A recipe what I made up

Pete fixed the flickery, poltergeist light in the dining room, which for some reason has made me want to cook again. So for the first time in three years, I found myself just mixing this together in the kitchen, and damned if it wasn't tasty! So here is my awesome recipe that I made up. Feel free to name it whatever you please.

1 family pack tortellini
Olive oil
1/3 c finely chopped shallot
1/2 c finely chopped onion
Salt
Ground white pepper
1 clove minced garlic
1/4 c dry white wine
1 tsp-1tbsp lemon juice
1 lb bulk pork Italian sausage
1/4 c shredded parmesan
1/4 c chicken broth (or other liquid)
1 bunch spinach
1/3 c heavy cream
Shredded parmesan
Crumbled feta
Cherry tomatoes

1. Set water to boil for tortellini in large pot. In a different large pan, heat olive oil over medium.
2. Sauté shallots and onions until translucent. Salt and pepper lightly. Add tortellini to boiling water.
3. Add garlic and sauté until fragrant. Deglaze pan with wine and lemon juice. Cook until liquid is reduced a reasonable amount. (If this direction is unclear, keep in mind, I made it up as I went along.)
4. Add sausage to pan and cook until, um, cooked.
5. Drain pasta and add to pan with parmesan. Stir until parmesan is wilted and all sausage and tortellini are well mixed.
6. Add chicken broth. Add spinach in layer over top and cover. Cook until spinach is wilted.
7. Add cream, stir to incorporate, and move into serving dish.
8. Serve with parmesan, feta and halved or crushed tomatoes to garnish.
9. YUM!

Serves 4 or 5, depending on portions and hungriness.

I was super pleased with how this worked. It would have been nice to maybe have some toasted pine nuts in there too, but we didn't miss them. The cream might not seem important - it's so little for so much food - but it really pulls the whole thing together and makes it a cohesive dish.

Recipe

This morning I made Pete a crepe filling out of his favorite potassium-rich fruits: bananas and dates. I thought I'd post it here because it was really simple and he seemed to enjoy it. Please note: the dates need to be high quality. We used so-so dates and they were not so great. But Pete said that he things with better dates it would work. I think you'd need to go with really moist and juice unpitted dates. Pitted dates seem to be all dried out in the middle.

Bananas Foster (Kind Of)
This recipe makes enough filling for two 10" crepes.

2 tbsp salted butter
2 bananas, sliced into coins
4 average sized dates or 3 large dates, diced
1/4 c. brown sugar (we used dark brown, but I bet light brown works just as well)
1 tsp cinnamon

1. Heat a medium-sized pan over medium until well and truly hot.
2. Add the butter to the center of the pan and melt.
3. Add the bananas and dates. Toss gently to coat.
4. Add the brown sugar and cinnamon.
5. Toss gently to coat. (You can use a spoon to stir/flip, but the bananas need a gentle touch.)
6. Cook 2-3 minutes, until bananas are cooked through and brown sugar has melted into a gorgeous, sticky brown sauce.
7. Serve as crepe filling or over vanilla ice cream with candied walnuts.

Other ideas:

• To make it more summery, add shredded coconut or another tropical fruit.
• OR serve with coconut ice cream
  
• To make it more autumnal, add a pinch of cloves and a pinch of nutmeg for that pumpkin pie flavor
• OR make a pumpkin-flavored custard to accompany this sorta-bananas-foster in the crepe

Please to enjoy!

Recipe for deliciousness!

I had a breakthrough tonight! Today I am a lady who can once again eat certain cooked fruits! Last week, in a moment of weakness, I ate a slice of a delicious peach my mother was having for a snack. It was so so delicious (the first bite of peach I've had in maybe four years) and worth all the minor mouth itching. But that was just it: the itching was minor! There were no welts. I was welt-free! So I thought to myself: hey, maybe I can eat cooked peaches like a normal person with birch pollen-related cross-allergies (like myself). And that's what I did tonight. I ate half a cooked peach and I did not itch, welt, swell or die. I just enjoyed a piece of fruit more than I have ever enjoyed a food stuff before. So here is the recipe.

Sydney's Four-Year Baked Peaches
(serves 4)

2 peaches, halved and pitted
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
cinnamon
nutmeg

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Place peaches center-side up in a 13" x 9" glass baking dish. Sprinkle with cinnamon to taste. (I didn't fully cover them; just a splattered them. But if you like a lot of cinnamon, go nuts!) Sprinkle each one with just a couple grains of nutmeg: it is powerful stuff. Set aside.

NOTE: you could peel the peaches if you wanted to. If they have particularly thick skin, you may want to consider doing so. You also may want to slice a little off the back of each half so that they don't roll around in the baking dish.

3. Mix water, honey, sugar and vanilla in a small sauce pan. Cook over medium/medium-low heat until the sugar is melted and the mixture has thickened.

4. Spoon mixture over each peach, making sure to cover each face completely. It will pool in the centers and that is cool. Don't worry about overflow or washing away cinnamon. Just pour it all until your pan is empty.

5. Bake in oven for 15 minutes, or until the peaches are tender. But be careful, don't cook them to mush or they will not be as delicious!

6. Remove from oven and place in bowls. Serve with vanilla ice cream or marscapone cheese.

NOTE: I suggest mixing making the marscapone a little more interesting, like so:
For each person...
1/4 c. marscapone
1 tsp-1 tbsp sugar (depending on how sweet they like it), or 1 packet of splenda/equal
1-2 drops almond extract

Eat, enjoy, and think of me: the girl who can't eat delicious peaches (except sometimes when cooked) because her stupid body thinks they're birch pollen.