Healthy Pasta!

I was brainstorming today about what to eat; as I usually end up doing in the middle of my mug of coffee or on my bus ride between classes. I often find that I rarely have any time during the week to make a meal meal more than a couple of times. So subtracting out the days for left-overs that usually leaves me with at least 3-5 meals where I don't have a lot of time to prepare an extravagant dish.

Lately I have been finding everything that I can whip up quickly is usually not the healthiest for you.... anything prepacked with an expiration date that is longer than three months from now is probably chalk full of preservatives that are unnatural for our bodies.

Pasta is my favorite go-to dish for a quick meal, so I decided to do some research for everyone and find some pasta dishes that are healthy to for your body and quick to make.
(These pictures are not pictures I have taken. They are pictures from the website that the recipe is located on.)

No Bake Mac&Cheese
from: EatingWell

This recipe contains most of the ingredients you would have on hand. I would advise switching the cheese depending on what you liked. I even kick it up a bit by adding some spices and additional veggies like red peppers and some Sriracha sauce! And for those meat lovers, this dish would be very youthful with some chopped up hot dogs or more fancy with some thinly sliced prosciutto.


Prep time: 20mins
Total time: 25mins
Per serving: 412 Calories; 13 g Fat; 7 g Sat; 1 g Mono; 37 mg Cholesterol; 56 g Carbohydrates; 22 g Protein; 7 g Fiber; 640 mg Sodium; 236 mg Potassium

Athena Pasta Primavera
from: EatingWell

What I like about this recipe is that everything is literally fresh. The recipe is so simple that you could change it depending on what veggies are in season. You could also tailor it to your favorite veggies. It is a very filling dish, but with the nutrients you gain from the veggies and the whole wheat pasta it is a quick and healthy dish to keep handy!


Prep time: 30mins
Total time: 30mins
Per serving: 305 Calories; 6 g Fat; 3 g Sat; 3 g Mono; 13 mg Cholesterol; 51 g Carbohydrates; 10 g Protein; 8 g Fiber; 326 mg Sodium; 236 mg Potassium


Whole-Wheat Pasta with Garlic and Olive Oil
from: MarthaStewart

This is probably the easiest pasta recipe I could find. Once again, like all of the other pasta recipes, this one could be tailored to what you like to have in pasta. Personally if I'm feeling like something a little less sharp I would replace the parsley with basil and I would definitely add some tomatoes. Preferably cherry tomatoes!


Sorry guys, Martha doesn't have the nutritional values nor length of time it would take to make. If I were to guess though:
Prep time: 5mins
Total time: 15mins

Exploring the New French Bakery!

Today I visited the New French Bakery to get some bread! This is where Local D'lish gets all of their fresh bread. They have many great sorts of breads from a cinnamon raisin loaf to baguettes to certified organic rolls! They make new batches daily and have markdowns for their breads that weren't made that same day!
I snagged a baguette and the raisin loaf for myself! A hearty loaf of bread is also on my list of foods to tackle and be really good at making. Leslie greeted me from behind the counter, and Rebecca chimed in on information about their store. The New French Bakery is located on 26th ave and 26th street in south Minneapolis accross the street from a popular hang-out Memory Lanes. Check them out! Also, check their breads out at Local D'lish! Buying local is soo rewarding and SOO fresh!
(The baguette picture was found on the New French Bakery website, and unfortunately I didn't have my camera with to take a picture of the outside so I found that on Google)

Cinnamon&Sugar Biscotti

For my first upload into my "journalBlog" I am starting with a Biscotti. I have always wanted to learn how to make a biscotti and I have heard that they are very easy to make and I feel that they would be easy to modify!

Diving on to Epicurious I found this recipe for Cinnamon & Sugar Biscotti's. They were delightful. I made these tasties last night and I was too busy figuring out how to blog.. (I know I'm in my early twenties and still don't really know how to blog. Sad.)

(Reminder: I am still an amateur food photographer!)

The original Epicurious recipe:

2 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs

1 large egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

I changed this recipe a bit due to the repeating comments on Epicurious. I cut the sugar to about 3/4ths cups because I thought 1 full cup would be a bit much. Many of the reviews also said to add another egg. So I did!

Over all the recipe was easy to make and worked really well. The texture of the biscotti was a little more moist than biscotti's should be so next time instead of adding an additional whole egg. I might try just adding another egg yolk to see if that helps. This recipe would be an easy one to make sweet or savory! For savory I will try to toss some fresh rosemary and some olive oil (perhaps as the egg substitute!) in the next batch!

Experimenting

This may sound strange to some, and maybe completely normal to others, but I love to search the internet for new recipes on any down time that I have. On my lunch break at work I am searching...in the mornings before I go to work instead of checking the news or weather I am looking at new recipes...at school when my professor is taken a breath I'm searching...

I love it. It is a thrill for me to find something that I want to try. I love cheeses, salt, sugar, you name it. I have just this year started an herb garden in my kitchen window sil. I have found it more rewarding and exquisite to cook with fresh herbs. After realizing this I would purchase the herbs recipes needed from the grocery. Being a scrounging college student I decided that this new habit would get expensive fast so I started diving into information about growing herbs to cook with. This grew into a small kitchen herb garden, which grew into a small front yard herb garden. About a month after I found the success in this herb garden I decided to grow some fresh veggies too!

I can't stop. I have been reading and experimenting with anything and everything cooking related since. It is becoming bittersweet seeing the sun come up more slowely in the morning and faster at night. I have been reading advice online about how to bring gardens inside, but it seems very expensive.

If anyone has any advice they would like to share about thier successful indoor gardening PLEASE speak now! Thanks!

PS. I promise my other blogs won't be this long! Whew!