Lovely Cooking Goodies

This new overstock store opened locally and imagine my delight when I see their pantry aisles full of wonderful stuff that is very hard to find in my rural area. Next trip I'm going to raid their selection of pastas which is great. I kept the food purchases minimal this trip because my main focus was getting kitchen equipment.

The haul includes: Dried shitake and porcini mushrooms, steel cut oatmeal (I love the texture), couscous, panko breadcrumbs, truffle oil, and capers. The capers are different than the other jar I have and I'm hoping will have a difference in flavor, as the ones I have now are a bit on the bitter side for me (which may be explained by the fact they were at walmart and very cheap). I'm really looking forward to using the truffle oil, if anyone has suggestions for recipes please pass them along.

Over the next couple weeks you'll probably see me trying out these ingredients a lot to see what I want to stock up on. This is an overstock store so the selection isn't constant but very affordable, usually well below typical retail. I got a stand mixer for $20 which is half what it retails for, pretty good and I'm hoping it lasts until I've saved up for a KitchenAid.

Here's tonight's dinner: Chicken and porcini mushrooms in marinara sauce over spaghetti and topped with some parmesan cheese. I put some fresh basil from my garden in it too, probably one of the last times this year, the basil has already taken a hit from a light frost.

If you haven't noticed from previous posts I don't do any fancy plating, I'm perfectly happy to just have my pasta in a bowl for simplicity. This is home cooking, you can make it look nice if you want (and I do for special occasions) but for day to day cooking I care a lot more about just making something that tastes great.