Creamy Prosciutto Pasta

I love eating & I enjoy cooking pretty much only because I love to eat.  My favorite types of meals don't take very long to whip up but taste like they did. 

Over the weekend I made a prosciutto pasta recipe from our family's cookbook.  I'm not sure where it originally came from, but it is yummmmy and I had the camera nearby so I had to share!!!

INGREDIENTS:

Pasta- approx 1 lb (1 box)

Prosciutto

Flour- 3 tablspoons

Heavy Cream-  you could try substituting it with skim milk- 2 cups

Edamame (it was originally peas but I switched it to soy beans because we like them better)- 1 cup

Parsley

Chives (I used scallions because we didn't have chives)

Parmesan Cheese- 2-4 tablespoons depending upon how thick you want the sauce

Ground Black Pepper

I did the recipe approximately- I'm not big on measuring- and it came out soo delicious so don't worry about the amounts so much. 

DIRECTIONS:

1.Boil the water for the pasta.  I used farfalle this time but anything really works.  Penne is awesome with it because the cream gets inside the noodles ;) ;)  I usually salt my pasta water once it boils.

2.  Saute the prosciutto with a little olive oil in a sauce pan for a few minutes

3.  Add in the flour & saute it for another 3 or so

4.  Slowly pour in the heavy cream & whisk it for a few minutes until it thickens.  (I skipped the whisking part & it still worked.)

5.  Add in the chopped parsley, chives, and cooked edamame.  Add a bunch of pepper.

6.  Add in the parmesan cheese & stir until it melts. 

7.  Pour it over your freshly cooked pasta, serve and EAT!  (I kept it separated from the pasta because I knew we'd have a lot of leftovers and I don't like it as much once the sauce & pasta have been sitting together for a day or so, but if you aren't planning on leftovers, go ahead & mix it all in with the pasta before serving.)



(Yes, sometimes the two year old goes shirtless at meals...  easier clean up ;)

If you get some time to try it out, I promise you will looooooove it!!

ps- Am I the only person who feels like the pictures of the food never look as good as the food really does in person?  How do those food photographers do it?!!!

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Expired by Food & Stuffed Tomatas

I cooked a lot this weekend.  My college volleyball friends and I started a food club and we had our first official "meeting" Saturday night.  It's called the "Expired Food Club."  (I'll explain...  we don't eat expired food. :)  When my friend Kat (the one who painted the magnolia fabric design) and I were talking about how much we loved eating one night (ah yes, we have such erudite conversations!) and how we should get together to eat, I was so excited and talking so quickly that I tried to say "I'm so excited & inspired" but instead I just burst out with "I'm so expired!!"  She was like whaaaaat???  And then I explained & we now have the "Expired Food Club."  The theme for the first meeting was "Stuffed" and we all brought stuffed foods.. mmm mmm amazing.  I brought stuffed peppers & the other food was all sooooooo good.

But I was so in the "stuffed" mood that I also made tomatoes stuffed with curry chicken salad for my book club the next day.  (It's very weird.. I really don't think of myself as a "club" type of person but I actually had two of these very girly-club things planned for the same weekend.)  Anyway, my book club was cancelled  last-minute, so I am LIVING in stuffed tomatoes and chicken salad.  That's okay with me.  I am crazy for these things.  They fill you up in such a good way.  I feel satisfied but not "stuffed" (there I go again) after having one:

It's really easy. I'm not a measure-it-out type of chef, but here are the ingredients if you're up for it:

For the chicken salad:

- A pre-cooked rotisserie chicken--> dice the chicken into small pieces

-Approx 1/4- 1/2 a red onion

-fresh crushed garlic clove (or 2!)

- a few celery stalks, finely chopped (how "cookbook-like" do I sound?)

