The Ultimate Stuffed Baked Potato and Tina’s Meatloaf

Hello Dear Followers,

We took a hiatus last week, but we’re back today with some delicious comfort food that will not only leave you feeling full but satisfied with your dinner.

As you can see in the title above we made “Tina’s meatloaf.” Tina is Daniela’s mother and this meatloaf is her recipe. Now like many Italian mothers, there isn’t exact measurements for the meatloaf, because Italians measure with their hearts when it comes to good cooking.

The ultimate stuffed baked potato was just as equally filling and comes from Food Network’s Tyler Florence. This was such an awesome dish that we were thinking of making it twice this week!

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Here are the two recipes:

Tina’s Meatloaf:

Ingredients:

Ground Beef (or meatloaf mix) whichever you prefer.

Lipton’s onion package (the one you can make french onion dip with)

Breadcrumbs

Parmesan cheese

Ketchup

Salt

Pepper

Parsley

Eggs (if you are making two meatloafs by chance, use two eggs instead of one, we made two so we used two eggs in our mix.) Oh! And separate the egg from the yolk.

Milk

Bacon (for the top of the meatloaf)

Instructions:

Mix all of the ingredients together and get ready to get your hands dirty. If you happen to notice it is too dry, add more milk or too soggy, add more bread crumbs.

We added bacon on top of the meatloaf, which is not what Daniela’s mother normally does, but it added just the right amount of extra flavor needed for the dish.

Shape it into a loaf and put it in a pan with a little oil. Bake at about 350-400 degrees. It should be in the oven no more than an hour.

The Ultimate Stuffed Baked Potato

Ingredients:

4-6 medium sized potatoes

Extra-virgin olive oil

Salt

1/2 stick of butter

1/4 cup of all-purpose flour

1/2 cup of milk

About two cups, plus more for topping of shredded white cheddar

2 heads of broccoli, florets, blanched in salty water

1/2 pound of bacon, medium dice, cooked until crisp.

2 tablespoons of chives chopped

Freshly ground pepper

Instructions:

Preheat the oven at 400 degrees

Begin by baking the potatoes, as this will take the longest. Place potatoes onto the baking sheet. Pierce with a fork, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt. Place into preheated oven and bake for about an hour.

While they are baking, prepare the stuffing. Make a mornay sauce by combining the butter and flour over medium heat and then whisking in the milk. Fold in about two cups of cheese and stir until melted. Once melted, remove from heat and fold in the cooked broccoli florets, crispy bacon bits, chopped chives and season with salt and freshly ground pepper.

When the potatoes are done make a cut across the top and squeeze it from the bottom so a small pouch opens and the bottom is squared off. Spoon the filling over the top of the potato, sprinkle with cheese, season with pepper, to taste, and then top in the oven for two more minutes until golden brown and bubbly.

Recipe by Food Network

We hope you find these dishes as delectable as we did.

Until next week!

Cajun Chicken with Pineapple Salsa

Hello Dear Followers,

This week, we are celebrating Mardi Gras. We’re celebrating with Cajun chicken draped with a fresh pineapple salsa that is not only festive but gives us sweet reminders of New Orleans and the warm summer months ahead.

It was such an easy dish to make, like too easy almost. It allowed us to not only enjoy this dish, but relax with a cup of coffee beforehand with Anna’s kids running around. It was perfect.

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The dish had a little bit of a kick, but what we loved about it was that the pineapple salsa on top of the chicken with the colors of Mardi Gras offered a good balance of sweet and savory. We’re definitely making the salsa again, because it was so fresh.

Ingredients:

4-5 chicken breasts ( depending on the number of people at your table)

Cajun Seasoning. The original recipe calls for Emeril’s Essence seasoning, we used regular Cajun and it worked just fine.

2 Cups of Pineapple – Sliced in half length wise and then into small cubes.

1/2 seeded & minced jalapeno – we actually are not fans of jalapeno, so we substituted it with a green pepper. Was just as good.

