Numero Uno

So I have another blog, but I realized that people who want to read about yoga and renewable energy might not want to read about gourmet cooking, or vice versa. So I decided to separate them. I want to create this to document my journey of exploration... if you want to put it that way. Now that my boyfriend and I have an apartment of our own, we're trying out all these fantastic new recipes. I want to make the good ones again, and keep myself from making the same mistakes twice - so here is where I will keep notes.

So tonight we had a delicious pizza with a mixed green salad and some tasty lime-oriented beer. The approximate recipe:

1 whole wheat pizza crust (we used Boboli, which was delicious and easy)
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1/2 small eggplant, sliced, lightly fried in olive oil
1 cup fresh baby spinach
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup shredded medium cheddar, for some variety

Spray the pizza pan (crucial! we forgot to do this once and had very crispy pizza), put down the sauce, spinach, and eggplant, sprinkle cheese evenly on top, and follow baking instructions on crust package.

It was delicious! To go along with it we had a salad with:

mixed baby field greens
handful of cherry tomatoes
handful of chopped sweet red and green bell peppers
some baby carrots
some raisins
delicious Raspberry Hazelnut Vinaigrette dressing

So that was tonight. Last night was even better. We had a baked penne casserole:

1 1/3 cup (uncooked volume) penne
14 oz organic diced canned tomatoes
1/2 cup baby spinach (we should have used more)
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1 cup grated Parmesan
some garlic powder, fresh ground pepper and sea salt, oregano to taste

Cooked the pasta, put everything in the casserole dish with most of the Parmesan on top, baked it in the oven for about 25-30 minutes. Definitely should have taken it out a little sooner, as the pasta sticking out of the tomato juice had gotten pretty hard.

To go with that, we had a Caesar Salad (from a bag.. for shame!) and a delicious Louis Jadot Beaujolais. Now that was tasty.

I hope to make whole wheat blueberry pancakes tomorrow morning with a honey-fruit syrup. We'll see if I have the motivation!