Spicy Italian Sausage Penne

Back-to-back pasta recipes on the blog this week! But I can't help it. I love pasta. It's so easy and versatile (and not to mention delicious). I have a couple of go-to pasta recipes (including my spaghetti alla puttanesca, which I can almost make in my sleep) but I also really like trying something new, or putting a new spin on an old favourite.

I use Italian sausages with pasta quite often, but I don't do anything particularly fancy or complicated with them. Usually I just break them up while frying them and then toss them in tomato sauce, often with artichoke hearts. I then saw Jamie Oliver's recipe for "Pregnant Jools's Pasta" in his cookbook Meals in Minutes, which is a different approach to sausage pasta than my usual. He puts the sausages through the food processor before frying it up, which gives the sausage a more silky texture, as opposed to the more rustic texture of my sausage pastas. He also makes the sauce with carrot, celery (which unfortunately I didn't have on hand) and diced tomatoes, which makes it taste fresh.

Pulled Pork Pasta

We had a lot of pulled pork left over from making pulled pork sandwiches the other day. Instead of making more sandwiches, I thought we would try making some pulled pork pasta. I have to admit that the idea came from that Boston Pizza commercial where the guy eats their pulled pork penne and turns into a "foodie," which in the commercial, apparently isn't a good thing. Too bad for me, since I self-identify as one. The commercial actually drives me crazy (mostly because it gets played alllll the time) but the idea was interesting.

I was going to make some tomato sauce to mix with the pulled pork but didn't have time, so I just used jarred sauce. Since we had the leftover pork, all of the hard work was already done. This was super quick and easy, and pretty tasty. It's so simple that I kind of feel silly writing it out like you don't know how to boil pasta and heat some sauce, but I guess not everything I put on this blog is going to be complicated, so here it is in all its glory!

Pan-Seared Salmon with Bacon Clam Chowder

This might sound kind of cheesy, Chef Michael Smith is kind of a culinary hero of mine. It was his show, Chef at Home, that I first started watching years ago that made me think that I could actually cook something decent if I tried (I didn't count boiling pasta and heating sauce from a can as "real" cooking back then). He really made cooking accessible for me, and I began to see that it was actually easier than I thought to put together great dishes.

Nowadays I also follow chefs like Jamie Oliver who seem to have a similar approach to home cooking. They have shown me that it's not necessary to obsessively follow recipes to make good food, but rather to learn the basic processes and the ingredients and then get a feel for how the dishes are made so that you can freestyle somewhat and personalize the dishes once you get comfortable with them. Some may say it's a casual approach to cooking, but I like to think of it as instinctive.

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Coleslaw

I have been meaning to make pulled pork for ages. It's one of those recipes that I pin and bookmark every time I see it, but have never gotten around to trying. Well, I was watching Chef Michael's Kitchen the other day (love that show!), and lo and behold, he was making pulled pork sandwiches. The recipe was simple enough, and he was using a slow cooker, so I adapted his recipe and finally made us some yummy pulled pork.

Chicken with Creamy Mushroom Sauce

I've been watching a ton of Food Network lately, which is good because I get a lot of new recipe ideas, but it's also bad because I see so much delicious food that I can't immediately eat. I have discovered so many great shows lately. Our PVR is really filling up, and I have gotten so many good ideas for dishes to try!

I was watching one show where they were making chicken with mushrooms in a cream sauce, and I pretty much thought about that dish for days. I never used to like mushrooms much, but I guess my palate has developed because now I really enjoy them. I finally decided to make it, so I adapted a recipe I found from the BBC, since I couldn't remember the show that I saw it on. I am so glad I finally tried it. It's going to be one of my regular dishes on the dinner circuit for sure!

Baked Eggs in Avocado with Fresh Salsa

I'm usually not much of a breakfast person and most of the time I have something quick like cereal or Eggos. (Sometimes too many Eggos - blueberry ones - slathered in butter. It's a weakness of mine.)  Every once in a while though, I find a recipe that inspires me to do something fancier for breakfast.

That's what happened when I saw baked eggs with bacon in avocado on SteakNPotatoesKindaGurl. I love avocados so I couldn't wait to try them. I wanted to add some freshness to the dish, though, so I thought I would make it with some homemade salsa and without the bacon.

