What a thrill.  This Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes from Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook definitely shook things up in my kitchen.  I love a recipe that makes you say “Hmm, I never would have thought of using _____ that way.”

The thing that I found to be surprising is the use of capers blended into the pasta dressing.  I’ve added whole capers to dishes before, but have never seen or thought to process them in with other ingredients.  What fun.  The dressing is made by adding sun-dried tomatoes and capers to a vinaigrette mixture and processing it to make a very flavorful sauce for pasta, tomatoes, cheese, olives and basil.

I was also thrilled to find that this recipe is one that lends itself well to substitutions made out of certain necessities (e.g., forgetting your grocery list).  I used some short pasta from my pantry, re-constituted dry-packed sun-dried tomatoes, and substituted feta cheese for the mozzarella.  I adore fresh mozzarella, and will use it the next time I make this, but the feta cheese was delicious, too.

Thanks to Delta Whiskey and the Barefoot Bloggers, I discovered a new way to use yummy capers – a trick I will be sure to use in other recipes.  To make this pasta yourself, just click on Food Network for the recipe.

If I had a million dollars, I would first hire a cleaning lady, then I would hire a personal chef to prepare healthy, flavorful meals for us every day.  I would still cook and bake at leisure, but the rest of the time I could choose recipes with my chef that he/she could prepare, like this Curried Couscous from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.

Because as much as I enjoy cooking and baking, I enjoy eating really fresh and tasty meals just as much or more.  I just don’t always have the time or energy to prep, cook, and clean up for every meal.  That means the kids get cereal for breakfast before school most days, Fridays are pizza delivery nights, and my lunch sometimes consists of a leftover piece of said pizza.

Until we win the lottery, though, I do try as often as possible to prepare healthy meals at home for the family that include a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits and grains.  And I like to put a little effort into making a healthy lunch for myself, too.  That’s what I did with this Barefoot Bloggers recipe, chosen by Ellyn of Recipe Collector and Tester.  Using some couscous prepared the night before for dinner, I mixed up this salad for my lunch, and it was delicious.  Freshness from the yogurt, with sweet and spicy curry flavors mixed with the vegetables, raisins, and nuts made this couscous extra flavorful.  I substituted cilantro for the parsley and it tasted great.

Of course you can change this recipe up in a variety of ways, just use what’s in your fridge and your imagination.  The original recipe can be found here.

When I was a new bride, I already had a few dishes in my cooking repertoire, but I wanted to learn to make some of my husband’s favorite dishes, too.  So I asked his mother to teach me to make these recipes, and one of them was spaghetti.

Here’s what she puts in:  onion, ground beef, tomato sauce (sounds pretty ordinary so far, right?), ketchup, tomato soup, thyme, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and 1/3 cup of sugar.  Not that it tastes bad or anything, I mean I had eaten it a few times before and it tasted fine, but not only is it way different than what I learned to make from my mother, but it’s almost like sacrilege to even call it spaghetti sauce, what with all the crazy things it contains.  My brain just can’t seem to accept it as spaghetti sauce.

But I make it for him sometimes, like when I have some ground beef in the fridge that I don’t know what else to do with.  And then sometimes I make something like this, Barefoot Contessa’s Real Meatballs and Spaghetti (chosen by Rebecca from Ezra Pound Cake), all tomatoey and good.  And he eats it, a lot of it, but would probably like it better if I put in a third cup of sugar.

I don’t know if it was because I was so hungry after my salad at lunch, but I thought these meatballs and the sauce were super.  The kids really liked them, too.  I kept thinking while I was making them that they were going to be bland, since there isn’t much seasoning other than salt and pepper and parsley, but mine weren’t bland at all.  I did have to make just a few changes – I used half beef and half pork, no veal (didn’t plan far enough ahead to get to the store with veal), and I only had plain dried breadcrumbs, so I added a half teaspoon of Italian seasoning to the meatballs.  I used Cabernet for the wine, and only cooked up half of the meatballs.  Also, I used whole wheat spaghetti noodles.  I will make this again for sure. (*edit-just realized I didn’t add the water to my meatball mix, but didn’t make a difference to me!)

Real Meatballs and Spaghetti

from Barefoot Contessa Family Style

serves 6

Ingredients

For the meatballs: