Roasted red pepper cream sauce and York peppermint patty brownies

And once again I wait forever to update this. I've been starting my diet recently and because of this I've been doing a lot less fun stuff in the kitchen. I'll probably have more length between posts due to it. I'll survive somehow. No more baking for me, though. Too tempting.

First up was a ridiculously simple and so so good sauce for pasta. Oh man.

Roasted red peppers (bottled or roast your own), garlic, olive oil, cream, pasta, parsley. Oh and salt. Don't forget the salt, you will really need it due to the sauce being a bit bland.

Honestly you could throw this whole sauce together in the time it takes for the pasta water to boil and the pasta to cook.  Mince your garlic and get your peppers into your blender. Or food processor. Or whatever.

Blend until pureed.

Heat your olive oil over medium heat and add your garlic. Careful not to burn it.

 Add your red pepper puree and cook.

Add some salt and your dried parsley and whatever else. I added some onion powder.

After it cooks for a bit on medium low heat, take it off the heat and stir in your cream. Check your seasonings again, add more salt if you feel it needs it.

You could probably use milk too, honestly. The original recipe calls for heavy cream, but Ree is crazy. And I bet it's even better with it.

Mix with pasta. Mine could have been saucier but I went ahead and added the whole pound of pasta instead of just starting with half a pound and seeing the sauce ratio. I didn't mind, it was still delicious.

Add a sprinkling of cheese..

Insanely delicious. Roasted red peppers are so full of flavor. I will try making this again but with milk and see how it turns out.

Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce (adapted from Pioneer Woman's here)

• 3 whole Red Bell Peppers
• 2 Tablespoons Pine Nuts (optional)
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• ½ whole Medium Onion, Finely Diced
• 2 cloves Garlic, Minced
• ½ cups Heavy Cream
• Flat Leaf Parsley, Finely Minced
• Fresh Parmesan, Shaved Or Grated
• ½ pounds (to 1 Pound) Pasta: Orecchiette, Penne, Fusilli, Etc.

 (Obviously I left out the onion and pine nuts. Pine nuts are expensive!)
Roast red peppers, and then place in a Ziploc bag to allow to sweat. Peel the charred skins from the peppers, then removed seeds. Set aside.

Lightly toast pine nuts in a skillet. Set aside. Puree peppers with pine nuts. Set aside.

Cook pasta according to package directions.

In a skillet or pot over medium heat, drizzle in olive oil. Add diced onions and garlic and cook until soft. Pour in pepper puree and stir together. Add plenty of salt.

Pour in cream and stir to combine. Taste and add more salt, if necessary. Add cooked pasta, and then stir together.

Place pasta into a bowl, top with chopped parsley and plenty of shaved Parmesan.

Give thanks for Italy. Repeat as necessary.

Yay. I made these brownies for Sean's birthday instead of a cake. He really likes york peppermint patties, so I thought it might be interesting.

They were pretty simple! Flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, butter, vanilla, cocoa, 5 eggs, and 24 peppermint patties. Don't eat one or your will have an uneven number in your pan!

Dry ingredients in a bowl.

Open up all your patties to save time later.

Melt your butter. It's a lot of butter. It's a lot of brownies!

Crack crack crack the eggs into the bowl.

Mix your melted butter, sugar and vanilla until combined.

Add your eggs one at a time until combined well.

Drippy!

Then add your dry ingredients a little at a time, mixing until just combined. You might want to scrape down the bottom of your bowl once or twice during all this. Don't overmix too much.

Reserve 2 cups of batter.

Spread your batter in a greased 9x13 baking pan. You don't have to use a fancy pants offset spatula or anything. I just happened to have one around.

Place your patties on top!

Then add your cups of batter back on top and do your best to smooth it out overtop.

Bake, blablabla. Brownies!

They are kind of rich with the patties inside. I don't know if I'd make them again simply because of that and mostly because none of our friends like mint and chocolate. But they were reeeeeally good. The brownies themselves are also good if you don't feel like adding the patty layer.

York Peppermint Patty Brownies (original recipe found here)

• 24 small York peppermint patties
• 3 cups of sugar
• 5 eggs
• 1 cup cocoa
• 1 teaspoon salt (never forget the salt when baking, a little salt goes a long way towards bringing out the flavor in baked goods)
• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) melted butter
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

1. Heat oven to 350°F.(325°F. for glass baking dish). Remove wrappers from peppermint patties. Grease 13x9x2-inch baking pan.
   
