And then there were 6 (Bean Salad)

A little play on words there..:) Which reminds me, last week while slinking through the back alley of a particular North Park neighborhood with The Hunebee, we stumbled upon a couple crates of discarded library books. Beneath the heap of junky magazines were some great finds. I walked away with a small stack of cookbooks, an old copy of "Moby dick" and "Bound for Glory," by Woody Guthrie. It was an added excitement to Monday Menu Madness...I love free stuff. One man's junk was definitely our treasure.

As of this week I have taken on two more people, which puts me at 6 personally tailored menus for the weeks to come. The first is Jesse, The Hunebee's littlest brother, and one of the sweetest boys I know. The second is another one of Vapure's "gems" Zachariah, he works in the awesome Oceanside store with Ty. I was busy before but like I said in "Winner, Winner Chicken dinner..." The more the merrier! It can only give me more to blab about when telling my stories of "Adventures in Monday Menus."

On to a whole new realm of cooking on the side. I want to thank all my friends for giving me the opportunity to hang out in my kitchen all day creating things I hope they'll love!

Here is another one of those great bean salads for The Hunebee.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Servings: 2

Cost for 1 jar: $3.75

Ingredients:

1 15oz. can of garbanzo beans
1/3 cup roma tomatoes
1/8 cup red bell pepper
1 scallion
1 Tbs. fresh basil
1/3 cup of red wine vinegar
2 Tbs. olive oil
Dash of dried parsley
salt and pepper

Directions:

Rinse beans and set them aside to drain. Dice the tomatoes, and peppers to same medium size and slice a whole scallion. Tear the fresh basil and add vinegar, oil, parsley, salt and pepper, mix. Add the beans and marinate or eat right away.

ENJOY!

*Here is a fun little clip showing how I had to find a much better spot for my "new" old books:)

Blue Mac 'n' Cheese...NOT from the Box

I asked for requests on Facebook and this one came from Grampa Brian Bigler. I posted this picture in my 2014 update, but it wasn't accompanied by a recipe. 

Tyler hates blue cheese, and my sister Amanda as well. They both loved this. Amanda makes her own version now:)

Ingredients:

1/2 lb. of Macaroni "mini" shells

1 8oz. pkg. of mushrooms, sliced

12 oz. of sausage (I used breakfast Sausage links)

1 cup Boar's Head blue cheese crumbles

3 oz. or about 1/3 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese

1 1/2-2 cups of milk

2 tsp. dried parsley

salt and pepper

Directions:

Saute mushrooms and set aside. Do the same with the sausage, although it wasn't ground so you have to do that yourself, drain the excess oil and set aside. Cook your pasta in salted water, drain and then begin your sauce. Turn the heat to medium on the low side and add your milk and the mozzarella. You'll need a wire whisk for this part. Whisk the cheese until it fully melts into the Milk and no longer sticks to the whisk. Once it's fully incorporated add the blue cheese, and again whisk until its blended. At the end I add a little parsley, salt and pepper.(to taste) Mix in all the other ingredients and you're done! I have found this is a dish that should be eaten right after preparation. It still tastes great later or tomorrow, but the sauce thickens and loses it's creamy texture. 

ENJOY!

Not my Gramma's Aglio e Olio!

I just noticed I used "Not" in my last posts' title also...oh well, this time it was more of a play on that show title, "My Grandmother's Ravioli," with Mo Rocca. Yesterday for Monday Menu Madness I made two different kinds of pasta for the boys. I'm only sharing one today and it's Kuizzy's. He doesn't have any real food allergies, but we take it easy on the dairy and since the other sauce I made was a cream on cream on cheese I chose a Kui version of something I grew up with. A traditional "Aglio e Olio" is a very basic sauce but jammmm packed with flavors and very easily modified...which I love since my cooking is a-my-take-on-your-food approach. The sauce is basically olive oil, garlic, and parsley. Kuizzy loves, LOVES, LLOOVVEESSS cilantro, so if you see a reoccuring theme of cilantro being where you might not think it should go BLAME him;)

This is for 1/2 pound of pasta, I used linguine. Again this recipe is modified for Kui since I have 4 bushelllllls of cilantro and love to improvise. Don't judge me Terracciano's!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup olive oil

3 cloves fresh garlic

1/3 cup cilantro

salt and pepper

Directions:

In a saucepan "quick" fry the fine chopped garlic and parsley add salt and pepper. AND quick cause garlic burns fast. Have your pasta drained and waiting for the sauce. And thats it, quick easy healthy and you can use Gluten Free, quinoa, or rice noodles if you can't have the regular. ENJOY!

Thank you Nena<3