To break bread

I have this odd desire to make artisan bread. One afternoon off from my day job I caught an episode of Studio 5, while working on other projects. On the episode they had a simple recipe for artisan bread. It inspired me.

However, the recipe requires that the bread be cooked in a cast iron pot. I don't have one of these but would love to have one. I haven't required one in the past, so I never purchased it. I am sure if I had one I would find other uses for it, but it would also need to find a home in my cupboards, which don't have much wiggle room.

To make matters worse, Macy's is having a 50% off sale on their Martha Stewart cast iron pots today only. What's a girl to do?

Tis the season for.. toffee

As usual every Christmas time I make toffee. It's a family recipe and everyone seems to love it. The only downside to this, is that each year my list of people that would like toffee seems to get longer and longer. This year I planned out making 6 batches. Hopefully that will be enough. If not, guess I go back to the store and pick up some more stuff to make a couple more batches.

I have a running list in my head of people who have mentioned they wanted toffee, but since my memory isn't the greatest some days. Leave me a comment if you want to be added to the list.

Here are some shots of my process. I got 3 batches done last night, then I was out of cookie sheets.

(get all of your ingredients together)

(start cooking in the electric frying pan)

(Melt the chocolate chips)

(once it turns the perfect shade of brown and smells wonderful pour into a cookie sheet)

(let set for a minute or two and then cover with melted chocolate)

Continuation of July 14th post

On July 14, 2008 I posted a pic of canning jars and said to stay tuned. As usual with my life I made a slight change of plans. My original plan of attempting to make homemade raspberry jam (first atttempt) stayed the same, but I found new jars I thought were cuter.

Here is the final product -

The jam turned out great, in my opinion. I do have a few extra jars I would love to share with anyone who might be interested. Just let me know!

Recipe: A la Bekah Pasta

While reading through one of my favorite blogs the other day I got the idea to make a pasta dish from scratch, minus the actual pasta of course. For lack of a better name I am calling it A la Bekah Pasta. For this recipe you will need the following

• Olive oil
• Butter
• Garlic
• White Onion
  
• Mushrooms (fresh not canned)
• Zucchini
• Chicken Broth
  
• Heavy Cream
• Plain Tomato Sauce
• 1 lb pasta of your choice
• Fresh Parsley
• Salt
• Pepper

To start you are going to need a large saucepan/skillet. Chop a small to medium white onion. Pick your size depending on your desire of onion in your dish. Now mince two cloves of garlic. Place your saucepan on medium heat and add 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons butter. Once the butter has melted a little, add the onions and garlic, letting them cook and stirring occasionally.

While that is cooking rinse off your fresh mushrooms. I used about 2 cups when I made my dish. Now put the mushrooms aside for a minute. We'll come back to them. Since we are near the sink, fill your pot for the pasta and put it on the stove to boil.

Taking a small to medium zucchini begin to slice it into pieces. I cut my pieces a little thicker because I then cut them into quarters. Once you have finishing cutting, gather your mushrooms and put it all into the saucepan. You are going to let these cook for a few minutes to soften them up. However, keep in mind that there are several other steps in this process, so if you like your veggies more firm than tender you aren't going to want to let them cook for long.

Add 1/2 cup of Chicken Broth. I used the vegetarian variety. Your creation should look something like this:

Find your trusty can opener and open an 8 oz can of plain tomato sauce, then add that to the saucepan. I hope you read my ingredient list at the top and noticed the heavy cream. It really makes a difference. Add 1 cup of heavy cream.

Stir.

Still with me?

By now your pasta water should be boiling or close to. Add your pasta to the water. While your pasta is cooking you are going to let the saucepan simmer, without a lid. You are also going to want to add any of your seasonings at this point. I threw some fresh parsley, pinch of salt, and fresh ground pepper into mine. The following day I thought some red pepper flakes might be nice for some heat. I'll have to try it nice time.

Funny thing... While I was making this dish I realized I didn't have any pasta when it came to the point of adding it to the water. Yeah, silly me. I had to leave everything on the stove and run to the store for pasta. I know, I know.. don't worry I made sure Jon was around to monitor the stove so I didn't burn down the house.

Ok, back to the recipe. Once your pasta is done cooking, drain it. I then just put the pasta into a serving dish and added the sauce over the top. After some quick stirring, ensuring not to break the pasta, it looked like this:

We added some grated parmesan cheese to the top of our servings and enjoyed. voila!