2. Stir together butter, sugar and vanilla in large bowl. Add eggs; beat until well blended. Stir in flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; blend well. Reserve 2 cups batter. Spread remaining batter in prepared pan. Arrange peppermint patties about 1/2 inch apart in single layer over batter. Spread reserved 2 cups batter over patties.
   
3. Bake 50 to 55 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely in pan on wire rack; cut into squares. About 36 brownies.

 As I bake now I'm starting to realize that my oven is running a bit hot, so I'm having to watch my baked goods more or they are kind of dark the closer to the proper bake time. Every oven is different.

Mom is coming to visit in under 2 weeks. It should be fun, it'll be good to see her.

Macaroni and Cheese!

YES. I love macaroni and cheese. I just love it. Love love love. And this recipe was great. I loved the subtle spicy undertone of the dry mustard in the sauce, the whole thing was just delicious. Next time I might half the recipe though so I don't have delicious tempting mac in the fridge for days.

Oh but first.

 This is a spring roll from one of my favorite vietnamese restaurants. In it is amazing bbq pork, lettuce, a little mint, lots of rice noodles and some peanuts. Oh and the creepy looking skin is rice paper, it's a little chewy but has no flavor. Mmm.

The sauce they serve with many of the dishes is amazing. I could drink it, it's so delicious. Salty, sweet, a little spicy..

I, of course, got them to go that day.

There are lots of dishes that don't contain any weeeird ingredients. I'm thankful for Matt for taking me to places and broadening my horizons.

I'm so hungry right now, you have no idea.

Anyway, on with the macaroni!

Here's what you'll need. Noodles, milk, flour, salt, pepper, butter, dry mustard, seasoning salt, one egg and a pound of cheese. This feeds a lot, don't be afraid.

I used up a lot of extra shredded cheese I had for superbowl but I had to grate a little more too. Also, whole milk is preferred for the fat content to make the sauce creamier but all I ever have is Sean's mutant lactose free milk which, in my opinion, is AMAZINGLY delicious and totally creamy and I can't understand how it has no dairy when it is insanely creamy. Also it has this hilarious logo on it. Always makes me giggle.

Wheeee!
Okay anyway, melt your butter.

Add your flour when it's melted and whisk together for about 5 minutes on medium low heat. Don't burn your roux or leave it alone! BREAKING NEWS: I figured out why any roux I made never looked the same. It's because I was using margarine! Look at the one using butter! It's so smooth. It's gonna be hard to stop using butter after this breakthrough.

Once your roux has cooked for awhile, pour in your milk, whisking the whole time to get any lumps out.

Helper monkey, check!

Whisk in your dry mustard and let it cook for 5 minutes or so to thicken up. And it will thicken up closer to the end.

Once it's nice and thick, take a small amount in a measuring cup and into your beaten egg, drizzle it slowly, whisking the whole time. This is to bring the egg to a higher temperature without the insane amount of heat that would cause it to scramble instantly.

SUPER ACTION SHOT.

Once your egg and sauce are mixed together, add the egg mixture back to the sauce and whisk it in.

Now, toss all your cheese in in a few batches, mixing it to melt and incorporate. Add your salt, pepper and check your seasoning. Now, mine wound up being kind of thick. I don't know if it was supposed to be that thick but I wanted more of a creamy sauce so as I mixed and after I added my noodles to the sauce, I would splash in some milk until it had the desired consistency I wanted.

So. Good.

Add your noodles in and mix up.

Truly an ultra creamy love fest, just as Ree (Pioneer Woman) said it would be. Now, the next step is to bake it in the oven but I didn't want to dirty a casserole dish and I was hungry and it was JUST FINE THE WAY IT WAS. Oh it was just delicious.

I grew up eating mac and cheese and I will eat it until I die.

Woo. Make some today! Pioneer Woman's stuff is great.

Here's the recipe!

Macaroni and Cheese (original recipe from Pioneer Woman, here)

• 4 cups Dried Macaroni
• 1 whole Egg Beaten
• ¼ cups (1/2 Stick Or 4 Tablespoons) Butter
• ¼ cups All-purpose Flour
• 2-½ cups Whole Milk
• 2 teaspoons (heaping) Dry Mustard, More If Desired
• 1 pound Cheese, Grated
• ½ teaspoons Salt, More To Taste
• ½ teaspoons Seasoned Salt, More To Taste
• ½ teaspoons Ground Black Pepper
• Optional Spices: Cayenne Pepper, Paprika, Thyme

Preparation Instructions

Cook macaroni until very firm. Macaroni should be too firm to eat right out of the pot. Drain. (note: I was not planning to bake it in the oven so I cooked my macaroni for the full amount)

In a small bowl, beat egg.

