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This is a solid pasta dinner that I have made a handful of times. I like it because the sauce is quick and easy but still flavorful. Perfect for the times when I don’t have any marinara in the freezer.

It is based on a recipe I found in the June 2008 issue of Bon Appetit for Rigatoni with Spicy Sausage - Tomato Sauce, Arugula and Parmesan…and breath. Really, who is naming their recipes these days? (Wow, I just learned that it’s arugUla not arugAla. That explains my difficulty finding this recipe link.)

So, the basis of this dish is a quick tomato sauce that cooks for about 30 minutes with onion, garlic, red wine, spicy sausage, tomatoes, arugula, basil, oregano, and parmigiano cheese.

The changes I make to this are that I use only crushed tomatoes instead of crushed and diced (texture thing), spicy chicken sausage instead of pork, and spinach instead of arugula. Sometimes I break the sausage up into the sauce like recipe states, and other times I poach the sausage, slice it and then add it to the sauce. Sometimes I use all hot sausage and other times a mix of hot and sweet. You could also easily used a pre-cooked andouille or chorizo in here as well. It is very adaptable to what you feel like doing at the time.

This is a nice hearty meal that is super easy to put together, which is a must have for me during the week. I really look forward to coming home every night and having a nice hot meal with Nick. After a day of really watching what I eat, I love to be able to fill my tummy with some comforting yet healthy (or at least somewhat healthy meal). It is a way to reward myself and unwind from the day. I sound like that stupid “family table” commercial, but I think it is true. My family almost always ate a dinner together every night when I was growing up and I think it is important to continue that even if it is only Nick and I.

I will be submitting this to Rachel of The Crispy Cook for Presto Pasta Nights, a great weekly pasta roundup founded by Ruth of Once Upon A Feast.

The recipe with my changes is after the jump.

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This weeks Craving Ellie in My Belly is Chicken Sate with a Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce. It was chosen by the hilariously funny Cathy of The Tortefeasor. It can be found at the aforementioned Food Network link or on page 54-55 of The Food You Crave. This is in the appetizer section of the book, but I decided to make it into dinner portions and serve it with some rice.

This recipe starts with marinating the chicken in a mixture of chicken stock, lite coconut milk, soy sauce, shallot, garlic, fish sauce, brown sugar, lime zest, and ginger. I marinated my chicken for about 8 hours instead of the 1 hour Ellie suggests. The chicken was very flavorful on it’s own and my favorite part was the flecks of lime zest that stuck to the chicken from the marinade.

I enjoyed skewering the chicken but I only got about 6 skewers instead of 8. I guess I over stuffed my skewers, but it really did not matter since it was just the two of us. I did only use 1 pound of chicken breast and I felt like it was a generous amount of chicken for dinner. I couldn’t finish it all. However, Nick, who increasingly complains that he is always so hungry finished all of his and the rest of mine.

The peanut sauce was very good, similar to but definitely not the same as the sauce from the lime peanut noodles that we made a few weeks ago. The dipping sauce was made from peanut butter (I used up the rest of my homemade PB ), chicken broth, soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, lime juice, garlic, chili flakes, red curry paste, and shallot. I think I liked this sauce better, and I was pleased to see that Nick enjoyed it as well. I was worried that this would end up being a pizza night because he is not a big fan of peanut sauces or sauces in general on his chicken. However, to my pleasant surprise he not only tolerated but sincerely liked the sauce. I left out the red pepper flakes because I don’t really like any heat in my food. Though I did think the sauce still had a bit of a kick from the green curry paste (the store was out of red curry paste - but they smell the same to me - very strong and kind of gross).

Instead of tossing the leftover coconut milk I decided to make some rice with it. I combined 1 cup of light coconut milk, 1 cup of water, 1 cup of uncooked basmati rice, 1/4 tsp of grated fresh ginger, and a splash of lime juice. Just cook it up like you would normally cook rice, this took about 15 - 20 minutes. The rice was very creamy and it definitely retained flavor from the coconut milk. Though I could not taste the ginger or lime at all, so if I make this again, I would increase both.

Overall this was a very tasty dinner and I would absolutely make this chicken and the dipping sauce again.

Making your own peanut butter is embarrassingly easy, everyone should be doing it. I saw this one a while back on Joy the Baker, and I bought some honey roasted peanuts shortly thereafter. However, I just never got around to making it.

