Carne Asada!

This recipe has some great flavors and I think it looks beautiful while marinating. If you are looking for a change of meats (we often get tired of chicken and pork), carne asada is a great way to go. It is a thinner and more flavorful cut of meat. Also a nice change from traditional taco night. 

Here is the recipe!

I precut the meat because I didn't read the recipe. Pro: don't have to do anything to it after. Con: Perhaps makes meat slightly tougher by being in smaller pieces. 

Cook it up (I did it on the stove because we only have a community grill but I am sure grilling would be superb) and serve it fajita style and yum!

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Homemade Pasta...Mmm

Quite awhile ago, I was inspired by watching Julie and Julia and decided to do something super domestic. I opened up my cookbook and found this recipe for homemade pasta and decided to give it a go on a whim.

It took a lot of effort but was quite an experience, I'd say everyone needs to do this at least once in their life. Click here for the recipe.

I will show the basics via photos, but use the real recipe for specifics (yes, they are vital for this one!) My biggest piece of advice other than following the instructions is to be sure and add the herb of your choice. Honestly, it is what makes the pasta melt in your mouth. Don't skimp!

After making the dough, then it needs to be rolled out. It takes quite a bit of rolling for each piece to get it to the specified quarter inch thickness.

Once you have rolled sufficiently, you have to decide what style of pasta you want. I chose the easy fettuccine and because that is what I wanted lol. For fettuccine you roll it up and then cut it up into the desired thickness. 

You get a bunch of these little roly polys after cutting them up. 

Then you have to individually unwrap each roll and lay it out to dry again. 

Yes, I know each step is a little tedious but the results are worth it.

Then you boil it for a few minutes (literally) and it is fantastic. I also used a homemade alfredo sauce recipe  which really topped it all off nicely. This dish literally melted in my mouth. I added chicken and broccoli since those are our personal favorites, feel free to change as desired. 

The final product:

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Farmer's Market Fun

This past weekend we went to Santa Monica and went to the farmer's market.

Seriously, it was so beautiful! So many colors, shapes, and smells. Some things I have never even seen before!  I was definitely learning all about new vegetables.

Here are a few other fun things:

Yams! (Not sweet potatoes, they are indeed different) Recipe with these to follow!

These are kohlrabi. Yeah, I never heard of them either. 

Apparently they are German turnips. Cool looking right?

And the parsnips. 

So we bought some yams and decided to try them out. 

I got this recipe from allrecipes.com but am rewriting here since its super easy:

1. As many yams as you want, peeled and cut into slices. Line a baking pan with foil & heat oven to 350

2. Arrange slices of potato in the prepared pan so they are overlapping slightly. Season with salt and pepper and then drizzle olive oil over them as evenly as possible

3. Bake in the preheated oven until potatoes are tender and have begun to wrinkle around the edges, about 30 minutes.

They were delicious and easy to make. Yams have so much more flavor than potatoes and went great with pork chops and peas. 

Just for fun I also made magic bars, I used the eagle brand recipe and added a few butterscotch chips. Go here and then they will look like this:

Enjoy!

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