July 29, 2011 • 2 notes

This Monday was a busy one.  Tamara had to work all day, I had a bunch of band stuff to do (oh, you didn’t know we were all in a band?  Well we are….THE BRUISES check us out).  Once Tamara got off work, we had to screenprint a couple dozen t-shirts for our show in Oakland this weekend.  By the time we got back to Tamara’s neighborhood, we were super hungry and wanting something quick and easy but tasty and satisfying.  Luckily that day I had been browsing recipes at ourbestbites.com and found a great dish to fit the bill.  Once we got started in the kitchen, we were eating within 1/2 hour.

The recipe was for Mushroom Ravioli with Garlic-Sage Brown Butter and Asparagus.  I had never made a brown butter sauce before although I had enjoyed it often at restaurants!  It always seemed very fancy and complicated but come to find out, it’s pretty easy to do.  Check out the recipe—she’s right on the money when she explains that smell is the best clue to correctly cooked brown butter.  It should smell like carmel, and then you know you are on the right track.  When we made this recipe, we oven roasted the asparagus instead to free up our hands and so we didn’t have to clean the lone skillet we had on hand. 

Bottom line is, this was a delicious and super easy recipe.  I’ll definitely be making it again.

July 26, 2011 • 1 note

I guess I should have had a more official “first post” than this, but whatever.  Basically, this blog is going to be a documentation of my attempts to make food, sometimes with the help or direction of my girlfriend Tamara and/or my best friend Aja.  I am not a terrible cook;  I’m not an amazing cook.  I have hits and misses.  I definitely follow recipes and am always finding new food blogs that I love!  Alot of what you’ll find here is “I made this based on this recipe, you should go check out this blog, or this magazine, or this book….” 

Last night I made pizza.  I love love love thin crust pizza, the thinner and crackerier the better.  Apparent crackerier is not a word, but you get what I mean, eh?  It was after 7 by the time I got started and I didn’t want to wait to make dough that had to rise, so thankfully I had the recipe for this crust from thekitchn.com.  It’s quick and easy, and I just made some great calzones last week using the same recipe.  I was shocked at how thin I was able to roll the crust!

Aja had some onions, orange bell pepper, and mushrooms that she sauteed.  I made a really simple sauce with garlicky fire roasted diced tomatoes, salt pepper, and basil.  After a thin layer of the sauce, we threw on some fresh mozzarella, some pancetta, and the veggies.  After about 10 minutes on the pizza stone at 550, we have what you see here—yum, yum, yum. 

Oh yeah, credit goes to Aja Blue for the delicious truffle salted asparagus spears!  So good!

Quick tip:  When you’re making pizza on the pizza stone, form your dough and top it on parchment paper.  When it’s time to put it in and take it out of the oven, you can do it easily by holding the paper.  It also makes cleanup really easy!