Cobb Pasta

This is the best. Aaron made it well, I never tried because it is too time consuming. A definite crowd pleaser... for gods' sakes it has BACON AND AVOCADOS in it!

4 or 5 cloves garlic
~1/3 cup olive oil
8 oz. cherry tomatoes
10 oz. short cut bacon
11 oz. fettucine
1 tblspoon white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh basil
2 ripe avocados, diced


Preheat the oven to 200. Put eight ounces of cherry tomatoes (without
stems) and 4 or 5 cloves of garlic (unpeeled, with olive oil drizzled
on) in the oven. Take out the garlic after 10 minutes, and let the
tomatoes cook for 5 or 10 more minutes.
Cook 10 ounces 'short cut'(?) bacon 'under a hot grill' (we just make
the bacon in the normal fashion). Chop it up into small pieces and set
aside.

Meanwhile, cook 11 ounces fettucine until al dente. Drain well and
transfer to a large bowl. Drizzle one tablespoon of olive oil over the
pasta and toss. Season with salt and pepper and keep warm.
Slit the skin of each garlic clove and squeeze the garlic out. Place in
a screw-top jar with 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons
roughly chopped fresh basil, and 1/3 of a cup of olive oil. Put on the
top and shake well. Add the tomatoes and their juices, bacon and
avocado to the fettucine, pour on the dressing and toss well. Garnish
with a few whole fresh basil leaves and serve with crusty bread (I
ignore this last sentence). We add the avocado at the very end, so
oxidation doesn't make it brown. Enjoy.

(oatmeal) chooocolate chip cookies

these are soooo tricked out....we take the chocolate chip cookie to the edge kick it against the wall and yet its still 100% chocolate chip cookie

okay, here it is:

3/4 cup chocolate chips

okay, stop. right. here.

chocolate chip cookies are only as good as the chocolate you put in them. get good stuff - semisweet or (better yet) bittersweet. sometimes i'll go as far as taking a bar of Scharffen -Berger or Lindt and chopping it up, but there's also high quality chips (ie. Ghiradelli) to be found

alright, heres the rest of it:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups rolled oats (i find "quick" or even instant oatmeal work best)
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

(sometimes some cashews slip in my dough, but optional)

-Set 2 racks in the middle and upper thirds of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.
-In a medium bowl, stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and oats, together

-In a large bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until blended

-Mix the egg, vanilla, and maple syrup together and mix in until smooth

-Gradually mix in the flour-oatmeal mixture and then chocolate chips.
-Drop rounded dough onto a nonstick or (as jonah rock's it) parchment-lined baking sheet.

-Bake for 9 minutes.

-Set the cookie sheets on a rack to cool.

consume.

Spinach Lasagna

this is among my most reliable recipes - hard to screw up once you figure it out the first time, always good...

1 26oz jar of your favorite pasta sauce (i like muir glen fire-roasted)

Package Spinach*

1 15-16 ounce carton of ricotta cheese

1 package shredded mozzarella

1 package lasagna noodles (San Giorgio "Oven-Ready" is best)

Large baking dish

A little extra asiago/mozzarella/parmesan

-Preheat oven to 350

-Mix Spinach, Ricotta, and Mozzarella in large bowl

-Spread about 2TBLS water and 2TBLS sauce in bottom of the dish

-Lay 3 (or 4 if of the skinny sort) noodles across

-Spread 1/2 the Spinach mixture

-Spread 1/3 of Sauce

-Lay 3 Noodles across

-Spread 1/2 of the Spinach

-Spread 1/3 of the Sauce

-Lay 3 Noodles Across

-Spread remainder of Sauce

-Sprinkle with some cheese (such as asiago, and/or more mozzarella)

-Add some Basil if you have it

-Bake 30 minutes

-Broil 5 minutes

voila!

*For spinach, I take the normal-size Earthbound fresh spinach box, throw it into a hot sauce pan until just wilted and drain it; or you can use a thawed box of frozen spinach - but it must be drained *very* well

Killer Kabobs

YUMMM so good, Caribbean inspired. I didn't have all of the ingredients for two recipes I found, so I mixed & matched and VOILA - came up with a really killer marinade. Brought it to a BBQ and the ladies were all about it.

4 whole chicken breasts
1 Fresh pineapple or 1 (20 oz.) can pineapple chunks
3 green/orange/red peppers, cut into 1 inch chunks
a couple zuchinni, squash

MARINADE:

1/2 c. soy sauce
1/2 c. pineapple juice
1/4 c. oil
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. garlic salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Mix all marinade ingredients together and simmer for about 5 minutes. Let it cool down a bit. Cut chicken (w/out skin!) into kind of big 1 1/2 inch chunks. You can marinade the chicken in sauce mixture for about 1 hour. I googled around about how long to marinade when using citrus, and settled on an hour b/c I imagine the citrus could start to cook the chicken (like ceviche), making it rubbery or something. I could of course be completely wrong about this :).

Anyway, alternate chicken, squash, pineapple, and peppers on skewers to your liking. Splash some more marinade on the veggies while cooking.

Healthy Tasty Chicken (or Turkey) Sausage Pasta AKA bangin' chicken sausage pasta

This is a good meal to makes lots of and go back for repeat servings because you can just reheat the pot for a couple minutes each time and it still tastes great!!! Also, there isn't a big worry about managing each ingredient to be done at the same time because they can all be heated up in the pot. the ingredients are flexible in that if you forget half of them or add too much of anything it will still be good - but absolutely must have the sausage, garlic, olive oil, pasta, and broccoli on hand. a healthy meal. kudos to my brother and his significant other for coming up with this.

All amounts of food are negotiable but this is for 2
(hungry) people basically

2 italian chicken or turkey Sausage de-skinned and cut up

3-5 Cloves of garlic

1 chile pepper or use ceyenne and dried chili pepper flakes

1 16oz package of frozen or some fresh broccoli (chopped or in florets)

Penne pasta (eyeball this)
Olive oil
Salt + Pepper
Pine Nuts
Lemon
Parmesan Cheese

Optional:
Artichoke Hearts * Sundried Tomatos * Capers * Olives
- just something to add a bit more taste and saltiness

Simulataneously:

In a dry pan/skillet, slightly toast the pine nuts. This only takes a few minutes and the nuts can be put aside afterwards. Watch and turn the nuts frequently as they burn quick.

Cook the sausages in olive oil at a low-medium heat- feel free to add in garlic and chile peppers and the optional ingredient at any time, really. After the sausage is cooked be sure to reduce the heat to low to and cover the pot just keep everything warm while the other parts of the meal are coming together.

Cook the pasta until almost soft. Add broccoli to the boiling water to cook while the pasta finishes. Once drained, add the sausage mixture and pine nuts (and anything else) to the pot with pasta & broccoli in it.

Depending on how much olive oil you used for the sausage, you may need to add more. That's OK, but it can taste too olive-oily. so plan ahead and add a lot when making the sausage b/c the olive oil then gets really flavorful. Squeeze half a lemon over the whole thing. Salt and Pepper to taste. Top with parmesan cheese (completely optional) after the portions have been doled out.

And like all meals, this is best served with the alcoholic beverage of your choice.