Peanut Butter Lo Mein

I took this picture last night and it's still making me drool! This is such a great recipe! The noodles combined with the peanut butter and a little bit of spice gives this dish a real punch of flavor. I think next time we are going to cut the sugar in half (to make it a little healthier) and turn up the spice a bit. Here is the recipe we used from bloomi.com:


½ lb. of dry fettuccine noodles
¼ cup orange juice
¼ cup crunchy peanut butter (natural)
2½ tbs. soy sauce
2 tbs. white vinegar
2 tbs. brown sugar (either light or dark is fine)
½ tsp hot chili sauce (more if you want it spicy)
*optional* squeeze a wedge or two of lime juice into sauce
1 tsp oil
¼ cup sweet onions, sliced
1 clove of garlic minced



1. Put on pot of boiling water for pasta. Cook the fettuccine to al dente.

2. While the pasta is cooking, whisk together orange juice, peanut butter, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, chili sauce and lime if you are using it.

3. Heat oil in skillet over med-high, once hot add the onion and garlic. Stir fry, until onion is cooked, but still has a little firmness, not mushy, then add the noodles and stir fry for 2 minutes

4. Pour the sauce over noodles, and stir to coat, continue folding and mixing the pasta over heat for about a minute.

5. Serve with a splash of soy or Ponzu sauce, or wedges of lime.


And there you have it! I was thinking of adding chicken to this dish, but it didn't really need it. It was filling enough with the pasta and peanut butter. We have been really into asian style stir fry recipes lately - and this one is a nice, fresh take on that. Thanks for reading! 

Medium Shelled Pasta with Sausage and Parmesan

Hi lovely baking and cooking friends! Got another great weeknight dinner recipe for you. I found it on this website: justusfourblog.com. We cut the original recipe in half - there’s just two of us - and made a few small tweaks. This dish was so satisfying, and required very little ingredients that we didn’t already have on hand. I mean come on, don't you just want to shove your face right into this bowl?!

What You’ll Need:
2 cups of medium shells pasta (we usually do 1 cup per person)
1/2 lb of ground Italian sausage (we froze the other 1/2 - we bought the parsley and cheese sausage)
3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
salt
fresh ground black pepper
fresh parmesan cheese

How to:
1) Heat a large pot of water over high heat and bring to boil. Generously salt the water and cook the pasta according to directions on the box. Drain pasta, reserving 1/4 cup of the pasta water.

2) In a large skillet, brown the Italian sausage, breaking up with a spoon while it cooks. Remove from pan with a slotted spoon and set aside. Do not drain the sausage drippings.

3) In the same skillet, saute the garlic slices over medium heat until lightly browned. Remove from skillet and set aside with sausage.

4) Add pasta, reserved pasta water, sausage and garlic to the pan and cook for 5 minutes. Transfer to serving bowl and top with shaved parmesan and fresh ground black pepper.

Simple and quick to make, and it has GREAT flavor. A good alternative to having pasta and meatballs to switch it up a bit. A tip - don't skip out on saving some of the pasta water. Otherwise, it will be dry.

Hope you guys enjoyed, thanks for reading!!