Pasta with Turkey Meatballs

Tags

broccoli, Cooking, Food, Food Network Recipes, Garlic, Homecooking, How To's, Lighter Fare, Meat, Orechiette, Pasta, Photography, recipes, Stovetop Cooking, Turkey Sausage, Vegetables

Lately, I’ve been stepping out of the box with my cooking. Sometimes it goes well, other times, not so much. I’d like to color my experience with turkey sausage a success… save for the excessive garlic taste, but that can be easily resolved. 

The Hu Ke Lau

Tags

Asian Cuisine, Dining Out, Dinner, Food, Out to Eat, Polynesian Food

Hu Ke Lau Restaurant
(413)-567-1212
827 Williams Street,
Longmeadow, Massachusetts

Takeout, carry away, order in…

There’s a great number of restaurants that fit the bill for a place where you can dial up and get good food delivered to your house, apartment, etc. The Hu Ke Lau would fall under the category of places to order from, except for two things.

1. They don’t deliver.
2. The food happens to be a million times better fresh from the wok, served and eaten in house.

Experiment: Pistachio Pesto

Tags

Bon Apetit Recipes, Cooking, Failed Experiments, Garlic, Pasta, Pesto, Pistachio Pesto, Pistachios, Stovetop Cooking, Tomatoes

A while back, my aunt subscribed me to Bon Apetit magazine. It quickly became one of the things I most often looked forward to. Near the end of every month a new issue came out and I would peruse it, looking for something that I might be adventurous enough to try. Back in… October, the home entertaining issue came out and on one of its pages, there was 3 different ways in which you could use the pistachio. 

Easter Was Last Week, I Know.

Tags

Easter, Easter Dinner '13, Food, I didn't Cook, Just My Pictures

So Easter has come and gone again. Like every year, our was laid back and lovely.

This year, we had a bit of variety when it came to food. Just take a look at my plate.

Food! There’s some scalloped potatoes, mash, bbq kielbasa, kielbasa and saur kraut, roast and a slice of ham. Don’t forget the asparagus, either! Completely worth skipping breakfast for.

There’s just a bit of food there, but it was all really good. Wasting no time, I was mentally making notes of what I enjoyed and what I didn’t. The mash, which is what I prepared, came out bland to me. I think it had something to do with the fact that I should have used heavy cream in place of milk. They (the potatoes) were also too soft, as it was. But, I can’t fault my aunt for that because she was already bustling around the kitchen with other things and pressured cooked them to save on time. The scalloped potatoes were good, but then again, when aren’t they? I was honestly more impressed with the saur kraut and kielbasa more so than the ham. I don’t know what was up with my taste buds, I preferred eating it over eating the ham. As you can see, there was also bbq kielbasa. Which, up until a little bit ago, I would have preferred to eat over the saur kraut and kielbasa any day. But even now, after it took back seat to the aforementioned  it was still good in flavour. There were two types of beef roast, yet only one is shown above. The one I tried had little cloves of garlic injected in it in places that helped add some flavour. The other one I tried (not pictured) had a paprika, garlic salt, and black pepper rub. It was chock full of flavour, though a little on the over done side. What it lacked in texture, it made up in flavour. Finally, the asparagus. Up until now, I’ve always turned my nose up at it. But I saw it on the counter with the other side dish veggies (think corn and green beans) and skipped over them, indulging my adventurous taste buds. After biting into a piece, it occurred to me that there might be something off with it. Yes, it had an interesting, unique, yet good flavour, but the texture threw me for a loop. I never thought it was limp, like a wet noodle. I’ve always imagined it to have more of a crunch. But texture aside, it was pretty good. My aunt seasoned it with salt and pepper and added parmesan cheese.

If there’s anything from that plate that I’ll want to replicate any time soon, it’s going to have to be the saur kraut and kielbasa as well as the asparagus. I’m also hoping to try my hand at scalloped potatoes from scratch, but I digress.

Not your usual cheesecake dessert. The base was made with pretzels and the usual cheesecake filling was replaced with Strawberry Jell-O.

Some time after dinner, I meandered back into the kitchen to see what there was for dessert. There was nothing really that piqued my interest save for something that was covered with whipped cream. Giving in to curiosity, I cut a square from the 12×9 pan and tried a bite. Instead of the Graham cracker crust, I was met with the slight saltiness of pretzels meeting delicate, sweet strawberry filling. It was an odd match, but it worked.

Maybe next Easter I can talk my family into allowing me to cook, but for the time being, the food was good and I got to indulge my newly adventurous tastebuds and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Stay Hungry,

~Steffanni

Back Blogging

Tags

all the blog posts, Cooking, finally writing again, Food, Restaurants, Reviews

Lately, I’ve been out more than I’ve been home. And on those rare occasions when I’ve actually been home, I’ve snuck a little bit of cooking in. I have pictures to prove it, but rather than try to fit everything into one post, I’m going to do a week of Back Blogging and cover everything food wise that I’ve done.

So this week you can expect posts about (in no particular order):

• Easter
• Gnocchi & Cream Sauce
• The Hu Ke Lau
• Pistachio Pesto
• Orchiette with Meatballs and Broccoli
• Mole Sauce (even though I technically haven’t made it yet)

Stay Hungry,

~ Steffanni.