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Look what came in the mail today!!!

I guess it's official...I'm graduating this May!

I can't wait to send these to my family members!

Pea-Prosciutto Ravioli

Does this dish look a little familiar?!?

That’s because it’s the featured recipe of the March 2011 issue of Food Network Magazine!

This recipe was so simple and savory with only a few ingredients. I had everything in my fridge/freezer except the prosciutto, so I had to make it! I love it when I read a recipe and I already have most of the ingredients, if not all of them. It’s very convenient and saves money….which is always a bonus!

Here is what you are going to need for 4 servings:
-4 oz of Prosciutto (chopped)
-2 tbsp Olive Oil
-3 cloves of sliced Garlic
-1 tbsp Tomato Paste
-1 cup of reserved Pasta-Cooking Water
-1/4 cup Heavy Cream
-1 lb of cooked Ravioli
-1 cup frozen Peas
-Chopped Parsley
-Grated Parmesan (for garnish)

Cook the prosciutto in a large skillet with the 2 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat until crisp, approximately 4 minutes. Stir in the garlic and tomato paste; cook for 1 minute.

Ladle in 1 cup of pasta-cooking water and simmer until reduced by half. Then add in the heavy cream and simmer until the sauce has thickened. Toss in the cooked ravioli, frozen peas and the chopped parsley. Mix to combine and top it off with grated parmesan.

Gotta love a one pan dish that takes about 30 minutes to make with super simple ingredients!

On a side note…
This morning I wanted to surprise Dusty with a really elegant breakfast by making him Julia Child’s Oeufs a la Bourguignonne (Eggs Poached in Red Wine Sauce). I was so excited about making this for him and it sounded so tasty! Unfortunately, I grabbed the wrong type of red wine and it made the sauce super bitter and absolutely terrible.

And I might have acted a little something like this….

What I’m saying is that you need to be very careful when reading the directions of Mastering the Art of French Cooking! Instead of grabbing a “good, young red wine,” I grabbed a very dark red wine that was extremely bitter. What is a "good, young red wine" anyways?!?!? I need suggestions so I don’t mess this up again.

The overall lesson of the story…grab the right type of wine and read directions or you will be crying like a small, emotionally disturbed child too. I hope you will learn from my errors!

Thanks guys, I really needed that therapy session. I hate messing up recipes that I spend almost an hour on. This mistake was really weighing me down this morning and now I feel so much better having talked this thing out.

Have a great weekend!

Urbanspoon

One of the only issues I had with the city of Billings on our trip was that Dusty and I could hardly find any places to eat out for breakfast!  Of course there was an IHOP, Perkins, Denny’s and Cracker Barrel, but there was only one local breakfast place in the whole city we could find!

This was making me a little worried and sad because Missoula has amazing places for going out to breakfast on the weekends. For example, Paul’s Pancake Parlor & The Shack. Now I’m moving to a city with only chain restaurants that aren’t that great. YIKES!

But….all my problems are solved!

Late last night I was goofing around on my iPad and discovered the app for Urbanspoon. I’m  now in love with it! It showed me that there are actually tons of local places to eat breakfast in Billings. I wish I had known this information while we were on our trip! It would have saved us a couple of hours of driving around with growling stomachs!

If the app weren’t great enough, it also gives reviews, map locations and a general price range of the meal at that certain restaurant ($, $$, $$$). Besides breakfast, it also provides information on all types of cuisine ranging from American to Asian. It even gets better because if you have no idea what you want to eat or where to go…all you have to do is spin the magic wheel and it randomly picks one for you! I think this app is so handy and great for people moving to a new town/city like Dusty and I will be this summer!

I have no connection with Urbanspoon whatsoever…I was just really excited about this app and wanted to share my thoughts on it! If you have an iPad or iPhone, you should try it out and oh yeah, it’s a free app!

Have you tried Urbanspoon?
Do you like it?
What other kitchen/cooking apps do you use and really like?!? 
I would love some suggestions of fun apps!

Trip to Billings

I can’t believe it’s been a week since I last posted on here! Craziness!

