biaggi's penne sardi - copycat recipe

{photo credit}

A while back, while I was visiting my Mississippi family, we went to a restaurant called Biaggi's. I ordered the butternut squash ravioli, but by mistake they brought me the "penne sardi". Well, it was an awesome mistake, because it was the best pasta dish I think I've ever had, and I eat a LOT of pasta. I searched for copycat recipes online, but there were none to be found, so I experimented with my own. This doesn't taste exactly like the restaurant's, but it's pretty darn close! I don't eat meat, so I left the chicken out of my version. You carnivores out there will have to figure out how to copy the chicken part on your own, but I have to say ... it's delicious without the chicken!

Biaggi's Penne Sardi:

serves about 6

Start with the breadcrumbs. Tear 3 pieces of bread into bite-size pieces, then blend them lightly. You don't want them too fine or they'll just burn!

They should be similar to this texture.

These seasonings, plus salt and pepper, are what I used to flavor my breadcrumbs. You'll probably want to use lots of parsley, so make sure you have at least a tablespoon or so on hand.

Spread the crumbs out on a baking dish, and cook them at 200 for about 3 minutes at a time. Take them out, and mix them up thoroughly. The crumbs on the outside are going to cook faster than the middle ones, so you want to be careful to take them out and stir them every 3 minutes! Keep going until they are golden brown and crunchy. This shouldn't take more than about 10 minutes. Now set them aside and move on to the onions and mushrooms.

Take a large pan (a cast iron skillet works best) and melt about 3 tablespoons of butter in it. Slice one large yellow onion into very thin slices, and add one cup of sliced mushrooms. Sprinkle pretty heavily with salt, stir, add more salt, stir.

This part takes about 45 minutes, but it's worth it, I promise! Keep cooking the mushrooms and onions over VERY low heat until the onions go from white and stiff, to clear and flimsy, to brown and syrupy. Use the before and after pictures above as for reference of how much they should cook down! Now you can set that aside and move on to the sauce.

I sort of use this recipe, sort of, but with lots of modifications.

• 2 1/2 cups heavy cream/ half and half
• 1 cup butter (I know)
• 1 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 5 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
• 1 cup sun-dried tomatoes
• salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter and cream together in a large sauce pan, and bring almost to a boil, but not quite. Stir in the cheeses until they are melted, followed by the tomatoes.  Add salt and pepper to taste, set aside.

Now it's time for the pasta! Cook about a pound and a half of white penne pasta, then drain. My husband is the official rice and pasta cooker of the house, so I let him take over here. Drain the pasta, then dump it into a large bowl. Now throw in the sauce, caramelized mushrooms and onions, an extra half cup (or more, if you'd like) shredded mozzarella cheese, and stir it all up! Pour it into a large baking dish, and top it off with more shredded mozzarella and the breadcrumbs. You may want to spritz the breadcrumbs with Pam to make sure they stay crispy.

Bake it at 350 for about 20 minutes or so, checking once or twice to make sure the breadcrumbs aren't burning.

Enjoy!

Fish tacos are something I'd never tried (or maybe even heard of) until I first visited California, but now ... I'm hooked! Shrimp tacos are my favorite, and I've been perfecting my own recipe for a while now. I thought I'd share it with everyone.

I should warn you, these measurements are just a starting point. I usually end up adding more of this and that as I go. I just play with the portions and amounts until I like how it tastes, so don't be afraid to venture away from the exact recipe!

you'll need:

• shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
• tapatio hot sauce
• lettuce pieces
• salsa*
• tangy sauce*
• shrimp*
• lime slices
• whole wheat tortillas

to make your own salsa:

• 2 handfuls grape tomatoes
• 1/2 small onion
• lime juice
• pepper
• cilantro
• garlic salt

Chop onions and tomatoes, dump into colander and rinse to get rid of all the tomato seeds. Add lime juice, garlic salt, pepper and cilantro to taste, and let it sit in the fridge in a container for at least 4 hours. I try to leave mine for more like 12 hours!

to make your own tangy sauce:

• 1 (16 oz) container sour cream
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• garlic powder (to taste)
• tapatio hot sauce (to taste)

I got that recipe from here, but I like to add garlic powder and tapatio hot sauce to mine, and sometimes a little extra of all of the above ingredients, because I like it to have a ton of flavor in the sauce, and the original recipe is a tad bland to me.

shrimp:

• 1 pound shrimp (per 4 people)
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons tequila
• 2 tablespoon lime juice
• salt
• pepper

Melt the butter in a pan, toss in shrimp and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Stir until shrimp turns pink, then add tequila and lime juice. Stir until cooked.

