New Pasta Dinner

My brother and some of his friends from CCU used to get together for "Friday Dinners". I don't know how I got invited, or if I just showed up, but somehow I got in on the loop. I remember one time we had one planned at Mondo's apartment and his back went out. Everyone still came over and Mondo was laid out on his futon mattress in the middle of the floor while we all ate around him. We watched a few episodes of Flight of the Concords that night too. It was fun. That was a year ago.
I finally made some plans with Debbie and asked Mondo to extend the invitation to the rest of the group. Everyone was able to make it. I was pretty psyched to try a new dish. A pasta with white cheese cream sauce.

I came home early to get a good start and make sure everything was ready on time. But - the stove didn't cooperate! It kept blowing the circuit when I had more than one burner on! grrr! Fortunately, I was able to have dinner on the table at the right time... I just ended up having to make dessert.

It's been a while, but here are some "not really a recipe" notes...
For the pasta sauce:
I sautéd shallots for a minute and then added chicken broth. Simmered for a bit before adding grated gouda cheese and heavy whipping cream. Once that got to a consistency I liked, I added wilted spinach, cooked chicken and sautéd mushrooms. I poured the sauce over fusili pasta cooked al dente, mixed and topped with toasted pine nuts.

The next time I will probably use white onions and garlic instead of shallots. I might add some bacon or procuitto and I might try a different white cheese too - although, wouldn't be sad to use gouda again. The fusili pasta was hard to find, but I would definitely take the time to look for it again.

For desert we had Bananas Foster:
I melted butter and added brown sugar. Once that melded together, I added sliced bananas and stirred the mixture for a bit before adding some spiced rum. It didn't flambé for me, so we just ate it like that (yumm). I rolled the ice cream in the crepe, with sliced bananas and then covered with the sauce.

Dessert Crepes...

This morning I decided to give crepes a go. It's something I've been wanting to try for a long time - but have always been afraid of. They seem so delicate and precise.

The ingredient list is very basic, and I had everything on hand, so I thought "what have I got to lose". I hadn't planned on it, but I had Nutella (something I have also never tried before) and bananas, so I decided to make a sweet version.

The recipe is super easy and fast to make. On the first crepe I noticed the batter was a little bit thick and lumpy, so I added a drop more milk and mixed it another minute. The outer edges were crispy, which is an unusual texture in a crepe to me, but I don't think it was a bad thing. I noticed that as I stacked them, the moisture from the steam softened them. One small batter made about 18 crepes.

I spread a thin layer of Nutella with sliced bananas on the inside and then rolled them. I drizzled some with chocolate syrup (I preferred them without). They were a hit. Even my dad liked them, and he's not much into trying "different" food. The next time, I would like to dust with powdered sugar and top with fresh strawberries. I am also looking forward to making Bananas Foster with the extra ones I ended up storing. And, I can't wait to try savory crepes!

A Super Easy Crepe Recipe
✔ 1 1/2 Cups Milk (I added a couple more Tbs)
✔ 1 Cup All Purpose Flour
✔ 2 Eggs
✔ 1 Tbs Cooking Oil
✔ 1/4 tsp Salt (savory) -OR- 2 Tbs Sugar (dessert)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and beat with a rotary beater until well mixed. Heat a lightly greased (I used buttery cooking spray) 6 inch non-stick skillet to medium (almost medium-high). Remove pan from heat and (quickly) ladle 3 Tbs of batter into center of the pan. Lift and tilt the pan to evenly spread the batter. Return to heat.

The directions I have said to brown on one side only, but I turned mine. Could be why they ended up a bit crispy (and not like chip-a-tooth crispy). A spatula was more of a problem than it was a help - and they were easy enough to lift with my hand. Tip - work quickly!

To store, place a layer of waxed paper between crepes and freeze them. Let crepes thaw at room temperature for one hour before using.

BOS - Movie Date

My "Band of Sisters" got together this afternoon for a movie and lunch. We saw "He's Just Not That Into You", a movie based on the book by the same name. I thought it was cute. Way happier ending than the book though ;) Awe well, I like happy endings.

After the movie, we went over to Papadeaux's for lunch. Mmmm.... I had the Mixed Seafood Grill which is two skewers of assorted seafood chargrilled over dirty rice. Good stuff, even though the fish today was salmon.

Lots-o-Laughs...

Tonight I joined some friends for an evening of comedy at Impulse Theater.

