Cherry Tomato and Mini Zucchini Pasta

This is a super easy and yummy pasta which my mother-in-law makes for us. Since we love it so much, I started to make this one quite often also.

This is quick and easy and vegetarian. Perfect summer pasta when tomato and zucchini are at its peak!!

Normally, I use red cherry tomato and regular zucchini but this time I had yellow cherry tomato and mini zucchini so I used those.

Here is how I made it.

Cherry Tomato and Zucchini Pasta

Ingredients:
Spaghetti     about 1lb
Cherry Tomato  about 20
Mini Zucchini   about 6
Garlic                 3 cloves
salt and pepper   for taste
red chili pepper    (optional)
Freshly Grated Parmesan cheese  for taste
Olive Oil      about 3 table spoons

1. First cut the tomatoes into hald and zucchini into a bite size pieces. Chop garlic.

2. Start boiling pasta in salt water.

3. In frying pan, add olive oil and heat up. Add zucchini and saute.

4. When zucchini start to get some color, add tomatoes.

5. When tomatoes started to get soft, add some salt and pepper.

6. Then add garlic. (Don't let the garlic burn)

7. At this point, your pasta should be ready to drain. Drain and add pasta to the pan and mix well. If needed, add some pasta water or olive oil.

8. plate pasta and sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

I love this pasta. Hope you like it too!!

Head on Shrimp Pasta and Special Pasta Fork

There is a Korean Supermarket about 15mins away from our new place by driving. I was checking their weekly circular the other day and saw head on shrimps are on sale.

A few days before this weekly circular, I saw a TV show on Cooking Channel called "Extra Virgin" and they were making a tomato sauce pasta with head-on prawns. It looked so good and as soon as I saw the sale on head-on shrimp, I knew that I was going to try this recipe. Click here to go to Cooking Channel website for the recipe I used.

The recipe called for Santa Barbara Spot Prawns but I think any kind of head on Shrimp or Prawn will do.

This was really good! Cooking shrimp with the shell and head makes the dish a lot more tasty. The only problem is that it is so messy to eat the shrimp when it has shells and head. So we ate the pasta first (well, the pasta had some shrimp meat with it) and ate those shrimps at the end.

On the day I made this pasta, a gift from my mother in law has arrived by postal mail. One of the gift was special pasta fork which she found in Germany. This is how it looks. See the picture below.

Isn't it look funny? When I saw this fork for the first time, I was like "This is a funny looking fork!"
Then, I talked to my mother in-law and she told me that this is a special fork for eating pasta. Then, I was like "Oh! now that make sense!"

And I really liked it when I used it. You know how sometimes it is difficult to get perfect portion of pasta on your fork? It is easier with this fork to portion the amount of pasta you take.

We also think this is perfect for our two year old son since he tend to take too much pasta on his fork and only 1/3 of it end up in his mouth.

I don't know if you can find these fork and spoon in the U.S. but it is great utensils to have if you love pasta and would like to look elegant when you eat :-)

Ricotta Cheesecake

It has been quite hot these last few days in NY but how is everybody doing? Mausi family is doing great. Enjoying summer!!

Anyway, the other day we went to this Italian deli/pizzeria close to our place. This place has really good pizza and they also make fresh mozzarella and ricotta cheese.

We had small pizza (which is big) with mushroom and onion. What I love about this pizza is the crust is thin. I like thin crust pizza!

At deli section, they have different kind of fresh meat and cheese. One of my neighbor told me that their Mozzarella cheese and Ricotta cheese are really good so I bought those cheese.

I didn't take pictures of these cheese but we had Mozzarella for salad. Ricotta cheese was creamy and sweet and I could just eat it as is but since we had lots of them, I decided to make ricotta cheesecake.

This cake is not too sweet and have lots of ricotta and egg with little bit of flour.

The recipe I used was the one I found in All Recipes. Click here if you would like to jump to the recipe. 

It said Sicilian ricotta cheesecake so the recipe muse be from Sicily. This is very different from American cheesecake. It was light and bit dry. My husband loved it. I liked it but I think I prefer something little bit sweeter and creamer.

