Pantry Collective

Apparently, I am a big fan of beef bourguignon, since I actually have another recipe here for it. This one is quite a bit better, though. The sauce is thicker and more flavorful, and doesn’t rely on canned mushroom soup for flavor. I saw the recipe over at Ezra Pound Cake last week and knew I had to make this yummy winter stew again.

I left out the bacon (intentionally) and the pearl onions (unintentionally). I just never have bacon on hand and really didn’t want to buy it just for this dish. And I am one of those people who doesn’t love bacon flavoring in everything, although I know many people do. I’m sure it adds a lot of flavor to the dish, but I promise, if you leave it out it is totally fine. The pearl onions, on the other hand, were forgotten about until it was already served. Oops! I might throw them in when reheating the leftovers.

That’s fresh baked No-Knead Bread on the plate, along with creamy mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus (two accompaniments I repeated from the first recipe). Yum!

(more…)

This side dish is crazy delicious. It’s pretty rich, so even though it seems like there’s not much once you’ve made it, don’t worry - you don’t need a lot for it to fill you up. The flavor combination is awesome. Caramelized onions and sweet squash and pungent gorgonzola… mmmm. Technically the original recipe calls for crispy fried sage, but I must be missing something, because when I tried to fry my sage it just turned black and gross. Needless to say, that didn’t make it into the dish. I chopped a little of the fresh sage I had left and tossed that in; it was delicious. Also, don’t overdo the gorgonzola - a little goes a LONG way. You can save the leftover gorgonzola for next week’s dish - Apple, Walnut and Gorgonzola Galette.

(more…)

This recipe intrigued me. I really like tuna, but a very rarely cook with it (tuna sandwiches, and every now and then a tuna casserole). Spicy tuna pasta in a wine sauce sounded really yummy, but I decided to add some half-and-half to make it just a bit creamy (it seemed like the right thing to do, what can I say?). It turned out really well; John and I both enjoyed it a lot and I’m excited for the leftovers. We ate it with a side of asparagus since it’s light on veggies.

(more…)

This summer, my friend Shama invited John and me over for quiche. It was quite yummy (although she will do that thing cooks do where they find the one less-than-perfect thing and tell you about that when they describe the dish - I understand, I do it all the time!), and I was inspired to make my own the next weekend. We had it for dinner, but it’s a great brunch dish, too.

I used a random assortment of vegetables. Swiss chard from the CSA, zucchini, onions, mushrooms, and some de-podded edamame (is de-podded the proper term? I have no idea…). I think you can get away with whatever veggies you want in this type of dish, really. I vaguely looked at recipes, but decided quiche couldn’t be all THAT hard and kind of improvised. I did use a store-bought pie crust that I already had in the freezer, so I don’t get any “from-scratch” points here, but hey, it was delicious and easy and that is what matters sometimes.

(more…)

Elise over at Simply Recipes recently posted her mother’s recipe for Ground Turkey with Peppers, and it sounded delicious. Since I had almost all the ingredients on hand already I decided to try it out. Simple as it is, it is really, really good, and it lends itself to different types of seasoning. This time I went the spicy route, using the sauce from a can of chipotles in adobo sauce, but I can see this working really well with a healthy application of thyme and oregano, for a more italian flair.

The day we ate the leftovers, I stirred in some cooked black beans to bulk it up (since apparently it was so good our portions the first day were a little too big) and it was excellent. Both times I served it over hot cooked white rice. Easy, inexpensive, and yummy - I’ll definitely put it on the rotation.

(more…)