I like to put everything in bowls and make a self-serve taco bar for guests. Don't forget to put out a bottle of the tapatio and a bowl of lime slices, since some people like a little extra kick with their tacos:) Enjoy!

EDITED: Okay, I just now realized that I said to leave the salsa in the fridge for four DAYS ... hahaha ... that was definitely supposed to say four HOURS. Sorry for any confusion;)

homemade laundry soap

This is about the easiest thing in the world to do, it's dirt-cheap, and it will help you get rid of some of the nasty chemicals in your home! What's not to love?

Here's what you'll need:

1/2 cup washing soda*
1/2 cup borax (you can find this at Wal-Mart and Target in the laundry isle)
1 cup grated organic soap (I love Shea Moisture's Organic Coconut & Hibiscus Shea Butter Soap w/ Songyi Mushroom, which you can buy at Target, of all places!)

*The washing soda can be hard to find, so if you can't find any, just substitute baking soda. Put the baking soda on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350 for at least 20 minutes. This gets rid of the carbon dioxide (or something like that), effectively converting it to washing soda.

Mix the ingredients together, and and use about 3 tablespoons per load. For a healthy and chemical-free fabric softener, I put vinegar in a Downy Ball and pop it in the wash. Your clothes come out soooo soft, and they won't smell a bit like vinegar. Fabric softener is something I'm a bit of a connoisseur of ... I've tried every kind out there, and vinegar works better than anything else I've tried.

The Mr. snapped this picture of me while I was making the soap. I look soooo sad! It's an illusion, though. I was happy, I promise:)

If you buy these ingredients in bulk, it will last you FOREVER. I read that making your own laundry detergent with these ingredients cost about 10% of the cost of regular, store-bought detergent ... and I believe it!

chocolate chip banana nut cookies

About a year ago I stumbled upon this recipe while looking for something to do with some just-about-to-go-bad bananas ... and my life changed forever.

For real. They are that good.

You'll need: 

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 egg - room temperature

1 cup of over-ripe, mashed bananas (about 2 medium bananas)

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups flour

pinch of salt

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup pecans

1/2 cup chocolate chips (I like the jumbo ones)

Pre-heat the oven to 350
Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the egg and beat until light and fluffy.

In a separate bowl, mix mashed bananas and baking soda. Let this sit for 2 minutes. This is what makes the cookies light and fluffy!
Mix the banana mush into the butter mixture and cream. I know it looks pretty gross here with the brown mushy bananas, but stay with me.

Mix together flour, salt and spices. Sift into the butter/banana mix.
Add the chocolate chips and pecans.
Dollop onto a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake for 11-13 minutes.

a handy dandy notebook (or three)

Can you spot my newest little DIY craft project?

I stole the idea for these adorable little notebooks from a magazine. I wish I could remember which magazine it came from, but for the life of me, I can't! I can tell you that it was either Coastal Living, Southern Living, or Country Living ... but I'm afraid I just can't remember which one of those three it was!

You'll need:

• Paper grocery bags, 2 bags per book (I used Trader Joe's bags) 
• Scissors
• Embroidery floss (I used yellow and blue)
• Something to poke small holes with
• Stapler or paper clips (but a stapler works better)

(yes, what you see there is a real-live, genuine Mary Grace grocery list. That will be worth a lot someday;)

Here's what I did:

• Remove the handles
• Split the bags open at the bottom and side seams and lay the bag out flat
• Iron the bag on high heat to flatten the creases
• Measure out and trace an 8x12 rectangle onto the bag, cut it out, repeat.
• Stack the papers and fold them in half 
• Staple or paper clip them as a temporary "binding"
• Poke 7 evenly spaced holes for the binding
• Thread the embroidery floss through, then thread it back again so that it covers both sides all the way
• Tie it up, and remove the staples

Now you just reduced, re-used and recycled .. and you got a brand new notebook!

good things come in small servings

I first saw these adorable little single-serving pies on the lovely blog Content in a Cottage, but it originally comes from the blog Our Best Bites. Aren't they so cute?