I love love love going to Comedy Shows... and honestly, when I go - it takes a lot to offend me. I kind of "prep" myself for the atmosphere. But I also know that alot of people who like comedy, won't go to places like Comedy Works because of the usual non-PG and commonly offensive dialogue. If this is you, then you might want to give Impulse Theater a try.

We laughed the whole show - and we went home "replaying" our favorite parts, finding that just about every scene was one.

Impulse Theater is a mix of comedy, theater and audience interaction. Each performance features a quick-witted cast that will keep you laughing from start to finish with fully improvised comedy, based all on your suggestions! And it's appropriate for all ages.

Impulse Theater
www.impulsetheater.com/
1634 18th St
Denver CO 80202
303-297-2111

Catchin' up

I had lunch with my friend Keebler and his almost 2 year old daughter today. She was a doll - kept saying "Tommy Tommy Tommy!" and "Pizza Pizza Pizza!" - how could you go wrong? We met at the food court and it was great to catch up after more than two years!

Boy, so-so food sure tastes a lot better with good company.

The Best Pizza...

This weekend I had a go at my "to do list" by planning a cooking day with my friend Claudia. She saw my previous post and offered to tackle some of the things on it with me including taking a cooking class. We're signed up for an Hors D'Oeuvres class next month. At the same time we were discussing taking a class, she offered to host a cooking day at her home. Here's the list I sent her of some of the things I want to try this year...

✔ Risotto
✔ Shrimp & Angel Hair Pasta with Lemon Caper Cream Sauce
✔ Tuscan Garlic Chicken
✔ Dessert Crepes (and/or savory crepes)
✔ Homemade Pizza
✔ Tiramasu
✔ Spicy Tangerine Beef
✔ Chicken Pot Pie
✔ Green Chile & Cheese Tamales
✔ Stuffed Chile Rellenos

Well, we decided to get together on Sunday and Claudia said she had a great easy recipe from one of her favorite cookbooks - "The New Best Recipe" by the Editors of Cook's Illustrated - for pizza! Yesssss! So simple. Yeast, Flour, Salt and Water... mixed in a food processor.

The pizzas came out perfect - exactly the way I like them (I'm not a pizza girl normally - Pizza Hut and Dominos kinda gross me out). I like a thin crust, with easy sauce, kind of New York Style....

We made a few different kinds -

* Three Cheese: Mozzarella, Parmesan and Blue Cheese
* Caramelized Onions, Sautéed Mushrooms and Bacon with Mozzarella
* Spinach, Ricotta, Mozzarella and Parmesan
* Spinach, Caramelized Onions, Sautéed Mushrooms and Bacon with Mozzarella

And probably because I mentioned I wasn't crazy about tomatoes, we made them all without sauce. Just a drizzle of Olive Oil and a Garlic rub on the crust...

Another great thing about the day was while we waited for the dough to rise, we had plenty of time to talk!

I cannot wait to try this recipe again! Thanks Claudia!

Tea for Two...

Today I met my friend for lunch at a tea house. They weren't serving lunch due to a short staff, but we shared a "dessert tea" for two, which included a scone with cream and jelly, a red velvet cupcake, chocolate and of course - tea.

I love love love talking to Lori. She's a real sweetheart and she is so fun to get to know. If you're on Facebook, you might have seen the posting of "25 Things About Me". Lori and I both did one and we decided to make a list to share for our tea. 37 things. I'm so happy we did this... some things were fun, some were serious, some were unbelievable - but they were all Lori. Can you believe, we talked for almost 3 hours! Can't wait til we can do it again!

Tres Jolie
http://www.tresjoliestyle.com/
2399 W Main St
Littleton, CO 80120
303-795-0156

Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants, A Novel by Sara Gruen

I thought it was as predictable as anything written by Nicholas Sparks - but I liked it anyway! The journey from present to past and then back and forth again was fun. I wanted to keep on "traveling with the circus".

I'll be hosting the bookclub discussion on this one - February 23rd...

03/23 Addendum: Everyone seemed to enjoy the book. I can't say that it lead to any stimulating discussion, however.

Dueling Lasagna...

Mario loves lasagna. We didn't have anything really planned for Sunday and so I said, we could do a family dinner and make lasagna. He jumped on that. Plus, we had extra red wine from the wine party, so what better to pair it with :)

I guess I kinda taught Karen how to make lasagna a few years ago. I use the term "taught" very loosely. We decided that we would each make a lasagna - Mario always mentioned a vegetarian version she's made.