2 tablespoons of cilantro

1/4 cup of red onion

The juice of 1 lime

Salt and pepper – For seasoning both the pineapple salsa and the chicken

Instructions:

Pineapple Salsa:

After chopping the pineapple into cubes, put it into a large bowl. Season it with salt and pepper and add the green pepper, red onion and cilantro into the mix. And just blend it all together. Finally squeeze the lime juice and mix again.

Cajun Chicken:

We marinated the chicken in the chicken in the Cajun seasoning along with some salt and pepper for about half-an-hour. This isn’t necessarily needed, you can simply brush the chicken breast on both sides with olive oil and then add the season just before you plan to fry it in the pan.

Saute the chicken over medium-heat for 4-5 minutes on each side and then move it on to the plate.

We then put the salsa deliciously on top and accompanied the chicken with red potatoes. The original recipe calls for sweet potato fries, which we’ll try the next time we make this dish.

We got a bit festive with Mardi Gra beads and masks to truly celebrate the holiday bringing New Orleans into Anna’s kitchen.

Until next week!

Recipe by: iowagirleats.com

Spicy Thai Noodle Salad

Hello Dear Followers,

The week is in full swing and we were ready to make tonight’s dish. We have been aiming to broaden our horizons with the dishes we make and tonight we definitely did it.

We made a Spicy Thai Noodle Salad. A recipe in which we got from our friend Latoya, who is a fabulous cook and someone we knew from our days in middle school.

The dish was very good. It had a wide array of vegetables and spices that awakened all of your senses with just one bite. What we loved most about this dish was the rich peanut sauce that was infused throughout.

This year as we mentioned, we are aiming to try different dishes, go a bit out of our comfort zones whether it’s recipes we’ve made or have been given to us by others.

Here is the recipe for tonight’s dish:

Peanut Sauce:

Ginger – You will need about three quarter sized pieces. It was recommended to us to buy ginger paste, we just bought regular ginger and crushed it.

1 tablespoon of cilantro.

2 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup of smooth peanut butter

1/4 cup of orange juice or if you have it, rice or white vinegar. We agree with the original recipe, use orange juice.

The juice of one lime

2 1/2 tablespoons of soy sauce

3 tablespoons of honey (or brown sugar will work too)

3 tablespoons of toasted sesame oil (if you have peanut oil, that works too).

1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon of salt

A pinch of black pepper

1/4 of teaspoon of paprika – you can use either this or just the black pepper, entirely up to you! The flavor gives it a nice kick!

Combine the ingredients in a blender.

Pasta Salad

1/2 box of linguini ( we did it with 2 boxes of Pad Thai Rice Noodles, we actually realized we should have used the linguini.) Boil the linguini until al dente

1/2 red pepper (Cut in half and another half horizontally and then in thin strips vertically. You can do a quarter yellow and a quarter red, depending on how colorful you want to go.)

1-2 radishes cut into thin slices

1/2 jalapeno, seeded and minced (for more kick, we ended up not using this ingredient because this was spicy enough, entirely up to you!)

2 cups of regular and red cabbage shredded

1/2 cup of shredded carrot

1 small handful of cilantro (chopped)

1 handful of kale for some extra healthy!

2 scallions diced

1/4 cup of crushed peanuts

A dash of coarse black pepper

A dash of red pepper flakes

Garnish with sesame seeds and a slice of lime.

Combine these ingredients in a good size mixing bowl with the peanut sauce. There will be extra sauce left behind.

Sidenote from Latoya: The peanut sauce is good with Chicken Satay.

This dish had a good amount of spice in it and really was something different for both us to try. We definitely enjoyed it!

Until next week!

Pork Tenderloin with Mushrooms,Peppers and Onions

Hello Dear Followers,

This week’s dish may not look like much, but as we all know, pictures can be deceiving. We made a pork tenderloin with red bell peppers, onions and mushrooms. It was delicious! This is one of our own recipes, which we are aiming to do more of as the year continues.

