culinary experiments and explorations

I had a guest over last night, and decided to delve into a new cookbook I'd just bought -- Giada de Laurentiis' Everyday Italian. A bit of poring through said cookbook later, we decided on an appetizer and a main dish -- prosciutto-wrapped breadsticks (p. 45) and penne pasta with the sun-dried tomato pesto sauce (p. 73). One quick stop by the market for the various ingredients (the total cost of which -- for two packages of fresh basil, the sun-dried tomatoes, the bread dough, the freshly-cut prosciutto, and the pasta -- came to just over $20), and we got to work.

( Prosciutto-Wrapped Breadsticks )

( Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto Sauce )

After boiling some penne pasta and prepping these two surprisingly easy dishes, we had a feast with what felt like hardly any effort at all! Although the pesto sauce seemed less like sauce and more like a spread to me, it was surprisingly delicious and served as a perfect counter to the pasta and the prosciutto wrapping the bread. Overall, a very easy and straightforward cooking session, which yielded plenty of leftovers and was well worth the effort. I would absolutely make it again.

Being home and not feeling too well, I returned to old habits and decided to make myself some comfort food. I paged through Emeril's Potluck until I came across something that looked tasty (and that I had most of the ingredients for), on page 55: ( Helen's Sausage-Stuffed French Bread. )

As mentioned above, I ended up with a bit of leftover sausage-cheese mixture. Not wanting to entirely spoil my appetite, I tried a little bit with a chip or two -- excellent all on its own! It's got quite a bit of heat to it, though; right now my lower lip and mouth have the vague feeling of sunburn that comes from spicy food which isn't necessarily temperature-hot. The loaves'll be out in about 45 minutes; I'll post my reactions and picture then.

Overall, quite tasty -- meaty, with plenty of molten-cheese goodness and plenty of spicy heat. The picture above really doesn't do it justice; I'd definitely make this again for a party or get-together.