As some of you may know, Dusty and I headed over to Billings this weekend to check out our new town for the next 3 years. I was placed there for nursing school starting this fall and Dusty has transferred to start in the fall at MSU-Billings for the Health Administration program. So we definitely wanted to go over there and check out our new campus, the hospital and look for areas in Billings that we would want to live in. Plus I wanted to see what they have to offer for shopping and eating out….the important stuff!

We stayed with Dusty’s grandfather Gordie while we visited, and we had such a blast with him over the weekend! He is such a fascinating man with so many stories to share with us. Seeing how he was in both WW2 and Korea, and an airline pilot, he has traveled the world and has seen a lot! We never had a dull moment the entire time we spent with him and his pup, Rowdy!

One bad thing that happened on the trip is that I probably gained about 5 pounds from all the eating out we did! Grandpa Gordie insisted that this was a vacation and no cooking would be done. I don’t think he believed me when I told him I love to cook and that is was fun and relaxing for me. Instead he took Dusty and I to the best steak house I’ve ever been to, where we had the best blackened prime rib I’ve ever had. I don’t really remember eating it because I inhaled it! IT WAS THAT GOOD!

The main goal of the trip (besides eating) was to check out MSU-Billings and Dusty also had an advising appointment. The first thing we discovered is that the campus is TINY! Holy cow is it small compared to the UM campus. But that most likely means smaller class sizes which equals more one-on-one with the professor….my favorite way to learn!

The best thing about the campus is that it is right across the street from the huge hospital complex where I will be doing my clinicals! If I were staying in Missoula, I would have to drive clear across town every time I needed to go to the hospital and in Billings it’s just a hop, skip and a jump away! It’s also convenient because Dusty and I will have our classes in the same building and he does his internship at the hospital too! :)

Needless to say, Dusty and I are very excited for our move to Billings this summer! The next step for us will be finding an apartment we love in a neighborhood we like….hopefully close to campus!

p.s. I could kick myself for forgetting my camera for the trip! Good thing for Google Images!

What You Deserve....

What you deserve when you spend 25+ hours studying for an Anatomy & Physiology Exam....

  

Dinner at one of your favorite restaurants eating the following:

-8 oz Blue Cheese Crusted Flat Iron Steak with an Aged Balsamic Reduction

-Whipped Yukon Gold Potatoes

-Garlic Sauteed Green Beans

-Huckleberry Cheesecake

....And a Bakon Vodka Caesar to top it all off!

 

 

Oh yeah...and a date with this guy!

Slow-Cooker Tangy Beef & Noodles

I'm taking a study break from Anatomy to present you with the recipe for Tangy Beef & Noodles. I've spent the last 5 hours going over the Lymphatic System and the Immune System...sounds fun right? I needed a "blog-break" before diving into the Respiratory and Digestive System and Metabolism/Nutrition.
Lord Help Me!

I think my brain might explode!
I might be considering Culinary School again.

Just kidding!

Don't freak out mom, I'm just hysterical right now!
I'll get over it....I hope!

But anyways...due to my huge midterm on Wednesday, I made a Slow-Cooker meal with my Crockpot. That way I didn't have to cook tonight and I don't have to cook tomorrow!

Here's what you are going to need:
-2 to 2-1/2 lb Beef Stew Meat
-1 cup BBQ Sauce
-1 tbsp Prepared Horseradish Sauce
-1 tsp Yellow Mustard
-2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
-1 tsp Alpine Touch (optional)
-1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
-1/2 tsp Salt
-1/4 tsp Pepper
-2 dashes Hot/Tobasco Sauce
-2 dashes of Liquid Smoke
-1 whole Onion-Caramelized
-4 oz of sliced Mushrooms
-Cooked Egg Noodles (to serve)

Take your handy-dandy Crockpot....

And throw in 2 to 2-1/2 lbs of Beef Stew Meat.

Combine everything but the caramelized onion, mushrooms and egg noodles in a mixing bowl and then pour it over the beef. Stir to combine.

Set on Low for 8-9 hours and watch the magic happen!