They'd be so cute for a little girl's birthday party (especially if, like me, she doesn't care for birthday cake), a book club meeting, or given as a gift with a grosgrain ribbon tied around the jar. The second one looks simply delicious! Click here for the recipe and instructions. 

a tasty treat

My mama made me this amazing soup while I was visiting last week, and I thought I would share it with you:) She got the recipe from my Aunt Becky, and let me tell you, it's amazing! Don't be put off by the fact that it's pumpkin in a savory dish ... it's really, really good.

ingredients:
1/2 lb fresh mushrooms - chopped
1/2 cup onion - chopped
1-4 tablespoons butter
1/2 - 1 tablespoon curry powder
3 cups chicken broth
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin
1 can (12 oz.) evaporated milk
1 - 2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

• In a large pot, saute the mushrooms, onion and butter until tender. Stir in the flour and curry powder until blended. Add a little more flour until thickened.
• Gradually add the broth, stirring constantly over low heat. Let it boil slightly and keep stirring until thickened.
• Add the pumpkin, milk, honey, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Heat through, scraping bottom of the pot to keep it from sticking.
• Optional: garnish servings with sour cream and chives or green onions.

Bon appetit!

french onion soup

image courtesy of Sony Pictures

French Onion Soup is something that was introduced to me by my mother. It's a wonder I ever tried it in the first place, I was probably about 9 years old, and I can't imagine many nine-year-olds wanting to try a soup with bread and cheese inside, but luckily I've always been a fairly adventurous eater. I wanted to learn to make my own after being inspired by the complicated French dishes in Julie & Julia, so I set out to learn how to make this soup. It is definitely more complicated than what I usually cook, but I promise that it's not as hard as it looks, and it really is VERY hard to mess up. And since it's not really my recipe (although I did make some modifications that I believe improved it), I can say without bias that it is the BEST ... by FAR the best French Onion Soup I've ever had!


The recipe is divided into three parts: The broth, the onions, and the bread/cheese topping.

The Broth:

1 32oz. carton of Wolfgang Puck's Organic Beef Flavored Broth: I have tried one or two other types of broth and it didn't taste at all as good as it did when I used ole Wolfgang's, so do try to get this specific type if at all possible. They have it at Ralph's, or "Kroger" for those in the south.
1/3 cup of dry white wine. I use "two buck Chuck" Chardonnay and it works just fine.
one bay leaf
hearty pinch of dried parsely flakes
a few sprinkes of ground thyme
1/2 tablespoon of white vinegar
1/2 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic

Simply dump all of these ingredients into a medium-sized pot and cook over low to medium heat for at least 20 minutes. It takes about 45 minutes to finish the recipe out from here, and I usually just let it cook the entire time, stirring occasionally.

The Onions:

This is the part that will really make you feel like quite the Julia Child in training ... caramelizing the onions. If you don't know about the heaven that is caramelized onions, you are in for a treat.

4 small yellow onions, or 3 large yellow onions: slice these as thinly as you can. This will save you lots of cooking-down time later!
4 tablespoons of butter (I never said it was a healthy recipe)
Salt

After you've sliced up your onions, you may want to measure to make sure you have enough. The sliced onions should be about 1 1/2 quarts. Put the butter in a large pan, preferably cast-iron if you have one, and sprinkle with salt. It's important to add the salt now because it helps create the chemical reaction that turns the onions into their syrupy texture, or so I read. Once the butter is melted, add the onions, and stir them in so that they are all covered in butter on both sides.


