Tag: pasta

Ina Makes a Dinner Comeback – Barefoot Contessa 58

Published on by RJ1 Comment

It’s winter in New England, and even though we haven’t gotten any significant snowfall, we have had a few chillier days here and there. What’s the best way to end a cold day? A warm and hearty pasta dish. If you’re looking for something super simple and flavorful, then you MUST give this Ina Garten pasta recipe a try. Trust me, you won’t be sorry. I’m patiently waiting for an excuse to make this guaranteed crowd-pleaser once again.

Continue reading “Ina Makes a Dinner Comeback – Barefoot Contessa 58” →

PW Recipe 5 – Macaroni and Cheese

Published on by RJLeave a comment

Sometimes you just have a strong desire to just eat “bad” food. “Bad” as in not-that-great-for-you food. Well, that hankering happened for me over the weekend. I was in the mood for macaroni and cheese. It had been months since the last time I had a good, baked mac & cheese. Luckily for me this desire also came with the ability to make another Pioneer Woman recipe. This recipe also came from my favorite cookbook of hers: Recipes From an Accidental Country Girl, her first one.

Continue reading “PW Recipe 5 – Macaroni and Cheese” →

Ryan Cooks PW Recipe 3

Published on by RJLeave a comment
  • Name of Recipe: Buttered Parsley Noodles
  • Cookbook: Dinnertime
  • TV Episode: N/A
  • Rating: 3.0 out of 5

Late last week I shared with you my second recipe from Pioneer Woman: Beef Stroganoff.

Traditionally, stroganoff is served over a bed of egg noodles or other pasta which helps to make it a “complete meal.” (I say “complete meal” because I doubt the amount of vegetables in a single serving of stroganoff counts as a full serving, but I digress…) So I was a little surprised to find that PW’s recipe for stroganoff didn’t include any pasta. In fact, she recommends serving it with her Buttered Parsley Noodles.

At first, I was a little hesitant. Regular pasta is thicker than egg noodles and with beef as the main ingredient, I didn’t want the bite to be too hearty. But, I figured I’d give it a go anyway. Plus, when you are cooking-through someone’s recipe backlog, anytime you can sneak in an extra recipe or two is extremely beneficial.

This is a simple side dish that is very low fuss. It’s basically buttered noddles, but with a heightened flavor profile. This recipe calls for pappardelle noodles, which is a pasta shape I have not used before in my cooking. Much thicker than linguine, pappardelle is great when you want to substitute out something like egg noddles. Unlike egg noodles, though, pappardelle is a long pasta, similar to spaghetti or fettuccine so just be prepared for that.

Combining garlic, lemon zest and juice, salt, pepper, and of course, butter and parsley, these noodles a quick side dish that comes together before you know it. I only gave it a 3 out of 5 because it didn’t really add to the beef stroganoff recipe I made. I think I would have preferred traditional egg noddles in that instances. But, on it’s own, this side dish is great!

See the picture above for how it turned out!

Ryan Cooks PW Recipe 2

Published on by RJ1 Comment

For my second Pioneer Woman recipe, I decided to make one of my favorite dishes: Beef Stroganoff.

  • Name of Recipe: Beef Stroganoff
  • Cookbook: Dinnertime
  • TV Episode: Kitchen Confessional: Dinner Through the Decades (Season 10, Episode 4)
  • Rating: 1.75 out of 5

As someone who did not grow up eating a lot of red meat, beef stroganoff was not something I can really remember having as a child or even a teenager. I fell in love with beef stroganoff a number of years ago when my best friend made it for dinner for us. He claims that the recipe is from his grandmother, but he leaves out certain ingredients such as mushrooms since he doesn’t like them. Needless to say, this has been the version I’ve been making for a few years.

Until I stumbled upon Ree’s recipe. Featured in her cookbook, Dinnertime! this recipe looks amazing and it is super simple.

Continue reading “Ryan Cooks PW Recipe 2” →

Barefoot Contessa Recipe 48 Chicken Piccata

Published on by RJLeave a comment

This recipe can be found in Barefoot Contessa At Home

Last week, dinner was a simple chicken dish. And I have to say, I think I like Ina’s recipe for Chicken Piccata better than any I’ve had at a restaurant before! The simplicity of this recipe makes it a stellar recipe for weeknights. But it’s also elegant enough to serve for a special occasion.

Chicken Piccata, in Ina’s version, is simply breaded chicken cutlets in a lemon sauce. I did make a few changes so the recipe would be healthier (and less messy) but I think the general idea still comes through.

