The Pig and I

Thanks so much to Ruth of of Once Upon a Feast for letting me host this week's PPN , and thanks to all of you who participated; I'm definitely going to be spending some time trying out all these wonderful looking (made even better by the skills of photographers far better than myself :)) recipes! It has truly been a pleasure to host Presto Pasta Nights this week, and I look forward to doing so again. Our first entry is from Val in British Columbia, Canada. She's made a stunning Ravioli Lasagna with Sausage and Mushroom s, one which I salivate at the thought of. Using raviolis to make the lasagna really lets you streamline the process while still getting all the deliciousness! Our next submission is a Smoked Salmon Pasta from Katerina, in Athens, Greece. Her submission comes from a place of love and appreciation for her husband. This is one of his favourite meals, and I can definitely see why! I can't help but imagine the touch of Scotch adds a warmth and depth ...

This week, I have the pleasure of hosting Presto Pasta Nights , a weekly event started by Ruth at Once Upon a Feast . It's a fantastic opportunity to share in our collective love of pasta, and one I hope you all will participate in. To participate, post a recipe in your blog, with a link back to Presto Pasta Nights , and one to me as well. Then email the link for your post to me at bahpeanut AT gmail DOT com and to Ruth at Ruth AT 4EveryKitchen DOT com. In your email, please also include as an attachment the photo of your dish so I can include it in the round-up, which will be posted on Friday. For my submission, I've made you an orzo and black bean salad. I used a homemade aioli as the dressing, thinned down a bit with some extra lemon juice to brighten it up just that much more. It's starting to get warm here in Texas as we prepare for yet another brutal summer, so salads are especially on my mind right now. I hope you all enjoy! 1 pound orzo, cooked to package direc...

You guys remember Presto Pasta Nights ? It's one of my favourite challenges, because it's so non-restrictive. The best challenges for me are the ones that leave you free to be as creative as you like. So this here (I have no idea why I wanted to say "so this here," but I just really wanted to) is my submission for the week (I know; it's been a while since I last did it). PPN is being hosted this week by Rachel at The Crispy Cook . She's got some tasty-looking stuff over there, so y'all should go check her out. So, you know those little pastas? The stars, and the ones that look like rice, and the mini-wheels? I really love those pastas. How I most love to make them, though, is like they're risotto. It's a lot faster and everything gets done in one frying pan. Which basically means a lot less dishes for me (especially when I just eat it while it's still in the pan). Anyway, I have a couple cans of clams, so I figured I'd use one for this si...

As you all knew, I have a bunch of pumpkin in the freezer from last winter. I think in the future I might cut the pumpkin into cubes and store it that way, so it's a little more versatile than mashed pumpkin (which of course I could later mash if so inclined). I think I wind up hanging onto mash a lot longer than I would cubes because I really only use it for dog treats, muffins and shells/ravioli. I'm still working through that massive bag of corn, but I bought some ricotta as well (mainly because I knew I have a lot of pumpkin), so it seemed like maybe a little corn might be nice for texture. Which of course led me to beans, so I could have a 3 sisters shell. Since there was some cream cheese I knew was going to get wasted (since I haven't been buying or making bagels), I thought I'd toss that in too. Worked really well. You could make this into a full box of shells batch if you don't stuff them as much as I do. And, of course, I got to use up another bottle of pa...

Is it just me, or have I been posting a lot of things that are not related to recipes recently? Food waste updates (which are important, since I'm trying to consistently eliminate food waste from my life), product reviews (which admittedly, never make me sad to post because I LOVE LOVE LOVE trying new foods), and updates on my semester. But no recipes. Somehow, that just doesn't sit right with me. My last exam was Thursday, since I happily have no finals to take this semester, I was left with one 5th grade class left to teach on Friday and then lots of cooking to do. I've been baking a lot, which I rarely post since I rarely make my own recipes for baked goods. Perhaps I should start posting those things as well. It's a thought. It's fall, and during fall and winter I think we all get bitten a bit by the baking bug (say that five times fast!). So I believe I'll start posting the things I'm baking, with links back to the original site I got it from. For...