Recipe Review- Huevos Rancheros Spaghetti

If you are into eggs for dinner like I am you must try this super simple recipe.  I found it in the October issue of O Magazine.  I made it Wednesday night and I love it.  It all sounds a little strange, but trust me- it works.  The leftovers are yummy too, but I would suggest frying a fresh egg for leftovers.  It would make a terrific "No Meat Monday" dinner if you do that at your house.  It also makes a lot more than 4 servings.  We have already eaten 4 servings and there is at least one or two more left. 

Huevos Rancheros Spaghetti

Melissa d'Arabian, host of the Food Network show Ten Dollar Dinners, offers a dinner-friendly variation on the Mexican breakfast dish huevos rancheros: she substitutes spaghetti for the usual tortillas. When serving, break the egg yolk and mix it into the salsa for a silken pasta sauce that's light, fresh—and wholly original.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 12 ounces spaghetti
• 1 1/2 cups frozen corn
• 1 1/2 cups canned black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 4 eggs
• Kosher salt
• Ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 cups salsa, plus more for garnish
• 3/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup chopped green onion (optional)

Directions

Total time: 20 minutes

In a large pot, bring salted water to boil and cook spaghetti according to package instructions. In the last 3 minutes of cooking, add corn and black beans.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a pan and fry eggs, in batches if needed. Season with salt and pepper.

When spaghetti is finished cooking, reserve a cup of the pasta water. Drain spaghetti, beans, and corn, returning the mixture to the pot. Add salsa and 3/4 cup pasta water, tossing to coat. Add more pasta water if needed. Divide pasta onto 4 serving plates and place a hot fried egg and 3 Tbsp. Cheddar on each. Garnish with additional salsa and green onion, if using. Serve immediately.

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/food/Huevos-Rancheros-Spaghetti-Recipe#ixzz2HhkUvMvy

Taking Down Christmas

I normally like to leave my Christmas decorations up until after the 1st, but this year I needed to get them down early.  We have some good friends that will be in town the 1^st through the 6^th and I didn’t want to be messing with it while they are here as we would like to spend our free time with them.  We are also under the gun with a family room project we are in the middle of and trying desperately to get completed in the next few weeks as well as changing the guest bedroom into a nursery and changing the office into an office/guest room.  So basically I wanted to get Christmas taken care of sooner rather than later.    

I always hate the process of taking the decorations down but love the end result of getting the house back to its normal state after having been decorated since early October for Halloween.  It always feels so clean and fresh to me once the decorations are down.  The one thing I had not counted on was how Skylar would react to the decorations coming down.  She went into full 2 year old drama mode.  She wanted to hold everything I was taking down and was completely panicked about me putting it away until next year.  At first I let her hold a few things to keep her occupied but then it just got silly.  Everything I touched she said “let me have that” or “I want to hold that”.  Poor Chuck was trying to leave for work and Skylar was on the ground screaming her little head off that I wouldn’t give her every item she asked for.   

We try to only give Skylar a “paci” when she is in her crib but pretty much the minute Chuck left I knew I had to do something and out came the paci (I’m going to be in trouble if Chuck reads this).  Amazing how quickly she calmed down.  Next thing I knew she was laying on the sofa, head on a pillow, watching Dora on my iPod and sucking away on her beloved paci.  I managed to get everything put away before the Holiday Bowl started. 

Now the Curley house is back to normal just in time to get ripped apart again through all these house projects.   

First Solo Blog Post

I have really enjoyed reading friend’s blogs over the past few years.  My husband and I started a blog http://aperfectpairingbychuckandcindy.blogspot.com/ a few years back to document some of our best food and cocktail pairing creations.  We have fun when we post but boy it’s a lot of work to document a recipe from scratch,  get it all beautifully photographed, and then actually get to ENJOY the meal while it’s still warm so we don’t do it as much as we hoped we would.  I planned to fit in some blogging about our family on that blog but since we don’t do it often enough I decided to start my own blog.  Sometimes it will be about food (although probably not many full recipes will be included) and other times it will be about the day to day of me and my family.