Then this past weekend I began to make the Craving Ellie in My Belly recipe Noodles with a Lime-Peanut sauce and realized that I had no peanut butter. What I did have was a bag of peanuts - perfect opportunity to make my own.

All I did was put 1 1/2 cups of honey roasted peanuts with an 1/8 teaspoon of salt in a food processor and processed it until smooth. This took a good minute or so, until it formed into a ball.

Not only is this easy, but it is more delicious than any peanut butter I have ever bought in a store. The honey roasted peanuts are amazing, but you could also use some plain roasted peanuts, salted or unsalted and adjust the salt accordingly. I imagine you could also make your own almond or cashew butter by following the same process, I am going try that when I run out of this peanut butter.

So next time you find yourself with a bag of peanuts and a few spare minutes you should make this.

This week’s Craving Ellie in My Belly was Aromatic Noodles with a Lime-Peanut Sauce, chosen by Beth of Supplicious. Great choice Beth! This was delicious.

This is another winner from Ellie Krieger. She starts with whole wheat noodles and bulks it up with a ton of yummy green vegetables, then mixes it all up with a tasty and satisfying peanut sauce.

The sauce consists of creamy peanut butter (I made my own - more on that in another post), soy sauce, water, vinegar, lime juice, scallion, ginger, brown sugar and red pepper flakes. I left out the scallion - didn’t have any, and the red pepper flakes - don’t like them. The sauce was very tasty. In my sauce, the main flavor (besides the PB ) was the soy sauce, which I loved. You would think that maybe it would be overly salty, but these two ingredients really complemented each other, and the lime and ginger helped to cut through the richness of it all. I don’t know if I added the correct amount of ginger, but I would have enjoyed a bit more in my sauce.

This was my first foray into making peanut sauce and I have only eaten it a handful of times. So, I didn’t really have any expectations of the sauce or anything to compare it to. I am not sure how others will feel about this sauce, I am interested to hear my fellow cooks opinions and see if they made any changes.

Instead of regular whole wheat pasta (which I don’t really like) I used a package of udon noodles that I have had in the pantry waiting for just the right thing. I ate this warm and cold. It was great both ways, but I liked it better on the warmer side. Though I did eat it right out of the fridge at work because i was hungry, so it may have been better if I had let it come down to room temperature for a bit before stuffing my ravenous face.

I will definitely be making this again, and am looking forward to eating the rest of it tonight for dinner. You can find the recipe here, and you can see what the other Craving Ellie ladies thought here.

I have no cute story or anecdote about linguine with clam sauce. This dish is really just a combination of some of my favorite ingredients - pasta, clams, garlic, and of course parmigianno cheese.

I make this every few months when I get a hankering for it. It is always so satisfying. I love the simple briny sauce with loads of garlic and a little bit of creaminess for some parmigianno or romano cheese.

I actually based this recipe on, gasp, a really old Rachael Ray recipe that I found in my recipe binder. You can find the original recipe on the Food Network website. This will be one of the only times that you will see anything Rachael Ray related on this blog, so savor this post RR fans.

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The tree of perfection is a thorny bitch to climb. However, when one does, through perseverance and sheer will reach the zenith - the view is breathtaking. I am of the belief that it is possible for an apt home cook to replicate or better *MOST* of the very best dishes they eat out. I have had my share of success. A perfectly grilled ribeye, Danish from scratch,, homemade pasta, &c. The glaring shortcoming of my abilities thus far: a) vexation at being completely incapable of scoring a baguette properly and b) pizza that rides a wide modulation between “OK” and “good,” never reaching “WOW!” or much less so even “great"… that is until now. I have attempted this project buttressed with a more than basic understanding of baking and the guidance of several notable sources:

The Inn at Little Washington Cookbook: A Consuming Passion by Patrick O’Connell

The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart

and My food blogging idol and friend Joe

to NO AVAIL. Well imafoodblog.com readers, I have FOUND THE HOLY GRAIL OF PIZZA, and YOU can make it at home.

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Think about the best orange chicken you have ever had from a Chinese restaurant. Okay? This orange glazed chicken is ten times better than that. I promise you.

It is lighter, fresher, and sweeter in a less artificial way. I found this recipe via Nick at Macheesmo. I believe he based it on an America’s Test Kitchen recipe, which explains why this is unbelievably delicious.