We are also aiming to make more meat and seafood dishes this year because we recently realized we make a lot of pasta and rice. And while we’ll still make those dishes we are looking to add more variety.

If you have a recipe you’d like to send over please do! (Send it to TuesdaynightSuppers@gmail.com)

Here is our recipe for this week!

Ingredients:

1-2 red bell pepper

1-2 packages of mushrooms (they shrink so definitely consider getting more than one package)

1 onion

Olive Oil

Salt and pepper

Pork tenderloin – cut in slices

6 potatoes for mashed potatoes.

Instructions:

In a frying pan, season pork tenderloin with salt and pepper. Cut into slices. Fry in olive oil for 20 minutes or until no longer pink.

In another pan, saute the mushrooms, onions and pepper. Saute until soft for about 20-25 minutes.

You can add butter to prevent dryness. More butter creates more of a sauce.

For mashed potatoes

Boil the potatoes in water. Once soft, begin mashing.

Add heavy cream and butter.

This was a simple dish, and took a total of 45 minutes.

Until next week!

Linguine in a Walnut Sauce

Hello Dear Followers,

Let us start by saying, if there ever was a simple dish to make during a busy weeknight, this was it. We made linguine in a creamy walnut sauce.

We were super excited to make this. Part of the excitement was how was this going to taste? Was it going to be nutty? We honestly didn’t know, but we were eager to try this dish out.

Daniela got the recipe from Andrea of Cooking with Mamma C. She fell in love with the dish immediately upon seeing it on Andrea’s Facebook page. We knew it was something different, something we needed to try.

When we decided we were going to make this dish, we toyed with the idea of whether it needed to have a meat of some kind with it, whether it was a meat as a second course to the pasta or part of the pasta dish itself. We also couldn’t decide what meat would go perfect with this, we thought maybe lamb or chicken, but we weren’t sold on either of these ideas.

In the end we chose to make it as Andrea did in her recipe.

We started making the dish as soon as Daniela arrived in Anna’s kitchen anticipating it might take a while, but it really didn’t take any time at all. We’d say it took us about 25 to 30 minutes to make. Daniela even introduced Anna to a new love – mascarpone cheese. We were snacking on that with pretzels as we made this dish tonight.

Quick recommendation: Mascarpone is great for breakfast too! Spread that baby on piece of toast with fresh fruits and you have a delicious breakfast.

Here is the recipe for the Linguine with Walnut Sauce:

Ingredients:

For the Walnut sauce:

1 cup shelled walnuts (toasted) – we added more than one cup as we blended it in the processor. Use at your descretion.

1/2 cup mascarpone cheese – We used a little more of this as well. Because cream. 🙂

1/3 cup olive oil – Added more as needed

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese

6-8 fresh basil leaves (rinsed)

1 peeled garlic clove (medium or large) – We used two, but we recommend following this exactly as called for.

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

For the pasta:

1 pound linguine (or fettucine, spaghetti)

Salt for the pasta water

1 cup reserved water from pasta pot

2 tablespoons salted butter

Instructions:

Toast the walnuts until fragrant. You only need about five minutes for this. Stir walnuts as needed. Set aside.

Fill a pot of water and wait until comes to a boil and add the pasta and add salt to the water.

For the sauce – Using a blender or food processor (we used a blender), combine the sauce ingredients (mentioned above) until you get a rich creamy sauce.

Once the pasta is ready, fill a cup of pasta water and set aside. Then drain the rest of the pasta in a colander. Put the pasta back in the pot and add your butter, mix it thoroughly until fully melted.

Add the walnut sauce and mix into the pasta. Add the pasta water as desired to get an even richer consistency.

Serve on a plate with extra Parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes. We didn’t have red pepper flakes, but this dish was good just the same.

Overall, this dish was delicious. Andrea called it a “blonde walnut pesto” and that fit the description of this perfectly. We found it wasn’t as nutty as we thought it would be, other flavors (particularly the garlic) played bigger roles in this dish. So glad we tried it.

