Shakshuka with Swiss Chard

Photo from The Diabetes Cookbook
for Electric Pressure Cookers.
Used with permission.

I always celebrate a little when someone I know has published their first cookbook, and this time it's even a little more special since Shelby Kinnaird was one of the first bloggers I got friendly with when my blog was fairly new.

Her book is The Diabetes Cookbook for Electric Pressure Cookers, and I was tickled to get a review copy to peruse. And cook from.

Shelby is pretty good at coming up with creative recipes that don't stand up and shout "I'm good for you!" or that seem like they're some kind of special restrictive diet. You'll find plenty of fresh ingredients, and, as she mentioned to me, there's only one recipe with an artificial sweetener, but that can be subbed for regular sugar if you prefer.

As I browsed through the book, I decided I was hungry enough to want to make something right away, so I chose the Shakshuka with Swiss Chard. Unfortunately, I didn't have any Swiss chard or anything else that resembled it. But I decided to make it anyway, subbing other friendly vegetables for the chard.

I also cut back on the recipe since I was just cooking for me, and eggs aren't exactly stellar when reheated. And then I had to fiddle with the technique a bit, since it calls for setting a pressure cooker for 0 minutes, but mine won't go lower than on minute.

My version of the book's shakshuka. So yummy!

Still, I think it was a good example of what you'll find in the book.

The other recipe I considered making right away was a Mexican zucchini casserole, because I happened to have the right ingredients. There were plenty of other recipes that sounded good, but would have required shopping, and I was too hangry for that.

But still, I've got cauliflower on the shopping list to make the Parmesan Cauliflower Mash. That sounds like a perfect side dish, doesn't it?

The book has everything from breakfasts to side dishes to main dishes to desserts, so there's something for everyone.

Since I mangled the original recipe so much, I'm giving you the recipe as it appears in the book:

Shakshuka with Swiss Chard
Serves 4 (110 carbs per serving)
Recipe reprinted with permission from The Diabetes Cookbook for Electric Pressure Cookers by Shelby Kinnaird  and Simone Harounian

Need a great brunch option? Try shakshuka, a dish where eggs are cooked in a seasoned tomato sauce. This version leans towards the Mediterranean with flavors of basil, oregano, garlic, thyme, rosemary, and marjoram. Your EPC needs to be at low pressure for this recipe. The first time I made it, I use high pressure and my eggs ended up overcooked. Look for a pasta sauce that's low in sugar and sodium (or make your own).

4 ounces Swiss chard (about 4 large stems and leaves)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black peper
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 1/2 cups Marinara Sauce with Red Lentils (from the book) or tomato-based pasta sauce
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons freshly grated parmesan cheese

Separate the stems from the leaves of the Swiss chard. Finely chop the stem; you'll need about 1/2 cup. Stack the leaves, slice into thin strips, then chop. Set aside.

Set the electric pressure cooker to the saute setting. When the pot is hot, pour in the olive oil

Add the Swiss chard stems, onion, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning to the pot and saute for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the vegetables begin to soften.

Add the Swiss chard leaves and garlic and saute for 2 more minutes.

Hit cancel. Add the pasta sauce and let the pot cool for 5 minutes.

Make 4 evenly-spaced indentions in the sauce mixture. Carefully crack an egg into a custard cup, then pour it into one of the indentions. (Note you can crack the eggs directly into the pot, but the whites will spread out more and the eggs won't look as nice.)

Close and lock the lid of the pressure cooker. Set the valve to sealing.

Select low pressure and set the timer for 0 minutes.

When the cooking is complete, hit Cancel and quick release the pressure.

Once the pin drops, unlock and remove the lid.

Sprinkle with parsley and parmesan, and serve immediately.

Substitution tip: If you don't have any Swiss chard, use 1/2 cup bell pepper to replace the stems and 2 cups kale or spinach to replace the leaves.

I received a review copy of the book at no cost to me.

There's a giveaway on Shelby's Facebook page for the book and more goodies! Good luck!

