Lemon Garlic Lamb Chops

I never cooked with lamb until tonight and OH MY, GOD. These are so freaking fantastic. And easy AND cheap which is also important.

Ok, so, I got these three pretty good sized lamb chops for about $5, and the ears of corn were 3 for $1, and the Rice-A-Roni was something like $2-3. So that's a $7-8 meal with leftovers because there's no way you can finish all that Rice-A-Roni in one sitting by yourself.

Now for the recipe!

You Will Need:

• lamb chops
• garlic powder
• lemon pepper
• salt
• black pepper
• olive oil
• a lemon
  

Just take the lamb chops out of the packaging and plop 'em down on a cutting board. Cover each side with an even spread of garlic powder, lemon pepper, black pepper, and salt.

While you're seasoning the chops, get out a frying pan and pour some extra virgin olive oil in the bottom of the pan. I didn't measure anything in this recipe since I was flying by the seat of my pants, but I'd say about 3-4 TBSP of olive oil will do it. Set the heat on medium or medium-high.

Now, take your lemon and roll it around on the counter with the palm of your hand. Press kind of firmly. This with smoosh the lemon and make it more juicy. Cut it in half and squeeze it into the oil.

When the oil is hot, gently place the lamb chops into the frying pan. If you just plop them in there, the hot oil my fly up and burn you. I had to learn that the hard way and now I have a scar on my chin!
In this photo, they're not fully cooked, for me anyway. I don't really like my meat to be bloody. The time it takes to cook really depends on how rare you like your meat:


Rare: 3-4 minutes on each side
Medium-Rare: 5-6 minutes on each side
Medium: 7-8 minutes on each side
Well Done: 9-10 minutes on each side


Mmm, yummy. I ate one of the lamb chops while I was waiting for the corn and rice to cook. But, so, yeah, this was a very filling meal, my friends. And it was soooo good! I was actually startled at how good it came out so I hope you'll like this recipe, too.


Oh, by the way, to boil corn: boil the water first, duh, then corn. Boil for 3-4 minutes. Smother with butter and salt because that's the way it's done. Scrumpty!

Love,

Liz

Pasta Sauce

Ooooh! First recipe, exciting!

This is a very simple way to make home cooked pasta sauce that my mamma taught me a while ago. Here are the ingredients:

• 2 medium onions

• 3 cloves of garlic

• 1 large can of crushed tomatoes (28 ounces)

• 1 large can of whole peeled tomatoes (28 ounces)

• 1 box of whatever pasta you fancy

• Table salt

• Ground Pepper

• A bottle of olive oil

• A large cooking pot

• A frying pan

• A medium-sized cooking pot

• A pasta strainer

Ok, get that big old pot and frying pan, and put them on the stove. Leave the medium-sized pot off to one side.

Pour some olive oil on the bottom of each.

Now, leave that alone, don’t put the heat on yet, just leave it the hell alone.

Go get your onions and dice them. That means cut them up into tiny pieces. Put the diced onions into the frying pan and turn the heat on low. Stir them up every so often. You don’t want them to stay in the same place in the pan or they’ll burn and be gross. What we’re going for with the onions is NOT to caramelize them. We DO want them to be cooked though, not very crunchy, almost looking clear white.

Moving on to garlic. These must be cut up tiny-tiny. Don’t use the ends of the cloves.

Just to sum up what should be happening in your kitchen right now:

The big pot on the stove has olive oil in it, just enough to cover the bottom.

The diced onions are cooking in olive oil in the frying pan.

Now, shove all of the onions to one side of the frying pan. Add a little more olive oil into the deserted part of the pan and put the diced garlic in it. When you cook garlic, you want it to turn a golden color. If it cooks too much it’ll turn brown, and it’s going to be bitter and ruin everything.

While the garlic is cooking, keep stirring the onions, making sure that they are still separate from the garlic. Also stir around the garlic every once in a while.

Get your cans of tomatoes, open them up, and pour them into the big pot. Put the heat on medium low. Stir it up a bit and try to smash some of the whole tomatoes in half with whatever you’re stirring with.

Once the garlic is that nice light golden color, mix it in with the onions and let them cook together for a minute or so.

