Cooking: Cheats Pasta (Jamie Oliver)

I found this recipe a little over a year ago and I can't get enough of it. I love this pasta sauce. It is so easy to make. I always make extra because I like to have leftovers so I don't follow the exact ingredient measurement list. This heats up great in the microwave at work. I keep everything the same (ingredient wise) as he does in his recipe. Although, if I am out of lasagna I just use regular old spaghetti.

I cut up a bunch of garlic (I looooove the smell of garlic so I really do not mind spending forever peeling them) and red chili and basil. As I am cutting those items up I cook the tomato sauce. I find it tastes better and is not as runny when I cook the sauce, without the other ingredients, for about 20min. I also add some pepper (as much as you like).

garlic: about 3-4 bulbs
red chili: 4
basil: a big bunch of leaves

garlic

The sauce

I also take a potato masher to the tomato sauce to smooth out some of the bigger chunks of tomato, but that is a personal preference.

Once the garlic and chili peppers are cut up I fry them in the frying pan until the garlic looks mostly cooked (about 5 minutes or so on high heat) I then put the basil in the frying pan and stir it in for less than 30 seconds.

Garlic, Red Chili, Basil

I then put everything into the tomato sauce, turn the heat down to low and cook it for the length it takes me to cook the pasta (6-10min)

Sauce with the extra ingredients

Once the pasta is cooked, the sauce gets turned off and dinner is served! I add Parmesan and sometimes have some garlic bread with it.

I like cheese!

I love making this meal. I find it a light meal and I know exactly what I put in it. In Jamie Olivers recipe he adds salt here and there but I only put pepper in the sauce. I find that there is enough salt in the canned tomatoes to more than make up for the salt the recipe says I should add. But I also don't like salt except on popcorn on fries (if not presalted).

You should try this recipe out. I have tried a few others from his site and so far they all turned out great :)



I still don't have the hang of writing cooking posts, I know my descriptions on how I cook the meal kinda really suck. Hopefully the more cooking posts I do the better I get!

Take out: Wok Cafe

Last night was the night. I had Chinese food. We went to Wok Cafe because we got a coupon for it and heard some good things about it.

Some of it was good, some of it I didn't like but Marc liked.

We did a bigger order than normal because we wanted to have a taste of some of the stuff they offered. I got Hunan dumplings with peanut sauce, fried chicken dumplings, and general tao chicken. Marc got Won Ton soup, calamari in a spicy sauce, general tao and we got sesame beef, we got two white rice and one fried rice.

The hunan dumplings with peanut sauce was amazing. The put a couple of dumplings right into the sauce. The sauce was dark in colour and had some sesame seeds on top. I can still taste it..mmmmmmm. The fried chicken dumplings weren't really fried but that didn't bother me any. They were very good the way I got them. Tasted a little like a vegetable egg roll. I dipped the chicken dumplings in some of the hot red chili sauce they gave us and it made it even better.

Marc said the Won Ton soup was very good. I'm not a fan of it so I didn't try it. He also loved the fried chicken (he couldn't eat the Hunan dumplings in the peanut sauce because of his peanut allergy) dumplings. The calamari...well... it was a lot of calamari. We couldn't finish it. I have never gotten that much calamari before. They were very big pieces and very spicy. We both really liked them but I think that is a meal itself just because of the size.

I didn't like my general tao or the sesame beef. I found they didn't put a lot of sauce and the chicken pieces were huge. Marc loved both of them and we have a lot of left overs so he's got a good couple of days of lunches lol. The rice I found to be a little too sticky but it wasn't bad.

Overall I would order from them again. I might try a noodle meal next time or just order dumplings. Marc said the service was very good. They were friendly and the hostess sat down with him to make sure he knew what he was ordering. They also had the food ready in a decent amount of time. The prices are pretty good, most main meals are 9.99$ and most of the dumplings are under 7$ or so. And the portions are HUGE. The hostess said we'd have leftovers and she wasn't kidding.

There are two locations: On in downtown Montreal and one in the West Island (DDO). We went to the DDO location because well, it's close to home. If you're close to one I would check it out, this coming from a person so doesn't generally like Chinese food/Asian food.



