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

Multicultural Danish Braid

In case you haven't noticed the Danish Braids taking over the Internet, today is post day for the latest Daring Baker's Challenge, Danish Braid. This month's challenge is hosted by Kelly of Sass and Veracity and Ben of What's Cooking. The definitely challenging part of this challenge was learning how to make a laminated dough. This is the same type of dough as croissants are made of. I saw Jacques Pepin make this dough on PBS years ago and have been afraid of it ever since. In fact, I procrastinated so bad on making it that I just finished at 12:45 this morning.

I should not have been so afraid. The dough was nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be. I followed the directions (posted on the host blogs) carefully and ended up with a nice flaky and delicious dough. But why do I call it multicultural? Because my filling was inspired by the Orange Chocolate Baklava in the book Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate by Robert Steinberg and John Scharffenberger. The orange flavoring really comes out. I used Lindt 70% chocolate only because I didn't have time, or the forethought, to drive to the next county to get some yummy Scharffenberger chocolate.

And oh yeah I'll be making this again.

Make sure to check out the rest of the Daring Bakers and their yummy braids!

Orange Chocolate Filling

1 cup unblanched whole almonds, lightly toasted

1 cup walnuts lightly toasted

6 oz. 70% bittersweet chocolate

4 oz. chopped dates

zest of 1 orange

Place nuts in food processor and pulse to chop very small. Add orange zest, chocolate, and dates and process until crumbly in texture.

This makes enough filling for 2 Danish Braids.

Marshmallow Walnut Chocolate Ice Cream

So I'm procrastinating on making my Daring Baker challenge for this month. I've cleaned the house some. Watched the Brain do some serious housework. Taken my Focus in to see what's wrong with it this month. Played on a parked Vespa, imagining myself to be scooting around Nowhere, Ohio in a kicky skirt while speaking fluent Italian. And learned about Ford Escapes. The Brain has left to run some all day errands and I really need to get my butt in gear and make this challenge.

But instead I decided to finish the ice cream that I made this week and tell you about it. Remember last month's cocoa Cupcake Hero? And how the theme ingredient was cocoa and we were supposed to highlight Askinosie cocoa and those lovely people at Askinosie Chocolate sent me some of the cocoa. Well, I decided that probably I should use it again because my habit of sneaking into the kitchen just to sniff it was starting to get a little weird. That and there's this ice cream blogging event going on at Mike's Table called You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream for Frozen Desserts.

The flavor of the Askinosie Cocoa comes out so clear and luscious in this ice cream. I had a hard time not just eating the custard before I even got started freezing it. That and I also learned that I can not be left alone with fresh mini marshmallows. I apparently love them. So yes, this recipe makes smooth and velvety chocolate ice cream studded with crunchy walnuts and springy marshmallows and over the course of the week I ate it all. And I'm not sorry that I didn't share.

I did tell the Brain that I will make him a milk-free sorbet this week though. I didn't tell him that I was going to use some of my donut frying money to order me some more of that cocoa powder. I'm not addicted or anything. I can quit whenever I want.

Marshmallow Walnut Chocolate Ice Cream

adapted from The Ultimate Ice Cream Book by Bruce Weinstein

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 cups milk

1 cup heavy cream

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup mini marshmallows

1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Place the sugar, eggs, and cocoa in a food processor and blend until smooth.

Bring the milk to a boil in a heavy medium saucepan. With the food processor running, slowly pour the hot milk into the food processor feed tube. Process until well blended. Pour the entire mixture back into the pan and place over low heat. Stir constantly with a whisk or wooden spoon until the custard thickens slightly and reaches 170 degrees F. Be careful not to let the mixture boil or the eggs will scramble. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the hot chocolate custard through a strainer into a large, clean bowl. Allow the custard to cool slightly, then stir in the cream and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate until cold or overnight.

Stir the chilled custard, then freeze in 1 or 2 batches in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions. While the machine is running and the ice cream is semi-frozen, add the marshmallows and walnuts. Allow the machine to thoroughly mix them in. When finished, the ice cream will be soft but ready to eat. For firmer ice cream, transfer to a freezer-safe container and freeze at least 2 hours.

Fruits of My Labor

Remember how I was saying I got this ridiculously fun, but hard work job of frying donuts? Well this lovely assortment of donuts, all made by me, is a mere sampling of my handiwork. Yes, this is what I get to be surrounded with while I'm working. I'm a lucky girl.


My physical therapists are also lucky. Because they're getting this lovely assortment of donuts. And to top it off, Wilma the Knee has decided to regress so I'll be in physical therapy for much much longer. They probably will get more donuts. Wilma has decided to continue to swell and cause me pain (which I faithfully report on a 0-10 scale, 0 being pain free and 10 being agony. Today is about a 4 1/2.) The doctor says that I'm still in the normal range for recovery, just at the bottom of it. So I am no longer allowed to ride my bike, work out, take long walks. It's highly annoying. No working out means no eating donuts. Shoot.


