One-Pan Pasta

Every once in a while I get the privilege of staying with a youth from my church when their parents need to be out of town.  (We also house-sit like it's our job, but that's another story...)

Last night I was with a young woman named Lily.  She plays basketball and volleyball, and we learned that we like a lot of the same TV shows and both dream of going to Paris.  Lily feels like a rare kid in the world of Middle School.  I never had to ask her to do anything.  She cleaned up after herself, did her homework, and even got herself to bed on time.  

I knew it would be a little bit weird for her to have me there but I wanted to at least start off our time together with a good meal.  I also wanted that meal to be simple because the point was not to impress her with fancy food but to have some quality time at the table.

Enter one-pan pasta.

Guinness Mac n' Cheese

Paul has been uber supportive as I've embarked on this whole food blog journey.  He's helped me upgrade from a point-and-shoot camera to a DSLR and been just as passionate about learning how to use it as I have.  He dutifully eats whatever I make, even if it bombs.  He doesn't try to stop me from pacing around as I wait to find out the result of my latest FoodGawker.com submission.  (15th blog was the charm!  Woo hoo!)

I'm not very good at being romantic or putting my feelings into words, so I try to say thank you with food.

When I saw this recipe, I knew I had to make it for Paul.  He loves beer.  He loves pasta.  It was no surprise that this was a big hit with him.

If you do not like beer, this recipe is NOT for you.  It starts out cheesy and creamy but has a malty, bitter finish.

I was going to say that this is the perfect dish for the men in your life, but that's pretty unfair to all of my kick-ass girlfriends who love dark beer.  This is a delicious comfort dish for the beer lover in your life.

Did I mention it's from Cooking Light?  Yeah, everyone's a winner here.

Chickpea Curry

When I'm away, Paul eats more fast food.  When Paul is away, I eat more delicious vegetarian dishes.  He's out tonight and we all know what that means:  Pajama pants, Love Actually, and a delicious vegetarian dinner.

Two weeks ago, my bestie Eleanor caught me looking at her Cooking Light magazine.  To our mutual happiness, she sent me home with a massive stack of Cooking Light magazines.  Once in my possession, I knew that if I opened one I would lose at least half a day to the stack and I had too much to do with Thanksgiving and the Advent Workshop approaching.  Both are now successfully behind me and as a reward I spent half of yesterday with magazines all over my floor, armed with sticky notes and a pen, blissful in recipe heaven.

I have a lot of food magazines that I've collected over the years, most of which have been read cover to cover but their recipes remain untested.  

It ends tonight!  

For my first magazine dinner, I decided to go with a gorgeous curry that was insanely fast to make.  It literally takes less than 10 minutes.  It's mild, creamy, and incredibly satisfying.