After a relatively Tuesday night supper, we got to relax on the couch much longer than normal. The relaxation however, didn’t last long. Daniela spilled her coffee all over Anna’s couch and herself. Daniela had to change into Anna’s clothes for the last hour she was at her house.

Upon leaving Anna’s house, Daniela dropped the top of her food processor she had brought to Anna’s and it broke as it rolled down Anna’s driveway. Our Tuesday nights are never dull, but we wouldn’t have it any other way!

Until next week!

The full recipe is by Cooking with Mamma C.

Creamy Mushrooms and Honey Garlic Steak Cubes

Hello Dear Followers,

You ever have those moments in life that you are set with a plan about how things are going to go and it turns out entirely different? This was what our dish or dishes were tonight.

We had set out to make Creamy Garlic Mushrooms ( which we did.. that was our dish). Then Daniela thought, well the mushrooms are a side dish, they aren’t a meal, so we added a Honey Garlic Steak Bites.

TOTALLY TWO DIFFERENT dishes. But both equally delicious. We then decided we needed something else, like a rice or maybe a pasta to go with mushrooms and steak. We discussed this for five minutes as the water boiled, we filled the pot when we thought we were making pasta, then took water out when we thought we were making rice. We made rice.

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The night began so calmly, which was weird for both us because usually we’re very high strung when we’re making the dish we’ve planned to make, a lot of anxiety being thrown everywhere in the kitchen between the both of us. We’re working on this, we swear!

We also came to the conclusion, we cannot by any means have a third person in the kitchen with both of us while we’re trying to cook, it throws everything off. It doesn’t matter where you are in the kitchen with us.

Tonight we had Anna’s husband home while we were cooking, he wasn’t in the kitchen with us, but he was a third person. We honestly don’t know what it is. The kids don’t count here because they are part of the groove we have created.

The night picked up once we realized we were falling behind and ended with Daniela breaking one of Anna’s dishes, so all in all it was a typical night at Tuesday Night Suppers!

Here are the recipes we made:

Honey Garlic Bites

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs of sirloin steak, fat trimmed, diced into cubes. ( You can also pre-cut cube steaks that are normally used in stews too, to avoid having to do the cutting yourself)

1/2 cup of low-sodium soy sauce

3 tablespoons of honey

3 garlic cloves (minced – 1 tbsp)

2 tbsp of olive oil or vegetable oil

Green onions or sesame seeds as a garnish.

Instructions:

Place the steak cubes in a resealable bag or bowl covered.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, honey and garlic. Pour over steak and seal bag or cover bowl. Let the steak marinate in the refrigerator for about 1-2 hours. (Honestly, we did 45 minutes, it was fine).

Heat one tablespoon in a heavy non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.

Remove half the steak from the marinade, transfer to skillet (spaced apart) and let sear until golden brown, about one minute then flip to opposite side.

Let the steak cook to your specifications. (Internal safe temps 145 degrees). Transfer to a plate and repeat with remaining steak.

(We didn’t follow this direction, we put all the steak in the skillet at once… again it’s fine.)

Serve warm with green garnish.

Tip: Serve this over white rice, it becomes much like a stir fry. We actually realized this would have been great if it was made in a Wok. It was truly an Asian dish.

Recipe by: Cookingclassy.com

Creamy Garlic Mushrooms with Bacon

Ingredients:

8 ounces of bacon cut into strips

2 tablespoons of butter

26 ounces of brown mushrooms ( We recommend getting two packages, because mushrooms shrink so much.) Also, wash them thoroughly.

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1/4 cup of dry white wine (or chicken broth/stock – we used the cooking wine we had from last week. Worked just fine.)

6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped.