What a great idea - it made it soooo much easier. Karen browned the Italian Sausage and Beef and I chopped mushrooms and zucchini. We each layered a pan of lasagna, reducing the prep time quite a bit. At one point, Karen looked over at me and said "are you sure you taught me how to make this? You're doing it different." I guess that's the beauty of a dish like this, you can "do it differently" and it will still be good. You really can't go wrong with such yummy ingredients. (Although I have to say, I never order lasagna out. Homemade is just too good to compare.)

My layers (between sauce and uncooked noodles)...

• Ricotta & Large Curd Cottage Cheese mixed with an egg, Mozzarella, Salt and Pepper
• Cream Cheese, Mushrooms and Spinach
• Cooked Italian Sausage / Ground Beef
• Mozzarella

Karen's ingredients were almost the same. She used a different kind of sauce (both of ours were from a jar) and she added zucchini. She mixed her spinach in with her cheese mixture too.

Lasagna can be a pricey dish to make. But it feeds a ton of people, so it was great to do this as a family dinner. I hope to do this again maybe in a couple of months. And - if you have any, the leftovers are amazing...

I'm 37!

.... and I celebrated today!

I took a day off and had breakfast with my mom and Mondo at the Corner Bakery in the Denver Pavillions. Then a pedicure at the Aveda Institute (what a deal, $27 for a pedicure and an OPI nailpolish).

Lunch at the Creekside Winery in Evergreen.

And then a fondue dinner at Mario & Karen' house.

Awesome!

Aveda Institute of Denver
www.avedadenver.com
700 16th St
Denver, CO 80202
303-567-7500

Creekside Cellars
28036 Highway 74
Evergreen, CO 80439
http://www.creeksidecellars.net/
info@creeksidecellars.net
303-674-5460

Whirlwind trip

Friday - Got off of work early to catch my flight at 3'ish. Yvette picked me up at the airport and we headed straight to a retirement party for one of her friends. Kinda crazy because I had actually met a few of the people that were there for the celebration... they had attended a convention in Denver a few years back. We had a late dinner at a Mexican restaurant and I was pleasantly surprised. You might not know this about me, but I don't usually choose to go out for Mexican food.

Saturday - Stopped for coffee at Starbucks on the way to a movie. Yes, we went to a movie and I am totally okay with that! It was a no pressure weekend and this fit in perfectly! We saw "Slumdog Millionaire", a movie we had both been wanting to see. I highly recommend it by the way. The weather was beautiful. Way nicer than I had been planning on. Then it was time for lunch at Gino's East. Okay, if I had anything on my list - it as deep dish pizza. I introduced Yvette, and the bartender to an "Italian Margarita" - yummmm. Afterwards, we walked around the Magnificent Mile area, shopping til we were dropping. We headed back to the hotel for just a minute before we decided to visit the Sears Tower. The view at night from the Skydeck was beautiful - all lit up. We started walking back to the hotel and I'm not gonna lie, here's where the weather I had anticipated kicked in. I fell down at some point as we were crossing the street. Limping a little bit, we found a bar on the corner (Boss) and stopped in for a drink - and an appetizer (it was dinner time and we hadn't eaten yet). By the time we left, I felt fine and we walked back to the hotel - where we stopped in to the lobby bar for dessert... and a drink.

Sunday - Carlos, a friend of Yvette's picked us up and took us for lunch in a Puerto Rican neighborhood. We had a sandwich made with plantains as the 'bread'. It was delicious. Really, one of the highlights to my trip to try something new like this. After lunch - he took us on a tour of Chicago pointing out all the highlights I probably would have known to look for if I had planned this trip at all :) He dropped us back at the hotel in the late afternoon. We had to stop by a Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins. They were on every block, I swear. And then we thought about getting tickets to a show, but on a stop before the ticket booth, the car got towed! Can you believe it? I still can't. Yvette didn't let it ruin the day - we got the car out of impound and continued to look for Oprah's studio and then drove out to Barack Obama's home. It was dark and the street was policed off, so we didn't see much - but hey, we can still say we went. We stopped by China town on the way back and then back to the hotel before going out for dinner. We planned to go to La Frontera (a restaurant by Rick Bayless) - but it was closed! Biscuits!! so we went back to the hotel and ate at the Weber Grill, and watched the end of the Super Bowl. Even though it wasn't what we had planned, it was still really good.

Monday - Up at 3:30am. Dropped Yvette off at home and then off to work. Boy, that was a long day... Totally worth it though.