Lemon Garlic Pasta

I'm a glutton for carbs. Pasta and bread should be the base to all meals. Today, for the first time, we made Lemon Garlic Pasta using this recipe as a starting point. It doesn't look like much, but damn, it was good.

What we used:

1/4 olive oil, plus
half a head of garlic, roasted
crushed red pepper
lemon juice
spaghetti 

Look at how easy that is, and likely you have most of those ingredients.

To roast the garlic, I preheated the oven to 350, and peeled about half a head of garlic. Stuck it in an oven safe ramekin, and covered the cloves in olive oil (that was the plus) and covered the ramekin with tin foil. Roasted for about 40 minutes, making sure to shake it every 10 to 15 minutes so they didn't bake to the bottom of the dish.

When the garlic was approaching done, I started boiling the water for my pasta. We usually buy a five pound box of spaghetti, so I measured out 3.5 servings for the two of us.

By the time the water started boiling the garlic was done. Pulled it out to cool while I added the pasta to the water. The garlic was so soft that it turned into a garlic paste, an affect I wasn't expecting, but it turned out great.

1/4 cup oil and roasted garlic got heated up, on high, in a frying pan. Once it was heated up, about 4 minutes, I added the lemon juice and red pepper. I didn't bother dirtying measuring spoons for this, I just squirted, and Jonathan just shook, until it looked like enough. Heat that for another few minutes.

Once the pasta was done, and drained, turned down the heat on the frying pan and mixed the spaghetti right into the sauce.

I had bough a brick of Parmesan cheese to grate over the top, but I forgot about it. For a warm dish it tasted surprisingly crisp and refreshing.

Next time, if keeping it vegan/vegetarian friendly, I'd like to add asparagus to the dish, the added color and texture would help round it out, not to mention add some nutritional value. Otherwise, grilled chicken would be a great protein.

I grew up loving buttered noodles, but after this, I think I'll take a few extra steps to making something that is just as comforting but tastes better and leaves me feeling less greasy.

Beef and Broccoli

Last night, actually most of this coming week, we opted for recipes that aren't on the regular rotation for our dinner menu. One, because pasta is cheep, and two, chicken is on sale.

Now granted, beef and broccoli have little - but mostly nothing - to do with chicken, though you could probably swap one for the other fairly easily with this recipe, so the chicken is really for a few meals later int he week, we'll get to those... eventually.

Linked right here is the original recipe. The thing is, I didn't get around to reading it until after I purchased the ingredients and started cooking. I've got it attached to my Pinterest Board Food-Yum! and just below the picture is a quick break down of all the ingredients... somehow I managed to look right past all the low-sodium bits.

That's neither here nor there, it turned out pretty damn awesome, which is good because I really hated parting with $8 for the sesame oil. Doesn't feel so bad knowing it will be used again (the sesame seeds we forgot all about so, there's that.)

We used:

1.5 pounds chuck roast, about 1/4 inch slices and then cut those in half
1 bag frozen broccoli
1 small white onion quartered (the yellow ones just didn't look good)
1 cup beef broth
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/3 cup brown sugar (light, I just double checked, it's what we had)
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 1/2 tbsp corn starch

First, measure out the broth, soy sauce, sesame oil, and brown sugar and add them all to a mixing bowl.

Next, quarter your onion and mince the garlic. Put the onion in your slow cooker, and the minced garlic in the bowl.

Now it's time to cut the meat. The original recipe calls for it cut first, but doing it after cutting the vegetables, means one less wash for your cutting board - unless of course you don't mind cutting up produce on a board soaking in cow blood, then by all means. Add it to the slow cooker when you're done.

Whisk together everything in your bowl and pour it on top of your meat and onions.

Set the slow cooker to low and let it chill for 3.5 hours.

After you've washed your car, gotten the mail, folded some laundry, talked to your mom on the phone, or played Farmville for several hours, scoop out about a 1/4 cup of the broth and mix in your corn starch, add it back to the pot. I added the broccoli right on top, so it would keep it's bright color. (I also had it thawing in a colander for about thirty minutes.)

Once, that's all in the slow cooker, cover it up, and crank it up to high. 45 minutes and the broccoli is heated through and just starting to go tender.  

Last night we had it over pasta, but there were some leftovers I'll take for lunch and I plan to make some rice for that. I'd say this serves about six, we both went back for seconds, and there should be enough for two lunches.

The only thing I would do different, and Jonathan agrees, would be adding mushrooms. Though, I'll have to experiment with putting them in for the whole time, or adding them at the end like the broccoli.