1 1/2 cups of heavy cream (thickened cream or evaporated milk)

1 tablespoon of fresh chopped parsley

1 teaspoon of fresh chopped thyme

Salt and pepper to season

1/2 cup of fresh shredded or grated mozzarella

1/4 cup of fresh shredded or grated parmesan cheese

Instructions:

Fry the bacon first in an oven safe skillet over medium heat until crispy. Once ready transfer it to paper towel lined plate to soak up excess oil. Set aside.

In the same pan used for the bacon, melt the butter. Add the mushrooms and drizzle oil and mix through, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Fry for 2-3 minutes to light lightly brown mushrooms release their juices. ( Use your judgement here about the mushrooms, we left them frying for longer than 2-3 minutes.)

Pour in the wine (or broth) and let it reduce for two minutes, while occasionally stirring. Preheat the broiler or oven grill to 350 degrees at this point in the process.

Add in the garlic and stir it through for a minute until fragrant. Pour in the cream and herbs. Reduce the heat to low, gently simmer until tender (about 4-5 minutes) and sauce is slightly thickened… use your own discretion.) Season with salt and pepper.

Add the bacon back in and give everything a good mix and combine all of the flavors together. Top the mushrooms with the mozzarella and Parmesan cheese.

Broil until the cheese is melted and bubbly and the mushrooms are done to your liking. (About 3 to 5 minutes).

Serve warm.

Tip: We served this with rice as well, but honestly this might have been good with a penne pasta or maybe an egg noodle. It was delicious!

Despite the differences in taste between the mushrooms and the steak cubes, the sauce from the mushrooms worked well with the steak.

Tip: If you plan to make the steak cubes with the mushrooms, don’t follow the recipe we provided above, simply sear the steak cubes in some olive oil in a skillet with some salt and pepper and serve with the mushroom sauce. We didn’t do this, but you definitely should!

Recipe by: CafeDelites.com

Until Next week!

Shrimp and Birthdays! Here’s to 36!

Hello Dear Followers,

Turning 36 for both of us is about trying new things. For the past year we’ve both said, “We need to make a shrimp dish,” but neither of us has ever made shrimp until now! This was a process indeed!

We made shrimp scampi over a bed of spaghetti. Also as part of tonight’s dish, we made a cake to celebrate both of our birthdays this week with these little helpers in the picture below!

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Before we give you the full recipe, we have to talk about cleaning shrimp for a minute. It is not easy, especially for two people who have never done this before. Daniela had thought she found thoroughly cleaned shrimp at the grocery store, only to arrive at Anna’s house and realize that was certainly not the case.

She spent about a half-hour cleaning a pound worth of shrimp hoping Anna would take the reigns to relieve her of this duty as Lady Gaga played loudly in the background and her daughter Victoria sat behind her mixing the cake batter for our birthday cake.

Once that was done, we felt we ready to get this started.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp of olive oil

6 tbsp of butter, divided

8 cloves of garlic, minced or thinly sliced

1.5 pounds of shrimp, peeled with the tails on. Salt and pepper to season. (We used about 1 pound and it was more than enough, use your own discretion.)

1/4 cup of white wine – (We used Holland House White Cooking Wine, but if we had more time, we would have picked up a white wine at the liquor store, a dry white wine should do).

1 tsp of crushed red pepper

1/2 lemon, juiced.

Instructions:

Heat a large skillet on high heat and add olive oil and two tablespoons of butter. Once the butter is melted, swirl to coast the bottom of your skillet.

Add the garlic and sauté until golden and fragrant. Make sure you watch the garlic, the skillet could burn the garlic easily, reduce the heat so it doesn’t.

Continuously stir your garlic for approximately 30 seconds.

Add the shrimp to the skillet adding salt and pepper. This version isn’t your traditional scampi, where you cook the shrimp separately, all the shrimp was put into the same skillet as the sauce.

(We might have done this incorrectly to what the recipe calls for, we put the shrimp in the same skillet as the sauce and luckily for us the garlic never burned. Keep stirring.)