Yum

Simply Tomato Soup

I love soup, and one of my favorite soups is tomato. Sometimes I like it with rice, sometimes I like it with noodles, and sometimes I even add carrots. I love tomato soup so much that I even like the stuff that comes in the red and white cans. And it makes a nice companion for a grilled cheese sandwich.

When I found a tomato soup recipe in a book called The Quick Six Fix, I had to give it a try. I mean, it's tomato soup. It would have been crazy for me not to give it a try.

The concept of the book is that there are pantry ingredients that you should have on hand at all times, and you should need no more than six additional items to make any recipe. Also, you should be able to do the prep work in six minutes or less, and the cleanup should also take six minutes or less.

Most of the recipes also cook quickly - 30 minutes or less. Some take longer, but it's generally hands-off cooking. And ... there are cleanup tips within the recipes. Like, if you've just emptied a pot in the middle of a recipe, it might tell you that you ought to soak the pot now for easier cleaning when you're all done.

As far as on-hand ingredients, most of us have things that we keep around at all times because they're the ones we know we like enough to keep them in the pantry or fridge.

What you keep in stock is probably different from what I have on hand, but there are probably some things that most of us have. The basics of salt, pepper and olive oil (or another cooking oil) are pretty obvious, but this book has a more comprehensive list of "must have" and "nice to have" items.

I agreed with most of it, except perhaps the coconut milk (I don't like coconut) and the heavy cream. I don't use heavy cream often enough for it to be something that's always on hand. I buy it when I need it for a recipe, then I find something else to do with the rest.

On the other hand, my list of must-have items is probably longer than what's in the book. I have more spices, for sure, and several types of cheese. And tortillas. And bread flour, whole wheat flour, semolina flour, dry yeast ... but that's just me.

If someone was starting a new kitchen, they could take his list to the store and have a good selection of food to work with. Of course, eliminating things that they don't like. If someone doesn't like olives, there's no reason to buy them right?

So anyway, when you get to recipes in the book, the non-standard items are in bold print, so if you actually follow the concept, you'll know right away what you need to buy. In this recipe, there were only two non-standard items: the baguette and the basil leaves.

I decided not to make the baguette toast, and I substituted a few other things. I always have tomato products on hand, so I used what I had and didn't go looking for San Marzanos. I knew it would be an annoying search to find exactly the tomatoes listed in the recipe. I know for sure that I can find whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes, but I've never seen diced ones at the stores I go to. I'll look for them next time I'm raiding the tomato aisle, though. But I always have at least a few cans of other types of diced tomatoes.

And then I used some frozen basil that I had, rather than going out to the store for fresh. While fresh basil is great, this was getting stirred into a hot soup, so I didn't think it would make that much different. So I made this without needing to go shopping at all.

I'd suggest that if you make this, you add the chili flakes, salt, and pepper to taste. Particularly the chili flakes. Those can be fairly mild or they can be raging hot. So add as much as you like, keeping in mind that this is soup and not salsa. When it comes to salt, I usually start with about half of what a recipe suggests and I add more until it tastes right to me. Sometimes I don't need as much as a recipe suggests, and sometimes I need more.

A nice garnish for this soup is a little dollop of Greek yogurt. Or with crackers and some blue cheese, if you don't feel like making parmesan toast. Just my suggestion.

Simply Tomato Soup
Adapted from The Quick Six Fix by Stuart O'Keeffe

For the soup:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 medium onions, diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon dried chili flakes, or to taste
2 teaspoons kosher salt, or to taste
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
2 28-ounce cans diced San Marzano tomatoes
2 cups vegetable stock (I used chicken stock)
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
10 basil leaves, torn

For the toast:
3/4 cup shaved parmesan
14-inch length of baguette. sliced diagonally into 1-inch slices

Heat the oil over medium heat in a pot large enough to hold all the soup ingredients. dd the onion, garlic, chili flakes, salt, and pepper. Cook for until the onions have softened, about 5-7 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, vegetable stock and sugar. Simmer on medium for 10 minutes, then turn the heat off.

