by Jessie
on April 5, 2014
Ahhhh, spring. That special time of year when the calendar tricks you into believing that sunshine is headed your way, only for you to find yourself in April, FREEZING, with a side of snow and misery. And wishing you could remember what it felt like to leave the house without a jacket or to wear sandals instead of boots and two pairs of socks. You get my drift.
My coping mechanism is to trick myself into thinking it’s warm outside by cooking a bunch of bright, beautiful spring vegetables and wrapping myself burrito-style in a comforter. And, of course, refuse to leave the house unless it is absolutely 100% necessary. Like if the house is on fire. Or if I have a midterm that I’d get kicked out of grad school for missing. Or if we run out of beer. [read more...]
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by Jessie
on March 14, 2014
MAC AND CHEESE!
Whoa. Sorry I keep starting posts with food words in all capital letters (but not that sorry…can’t stop won’t stop). Mac and cheese really deserves to be in all capital letters all the time. Know what I mean? Yeah…you know what I mean. We’re on the same page, you and I. The MAC AND CHEESE PAGE.
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by Jessie
on February 13, 2014
Chicken noodle soup! The best. Especially in winter. Because winter sucks. And I hate it. But you know this already.
The only good thing about winter is soup. Lots and lots and lots of soup. Soup that you can’t always eat in the summertime because sometimes its a million degrees outside and if you eat soup you feel like you’re boiling yourself from the inside out. Not pleasant. But I often do it anyway. [read more...]
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by Jessie
on February 11, 2014
Confession: this is a copycat recipe from Noodles and Co. You probably know it as Pesto Cavatappi – but they trademarked that ish, which means my title is forced to a bit more creative. We didn’t get Noodles and Co. unless we went up to Chicagoland when we lived in Illinois, and there isn’t one here, either. But I was craving some good ol’ pesto-y cavatappi-y goodness the other day. So I figured, who needs Noodles and Co.? Have pesto, will eat. Or something like that.
I actually didn’t even Google a recipe before I threw this together to make sure I was getting it “right.” Only after I’d eaten it all did I think to check my accuracy with the great collective knowledge of the interwebs. Turns out, a lot of copycat recipes out there use cream and butter, but I think they’re totally unnecessary. If you want a creamier sauce, go for it – but I think pesto is pretty perfect all by itself. I made my own pesto by swapping basil for the arugula in my favorite arugula pesto and adding a handful of toasted pine nuts to the mix. I actually stock up on basil during the summer when I can, either basil I’ve grown myself or (far more likely, because I kill plants) from farmers in the area who are drowning in the stuff at the end of the season. Then I go on a pesto-making spree and keep it in the freezer in small containers (about 1/4 to 1/2 cup per container) so I can pull some out whenever I want pesto macaroni and cheese or this amazing chicken pesto pizza.
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by Jessie
on January 9, 2014
MAC AND CHEESE! It’s just the best. And I realized the other day that I haven’t posted a single macaroni and cheese recipe since the super-awesome Mac and Cheese Week that happened in 2012. As in, OVER A YEAR AGO. (Whoops).
But I’m making up for it with this super cheesy, creamy, even-has-spinach-in-it-so-it-looks-sort-of-healthy mac and cheese recipe.
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