Auntie Diane's Italian Pasta Salad (this is a quick one)

This is a pasta salad that is literally mindless. It is incredibly easy to make, its cheap and its very quick. It is served cold, and the longer it sits, the better it gets, so it is great for tailgates, bar-b-q's get-to-gethers, or whatever! It is a perfect pairing for hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill!

What you need from the kitchen:

Large boiling Pot

can opener

Large strainer

cutting board

Good Knives

Large Serving bowl

From the Super Market:

1 pound of ziti (I have used both regular and wheat... the regular is better in this particular recipe, but if you prefer wheat for dietary reasons, that's cool to)

1 package of frozen "Bird's eye" Italian vegetables

1 can of corn

1 red onion

1 bottle of Kens Italian dressing (again, you can use the light, but it comes out much better with the real thing)

1 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese

1 can of sliced olives.

SO HERE we go!! Start by boiling your pasta, my aunt Kathy always told me to keep the cover on the boiling water it will heat up quicker...you would think this would be common sense, but for whatever reason, I did not grasp the concept until about a week ago, it makes a huge difference. Back to the recipe, so boil your water, and once is ready throw in your pasta.

While that is going, open up the corn, and the olives, and pour them into your strainer. Run them under COLD water.. this will clean off any nasty stuff that comes with being a caned product (corn and olives are not to bad... but for future reference cans of beans can be pretty gross making this step essential for any cook). Once those are nice and clean, you want to throw them into the large Bowl that you will be serving the dish from. Remember this serving bowl needs to be large enough for 1 pound of pasta cooked!!

Now you want to open up the frozen vegetables, and place them into the strainer, and repeat the process, only this time you are thawing them, as opposed to cleaning them :)

Once you have done that step throw them into the bowl to add to the olives and the corn.

Now its time to chop your onion and throw that into the mix... use the whole onion - it looks like a lot, but the onion really makes it!

bye now, your pasta should be ready, take the pasta and drain it into the strainer - (If you have not figured it out already, a really good, large strainer is essential to a kitchen, if you don't have one, go buy one, they are cheap, and Ikea has a great big silver one for like, 10 bucks).

Run the pasta under cold water to cool it down.

Once the pasta is cool, mix it with the rest of the ingredients in the bowl, then mix it up with the entire (yes the whole bottle) of Italian dressing. Once that is well dressed, mix in the cheese, and you are READY to SERVE!!

If you are going to be serving this right away, have at, if you want to wait to serve it, go ahead and cover it with Plastic Wrap and throw it in the fridge!

Goooooooooooood luck!!

The Best Pulled Pork.... Ever.

For my first recipe, I am using a fan favorite. This is my recipe for Pulled Pork, and I promise, it is the best of its kind!!

In order to make this you will need:

This Recipe will take you all day. Typically the entire process takes 8-10 hours, so make sure you get up early!!!!

From the kitchen:

Crock Pot

Cookie Sheet

Utencils to pull apart the meat

Good Knives

A large, clean sink

Ingredients:

4 onions

5 cloves of garlic

Salt, Pepper, Hot Sauce

A pork Shoulder... and it MUST be a shoulder, typically anywhere from 4-8 pounds will work

1-2 bottles BBQ sauce of your choice... I typically use the Jack Daniels either spicy, or honey BBQ, depending on who I am feeding

Buns

Sliced American Cheese

Water

.First off - you have to use a pork shoulder....anything else dries out in the process.

Cleaning this thing takes about 20 minutes bec

ause you have to cut off as much fat as possible (including the incredibly disgusting white slab of fat that encases the shoulder)

My advice - clean your sink, and just go to town on it in there...rinse it and keep it in the sink. ***bakers note**** you need to make sure you crock pot is big enough to hold the entire shoulder before hand, if you dont, its a real buzz kill, and after all that work, if your like me, you will drive yourself to taget and buy a new crockpot rather than a smaller shoulder.

OK now that is done

Take two onions and a few cloves of garlic (again.. if your me, its more than a "few")

chop up your onions like you would for a sausage with pepers and onions...the long way.

Pour 3 cups of water into the crock pot on high and 1.5 onions (chopped)

Place the shoulder in

Pour 3 cups of water over the shoulder and use the remaining onion to cover the shoulder.

Now you can do what you want with the garlic, I crush half and sliver the rest, either way, just get in there.

Cover - cook on high - 4 hours.

After four hours check it, if the inside is bleeding.. its not ready, if its a little pink - its going to cook another 4 hours anyway so what the hell

Heres the hard part. This thing is HOT, so its hard to handle, and really helps if there is two people

Take out a cookie sheet and remove the shoulder from the cooker and place on the cookie sheet.

Disregard anything left in the pot, and clean it throughly.

Now you have a clean crock pot.

you now take what you have, either a couple of forks (I use the rather large grilling fork), a knife, whatever you choose

you "pull the pork"off the bone. This is way tougher than you think because its not falling apart yet, so if it comes off in chunks, thats ok, you just want to get rid of all the fat and anything else you wouldn't want to eat!!

This step takes about 20 minutes. Once you have all the edible meat shredded, and its back in the pot, you want to CHOP 2 onions. Small as possible, trick here, you dont want people to be able to see the onions when they eat it :)

stir the onions in and add salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste.

Now the fun part. I use Jack Daniels Honey Bar-B-Q. on occasion, if I know my audience, and they like spicy stuff, I will use the Jack Daniels Spicy Bar-B-Q sauce ( Typically I use two bottles, but if you dont use a big shoulder you may not use all of it. Start by mixing in one... if it looks like it needs the other one, go for it.

Cover and cook on high for another 3-5 hours.

While its cooking you should open it up once an hour and take a fork and knife to continue pulling it apart. That way people do not get pork chunks, they get pulled pork. If it looks like it is to saucy (like if it looks like its to clumped together), you can add some water, but not to much, just enough to break it up. You can also add tabasco if you want. DO NOT OVER DO THE TABASCO. If you use to much tabasco you will kill the taste.

Thats it. I always use American cheese to serve with it.

Good Luck!!

Lets try this again

I am not sharing a recipe tonight, instead, I am going to offer you a bit of an outline to my recipe writing styles :)

Measuring is for dieters and bakers.. I am neither. My recipes will include words like; dash, dollup, handfuls, "whatever looks like it needs"....I am apologizing for this upfront, but it is the way that I cook, so if you have questions please feel free to contact me via-email and I can probably help you out! The one measuring

If you are following my recipes you will need a fully functioning kitchen. That means a Knife Set, Backing Dishes, Frying Pans, a good, dependable oven, a well stocked spice rack, a well stocked pantry (this means when you are in the super market and soups, beans, stocks, rice, canned tomatoes, diced tomatoes, cream of celery soup, cream of mushroom, etc. are on sale... you should buy them, and keep them in your pantry... you will need them, and if you stock up when they are cheap, you save yourself a good amount of cash in the long run.

One more thing that you should note is that 90% of my recipes are geared toward dinner, and can typically feed a family of 5. If your like myself and my boyfriend, and its just the two of you, most of my recipes will are good for lunch and can be packed up for the next day. This is probably the best way to save yourself some extra cash. Most of my recipes will not cost more than 20 dollars.... if your feeding 2 people, 2 meals, we are talking 5 bucks a head, and that my friends is cheaper than any value meal!

Please feel free to ask questions, add comments and suggestions, and feel free to let me know how things go over with your family and friends!


I'm looking forward to moving forward with this, thank you for reading.