Pasta with Sauteed Tomatoes, Olives, and Artichokes

Tonight was day 27 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT and I wanted to use some of the ingredients I have leftover on hand from some other dishes and found a pasta dish that would work. I made us Pasta with Sauteed Tomatoes, Olives and Artichokes.

PASTA WITH SAUTEED TOMATOES, OLIVES, AND ARTICHOKES, pretty good...

For a dish that doesn't have much to it, and is quick and simple to make, this was a decent dish that we both enjoyed.

It was really quick and easy to make, it only took about 20 minutes from start to finish. I got all my ingredients prepped while the pasta was cooking, and actually made the dish in 2 separate pans because my hubby hates olives, so I made his without olives, and mine with olives (kalamata olives, even better).

There are really very little ingredients to this dish... pasta (ziti), tomatoes, olives, artichoke hearts, basil, cheese (Asiago, but Parmesan would have been a fine substitute), salt and pepper. It went together so fast and easy, it was great to do after a busy day at the inn.

The flavors were simple, but enough. There's no sauce to this dish, just the flavors of the ingredients themselves. I think a little drizzle of olive oil would have been nice, but we skipped it, as this is cooking "light".

Overall, I'm not sure I'd make this dish again or not. If I happen to have these ingredients on hand and I need a quick meal to fill my tummy, I might make it again. For me, it was a good meal, but not really memorable or one of my favorites.

50 recipes down, 497 more to go.

Baked Flounder, Smoked Gouda Macaroni and Cheese

Today was day 25 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT and I made 2 dishes for dinner tonight: Baked Flounder with Fresh Lemon Pepper, and Smoked Gouda Macaroni and Cheese. Here's our thoughts on these two dishes:

BAKED FLOUNDER WITH FRESH LEMON PEPPER, pretty good...

The flavors of the rub on the fish were really strong... garlic, cracked pepper, lemon zest, olive oil, and salt. Not much to it, but it sure packed a punch of flavors, and pretty spicy as well. But it was good. The fish was so thin I was concerned that the cooking time of 8 minutes at 425 degrees was going to be too much, so I checked it after 6 minutes and it did need to go a little longer. I ended up cooking it for 8 minutes and it was cooked perfectly. This was a good dish, and quick and easy to make. My hubby liked it as well, it's one I may consider making again.

SMOKED GOUDA MACARONI AND CHEESE, better than I thought it would be...

I've mentioned before that I'm not really a fan of baked macaroni and cheese, but this one was actually pretty good, we both liked it. There was a LOT of spinach, and I mean a LOT... 5 cups of chopped, fresh spinach, to be exact, for 4 servings (which is really more like 6-8 servings when you're serving it as a side dish). The photo in the cookbook doesn't look like it has as much spinach in it, so when I was mixing it all together and saw how much spinach there was compared to the macaroni, I was afraid it was not going to be good and the spinach would be too overpowering. My hubby thought it was ruined when he saw it.

However, it was very good, and you really couldn't taste the spinach flavor in it much at all. We were very pleasantly surprised and both of us liked it much better than we thought we would.

There are some issues with this cookbook that I think could be more clear or precise, or described better. The spinach in this recipe is a perfect example. It says "5 cups coarsely chopped fresh spinach", which I take to mean chop the spinach first and measure out 5 cups of CHOPPED spinach. However, it probably would be been better (and look more like the picture in the cookbook) if it had been "5 cups of spinach, coarsely chopped", which would have meant measure out 5 cups of spinach, and then chop it. At any rate, it worked the way I made it, though I think it should have been the other way around.

The recipe says it will serve 4, and since I was just cooking for the 2 of us I considered cutting the recipe in half. But dear hubby loves pasta so much he said no way, he'd eat more than his allotted portion and would be happy with leftovers. We have 2/3 of the macaroni and cheese leftover so he'll have a lot to eat over the next couple of days, which he's happy about.

A good recipe that I would make again. Hubby really liked it a lot.