After that, turn the heat off on the frying pan and dump the onions and garlic into the big pot with the tomatoes. Stir them up and let them simmer together for about ten minutes.

My roommate thinks that simmering is when you keep the heat on low. It’s not. It’s when the contents of the pot are bubbling softly, rather than bubbling violently like when it’s being boiled.

So, after it’s been simmering for a bit, add the salt and pepper to taste and keep smashing the whole tomatoes in half.

As the sauce is cooking, fill up your medium-sized pot with cold water. Don’t fill it to the top, though. You’re going to be adding pasta to it. If the pot is filled too much with water, it will overflow when you add the pasta, duh.

Alright, put the pot of water on the stove and set the heat to high. Put a lid on it, if you have one. It doesn’t really matter, the water will boil either way. It’s just going to boil faster if the lid is on.

Once the water is boiling, add salt to the water. This will give the pasta a bit of flavor on its own.

To measure out how much pasta you want to use, this is what my Nonno does: take a bowl (whatever bowl you’re going to use to serve the pasta in), and fill the bowl according to how many people are going to eat. So for two people, put in two bowls worth, three people three bowls, etc.

Dump the appropriate amount of pasta into the boiling water. Make sure you stir the pasta around every few moments so that it doesn’t get stuck to the bottom of the pot.

Test the pasta by periodically taking out a piece with a fork and tasting it.

If it’s tough, it’s not done.

If it’s chewy, it’s not done.

It has to be tender.

If it’s mushy, you over did it. It is now inedible by Italian standards.

Once you find the pasta to be perfect, dump it out in a strainer over the sink.

By now, your sauce should be ready to serve.

I taught this recipe to my friend Diego and he added his own little spices to the sauce because he’s Costa Rican and he has to. I use hot peppers from my Nonno’s garden. What my mamma suggested is to put the tiniest pinch of cayenne pepper in. But when using cayenne, be careful. Too much of it will make your face explode and more importantly ruin the sauce.

AWESOME!

To make it a meat sauce, simply add a pound of ground beef to the big pot before putting in the tomato sauce.

Brown the beef in the olive oil. This means that you smash up the beef with your stirring implement and keep shifting it in the pot until it is brown throughout.

When it’s done, pour the beef out into a strainer. This gets rid of all the grease. Then put the beef back in the pot and add the tomatoes.

IMPORTANT!

1. Use lean beef. It’ll either say 8% fat or 92% lean. You want the fat content to be somewhere in that area.

2. Keep washing your hands! Especially after dealing with raw meat.

Sweet! That was the first of many entries in this recipe blog. I hope your meal turns out great. Please feel free to comment on any part of the recipe or if you couldn’t understand some parts or if you just have questions in general.

I’m off to go eat Mexican food now. ADIOS, HOMIES!!!

Love,

Liz

Rippity Rap, RAP-TASTIC!

Greetings, hungry undergrads! In this blog I will give you several recipes that are totally easy to make, really really good, and will most importantly stop the braying beast that is your hunger.

I’m only 21, I don’t know how to make fancy stuff really. But what I do know how to do is keep my roommates full and happy.

If you’re new to the cooking scene — don’t worry. I’ll explain all the technical cooking lingo and take you step-by-step on how to make these simple recipes. Some cooks don’t realize that it’s kind of weird to learn how to brown beef or even boil pasta correctly, even though doing the slightest thing wrong can mess up your entire dinner.

To keep disasters to a minimum, I’ll include photos of what you’re doing should and should NOT look like. For instance, I just fucked up some onions. So when I do something wrong I’ll take a picture and let you know what your food should not look like.

As I write, I’m making pasta sauce, hence the onions. To give you an idea of how I do things, there’s only five ingredients: onions, canned tomatoes (crushed and peeled), garlic, and olive oil.

Who wouldn’t rather have homemade sauce instead of nasty Prego? I don’t know about you but there’s just something wrong about sauce from a jar. Maybe it’s because I’m a Guinea/WOP (Italian), I don’t know.

Anyways, whether you are a total stranger to the kitchen or already know the basics but just don’t have the time for friggin’ duck a l’orange (which is really good by the way) — I’ve got recipes for you.

LOVE,

Liz