A couple notes here. First, I used chicken stock, because that's what I had. Also, it comes in 1-quart (4 cup) boxes. I measured out 2 cups to set aside, but my tomatoes were really thick, so I ended up using the whole 4 cups. And last, it took a while for this to come up to a simmer. So be prepared for that. Oh, and really last, you can let it simmer longer if you like.

Sprinkle the parmesan on the bread and toast under the broiler until the cheese has melted. Watch carefully. It goes from nothing to char pretty quickly. Timing depends on how close your oven rack is to your broiler.

Puree the soup, along with the butter. You can use a stick blender, or pour the soup into a blender.

Return the soup to the pot (if you used a blender) stir in the basil, and serve warm with the toast.

I received this book from the publisher at no cost to me.

Yum

Watermelon Gazpacho

Spouts, one of the food chains in this area, has started a monthly blogger get-together, and the second one I attended was at a cooking school called Cook Street School of Culinary Arts. And I've got their Watermelon Gazpacho recipe for you.

This is a view of where we had our class.

The theme was pizza. 

Pizzas are baking!

Here's another shot of the pizza oven. Isn't it great?

Needless to say, I rocked it with the dough-making, kneading, and shaping. Maybe I showed off a little bit. Diego, the sole Sprouts representative at the event, seemed like he had a lot of fun even though his pizza wasn't exactly round. He was a good sport!

We also stretched mozzarella, which was fun. They suggested that you can buy mozzarella curd, but you can also make your own - I've actually done it, and it's fun. (Why haven't I blogged about it? I have no idea!) To make it easier, you can buy a kit for making the cheese from scratch. Or actually from milk. But you knew what I meant, right?

They gave us a bunch of recipes to take home, for pizza, sauce, green goddess dressing, and a basil pesto, but the one that really intrigued me was the watermelon gazpacho. Which was one of the few things we didn't have our hands on. It was served to us as a little starter as the people from the cooking school introduced themselves and told us about what we were going to be doing.

Here's my finished pizza. And yes, that's a glass of wine.

The thing I thought was most interesting about the watermelon gazpacho was that it really didn't taste like watermelon. The tomato flavor was much more pronounced. What the watermelon added was a freshness and lightness. It wasn't like drinking pureed tomatoes.

And then there was the dollop of cheese on top - a blend of creme fraiche and feta that I wanted to steal off of everyone else's glass. I didn't know what it was, but I have to say I was pleased it was so simple. I can imagine using it as a dip with the addition of some herbs or as a dressing on fresh tomatoes and cucumbers.

I usually don't publish other people's recipes here, but I liked this so much I wanted to save it to make later. The recipe makes quite a bit, but it should be easy enough to cut this in half or even make just 1/4 of it.

Watermelon Gazpacho
Courtesy of Cook Street School of Culinary Arts

5 cups watermelon, small dice
4 tomatoes, cored, small dice
1 English cucumber, small dice
1/2 cup red onion, small dice
2 Fresno chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded, and brunoised (a really small dice)
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons cumin seeds, toasted and finely ground
2 ounces feta
1/2 cup creme fraiche
Salt, to taste

Puree half of each of the watermelon, tomato, cucumber, onion, and chile with the vinegar, oil, and cumin in a blender until smooth. Taste and adjust the salt and vinegar, as desired. If it's too thick, add more cucumber or tomato.

Fold in the remaining watermelon and vegetables.

Puree the feta and creme fraiche.

Serve the gazpacho with a small dollop of the feta mix.

Thanks to Sprouts and Cook Street School of Culinary Arts for sponsoring and hosting the event. Some photos are courtesy of Sprouts; photos with captions are mine.

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Tomato Rolls with a Herb and Cream Cheese Swirl

Let's just get this out there. I love tomato powder. I use it sort of like tomato paste or tomato sauce, but it's more concentrated, and it doesn't add extra liquid, so it's easy to work with.

So, when my buddies at 37 Cooks hooked up with The Spice House and we could pick anything we wanted, of course I wanted the tomato powder. Along with a few other things.

