Some of my latest cooking adventures
There is nothing that tastes better over pasta than a fresh homemade sauce made with fresh tomatoes. It takes a bit of extra time, but the end result is a sauce that tastes like a hot summer breeze. It’s creamy, sweet, and a great companion to pasta, bread, meatballs.. or a spoon.
My homemade sauce recipe was created in conjunction with Lipman Produce and my lovely nonna. Nonna taught me how to make her sauce, and then I made mine based on her tips. You can check out the full recipe here.
I am so happy to be back in the kitchen, creating meals and trying new recipes. The dinner challenge I’m hosting on Babycenter has helped tremendously with that. Each week I force myself to make one new dish, and the kitchen is fun again. So far I’ve made:
Cooking Light’s crab cakes (originally found on Yogurt & Berries): I used a yellow pepper instead and didn’t make a sauce. They were incredible, but since I bought jumbo lump crab meat the dish really hurt our weekly grocery budget. It will have to be saved for special nights.
Mashed potatoes: Believe it or not I’ve never made them. I boiled red bliss potatoes and then peeled them while hot and mashed them with a bit of 1% milk and some salted butter. They were really good.
Giada’s orzo with smokey vinaigrette: I made this with some of the Lipman cherry berries (similar to a grape tomato). It came together so fast and had such a distinct smoky flavor. We loved it, and in fact Raffi did too.
Breaded cashew chicken: This was inspired by a photo of Jessica’s pecan crusted chicken. I just crushed some cashews and mixed them with bread crumbs and salt and tossed them in a big Ziploc bag with the chicken. Then I baked them until done. I can’t wait to make this again, and it was a great use of leftover roasted cashews. They added a really fun crunch.
Giada’s mini meatballs: I used no oil, homemade bread crumbs instead of cereal, added 1 garlic clove and used 1 lb of beef. I made the meatballs really small, like swedish meatball size, and used shredded parmigiano instead of romano. I have made these 3 or 4 times already. They freeze really well and are great to have for a last minute dinner over pasta and sauce.
I can’t wait until Raffi is old enough to “help”. For now he just crawls over to me and tugs on my socks or opens the bottom drawer to take out the potato masher and eat it. He’s such a silly boy. Tomorrow I’m sharing all of the incredible things he’s done over the last two months.
What dishes have you made lately? I’m so excited that nicer weather is here so we can use our grill more often. Any favorite grill recipes?
7 Responses to “Some of my latest cooking adventures”
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🙂 I will be thrilled when Kay can cook & bake with me too! So fun. The recipes sound great. Giadas meatballs are very good. Hope you’re doing well!
PS- Grilled pizza is the best!
Your sauce looks delicious – I love a good tomato sauce. Lately, I’ve been making more Mexican food, which is great for fast healthy burritos or tacos.
I agree with you in that if I look forward to making something new once a week, it’s not daunting and still fun in the midst of all the new-mom busy-ness.
Mmmmmm…I’m drooling! Dinner at your place? 🙂
That sauce recipe sounds SO delicious!! I always wanted an Italian grandmother to give me a good sauce recipe!!
Glad you liked the crab cakes! We loved those too!! I really need to make meatballs more often, for some reason they always seem like a daunting task so I never do it, but it’s really not!
I love having Julianne in the kitchen with me. She watches everything and I too cannot wait for her to help and love cooking like her mommy. Well, hopefully she will enjoy it. Love your dishes! I have been making a variety of foods. Black Bean pizza today and last night UI made a WW Rotini dish with tuna fish, kalamata olives, zucchini, tomatoes and feta cheese. It was YUM!
Hi Sabrina! Thanks so much for sharing such a special recipe with us. It turned out fantastic!