It should look like this picture above. Now comes the tedious part. You have to stand there and stir ... and stir ... and stir ... for about 30 to 45 minutes. If I'm cooking by myself I usually bring my laptop into the kitchen with me and watch a movie while I stir. It helps pass the time! In fact, the first time I made this, I brought my laptop to the kitchen and turned on The Holiday. I paused it when I was done cooking, and the next time I made this soup I watched some more. Now it's become my official French Onion Soup-Making movie. I still have about 30 minutes left to watch, so I guess I need to make this again soon so I can finish it:) I'll probably never be able to watch that movie again without being afflicted with a terrible craving for caramelized onions.

Eventually the onions will cook down to a gooey, syrupy texture. I sprinkle them with salt every 10 minutes or so and that seems to speed up the process. Just do a taste test before you add more salt to make sure they aren't too salty. You'll be tempted to turn up the heat on the stove to get it over with, but don't! Once they burn or get slightly tough, they can't caramelize anymore. Just be patient and cook over a low to medium heat.


It may feel like it's never going to happen, but eventually they will look like this. And yes, that's all that's left of them! I didn't take any onions out before taking this picture:) You can click on the picture to get a closer look of what they should end up looking like.

The Cheese and Bread:

Several slices of French Bread, or a Sour Dough Baguette
Gruyere Cheese

Turn the heat off of your onions and the broth, and put a lid on the broth to keep it warm. Slice up the bread so that it will fit into your ramekin (no thicker than an inch), then pop it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 7 minutes. Slice up the cheese into thin slices.


Now it's time to put it all together! Put one or two spoonfuls of the onions into the bottom of the ramekin, pour the broth over it until it's about 2/3 full, then put the slices of bread on top of that. Drape the cheese over the bread so that it covers the top, then pop into the broiler for 5 minutes. The cheese should be melted and bubbling when it's done. Once you take it out of the broiler, sprinkle the top with paprika, and serve! It's seriously delicious, and you can serve it with all that Chardonnay you have left over:)

Don't worry about coming up with side dishes to accompany it, this soup is extremely filling, even to my 6'2'' husband. It should serve about 4 people, but it can be doubled easily.

Bon appetit!

schnitzel with noodles

I never thought that this particular item on Maria's list of favorite things sounded very enticing, but I tried it last night for the first time, and it was DELICIOUS! We like to try and make a nice dinner together every month on the 4th for our "anniversary", but since we have plans for tonight we decided to celebrate a night early and make a nice meal last night.

For my schnitzel with noodles, I made baked eggplant and portobello mushrooms over linguine, with mozzarella cheese melted over the top and drizzled with a garlic lemon butter sauce. YUMMMM!

I love eggplant, but every time I've tried to cook it, it's been a disaster. It always turns into a sloppy pile of baked, fried or roasted mush. I could never get it flavorful and crispy like it is in restaurants. Finally I found a tip online through the magic of Google that made all the difference in the world. I sliced it up the way I wanted it and coated each side of each slice in salt, then left it for about 45 minutes. When I came back, the plate that had been totally dry now had about a 1/3 inch of water standing in it! I was so fascinated that I felt compelled to do a photo shoot with the plate. I rinsed the salt off the slices and patted them dry, and it didn't end up adding to the overall saltiness of the dish one bit ... I just didn't add any salt to anything else in the cooking process.



Then I dipped the eggplant slices..


.. and the GIANT portobello mushroom tops in a mixture of soy milk (I quit drinking regular milk about 2 and a half years ago, but I still eat other dairy products) and egg, and then coated them in Italian-flavored breadcrumbs.


While those were baking, Mr. F made us some linguine, and I got to work on the sauce. It was so easy! You just cook few tablespoons of butter in a sauce pan until it starts to brown, then add minced garlic and parsley. Let it cook for a minute or two, then add the lemon juice as it begins to cool down.
Unfortunately it wasn't until after I had done the little photo shoot of the finished product that you see at the top of this post that I realized I had forgotten to melt the mozzarella on top. I had to take the eggplant and mushrooms and put them back in the oven for a minute or two with the cheese on top, but you get the idea:)