I Couldn't Live Without....Pasta! (weekly line-up)

It's been quite a while since I've posted, but I saw this new weekly line-up hosted by a friend of mine at Pursuit of Pink and thought I'd give it a shot!

Every week, at least once, my family has pasta in some way, shape or form. Not only is it sometimes the main feature of a meal, I also use it to reinvent leftovers all the time! Here are a few ideas for pasta that I've made over the past few weeks:

• Spaghetti w/ Tomato Sauce and Leftover Pot Roast (essentially a ragu)
• Shrimp Scampi w/ linguini (white wine, lemon, butter, basil, YUM!)
• Baked Leftover Pasta (add extra cheese and some milk or cream)
• Mac & Cheese (homemade or boxed) w/ broccoli or butternut squash or spiced up with pickled jalapenos
• Spaghetti al Melone from Giada De Laurentiis
• Linguini Shrimp Fra Diavolo w/ Rao's brand Fra Diavolo Sauce

No surprise that my one year old daughter loves pasta. But what IS a surprise is that she'll eat it almost no matter what sauce is on it. The biggest surprise was that she scarfed down the scampi!!!

What are some ways you like to incorporate pasta into your meal?

Recipe Reinvention: "Leftover" Pasta, Carbonara Style

This past week we had some leftovers, and when I say some, I mean VERY LITTLE, but I was determined to make lunch for my husband and me out of it on Friday. I realized we had eggs, grated cheese, and bacon grease, and I could make a carbonara-like meal!

Here's what we had:

Leftover Ingredients:

• 1 chicken thigh, cooked and diced
• about 10 cubes of roasted potatoes
• 1 serving of rotini pasta, cooked

New Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• 1 Tbs Bacon grease (technically I guess it's a leftover....)
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 carrot, cut up (I julienned it)
• 1 rib of celery, diced
• 1/2 cup wine
• 2 eggs, beaten
• A bit of parsley, chopped
• A few leaves of basil, chopped
• Salt to taste
• Grated cheese to taste

Directions:

1. In a saute pan, heat up the olive oil and bacon grease. Add onions, carrots and celery and a bit of salt. Once softened a bit, add the garlic and stir for 1-2 minutes to cook the garlic without burning.
2. Add in the wine and let it sizzle. Once the wine is warm, push the veggies to one side and whisk the egg into the liquid. Pour slowly. Whisk quickly!
3. Add in the pasta, chicken and potato cubes and stir till warmed through. Throw in the basil and parsley.
4. Take off the stove and add the cheese.

Voila!!! "Leftover" Pasta Carbonara.

Couponing: Birthday Deals

May is my birth month, which means lots of birthday deals! I wanted to document the one's I'm using in case anyone else is interested! I've hyperlinked where you can sign up for the same deals.

May 1: Enjoyed a free regular bowl at Noodles & Co. and they even threw in a fountain drink! I also learned from a friend that sometimes soda can bother baby's tummy when mom drinks it, which I believe since it was my first soda since our little one was born, and she was screaming in pain from gassiness that night! Whether or not it's medically true, I'm staying a away from soda! Sign up for Noodlegram.

May 3: Used a $10 off coupon at World Market to buy some Torani vanilla syrup for use with our Nespresso. I got two large bottles for about $4 (compared to $16, because I also had 10% off!). Sign up for World Market Explorer.

May 13: Free Starbucks! Granted this was one I earned with 12 stars rather than my birthday drink, so that means I'll get another free drink this month. I didn't need more coffee today, so I bought a venti iced cinnamon dolce latte, took out the ice, and stuck it in the fridge for work tomorrow! Register a Starbucks card.

May 18: My actual birthday! The plan was to have a free medium coffee from Caribou (sign up for Caribou) but after making sure my little one was fed and changed, and okay with daddy, I drove out to the Caribou only to find it closed....and apparently ALL of them in VA are closing! For more information, see here. Quite the disappointing start to my day. So instead, I drove myself over to Starbucks and claimed my birthday drink!

I can still get a free single scoop of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, (sign up to be a ChunkSplunker), a free Benihana a dinner up to $30 (join Chef's Table), and a free burger at Red Robin (join Red Robin Royalty).

Prepping for Baby's Arrival: Easy Meals

I've been known to cook a lot, and I always freeze the extra that I make. That has been in overdrive in the last month or so prepping for the arrival of baby. So that, combined with some shelf stable meals has us covered for multiple nights after baby arrives. Some of the frozen meals took a while too cook, but I just set aside I day I knew I'd be home and had it sit on the stove all day while I went about my cleaning or lounging.

