June 2011
2 posts
5 tags
Orechiette with Chicken Sausage and Broccoli Rabe
NEW KITCHEN ALERT. I moved away.
This is what happens when John is in Jersey. Things get healthier and the pictures get shittier.
People always talk about how they love certain pasta shapes for certain dishes. Everyone sounds like a jackass when they talk about this. However, they are sort of right. Orechiette is an awesome effing pasta shape and any other for this would suck. I dunno. Maybe...
5 tags
Tri-Tip Molto Bene with Grilled Asparagus
So the last two (three?) weeks, nothing happened.
I ate only cheese pasta and zucchini, didn’t do any dishes or laundry, watched SYTYCD auditions and several Criminal Minds marathons, and listened to the same albums on repeat while I went slightly mad in my hot, peeling attic room writing a novel (!) every night til 4 am. Bad. I think we got drunk a few times and ate some frozen custard...
May 2011
6 posts
4 tags
Pan Fried Beef Dumplings
There is a reason every culture has a wrapped dumpling-y food. Every single part of the world effing LOVES DUMPLINGS. Asian people and Eastern Euro people are probably the dumpling winners, which isn’t a surprise. Ravioli is up there. The British have generally freaky food (jellied eels? black pudding? umm) but acceptable dumplings. Even Armenia, which is 50% of John’s ancestry and...
4 tags
whole wheat & shaved zucchini pasta with fresh...
Whole wheat pasta sucks. Every time you put red sauce on whole wheat pasta and rub it in how you are ‘eating healthy,’ you have taken a year off of my life.
But provided you are using an oil-based sauce, there are a handful of times where it is acceptable to use whole wheat pasta, and one of them is after you overdose on Edzo’s burgers/shakes/fries for lunch and are condemned...
4 tags
pretzel cheesesteaks with crispy onion straws
We like to stay modern, and right now the trendiest thing on Food Network is to pervert another region’s dishes and call them yours. This is how Jersey diners have become popular in Texas and why grits exist in California. Effed up.
This isn’t really a cheesesteak. It is a steak sandwich with cheese and deep fried onions on a pretzel bun. However, neither of us are from Philly (who...
4 tags
¡Cinco de Beer Tacos!
Today’s secret ingredient is… BEER.
People love holiday cooking. We like to make sure the drinking holidays get their fair share of food recognition.
I generally make it a point not to talk about douchebaggy terms like flavor profiles, but these tacos have a really damn good one, mostly because you marinate the hell out of it in beer - dark, swarthy Mexican beer - before you cook...
5 tags
Red Wine Pasta with Bacon and White Beans
Pasta? Again? You bet your ass.
There is literally no excuse to not make this pasta. It requires no talent, six ingredients, and the 12 minutes you were going to waste tweeting stupid pun hashtags about Osama being dead. #youknowitstrue
We could easily re-make this dish in less time than it took me to write about it.
Red Wine Pasta with Bacon and White Beans (adapted from Jules Clancy)
...
4 tags
Roasted Garlic & Mushroom Pizza with Béchamel
Since it seems all we really make are dishes involving pasta and seasoned meat (I mean, this is spaghettiandmeatblog.tumblr.com, so I’m not sure what else you can really expect), every once in awhile it’s probably necessary to prove we can cook real people food. That’s what this post is for. Look at that accent mark. That’s how you know this shit is fancy.
Roasted...
April 2011
7 posts
5 tags
Crispy Roasted Chicken & Rapini
Who doesn’t love chicken skin? Cartman loves crispy chicken skin. The writers at our rival blog love crispy chicken skin. Everyone loves crispy chicken skin. Even vegetarians probably love it, even if they can’t admit it. It’s okay.
Tonight we made some chicken parts from Whole Foods into roasty, crispy chicken delight, without the brick recipes usually say you need. You...
6 tags
Carne Asada Tortas
Hi kids, John this time. Time for some free-form improvisational Mexican cooking. Jewel, where we go when we are out of money, was having a sale on telera rolls aka the bread you make Mexican tortas out of. Having been inspired by the food of this guy at fine locations like Old Orchard and O’Hare airport, I decided to give them a shot at home.
Carne Asada Tortas (like I said, improvised....
6 tags
Rigatoni al Forno
Tonight is a celebration. As of today, both of us are now employed in low-paying, highly competitive advertising internships, and that is an excuse to eat some FAT FOODS with cheese and cream and carbs. Also al forno = ‘in the oven’, for any plebs currently reading.
So why is this pasta SO AWESOME?
a) it has a pound of meat in it. IRON.
b) it uses Mid’s pasta sauce, which...
5 tags
Steak, Ginger Glazed Carrots, & Crispy Baked...
An attempt to solve the bland vegetable dilemma. The carrots are soft, sweet, and a little glazey from the soy/sugar/ginger mixture, and the zucchini gets roasted on the inside but crispy and breaded on the outside. We added sliced, medium-rare top sirloin steak because we are carnivorous, but the vegetables could stand alone.
Ginger Glazed Carrots
Ingredients:
4-5 large carrots, peeled and...
5 tags
Classic Tomato Sauce with Butter
Every other blogger makes this sauce, so we christened the new kitchen with it. We would not be good at the internet if we didn’t make this sauce. You don’t need cheese. You barely need salt. It doesn’t take 4 hours. And if you’re thinking, wtf guys, this is Italian food, where’s the garlic, where are the damn DRIED HERBS… just wait. Also, this recipe is...
4 tags
Aglio y Olio
The simplest, most delicious meal when you are about to leave town, own no food, and don’t want to blow $50 bucks at Whole Foods for 5 items. It is our permanent fallback for blizzards, during allergy season, after drinking, and before drinking. Sometimes during drinking. There are very few life problems that aglio y olio does not improve.
Ingredients:
Box of long pasta
1/3 cup olive...
4 tags
Age Dashi Tofu
Classic sushi-restaurant dish. Do you have a wok that hasn’t gotten destroyed by unruly roommates yet? Because this is a good reason to use it.
Ingredients:
1 package firm silken tofu
Cornstarch
Dashi soup mix
Peanut oil (for frying)
Grated ginger and radish
Put the tofu on a plate covered with paper towels, cover the tofu with another plate and put a heavy pan over it. Leave for...
