pass themselves off as bagels in the bread section of the grocery store are the only thing resembling a bagel within 30 miles of my town. So that led me to take an extreme action-- bake my own bagels! The main reason I bought a copy of The Bread Bible was that Rose Levy Beranbaum included a recipe for bagels. So, last weekend I set out on a mission to try out her recipe.

The key to a chewy bagel is the gluten in the flour, and Mrs. Beranbaum suggests using King Arthur bread flour if you don't have a high-gluten flour on hand (which of course I didn't).

The recipe begins by making a sponge, which is so cool because you get to see it grown and get all bubbly (IT'S ALIVE!!!). Basically, it's just yeast, flour, and water, and then you whisk it together (I used a stand mixer). Then you top it with the rest of the ingredients. I let that sit at room temperature for about an hour, and then put it in the fridge overnight.

Mixing up the sponge ingredients...

The sponge/flour mixture after a night of resting in the fridge...

After a good night's sleep, you bring the sponge/flour mixture up to room temperature, then mix all the ingredients together and knead them for several minutes. Then you let the yeast go to work and raise up the dough.

The dough after the first rise (look at those bubbles!).

I will say that this is a time consuming process. After the first rise, you punch the bread down and let it rest in the fridge before shaping the dough. Shaping the dough is rather easy, just divide it into balls, poke a hole in the center of the ball and stretch the dough until you have a 2 1/2 inch hole (it will shrink up once you let go).

A shaped bagel...

While the dough was taking a break, I set a big pot of water to boil, and added molasses and baking soda once the water was bubbling (the water resembled a boiling pot of Guinness after the molasses and soda were combined.) Then, the bagels went into the pot in batches, and cooked for 1 minutes on each side.

Boiling a bagel...

After the bread boiled in the water, it drained on a kitchen towel, and then was brushed with an egg wash. Next, the bagels went into a 500 degree oven (which you knock back down to 450 degrees) for about 20 minutes.

Baked bagel

My bagels came out really brown. I think the oven may have been too hot. They were also rock hard right after baking, which scared me. However, the crust softened up after it cooled.

Fortunately, my taste for bagel condiments has grown more sophisticated than deli mustard. I love to eat them with cream cheese spread with fruit preserves, or simply with cream cheese and smoked salmon. Lately, I'm on a cashew butter and apricot preserves kick. Yumm....


These bagels were good, but not quite what I craved. They were not chewy enough since I could only find bread flour at the local stores (the texture was more of a donut with a crust), and they didn't have that bagel-y taste because I left out the malt powder. Still, they did remind my of my deli mustard-covered bagel from my childhood.

I will definitely be making these again, as soon as I order some high-gluten flour and malt powder online!

Slower Cooker BBQ Beans

We had to barbeque on the 4th of July. To do anything else would just be, well, not patriotic. Come rain or shine I was determined to lounge by the pool and cook dinner. We had grilled chicken, corn on the cob, and beans. Since I try to avoid foods out of a can that I can cook at home, I went hunting for a recipe for baked/BBQ beans. In the past, I used a recipe from the Joy of Cooking, but I found that the beans baked in the oven weren't cooked enough or were way too mushy.

I stumbled across a recipe at Cooking Light's website for stovetop "baked beans." And of course I had to tweak it a bit. I like really tender beans (just shy of mush), so I decided to use the slow cooker. The results were tender and sweet.

2 slices bacon, chopped

1 tablespoon of butter

1/2 green bell pepper, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup of ketchup

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup of maple syrup

2 tablespoons of Worchesshire sauce

2 teaspoons of Liquid Smoke

2 teaspoons of prepared yellow mustard

1 (16 oz.) can of red beans, drained

1 (16 oz.) can of Great Northern Beans, drained

Combine all the ingredients in the slow cooker. Cook on low for about 5 hours.

Unfortunately there isn't a photo of the finished product (maybe it was the heat... or the adult beverages), but I forgot to take a final picture.

It’s a winner!

The lazy days of summer are bringing on boredom, and there’s no better way to break up the boredom than trying a new recipe, which is exactly what I did last night. Let me tell you, this was yummy! I made some modifications to the Chicken Rigatoni with Bell Peppers, Kalamata Olives, and Sun-Dried Tomatoes from the Top Chef cookbook.

Top Chef is one of my favorite shows, but the recipes always look so gourmet and exotic. Just for kicks I was browsing the show's website and happened on the recipe search function, and up came Chicken Rigatoni.

Since I’d never cooked this before, I prepped all of my ingredients before I heated up the pots and pans. This took some extra time, but at least I wasn’t running around trying to find the ingredients once the cooking started.

Once everything was chopped and set aside, I put the pasta water on to boil, and added the bacon to a cold stainless steel pan. Once the bacon was in, I turned the heat up to medium. Meanwhile, some pine nuts were toasting in my non-stick skillet. Once the nuts were slightly brown, I moved them to a bowl, and added a tablespoon of olive oil to the non-stick skillet. Next, I seasoned up the chicken chunks with salt and pepper, and browned them in the non-stick skillet. Once those were cooked, I moved them to a separate plate to hang out. After the bacon was crisp, it was removed with a slotted spoon to a plate with paper towels. The pasta was dropped into the now boiling water, and it was time for the vegetables to get sizzling in the bacon renderings!

To the bacon fat, I added one tablespoon of olive oil, the peppers, onions, scallions, and sun-dried tomatoes.

Once those veggies hit the pan, you know you are in for something good—it will smell like a fancy Italian restaurant in your kitchen. The veggies sweated for about 5 minutes until the softened up, and then I added the garlic, and let that cook for one minute more before adding in the chicken and dried rosemary.

Next, the pan was deglazed with the chicken broth, and I let that reduce until the pasta was ready. Once the pasta is cooked to al dente it was drained and added to the veggies along with the kalamata olives and pine nuts to heat through (which only takes a few moments). Next, the cheese and parsley were stirred in and the dish was served.

I really enjoyed this, and my picky hubby also liked it. I was thrilled he went back for seconds since it had olives in it (and he thinks he hates olives). The key to getting him to eat them was chopping them up very finely and not telling him they were in there!

Chicken Rigatoni from Top Chef (with my modifications. Click here for the original recipe).(3 BIG servings)

6 ounces of Rigatoni pasta

2 tablespoons of Extra-virgin olive oil

4 slices of center cut bacon, chopped

½ onion, thinly sliced

1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips

2 shallots, minced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes

¼ cup of chicken stock

2 5-ounce boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces

Freshly ground black pepper

Salt

½ cup pitted & chopped kalamata olives

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted

1 tablespoon of chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

½ teaspoon of dried rosemary

I had to make some modifications because of lack of ingredients, and I wanted to get three meals out of the dish (the original recipe makes two servings.) Bacon was substituted for pancetta, chicken broth for the wine, and dried rosemary instead of fresh. To make it a little healthier, I did not sauté the chicken in butter as the recipe calls for.