spaghetti all'aglio, olio e peperoncino

This is the absolute easiest and quickest italian dish ever, and yet I find it so comforting and filling. The first dish to jump to mind after a long day at work.My kids always ask for pasta with il and parmigiano and this can be cooked right along their dish so...well...i won't hear complains about the amount of dishes in the sink....Oh yes... there is also really no measuring involved here. and not that many ingredients you will need.

Pasta, I chose Spaghetti Rigati, the ridges help the sause grab onto the pasta making each bite that much more flavorful.
Garlic, minced and about 2 to 3 cloves.
Fresh spicy peppers, traditionally we use Cayanne Pepper, however I like to mix different peppers to add flavors and colors...depending on what's ready in my garden, this time it was Fresno, Cayanne and a jalopeno.I love spicy foods so I used the al of them ,cut into very small pieces.Also I used a few minced parsley leaves,  to add a little extra freshness to the dish and enough Extra Vergin Olive Oil to allow all the ingredients to blend smoothly. Salt and black and Pink pepper to taste. The pink pepper just adds a little fresher taste to the black pepper.

VEGAN Beef bourguignon

There are a lot of great vegan dishes out there but this one...well I just had to try it for myself. Beef bouruignon is the definition of comfort food, especially for us European's. The Sunday night dinner you'd spent the whole day drooling over. And what could be better? Beef slow cooked in red wine scented with fresh herbs de provence....
So I was watching tv and saw this guy on the Martha Stewart show prepare his wife vegan bourguignon....with saitan instead of beef....but beside that, he followed a pretty traditional recipe.....and I needed to try to see if it really was as good as he said it would be. I do have to admit Saitan is my favorite vegan protein as far as consistency....and this dish, though I altered it a bit, for sure lived up to expectations.

I prepared my soffritto in a dutch oven pot. 3 sliced carots, 1 onion,cubed,( traditionally it is pearl onions but I only had white onions, and I'm not a huge fan of peeling little tiny pearl onions) 3 cloves of garlic, minced , and combined them all with 2 tbs of extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper to taste and fresh herbs from the garden, rosemary, thyme, sage and bay leaves.

I cooked them for a few minutes over medium heat while browning the 2 pakages of seitan in a frying pan.

Once the onion and the garlic absorbed the olive oil I added 1 cup of veggie stock and the Seitan, and cooked the mixture with the lid on for 20 minutes, keeping the heat on medium. I then added about 1 lb of fresh mushrooms, some flat leaf parsley and then 3/4 of a bottle of red wine, I went with a French ta

ble wine, just trying to keep the dish as traditional as possible.

The combined smell of the mushrooms, garlic and the wine was simply AMAZING! Nothing short of a traditional beef stew!

The freshly chopped parsley added such freshness to the dish.

I put the lid back on and cooked for another 20 minutes or so. I scooped the Seitan and the veggies out and placed them on a serving dish. I added 1 tbs of corn starch, 2 tbs of vegan butter ( spectrum is a really good one )  and 1 tbs of tomato paste to create a creamier consistency to the sauce. After cooking for a few minutes, once the cosnsistency of a gravy is reached,  I poured some over the seitan. It was delicious!

Heirloom tomatoes, hatch chiles and arugula quesadillas

Just fire up the Grill, and pour yourself a nice glass of VINO. This is easy and will only take a few moments.

Hatch chiles are only available for a few weeks out of the year but the are spectacular in their heat and smoky flavors combined. You can buy them fresh...or roasted. I got mine fresh...well what's more relaxing than cooking at the grill on a hot summer night?..NOTHING!

I washed my chiles and dried them with a towel, they cook better dry. You want to cook them on high flames till charred, once done place them in a Tupperware container and close it with its lid. The steam will allow the skin to be easily peeled off, and that's when they are ready.

Once cool enough to touch I peeled them ad cut them into small pieces. I opened 4 taco size flour tortillas and filled them with cheese and some chiles ( amount desired), I folded the tortillas in halves and placed them on the hot grill for a few minutes on each side until clear marks were created....

and yes, this dish is this simple and quite tasty, we each had seconds!