After 6 hours!

About 1-2 hours before you are ready to eat, add the sliced mushrooms and caramelized onions. Continue cooking for 1-2 hours.

About 15 minutes before dinner-time, cook up your Egg Noodles!

Serve the Tangy Beef over the Noodles and garnish with some Green Onions or Parsley.

It was sooo good!



Print Recipe Here!

Berries and Cream

Remember when I made that Creme Anglaise for the Apple Potstickers a couple days ago?

Well...it goes really well with Blackberries and it is delicious!

What a yummy treat!

UM International Food Festival

Dusty and I just got back from the International Food Festival here at the U of M. We are absolutely stuffed because we ate so many great foods this afternoon! There were so many countries represented today at the festival, but Dusty and I were very selective to only eat foods from places we had never tried before. Sorry Italy, France, Mexico and China…you didn’t make the cut today.

The places we did eat from today were: Africa, Ethiopia, Persia, Greece and Sweden.

Okay, so we have eaten from Greece and Sweden before, but we had to go back to our favorites from the last time we went!

First we went to Greece for some Spanakopita and Pork Souvlaki.

Pork Souvlaki = Pork Kebab

Spanakopita is basically a feta and spinach turnover…I would have taken a picture of it, but I ate it too fast. It’s my favorite!

Then we headed over to the African Student Association to get a huge array of African Cuisine from all over the continent!

For $5 we got a huge platter of: Alloco (banana plantains), Beef Tomato Sauce with Boiled Egg, Jollof Rice, Creole Jambalaya (MY FAVORITE!), and Kachumbari (Kenyan Salad).

We also got a glass of Fresh African Ginger Drink…it was delicious and so refreshing!

After having our African Feast we made our way over to the Ethiopian table were we got a plate full of really savory stews, sauces, vegetables….

And this odd but really good spongy sourdough bread. It was perfect for scooping up the sauces!

Sorry about the lighting!

We were eating in an area with really poor lighting!

At this point we were getting full, but we saw a huge line in front of the Persian booth, so we had to go check it out!

These were soooo good!

After eating all of these delicious ethnic foods, Dusty and I decided it was time to head home, but not before we got some yummy treats from Sweden!

We grabbed them to-go for dessert later tonight!

Dusty and I had so much fun! We both agreed that the African Student Association had the best food  and Ethiopia came in a close 2nd place. Hope you all are having a great Sunday like we are!

Lemon Bars

One of the first posts I did when I started my blog back in May was these Lemon Bars. Looking back at that post, the pictures are absolutely awful! I think I might have used my cell phone camera because the camera I had from 10th grade had just died. Needless to say, this recipe needed to be revisited and upgraded!

This is what you are going to need:
-1-1/2 cup Crumbled Vanilla Wafers
-2 tbsp Sugar
-5 tbsp melted Butter
-1 cup Sugar
-2 beaten Eggs
-1/2 tsp Lemon Zest
-Juice of 1 Lemon
-1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
-2 tbsp Flour
-Powdered Sugar-for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 2 quart baking dish.

Using Vanilla Wafers….

Throw a bunch into your food processor and crumble them up. I didn’t keep track of how many wafers you need, so just throw a bunch in there and then measure out 1-1/2 cups of wafer crumbles.

In a mixing bowl, combine the wafer crumbs with 2 tbsp of Sugar…

With 5 tbsp of melted butter.

Stir it around until the mixture become “crumbly”…

And then press the crust into the bottom of the baking dish. Bake for 10 minutes to set the crust.

In another mixing bowl, add in 1 cup of sugar…

Juice of 1 lemon and ½ tsp of Lemon Zest…

2 tbsp Flour and ½ tbsp of Vanilla Extract…

And take 2 eggs and beat them up until they are nice and fluffy.

Whisk it all together and pour the filling over the crust.

Bake the lemon bars for 25-30 minutes or until the center is set. Let the lemon bars cool on a wire rack until they reach room temperature and then refrigerate until you are ready to serve. Dust with powdered sugar as a garnish and enjoy!

PRINT RECIPE HERE!