the Great Cooking Magazine Challenge

Today, I am joining my friend, Suzy (Kitchen Bouquet), for her Great Cooking Magazine challenge. If you are like the both of us you have a pile of cooking magazines laying around because there is a recipe or two that you just have to try. Suzy challenges us once in a while to open them up and try those recipes we've bookmarked. Please click HERE to go to her blog and see her entry as well as the other's participating.

Last night we had a date night meal at home so it was a great time to use the new wine themed plates that Jayme & Scott gave me for Christmas. What is date night at home? Well for us it is me choosing all the activities, LOL! Actually, I make an effort to set a nice table and prepare a nice meal while Jeff opens a bottle of good wine. Then we went bowling for 3 games (on the Wii) before sitting down to watch the movie "I Hate Valentines Day".
The napkin rings and napkins were also a gift from Jayme & Scott.
I really like the wine plates, one plate features Venice...
and one Paris.
I had planned on showing a new chicken recipe we tried on Friday night but I'll save that one for later. Because yesterday, I received my March 2011 issue of Food Network magazine and it is labeled Pasta, Pasta, Pasta! The Italian Issue with a photo of Pea-Prosciutto Sauce over ravioli on the cover. This issue is going to end up dog-eared because I love pasta! The cover photo looked great and I had all the ingredients in the house so I chose this recipe to highlight.
Their website is still showing the Jan-Feb 2011 issue so since it is not yet online, I couldn't link the recipe. This recipe is one of many in an article titled Super Easy Pasta Sauces.

Pea-Prosciutto Sauce
Food Network Magazine March 2011

Cook 4 ounces chopped prosciutto in a skillet with 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat until crisp, 4 minutes. Stir in 3 sliced garlic cloves and 1 tablespoon tomato paste; cook 1 minute. Ladle in 1 cup pasta-cooking water and simmer until reduced by half, 4 minutes. Add 1/4 cup heavy cream and simmer until thickened, 3 minutes. Toss with 1 pound cooked ravioli, 1 cup blanched frozen peas and some chopped parsley. Top with grated parmesan.

My notes: To lighten the sauce I used 1 tablespoon olive oil instead of 2. In the same issue of the magazine was an article on lightening up alfredo sauce by using low-fat milk and low-fat neufchatel cream cheese. So instead of using the heavy cream, I used 1/4 cup skim milk and 2 tablespoons of the low-fat cream cheese. It was a great substitution and the sauce still had a rich, creamy taste. We served the sauce over our favorite frozen butternut squash ravioli (YUM!). I also didn't have parlsey on hand so that was omitted. Recipes like this that only use a TB of tomato paste makes me thankful I started buying the tubes of paste.

For dessert I pulled out the December 2010 issue of Food Network Magazine and made

Espresso Chip Meringues by Giada De Laurentiis. You can view the recipe by clicking on the titled link.
If you make 12 like the recipe says mine were huge - about 2 1/2-3 inch diameter.

Marsha - Thumbs UP to the pasta sauce, we will definitely be making this one again! Thumbs UP to the espresso meringues, I like the sweet taste and airy texture.
Jeff - Thumbs UP to the pasta sauce, he had a 2nd helping. Thumbs Down to the meringues, he'd rather have a real cookie as he thought this one was like eating styrofoam, LOL! Just means there are more for me to enjoy.