48 recipes down, 499 more to go (FINALLY below the 500 mark!).

Waffles and Berries, Linguine with Two Sauces

Today was day 24 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT and I made two dishes. I made some Waffles and Berries (Waffles with Two-Berry Syrup) this morning, and some Linguine with Two Sauces for dinner tonight. Here's our critique of these two dishes...

WAFFLES WITH TWO-BERRY SYRUP, tough waffles, good sauce...

The waffles themselves had really good flavor (made with white flour, whole wheat flour, flax seed, and wheat germ), but they were a bit tough. We like our waffles a little lighter and fluffier. But, the flavors were very good and we liked the taste, just not the texture.

Also, the batter was really wet. I ended up letting the batter sit for a few minutes to allow the liquid to absorb into the flours and it helped quite a bit.

The syrup, however, was really good, and really easy to make. I thought it was really watery so I let it cook down a little bit and ended up cooking it down a bit too much. I may use this syrup at our Bed and Breakfast to top my own pancakes, waffles, blintzes and crepes. it was good, and really easy.

I probably will not make this particular waffle recipe again, however, and definitely would not serve it at our B&B since the texture was tough. But I did like the flavors. If it could be variated somehow so it wasn't so tough, I'd love to make this dish again, but it needs to be lightened up a bit.

LINGUINE WITH TWO SAUCES, one of my favorites so far!

I REALLY liked this dish a lot! My hubby liked it ok, but he's not a big time creamy sauce guy, so wasn't as in love with it as I was, but he still liked it well enough to make again in the future sometime.

It was a little on the sweet side, however. I'm not sure what caused it to be sweet since there was no sugar in it. Maybe the tomatoes, maybe the 1/4 of white wine (which was supposed to be a dry white wine) was not as dry as it should have been, which may have been the case as I'm not a wine connoisseur. But, I loved it.

The combination of the creamy white sauce that the pasta was mixed in with, and the red sauce that the pasta was topped with, blended really well together. I knew it was going to be good when I smelled the sauces cooking before it was put together and baked in the oven. And then when I pulled the foil off the top after baking it the aromas were delightful. I could not wait to try it. And once I did, I was so very pleasantly surprised.

I will be making this dish again and again I think.

46 recipes down, 501 more to go (close to breaking the 500 mark!)

Bell Pepper Feta Pasta Toss

Today was day 23 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT and I made a Bell Pepper Feta Pasta Toss. Here's our thoughts on this dish...

BELL PEPPER FETA PASTA TOSS, very good, quick, and easy!

This recipe was extremely easy to make, and very quick. From the time I walked into the kitchen and time we were eating was less than 25 minutes, a great meal when you don't have much time. And it was super easy.

As for the dish itself, it was a simple dish but the flavors were really good. This pasta dish would also make a good summer dish as well. It was a light dish.

My hubby, who loves pasta just about any way, loved this dish. He thought it was a tad dry, however, since there's no sauce for this dish, so he drizzled his with a little olive oil just to moisten it up a bit; not much, just a little drizzle, and it was enough. I ate mine without the additional oil and it was fine.

He also hates olives so I just put the olives on my dish and not his.

This is a definite keeper dish, and great when you don't have much time but want to whip up something quick. And it's a good dish to serve year round. This was a winner.

44 recipes down, 503 more to go.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough (Bufalina Pizza), Tomato Basil Soup, Field Green Salad

Today was day 13 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT. My parents are here visiting so I got to cook for them as well as my daughter and son in law. I had planned a 4-course dinner with dessert, but by the time we got back from picking them up from the airport and stopping at the grocery store we didn't get home until after 5:00 so I ended up skipping dessert for tonight. We'll save that for tomorrow.

Today I made a Field Salad with Roasted Leeks, Mushrooms, and Feta; Tomato Basil Soup; and Whole Wheat Pizza (Bufalina Pizza, more about that later on).

FIELD SALAD WITH ROASTED LEEKS, MUSHROOMS, AND FETA, a good salad...

