Wing It Spicy Pasta

Like many cooks, I have a tendency to wing it and not really measure the ingredients when I'm cooking. I just let my instincts take over and I create dishes according to my taste buds. I've thought about sharing my recipes like this before, but I hesitated because I wasn't able to give precise measurements. However, I realized that it's okay if I don't have precise measurements because part of cooking is creativity and what's more creative than making up a dish as you go along  ;-)

So here's my recipe:

Ingredients (to your own taste):
•roughly a tablespoon of Cajun seasoning
•roughly a tablespoon of oregano
•2 vegetable stock cubes
•roughly a half teaspoon of flat leaf parsley
•roughly a teaspoon of smoked paprika
•a splash of Worcestershire sauce
•a splash of balsamic vinegar
•1 large onion (chopped)
•about 8 medium sized mushrooms (chopped)
•roughly 4 ounces of water
•teaspoon of olive oil
•half teaspoon of butter
•spaghetti (amount depending upon how many you're serving)
Cooking time: about 25 minutes
Prep time: Just enough time to chop your mushrooms and onions

 Add your olive oil and butter to your frying pan, letting the butter melt down. Next add your chopped onions and let them cook down until they're close to being translucent and then add your chopped mushrooms. Let the onions and mushrooms mingle together for a bit.

Then crumble up your vegetable stock cubes and add them both to your onion and mushroom mixture. Stir it all together. Next add your water, because this helps to bring  a little moisture to things and it helps with incorporating the dry stock cubes into the mixture.

At this point you can add all of your other ingredients to the pan except for the spaghetti. Stir all of the ingredients together well, making sure that everything is incorporated into the mixture.

Depending on your preference you can boil the spaghetti before, during, or after you make the spicy mixture. I usually start it halfway through preparing the mixture so that the noodles don't become too mushy. But I leave this to your individual preference.

I really love making this dish and it's very tasty! I hope that you'll try my Wing It Spicy Pasta! :-)

This recipe post was previously published on my other blog Labyrinthus XXI .

Cookie Recipe

Hello :) I wanted to share the chocolate chip cookie recipe from an earlier post. I promised in the comments that I'd post the recipe here. It's certainly not my very own recipe, but it's one that I've made quite a bit back in my teen years. It's a classic recipe from back home and so I'm sure that many of you already know this recipe well, but for those of you who are from elsewhere and may not be familiar with it, here it is. As I noted within the recipe, I had to substitute the main ingredient in the recipe since I'm not able to get the chocolate morsels here readily. However, the cookies turned out great and I look forward to making some more some time in the near future :-)

One more thing, I've also included a conversion tool here to make the measurements easy to calculate for everyone if needed. Click here for the site. So without further delay, here it is :-) I hope you enjoy giving them a try and if you do try to make them, please drop by and let me know how they turned out!


Original NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Chocolate Chip Cookies

Prep: 15 minutes
Baking time: 9 minutes
Cooling time: 15 minutes


Ingredients
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.)NESTLE TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels (I can’t get these here, so I substituted another brand of chocolate chips)

• 1 cup chopped nuts

Directions
PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

FOR HIGH ALTITUDE BAKING (5,200 feet): Increase flour to 2 1/2 cups. Add 2 teaspoons water with flour and reduce both granulated sugar and brown sugar to 2/3 cup each. Bake drop cookies for 8 to 10 minutes and pan cookie for 17 to 19 minutes.

**If you'd like to see the link to the website where I got this recipe, click here.