- a teensy squirt of lemon juice

-salt & pepper

-Sour cream & mayo --> add both of these in until you like the consistency

-Curry powder--> add to taste but I usually keep adding it until it's a pretty shade of yellow

-walnuts and/or anything else you like to add to your chicken salads

-Stir it all up and add more whatever until it looks & tastes good to you 

Then carve out the tomatoes like you would a little pumpkin & fill them up with the chicken salad.  Top with scallions and add a few lettuce leaves on the side.  It's also yummy served with fresh steamed basmati rice on the side.

If you're in the mood, I promise you, this food will make you so happy.  I can't WAIT for lunchtime already.  mmm mmm mm!

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Oh My... Must Try

This weekend was a good cooking weekend.  With a bit of Fall in the air this past week, I craved soup.  I love {attempting when there's time} to make weekly soups during the colder months so I pretended it wasn't going to be 95 degrees on Sunday.  I broke out an old cookbook I bought in college full of yuuumy simple recipes.  (It's called "Quick & Easy.")  I tried out the Lemon & Chicken Soup and it is Heaven...

{Seriously Heaven....  I try really hard to take pretty food pics but I just don't know how people do it.  I promise it's waaaay better than it looks.  }

The kids loved it too.

I also must really love you because I'm literally typing out the whole recipe here.   ;)  

It's that good. 

 (I made a few teeny changes)

Ingredients:

4 tbsp butter

8 shallots, thinly sliced

2 carrots, thinly sliced

2 celery stalks, thinly sliced

1 1/2 cups precooked chicken.. ( I used some grilled drumsticks we'd just made)

3 lemons

2 quarts chicken stock

Angel hair nests (you can do angel hair if can't find the pasta nests.)

2/3 cup heavy cream  (I'm sure you could substitute this if you were trying to be healthier but it is good.)

salt & pepper

Fresh Parsley & Lemon Slices to garnish

Directions:

1. Cook the shallots, carrots & celery in the butter in a big pot.

2. Thinly pare the lemons & boil the lemon peels in water for 3 mins.  Squeeze the lemon juice in a bowl.

3.  Add the lemon peel, (Ok this is so new to me!  Yes, you can eat lemon peels once they're blanched!)  lemon juice and chicken stock to the veggies in the pot.  Bring it all to a boil on low heat and simmer for 40 mins, stirring every once in a while.

4.  Add the pasta and let it cook (this is why I like the nests... they take 3 mins) Add salt & pepper to taste and add the heavy cream.  (mm mmm mmm)  Heat through but don't boil once you've added the cream or it'll curdle.  

5.  Pour into bowls, add the parsely & Eat!

Seriously, I love this soup.   

ps- I found this cookbook at the grocery store in college and it's full of the easiest & tastiest meals.  (So many soups & pastas, which I love.)  It's called "Practical Cooking: Quick & Easy" by Parragon Publishing.

Easy Crab Feast

Last weekend we had a little crab feast with some of our friends.  At our house (probably like at most houses) we like to use parties as an excuse to tie up all of those loose ends around the house.  (see my last 2 posts ;) 

We finally had an excuse to mulch our gardens & break out all of that wedding drinkware. 

We strung up hanging lanterns & set out a couple of folding tables in the grass.  Here's a pre-party pic:

For a quick & summery arrangements, I filled old ironstone pieces with sunflowers for the tables:

We packed the kids off to visit "Gramma" and their playhouse shed turned into the bar:

I loved having this massive drink dispenser for the margaritas:

(I'm kicking myself for taking this pic before I'd set out the rock salt and hid the tequila to make it look pretty but oh well ;)

I made a couple of different salads including my chick pea one.  (recipe here)

 

We covered the tables in newspaper & topped with sunflowers & crabs:

My husband steamed the crabs in the oven using a roasting pan and they were easy & awesome.  I loooove Old Bay seasoning and sprinkled it on top and then we served the crabs melted butter, extra old bay & lemons.

It was soooooooooo yummy and I want to do it again right now. 

