Creamy Goat Cheese Pasta with Roasted Asparagus

I had a subscription to Everyday Food several years ago, and this is the one recipe that I've saved and made over and over again. Whenever spring rolls around and I start seeing asparagus on sale at the grocery store, I immediately think of this recipe. It's a snap to make... you combine the goat cheese and a little butter with hot pasta cooking water to make a creamy, no-cook sauce. Then toss it with your pasta and roasted asparagus. Easy peasy.

I usually leave out the chive garnish, just to make this that much easier. John, however, prefers to add crumbled bacon. Do what you will, but please don't make the same mistake I did the first time I cooked this: the recipe says to reserve 1 1/2 cups of the pasta cooking water, but then instructs you to only put 1/2 cup in the sauce (and add the rest incrementally, if needed). Since I often fail at reading directions, I dumped in the entire cup and half of water. The sauce was a little thin, to say the least. 

Wilted Spinach Salad with Bacon and Balsamic Vinaigrette

 

This might sound weird if you've never had a warm salad before, but I promise the spinach really holds up well to the warm dressing (dressing made with bacon fat, by the way). I'm just going to let the bacon convince you. Bacon bacon bacon. Just try it. It's really a very simple recipe without a lot of ingredients (no hard boiled eggs here... why does it seem like every spinach salad has to have those??). The recipe says it serves four as a first course, but John and I took down the whole salad as a side dish to our steak dinner.

Slow Cooker Bolognese Sauce

My slow cooker is an appliance that I really, really want to like, but it constantly disappoints me. Almost everything I've made in it has been completely underwhelming. So, when the America's Test Kitchen people came out with their new cookbook, Slow Cooker Revolution, I knew they'd be able to improve my relationship with the slow cooker. This recipe for bolognese sauce was definitely a good start. I've never made a traditional bolognese, but this was just as flavorful as anything I've had at a restaurant (and John couldn't get enough of it, so it's Italian-approved).

The folks at America's Test Kitchen always come up with creative ways to solve common cooking dilemmas, and this recipe is no exception. To prevent the meat from drying out during the long cooking time, they mix it with a panade of bread and cream before putting it in the slow cooker. The recipe (which I am posting as written) calls for meatloaf mix, but I ended up using a mix of ground beef and pork. I also ended up adding quite a bit of salt once this was done cooking, so next time I will probably add more than the recommended 1/2 teaspoon to the meat mixture before it goes in the crock pot.

I think the appeal of the slow cooker for many people is the time-saving element. On that end, this recipe does take some prep work (chopping and sauteing vegetables), so it might not be an ideal weeknight recipe. However, this recipe saves you time in that it makes a huge batch of sauce: enough to sauce three pounds of pasta! So, you can make it on the weekend and freeze the rest for a busy night. I know John and I are looking forward to eating these leftovers!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Crunch Bars

If Anthony Bourdain were judging these bars on Top Chef, I'm pretty sure he'd call them "perfect stoner food." Because these are basically Rice Krispie treats on crack. The bottom layer is Rice Krispies, pretzels, and marshmallow, topped with a peanut butter layer, then topped with a chocolate layer. And see all that crushed goodness on top? Crushed peanuts and pretzels. Awesome.

I've made these twice since John's sister-in-law, Brooke, posted these on her blog a few weeks ago.  These are so good that John, myself, and two of our friends managed to take down a whole pan in one sitting. Just try to resist the salty, sweet, chewy, crunchy, peanutty goodness and eat only one. It cannot be done.  

Chicken Piccata with Lemony Orzo

So, John's aunt has been nagging gently reminding us to update our blog, and she's right... we're slackers. So, this one's for you, Linda. This recipe is from the November 2010 issue of Cooking Light, and I've made it a few times since getting the issue in the mail. Chicken piccata (or, "chicken picante" as John's dad calls it) is a pan-seared chicken breast served with a lemon-caper sauce. And this particular version is quick, easy, and healthy. It's a good weeknight dinner for these reasons, and also because you can take out your workday frustrations by pounding your chicken into cutlets (and drinking the rest of the wine that you don't put in the sauce).

Plus, it's Penny-approved:

Spicy Honey-Brushed Chicken Thighs

So... how are those New Year's resolutions coming along? Uh, yeah... me too. If you want a quick, healthy, and tasty dinner to get you back on track, give this recipe a try. True, chicken thighs are not quite as lean as the breasts, but they're still quite healthy and they have a lot more flavor. And if saving money was one of your resolutions: chicken thighs are cheaper than the breasts, too.

John and I have made these a bunch of times, but somehow they've never made it to the blog. It's a quick and easy recipe... all you have to do is brush the spice rub on the chicken, broil for a few minutes, and then brush on the glaze (and you know I love a good glaze). These have that great sweet and spicy combo, but they're not too hot. We had ours with some green beans and Trader Joe's Harvest Grains.

P.S. We're on Twitter now, so follow us here, or click the button on the right. We'll be tweeting all sorts of delicious things. And by "we", I mean John, since I have virtually no understanding of how it works.

Cast Iron Skillet Deep Dish Pizza

Last week I got a craving for some deep dish pizza, which is understandable because all I ever make is Trenton style thin crust pizza. I didn't have a recipe but I knew I wanted Chicago style deep dish and I wanted to cook it in our trusty cast iron skillet.  I looked around a little bit to see if I could find a secret recipe from Lou Malnati's somewhere, but of course there was none to be found.  So I found my way over to the greatest cooking site on the planet, cooksillustrated.com.  They had just updated their Chicago style deep dish pizza recipe last year, so I knew I could count on them, as per usual. Their recipe makes two 9 inch pizzas, but I wanted to use my 12 inch skillet, no big deal, I'll just make one large dough ball and one small dough ball.  They also list their own tomato sauce recipe, but that's silly since I make my own tomato sauce and always have it on hand.  Although, their recipe looks good and I wouldn't mind if you used it.  Now let's talk about the crust on this pizza.  Chicago style deep dish pizza has a buttery, biscuit-like crust, and that was the most important thing i wanted to get right with this pie.  The key to this is laminating the dough.  What is laminated dough you say? Well you get it when you press together alternating layers of butter and dough.  Mmmm...butter.  As you can see, it makes for a flaky, pastry like crust that holds up well to all the cheese and sauce.  Go ahead and try this recipe tonight, you won't be disappointed.