This salad was easy to make. You actually roasted the sliced leeks in a tiny amount of olive oil in the oven to brown them. I had a problem with some of them burning and others not browning. Stirring them halfway through the roasting process would have been a good idea. However, they really added a good flavor to the salad. And my Dad, who is not a spinach fan, liked this salad, and didn't realize there was spinach in the salad until I told him. The salad has spinach and arugula in it, as well as mushrooms, leeks, and feta cheese (the picture shown here does not include the feta, I forgot to add it to the salad bowl, so we added it to our plates after we dished it up). I did have a problem finding the dressing the recipe called for. It called for light dill-mustard dressing, which I could not find anywhere. I ended up using a honey-mustard dressing and adding some dill weed to it. It more more heavy on the honey mustard and less of the dill. Wish I could have found the appropriate dressing so I could have tasted it how it was meant, but it was a good salad, and my daughter's favorite of the 3 dishes I served.

TOMATO-BASIL SOUP, a good homemade tomato soup with good flavors...

Almost everyone liked this soup. My daughter is not much of a tomato soup fan so this wasn't her favorite dish. My Dad, who says tomato soup is his favorite soup, liked it a lot. The recipe calls for low sodium tomato juice. I could find tomato juice butn ot low sodium tomato juice. The only thing I could find that was low sodium was V-8 juice. Since V-8 juice is more tomato than any over vegetable, that's what I ended up using. The flavor of the basil isn't overpowering. There is cream cheese in this, and try as I might, I could not get all the tiny little pieces to melt, so my picture is not as pretty as the picture in the cookbook. But this is a good tomato basil soup recipe.

WHOLE WHEAT PIZZA DOUGH (Bufalina Pizza, as I made), a hit with everyone!

The recipe in the cookbook is for Whole Wheat Pizza Dough, just the dough. You can make whatever you want for the pizza itself. There are not instructions in the cookbook on what to do with the dough, how to cook it, what to top it with, etc. There is another recipe in the cookbook for Caramelized Onion Pizza with Gorgonzola and Arugula, which uses this dough, and I'll make that another day in the future.

I made the Bufalina pizza for my husband. We went to Italy this past summer and when we were in Venice we ordered Bufalina pizza (Buffalo pizza). It was the best pizza and best mozzarella cheese we'd ever had. We liked it so much we went back the next day to get it again for lunch. It didn't turn out so well the 2nd time. Long story short... different cook, different pizza. Same ingredients, but you're going to get it however that particular cook decides it should be served, and it was not the same as the previous day. It was good, but not nearly as good since it was prepared completely different.

A little information on what Buffalo mozzarella is... it is mozzarella cheese made from water buffalo milk rather than cow milk, and is officially called Mozzarella di Bufala. It is pictured here, and is softer than regular mozzarella that we've had here in America. When the pizza was cooking the mozzarella was oozing a bit of juices and making the top seem watery, but it ended up evaporating through the cooking process.

Anyway, when my hubby was at Costco the other day he found the Buffalo Mozzarella cheese, imported from Italy, and bought it. I tried to replicate the pizza like we had it in Venice. It had the crust, tomato sauce, whole basil leaves, sliced tomato and the buffalo mozzarella. It was good. We really liked the flavor of the mozzarella, and it is by far the best mozzarella you can ever get. Everyone liked it, and it was a big hit with everyone.

As for the whole wheat pizza dough recipe in the cookbook, it was good. I have another pizza dough recipe that I usually make that we really like (not whole wheat, however), so I was interested to try this one. The crust is more of a medium crust, not thin, but not really thick either. I think I'd make it a little more on the thin side next time. But it was good, definitely worth the little effort it took to make it.

Overall, it was a good dinner, with great company!

26 recipes down, 521 more to go.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese, Italian Meatloaf

Today was day 10 cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT. We are babysitting our 2 grandsons for the weekend, ages 3 and almost 2, and since they're kids, I needed to do kid friendly recipes. I made a classic baked macaroni and cheese, and an Italian meat loaf, knowing the boys like both of these dishes. Here's how they turned out...

