January is made for comfort food. It’s chilly and snowing just a bit which made it the perfect time to make these Cheesy Shells with Meatballs. Full disclosure: this is one of those times that you can bought store bought parts of this meal. I included directions on how to make meatballs, but you can also go buy some pre-cooked frozen meatballs. And I didn’t make the marinara or pesto sauces either — store bought is just fine. While people have this perception that it is hard to stuff shells (or manicotti, for that matter), if you cook the pasta al dente, it isn’t much of an issue. Enjoy!
Dinner
I’m never sure when something is a “chowder” or when it has become a “stew”. I suspect that it is actually a bit arbitrary, so while I would normally call this a chowder, I’m going with stew this time. Loaded with salmon, jumbo shrimp, lots (!!!) of Maine lobster, plus potatoes, carrots and peas. Yeah, the peas are a little out of the ordinary. Because as Sunday dinner as the temperature begins to cool in Autumn!
About ten days ago or so, I baked these Low-Knead Cast-Iron Crisp-Top Dinner Rolls. They were absolutely fantastic, but I was curious to see if a whole wheat or seeded (or both) variety would work as well and turns out, it did. I made them in the same cast iron braiser that I made the others, and the tops came up nice and crispy, the flavor is also great. Overall, definitely a repeatable recipe, though in all honestly, I did like the White Flour ones better. These are a recipe to add to the rotation for sure!
Sometimes, your lunch is just so good that you want to share it with the entire world, like today. This is what happens when the garden gives you an overload of fruits (cherry tomatoes are fruits, right?); the thyme is from the garden too. This was amazingly delicious and even the pix came out better than usual. Not bad for a Friday!
Tis the season here in New England (although the conditions are mostly too dry) for mushroom foraging. As I say every time I post something foraging related, please do not eat mushroom that you have collected yourself if you don’t know what you are doing. They can kill you, or even if they don’t kill you, can make you really darn sick. I have been mushroom foraging since I was literally a toddler (I found my first chanterelles when I couldn’t barely walk), so not to worry about me.
So this weekend, up in Maine, these lovely chanterelles were found. I had enough for this meal and there will be one more recipe from this round as well. This pasta dish was very yummy and very pepper-y. Chanterelles are pretty peppery to begin with and then this pepper cream sauce was really lush. Four stars, I’d definitely make it again!




