My homemade frozen, ready to cook meals include:

• Chili
• Turkey Bolognese (admittedly, this one takes the longest, about 4 hours, but it's soooooo good)
• Tomato Sauce
• Ham & Bean Soup
• Turkey Pot Pie (just the filling, the topping can be added when you cook)
• Turkey Soup
• Chicken Soup
• Chicken Fajitas (I left the chicken raw and didn't put any veggies in the bag, just chicken & marinade)
• Lasagna
• Portuguese Kale Soup

My freezer trick is that I cool everything, and then load it into gallon size freezer bags. Label them before you fill them! I also stand them up in a big bowl and turn the top over so it doesn't get messy. I try to judge how much 2 people will eat and only pack that much in the bag. I then freeze it flat. That way they stack really easily in the freezer and don't waste much space. To reheat, let them thaw a bit first, then you can break it up and put it in a pan to heat.

I've borrowed a picture from Jamie Cooks It Up to show the freezer bag technique below. Note this is a smaller bag in a cup, and I use gallon bags in a big bowl.

I also have some easy shelf stable (or mostly shelf stable) meals:

• Chili Mac - 1 can of Trader Joe's low-fat beef chili + 1/2 lb pasta (for 2 people), top with cheese and sour cream
• Mac & Cheese - 1 box of Trader Joe's or Annie's mac & cheese + 1/2-1 pk of frozen chopped broccoli + 1 pk frozen butternut squash (I add extra shredded cheddar)
• Amy's Soups - I particularly like the lentil and the thai soups
• Campbell's slow cooker sauce for beef pot roast (I've never tried it but it came with my new slow cooker!)
• Amy's Frozen Pizza

That should be at least 20 dinners (some of them are doubled) and I plan to make some turkey cutlets tomorrow to freeze. I'll bread them, fry them, and then freeze them individually. They can be eaten splashed with lemon, or covered in sauce and mozzarella cheese. They're also great as a sandwich! That'll put me over 3 full weeks of dinners!

I've linked to Jamie Cooks It Up, Meal Survivor, Annie's, Amy's and Campbell's.

What's your favorite go-to meal?

Recipe Reinvention: Turkey Tetrazzini

After Thanksgiving, everyone always has tons of leftovers. My favorite after-Thanksgiving meal is a Thanksgiving sandwich, where you pile all the various leftovers onto a yummy roll (ciabatta or French bread), add some mayo and cranberry sauce, and this year some horshradish, and the sandwich is amazing!

However, we had just a bit of turkey leftover after the sandwiches; not enough to actually have another meal for both my husband and me. I had heard about Turkey Tetrazzini, but it wasn't something I had ever made or tried.

I found a recipe from Rachael Ray here, and thought I'd give it a shot, but with a few twists of my own of course...partially because we didn't have all the ingredients she used!

Turkey Tetrazzini
Modified version of Rachael Ray's
Serves 4

Ingredients:

• Salt
• 1/3-1/2 pound pasta
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 oz mushrooms, diced
• Salt & Pepper
• 2 teas poultry seasoning (or a mix of Thyme, Rosemary, Sage)
• Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
• 1 Tbs butter
• 1 1/2 Tbs flour
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 cup chicken or turkey stock
• 1/2 c plain yogurt (greek or regular)
• 1/2 lb leftover turkey, diced
• 1/4 c grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (a generous handful)
• 1/4 c flat leaf parsley leaves, chopped

Directions:

1. Boil water and cook the pasta according to package directions.
2. While pasta is boiling, in a large sauté pan with oil, heat the onions until translucent over medium to medium-high heat. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute until fragrant.
3. Add in mushrooms and sauté until they're browned.
4. Add seasonings (salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, sage, nutmeg).
5. Add in butter until melted, and then flour to make a roux. Cook for at least 1 minute.
6. Add in wine and cook down for at least 1 minute so that it thickens. Then add in stock and yogurt.
7. Once you stir the sauce together, add in turkey and drained pasta.
8. Serve with cheese and parsley.

I actually made this for dinner and then ate the leftovers for lunch the next day. Turns out that it tasted better as leftovers because the pasta absorbed more flavor and the sauce thickened. I also added about 1 oz of cream cheese to add creamy-ness since we used fat-free yogurt instead of sour cream as called for in Rachael Ray's recipe.

What do you do with your Thanksgiving leftovers?