I love how the lanterns looked at night, lighting the patio for games:

I really loved having this party because getting it together was actually pretty easy.  It was a lot of effort but it was pretty planned out, which made it simple.  Food & friends  is always a good time, especially when the weather's perfect & you're outside.  

 

Of course I forgot to get pics of us.  (Fellow bloggers, I know you understand.)

...And I definitely did something to my hip dancing.  I think it was the kip-ups.

xoxo,

lauren

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Trust Me

I'm one of those people who goes through food cravings and I'll eat the same thing for days or weeks in a row because I'm so obsessed with it.  (Even things like salami or soup for breakfast. )  I've been making this chickpea salad lately and I love it so much I wanted to share.  It's so easy.

Just mix these ingredients together:

- Canned chickpeas

-Diced tomatoes

-diced onions

-chopped fresh pasley

-olive oil

-lemon juice

-fresh garlic (if you know your family & friends love you know matter what)

-paprika

-salt & pepper & garlic salt to taste

-Finally , weird as it sounds, add capers & parmesan cheese. I swear it's good.

...It's so easy & even better if you can make it a few hours before you eat it so it has time to marinate.  looove it on day 2.   We've been having it with warm pitas & feta...  mm mm goodness

ps- I promise I'll post pics of my laundry room as soon as I can get it clean enough to photograph!!  (I found the fabric for the curtains at Lewis & Sharon)

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Homemade Baby Purees

Justin's at the age now where he's loving his purees and I love making them for him.  I'm not strict about it and he eats out of a jar just as often as he eats homemade baby food, but when I have the time, I really love getting out the blender and making it myself.  There's something that feels so good about it...  maybe it's the fact that I end up snacking as I'm cooking?? 

My two go-to books for inspiration when making baby food are Top 100 Baby Purees by Annabel Karmel and Jessica Seinfeld's Decpetively Delicious, which I'm sure you've heard of: 

When my babies were brand-new, the level of exhaustion Dave & I were at made it a bit difficult to really feel inspired or get excited about cooking although, normally, it's one of our favorite things to do.  (WE LOVE EATING and a good meal at the end of the day is such a nice way to wind down.)  Once babies are ready for purees (mine were there around 5 or so months) things have gotten drastically easier.  I found I was excited about meals again and had so much fun chekcing out these 2 cookbooks.  I love how Jessica Seinfeld's has this adorable vintage feel:

She goes over a bunch of different vegetables and includes their steaming/ cooking times which is so helpful for someone like me who was new at it. The concept pf her book is all about "sneaking" vegetable purees into your kids's food.  I know people have given her flack  about the idea, saying we should teach our kids to eat veggies and yada yada, but regardless of whether you tell your kids the veggies are in there or not (and we do) it's a great concept to add more nutrition to almost anything.  It kind of becomes second nature once you really get into it and you find yourself wanting to add a puree to everything.  (We often do carrot puree in our burgers and it's such a yummy moist burger but you really don't taste the carrots.)  It's fun to follow along with the recipes and then get creative and make up your own.

Top 100 baby Purees is my other go-to.  I kid you not, these purees are seriously good.  When we do these, I'll typically make the same thing in an un-pureed version for Dave, Christian & myself because I already have all of the ingredients out. 

And kids love them!!  (Even Christian is always asking for Justin to "share" his food.) 

When I'm doing veggie purees, I like to do a bunch at once because I have all of the gear out.  If we're slammed for time, I'll even get the precut organic vegetables from the grocery store (I know it costs more but there have been times when a butternut squash sits and rots in my fridge because I never felt like cutting it up...  how bad is that??)  So wash all the veggies...

And then steam them:

{Ikea steamer/ pot}

I love this steamer from Ikea.  It's seriously one of the best purchases we've ever made (about 4 yrs ago.)  You can bake or cook the vegetables any way you like (think roasted red peppers- the kids love those- or baked butternut squash) but steaming retains the most nutrients and the fresher (is that a word? ;) your vegtables are when you get to them, the more nutrients they have. 