In a large pot, melt butter and sprinkle in flour. Whisk together over medium-low heat. Cook mixture for five minutes, whisking constantly. Don’t let it burn.

Pour in milk, add mustard, and whisk until smooth. Cook for five minutes until very thick. Reduce heat to low.

Take 1/4 cup of the sauce and slowly pour it into beaten egg, whisking constantly to avoid cooking eggs. Whisk together till smooth.

Pour egg mixture into sauce, whisking constantly. Stir until smooth.

Add in cheese and stir to melt.

Add salt and pepper. Taste sauce and add more salt and seasoned salt as needed! DO NOT UNDERSALT.

Pour in drained, cooked macaroni and stir to combine.

Serve immediately (very creamy) or pour into a buttered baking dish, top with extra cheese, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until bubbly and golden on top.

Fettucini Alfredo and Applesauce Raisin Cake

Happy Valentine's day, everyone! Regardless of if you love it, hate it, or don't care, it has come and gone. Mine was pretty nice, and Sean requested something with Alfredo sauce. I had never made it before but considering it has about 4 ingredients, how bad could it be? Here we go!

Heavy cream, butter, parmesan cheese (and romano because I had some), parsley. The curly parsley turned out to be a poor choice, but it's cheap as dirt so it wasn't a total loss.

Finely mince your parsley and grate your cheese.

Heat your pint of cream over medium low heat. Remember, do not let it go above medium heat at the very highest, if cream gets too hot it does very bad things and it would ruin a sauce like this. It can take a little bit over this low temperature so have patience.

When it's nice and warm/hot, add your stick of butter in and melt.

When it's totally melted, whisk it around and add all your cheese. I'd add half of it and taste to make sure the taste doesn't become too strong for you. Mine definitely needed all the cheese. Salt only if needed after the cheese melts and incorporates, and add some pepper!

It will still be a little on the thin side, don't despair.

Hopefully you will have boiled your pasta by now. I started my sauce when I put my fettucini on since it needed to boil for 12 minutes. Add your pasta into your sauce and stir it around.

Oh and take it off the heat. It will start to thicken a bit as it cools and mixes with the starchy pasta. I used a whole pound of pasta but you can use less if you want more sauce to go around. I felt the ratio was good.

Dish some out, sprinkle a liiiiittle more cheese on top..

Add some parsley in an attempt to be fancy. Regret later.

Take a bite and be happy. The parsley felt kind of scratchy compared to the rest of the dish, I wouldn't bother again and if I did I'd go with flat leaf parsley.

Alfredo Sauce (original recipe here, from Tyler Florence)

• 1 pint heavy cream
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
• Freshly cracked black pepper
• Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, for garnish

To prepare alfredo sauce: Heat heavy cream over low-medium heat in a deep saute pan. Add butter and whisk gently to melt. Sprinkle in cheese and stir to incorporate. Season with freshly cracked black pepper. Quickly drain the pasta and add it to the saute pan, gently toss the noodles to coat in the alfredo. Transfer pasta to a warm serving bowl. Top with more grated cheese and chopped parsley. Serve immediately.

It was good. Too rich to make often though, jebus.

And I used my stand mixer for the first time, hooray! I made Don's mom's applesauce raisin cake, 'cause I wanted the first one I made to be something special that meant something to someone. And boy is it good. And moist. It's even better today, the day after. But I seriously have to go give some out because I can't have cake like that in my home. I'll eat the whole thing.

I can't show you the recipe because it's a TOP SECRET FAMILY RECIPE (but I got it because I'm awesome) but I can show you the basic steps for making any cake! Well almost any cake.

First you cream whatever fat you are using and your sugar. A cake without sugar is like... a.. cake without sugar. BAD.

Mix your dry ingredients in a bowl!

Yes, I'm sure you can see that applesauce and those raisins. Who would have thought they would be inside applesauce raisin cake. OH NO THE SECRET IS OUT.

Add your eggs one at a time to your sugar/fat mixture.

Then add everything else in batches. Those are the steps you will take to make almost any cake. Easy!

I got this pan from Tina for christmas. I love it already.

Baked cake smells so good.

Oh baby. Gimme somma dose raisins. I love raisins in things. Cookies, cakes, CINNAMON BUNS. Oh get this thing away from me. I think tomorrow I'll be delivering it to people.

I need to think of a name for my stand mixer. She's so pretty.