Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Ravioli Rosa

Caitlin's feeling better and better about eating, but her tastes are still skewing towards carbs at this point in her pregnancy.  I'm just glad I get to cook/eat something decent at home instead of Panera/Chipotle/Moby Dick's/Happy Uncle Chinese food.  I mean I love all those places and aren't likely to stop going any time soon, but it feels good to be back to cooking at home.

Since we went to the gym for the first time in 2 or 3 months and didn't get home until 8:30 last night, I needed to make something quick for dinner.  On a side note, man, it really felt good to go back to the gym.  I really need to get back in shape.  I'm already on a basketball team that should start playing soon, and on an indoor soccer team (that plays really late at night. . .), but still, that's only 2 or 3 days a week tops and I need to kick it back up a notch and get back down to a nice healthy slim-a-bear weight.  Okay, back to dinner!

We had some Cheese Ravioli in the freezer, and I thought it might be good to mix up some Rosa sauce, like the Penne Rosa from Noodles & Co.  I already had some grilled chicken slices I was using to make paninis, but you can pretty quickly saute up a chicken breast to use in this recipe.

Here's what you'll need:

Ravioli Rosa:

1 Package Large Cheese Ravioli (I used Rosetto Large Round 24oz)
1 Cup Tomato Pasta sauce (I used Francesco Rinaldi To Be Healthy Tomato and Basil)
1 1/2 Cup Alfredo Sauce (I used Classico Four Cheese Alfredo)
1/2 Cup White Wine (I used some chardonnay)
1 Chicken Breast
1 Cup Baby Spinach, roughly chopped
1 Roma tomato, diced
1 Tbsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes (Optional, but it's good with a little kick)
Parmesan Cheese, to taste

In a stockpot, heat on high 5 or 6 quarts of water with a pinch of salt and some olive oil until it boils.  In a saucepan, add in the red sauce, white sauce, wine and pepper and mix together with a whisk, then heat on medium heat covered.  If you have pre-cooked chopped chicken, add it into the sauce as well.  If not, filet the chicken breast into 2 flat pieces and then cut into 1/2 inch strips and saute in a pan with some olive oil, and top with salt and pepper to taste and then add to the sauce.

Once the water is boiling, add in the frozen ravioli and bring the temperature back to medium or medium-high and let cook approximately 8 to 10 minutes (really until they all start to float).  While the ravioli is cooking, chop the spinach and tomato and add to the sauce, then lower the heat for the sauce to a simmer.  Once the ravioli is done, drain the water and serve the ravioli with the sauce and some parmesan cheese, to taste.  You have a quick 20 minute meal that's delicious and a little spicy!

*  Sorry, there's no photo to entice you to cook this recipe, I was way too hungry to stop and take a picture of it after the gym last night!

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread

A couple weeks ago, with Caitlin in the middle of her morning sickness and pretty much only able to eat simple and complex carbs, I made this delicious banana bread.  And seeing as it's a good recipe for bringing to a holiday party/family get together and pretty easy to make, I thought I should get off my big non-posting butt and share it with the rest of you.  Luckily Caitlin seems to be past the worst of the sickness and back to eating real foods, so huzzah, I shall hopefully be back to cooking/creating/posting more often in the near future.

Anyway, back to the recipe at hand, here's what you'll need: (This recipe is designed to make 2 loaves of Banana Bread, mainly because at the time, I had 6 Bananas that had been in the cupboard for a little too long and were starting to get brown.  If you want to make 1 loaf, then just halve everything)


Banana Bread:
2 cup granulated sugar
2 Sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
4 large eggs
6 overripe bananas
2 tablespoon milk
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon salt

Cinnamon Streusel:
2/3 Cup Brown Sugar (firmly packed)
1/4 Cup Flour
2 Tsp Cinnamon
1/2 Stick Butter, Hard/Cold

So here goes with the instructions: heat the oven to 325 degrees.  In a mixing bowl, combine the sugar and butter together and mix until light and fluffy.  Add in the eggs one at a time while continuing to beat the mixture.  Stop the mixer and in a separate bowl, mash the bananas with a fork and mix in the milk and cinnamon.  Then in another separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Go back to the mixer and slowly combine the bananas one third at a time and continue mixing until all the bananas are incorporated.  Then begin to add in the dry ingredients from that bowl also 1/3 at a time.  Once all the dry ingredients have been incorporated, stop mixing and remove bowl from mixer.  In a separate bowl, combine the streusel ingredients: brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and butter.  Using the mixer, blend the streusel ingredients until they are well mixed together and the butter is totally incorporated with the dry ingredients.

Grease bread pans with some Crisco or Baking Pam and split the bread batter evenly between the two pans. Once that is done, split the streusel mix on top of the batter in each bread pan, and then take a knife or spatula and stir/swirl the streusel around in the banana bread batter.  Be careful that you do not stir too much or too vigorously, because you don't want to mix the streusel into the batter, just simply allocate it in a swirl within the batter.

Once they are ready in the pans, place in the oven for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a tooth pick or knife inserted into the loaf comes out dry.  Then remove from the oven, let cool and enjoy.  Slice the loaves into 1/2"-3/4" thick slices and eat plain, toasted and buttered, or get fancy and put some caramel ice cream on top.  Any way you slice it, it's delicious!