The Yum Yum Factor

This weekend was the final week of  Love 4 Lasagna at Piccante Dolce  and I had decided that I was going to try to make some sort of Lasagna Carbonara for poor Shack. He liked the pastitsio alright but none of these lasagnas have really rocked his world and I am feeling a bit guilty. I wasn't sure how I was going to manage doing a carbonara because the eggs would scramble when baked and that would most likely NOT score me any brownie points with anyone. I was looking around and reading recipes when Food Network Canada announced a cooking club challenge in which you must make Bobby Flay's Macaroni and Cheese Carbonara  . Come on, now perfect is that timing?? I had already decided that I would also make the pasta from scratch this time so this is what i did today: I made a half batch of homemade pasta with italian parsely and mixed up some ricotta and swiss chard  and made a small lasagna with half the ingredients and I made a mac and cheese like in his recipe w...

I really love soup. I love almost any soup and I can't recall the last time I ate a soup that I disliked enough to think "well, I will die happy if I never have to eat THAT soup again". Now that winter is closing in on us, I will most likely make at least one soup a week until spring when I will become obsessed with grilling and forget all about soup. This is my first soup of the week and I will endeavour to share a new soup every week and I will call it "It's Friday So It Must Be Soup!" I love red lentils and so I am always on the look out for new and exiting things to do with them. While I was perusing Taste Spotting, I found this great looking recipe for Morrocan Red Lentil Soup at  Alice In Paris Loves Art and Tea  and it will definately be something I make again this winter. 2 Tbsp Olive Oil or Canola (25 ml)   2 Onions, chopped   5 cloves of Garlic, minced   2 Celery stalks , chopped (1 Carrot ,chopped.....my addition)   1 tsp Pepper (...

It was a terrible, no good, windy, rainy, chilly horrible day and I refused to go outside anymore than I had to. I had to take Little Shack to school (the poor kid went on a field trip to Pioneer Village today - better him than me! ) and I had to go pick him up again but that's it. I had a couple of choices. I could spend the day doing housework, cleaning, putting laundry away, washing floors, cleaning out cupboards etc. OR I could make something for dinner that would be labourious enough to justify not actually doing all that housework. Guess what i chose? Shack has been asking me to make calzones for weeks and I have been too busy thinking of lasagne to pay any attention to him. You know, every time I text him to ask him what he wants for supper, he texts back "veal parmesan" and I always ignore him and make something else. I don't really like veal parmesan so I just can't get exited about making it and sometimes I feel a bit guilty about that, especially...

It's week three of  Love4Lasagna  and so far, I am kind of batting 0 for 2. Shack didn't like the rapini in the lasagna roll ups and last week, he thought there was something bitter in the chili verde lasagna, although Little Shack and The Neighbours loved both. This week I decided to make pastitsio, a greek dish that is very lasagna like but traditionally it is made with lamb. Shack HATES lamb. When I was younger I spent quite a lot of time in Greece because I worked in Athens for a couple of long stints. To be honest, I only ate this dish once when i lived there because it was always the dish that was kept out at room temperature for days on end, beside the moussaka and it would get all congealed and kind of disgusting looking, to be honest, and it was really horrible. Now, why would I want to make a dish like that??  I am assuming that freshly made, still warm from the oven eaten on the day it was made, not three weeks after it had been put out on the counter...

So, it's Friday and I have to say, I haven't really eaten anything that has blown me away this week, unless you count my bbq ribs at Kentucky Greg's in Buffalo, NY last friday. I didn't write about our adventure because my friend and blogging mentor,  Jen At PIccante Dolce  , already did, but that was an exiting day. I had fabulous bbq ribs, tasted a bazillion types of olive oils and bought an 18 year old balsamic vinegar and huffed spices at Penzy's PLUS got to buy groceries at Wegman's. A day doesn't really get much better than that even if I would have never dreamed that day would occur in Buffalo. bbq ribs, baked beans and collard greens from Kentucky Gregs Sunday was our mexican lasagna for her Love4Lasagna challenge and although it was very tasty, that sort of heavy dish is not really my thing. To be honest, I actually enjoyed the leftover chili verde that i ate on it's own for dinner on Monday more. Shack has not loved these first two la...

This week's lasagna for the  Piccante Dolce Love 4 Lasagna Challenge  was something I wanted to try as soon as i read about this challenge. I will be honest with you, I don't make lasagna often. I don't make rich, cheesy, gooey food much although Shack would love me more if I did. When I make this sort of food, I do really enjoy it once it's out there but it just never occurs to me to make it in the first place, so I really appreciate this challenge. My thighs will not not appreciate this challenge if I am not careful, of course, but it's been fun to make food that is really out of my comfort zone. One of those comfort zones happens to be Mexican food so i knew right away that I was going to try to incorporate those flavours into this challenge. I am sure there is a restaurant chain in there somewhere,  "Paco and Pasquale's"?  Gnocchi a la Veracruz? Carnitas ravioli? One of my favorite stews to make is a green chile verde with pork. I would love to...