It was very easy to make and tasted great. Maybe I will add little bit more sugar next time ;-)

It was really hot when I baked this cake so we couldn't stay in the house. My son and I played in front of the house while the cake is baked.

I think cheesecake is great for summer because you can eat it cool!

Well, if you like light cheesecake, try this one!

Shrimp Risotto

One of my favorite dish is Risotto. It is not difficult to make and love the richness and creaminess. Plus, I love rice so I like any dish with rice in it.

Anyway, I made this shrimp risotto using ingredients I have at home. Well, I ended up asking my husband to get more Arborio rice since I realized that I didn't have enough after I start making the risotto. I had some cooked shrimp in my freezer so this is shrimp risotto.

It is super simple and easy but was very tasty.

First, I chopped onion and sautéed in a pot with olive oil, then I added rice and sautéed also. Then I add some white wine. Then I start adding warmed chicken stock one ladle at a time and keep stirring.  I keep doing this for about 20mins or so until rice is tender but a bit hard in the middle. Then, add parmesan cheese and butter!

I recommend adding lots of cheese!

I heard in the restaurant, they make risotto half way through and leave it. Then when they get order, they finish cooking them so it doesn't take so long to serve it. It is interesting to know all these restaurant tricks. I would love to experience restaurant kitchen sometime. I wish I know someone who own a restaurant so I can ask them to have me experience it for one day in their kitchen. I am just curious how it works :-)

Beef Bowl & My Husband's Torterilli

I made beef bowl using thin sliced beef which I bought a few weeks ago from a Japanese supermarket and froze. This is very popular dish in Japan and super easy to make.

I boiled some water, add soy sauce, sugar, grated ginger and added sliced beef and onion then cooked for about 20 mins or so with the lids closed. Then, pour it over the rice and add pickled ginger on top at the end. That's it. It is very tasty and wonderful.

We have a beef bowl fast food chain in Japan called "Yoshino-ya". They serve this beef bowl in fast food style. Actually, there is one in Manhattan also.

Anyway, my husband loved it also. It makes me feel little bit guilty because it is so easy but I get so much compliment from my husband. Well, I guess it is great!

A few weeks ago, I got a cold and stayed in bed for a day. My husband took a great care of me and he made torterilli for us.

It is torterilli with tomato and basil in butter sauce.

This was also really good. I don't know how exactly he made this since I was in bed but he even took some pictures for my blog. What a wonderful husband I have :-)

Torterilli is store bought and had cheese and garlic inside. The sauce had tomato, basil and green onion. He said he add butter to it.

When someone makes food for you, I think it taste much better than you make it for yourself. I am very fortunate to have someone who cook for me with lots of love when I can not cook.

Since my husband took great care of me, my cold is gone and I feel great now. I was very careful not to get cold but it is getting cold here and I have to pay extra caution such as washing my hands when I come home and stuff like that. I hope you guys won't get cold this winter wherever you are!

Trader Joe's Flammkuchen & Our Tomato Bruschetta

A few years ago, I visited a town which was a border of Germany and France. (I forgot the name of the town) and had their famous flammkuchen. I loved it so much. It looks kind of like pizza but it is very thin crust and comes with cream and bacon and caramelized onion. Oh, it was heavenly.

Since then, every time I go to Germany and find flammkuchen at a restaurant or cafe, I have to have it.

The other day, I went to Trader Joe's and found this flammkuchen in their frozen section. I immediately have to buy it. Then, I tried it that night. Since it was a frozen flammkuchen, I didn't have too much expectation, however this flammkuchen was really good!

It was creamy and bit tangy and sweet and salty at the same time. I definitely buy this again when I go to Trader Joe's next time. I love Trader Joe's!!

Well, flammkuchen was bit too small for two people so I also made tomato bruschetta. This is something I make quite often and it is easy but always good.

I just cut some baguette and drizzle olive oil and bake them in the broiler until it is crispy. Then, rub some garlic on it while it is hot. Then top with chopped tomato and mozzarella mixed with some olive oil and vinegar with salt and pepper. Oh, I also add some basil to it.