Well, actually a lot of things. I stocked up on things I use all the time and I also picked up a few new things to try, like the ancho-coffee rub and the porcini salt.

Even before the tomato powder arrived, I knew I wanted to use in in bread, somehow. I've made breads before with tomato powder and cheddar cheese, with tomato powder and olives, and I've made flatbreads with bits of sundried tomatoes.

I even made rolls with a swirl of tomato bread along with white bread.

After I pondered a while, I decided on tomato swirl rolls, and I decided that the swirl would be filled with cream cheese and the Sunny Greek seasoning that I also got from The Spice House.

And then I got to work.

I don't know what it is about swirl rolls, but I love making them, no matter if they're sweet or savory. They're just fun.

And the rolls are pretty much never identical, which I also like. It's not ideal if you're baking for a bakery, but I like the idea that I can have a small roll if that's what I want, or a larger roll. Or one with more or less filling. Because that's how I am. Sort of random and chaotic.

Tomato Rolls with a Herbed Cream Cheese Swirl

For the filling:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 tablespoon Spice House Sunny Greek seasoning

For the dough:
1 1/2 cups water
2 1/4 tablespoons Red Star active dry yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
13 1/2 ounces bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons tomato flour
1/2 cup potato flakes (instant mashed potatoes)

To make the filling:
Combine the cream cheese and herbs in a small bowl and mix until well combined. Set aside at room temperature until needed.

To make the dough:
Combine all of the ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer and knead until the dough is smooth, shiny, and elastic. Cover the bowl and set aside until the dough doubles in size, about an hour.

When the dough has risen, flour your work surface and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x13 baking pan with baking spray.

Turn out the dough and roll it into a rectangle about 11 x 16 inches. With one of the long sides of the dough facing you. spread the filling over the top of the dough, leaving about an inch uncovered on the far side. It can be easier to spread the filling with your fingertips rather than using a spatula.

Roll the dough up, jellyroll-style, and not too tight, and seal the seam when you reach the far end.

If the roll is very uneven, roll and nudge is so it's a fairly even thickness, then cut the roll into 12 even pieces. Place the pieces, with one of the cut sides up, in the baking pan.

Cover the pan and set aside until the dough has doubles, about 30 minutes.

Bake at 350 degrees until lightly browned on top - the sides tend to brown more than the top. Remove the pan from the oven and turn the buns out to cool on a rack.

I received products to work with from The Spice House through 37 Cooks.

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Pressure Cooker Cream of Tomato Rice Soup

I've been on a tomato kick lately. Seems like everything I make has tomatoes in it - fresh tomatoes in salad, tomato sauce in a side dish, diced tomatoes in something else. I've been craving pasta with tomato sauce, but haven't made it yet.

So, when I made some baby back ribs by starting them in my Instant Pot, I saved the resulting broth and decided I should use it to make soup. Pork stock and pork broth don't seem to be very common, but my mom ALWAYS started her tomato soup with pork stock.

So, of course ...

I made tomato soup.

In the Instant Pot.

It was sooooo easy, it was ridiculous. I mean, I'm used to soups that simmer forever on the stove, but this was done in no time. Even the rice.

You might wonder why I use evaporated milk in this recipe. There are actually two reasons. First, it's thicker and creamier than if I used regular milk. More milk, less water, basically. Second, it's less likely to curdle than regular milk.

If the milk does curdle, it's not going to kill you. It doesn't actually taste much different. But you end up with little tiny milk bits that give the soup a less-smooth texture.

Curdling happens because you're mixing milk with an acid. It's what you do on purpose when you're making something like lemon cheese or a fresh farmer's style cheese. But it's not what you want to happen when you're making tomato soup.

Make sure you're using evaporated milk, and not sweetened condensed. If you use sweetened condensed, this will probably be awful. And then you will hate me and send me strange emails about your weirdly sweet inedible soup.