Excuse any spelling mistakes, my computer is slow and I'm in a hurry.




Pictures:

Sesame Beef---A lot of food!

White rice

Fried rice

Hunan dumplings in peanut sauce--AMAZING

Fried Chicken Dumplings

General Tao

Calamari--Look at the size of the portion!

Won Ton Soup

Yes, I will take this corner. Thank you.

Today is the day folks. Today I try Chinese take out. My stomach is already doing the nervous dance.

I had a mini rant about someone today with Marc. Not screaming or anything just a rant. I was sad and frustrated (and out of bagels). Mid rant Marc says his dad might be going home today, awesome! I'm glad they could be sending him home so soon. I do believe that if it's not serious (need constant watch) being home to heal is a lot better than the hospital. You are around people you love, you are not constantly stuck on someone else's schedule (and most times the person caring for you does not want to be there), you don't have someone coming in to probe you every half hour etc. You can relax and be in surroundings that are much more comfortable than a hospital room.

I had a horrible moment today. I had the "I have NOTHING to wear!!!" moment. You know when you open your closet and suddenly it is empty. O, there are clothes but there really isn't any clothes. I hate those moments. So I crawled onto my bed and pouted, then I spent ooooo 2 hours trying on everything I had. I think the lack of a strapless bra is starting to get to me. Suddenly I have no clothes, it's like I can NOT dress myself without that damn strapless bra.

So I gave in: I put clear straps on my falling apart strapless bra and went about with my day. BUT then the outfit turned on me. It didn't look right. NOTHING looked right. It's the horrible twin sister of the "I have nothing to wear". You see all these clothes and possible outfits you can put together but once on your body...well it's a mess. That dress looked great on me two days ago, what the hell is wrong with me? Dammit body stop messing with my head! I put said outfit on, but no I have a lopsided boob, my ass looks gigantic, my legs are horrible!! I become a mess. What did I do? I went pee and ignored the mirror.

So that was my day. I was attacked by the "I have nothing to wear" monster and by her evil twin sister the "Nothing looks right" monster. I beat them but it was a close thing. The corner of my bedroom looked like a good place to crumble into the fetal position and mumble strange things.

Marc's homemade chili

Carmelize a large onion and 3/4 of a bell pepper (any color of pepper you like) with some hot sauce.

Meanwhile, take a LARGE pot, add 1 1/2 cans of tomato sauce, and 1 can each of diced tomatoes, mixed beans, chic peas, and red kidney beans. Start heating. Add a teaspoon of savoury, a teaspoon of chili powder, and a teaspoon of whole cumin. Oregano is optional.

Add onion/peppers to pot. Re-using your frying pan, cook some hamburger meat (with a bit of water in it, keeps it from getting too hard) with the remainder of the pepper. add chili powder and a teaspoon of whole cumin.
As water is mostly evaporated, add a bit of hot sauce, and the remaining half can of tomato sauce. Sprinkle with black pepper. Simmer for around two minutes, then transfer this to the pot as well.

Cover the pot, and simmer at a low heat, stirring now and then, for around an hour. Keep in mind, this will get spicier as it cooks the cumin.

Makes around 12-15 good sized bowls of chili.

Roast Chicken. Red wine. Cider. Cuddles.

All those things make a great Sunday. I hate Sundays, there is no real reason. I just hate the buggers. It is a day where nothing happens except the dread of a new work week :P. BUT has been pretty darn good. We went grocery shopping early in the day (so much better waking up early to go and not having to deal with mothers and kids who tend to think they own the store). Then we came home and just cuddled forever in bed. It was awesome and very relaxing.

Then we got up, had some chili and I settled down with a movie and some red wine while Marc worked on a project making the big monies. I just put the chicken in and there is once again the smell of homemade bread a baking. YUMMY! I love fall, makes me actually want to cook meals...healthy and yummy meals too!

I should really be going over some things for my test tomorrow....but I'm not :P. I will most likely regret it buuuuuuutttttt.......I have wine now so it's A-OK.