nywff part 2....swiss chard ragu with white beans and tiny shell pasta

i learned to make this fantastic vegetarian dish at the new york wine and food festival, courtesy of chef mark ladner.  if i had seen this recipe in a cookbook  i honestly never would have tried it....i have had a tiny bit of chard on a lovely plate in a restaurant but never as the main attraction of a meal.  chard is so wonderful for you and is available now...so give this recipe a try...it is so hearty and yummy...i have made it at least 6 or 7 times .....it is seriously delicious!!! chef ladner served this with home made orchiette pasta. which we also had to try and make... needless to say i am still a novice with the orchiette.....homemade orchiette is an art and unfortunately i am not an artist....i had a hard time finding boxed orchiette locally and have substituted mini shells.

rustic ragu

recipe after the jump

cinnamon rolls from america's test kitchen

easy cinnamon rolls

saturday morning...getting ready to bake some scones and the little one requests cinnamon rolls :)  how can you say no?  of course you can't....you go to the fridge, the freezer, the pantry and dig around....what do you have that you can make into cinnamon rolls...no frozen puff pastry....have to go full blown...find that good america's test kitchen recipe...it has been years since i made these...but they really are easy and very delicious.  at first glance it might look long and complicated but it is pretty easy just go step by step.  the recipe warns these are best warm but hold reasonably well for 2 hours...well i did also make scones...so the 3 of us could not eat all of them for breakfast....karen had one before supper and there were two for breakfast the next day and they were still good! i made just a few modifications to the recipe...i used mascarpone cheese instead of cream cheese and added lemon zest and raisins...i love the crunchy puffed raisins in cinnamon rolls.

recipe after the jump