Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Herbed Pasta with Spinach – I’m Stuffed!

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I’m so full right now! Chris and I just had a kind of late dinner. Oh I was prepared to cook it by about 6:30, but Chris wasn’t due home from work until eight so I had to wait before I could try out a new recipe.

Yesterday while reading the March issue of Chatelaine (a Canadian Magazine) I came across a recipe for Herbed Pasta with Spinach. I modified the recipe a little bit as we didn’t have any goat cheese (feta) and I couldn’t find a brand I liked in the grocery store yesterday. So I used 3 tablespoons of herb and garlic light Philadelphia cream cheese instead of the goat cheese and I added chicken to the recipe. Yummy!

Here’s the original recipe:

Herbed Pasta with Spinach

  • 1/2 of a 450 gm pkg of chunky pasta (rigatoni, rotini) – about 2 cups
  • 19 oz can of stewed tomatoes
  • 1 tsp Italian Seasoning (or 1/2 tsp each of dried basil and oregano leaves)
  • pinch of chili flakes
  • 1 cup crumbled goat cheese
  • 3 cups baby spinach leaves
  • Cook your pasta as per the package directions and set aside.
  • Meanwhile, pour tomatoes with juices into a large saucepan and set over medium high heat. Add seasonings. Boil uncovered, stirring often to develop flavors – about 3 minutes. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally while pasta cooks.
  • When the pasta is cooked, drain and then stir pasta into the tomato mixture along with half of the goat cheese. (Here’s where my recipe differs. I added the light cream cheese directly to the stewed tomatoes when they were simmering as I didn’t have any feta cheese). Stir in the spinach leaves (they will wilt quickly once added to the hot pasta) and serve with the remaining cheese sprinkled on top.
  • My recipe also differed in that I added chicken to it. Prior to making the sauce and pasta I got out a large skinless boneless chicken breast, cut it into bite sized pieces and then sauteed the meat in a pan with some Italian spices, basil and garlic. I then set the chicken aside until the pasta dish ready and topped our servings with the chicken pieces.

Delicious!

I only used half the sauce and half the chicken that I’d cooked for our meal so we’ll have this dish again tomorrow. I certainly don’t mind eating the same meal for dinner two nights in a row – not when it was this tasty!

Do you ever come across recipes in magazines that look and or sound so tasty that you want to try making them right away?





Happy Turkey Day!

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I’m sure that most of my fellow Canadians are feeling more than a little full right now! Well I am anyway since today is Thanks Giving.

I think that I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that we were supposed to have a big family get together, this year it would have been with my husbands family. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. My sister in law moved to a new house on Friday (a little earlier than planned) and being busy all weekend to complete the move kind of put a dent in the family get together. So this year Chris and I had Thanks Giving at home on our own.

This year I made Rosemary Honey Dijon Turkey breasts, accompanied by mashed potatoes, stuffing and sweet peas. In a little while we’ll have a slice of pumpkin pie … well if my stomach ever empties enough to make room for a piece of pie, that is!

The turkey was really easy to prepare. I used:

  • 2 cloves garlic, cut in slivers
  • Tiny sprigs fresh rosemary OR 1/2 tsp (2 mL) dried
  • 3 tbsp (45 ml) honey
  • 1 tbsp (15 mL) Dijon mustard
  • 1 tbsp (15 mL) olive oil
  • 1 tbsp (15 mL) lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp (2 mL) pepper
  • 1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt

I mixed the honey, Dijon mustard, olive oil, lemon juice, pepper, salt, rosemary and slivered garlic in a bowl and then I drizzled the mixture onto two boneless turkey breasts that were about 350 grams each. I then baked the turkey breasts at 350 F covered for about 20 minutes, and then after basting them I cooked them uncovered for another 20 minutes.

Can you say … Tasty? Yum!

I usually roast my whole turkey or turkey breasts, however I couldn’t find my small roasting pan when I looked for it earlier today. I have no idea what happened to it .. maybe I lent it to someone and they didn’t return it.

I loved that small roasting pan. It was great for doing a whole small chicken or two large turkey breasts in the oven. I’m going to have to keep an eye out for a sale on Roasters. I’ll bet as the American Thanks Giving and or Christmas approaches I’ll find some deals online!

Can you tell I love turkey dinners? – that’s just another reason why I have to get another small roasting pan … we should have turkey more often.

Fellow Canadians – did you have a big Turkey dinner this weekend? Which day did you eat your big meal … or did you have more than one big meal? LOL

I’ll bet that my American readers and looking forward to celebrating Thanks Giving too.  I know it’s one of your biggest holidays.  I’d love to hear what you’re planning for your holiday celebration and what you plan to eat.

Mmmm homemade spaghetti sauce

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My home is filled with the wonderful smell of homemade spaghetti sauce. Mmmm it smells so good! The dog is going nuts – between watching me prepare it and smelling the sauce at is simmers on the stove she won’t stop pacing around with excitement. I don’t know what makes her think she’s going to get any? LOL

Chris is working until 8 pm tonight so we’ll be having a late dinner, but it will be a good one. Spaghetti with my homemade sauce, and a salad filled with our own home grown lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes. Chris will probably want to have some garlic bread with the meal, but I don’t think we really need it. He might win out though.

