Fresh Veggie Pasta

This pasta is faintly based on a recipe from Chef John

But almost none of the ingredients are the same:

I started with mostly cooked bacon (I keep it in the freezer).  I diced it fine and started frying it.

Next, diced onions and peppers were added - doing the blotting thing with the towel.

When they were cooked, in went the mostly cooked penne.

Coffee cream, frozen corn and fresh ground pepper went in next.

When the cream was mostly soaked into the penne, tomatoes, fresh basil and parsley were stirred in.

I forgot the parm.  I meant to parm.

*shrug*  It tasted really good without it.

Pancit

This is a "reprint" from my mother's blog.

As part of our family gathering today, Flaviana taught several of us how to make my favourite Filipino dish, Pancit. 

A little research taught me that Pancit is really a generic term for noodles but this is the only version I have eaten.  Flaviana did say that she does make variations in the vegetables depending on what is on hand.

She started by sauteing garlic in oil and then adding onions. 

 After a while she added chicken and soy sauce and cooked it for a while. If she had been at home she would then have been chopping up the vegetables, but on this occasion they were conveniently all ready chopped and waiting in ziploc bags.  They included savoy cabbage, carrots and celery. Before adding them, she pulled out half of the meat.

After the vegetables were cooked, they were removed and she returned the chicken, any juices, and some hot water to the pan and threw in her rice noodles. She does not pre-soften these noodles, though some people do.

The noodles were stir fried along with more soy sauce and eventually everything was mixed together along with some shrimp and it was poured onto a platter, 

 

garnished with lemon and served.

Lovely mid afternoon snack!

Granola Bars

I am always on the look out for a new granola bar recipe.  Here's the latest based on the recipe from a friend at church.

Melt together:
1 cup honey
2/3 cup peanut butter
1 cup dates, finely chopped

Take off heat and add:
2 tsp vanilla
1½ tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt

Mix together:
3 cups Rice Krispies
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup coconut
2 cups dried cranberries
2/3 cup total sunflower and / or pumpkin seeds
2/3 cups chopped pecans or almonds

Stir the wet and dry together and press onto a large, greased cookie sheet.

I love this recipe because you can sub whatever you have on hand.  This time, some crushed Vector supplemented the krispies.  The original recipe called for an additional cup of dried apricots.