Banana ice cream topping

This one was completely off the cuff. Some bananas browned in butter, tossed with sugar, rum and vanilla extract. Turned out pretty decent, but I think next time I'll use higher heat to begin with, because the bananas got kind of mushy. And honestly, who likes a mushy banana?

Cream puffs

My mom's favorite dessert, prepared with some help from my top-pastry-chef friends.

Yes, I made this.

Be very, very jealous.

Potato, SMASH!

Smashed potatoes are a beautifully easy thing. Cream cheese, milk, red potatoes, scallions. Amazing.

Sausage and pepper pasta

Grab bag of peppers from Reading Terminal Market: $1
1lb sausage (from a bigger 5lb package): $0.89
Whole wheat pasta: $1.50
Onion: $0.25
Garlic: $0.05
Meals for the next 3 days: Priceless

Yakisoba

Fried noodles! These packages of Yakisoba are sold with 3 bundles of noodles and sauce packets for about $4. Get the fresh refrigerated ones, not the ramen-style instant ones.

Saute meat - remove.

Saute veg.

Add noodles.

Stir in the sauce packet. Yum!

Applesauce

This was for a healthy eating project for the free pediatric clinic at Cooper. The empire apples were generously donated by a friend, Tom, whose family owns a fruit and veggie farm in South Jersey.

Applesauce is ridiculously easy to make. The hardest part is peeling and chopping the apples (30 apples later and my left hand started to cramp).


The rest of the work is done by mother nature, as the apples don't need much dressing up other than some lemon juice, salt, and cinnamon. Let it simmer with a couple splashes of water for 30 minutes. Add a couple spoonfuls of brown sugar if the apples are too sour.

I made two versions, one with sugar and one without. Both were great, but the one with sugar was more like pie-filling (not complaining).