Nick used chicken breasts for this, but I used bone in chicken thighs, and I served it with some Chinese stir fry cabbage. We all loved this dish and it has definitely earned a spot in the dinner rotation. You should make it. Soon.

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I was not introduced to real barbecue until a few short years ago. I think the first true pork bbq sandwich I ever had was on my first trip the the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Truth be told, I was not that impressed. I think it was the ridonculously vinegary sauce. I love a sweet and tangy BBQ sauce, but whatever I had was not enough sweet and too much tang.

Anyway, last year, Nick decided that it would be a good idea to build a smoker. Needless to say, we had many months of great summer BBQ’s with a variety of smoked foods, including multiple pork butts. So this is what really ignited and cemented my love of smoked food and true barbecue.

Unfortunately, pork butt is not a lean cut of meat. In fact, part of the reason why the pulled pork is so good is because slow cooking it upwards of 10 hours allows all the fat to melt into the meat, making it extra tender and flavorful. So when I saw Ellie Krieger make some delicious looking pulled BBQ chicken sandwiches I knew I had give them a try. Could I satiate my cravings for good barbecue in a healthy way. Barbecue purists would say no, but I say yes.

Ellie uses a store bought rotisserie chicken and a quick homemade barbecue sauce. I added some homemade coleslaw to them and served them on some homemade rolls. This was unbelievably good. They can’t compete with a real pulled pork sandwich, but they are a great easy weeknight healthy alternative. I will be making these again and again.

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Fried fish is awesome. There is a stand at the farmers market by Nick’s parents house in PA that has the most amazing fried halibut sandwich. They coat the fish in dry pancake mix, then egg, then panko and deep fry it to deliciouness. On a potato roll with their homemade cocktail sauce, it is heaven. I would eat one for every meal if I could, but alas, I cannot.

So let’s be real here, these baked fish fingers leave a lot to be desired if you are looking for some deep fried goodness. However, they are pretty delicious and smothered in this guilt free yogurt tarter like sauce, they are even better.

I am so glad that Anne from Rainforest Recipes chose these Crispy Fish Fingers as her pick this week for Craving Ellie in My Belly.

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Well, it’s late, but it’s still Thursday. And I came home from work like a good girl and made this week’s Craving Ellie in my Belly recipe. This week Liz of The Not So Skinny Kitchen picked Thai Style Halibut with Coconut Curry Broth on page 232 of The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life by Ellie Krieger. (Jeez, can I fit any more links into that paragraph?)

I have to say that Nick and I are generally anti-curry. It’s just not really something that appeals to us. Though I have not really had much experience eating curries, I find the aromas to be unpleasant.

I always associated curry with Indian food. However, it was not until we were at the grocery store that I realized that there is Thai curry and Indian curry. We picked up a can of Thai red curry paste, read the ingredients and thought maybe this would be better than we thought.

I was still a bit hesitant to make this with the curry, but I figured, what the hell. If it’s terrible, we have a pizza rule. (Which is, you can make anything you want, but if it sucks, you have to pay for the pizza).

I used tilapia instead of halibut and I made the sauce per the recipe. I used my own chicken stock and surprisingly I already had a can of light coconut milk in the house (I am sure this is leftover from one of Geoff’s escapades in our kitchen ). Now, if you know us at all, then you know that I definitely left out the grossness that is cilantro. I was being adventurous, but I was not trying to ruin my meal entirely!

I served this with a brown rice/wild rice mixture and instead of steaming the spinach, I sautéed it in a ton of garlic and Nick’s garlic basil olive oil. I love super garlicky spinach.

The verdict: This was surprisingly good. I don’t enjoy spicy foods, so for me, this had just the right amount of spice. Though if you do like spice, I could see how you would want it to be much spicier. The flavors were good and the curry was not nearly as offensive as I was expecting it to be.

Nick also liked this a lot. I believe his exact words were “I like this, and I don’t care if you don’t". That’s my man. Always sweet and charming.

So, I’m glad I stepped out of the comfort zone here and made this. I don’t know that I will be using Thai curry paste a lot, but I won’t completely write it off in the future. And I would make something with it upon request by my newly curry loving boyfriend Nick.

Check out what the rest of ladies thought at the Craving Ellie blogroll.