Roasted Tomato and Bean Dip

It's a good thing we made so much food last week because the only thing I've cooked this week is an egg over easy. You could blame a few things, 1.) we overdid it last week and are now sick of cooking, 2.) our kitchen and the sun room in particular has suddenly become ridiculously frigid, or 3.) our pipes froze/burst. It's likely a combination of all three. I came home from work on Monday and no water would come out of the kitchen tap. Whatever. But when I woke up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water and nothing came out of the bathroom tap, it registered as a problem. I had to drive across town to take a shower at my parents' (it took 45 minutes to get there with the weather). Fortunately, our landlords are awesome, and Bob was surveying the damage at 8 a.m. (apparently a pipe burst in the basement and the plumber had to take down part of our downstairs neighbor's wall--whoops). It's funny, these random blips happen so frequently that I sort of just shrug my shoulders and say, "meh." But if you're someone who is fortunate enough to have running water and a food processor, you should give this dip a try. It's another Giada (am I going to get into trouble for posting too many of her recipes?). I make it all the time for parties and gatherings and the like. It's sort of like hummus but tangier. Disclaimer: this is not a scary bean dip. My mom hates beans (some sort of aversion carried over from childhood), yet she likes this dip--a lot.

Tomato and Bean Dip:
1 clove garlic
1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons water
salt and pepper (to taste)
1/4 cup olive oil (I use the oil from the jar of roasted tomatoes)
1/4 cup roasted, oil packed tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon dry basil
1 tablespoon dry parsley

Blend the clove of garlic in the the food processor. Add beans, lemon juice and water and blend until the mixture is relatively smooth. Add salt and pepper (Giada recommends about a teaspoon of each). Blend in olive oil a bit at a time until the mixture is completely smooth. (I don't actually measure the olive oil, and I suspect I use less than 1/4 of a cup). Add the tomatoes and herbs, mix again. Serve with pita chips or on crusty bread.

Italian Chili

I'm not much of a planner when it comes to dinner. I have a hankering (good word, eh) for something and then I make it, with or without all the ingredients. Sometimes it works out spectacularly, sometimes not. I was without proper supplies twice last weekend, once when I attempted a baguette (baking is just not my thing right now) and once when I made this soup. With the baguette, we only had wheat flour, and the bread turned out really dense (I am telling you, it was the flour!). For the soup, I made an extra run to my new favorite grocer, Wohlner's, to get pancetta from their superb meat counter but didn't realize I only had one can of kidney beans and no parmasan cheese. Instead of improvising with cannellini beans (which I have done before), I ran to the (slightly ghetto) No Frills down the street. There is no substitute for parmasan cheese. This recipe is another reason I love love love Giada di Laurentiis. It is flipping amazing. Salty, savory. For the skeptics (dad), I call it Italian chili, because it is pretty hearty.

(I do hate this photo, please trust that it tastes much much better than it looks)

Pasta e fagioli alla Giada:

1 tablespoon olive oil 1/2 cup chopped onion 3 ounces pancetta (or bacon) 1 garlic clove, diced 5 4/3 cups chicken stock 2 15-ounce cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed 1 bay leaf 1 teaspoon dry thyme (or to taste) 1 teaspoon dry rosemary (or to taste) 3/4 cup elbow macaroni Heat olive oil in large skillet. Add the onion, pancetta and garlic and saute until the onion is tender (3 minutes). Add the broth, beans and herbs. Bring to a boil then simmer and cover until vegetables are tender (10 minutes). Puree 1 cup of the bean mixture in a food processor (this part is super important, I thought it was skippable, but it thickens the soup. Even my food processor can handle it). Return puree to mixture. Bring soup to a boil and add macaroni. With the lid on boil until macaroni is soft (8 minutes). Season with salt, pepper and parmasan cheese.

Homemade Pasta.

Channeling grandma noni, I embarked on making my own stuffed pasta. I have done this recipe once before, so I knew it was possible and tasty. It's a Giada di Laurentiis dish--seriously, everything made by that woman is amazing. I want to be her and her cute wardrobe, plunging neckline, big hair/head, delicious food and staff of assistants. I imagine she has fantastic dinner parties five nights a week with 20 of her closest friends constantly reminding her how fabulous she is. I own two of her cookbooks, and everything I have made from them is exceptional. The dough recipe is too easy. Really, too easy. It's only flour and hot water. I knew from the first time I made this I would want the dough to be as thin as it could be without ripping. But let me tell you, rolling dough is a workout. And I think because this dough was so easy, it really tougher the more I worked with it. I think I was rolling the dough for half an hour, and I just kept getting hungier and more tired, so I added more stuffing to finish it off. It was nearing seven o'clock when I finally threw some ravioli in a pot of boiling water, and I kept thinking, "Gossip Girl is starting in seven minutes, Gossip Girl is starting in seven minutes. I wonder if Nate will be on this episode? Maybe Chuck and Blair will finally make up, and Serena will stop being a bitch." I finished just in time to leave an enormous mess in the kitchen and to realize that GG was a rerun this week. And it took me about 10 minutes to finish eating my pasta. I do have a lot leftover now sitting in my freezer, and I know it will only take 10 minutes to boil water to have another good meal. But it all seemed a bit anticlimactic. This is not a mom-friendly meal. I do not know how grandma noni did this--kids were probably better behaved back in the good ol' days, right? But I must admit, I would make a great stay-at-homer. *sigh* If only I were a wife *sigh* I felt like a real adult last night, making dinner, doing laundry, cleaning dishes and taking out the trash, aside from the whole working and paying bills part of adulthood. (Cooking is way more fun.) (I'm going to send you all to the Food Network site for the recipe, since I've already digress here enough).