Continue reading “Barefoot Contessa Recipe 48 Chicken Piccata” →

Barefoot Contessa #40: Crusty Baked Shells and Cauliflower

Published on by RJLeave a comment

This recipe can be found in Cooking for Jeffrey and on Food Network’s website here.

Friday was another Lenten Friday which meant I had to avoid meat in the recipe that I made. Seeing as this blog is primarily an Ina Garten-cooking blog, this was somewhat of a challenge. Many of Ina’s recipes are not vegetarian, with the exception of her some of her soup and pasta recipes. Even the vegetable side dishes she has are not really designed to be served as the main meal.

So, it took a little work to find one that would fit in with the restrictions. Thus, I turned to Google and typed: Ina Garten vegetarian recipes. This helped and after combing through some results, I settled on a pasta dish.

Continue reading “Barefoot Contessa #40: Crusty Baked Shells and Cauliflower” →

Barefoot Contessa Recipe #35: Macaroni & Cheese

Published on by RJ1 Comment

This recipe can be found in Barefoot Contessa Family Style, page 202.

I’m sorry that this is a quick post!

Saturday night I made one of Ina’s macaroni and cheese recipes. This one is what I consider to be her “base” recipe, as some of her other books features variations on this recipe.

This recipe, though tasty, may not be popular with kids, despite it being in the Kids Entertaining section of her Family Style cookbook. I think it’s the Gruyere cheese that will give kids pause. It has a taste that borders on being an “acquired” one.

Despite this, this macaroni and cheese recipe is quick, easy, and tasty.

Cooking Plans Weekend of 2/26/21

Published on by RJLeave a comment

The weekend is almost upon us. That means I get to start planning what recipes I’ll be making. With the warmer weather on the way, I decided that I should take advantage of it still being February and make some comfort food.

Luckily for me, Ina has made this easy. Her latest cookbook is all about comfort food. But, I also want something easy so I’m not spending so much time in the kitchen or breaking the bank. I’ll still be making an Ina recipe, it just will be something a little simpler.

I’ve decided to make mac & cheese because nothing screams comfort food like mac & cheese, right?

Ina has a few recipes for this, one of which does appear in her latest cookbook, Modern Comfort Food. But, I’ll be making the one out of Family Style. I’m so excited, I can almost smell the cheese sauce simmering away!

This Week’s Cooking Plans

Published on by RJLeave a comment

Disclaimer: This post was started early Thursday afternoon and completed Thursday evening. I kept the “stream of consciousness” style so that you can see how my brain actually works when it comes to deciding what to make each week. Sometimes dealing with over 1000 recipes and a dozen cookbooks gets to be overwhelming.

Well, here we are. Friday….again.

Personally, this week was a little tough for me. The weather didn’t help much either. The lack of sun really starts to get to me after two days.

So, I’m looking forward to spending some time in the kitchen this afternoon preparing a tasty meal. I also decided to give Ina’s dessert recipes a little break. No desserts from her books this week, if any dessert is made at all.

That said, I still want to try to do two or three recipes this week.

I am thinking of branching out of my comfort zone and attempting some elegant and very gourmet.

After reviewing Barefoot in Paris yesterday, I realized that I haven’t made any of those recipes yet. So I’m thinking of doing Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic.

But then, when I looked over the recipe I realized that this chicken dish will feed a small army. We would have too many leftovers. So, it was back to paging through books to find a recipe that would work.

Which proved to be a bit of a challenge. We had fish already this week, chicken, lasagne, and pot pies. We also had a leftovers night which just repeated those dishes again. I am also hesitant to do anything with beef and lamb. The beef because I’m not a huge fan of it and the lamb because, well….the fear of the unknown. I’ve never had lamb.

After paging through Barefoot in Paris, I realized that it wasn’t going to happen this week. Nothing seemed easy and interested me. So, I picked a few books at random and thumbed through those. Soon enough, I found a recipe in How Easy is That?

Weeknight Bolognese for the win!

Bolognese is a meat sauce that is fairly common in Northern Italy. It’s an easy sauce to make and since it has meat (beef) in it, it helps fill you up.

(Disclaimer: I’m not opposed to beef in its ground form. Hamburgers, meatloafs, meatballs, etc are all OK in my book!)

I decided to use De Cecco pasta since it was on sale this week and use the called for pasta shape. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Since I’ve settled on this pasta dish, there will be no side dish or salad from Ina’s books to go with it. And as I’ve mentioned earlier, I won’t be making a dessert this weekend…from Ina that is.

I stumbled upon an amazing cake recipe that I just had to try! That review and write-up will be posted as well, however under a different category entitled “Other Recipes.”

Ina’s pasta sauce recipe will drop on Saturday and the cake recipe will be released on Sunday.

Enjoy the weekend!