Hotel Cooking!

I have to give credit to where credit is due...Ah, those college days! Sunday evenings was a time when the dining hall shut down to any type of hot meal and brown bag sandwiches were past out. Always a choice between PB&J or some type of meat and cheese, chips, fruit and a snack cake. Sometimes those brown bag beauties were just too much, we needed to step aside from the norm and do something creative. So we began collecting butter pats and pieces of foil. Soon we were using our irons to make grilled ham and cheese sandwiches! Sometimes it was grilled PB&J but not often as the peanut butter was already thinned down with marshmallow cream and heating it just made it messier than we liked. But those grilled sandwiches were a wonderful break from the norm!!

Sitting in a hotel room day after day and going through the same rut of waiting for Scott to come home so that we could go to a restaurant and eat someone else's cooking just becomes sooooo mundane! A flicker of genius (or a stirred memory - however you choose to look at it...I prefer genius!) and my mind is turning with ideas of what I can make with the limited amount of equipment that I have.

I had seen packages of pre-chopped bacon in the grocery stores and thought "I could cook that in the microwave!" and the wheels continued to turn...I could buy a couple of different types of sauce, add some bacon, some grated Parmesan, fresh basil (I'm growing it in the window ledge) and have a delicious sauce! Add some pasta and grilled bread and VIOLA! So I went to work on a trial run while Scott was away in England. It was delicious!! So I went back to the store and bought more of the same items and also a small package of ground hamburger. Here's my list...and understand these are German products so if you want to create this, you'll have to wing it just like I did!

1 Jar Tomato Bolognese Sauce (about 12 oz.)
1 Jar Red Pesto Sauce (about 8 oz.)
1/2 lb (approximately) Ground Hamburger
1 Lg Green Onion, sliced
1 Bottle Merlot Wine (this was already in the room, just thought I'd put it to use since we wouldn't be drinking it!)
Grated Romano Cheese
1 Small Round of Rosemary Focaccia Bread
Garlic Butter
5-6 Leaves of Fresh Basil
1 Small pkg Cheese Tortellinis
Salt and Pepper

I cooked the meat (with the S&P), added the sauces, about 3 tbsp of the Merlot, green onions, & Romano cheese. I microwaved this concoction several times for 5 minutes each time, stirring, letting sit for a while, reheating and continue this throughout the day until early evening when I let it sit to room temp and then added it to the fridge. We have a tiny fridge and if I had put it in the fridge when it was hot, everything else would have spoiled. It doesn't have much cooling power. The next day I did the same thing...heating it up once an hour for 5 minutes each. (I did end up adding about 1 cup of water to the sauce as it thickened up during the cooking process).

When it was about 2 hours before Scott was due to be home. I heated a bowl of salted water to very hot and added the pasta. Cooked until al dente and then mixed the pasta in with the sauce. Heated it up a few times with the sauce so their flavors could get to know one another. I also added the basil at this time so that I didn't over-cook it!


The bread was easy. Fold foil into a make-shift rimmed pan. Butter the bread and place on foil pan and place on a very hot iron until browned. You must have a rim though or else your butter could run off and burn you or stain whatever it lands on.


Here are some pics of what I and the results!

Rosemary Focaccia in the "pan"


"pan" on the "grill"


Finished product complete with fresh garnish


Cheese Tortelloni with Tomato Basil Bolognese and Grilled Garlic Bread!

YUMMY! or as they say in Germany...Lecker Lecker!

Now for the disclaimer...

Do not try this at home or in any hotel room. I knew the risk of performing these tasks and did them anyway. If you choose to be as silly as me and cook using an iron or any various other non-cooking utensils, you do so at your own risk!!

Enjoy your day!

With Love in the Mix!

Shannon