ITALIAN MEAT LOAF WITH FRESH BASIL AND PROVOLONE, excellent!

I wasn't sure how this was going to over over with the boys, since it did have some fancy ingredients in it... sun dried tomatoes and fresh basil, but both boys ate it, which I was happy about. Everyone else that was here tried it as well, including our two daughters and their husbands. Everyone absolutely loved it. The fresh basil in the recipe really made the Italian flavor stand out. I really do love cooking with fresh herbs and ingredients, they make a big difference in recipes. And my husband is a huge sun dried tomato fan, and he liked it quite a bit as well. Everyone said this is a definite keeper recipe, and there is no tweaking that needs to be done with it. An easy recipe that everyone liked.

CLASSIC TWO CHEESE MACARONI (Baked Macaroni and Cheese), how can you go wrong with macaroni and cheese?! There are three macaroni and cheese recipes in this cookbook, and I went with this one as it's the simplest of all three recipes, and I figured simple for the kids would be better. The flavors were excellent. Ok, I have to admit I'm one of those people that grew up eating the box mix macaroni and cheese, and I'm used to the super creamy mac & cheese. I've only had baked macaroni and cheese a couple other times before this, and both times I thought the dishes were dry. I thought maybe they just needed a little more milk or cheese or something. But this recipe was pretty much like that as well, not as creamy and wet as the boxed macaroni and cheese is. If I could get this a little wetter it would have been perfect. For a simple classic dish, it was good, especially the flavors. One thing I could find, however, was "light" Velveeta cheese, which the recipe calls for. We could only find regular Velveeta, so I'm not sure this really was a "light" version. However, everyone liked it. I'm looking forward to trying the other two macaroni and cheese dishes in this cookbook in the future.

21 recipes down, 526 more to go.

Jalapeno Corn Bread, Corn Pie, Tomato Salsa

Today was day 6 of cooking from "THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT". I made a Buttercrust Corn Pie with Fresh Tomato Salsa, and Jalapeno Corn Bread. I didn't think these would be a hit, especially with my hubby because I knew he didn't like some of the ingredients, but I wanted to keep the recipe true to how it was written. Here's what we thought, and what I might do to tweak on it a little...

BUTTERCRUST CORN PIE WITH FRESH TOMATO SALSA, pie was ok, salsa was good...

I didn't think this would go over well with my hubby as he doesn't usually like corn cooked in things, and really hates olives. There's not very much olives in the pie, only 2 tablespoons, so I didn't tell him, but of course you can see them in the pie. His first word after his first bite was "olives", so I knew he didn't care for it. But that's a personal taste preference, I personally like olives and couldn't really taste them in the pie at all. I tasted corn more than anything. The crust, however, was dry and crumbly and didn't hold up at all. It needed more butter in the crust mixture. It calls for 3 Tbsp, but should have probably been 4 Tbsp. instead. When you ate the pie with the salsa, however, it was very good. Hubby probably won't have any more of the pie, so I'll end up eating the rest of it. The salsa, however, he really liked. It was made with lemon juice, but I think lime juice would be a better substitute. We've been to Mexico a few times and they don't use lemons or lemon juice, they use lime. I think I'll use lime juice next time. I may also add a little cilantro to the salsa as well next time. It was a good fresh tomato salsa, however.

JALAPENO CORN BREAD, this was good...

When I first made the batter for this bread and poured it in the pan I thought it was too dry and stiff, and though I still think it was a little dry, it wasn't nearly as dry as I thought it would be, it actually turned out pretty good, just slightly on the dry side. I didn't think my hubby would like this bread either because he doesn't like whole corn in his corn bread. However, he liked it and said it was a good savory corn bread that I could make again. I was pleasantly surprised that he liked it. It was a savory corn bread, not a sweet bread. I liked the flavors of the jalapenos and red peppers in the corn bread, and you could taste the cumin in it as well, which was a nice touch. Instead of using canned whole corn, I may use creamed corn instead to add a little extra moisture to the cornbread next time. Though there are almost 1/2 cup of jalapenos in the corn bread, it was mild and it wasn't spicy. Will probably make this recipe again as a side the next time I make a Mexican dish, it was good.

