Highdesert Stamper – Artistic Inkspirations

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As I write this… the temperature is dropping and it’s currently 15degrees F. ITS COLD!!!

Orecchiette Pasta or “little ears” is a good pasta to cook to “hold the sauce” well. It’s one of those pastas that just loves to grab the sauce. I like to cook EASY dishes, since I can’t stand very long and prep a lot of things. I saw a recipe in one of my emails calling for any kind of pasta and a quick pesto sauce with chicken. I had a jar of pesto, so I gave it a try.  Pesto is one thing I’ve found, that if you find a good ready to use brand… go for it. Trader Joe’s here in town has some wonderful pre-made sauces.  They have “tastings” so if you want to try something before buying it.. wait long enough and they’ll serve all their new things in the back of the store in their “tastings”.  This Pesto sauce I got was one such item.

My recipe called for some sun-dried tomatoes which I didn’t happen to have, but I had some cherry tomatoes. So I buzzed them in my little bullet to grind them up and threw them in the pan with the chicken. I also modified the given recipe a bit and added some “It’s a Dilly” seasoning, and some onion powder. The rest I left the same with about 1 1/2 TB garlic ground up, 3 large boneless chicken thighs (the recipe called for breasts, but I had thighs which have much more flavor), and the pesto.  I did add a can of artichoke hearts. I’ve had artichokes in many dishes in restaurants and I know it goes well with pestos.  So here is what my Orecchiette Pasta dish looked like all sauced up..  My daughter says she wishes I’d learn how to cook…. I guess if I did learn how to cook any better…they’d have to roll me out the door!!

Try it… it’s yummy!!! And a very quick and easy main dish!

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*********************TODAY’S POST ***********************

I’ll have to apologize for not posting for a week.. I was busy with things for a local craft show and a class.. and life in general. But I thought I’d give you some pictures of something really, really good. At least I think it was good..  I tend to not like to buy any fish that is farm raised. Most of the farm raised fishes have no taste and many are contaminated if proper growing methods aren’t employed in the farming of the fish. And since I grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and lived in Panama off and on and went deep sea fishing, catching Corvina (Sea Bass) , Red Snapper, Mackerel (back then it was called “garbage fish”), ..I got used to FRESH wild caught fish.  So when they had fresh wild caught Salmon at the store this week, I asked my daughter to get some when she did the shopping… if it was really fresh.

She brought it home and it smelled like the sea…not fishy.. just FRESH.. so I thought and thought what could I make with it to really enjoy this fresh piece of fish… and I thought… CEVICHE!   or marinated seafood salad . When I was down in Panama..we had fresh Ceviche every week. Of course my dad used to go fishing every week on the weekend when he didn’t have a lot of things to do. He had a nice boat and we loved to go out in the Pacific Ocean and go fishing or go to the outlying Islands around Panama.  We had a Panamanian lady who worked for us and was an excellent cook. She taught me to make a lot of the local foods.  So here is my wild caught salmon all cut up…ready for it’s “cooking” in the lime, peppers, onions, and other condiments.

Look at the color of that Salmon!!

Here is the salmon in it’s marinade/cooking sauce

I tried it earlier after sitting in the lime and veggies for a few hours.. and it was WONDERFUL!! It took me back to my days in Central America… when fresh fish was an every day occurrence!  If you’ve never tried Ceviche and would like to read more about it and some authentic recipes… check here CEVICHE. Bon Appetite !!

Be sure to come back tomorrow for a card I made for the Creative-Sketches color challenge!