SK week 39 | Baked Ziti

I have a decent recipe for baked ziti, but I Deb's was a little different and I wanted to give it a try. Besides, it finally feels like fall around here, and baked pasta is such a comfort food. :)

You'll need:
Olive oil
Onion, chopped small
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound Italian sausage, casings removed
28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
red pepper flakes, to taste
3/4 pound mozzarella cheese
2/3 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 pound baby spinach
ricotta (Deb has a weird thing about baked ricotta and just serves a dollop on the side. I like it mixed in before it bakes, so that's what I did. You do you.)

(Note: I actually made half a recipe since it was just four of us eating it, but I ended up making the whole recipe for the sauce and I froze half for the next time I make this)

Chop the onion and garlic. Also get your pasta cooking, and don't take a picture of it. ;) Cook it very al dente--it will cook more when it bakes and you don't want mushy pasta. Reserve a little pasta water for the sauce before you drain the pasta.

Brown the Italian sausage.

Add the onion, garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, and salt to taste. Continue to cook.

Add the tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Cook for about five minutes.

Add the spinach and stir in while it wilts.

Continue to stir until it's all cooked down. Add reserved pasta water if the sauce is getting too thick.

Stir your pasta, ricotta, and sauce together.

Place half of the pasta mixture in a baking dish. Top with mozzarella and parmesan. Repeat with a second layer of the remaining pasta mixture, mozzarella, and parmesan. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

She didn't say to cover the dish, but if you'd like it less browned, feel free to cover with foil before baking. I personally like the crispy bits of cheese. :)

Serve with a salad and a glass of wine if you're fancy. ;)

Verdict: It was good. Nothing earth-shattering, but it was fine. I need to compare notes between this and my other go-to recipe for baked ziti and see what I might like best from each recipe. We'll see. :) But it's yummy pasta and cheese, so it can't be too bad, right? ;)

SK week 38 | Best Hot Fudge Sauce

Okay, it took 38 weeks, but I think I've found the quickest, easiest Smitten Kitchen recipe out there! I always thought hot fudge was difficult to make. It's not. :)

(Here's the Smitten Kitchen post)

You'll need:
2 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup light corn syrup (she also says you can use golden syrup or honey)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup semi- or bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Combine the butter, cream, corn syrup, brown sugar, cocoa powder, and salt in a sauce pan.

Stir over medium heat and bring to a simmer.

Simmer for 3-5 minutes and keep stirring.

Turn off the heat and stir in the chocolate chips and vanilla.

Keep stirring until the chocolate is all melted and the sauce is thick and smooth. At this point, it's ready to serve. I let it cool and then put it in a container and stuck it in the fridge.

Reheat and drizzle over really good ice cream. :)

Verdict: Obviously a winner. Everyone loved it. :) I had no idea this was such an easy thing to make. And it was so delicious and perfectly smooth--not grainy at all. This would make an awesome gift!

SK week 37 | Marbled Banana Bread

I love banana bread, and I love having a variety of recipes to go to when I have bananas getting brown on my counter. This was a new one that will definitely be in the regular rotation now!

(Here's the Smitten Kitchen post)

You'll need:
3 large very ripe bananas
1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup plus 1/4 cup flour (I used GF)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a loaf pan. Melt butter in large glass bowl.

Add peeled bananas directly to melted butter.

Mash them and mix into butter.

Add brown sugar, egg, vanilla, baking soda, and salt.

Whisk all of that together.

Add one cup of the flour.

Stir until just combined.

Pour half of batter into a second bowl. As evenly as you can. :)

To one bowl, add the 1/4 cup flour and the cinnamon. To the second bowl, add the cocoa powder and chocolate chips.

Stir those up!

Alternate spoonfuls of each batter into the greased pan.

Then swirl with a butter knife. But not too much. Bake at 350 for 55 to 65 minutes (55 was good for mine).

Let it rest in the pan before cooling completely on a cooling rack.

Then slice in and enjoy!

Verdict: Winner! I love both regular and chocolate banana bread, but sometime the chocolate one can be too rich. This was a perfect solution! Everyone loved it. :)

SK week 36 | Thick Chewy Granola Bars

I made a granola bar recipe way back in the beginning of #AYearOfSmittenKitchen, but this one looked good too. I'm glad I made it--they're very different but they're both awesome! And it's a perfect back-to-school snack to have on hand. :)

(Here's the Smitten Kitchen post)

You'll need:
1 2/3 cups oats (I used GF)
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (I used closer to 1/2)
1/3 cup oat flour (or just throw 1/3 cup oats in a food processor)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 to 3 cups dried fruits and nuts (I skipped nuts, but I did about a cup of unsweetened coconut and a cup of dried cranberries)
1/3 cup peanut butter or other nut butter (I used sunbutter because I had it on hand)
1 teaspoon vanilla (optional--I skipped it because mine is running low) :)
6 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup (I used maple syrup)
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 tablespoon water

Preheat your oven to 350 and line an 8x8 pan with parchment and spray with cooking spray.
Get all of your dry ingredients into a bowl (oats, sugar, oat flour, salt, cinnamon, and whatever you're adding for nuts/fruits)

Give it a good toss.

