Light Minestrone with Chicken Meatballs

Yes, you're right my dear friends. It's the end of June. The temperatures are squelchingly hot. My windows literally sweat with condensation during the day because of the temperature differences between my cool, comfortable house inside in comparison with the sauna/steam room that is the Okinawa summer. Egads, it's freaking hot. So why on Earth would you want to make soup in the middle of summer? 

Pearl CousCous Vegetable Salad

 This has been one of my favorite side dishes lately. First off, look at at all of those colors! Helloooo vitamins! Thanks for joining the party- you are super delicious.

Thai Peanut Sauce Noodles with Veggies and Chicken

I don't know why I have waited so long to make this recipe. It is SO freaking good. I guess I thought that using spaghetti for anything other than Italian style recipes was kind of sacrilegious, but that was just crazy talk. I am hereby a complete convert in using semolina/durum flour pastas for everything... you know, because I really needed another excuse to eat more carbs. NOT. 

Back to Basics : Lighter Basil Pesto

It's been a while since we've done a Back to Basics, hasn't it? For that, I apologize. I have been waiting rather impatiently for my kitchen garden to grow in order to do this post for you. The fact that my kitchen garden has actually produced living, edible things is a mini-miracle in itself.... I certainly did not inherit my mother's impeccable green thumb. This pesto is certainly a sauce you want to have in your recipe arsenal, especially when the spring basil starts hitting the grocery stores in a few weeks!

Pasta with Roasted Cauliflower and Brussels Sprouts

Hi, guys. I'm back! Did you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas? I hope so! I gotta say, it honestly wasn't my original intent to take this much time off from blogging--nearly 2 months!!-- but life just wedged its fat butt right in my way and prevented me from enjoying any of my hobbies for most of November and all of December. Sad, isn't it?

Frog Eye Salad

Happy Halloween!! My treat for you is that you get TWO posts from me in one day! I posted earlier for the Foodie Pen Pal reveal, in which I told you about the awesome fall package I got from Natalie, who blogs over at Free Range Human. Great fun! While I enjoy pumpkin flavored things over here, I would like for you to enjoy some of this food irony... Frog Eye Salad!

Pasta Primavera with a Light Mozzarella Garlic Sauce

"Hmm... what to have for lunch. No, don't want that, or that. Made that last week. That would be too heavy for lunch. What's in the fridge? Ugh, no not that. I do have those.... and those.... and that! And I need to use this before it goes bad... what about.... yes! Yes, that'd be perfect for today!"

World's Best Lasagna

Here-ye, here-ye -- friends and fellow pasta lovers!

Behold, the last lasagna recipe you will ever need!

I have declared, for the official record of my household and, well, for the rest of my natural cooking life that this lasagna is by far the best one I've tried yet.

Fancy Macaroni and Cheese

Today I will share with you a secret.                    
Shhhhhhhh.

Are you ready?                                                
Are you?


.....I hate measuring ingredients.

Handmade Ravioli

Oh my I love pasta. I mean, who doesn't?? When we were living in the States some of the grocery stores had fresh pasta made in house available for purchase. Now that we live in Japan and the starch of choice is, of course, rice.... not so much. Naturally the solution to that problem is to make your own! It's been something I've wanted to do for a while now, anyway, and not having it available is just the kick in the motivational pants I needed. 

Meat Lover's Bolognese

When Travis and I got married, one of the things I wanted to learn how to make was his favorite pasta sauce his mom would make for her three sons growing up. She made vats of it at a time, because lets face it, three boys would probably eat a whole pot of it with a spoon as a pre-dinner "snack." 

It's a very meaty sauce. Meaty, chunky, with just a few veggies in there. Very manly.

Crock Pot Macaroni and Cheese

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of this surprisingly delicious dish. I have a good excuse, I promise: I fed my coworkers. My overworked, under-appreciated, exhausted coworkers. The enlisted corpsmen live in dorm style barracks and have little to no facilities to cook food on their own, so they are forced to choke down whatever the hospital's cafeteria has to offer (Hospital food = bad. Military chow hall food = bad. Combine those and that's what they eat daily) or take a taxi out into town since most don't have cars and pay a lot more money to eat local cuisines. I feel for them, I do. I remember missing certain foods when I was a freshman in college and having no money but being completely sick of the cafeteria food. The other option was the 7-11 style store, which sold frozen dinners and junk food, which also gets old extremely fast.