Easy yet delicious and fun!

It was such an easy dinner but very satisfying and delicious. Oh, I really want to eat that flammkuchen again! Trader Joe's, here I come!

Lobster Ravioli & Tomato Salad

I bought Lobster Ravioli at Trader Joe's. I don't think I ever had Lobster ravioli so I was curious how it taste. I just have to cook the ravioli and add some sauce to it and I used store-bought vodka sauce so this was easy dinner. I add some basil to make it a bit pretty.

This is the Lobster ravioli which I bought.

The taste was well, OK. It has a pretty strong lobster taste and I guess my husband and I are not too keen on Lobster taste. Well, it is lobster ravioli so it supposed to taste Lobster. It is our fault that we didn't know we don't like lobster too much. If you like lobster, I am sure you like this ravioli.

Vodka sauce was great. I love vodka sauce. I think it goes well with lobster ravioli.

Since we found out that we don't like the lobster taste too much, I will buy other kind of ravioli next time. I saw many different kind of raviolis at Trader Joe's so I would like to try other kind next time.

My husband made tomato salad on the side. He makes this tomato salad sometimes and I like it a lot. The dressing is just balsamic vinegar, heavy cream, salt and pepper. It is refreshing but quite mild taste from the heavy cream.

I don't eat ravioli too often but I would like to try more ravioli from now on. In a restaurant, I never order ravioli because normally they only have about 5 raviolis on a plate and it is never enough for me. (Am I being cheap?)

Anyway, ravioli looks cute. I want to try making ravioli at home sometimes. This will be a big challenge!

Refreshing Caprese Dinner

It is still quite hot in NY so I still feel like eating something refreshing and cold. I made caprese which is one my my husband's favorite dish.

This is so easy to make and always so tasty and satisfying.

I just cut grape tomatoes into two and also cut mini mozzarella balls as same size as the tomatoes. Then Julienne basil leaves and mix them together with some white balsamic vinegar, regular balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. That's it.

We like eating this with some kind of bread (preferably baguette) and soak the bread with the vinaigrette on the plate. My husband love bread so he was eating lots of bread with this dish.

He was so happy that I made this. I used to make this dish quite often when I was by myself but I kind of forgot about it recently, I will be making this more often from now on. Just to see my husband's happy face :-) This is a perfect dish for summer!

I like using white balsamic vinegar for this dish since it doesn't make the cheese dark. I think you can also mix this with cold pasta!

OK, this is something totally unrelated to cooking but lately in my household we are obsessed with "Prison Break". I am sure that many people know about this show since it had been showing on TV for a while now. I know about this show but I never get to watch it before and the other day I suggested to watch the first episode on DVD just to see how it is. (Well, the main reason I wanted to watch this show was the main actor in it. He is so good looking and I just wanted to watch him :-)

But my husband told me that he was also interested in this show so we decided to watch it. Then, we kind of got hooked.

Needless to say that the main actor (Wentworth Miller) was good looking but the story was pretty interesting and exciting!  And many of the actors in the show are really good. One of them is my husband's favorite Swedish actor (Peter Stormare)

In every episode, they are put in tough corners and I feel frustrated and excited at the same time. We haven't even fished watching season 1 but I am so excited to watch rest of the show.

I was checking the main actor's background on Wikipedia and found out that he graduated from Princeton University. He is good looking and seems like he is also smart. Well, I guess it doesn't matter which university he went in order to be a good actor but I think he is a good actor (at least perfect fit for this role). I am looking forward to seeing him in other roles in the future :-)

Linguine with white clam sauce

I like pasta with clam sauce especially white one. When I make this at home, I use canned clams and bottled clam juice. I know it looks and taste better to use the real clams with shells and all but this is super easy way to make clam sauce and it is super tasty.

The sauce is quite simple. It has garlic, green onion, clams, clam juice, lemon juice, heavy cream, white wine, parsley, basil, chili flakes and salt.

I have never seen clam juice when I was living in Japan. (Maybe because I did not cook much when I was in Japan.. ) This is very useful for cooking. I love it.

