Welcome!!

Hey everyone! It's Meghna =]

I LOVE cooking, absolutely LOVE it, to me cooking is the most calming experience one can ever have.   The kitchen I have grown to realize, is one of the only places where I'm not stressed, where everything just seems to mold together into perfect unison.  In the kitchen all the stresses of the outside world just melt away. Since I love cooking and cooking for others, I've had many people (mainly my housemates) come up to me telling me that I need to start writing a food blog as soon as possible.  So here it is!  

My first post is going be last night's dinner!  It was Italian Night at Stone Street and on menu was garlic bread, Greek Salad (I know not so Italian but simply delicious =]), and Linguine in a garlic and cherry tomato white wine sauce. 

Serves 2-4 Hungry College Students

Ingrediants

7 cloves of garlic

1 pint of cherry tomatoes

half a carton of baby portabella mushrooms

Half a pound of linguine

half a loaf of Italian bread

1 head of Romaine Lettuce

1 quarter of a small red onion

1 cucumber

dry white cooking wine (or a dry wine such as a Chardonnay if you have it, if you use a Chardonnay you can drink a glass with dinner as well!)

feta cheese

1/2 teaspoon of fresh chopped mint

salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and Italian seasoning 

olive oil 

red wine vinegar

Garlic Bread

Preheat the oven to 375 F.  Slice the Italian bread into about 1/2 inch thickness. Place them all on a baking sheet.  Drizzle a little bit of olive oil on every slice of bread.  Mince one clove of garlic.  Now this is where it can get a bit tricky, on the minced garlic sprinkle a little bit of salt.  Take your knife and with the blade down press and slide the garlic.  Doing this will make the garlic and the salt combine into a paste.  Take this new homemade garlic paste that you have just created and put it on your bread.  Bake the bread until golden brown should be around 5-7 minutes.  The bread will come out crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Greek Salad

Chop your romaine lettuce into bite size pieces.  Place it into a big bowl. Slice your cucumber and put that as well into the big bowl.  Thinly slice the red onion (the thinner it is the better it will taste in your salad), place that along with your lettuce and cucumber.  Sprinkle feta cheese on top =] (I love feta so I add a lot!) 

(You can also put Kalamata olives into this salad which will taste really good, I normally do but I didn't have any on hand =[)

Dressing

In a small bowl, use 2 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar.  Mince one glove of garlic and put it in the small bowl.  Add 1/4 teaspoons of salt and 1/4 of black pepper.  Whisk it all together, (the oil and vinegar will separate after you are done whisking so whisk it one more time before you dress your salad).  Add the 1/2 teaspoon of freshly chopped mint and whisk it one more time, set it aside until serving. 

Linguine in a garlic cherry tomato white wine sauce

Bring a big pot of water to boil, add salt to give the pasta some flavor.  Once the water is boiling add your linguine and cook it until it is al-dente.  (Different brands of pasta will have different times for cooking so check the box.)

Meanwhile, prepare your sauce.  Mince 5 cloves of garlic (I know it's a lot but trust me it will be worth it!) cut the mushrooms into quarters.  Cut the pint of cherry tomatoes into half.  In a separate pan heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and put the mushrooms (mushrooms take a longer time to cook) add black pepper and salt.  Once you add salt to mushrooms liquid will come out from the mushrooms, it's fine =].  Saute the mushrooms until they are half-cooked.  Add the garlic and cook for about 1 minute.  Add about 1/2 cup of white wine and the cherry tomatoes.  Let this all cook together.  Add in the Italian seasoning and red pepper flakes (if you don't like spicy don't add the red pepper flakes), your going to just eye-ball how much of the seasoning you want.

Once the pasta is cooked al-dente, transfer the pasta into the sauce.  Mix it well.  Add salt and black pepper on top for some extra seasoning.  (If you have Parmesan cheese, add it in with the pasta it will be delicious)

That was dinner! It was easy and yummy.  In fact writing this post is making me wish there was leftovers =/.

Hungry yet?? Try it out and let me know how it comes out!

Happy Cooking!