With the skillet still hot, pour in the wine and sprinkle with crushed red pepper (if using). Simmer for 1-2 minutes, stirring occasionally, until shrimp are fully cooked.

DO NOT OVERCOOK THE SHRIMP!

Stir the remaining butter, lemon juice and fresh parsley and remove from heat immediately.

What did we serve with the shrimp scampi? We put it over a bed of spaghetti. We also had fresh french bread for dipping into the sauce, it was delicious!

We finished the night by singing Happy Birthday with Anna’s kids and eating birthday cake! Happy 36th Birthday to us!

Until next week!

Shrimp Scampi recipe by: The Forked Spoon

Winter Warmth With a Summer Touch

Hello Dear Followers,

To say it’s cold outside right now here on the East Coast is an understatement. This is why when we were thinking about tonight’s dish, it was imperative that we bring some warmth to the dish we were making, with a side that brought us thoughts of the summer months ahead.

We made a pulled pork tenderloin drizzled with a roasted garlic barbecue sauce, fried potatoes and an avocado corn salad.

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In full disclosure, the avocado corn salad was a last minute add-on because we knew this would need something else, something more than your typical meat and potatoes dish.

We made our pulled pork tenderloin in the Crock Pot, we had the day off so we made everything on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day.

Here is the recipe:

Pulled Pork Tenderloin:

The pork tenderloin was fried in olive oil for five minutes in a skillet before it was transferred to the Crock Pot. In the Crock Pot we put a half cup of organic vegetable broth for a bit of extra flavor (water works too).

As the pork was in the Crock Pot, we fried up a yellow onion (sliced) for about five minutes in the same skillet we used for the pork to give it some of the same flavor as the pork. We then transferred that over to the Crock Pot.

We then added carrots, celery, and leeks for flavor into the Crock Pot. Set it on high for four hours or low for six.

Fried Potatoes:

Cut about four to six potatoes in cubes and put in a skillet with olive oil. Make sure to put enough olive oil so that it doesn’t stick to the pan and burn. Make sure to turn it every few minutes. We only added salt and pepper and that was it.

Avocado Corn Salad:

This part of our dish was truly a delight for us. Daniela wanted to try this dish for months and we thought it was our way to wish the warmth of the summer months to us. This dish was pretty easy, that may make another appearance in the spring.

We boiled the organic fresh corn about 20 minutes (check the time as you see fit). We then cut the corn off the cob and put it into a a skillet to roast for a bit. We included olive oil, salt and pepper. Once we roasted it a bit, we put in big bowl.

We then added sliced avocados, cherry tomatoes (cut in half), red onion (chopped), minced garlic and chopped up cilantro. We drizzled olive oil and lime juice on top with salt and pepper and tossed it together.

Overall, this was a great dish for a cold winter’s night. We recommend making this on a day when you have off like we did or on a weekend.

The avocado corn salad comes from NatashasKitchen.com.

Until next week!

Asian Lettuce Wraps

Hello Dear Followers,

We have to start off by saying that tonight’s dish caused a bit of anxiety for both Anna and I. It started at the grocery store and trying to find the ingredients to make our dish possible.

For Daniela, the anxiousness came because she wasn’t familiar with the grocery store she was in on top of not quickly finding the right ingredients.

We made Asian Lettuce Wraps. We’re sure you’re probably thinking, that’s too easy to cause that much anxiety, but you would really be surprised.

We missed two ingredients in this dish, but to our surprise, it was pretty good. It had a flavorful rich taste. We accompanied the lettuce wraps with rice, which was perfect.

Here is the recipe:

For the sauce: you’ll need one cup of water, 1/2 cup of soy sauce, 1/4 cup of sesame oil, six cloves of garlic (minced), one tablespoon of fresh ginger (minced) , 1/4 cup of brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of sriracha ( we couldn’t find this ingredient and it still came out pretty good), 1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar, 1/3 cup of scallions, sliced.

