Three Delicious, Heavenly, Amazing Recipes, and a short recap of our day!

Please stop what you are doing and run to the grocery store right now. This meal is seriously that good. I made three things for supper tonight, and we were all thrilled with it. My aunt Tammy was here, and Jayne (Joel's mom). Jayne is still saying every few minutes that it was better than Carrabab's! The three recipes are: Carbonara, Cheesy Biscuits, and Chocolate Pots de Creme. They are from Rachael Ray, Paula Deen, and my Food Network magazine.

The Only Recipe You Need: Carbonara:

salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 pound rigatoni
1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
1/4 pound pancetta, chopped
1 t crushed red pepper flakes (I omitted this)
5 or 6 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 c dry white wine or substitute (I used chicken broth)
1/2 c grated Romano cheese, such as Locatelli (I used Pecerino)
2 large egg yolks

Put a large pot of water on to boil. Add a liberal amount of salt and rigatoni; cook to al dente, about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add EVOO andpancetta. Brown pancetta two minutes. Add red pepper flakes and garlic and cook two to three minutes. Add wine and stir up all the pan drippings.

Beat yolks, then add 1 large ladleful of the pasta cooking water. This tempers the eggs and keeps them from scrambling when added to the pasta.

Drain pasta well and add it directly to the skillet with pancetta and oil. Pour the egg mixture over the pasta. Toss rapidly to coat the pasta without cooking teh egg. Remove pan from heat and add a big handful of cheese, lots of pepper, and a little salt. COntinue to toss and turn the pasta until it soaks up egg mixture and thickens one to two minutes. Garnish with parsley, if desire, and extra cheese.

Notes: Be careful with the salt!! I thought it was a little too salty. No one else agreed with me, but the pancetta and cheese are both salty so I don't think you really need any extra. I used the pecerino instead of the locatelli because it was about four dollars cheaper! I only used four cloves of garlic, but they were rather large. I feel like I should say five to six cloves of garlic, amen and amen. Wonderful!! This dish sounds intimidating from the name, but it really is easy and awesome!!!

Cheese Biscuits

2 cups self-rising flour
1 t baking powder
1 t sugar
1/3 c Crisco shortening
3/4 c grated cheddar cheese
1 c buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, baking powder, and sugar together using a fork, cut in shortening until it resembles cornmeal. Add cheese. Stir in buttermilk all at one time just until blended. Do not overstir! Drop by large tablespoonfulls onto a well-greased bakin sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Notes: You can make your own self-rising flour and buttermilk!! Self-rising flour: 1 c flour, 1.5 t baking powder, 0.5 t salt. Buttermilk: Add 1 t white vinegar to 1 c milk, let sour for five minutes. Mine took longer than 15 minutes to bake. They really are big biscuits!!

Chocolate Pots de Creme

9 ounces high-quality semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1.5 c whole milk
1.5 c heavy cream
6 large egg yolks
5 T granulated sugar (add an extra T if using bitter chocolate)
1.4 t salt
1 T confectioners' sugar

1. Place the chocolate in a blender. Whisk the milk, 1 cup of cream, egg yolks, granulated sugar, and salt in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly with a heatproof spatula, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the spatula adn almost boiling, five to six minutes.
2. Immediately pour the milk mixture over the chocolate in the blender. Cover and hold the lid with a kitchen towel, blend until combine and smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides of the blender as needed. Divide the chocolate mixture among dessert dishes and refrigerate until set, about two hours.
3. Whip the remaining 1/2 c cream and the confectioners' sugar with a mixer or in teh blendder until soft peaks form. Top the chilled pots de creme with whipped cream.

Notes: You may just want to surrender now. Delicious! Oh my. I don't even know what to tell you. Please, make sure that your chocolate bar is a full 9 ounces, not four like mine. You may not happen to have six ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips in the cupboard. My bar was Ghiradelli and my chips were Hershey's. It was good. Heavens, was it ever good.

I hope that you all can try some of these. I don't think you will be disappointed!

We had a great time at the Hands-On House this morning. It was a little crowded, but the girls had so much fun. One of the rooms, which was their favorite, was set up like a grocery store with shelves stocked with all sorts of groceries and little shopping baskets and cash registers. There were scales to weigh your fish and fruits and veggies and a little bar where you could make yourself a sandwich. They probably would have just stayed in there the whole time. There was also a farm room with corn stalks that you could pick the corn off of. It was velcroed on. They played there a long time! It rained today so it was a good day to go! It must have worn Pilly out because she slept for 3.5 hours this afternoon!

Tonight, I am going to relax. I thought about cutting out some material for skirts for the girls, but now I don't really feel like it anymore! Have a wonderful evening!!