Pressure Cooker Cream of Tomato Soup

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium onion, peeled diced
1 teaspoon salt (to taste - consider whether your stock is salty or not)
2-3 carrots, peeled and cut in thin coins
1 quart stock*
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes (tomato puree is also good)
1 14.5 ounce can petite diced tomatoes
1/4 cup long-grain rice (I like jasmine rice)
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk (NOT CONDENSED!)
Fresh herbs, for garnish (optional)

*I like pork stock for tomato soup, but chicken or vegetable stock is fine - homemade or your favorite store bought. In a pinch, you can use water.

Melt butter on saute setting in the Instant Pot (or other brand of electric pressure cooker). Add the onion as soon as you have it diced. Add the salt. Cook, stirring once in a while. Add the carrots as soon as you have them sliced. Continue cooking until the onions are softened and no longer have their harsh flavor.

Add the stock, crushed tomatoes, and diced tomatoes. Stir to combine. Sprinkle the rice on top. Close the Instant Pot and set for high pressure, 15 minutes.

When the time is up, release the pressure. It will be boiling furiously. Let it cool down a bit, then pour in the evaporated milk slowly, while constantly stirring the soup. Taste for seasoning and add more salt, if desired.

Garnish with some thinly sliced basil leaves, or other fresh herbs of your choice, if desired.

Yum

Short rib, carrot, and tomato stew

I love short ribs. Lately, I've been obsessed with cooking them sous vide. The texture is totally different than what you get when you cook them any other way. But sous vide short ribs cook for a looong time. The recipe I use cooks for 72 hours.

Although I love that style of short ribs, change is good. So is speed. Thus, the decision to wrangle the ribs in my Instant Pot, using the pressure cooker function. Or, more accurately, I used one of the pre-sets to make it even easier.

The result was ... well, comfort food. The meat was tender, the carrots were perfect, the sauce was tasty, and it was just what I wanted.

Speaking of sauce, serve this with something to take advantage of that sauce. Crusty bread for sopping it up would be nice. Or simple boiled or mashed potatoes. Just don't waste it.

Short Rib, Carrot, and Tomato Stew

2 pounds beef short ribs

1 14.5-ounce can petite diced tomatoes

1/2 can (just eyeball it) water. Or measure about 3/4 cup, if you tossed the can.

1 onion, diced

1 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon salt (or your favorite seasoned salt) or to taste

1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper, or to taste

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar (optional)

1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into chunks (I like carrots a lot. Use as many as you like)

Put the short ribs, tomatoes, water, onion, oregano, salt, and pepper into the Instant Pot. Put the cover on, make sure the knob is set to sealing and not venting, and press the "meat/stew" button. Make sure it's set for 50 minutes.

When the time is up, turn the pot off and let the pressure reduce for 15 minutes. When the time is up, turn the knob to vent any remaining pressure. Taste the sauce for seasoning and add salt and/or pepper as desired. If the sauce needs a little brightness, add the red wine vinegar. 

Add the carrots and put the lid on the pot again, with the knob set for sealing. Set the cooker for manual, high pressure, and 6 minutes to cook the carrots. When the time is up, turn the cooker off and wait 10 minutes before releasing pressure.

You can serve this immediately, but I prefer cooling meats like this and reheating before serving. If you refrigerate it, it's easy to peel off the fat from the stew. If you serve immediately, you might want to skim off some of the excess fat before serving.

I received the Instant Pot through 37 Cooks for a post on our group blog. I am not obligated to keep posting about it. I'm just having fun.

Yum

It was all spaghetti - even when it wasn't

Let me make one thing abundantly clear. My mother wasn't Italian. She wasn't even the littlest bit close to Italian. She was so far from Italian that I knew what ravioli was before she did. I came home from grade school all excited about this magical new food served in the cafeteria - ravioli. And no matter how I tried to describe it, she just couldn't get it.

So, when it came to cooking anything resembling Italian food, it was all spaghetti. Even when it was mostaccioli or rotini. If it was served with a tomato-based sauce, it was spaghetti. And all tomato-based sauces were simply called spaghetti sauce. There was no such thing as Bolognese or marinara in our house.

Nope. We got spaghetti with spaghetti sauce, even if it was fettuccini with marinara.