I don't have a food processor or one of those magic bullet things, but the blender works just fine.  Add in some of the leftover water from steaming because it's chock-full of nutrients & because you'll need water anyway to get it to the right consistency.  (You can even save it and use it for making broths if you have more leftover.)

We got a bunch of these "fresh baby" puree trays from Babies R Us when we had Christian.  They're amazing because they have lids.  I've used ice cube trays too in a pinch, but love the fact that I don't have to get into messy plastic wrap or any of that with these.   (And you know I'm not one for gadgets, so if I get them, trust me, they're worth it.) 

So we just fill up the little trays and label them for the freezer:

And you pop a couple of cubes into a little bowl and microwave until they're warm whenever you need them.  (transporting them is super-easy because they're frozen so they just unthaw for you.) 

And then let your little one go to town on them:

(I still haven't figured out how to make this process easy ;)

Peanut Butter Christmas Cookies in the Kitchen!

This year we had so much fun baking Christmas cookies!  Christian is at an age (2 1/2) where he loves helping & doing projects.  Our kitchen's working really well for us...

...  and as you can see from the pics below, Christian was THRILLED   to help bake cookies for our friends. (when we were rolling the cookies into balls he couldn't stop giggling)

 

Here he is below with the peanut butter cookies all laid out in nice rows, waiting patiently after being told he STILL can't eat them...

And finally, our work paid off!!!  (We have a HUGE stock of Hershey bars in the pantry from s'more season leftover so we used chocolate bar pieces instead of hershey kisses.)  And mm mm mm!!  We gave out the cookies to family friends and of course had to keep a few for ourselves ;)  It's the little simple things about Christmas that make it so special & fun. 

We had a huge snowstorm here in Northern Virginia this weekend & school's been cancelled, so my husband is totally OFF for Christmas now!!  Still no baby but I'll keep you posted!!  Wishing you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS & Happy Holidays!!!

xoxo,

lauren

Stone Soup

One of our favorite things to make in the colder months is Stone Soup. I've always loved Marcia Brown's book, Stone Soup, & for years have been making real "stone soup"... first with with my little sister when she visited us (she's 15 years younger than me) and now with my toddler. Kids get such a kick out of reading the book and cooking along with it. (and you get labor for a fun meal!! :)




We pretty much use the ingredients from the book & then just add whatever vegetables we have around. ... It's all about using what's left in the fridge for us so we change the recipe up a lot depending upon what we have. (The recipe is for a large batch that will last you the week.) First we get out a big pot like they do in the book:



Then we add in 2 large cans of chicken broth. (This is the quickie way which we usually end up doing, but it's always a tad yummier when you do homemade broth.) Next comes "THE COOKING STONE." We just keep ours in the kitchen and it's literally just a big stone I found years ago. (We put it though the dishwasher & make sure it's clean of course before dumping it in to our food ;) This is usually the kids' favotite part so if you have more than 1 child, I'd suggest getting multiple stones so no one feels left out.



Then, get the pot to boiling & start with the salt & pepper just like in the book. Next come the sliced carrots & cabbage. (We never have cabbage around so I usually just cut up a little spinach or romaine or whatever we have so there's something to toss in on this page.) Then come the potatoes and beef ( which we usually substitute with pre-cooked chicken.)

Lately I've been adding yellow squash because it's in season (and so good!) and I always add in lots of fresh garlic. (Add in whatever veggies you can here!)


Next the book calls for barley and some milk. We never have barley either, so we use pre-cooked rice (add as much or as little as you like depending upon how thick you want it.) and then add in a 1/2 cup- cup of milk or so..

We've got some rosemary growing in the kitchen & lately I've been tossing a little of that in too... I almost always top with fresh chopped basil & some shredded parmesan cheese. mm mmm goodness!!!



Christian loves his "tiny bowl" and usually has 2-3 bowls at a time of his "special stone soup."



