Tag: rachael ray

It’s summer and it’s a great time to get eggplant at farmers markets or local grocery stores. Even though I don’t always like eggplant because of the super soft texture it gets when it is cooked too long, I decided to try a recipe my fiancé picked out of one of our cookbooks a few weeks ago. The recipe called for cooking the eggplant in two ways – sautéing chopped up bits of some of it with a flavorful filling mixture of ground beef, raisins, pine nuts and more, as well as roasting some whole eggplants which are then topped with the filling.

Pasta e fagioli is a great Italian dish that is kind of a mix between a soup, a stew and a hearty pasta dish. As with a lot of Italian dishes, it can be made with a variety of different additions, from various herbs to vegetables to meats. The main two ingredients remain the same – pasta and beans. I enjoy making the dish with ditalini, the type of macaroni that my family uses when we make macaroni salad. It’s a small pasta that leaves room for all the other ingredients in the pot. I also like cannellini beans, which are like a white kidney bean; but any beans can be substituted in. The recipe below calls for pancetta, but bacon can be used instead. Or it could be left out all together to lower the fat content of the dish. The fresh herbs and vegetables are really what makes the dish taste great. They add a lot of flavor to the sauce/broth that elevate the recipe beyond a typical pasta dish.

I've made chilaquiles at home once, and it's a tasty snack. But the tortilla chips-and-cheese dish isn't really substantial - or healthy enough - to be a full meal. But with a few improvements, thanks to a Rachael Ray cookbook, the flavors of chilaquiles can be turned into a real meal.

After a week of eating holiday leftovers and eating out quite a few times over the busy holiday season, New Year's Day seemed like the perfect opportunity to start out a resolution of getting back to cooking some tasty meals at home. Since I had a lot of free time on a lazy Sunday after staying up until midnight to ring in the New Year, I opted to try out a new risotto recipe. Though the recipe says it takes only 30 minutes to prepare, it's been my experience that it takes a little bit longer for me to get Arborio rice to just the right consistency. So I knew to be prepared to cook it a little bit longer. The recipe took me a little closer to 45 minutes, but it was worth the wait.