Carbonara a la Mom

Bacon, garlic, red pepper flakes: the good stuff.

Growing up, I always loved my mom's Carbonara pasta. I was craving some comfort food so I asked her for her recipe! 

Ingredients:

-bacon or pancetta

-eggs

-parmesean cheese

-pasta

-red pepper flakes

-garlic

-olive oil

Instructions:

"Ok, so you're going to chop up the bacon into small pieces and then you're going to render it. This means you're going to cook it really slowly in the olive oil. Then, add the garlic and red pepper flakes and right when the garlic starts to brown you need to turn it off. In the meantime, cook your pasta and don't forget to reserve about 2/3 of a cup of cooking water for the sauce. Also at this time mix together two eggs and a cup of parmesean. Then when the pasta is done, toss in the bacon mixture, and then very quickly toss in the egg mixture and cooking water."

Egg mixture: gross. 

Mom would be proud!!

Turkey Chili

Browning the meat and mixing in spices.

It was a dreary day here in Arkansas and as I was flipping through Food and Wine mag from last month (I know, I'm such a cool foodie person now), I found this low-cal turkey chili recipe. And I have to say it rocked my world.

It's really not too difficult, it just takes a little while. You first brown up your meat, add the spices, add the tomatoes and extras, and then finally the beans at the very end. All in all it probably took about an hour to do everything and I promise you it was worth it!

Don't forget to drain and rinse your black beans! 

Mmmmm. Spicy! Garlic, Mexican Chili Powder, and regular Chili Powder. 

Canned diced tomatoes and canned sauce-- this recipe was cheap, y'all!

Voila! The finished product.

Man Hole Blues

I know, I know. I've been the worst food blogger the world has ever known. 

But I have to tell you guys: I had to take a few days off of cooking because I had quite the little accident! Walking along, minding my own business, I saw a covered man hole, assumed it was safe to step on, and alas! it was not. Tragically, I fell in. Not only am I totally embarrassed, missing two fabulous shoes (they're down there somewhere), and forever scarred-- I also have a little sprained ankle and a few bruises. Well, this little sprain didn't allow me to stand for a few days, and therefore I couldn't exactly slave away at the stove like I would have loved. So I'm sorry for my lack of cooking updates. Now, in no particular order, I will do a speedy update on what I've cooked in the last week in the next few posts. Stay tuned though, I promise to keep up! 

Day Four

Sunday was my day to get back on track (I've never been one to "cheat" on Sundays during Lent) and since the boys were cooking up some deer meat for dinner (I figured I'd let them handle that), I was assigned an appetizer. One of my favorite things to eat is bruschetta, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I found this Rachael Ray recipe on the Food Network website, and it was so easy to understand and execute.

I laid out all my ingredients straight away (I'm definitely learning to plan ahead and be prepared): two pints of cherry tomatoes, a teaspoon of red pepper flakes, three cloves of garlic, salt and pepper, basil, and of course, bread. Who doesn't love a carb?

Then, I sauteed the garlic in olive oil, and added the tomatoes and red pepper flakes. I tossed them around a little and then covered the pan (you let them cook like this until all the tomatoes have burst).

In the meantime, the bread is in the oven broiling. You're supposed to char both sides, but for some reason my bread just wasn't getting toasty enough. I figured it was more important to serve the tomatoes hot, so the bread was a little soft. I let everyone add their own basil and I also put out some goat cheese, even though my girl Rachael doesn't include that in the recipe. Here is what the finished product looks like:

I'm not joking when I say I could eat this every day of my life. It was AWESOME. And too easy. And taking a little risk with the bread and the goat cheese worked out really well. This one is definitely going in the recipe box. 

Day Three

Ok, you guys are going to kill me, but I didn't actually cook on Saturday! But let me explain why.

We had a house guest this weekend (Paul's brother Jacob) and so of course we wanted to eat out on the town at all the local hotspots. Here's the problem: all of this food is SO heavy. Mainly because we ate lunch at a place that Man v Food went to once, called Cotham's Mercantile-- about 20 minutes outside of LR.

Well, let me tell you what these people are famous for: something called a "hubcap burger"-- a cheeseburger that weighs a whole pound! Paul and Jacob insisted that we go and try it out. And this is what ensued:

A jalapeno hubcap with fried green tomatoes.

My chicken strip lunch.

Their Mississippi Mud cake. Probably the best dessert in the universe.

So, really and truly, I wanted to cook. But after a late lunch of this size, I physically couldn't eat anything else, let alone look at food. 

I hope you'll all forgive me. And I know you will if you head to Cotham's-- this place is a must-see. 

Day Two

First of all, sorry for the lack of updates on my cooking extravaganza! It has been an insanely busy weekend full of food, guests, puppies, and antiques (but mostly food). 

For my second night of the challenge (Friday), I decided to make fish tacos from Mark Bittman's book Kitchen Express. Don't be fooled by its "easy recipes in 20 minutes or less" facade. There are a lot of fabulous recipes, but here is the problem: they assume the person cooking them is an experienced chef. Check out how short the recipe is:

Well, as scared as I was (I had never cooked fish before!), I dove in.

Tilapia filets that I washed and patted dry (raw fish=gross),

I then cooked them up with an entire chopped onion, some oil, and cumin. When the fish turned white, I broke it up and let it cook some more. Then my sous-chef Pablo heated tortillas and chopped tomato in the food processor (which is the bomb) and voila! We dished up our tacos and added toppings (cabbage, salsa, tomato, sour cream).

If you're thinking to yourself "those don't look so good", that's because they weren't. Definitely a mediocre meal at best. The main problem was that the limes we bought weren't juicy at all, so we had not citrus on there! And, a big thing we were missing was tomatillo. An essential in this case. 

Anyway, all in all I learned how to cook fish and learned that sometimes certain ingredients are absolute essentials even though they may seem secondary.

Day One

Well, last night I began my quest and I have to say I actually made a decent meal. In just one night I learned a whole lot about cooking, for example:

• If you left chicken in the freezer and didn't take it out hours before you planned on cooking it, you really can't use it (resulting in a little change of plans).
• You really should read the recipe the whole way through before you start cooking. I got this tip yesterday and somehow it slipped my mind-- resulting in total panic in a few moments (what? I should have chopped all of the ingredients before I started cooking??!)
• All ovens are different, and sometimes things don't cook in the exact amount of time that the recipe says. Initially this realization almost gave me a heart attack during my adventure, but flexibility is key!

Now for the main event! I turned to one of my favorite cookbooks for this one, a compilation of recipes that my bffs' mom made for them for college graduation. It has a ton of great ideas and lots of cooking wisdom, and two recipes that caught my eye yesterday.

After figuring out my chicken was a no-go, I decided to go for something I'd never cooked: Pork Tenderloin with Mustard Sauce. I had most of the ingredients and pork is pretty lean so it seemed like the perfect choice. 

Here's what you need for it:

• 2 pork tenderloins (1 1/2 pounds total), trimmed
• 2 T olive oil
• 5 T unsalted butter (yeah-- a whole lot!)
• 1 t minced shallot
• 1/4 cup dry white wine 
• 2/3 cup chicken broth
• 3 T dijon mustard
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 1 t finely chopped fresh basil leaves
• 1 t finely chopped parsley leaves

You're going to preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and rinse the pork and pat it dry. Then heat up 4 of the 5 tablespoons and the olive oil in a "heavy kettel" (I had to google this one-- it basically means a dutch oven) and when it's nice and hotsy totsy, add the pork, brown it, and cook it on there for about ten minutes. 

Browning my pork.

Then transfer it to a baking pan and toss it in the oven. The recipe says it will be cooked in 10-15, but it took a lot longer in my old gas oven.

While your pork is in the oven, you get cracking on the sauce. In the same "kettle" you add the remaining butter and the shallots. Then the wine, broth, and mustard. After it's reduced, add basil and cream, then parsley. It's so easy to write all that, but trust me-- it was stressful! Also, this was the most rewarding part of last night-- best sauce ever.

While this was happening I was cooking up some white rice, which I actually cooked just right! I'm notorious for undercooking rice, but this time was on point.

For my veggie selection, I went with Cherry Tomatoes in Basil Cream. Tomatoes, basil, heavy cream-- why not?!

It's super easy in theory but you have to be careful not to over-cook those little guys! You need:

• 2 cups of cherry tomatoes
• 2 Tablespoons of butter
• 4 tablespoons of heavy cream
• 3 tablespoons of chopped basil
• salt and fresh pepper to taste

You heat the butter in a pan, add the tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes-- make sure you stir so they dont stick. Then add the cream, turn up the heat, and stir some more! This is the point where the recipe says "Do not let the tomatoes burst"-- woops. That definitely happened to mine. Then you add the basil and "serve immediately". This part would be fine, but my timing was all wrong. That pork was taking forever!

And of course,  by the time I take the pork out, it's overcooked. And my tomatoes had burst. After inital heartbreak, I realized that even though my two main dishes were not quite perfect, I learned a ton and ended up with a pretty fantastic result:

And yes, I took that picture on top of the washer in my laundry room. The lighting is so much better in there. 

Have you guys had oven troubles? Any tips??

Can't wait to cook again tonight-- I'm thinking fish tacos!