Shameful

So I happen to be very bad at some stuff. Like I've now been tagged twice for the same meme. And I just haven't gotten around to doing it. And the lovely Bellini Valli has given me an award and I haven't acknowledged it. Shoot. I completely forgot about it even. Shameful.

So let's start with the award. The lovely Bellini Valli over at More Than Burnt Toast gave me the I Love You This Much award. I love her too. Valli makes me want to be a Canadian. She makes delicious food and uses fresh local ingredients. I love that. And the photos on her blog are beautiful. Stunning really. I've updated my list of yummy blogs over there on the sidelines so you can see there are TONS of blogs worthy of this award, but for now I'll pass it on to a few that I really admire:

Speedbump Kitchen, who's food looks delicious and show us all that living with allergies doesn't mean that you have to live a life of deprivation.

Cheap But Not Easy, who has daily tips about living frugally, which is important right now with our economy whether anyone labels it a recession or not.

Straight From the Farm, who quit her business job to work on a farm and follow her dream and develops recipes for all kinds of produce.

Tartlette, because her photos are truly food porn and even though I'm afraid to try most of her recipes, I love looking at them and I'm very excited that she's writing and developing a cookbook.

and finally Super G's Potpourri, because she's my sister and I strong armed her into joining the Daring Bakers and I convinced her that she was going to die of Yuck when she was 6 and she doesn't hate me for it.

And on to the Meme...

Both April over at Abby Sweets and Speedbump Kitchen have tagged me for the Six Random things meme. They're both lovely people and you should totally go check them out. I'm not going to pass it on to anyone, because I figure meme's are like those emails with the cute pictures of kittens and inspirational sayings about how much God loves us that some people forward to every person in their address book. I never know who really wants to receive them. SO if you'd like to play along, play. If not, that's OK too. So here are my random things....

1) The Brain is lactose intolerant, so on nights like tonight when he's golfing and I'm alone for dinner, I frequently have something silly like cheese. Yep, I'm having cheese for dinner tonight. Goat Brie, and Saint Andre.

2) Although I spend all morning frying donuts, I don't like to eat them. I much prefer to come home and have a bowl of Cheerios. Which I sometimes pronounce Cheerio-e-oooooos.

3) I like to sing, I mean really really sing in the car. With the windows up. I can get my groove thing on to pretty much anything from Kenny Chesney to Verdi. And sometimes, if it something peppy like Gloria Estevan, I tend to seat dance too.

4) My hiking boots are bright pink.

5) When I was a little girl my career aspiration in life was to be a scantily clad alien on Star Trek and make out with Captain Kirk. (I outgrew that one).

6) I think bald men are incredibly sexy.

So there. Now you know everything there is to know.

Sicilian Penne and Sausage ala Batter Splattered

Today was a standard busy Monday. I had physical therapy, where they finally let me on a stationary bike for a whole 6 minutes. Yay! Then I helped my fabulous mother-in-law learn some fun tricks in Word. And it's been rainy and fairly cold today. So I decided to finally participate in Ruth over at Ruth's Kitchen Experiments' weekly blog event Bookmarked Recipes (every Monday).

Molly at Batter Splattered posted this recipe for Sicilian Rigatoni and Sausage in late April and I've been waiting for the opportunity to make it ever since. I didn't have any rigatoni so I substituted some penne. And I only had 2 large ripe tomatoes so I added a can of petite diced tomatoes. This pasta was worth the time it took to cook. It was rich and delicious. I think next time I make it I'll do it exactly as she posted it because it was so satisfying that I can't think of a way to improve it.

Also, the always lovely Amanda over at Mrs. W's Kitchen has awarded me the Arte Y Pico Award for creativity, design, interesting material, and contribution to the blogging community. I am so incredibly honored.

I am very happy to pass this award on to these other deserving bloggers:

1. Jennie of Straight From The Farm because she not only informs about interesting plants and gardening, but also creates tasty recipes for a variety of vegetables and herbs.

2. Speedbump Kitchen who is extremely informative about cooking for children with allergies. I like to peek on her site when I need to figure out how to be careful about cooking for people with food allergies and intolerances.

3. Clara over at I heart Cuppycakes who consistently makes a better cupcake entry for Cupcake Hero than me. And who has some fierce skills in decorating.

4.Courtney of Coco Cooks because she lives an exciting and glamorous life and the diversity of dishes on her blog reflect it.

5. Janna, The Honeyed Hashette, who creates beautiful desserts and dinners. Her Paula Deen Chocolate Cake had me drooling!

Here are the rules for this award:
You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award, creativity, design, interesting material, and also contrubutes to the blogger community.
Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
Each award winner must display the award along with the name and link to the blog that gave it.
Winners must link to the "Arte Y Pico" blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.
Winners must display these rules

Hello my Lovelies!

So I'm not going to be doing a lot of cooking for the next couple of weeks. I'm pretty much on couch rest until April 4th (at least). Fortunately I have a lot of backlog. It was a sucessful knee surgery though. They seem to have fixed all the problems, but I can't put hardly any weight on it and I'll be on crutches for a while. Like a LONG while. It also hurts like no pain I've ever had before.

SO let's take care of some old business shall we?