Baking Basics: A Link Roundup

I have always been much better at cooking than baking. I still remember how I used to ruin Pillsbury cookies. You know, the ones that you only need to scoop onto a baking sheet and put into the oven. Sad.

Over the last year or so, I've become a much better cook, but I think that part of my success is due to the fact that cooking is generally much more forgiving than baking. I can freestyle a recipe or substitute ingredients and the dish can still work out (most of the time).

Baking, on the other hand, is more like a chemistry experiment to me. (I should say that I was never particularly good at chemistry, though it probably didn't help that my chemistry labs in undergrad were at 8 in the morning. Nobody should make me play with chemicals at 8 in the morning.) Everything has to be so much more precise and there is a lot more room to ruin a recipe if you don't know exactly what you're doing.

While I have improved my baking skills enough that I can handle Pillsbury cookies now, and have ventured into the wonderful world of making sweet treats from scratch, I still have a lot to learn. I have been reading a lot of amazing food blogs and information sources from professional chefs online that have outlined a lot of great information that I didn't know. I figured there might be others out there who are novices and want to learn more, so I thought I'd start this link roundup feature of useful information that I come across.

While this particular roundup is about baking basics, I'm planning to share more links every once in a while on other cooking topics. I hope you find them helpful too!

Top 10 Tips for More Successful Baking. - The Kitchn

Think you know how to measure dry ingredients? I thought so too. (I was wrong.) - Sally's Baking Addiction

Learn how to bake muffins with high tops. (Now all I can picture is muffins with running shoes on.) - Sally's Baking Addiction

Check out these tips for making great cookies. Did you know the weather can matter? I didn't! - A Spicy Perspective

50 Tips for Baking Better Cakes. - Sweetapolita

Anna Olson's baking tips. - Food Network

Anne Burrell's Top 5 Tips for Baking Like a Pro. - Food Network

The World's Greatest Baking Tips from Dan Lepard. - The Guardian

Coconut Lime Rice Pudding

I have been experimenting with changing up my go-to brownie recipe lately but haven't been totally happy with the results yet. (I'll definitely share the recipe when I get it right!) The upside of the culinary experimentation is that we have had a couple of batches of brownies to eat. Even if they aren't as spectacular as I imagined them, they are still brownies and I can't pass those up!

Still, I was craving something sweet, but not too sugary for a change. I couldn't stop thinking about the can of coconut milk I had in my cupboard and thinking I wanted to make a cold dessert with it. I have never made dessert with coconut milk before, but started thinking about what I could do and decided I wanted to try a rice pudding. I found a tasty-sounding recipe on Epicurious and adapted it. It yields 4 to 6 servings, depending on how big a portion you want. (I ended up with two small bowls and two medium bowls.) It is a bit rich, so you may want to keep the portions on the smaller side.

The rice pudding was delicious. It was rich and creamy even though I only used 2% milk, and it was sweet, but not overly so. The original recipe called for twice as much sugar, but I found even cutting the sugar in half that it was sweet enough for me. The hint of lime was a good balance for the richness of the coconut. The texture was great too - the rice was soft but not mushy, so the pudding still had substance to it. I would definitely make this again. It satisfied my craving perfectly!

Shrimp, Avocado and Tomato Pasta Salad

This shrimp, avocado and tomato pasta salad is a dish that I threw together the other day when I was trying to figure out what to do with the ripe avocado that we had sitting around. I wanted to try something new but didn't have anything particular in mind, so I used the avocados as a starting point and tried to figure out what would taste good with it. We had cooked shrimp in the freezer and a couple of pints of ripe grape tomatoes, so I decided to throw those ingredients together into a quick pasta salad.

Crispy Cheese and Dill Quinoa Balls with Spicy Mayo Dip

Holy SMOKES, guys, I'm in love with these things. This recipe for these quinoa balls was inspired by the ones I saw over at A Pretty Life. I was excited to find another way to prepare quinoa besides in a salad so I thought I'd try them, but I wanted to put my own spin on them. I thought that the version I planned in my head would be good, but I had no idea how delicious they would be.

The quinoa balls are tasty, but eating them with the spicy mayo is what takes them over the top. They are crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and the dill pairs so nicely with the cheese. The spicy mayo adds a rich creaminess and some zip to them.