Mix the remaining wet ingredients well.

Mix into the dry ingredients.

Press into a lined and greased 8x8 pan. (It helped to wet my hands a little before I pressed it all in)

Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes. I took it out at 30 because the edges were nice and brown and I didn't want to overbake them. The middle bars ended up being a little soft, but I liked them.

Verdict: These are great! It was a perfect breakfast and the kids will have them after school. I might try some nuts next time, but they're good with just the coconut and cranberries. :)

SK week 35 | Grilled Bacon BLTs

This week's Smitten Kitchen recipe was actually a post from Deb on Bon Appetit. I love BLTs, but Dan isn't a tomato fan, so we waited until he had his fantasy football draft scheduled to make these. :) I had never heard of grilling bacon before, but I was intrigued enough to give it a shot!

(Here's the Bon Appetit post)

You'll need:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 1/2 teaspoons Sriracha
1 pound thick-cut bacon
8 slices bread
2 tomatoes, sliced
salt and pepper
1/2 head iceberg lettuce (I prefer bibb, pictured)

Go start your grill. While it's preheating, mix together your mayo and Sriracha.

Once the grill is preheated, turn down the heat to about medium (I didn't know what that meant in regards to the knobs on my grill, so I had to play with it a little bit).

Flip them once they have some good grill marks. I flipped them a couple more times as they cooked.

Mmmm. Bacon.

Assemble your sandwiches however you like and enjoy with some potato chips. ;) (Don't worry, I ate a whole sandwich, but I didn't think to take a picture until I was half done).

Verdict: It was delicious! A couple things though. 1) The bacon didn't taste different to me. I can understand the pull of not getting grease all over your stovetop, but I generally cook bacon in the oven. So I guess if I REALLY didn't want to turn my oven on, cooking bacon on the grill would be a preferred method. 2) This was really just a basic (albeit delicious) BLT, except for that spicy mayo, which completely made the sandwich for me. It was by far my favorite part, and now I want to find other things to put Sriracha mayo on!

If you need an easy weeknight dinner, this is a great one. Happy last-weekend-of-summer-vacation!

***UPDATE!!!

This is Dan giving a report to the very kind assistant fire chief. It turns out, cooking bacon on your grill can result in quite a bit of grease in the grill pan. Two days after the grilled bacon BLTs, we grilled burgers. When the grill was heating up, Dan said he could tell that some of the bacon grease was still burning off. So he got our burgers cooked and then closed the grill so that it could continue burning and we could turn it off. While we were eating one of the kids noticed that it was pretty smoky. So Dan went back out and opened it up. Flames were shooting out of the grill and the entire pan underneath was engulfed in flames. It seemed like it would eventually burn itself out, but since it was a grease fire and since it was on our wooden deck and fairly close to our house, we decided to call 911. The first to arrive was a police officer, who came into the house and asked for baking soda. He headed to the deck with Dan and by the time I got out there with the baking soda, the fire was out. It had, indeed, eventually burned itself out. So Dan chatted with him for a couple minutes, and I ran to our bedroom to peek out the window at the front yard, where there were now three fire chief trucks with firefighters getting gear on and heading to the backyard. They eventually got the memo that their services were no longer needed. Apparently an actual fire engine eventually showed up as well. We had quite the party on our street! Everyone we talked to was so kind and reassured us that we did the right thing in calling. They'd much rather have a false alarm than have to fight an actual house fire that had spread. Anyway, it was quite an adventure. :)
LESSON LEARNED: I will no longer cook bacon on the grill! It's obviously not worth the hassle, and I would definitely recommend that you cook your bacon on the stove or in the oven like a normal person. ;)

SK week 34 | Guacamole

I love guacamole, and I actually have a decent recipe. But of course, I wanted to try Smitten Kitchen's version. :) And it didn't disappoint!

(Here's the Smitten Kitchen post)

You'll need:
2 tablespoons minced white onion
1 1/2 tablespoons minced jalapeno
2 tablespoons minced cilantro leaves
juice of half a lime
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt, plus more to taste
2 ripe avocados

Add your onion, jalapeno, and cilantro to a bowl.

Add the lime juice and salt.

Halve the avocados, remove the pits, and score them like this.

Add them to the bowl.

Mix it up! You can mash some of the avocados if you want that consistency. I just kept stirring it, and some got a little more smashed up, but I like the chunks.

Yum!

Verdict: I picked a night when my avocado-hating husband would be gone, and I made this for Jackson and myself. We loved it! It was perfect and simple and delicious. Will definitely make again!