Laurie at Quirky Cupcake gave me a You Make My Day Award. Isn't she so sweet? Seriously check out her blog for a healthy amount of food porn. She consistently makes me want to lick my screen.

SO who am I passing it on to?

Well, I'm passing it on to Marti at Standing Still. She's a super talented potter, has a pissy cat (honestly) and has really been supportive of me.

And I'm passing it on to LIsa at La Mia Cucina. Because she is so super sweet. She's let me know that I'm not a complete idiot for simply standing up and ending up with a massive injury. I just love her.

And to Mrs. W because she's got seriously the most beautiful handwriting I've ever seen and I'm so excited to try her spice packets. And she's super nice too. And it's her birthday. So go check out her website and donate to Shaohannah's Hope, Inc. I would, but I'm fairly drugged up right now. And I'm not aloud to pull out the debit/credit card when I'm drugged.

And I'm passing it on to Pixie who is cute as a button and brings New York to Britain.

And Lisa Rene, because seriously for vegetarian cooking, yes NO bacon, her blog is seriously mouthwatering.

And Mrs. White at Pretty to Think so because her book reviews are spot on and give me loads of ideas. That and she's hillarious.

And to Deb at Taste and Tell who understands how hard it is to find some products when you live in unusual places.

And I Heart Cuppycakes who sent me a prize today and introduced me to an amazing cupcake shipping prototype system that I'll be blogging about tomorrow.

And to my mom because she came down on Monday and stayed through this morning and took really good care of me (and cleaned my house!)

And even though she doesn't have a blog, to my mother in law because she's seriously awesome. She changed my dressing without getting squeemish or anything. And she was super compationate without making me feel like an invalid. (Even though I might qualify right now.)

And to all you lovely people who have wished me such kindness. It's for you too! I'm going back to the couch now.

E Rated Red Cabbage

When I started this little blog, I had no idea how much fun it would get to be and how many wonderful people I would get to know. And really, if anything, the outpouring of support I recieved in my last post for this whole silliness that's going on with my knee just means so much to me. I love that this community has helped me to stretch what I thought I could do and has introduced me to so many different cultures. And I'm so happy to say thank you to the lovely Deborah of Taste and Tell who gave me the Excellent blog award. Thank you! Deborah is a really super woman who presents healthy and delicious dishes and always leaves such kind comments.

So now I'd like to pass this award on to Cynthia at Tastes Like Home who is from Guyana and lives in Barbados and consistently blogs about Island food. Her pictures are mouthwatering and she's always helpful if you email her.

Secondly I'd like to pass this award on to Courtney at Coco Cooks. She blogs from Chicago and her blog features fantastic recipes that I would love to duplicate. Her cakes are beautiful and sometimes she pushes the envelope and comes up with exciting new dishes. Other times she makes me just want to lick the computer screen!

Thirdly I'd like to pass this award to Laurie at Quirky Cupcake. You might also know her as the host of the monthly Cupcake Hero. I love her sense of humor and I know I can tune into her blog for either some heavy duty drooling or a little bit of hilarity.

Last, I'd like to recognize a non-food blogger. I'd like to pass this award on to Marti at Standing Still. Marti has had so many challenges and situations over the last several months and yet she handles it all with grace and sensitivity and a wicked sense of humor. She also has some seriously great pottery.

SO those are my excellent blogs I'd like to recognize. Just a sampling of the many many excellent blogs out there.

And now for the recipe, which was really just a way for me to use up the second half of the red cabbage I used here. I wasn't planning on blogging about it, but then I tasted it and I knew that I had to share this red cabbage recipe. This is Red Cabbage with Bacon and Caraway from Bon Appetit.

Now I grew up eating ethnically German food. I am no stranger to red cabbage or caraway seeds or bacon. But most of the times I've had red cabbage before, either at home or at German Restaurants it's been cooked until it's dead. Soft, squishy, sweet and tart. Don't get me wrong, the dead kind is delicious and is total comfort food. BUT, and I really believe this, when vegetables are cooked 'till they are falling apart dead, you tend to lose the actual flavor of the original vegetable. For example, my Grandma U's green beans never actually tasted like green beans. That's not to say that the red cabbage I grew up with was tasteless and salty like Grandma U's green beans. It tasted of cloves and apples and vinegar and brown sugar and all sorts of yummy stuff.

But this red cabbage was still a little on the crispy side. We actually had to chew it. It was GREAT! And call me silly, I just love the beautiful purple color of red cabbage. I think it's so pretty You can still taste the wonderful saltiness of bacon and the brown sugar and cider vinegar, but the red cabbage taste comes through too. The Brain and I both really liked it.

Red Cabbage with Bacon and Caraway

from Bon Appetit

4 slices bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1/2 head red cabbage, thinly sliced

3 Tbsp cider vinegar

1 Tbsp dark brown sugar

1 tsp caraway seeds

chopped fresh parsley

Cook the bacon in a heavy skillet until crispy. Remove from the pan and let drain on paper towels. Drain out about half the bacon grease. Saute the cabbage in the same skillet for about 3 minutes. Stir together the vinegar, sugar and caraway seeds and add to the cabbage. Saute until the cabbage is wilted, but still crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from the pan, season with salt and pepper and mix in the bacon. Add more vinegar as needed. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and enjoy!