We don’t have spaghetti for dinner very often, but when we do I almost always make a homemade sauce. Well ok, it’s not totally homemade – canned whole tomatoes, a basic canned or bottled tomato sauce, tomato paste, garlic powered, Italian seasoning, freshly chopped chives from the garden, chopped onion, diced green pepper and a tablespoon of brown sugar (my secret ingredient to give the sauce a slightly sweeter taste) and of course about a pound of cooked lean hamburger. I don’t follow a recipe – I just throw in a little of this and a little of that until it all blends together to make a fabulous sauce. Of course this means that each sauce is different and some are better than the others. Oh well- that’s life. Most are pretty tasty.

It’s usually only during the cooler months of the year that we have meals like spaghetti dinners, roasts, stews or homemade chili. I find these meals too filling and too “hot” to cook during the summer. We stick to lighter fair in the summer.

Do you make your own sauce when you make spaghetti?

Exchange recipes and talk with food lovers at Food Connect

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I’ve always enjoyed cooking, although I don’t take the time to make home cooked meals as often as I probably should these days. Sometimes it’s far to easy to take a pre-cooked meal out of the freezer and heat it up isn’t it?

It’s silly when it really doesn’t take much more time to cook a decent meal. Not to mention that a home cooked meal often tastes a whole lot better than convenience food.

The only thing that I really don’t like about cooking is cleaning up afterwords. Am I right? Is that one of your least favorite tasks as well?

If you enjoy cooking or perhaps sharing some of your delicious recipes with others you might want to take a moment to visit Food Connect. It’s basically a social site for food enthusiasts.

I came across the site a few days ago, and after spending some time perusing the recipes that members of Food Connect had been posting I decide to create my own free profile.

Even as a child I used to love spending time with my mother in the kitchen, helping her bake breads, desserts and learning how to put together a quick dinner. When I moved from my family home I made sure that I’d written down several of my mothers recipes as I wanted to attempt to cook some of those delicious meals on my own.

So believe me when I say I’ve got plenty of recipes that I can share with others on Food Connect!

Speaking of recipes, I think I found a great one for tomorrow nights dinner. As I said in my last post we were hoping to grill chicken breasts on the barbecue this evening, but I put it off until tomorrow. Perhaps that’s a good thing as I found a tasty sounding recipe for Spicy Barbecue Chicken that I’d like to try. The recipe seems easy and it will only take a short time to prepare. Yummy. I haven’t had true barbecued chicken for ages.

Now I haven’t submitted any recipes yet, but as I was looking through the many recipes posted on the site I noticed that to the right of each recipe there is a box that lists nutritional facts about the meal. You can easily find out how many calories or how much fat, sodium, cholesterol or carbohydrates are in a serving. The Food Connect site does an automatic nutritional analysis of all recipes that are submitted. Bonus! I really appreciate that.

The more I look through the site the more it reminds me of many of the social sites I’ve joined as a blogger.

You can of course post recipes, but that’s not all, you can also add a drink recipe, review a wine, add and review a restaurant, invite friends, rate and review recipes, plan a menu using the sites recipes, join discussion groups or recipe networks, post photos of your recipes, contact a recipes poster or any other member of the site, list an event or use the event calendar to create your own schedule and I’m sure there are many other things that members can do that I haven’t discovered yet.

As I delve deeper into the site I just keep discovering more and more things that one can do at Food Connect. It truly is a social site for foodies.

Even if you don’t enjoy cooking as much as I do I’m sure you’ll find some recipes that you and your family would enjoy, or perhaps a local restaurant that you haven’t dined in yet.

If you visit Food Connect my member name is simply Tricia. You can check out the recipes that I hope to add shortly.

What’s for dinner?

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It’s already after 7 and I haven’t even begun to think of what to make for dinner!

Ah I know I can cook something from the freezer. The other day I was eying a meat pie, a Tourtiere, that I made a while back and froze. I think it’s time to pull that out and cook it. Luckily it can be cooked from frozen since it’s basically already been cooked in advance.

I usually save things like meat pie for the winter months when a good hearty warm meal is needed.

Do you have foods that you eat more often in the summer or winter? We do, and since I enjoy cooking I tend to make up a big batch of whatever recipe I tend to be working on that day and freeze whatever I’ve made in order to have a quick and easy meal on a day when I don’t have much time for cooking.

I love cooking. Did you know that I almost catered my own wedding? Yeah. I had to be talked out of that one. Plan a wedding in three months and cook all the food? Was I crazy? Probably wedding crazed anyway.

I’ve often thought of taking some cooking courses. Perhaps not a full culinary arts course like the one offered here: http://www.csca.edu/, but an advanced class or two would be fun.

I’ve always enjoyed making pastries and baking. Luckily I don’t eat all the food I cook though! I enjoy creating my own unique entrees too. I’ll look up a recipe for a complete meal, but then I’ll add some of my own ingredients or spices to give it a unique twist. I particularly like this grilled veggie recipe. Yum. Maybe we’ll have that tomorrow with some grilled skinless chicken breasts.

Do you enjoy cooking? Have you ever thought of taking a culinary arts course?

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