Homemade Bruschetta

Bruschetta is a great and yummy appetizer or side dish for dinner. I made this homemade bruschetta as a side dish for a pork chop recipe that my cousin and I dug up. It’s very simple and quick! I didn’t get a chance to take pictures this time though unfortunately. I hope it turns out ok for you guys!

Homemade Bruschetta

Ingredients: Hoboken bread, a can of peeled tomatoes, an onion, some garlic, parsley, salt and pepper.

So I started off with dicing the peeled tomatoes. The number of tomatoes you use depends on the amount of people you’re serving or the slices of bread that you toast. I toasted 8 slices, so I ended up using about 6 to 8 of  the tomatoes for my mix. I took half of a medium sized onion and a handful of parsley, and diced them both up very finely and added it to the tomatoes. I then added in a tablespoon of diced garlic and mixed the whole thing together. Once it was evenly mixed, I seasoned it to taste with salt and pepper and tah dah! The mix is finished. Now to the toast. You take 4 (or more) slices of the Hoboken bread and slice them in half. Now you can either bake the bread slices or place them all in the the toaster. I used the toaster  because I was in a rush, but toast the bread until it’s nice and crispy. The bruschetta mix should go on right before you serve it on the table as to avoid getting the bread all soggy. Hope you guys like it!

Lillie

Beef and Vegetable Stir Fry

Hey! So the other day I made stir fry for dinner with beef and vegetables, and it was veryy good if I do say so myself. So I’m just going to give you guys the vegetables that I used, but you’re welcome to change them up for your personal preference. I also made mine with brown rice to put a slightly more healthy streak to it, but again, your preference to what kind of rice you want as well. Hope you like it!

Beef and Vegetable Stir Fry

Ingredients: Beef strips (or chunks), snow peas, baby corn, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, bell pepper, onion, olive oil, soy sauce, salt and pepper.

So the first step to cooking I guess would be the prepping. From the vegetables I picked to use, some of them require a little more chopping (the carrots, the pepper, the mushrooms, the onion, and the broccoli.) The mushrooms are the only thing that I would give advice on is the mushrooms. Everything this else is pretty easy. You can decide how big you want the vegetables to be in your meal. Mushrooms are interesting in the way that you clean them. You can’t really wash mushrooms because that kind of ruins them. So you either have to brush them with a mushroom brush or you can peel the outer layer. It’s a technique I learned in a Japanese restaurant a while ago. You pull the stem out of the mushroom cap, and underneath there should be a little lip underneath which you have to peel all the way to the top of the mushroom. Do that all around the rim until the cap is completely peeled. Then you can just slice it as thin or thick as you want. Now that the prep is all set, we can start the cooking.

Alright so start off, you want to put the rice on first. That’s the thing that’s going to take the most time to cook, so start that off. I would say about two cups of rice will feed about four people. I used brown rice for my recipe, but you’re more than welcome to use white, jasmine, whatever you want. Next we put a little bit of oil in a skillet and place the beef strips in. Toss the beef around until it’s thoroughly brown and cooked through. Season the beef with some salt and pepper to your taste while you’re cooking it. Once the beef is done, throw in all the the vegetables and pour some soy sauce over top of it. Once the vegetables cook and the rice is done, you’re pretty much ready to go. You just take the rice and mix it into the skillet with the beef and vegetables and season it to your liking with salt, pepper and soy sauce. Pretty simple 🙂 Enjoy! Sorry that the pictures are kind of dark haha

Lillie

Hey Everybodyy! / Pesto-Pepper Pasta

Hey! So, this is definitely not my first blog, but it’s one that I’m going to try to put a lot of effort into. I love cooking a lot. I cook something every day whether it’s at my babysitting job or for my family. Even though recipes are fun to follow, I love coming in and just whipping something up with whatever I can find in the fridge and pantry. I’ll try to add some pictures too later on, but unfortunately I didn’t take one of tonight’s dinner Bummer. I just want to mention that I’m not really one for measurements, so if that’s the kind of cooking blog you’re looking for this might be the wrong one for you. I’ll try to make what I call guesstimates with some things, but for the most part I just go with the flow and by taste and stuff, so you should too! Making food shouldn’t be about such strict measurements and stuff. Just go with what your taste buds are telling you! I promise it’ll turn out ok 🙂 I hope you enjoy!

P.S. If you’re wondering what my blog title means, it translates to Food Archives. I figured since I do tend to stick to Italian influenced recipes, putting the name in Italian would be a cool idea. I apologize to anyone if it’s incorrect grammar, but I hope it’s not. I also want to mention that I do not actually speak Italian. If you see me use any foreign words in my posts, they are most likely going to be in French or Spanish, or maybe very, very, very simple basic Italian stuff, but that will be rare. Anyways, enjoy!

Pesto-Pepper Pasta

Ingredients: Bow-tie pasta, roasted red peppers, pesto, garlic, onion, olive oil, salt and pepper

Alright, so tonight’s recipe I decided to call Pesto-Pepper Pasta. I was kind of in a rush to make something fast, and when that happens I normally turn to pasta to save me. So I started with putting a pot of water on to boil with a little bit of salt and olive oil. As I was waiting for the water to boil, I took out a skillet and set in on the stove with some olive oil. I took half the onion and diced it up nicely and threw it in the pan. Tonight I used garlic that was alright diced, but you can also used whole garlic cloves obviously. I love the flavor of garlic. If you’re going to use the cloves, I would suggest squishing the clove with the flat part of the knife first. Once you do that, it’s easier to cut it up. You can also throw in the whole squished clove if you want, it’s up to you as long as you get the flavor you’re looking for. Put in as much garlic as you want. Then I had a can of roasted red peppers. I took out what looked like enough to even out the amount to the onion and garlic. I then sliced the peppers up into small chunks and threw that into the pan as well. Now I sauteed the mixture for a bit until the onions were clear. Now here comes the awesome part. So I’ll admit, I’ve never made my own pesto. As cool as that would be, still another hill I have to climb. If you know how, that’s awesome and I give you props for that. Myself, I used pre-made store bought pesto, it works that same I’m guessing, so whichever you want to use, again that’s up to you. So I spooned out a whole punch of pesto and put it in the pan with my sauteed vegetables. Now this is going to end up being the main part of your sauce, so make sure you spoon out enough pesto to cover all your pasta. After you’re done just mix it all together for a bit and lower the heat. Warning, the pesto will get kind of oily! I guess it’s the way it’s made or how it comes in the bottle, but there was a ton of oil that separated from the pesto itself. That’s normally and it’s fine, so don’t worry about it! 🙂 As soon as the water comes to a boil, pour the bow tie pasta in. Now I don’t know how long pasta is normally supposed to boil for, but just check on it and taste it and see how it’s coming along. Once the pasta is done, just drain the water, put the pasta in another bowl and pour your pesto sauce on top and voila! C’est magnifique! But seriously, it was pretty good, and the whole box made enough to feed four people with multiple servings. I hope you guys enjoy this recipe, and I hope you understand my instructions! Haha byee

Lillie