For the wraps: The recipe calls for tofu ( this is a vegetarian dish, but we substituted it with ground beef.) Fry the ground beef separately until it is light brown put some salt and pepper for taste and once it’s ready set it aside. One tablespoon of sesame oil, 1 medium yellow onion, diced, 2 1/2 cups of shiitake mushrooms, chopped (any mushrooms will do… we just wanted to follow it exactly), 1 tablespoon of garlic, minced, 8 oz of water chestnuts (1 can sliced, drained and finely chopped. One-third cup of scallions, sliced and one head of iceberg lettuce.

To make the sauce, combine the water, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, sriracha, brown sugar, rice wine vinegar, and scallions and stir. Set 1/2 cup of the sauce aside.

If you choose to go the tofu route, crumble the tofu in the marinade, cover and refrigerate for one hour.

In a medium wok or skillet over medium heat, add the sesame oil and the onion and cook for three minutes, until the onions are translucent. Add the mushrooms and garlic and cook for about five minutes, or until the mushrooms are tender.

Again, if you are using the tofu, add it to the pan and cook until the majority of the marinade cooks off. Add the water chestnuts and scallions. Pour in the reserved sauce. Toss to coat and cook until the just heated through. Transfer the tofu mixture to a medium bowl.

If you are going the ground beef route, you would do exactly as we mentioned above with the marinade.

Slice the core off the head of lettuce and separate into individual leaves. This recipe is from Buzzfeed Tasty. The recipe calls for rice noodles, that you can fry with canola oil in a separate frying pan, we couldn’t find it, but it was mainly used as a garnish.

What we realized with tonight’s dish is that all of that work and a bit of chaos can still put out a great dish. We also realized that in a year since we started this, we’re getting a lot better at the choices we’re making for the dishes we’re cooking.

Until next week!

A Taste of the Italian Countryside…

Hello Dear Followers,

We are back after a holiday break and ready to start cooking again! Tonight we can certainly say was eventful. Anna’s daughter had the flu, so we weren’t sure if we were cooking at all and just an hour before we were supposed to cook, the power went out.

But we were excited nonetheless to get cooking for the New Year! Welcome once again to Tuesday Night Suppers where two friends get together to learn, laugh and cook amazing dishes!

Tonight’s dish was Spaghetti Carbonara. It’s relatively easy for a weeknight dish for the whole family. Neither of us ever had this dish, so it was a chance to try something new.

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We got the recipe from The New York Times, but you can literally find this dish anywhere. It’s a traditional Italian dish that can be altered how you like.

Here is the recipe: Boil water for the spaghetti, we used about one box of spaghetti for this. Depending on how many people you’re feeding, use your own judgement.

To make the egg and cheese mixture, we used about three eggs and a little more than 1/3 cups of Parmesan Cheese and Pecorino Romano cheese. Be sure to add a pinch of salt and as much black pepper as you want.

In a skillet, we put olive oil and fried bacon. You don’t want to over fry it, you will want just the right crisp. Once the bacon is ready, set it to the side.

Once the pasta is ready, drain the water, but save about a cup of water and set aside to add to the pasta when you add the mixture and bacon.

Put the pasta in the skillet and add the bacon and have the stove on low heat. You will then remove the pasta and bacon from the stove and put it in a huge bowl at which point you will add the cheese and egg mixture and the cup of water you saved aside.

Here is where it might get tricky (at least for us!) The cheese mixture was much thicker than the recipe looked, while we did add an extra egg, we kept the recipe relatively the same. We weren’t sure what happened. We then decided to improvise and add a little butter and put it back in the skillet for about a minute to get a creamier mixture from it. That did the trick!

It is ready to serve. You can look at the full recipe from The New York Times here: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/12965-spaghetti-carbonara

This dish doesn’t pack much of a punch, it reminded us of a light Alfredo sauce. Daniela actually added a spritz of lemon to hers giving it a bit more taste. This dish is so versatile and filling. We recommend adding chicken, spinach and garlic to this dish to give it something more. The choice is yours!

Until next week!