Pasta Alla Carbonara

The other day while at Trader Joe's, I noticed they have a little container of pancetta that is chopped into little cubes.  And what better to do with that than make Pasta all Carbonara!  This gem from Trader Joe's saves you the time that it would normally take to chop the pancetta. This was my first time ever making this pasta, and I was a little nervous about the egg - either it scrambling or being too raw.  But voilà! it came out great!

Here is how to make it:

Boil the water for your pasta with a little salt. In a bowl whisk together 2 eggs with 1/4 cup of Pecorino Romano cheese and 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese. Heat about 1 TBS of olive oil in a pan and cook the pancetta until it is browned, about 8-10 minutes. Then add 2 minced garlic cloves and cook for about 1 minute. Stir in about 1/3 of a cup of dry white wine to de-glaze the pan and cook for another minute. When the pasta is al dente, toss it in the pan with the pancetta until well incorporated. Then pour the pasta and pancetta into the egg mixture bowl and toss vigorously to heat the egg and coat the pasta. Season with salt and pepper and parsley. Serve and eat immediately.

Apple Cider Cream Pie

For Thanksgiving I volunteered to make a pie after I saw this recipe in the November Food & Wine.  I couldn't resist!  It is really quite easy to make as far as pies go.  The only trouble I had was with stretching the dough to fit my pie dish.  So it shrank a little while cooking.  But the combination of the buttery dough, with the slightly tart apple cider custard, and the sweet cinnamon-y whipped cream on top was a nice combination.

Kale Chips

I had some leftover kale yesterday and so I made kale chips with it.  It's really easy to do and for those of you who don't like kale, this is a good way to eat it that you will actually enjoy.  They are crispy, salty, light and a perfect snack!

Directions: cut the kale into chip-size pieces, then toss them in a little olive oil and salt, and finally bake them on a cookie sheet at 300 degrees for about 8 minutes or until they are crisp.  Then snack away!

Thanksgiving Pops!

I took these to a birthday party over the weekend, and since it is almost Turkey Day I made them using pumpkin and decorated them with cute fall sprinkles.

All I did was make a yellow cake and added to it one can of pumpkin puree, a little vanilla extract, and some pumpkin spice.  Then once that was baked and cooled I mixed in some cream cheese frosting that I made using 1 stick of butter, 8oz of cream cheese and powdered sugar to taste.  I even added a little pumpkin spice to the frosting too!  Then I dipped them all in melted white chocolate and decorated them with sprinkles that Shauna sent to me for my birthday!  If you look closely they are little gingerbread men and leaves.  So cute!

I think these are the best tasting cake pops I have made thus far. They were definitely a hit!