Making of this sauce is quite simple.
Saute garlic and green onion in the pan with some chili flakes. Add clams.

Add white wine, clam juice, heavy cream and lemon juice.

Add cooked linguine with parsley and basil.

Serve when it is hot.

This is really good and I don't add too much heavy cream to this so its quite light. Also, with lemon juice it is tangy and fresh!

This is such a tasty and fresh dish. I think it is perfect for a warm summer night with a glass of chilled white wine :-) Of course it will look better with the shelled real clams so if you are having a guest or something, I think it is better to use the shelled clams. It looks more gorgeous but for everyday home meal, this is perfect.

This dish is something which one of my roommate used to make for us (other roommates and I) sometimes. He was such a great cook and he used to cook lots of things when he had days off. That was when I first moved to the U.S. so some of the things he cook were pretty new to me and it was so much fun to eat great food which I was not familiar with.

One of his speciality was Chili Con Carne. His Chili Con Carne was the best! I have not talk to him for a long time and I don't know what and how he is doing now but I hope he is doing well.

Semi-Homemade Pizza on the weekend

When I was doing grocery shopping at my favorite supermarket called "Trader Joe's", a pizza dough in the fridge section came into my eyes. I am a pasta person, not pizza person but the weather was so nice outside and I suddenly felt like making a big round red pizza which looks like a sun :-)

I did not want to spend a lot of time making pizza dough and pizza sauce from scratch so I went semi-homemade this time. I bought pizza dough and pizza sauce from the store.

This is how they sell pizza dough. You just have to shape it and add topping.

Take out from the bag and shape it on the floured surface. Of course, I wanted to spin it around in the air like I see on TV but it was not as easy as it looked. I opted out for rolling pin.

This is the pizza sauce I used.

Thinly spread the sauce on top of the pizza dough.

Sprinkle some Mozzarella cheese on top.

Then, you can top it with whatever you like. We used onion, tomato, basil, olive, green pepper, mushroom, garlic and Italian sausage.

Half of the pizza was my side and the other half was my husband's side. Can you tell which is my side and which is my my husband's side?

We baked this for about 10 mins in the oven. At the end, we switched to broiler to make it little more brown.

This is how it came out. It came out really good.

This is my side of pizza.

And this is my husband side of pizza.

My husband loves olive but I am not too keen on them so his pizza has lots of olives and mine has none.

Pizza making was so easy and so much fun. And it is much cheaper than ordering from pizza place plus you can add whatever you like on your pizza as much as you want or as little as you want. You can control amount of sauce and cheese. I think it is a great idea to make pizza at home. Well, I have to say that pizza which was baked in a big hot stone oven with real fire is actually better than homemade pizza but it is also good to make it at home once in a while :-)

People think pizza is not healthy. It might not super healthy but by making it at home, we can make it healthier. We can use less cheese and more vegetables on our pizza.

The best part is shaping your own pizza and top with whatever you like. It was just a lot of fun. I think if you have kids, they would love making pizza at home. Maybe you can sneak some more vegetable on their pizza. They might even eat them if they made it on their own.

I thought about getting a pizza stone but since we don't make pizza too often at home, we don't really need it. But I still think about it. Maybe we will start making more pizza at home and then we might need one of those pizza stones :-)

Eating everyday with Grandma in Germany

My husband's grandma lives in a winery area of Germany so you can see the grape vines everywhere in whole surrounding neighborhood. We walked together between these grape vines. It must be very pretty in summer. Grandma also has her own garden which she makes vegetables and flowers. I wish I had a garden like hers. It is quite big and she takes good care of it. I heard that there are some places in NY where you can rent a garden but there is no garden or farm around where I live so there is no such a thing here. Too bad.

It seems like I had been eating non-stop when I was visiting grandma. I was pleasantly surprised how much grandma can eat and drink! I think she can eat and drink more than I do. Maybe it is her secret to longevity :-) She enjoy eating good food and drinking good wine or beer.

One of the restaurant which my husband's cousins took us was an Italian restaurant. This Italian restaurant was really good. We ordered about 6 appetizers and shared them and also had each main course.