It's so great to see your kid chowing down on such a healthy meal asking for more carrots & yellow squash. He's so much more into the vegetables when they come in his "special soup" than when we serve them normally.



Like I've said before, I love having a weekly batch of soup around for lunches & meals... It's so nice not to have to think sometimes and to have a quick & easy meal ready... all you have to do is microwave it. Anyway, since I had this recipe post waiting, it was the perfect time to join Rhoda of Southern Hospitality's RECIPE PARTY!!! There are already so many great ones up there so go check it out here: http://southernhospitalityblog.com/recipe-exchange-pasta-allamatriciana/




Hope you enjoyed!!
xoxo,
lauren

ps- Christian just saw the pics on this post and asked for some "special stone soup" so you know what we're having for breakfast! ;)

The Beauty of Pesto

I know I mostly write about design-related things, but this is also a place where I collect inspiration about the simple & beautiful things in life. The little things that make us happy... And not very much makes me much happier than good food. One of my favorite things to do in the late Summer & Fall is to make pesto. (image above from greenbabyguide.com) We had SO MUCH basil this year. (I pretty much managed to kill or seriously distress everything else we planted besides the basil.)

It's grown as tall as Christian! I took these photos about a month ago with full intentions of posting them sooner, so you'll notice that things look a bit warmer & greener than they are these days. My little assistant was wonderful and I'd highly recommend one for basil-picking:

He even came with his own bucket! Along with good food, I love spending time outside with my family. Christian & I had so much fun checking out all the final flowers in the yard as we snapped up our basil:

My "weeds" have ended up being some of my favorite flowers, like the Rose of Sharon that pops up everywhere. (And I can't kill them- yay!!! I'm honestly so terrible with plants that even my mint doesn't look so hot.)

And will this honeysuckle never stop?!!! We still have some blooms even in October! (Not that I'm complaining :)

We caught a shot of this little butterfly (or pretty moth? I'm no biologist.) on some sedum...

And these purple flowers just popped up (requiring no love) and made me really happy:

Ok, so back to the basil...

Once it was all collected in the bucket...

... And we had mounds of it...

We cut & washed it in my Grandma's collander. I pulled the chair up to the sink for Christian and he was just so excited to help.

And I broke out the blender:

Here's my Basic Ingredient List in case you don't already have one:

-Olive Oil--> and I'm not picky about very many things but olive oil is one of them... I used to be "Lauren Maestranzi" remember? ;) We always use Filippo Berio ( & love it when you can get it in the big can) and I'd say it's the most authentic "gorcery store" olive oil you can get. If they don't have it, then go with Bertoli. (and I don't go extra virgin with my pesto either.)

-Fresh Basil

-Pine Nuts

-Shredded Parmesan Cheese

-Fresh Minced Garlic (lots!)

-Salt & Pepper

-Italian Parsley

Yummy add-ons:

-Lemon juice

-Feta

-Spinach

-Olives

(I haven't listed any amounts on here because I just usually eye it. You can make it thicker by using less oil and more pesto & cheese or you can stretch it with extra oil. It's totally up to you. (I usually use just enough olive oil to get my blender to blend.) Anyway, then just blend it all up and remember at the end to salt to taste. Now put it on something yummy like pasta (loving tri-color in my pesto lately) and/or grilled chicken or even spread it on some french bread with some shredded parm melted on top in the oven.

I usually make it in huge batches and separate it out into smaller batches to freeze for easy stress-free meals later on. (Now that's simple beauty ;) (image from icookpasta.com)

I think we all know that in reality, not every meal can be lovingly prepared and/ or planned and homemade -at least not in my reality- but it really is nice to squeeze in these special meals where you have fun with your family preparing them. Some music, a nice glass of wine, or letting little ones help and make messes... I love it when meal prep can be fun: it's one of those things that needs to happen almost every night so why not make the best out of it? Even eating can be simple happy & beautiful.

xoxo,

lauren