Colorful Lentils

I'm sorry I haven't posted about my kitchen attempts in a while. I've just been pretty boring in my "cooking," if you can call it that. Pasta and salad. All day every day. So it was time for a change.

My cooking adventure for the day was inspired by this. I headed to Billa this morning in search of all the ingredients. Being unable to find about half, and then later being too lazy to use anything but the stove top, I put a "new spin" on the recipe.

Ingredients:

• yellow and red pepper
• red onion
• lentils
• pesto
• olive oil
• garlic powder
• thyme
• cheese (it's not labeled — some sort of mozzarella relative I would assume)

1. Wash veggies

2. Slice and dice veggies

3. Sautee!

4. Heat Lentils

5. Drain and put in bowl

6. Heat pesto and pour over lentils

7. Add veggies, garlic powder and thyme

8. Top with cheese and enjoy!

Only other tip: Don't add too much olive oil. It's a little (very) challenging to drain.

For being a guess-and-add approach, it was far better than I expected. Worth giving it a try for yourself!

Never again will I eat pasta sauce from a jar

Yesterday afternoon, Caitlin and I recreated one of Tuesday night's cooking lessons: sugo all'aglione, or fresh tomato and garlic sauce.

Even with the subpar tomatoes I bought at Metá, it was delicious. Plus it's incredibly easy.

Heat olive oil with a couple of slices of garlic. If you're feeling snazzy, sautee some onions as well.

Blanch some tomatoes (fancy food talk for boil them for 30 seconds).

Peel the skin and slice them. Add tomatoes to the olive oil and let it all simmer for a while.

Remove pieces of garlic before serving. Pour sauce over whatever 75 cent noodles you have laying around.

Voilà!

Open-faced pomodoro and baby mozzarella sandwiches

(idea courtesy of Bethany)

Need: Pesto, baby mozzarella, tomatos, bread of some sort, olive oil and whatever various italian spices you have.

Slice bread, cheese and tomatoes. Pour olive oil onto a plate and add spices. In this case, garlic and basil.

Spread pesto on bread; add tomato and cheese. Dip slice in olive oil mixture for cooking.

Heat. If you weren't blessed with a toaster oven like others, put them in a frying pan and avoid burning fingers.

And enjoy!
Easy but delicious — especially with ingredients as fresh as I have here.