There are not so many photos of appetizers we ordered but one of the appetizers which I liked was this octopus appetizer. It is not too easy to find octopus dishes in the U.S. so I was quite happy to eat this octopus. We eat octopus quite often in Japan so I miss this kind of food sometimes.

My main dish was pasta! Of course. They had something special like this rolled Lasagna. Isn't it a great idea to roll up Lasagna like this? It was with porcini mushroom and the thick creamy sauce was divine! This was really really good. I would like to recreate this at home sometimes.

Grandma was eating Mushroom Tortellini. This was also very creamy and rich and delicious. Since I was sitting right next to grandma, I stole a few of her tortellini :-) It was sooooo good!

I never imagined that Italian food can be this good in Germany. Who knew, right? I feel like the quality of food at restaurants in Germany are really good. Maybe because people always take me to good restaurants but so far all the restaurants I went in Germany were really good!

The following night, we went to a neighborhood restaurant and ate a lot again.

I had stake at this restaurant. Look at this garlic! This was great for a garlic lover like me!
Also the potato croquette on the side reminded me of Japan because we also eat potato croquette.

My stake came with salad. I liked salad in Germany because salad dressing is mild and salad leaves are very tender.

My husband was eating Spaetzle which is a special noodle in Germany. I have made this at home before. It is great with cheese and sauteed onion.

Grandma was eating two kind of fish special with some vegetables and pasta. It is quite and amount isn't it?

I was happy to be able to visit grandma. This was the second time for me to see her and I really enjoyed spending time with her. She is just so cute! Her smile make me feel very happy. And, I realized that she likes eating like I do :-) I am looking forward to seeing her again sometime soon!

Three kind of mushroom risotto recipe

I love mushrooms and ever time when I go to a Japanese grocery store, I purchase different kinds of mushroom.

This time I bought Maitake,

shimeji,

and Shiitake mushrooms.

I would like to enjoy the mushroom flavor so I thought about what will be the best dish to have intense mushroom flavor. My favorite mushroom dishes are pasta & risotto. Last time when I bought different kinds of mushrooms, I made pasta so this time I decided to make risotto.

Three Kinds of Mushroom Risotto (2~3 serving)
Ingredients
Shiitake mushroom  4~5
Maitake Mushroom  1 pack
Shimeji Mushroom   1 pack
Garlic   3 cloves
Onion   1
Arborio rice    1 cup
Homemade Chicken stock  4~5 cups
Parmesan Cheese     3/4 cup
Soy Sauce   1 table spoon
Butter        3 table spoon
Olive Oil    3 table spoon
Red Chili flakes   1 tea spoon
White wine    1/2 cup + 2 table spoons
Salt & Peppers  for taste
Chives       2 table spoons
Truffle oil   (optional)

1. Cut mushrooms in to bite sizes. Chop onion and garlic.

2. Heat up  Chicken stock on stove and keep it warm .

3. In a frying pan, heat 2 table spoon of butter and 1 table spoon of olive oil. Add garlic and saute little bit, add mushroom and saute until soft. Then add salt, pepper, soy sauce, red chili flakes. When it is cooked, add 2 table spoons of white wine and let it evaporate. Turn the heat off.

4. In a pot, add 2 table spoon of olive oil. Add onion and saute till soft.

5. When the onion is soft, add rice and coat them with oil until the rice looks transparent. Then, add 1/2 cup of white wine and let it evaporate.

6. Add 1 ladleful of chicken stock and mix well until rice absorb the liquid. When rice absorb the liquid, add more chicken stock. One ladle at a time. repeat the process until rice is soft.

7. Add half of the sautéed mushroom, Parmesan cheese and 1 table spoon of butter and mix.

8. Serve on a plate. Sprinkle with chopped chives. If you would like you can also sprinkle Truffle oil.

This risotto is like a mushroom lover's dream. I like my risotto on a liquidly side but you can make it thicker if you would like. Once you learn how to make risotto, it is quite easy to make and you can make it with different kinds of ingredients if you like but for me, mushroom risotto is the best risotto.