Now I know better, but even so ... there are times when I think about making spaghetti, but end up making rigatoni instead. Because when I go see what noodles I have on hand, there are no long thin noodles. And I'm fine with that. I pretty much love noodles of all shapes and sizes.

I was feeling a little bit out-of-sorts the other day and the best cure for that is nostalgic comfort food, so I decided that recreating one of mom's non-spaghetti spaghetti recipes would make me happy. In other parts of the country, this might be called hot dish or goulash. In my house, this was just one of the things that might have been served when mom said we were having "spaghetti."

I used mini wagon wheels. They were one of my favorite past shapes when I was a kid.

Wheels and Sauce

1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
1 large bell pepper (any color you like), cored, seeded, and diced
1 tablespoon dry oregano
Salt, to taste
1 jar ready-made pasta sauce (Your own or store bought. I used Ragu.)
1/2 pound pasta, any shape (I used mini wagon wheels! wheeee!)
Grated cheese, for serving

Heat a large saute pan on medium heat and add the ground beef, onion, pepper, and oregano. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring as needed until the meat and vegetables are cooked through.

Add the sauce and stir to combine. Taste for seasoning, and add more salt, if desired. Lower the heat to a simmer and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, while you cook the pasta.

Cook your pasta as desired, then add it to the meaty sauce in the pan. Cook for another minute and give it one last taste. Serve with grated cheese, if desired.

Last week, I wrote a sponsored post for Ragu with a different recipe and I used a similar Ragu sauce here, because I bought more than one jar to work with. However, this post is not sponsored. It's just a recipe. Using a jar of sauce that I bought. 

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Rigatoni "Lasagna"

Note: This is a sponsored post for a pasta sauce, but the words and recipe and photos are all mine.

I still remember - vividly - the first time I tasted lasagna. I was about 9 years old, and my mom and I, along with my mom's lady friend, had been invited to dinner at the apartment of a single fellow who happened to own the local grocery store.

He was making lasagna. I'd never heard of it before, but I was pretty much interested in any kind of Italian food. So I was more than happy to be there.

The truth was that mom's friend was the one who was invited to dinner, but it wasn't proper for a lady to visit a man's apartment by herself, so mom and I tagged along. I realize that now. Back then, we were just going to dinner.

I have no recollection of what else was served, but when that lasagna hit my plate with the beautiful layers, I was intrigued. When I took my first bite, I might have heard angels singing. I know I had a second helping. Perhaps a third.

I might have eaten more than any adult at the table, and if I could have figured out a way to run out the door with the leftovers, I might have done that, too. I was in love.

As far as I know, that was mom's first experience with lasagna, too. Although I begged her to make it for us, she never did. I don't know if it was simply too much trouble or if it was that she had no idea how to make it.

But every single time I saw lasagna on a restaurant menu, that's what I ordered. And I knew that when I was old enough, I was going to make lasagna.

Eventually, I did learn how to make lasagna. I tweaked the recipe and I made giant batches, enough to feed entire neighborhoods, because it really was a project. If I was going to make it, I might as well make a whole lot of it. Some to eat, some to freeze.

These days, my lasagna-making is usually reserved for special occasions, but that doesn't mean I've abandoned it entirely. This layered rigatoni dish has the flavors of lasagna, but it's simple. Very simple. And by using jarred Ragu sauce, it takes very little time.

Just look at the layers!

My mom used Ragu Pasta Sauce quite often, and like many other things that I grew up with, I didn't think a whole lot about the history of the product. It was just there. I probably never would have looked it up, but I got the info as part of this sponsorship.

The company was founded by a woman named Assunta Cantisano, who came to the US in 1914 - just a little bit before my mom was born. Later, during the depression, Assunta started selling her home-made tomato sauce to her neighbors, and pretty soon that turned into the company we know as Ragu. By the time I was born, Ragu was everywhere. Even my mom's kitchen.

Back then, there were a lot fewer flavor choices in the Ragu brand. Now there are a lot of different options, including chunky, smooth, meaty, and a whole lot of others. Do you use Ragu? Which ones do you like?