So while I'm pretty much laying on the couch icing and elevating (again) while I'm not at work, I've taken up a new hobby. Partly because interesting TV dies around 2:00. I've begun to knit. I'm currently looking for something cool to knit so that I can buy some of the buttons on this website. One of my physical therapy team members (yes, I have a team) just had a baby. So I made her this cute baby beanie and old man style cardigan sweater. The set is modeled by the oh so lovely Travel Bear.


Don't worry, I'm still cooking, it's just hot here and I thought you might like to see what I've been up to.

Bacony Baked Beans

Saturday night the Brain and I went over to a friend's house for dinner. They are a young couple with the cutest 2 year old daughter EVER. Very very very cute little girl. But I digress, the wife, A. made some very delicious baked beans that inspired tonight's Legume Wednesday.

I had a completely different recipe in mind though. But today was a sort of comedy of errors. First it turns out that the recipe I wanted to cook took 4 hours to cook, and I apparently ran out of dried navy beans. Ooops. Then I was going to doctor this recipe differently by adding different types of beans, but like Old Mother Hubbard, my cupboard was bare. I had 2 cans of "seasoned" black beans (bought by mistake), 3 cans of garbanzo beans, a can of refried beans, and 2 cans of navy beans. I may need to stock up the pantry fairly soon.

So tonight's recipe comes from the Joy of Cooking, except I doctored it a bit. I made it spicy. It's super delicious. I did learn a very important lesson though. Don't wipe your eyes while chopping jalapenos. Ouch. These beans probably can be made vegetarian with a fair amount of success by omitting the bacon.

Bacony Baked Beans

Adapted from The Joy of Cooking

3 cups canned great northern beans

1/4 cup ketchup

1/2 small onion minced

2 Tbsp molasses

2 Tbsp brown sugar

1 minced, seeded jalapeno

1 Tbsp cider vinegar

3 shakes of Frank's hot sauce

9 slices bacon, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9x9 inch baking dish with cooking spray. In a separate bowl, mix all ingredients reserving 1/3 of the bacon. Sprinkle the bacon on top. Bake, covered, for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for another 30 minutes.

Honey Date Whole Wheat Muffins

Tonight I have to get out of bed at midnight to go make the donuts. This makes breakfast tricky. Do I eat a quick breakfast before I go to work and then not eat again for 9 hours? Or do I not eat at all and run a little sluggish. If I eat at 12:15 does that count as breakfast? What do I call the meal at 9? It's looking like the traditional breakfast, lunch, and dinner aren't working so well for me with this new job.

I'm thinking muffins are the answer. Something filling, a little bit sweet, full of good for me carbs that will keep me running around the donut fryer. These Honey Date Whole Wheat Muffins rise to the challenge. The whole wheat flour and buckwheat honey add a nice earthiness and the chopped dates add nice little surprises of sweet. The muffins are under 200 calories, have a little more than 3 grams of fat, and almost 3 grams of fiber each. Way better than a fresh cake donut.

Honey Date Whole Wheat Muffins
an original Shazam recipe

1 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 large egg
1 1/4 cup 1% milk
1/4 cup buckwheat honey
2 Tbsp melted butter
1/4 cup chopped dates

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and fill 12 muffin cups with paper liners. Lightly spray liners with cooking spray.

Combine flours, baking powder, salt and ginger in a large bowl. Whisk to combine. In a separate bowl combine egg, milk, honey, and butter, whisking to combine. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients with a few swift strokes. Fold dates in before dry ingredients are completely incorporated.

Divide batter evenly among the 12 baking cups and bake for 20 minutes, or until tester comes out clean.

Veal Parmigiana

I don't always follow my philosophy of eating fresh, clean, healthy food. Sometimes I need comfort food. Something about food from childhood that's quick, easy, and processed just hits the spot. It's also not very expensive.

I like to think that the reason that I can successfully keep my grocery budget to an average of $30 a week is because when I was a youngster, my mother had a strict grocery budget and could economize like a pro. (A freezer full of meat from Costco also helps in reducing the weekly grocery budget.) Originally, there were 8 of us for my mom to feed. We weren't poor, but 6 kids are a lot to feed. So my mom got creative. She also served this veal over spaghetti tossed with oil and garlic salt. This lovely and filling meal (including 1lb. of spaghetti, will feed 8 and came to a total cost of $8.21. You can't beat cheap comfort food.

For a family of ethnically German-Irish, why veal parm is so beloved will remain a mystery. I think this is still my sister M's favorite meal.

Veal Parmigiana
an old Shazam family favorite

8 Redi Serve veal patties
1 (29oz) can tomato sauce
1 (2-cup) bag shredded mozzarella cheese
1 Tbsp thyme leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Heat an electric skillet to 350 degrees and spray with cooking spray. If the skillet is large enough brown both sides of all 8 patties at the same time, otherwise brown the patties in two batches and then layer the patties back into the skillet. Pour the tomato sauce over the patties and then sprinkle the thyme and the cheese on top. Turn the temperature down to 200 degrees and simmer for 10 minutes.