Penne with Sage Cream sauce

  Tonight for dinner I did pasta again.  It is such as easy go to you can do so much with it and well the kids don't put up a fight. For the record a lesson learned tonight is to not crush garlic then use the finger you have a hang nail on to dig it out.  It will burn like acid.  Not fun.  To top it off don't yank it out and stick it in your mouth, raw garlic is good massive dose of raw garlic to your tongue not good.

Penne with Sage Cream Sauce

1 box of Mezze Penne (or regular Penne I have kids they like the baby Penne)
1 medium zucchini diced
1 medium yellow squash diced
4 pieces of proscuitto
1 medium onion diced
3 cloves of garlic crushed or diced fine your choice.
3 tablespoons of butter
a shot of white wine
2 cups of water
1tablespoon of Chicken base
4 sage leaves
3/4 cup of cream
1/2 cup of grated or shredded Parmesan.

Start the water boiling to add the Penne Later.  While putting together your sauce you will be cooking your pasta, come on you knew this.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter when the pan is hot crisp up the proscuitto.  I did all of mine in a large dutch oven cause you are gonna bake this if you want once its put together.  Take the meat out add the onions.  Cook till brown. If you need to add another tablespoon of butter add it now.  Layer your flavors so add a little salt so that each layer will taste seasoned.  Once the onions are brown add the zucchini and squash.  After cooking for a few minutes add the garlic and a tad more salt.  Let it get brown, then put a good glug of white wine in there.  Cook for a few minutes, then add the tomato paste cook for a minute then add the water and chicken base.
   Let this simmer, check your pasta water add if its ready.  Add the 4 sage leaves, more if you like, you are gonna fish them out later so no need to chop them.  Unless you want to leave them in there then chop away  When your pasta is almost al dente reduce heat to low, add the cheese and the cream.  Take the pasta and drain it.  Fish out sage leaves if that is your choice, add pasta to the cream sauce.  Crumble the proscuitto and add to the pasta stir to combine.  Now what I did was take the other tablespoon of butter melt it and mix with some bread crumbs and paremesan and sprinkle on top and brown it.  Eat with yummy garlic bread.

Crazy for Lilikoi

  I have been living on the island for 8 months.  Wow has it really been 8 months? Anyway we have an abundance of lilikoi (or passion fruit) here.  As well as pineapple, coconut, and all kinds of yummy tropical fruits.  I have an obsession with passion fruit.  I make Passion fruit tea all the time before moving here.  Since getting here my go to drink is POG (passion fruit, orange and guava juice.)  If we go to the shaved Ice stands I get mine with passion fruit in it some how.  So yesterday we went to a BBQ at the dive shop to represent Justin while he was at school.  We were to bring a side dish and drinks.  Well I prefer to bake cause my side dishes are usually tailored to our families tastes and I don't know if others will enjoy it.  So I checked the cupboards and decided to make some Tiramisu Cupcakes (recipe is found at cookinchannel.com under Nadia G's Bitchin Kitchen) and a pineapple upside down cake.  I couldn't just leave it as pineapple upside down cake so I decided to make it up as I went.  I am gonna share the recipe with you but honestly I have no idea exact measurements, very sorry, I just eyeball it.  I am calling this a Tropical Salted Caramel upside down cake.



Tropical Salted Caramel Upside down cake

1 box butter recipe yellow cake mix
1 stick of butter
1 cup of pineapple juice (I use a can of pineapple drain the juice use it for the liquid since I am using the pineapple later)
3 eggs

Ok for the cake you just make the cake to the boxes specification.  It calls for a 1/3 cup of butter for the cake however its a freaking cake with carmel in it.  Go ahead your calorie count is blown for the day anyway the extra two tablespoons is nothing in the long run.  ALso instead of water use the juice from the can of pineapple you are using.  If for what ever reason you don't have a full cup then just add water to make it equal a cup.  I mix my cake ahead of time while the oven is preheating.

For the topping
2 to 3 tablespoons of butter
1/3 cup of white sugar
1/3 cup of dark brown sugar
the pineapple
1 tablespoon of coconut rum
1 tablespoon of Banana Honey (honey from the banana trees) I am sure any honey would be fine maybe Orange blossom would be better
ANd my final ingredient is a weird one.  I buy Lilikoi butter which is like apple butter only made with passion fruit.   I buy it at the farmers market but they have a website www.homemadejamsofhawaii.com  Well worth the ordering.  But I use 1 tablespoon of Lilikoi butter

In the skillet I am gonna cook it in I melt the butter.  While its melting I add the honey, the lilikoi butter and the rum.  Mix it all together and then I add the sugars.  Now at this time it may not look liquid enough if you need to add more butter go ahead like I said I am guessing the amounts I use.  Once it reaches a caramel color I add salt to taste (sea salt or regular salt what ever you have on hand) and the pineapple.  I let it caramelize the pineapple for a bit.  Then with out turning the burner off I add the cake mix to the screaming hot skillet.  I then turn the burner off, spread the cake mix around and then put it in the oven to bake at 350 for about 20 to 30 minutes  Once its done I take it out let it sit for about 3 or 4 minutes, then flip it out on a plate.  Serve immediately or let it sit in the fridge over night.  What ever you prefer.

Family Fave

  Justin has been at school the past 5 weeks so it has just been the kids and I.  I am lucky my kids are not terribly picky eaters.  Kiley fights with me now just to fight cause she has been doing it so long I think if she couldn't fight me or didn't fight me over dinner she would think the world was ending.  One thing she does is flip flop between what she doesn't like and what she does like.  Last summer she refused to eat corn unless it was on the cob.  So I have been buying corn on teh cob.  This summer she has determined that corn on the cob is horrible she will only eat it off the cob.  So I had to try different preparations of corn so it wouldn't get boring.  So I decided to combine two recipes I saw online.  One was a fried corn dish and the other was a cheesy corn.  And of course I gave it my own little twist.  So here is the recipe for my Cheesey Cream corn.

Cheesy Cream Corn

1 bag of frozen corn
15 cherry tomatoes (more or less if you like you can also use bell peppers or any kind of veggie you want)
stick of butter(this is not a healthy recipe my daughter and son are underweight I have to lay on the calories)
a wedge of Baby Bell Spreadable Swiss cheese regular or light
A little cream or whole milk.

I chop my veggies, I melt a little bit of the butter about a tablespoon or two in a skillet.  Once its hot I add the tomatoes that I have simply split in half.  I like the skillet to be screaming hot cause I want the tomatoes to give up some juice and get some carmelization on them.  You can salt them now or you can wait till later your choice as always on the amount of salt.  Then I add the bag of corn, it can still be frozen or thawed how ever you wanna do it.  I then basically stir fry it around.  I then add the wedge of baby bell in there after cutting it to get it to blend better.  Also here is where I Start adding butter.  You don't add the whole stick I always add a tablespoon at a time depends on how much liquid your tomatoes gave up and all of that you need a little liquid on the bottom of the skillet.  I am going to try a rich chicken broth this next time to lighten it a bit.  Once the corn is getting a little toasty I add the cream or whole milk just to make it creamy.  If using the cream don't bring it to a boil.  Your goal is to have the corn hot and the cheese to be melted and blended in.  I usually end up adding at most 1/2 a cup of cream or milk.