Oh! If you're worried about what's in a jar of sauce, Ragu has no artificial flavors and no HFCS.

Ah, but there's MORE.

There's a contest running on Food.com called Ready. Set. Cook! They're asking you to create new and unique recipes featuring Ragu sauce and using a set list of other ingredients. Go check it out and maybe you can win something. I like it when my readers win stuff!

Rigatoni Lasagna
aka Layered Rigatoni with Cheese

1/2 pound dry rigatoni or similar pasta
1 jar Ragu Super Chunky Mushroom
1 pound ricotta cheese
2 eggs
2 cups shredded mozzarella (or to taste)
Grated parmesan or romano cheese (optional)

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and have an 8- or 9-inch baking dish standing by.

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water until al dente.

While you're cooking the pasta, combine the ricotta and eggs in a small bowl. Mix until well blended.

When the pasta is done, drain the water and stir in the Ragu. (Note: I used to Super Chunky Mushroom because I'm a bit of a mushroom fiend, but this would work equally well with any of the other flavors or varieties.)

Mix until well combined. It might be a little soupy - that's fine, the pasta will absorb some of the sauce as it bakes.

Put half of the sauced pasta in the baking dish. There should be enough to cover the entire bottom of the dish.

Add the ricotta mixture to the baking dish in an even layer. Top with the remaining pasta and sauce.

Sprinkle the cheese on top of the pasta in an even layer. You can add more or less, to taste. If you like, sprinkle some parmesan or romano cheese on top.

Bake the pasta at 350 degrees until the cheese is melted and brown in spots, and the sauce is bubbling around the edges, about 30 minutes.

Remove the baking pan from the oven and place it on a trivet or folded kitchen towel (it's hot!).

Let the pasta rest for 5 minutes or so before serving.

Giveaway is over.

Yum

Shrimp with Marsala and Tomatoes

Seafood is ideal when you don't have a lot of time to cook. While shrimp isn't the cheapest thing at the store, frozen shrimp is great to have on hand. I buy it when it's on sale and stash it in the freezer for nights when I need a quick dinner.

This dish is not only quick to cook, you can also cook the tomato/vegetable mix ahead of time, and then reheat it and add the shrimp at the last second. Great for nights when you want to have dinner on the table a few minutes after you get home.

The Piment d'Espelette is a special type of paprika that comes from a specific area in France. It has a little bit of heat to it, but not a lot - it's certainly not like cayenne. If you don't have it, regular paprika is fine. Depending on your preference, you can use either sweet or sharp paprika.

You might notice that I used a cooking wine for this. I keep a few bottles on-hand for convenience, because I don't always want to open a bottle of good drinking wine just for a small amount for a recipe. A while back, I did some sponsored posts for Holland House, and I liked the product so much, I continue to buy it.

Because cooking wine has salt in it (to make it unpalatable for drinking, which is why they don't sell it as booze) you may not need to add much salt to recipes where you use it. As always, taste the food when it's nearly done and add salt if you think you need it.

I thought this was particularly good on top of rice or polenta, but you could also serve it as-is, or with pasta.

Shrimp with Marsala and Tomatoes

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, peel and cut into chunks
1/2 orange bell pepper, cored and cut into chunks
1/2 teaspoon Piment d'Espelette (or paprika)
1 14.5-ounce can petite diced tomatoes
1/4 cup marsala cooking wine
Salt and white pepper, to taste
2 pounds peeled raw shrimp (if it's frozen, thaw it)

Heat the olive oil in a saute pan. Add the onion and bell pepper and cook, stirring as needed, until the vegetables are almost cooked through.

Add the tomatoes and continue cooking, stirring as needed, until the liquid is reduced and thickened.

Take the pan off the heat and add the wine (to keep it from flaming). Place it back on the heat and cook for a few more minutes to reduce it again. Add a few grinds of white pepper. Taste for seasoning and add salt, if desired.

Add the shrimp and cook, stirring often, until the shrimp is just opaque.

Serve immediately.

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