One thing I have noticed about most of the recipes I've cooked out of this cookbook... it's a LOT of work and VERY time consuming. These are not easy recipes and have a lot of prep work involved. For these recipes, however, I bought fresh jalapenos and roasted, peeled, and seeded them, which took about 45 minutes. It takes me about 2 hours or so to prepare dinner every day, which is not really something I have extra time for owning and operating a Bed and Breakfast Inn. But, we're eating good, healthy dinners. If you're looking for quick and easy meals to prepare, this cookbook is not for you. If you're looking for a lighter version of good food, there's some good recipes in here. Will keep at it.

14 recipes down, 533 more to go.

Carrot Ginger Soup, Onion Bread Pudding, Spinach Pear Salad

So, today was my first day cooking out of "THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT". I made 3 recipes tonight... Spinach-Pear Salad, Carrot-Ginger Soup, and Onion Bread Pudding (a meatless main dish according to the cookbook category). Since I was just cooking for 2 of us, I cut all the recipes in half. Here are my comments on all of the recipes...

The SPINACH PEAR SALAD was my favorite...

This was super easy to make, and took less than 10 minutes from start to finish, including making the dressing. I made the dressing while the other dishes were cooking and let it rest to allow the flavors to blend. I thought it had too much dressing so when I plated the salad I didn't add the rest of the dressing from bowl. I loved the flavors of the pears when you ate them with the salad, and they went well with the dressing. But, the recipe was supposed to include red onion pieces and I forgot to add them at the end. Since I'm not a big fan of raw onions I was ok with forgetting them, but it make the recipe not 100% accurate. I would definitely  make this recipe again, and Brian like it as well.

The CARROT-GINGER SOUP, it was good, but a LOT of work...

This soup took an hour of prep work, and then an hour of simmer time, and then a few more minutes at the end to add the final ingredients and puree the soup. The thing I hated the most was having to make ginger juice from ginger root... a total pain... peel the ginger, dice it up, put it in the food processor with some water and puree it. Because it was such a small amount you had to keep stopping every couple pulses and scrape down the sides. Then once you got it pureed you had to put it in a cheesecloth and squeeze out the juices to get ginger juice. The results, however, were absolutely tremendous and the flavors were delicious. It was very good and we liked it quite a bit, but I'm not sure it was worth all the work and effort. But, I guess all good things come at a price, right?

ONION BREAD PUDDING, Brian's favorite...

This was a really easy recipe to make, it only took about 15 minutes of prep time and 25 minutes to bake.

I made these in 2 small individual pie dishes and thought the portions were still a little big, even though according to the recipe this amount would serve two. Brian ate all of his and I ate about two thirds of mine. I really liked the onion flavor on this and thought a little more onion on top would have been nicer. The onions were sweet onions so the flavor was really nice. And there was also some Gruyere cheese in it as well, which I really love. I would definitely make this again, and add a little more onion to it.

We also had some Beringer Chenin Blanc white wine with this meal. We are not wine connoisseurs by any means, and really don't know how to pair wines with our foods, but hopefully we'll learn a little bit. We can usually tell if it should be a red or white wine, but that's about as far as our expertise goes. When we go to our favorite Restaurant, the Black Bear Restaurant in Green Mountain Falls, we usually split a wine pairing with our Chef's Table and we love it when a good glass of wine compliments a meal, but we just don't know how to do that. This was probably the first time we actually 'guessed' right! The Chenin Blanc went perfectly with this meal, we were pleasantly surprised.

So, 3 recipes down, 544 more to go. Will be back tomorrow night with results from tomorrow's dinner.

Bon Appetit!