Whipping Up Some Dinner

Well, the Halloween Party preparations are in full swing, and when I came home from work today, there were talking skeletons in my stairwell! My husband had already started decorating! It made me smile, and I'm starting to get very excited for Saturday night. I made some labels for my ghoulish dishes, that look like they are on aged parchment, and I think the menu is set. We went out to gather some materials for our costumes, but the shopping trip was sort of a bust. The pet store didn't have the costume I wanted for Oia in her size, and the art supply store didn't have the fabric I was looking for, so...I had to get creative with some felt. We'll see what happens!

When we got home, it was already 7pm, and we hadn't eaten so I looked in the fridge for something I could throw together rather quickly. I had some mussels in the fridge, some zucchini and summer squash, and in the pantry, I found a box of penne. I did a little googling and found this great recipe on the Food & Wine website for Pasta with Mussels. Well, that works, let's give it a go!

While I waited for my water to boil, I debearded the mussels and set some white wine and bay leaves to boil in a dutch oven. Once it came to a boil, I steamed the mussels, covered, for about 5 minutes and then drained the broth into a bowl. The mussels got pulled from their shells and placed in a melted butter bath, while I sprinkled some saffron into the mussel broth.

I had also put some thickly sliced zucchini and summer squash into a 350 degree oven, seasoned with salt, pepper, olive oil and some dried thyme. I allowed that to just cook in there while I was doing everything else, since it's not dinner without a veggie side dish! Once the mussels were sitting in their bath of butter, I poured some olive oil into the pot and fried up some thinly sliced garlic cloves, until lightly browned, adding some red pepper flakes at the very end. At that point, the broth was added to the pot, along with some lemon juice, and I continued to reduce the concoction until the pasta was done. I drained the pasta, added it to the pot with the broth, and the butter and mussels, and tossed everything around until properly coated.

I served the dish alongside the roasted zucchini and summer squash, and voila, a meal in less than an hour! If you have ingredients, and you aren't in the mood to get creative, do some google-searching and I guarantee you'll find something you can throw together. If you always have some spices on hand, along with olive oil, garlic, onions, lemons and chicken broth, I find that it's pretty simple to find a recipe that can at the very least be improvised upon! There's even a little time to put my feet up and relax before bedtime! It was a very productive day!

Now That's-a Spicy Italian Sauce!

A while back, I wrote a post about The Advantages of a Homemade Bolognese, and when I wrote it, my intent was to intermittently touch on different sauces that you can use in your menu planning for easy and quick meals. For some reason, I had arrabbiata sauce stuck in my head today, so I thought I would share this spicy sauce with you in a post!

From Flickr - by AntTree

Traditionally, this sauce is served with penne, as the tubular shape is great for picking up the chunks of tomatoes in the sauce! It's a very simple sauce of only four, sometimes five ingredients. The original version includes garlic, tomatoes, red chili flakes and olive oil. Some people add basil to this mix but the majority of Italian chefs won't do this. When the dish is served, it is usually sprinkled with some parsley, and in my case, Parmigiano Reggiano.

From Flickr - by kellinasf

The great thing about this sauce is that you have control over how spicy you want it. The red chili flakes are HOT, so if you don't like a ton of spice, use a little bit...and if you love the heat, pile it on! My tip to you is start off slow, and keep tasting your sauce as it simmers! You can always add, but you can never take away!