Welcome Back with Pasta

Have you missed me? Of course you have, what a silly thing to ask. I realize it's been more than a month since I've posted any new recipes, but I've been immersed in the world of work and roller derby, the latter of which has quickly become more of a lifestyle than a mere sports hobby. During my month away, I haven't stopped cooking (it's too much of a passion to quit)--I've just stopped posting for the time being, despite my best intentions to do otherwise. There are recipes and pictures of a month's worth of new recipes sitting on my camera, waiting to be uploaded, but I'm not sure where to start. It just seems simpler to start with tonight's meal and move from there, maybe flipping back through pictures from the past month to see if there is anything that should absolutely be posted.

Tonight's meal was pasta with a quick-roasted tomato sauce (although I hesitate to use the word "sauce" for this recipe, meaning that, if you're looking for a thick, tomato-based sauce, you'll need to look elsewhere). We have started trying to incorporate more vegetarian meals into our repertoire, mainly because we tend to consume way too much meat and, for both of our active lifestyles (the hubby is a hardcore triathlon-er), it's just a healthier option as both of us tend to succumb to the (very bad) habit of thinking, "I worked out really hard, so I'll eat whatever I want" (although I'm definitely more susceptible to this line of thought than the husband). Having said that, this was a very basic, simple pasta recipe. My only suggestion is to add more salt to the pasta and a tad more crushed red pepper if you crave a little heat with your meals (with only 1/8 tsp. listed, the heat index is barely there). Also, don't be deterred by the use of a Dutch oven--although I practically covet mine, it's really not necessary for this recipe. In fact, I plan to use just a regular saucepan next time around.

The side to this was just a basic iceberg salad using almost every vegetable I could find in our refrigerator: cucumbers, tomatoes, yellow squash, carrots and broccoli.

I rarely make dessert because, well, we would just get in trouble weight-wise if I baked every night. But today, I was really craving a citrus-based dessert. Me, I love my citrus--give me a choice between a lemon wedge sprinkled with sugar and a slice of the most decadent chocolate cake you can find, and I will inevitably choose the lemon. Today's cookies, what I've dubbed the Double Lemon Sugar Cookie (yeah, I'll work on originality later), is inspired by a cookie that I fell in love with, one from a local bakery. The inspiration, a Vegan Lemon-Lime Sugar Cookie, is amazing--soft, somehow refreshing, incredibly moist (I have yet to figure out how a vegan cookie can achieve such a consistency--if you have a great vegan sugar cookie recipe, send it my way!), and deliciously citrusy. So today's goal was to almost replicate that taste, although I knew I could not achieve it from a vegan standpoint. Instead, I found this basic Lemon Sugar Cookie recipe, which I drizzled with a simple glaze (1.5 c. confectioner's sugar whisked with enough fresh lemon juice to create a smooth consistency) while the cookies were still warm. And yeah, total goodness. Although, to be quite honest, it wasn't quite citrusy enough for my palate, a problem I believe can be solved next time around by adding more lemon zest and lemon juice to the cookie dough. I would also like to add lime juice/zest to the mix for the next go-round (I've found a double whammy of lime and lemon, with even a base of orange zest, really ups the citrus ante). But overall, this was a great place to start.