First Recipes of 2013

This weekend I tried out the first new recipes of 2013. My list of recipes to try is already really long so I figured it was time to start getting through a couple of them. They were both a success!

Recipe #1 - Fig Bars with Red Wine and Anise.

They sound fancy, but they are just like Fig Newtons! The biggest difference - way better! Honestly, the dough is a little hard to work with so the assembling of everything was a little different. If I did these again, I just make them sandwich cookies or something a bit easier to put together. Recipe is from Food and Wine and can be found here.

Recipe #2 - Pasta alla Vecchia Bettola.

 

This is a terrible photo of an absolutely delicious pasta dish. Basically, it's pasta with vodka sauce but even better. Kelly and I enjoyed this while watching Downton Abbey last night. It takes a bit of time but most of that is just the sauce being in the oven. I added some Italian sausage since this was our meal but it really doesn't need anything. It is just a bowl full of comfort on a cold night and it'll make your co-workers jealous when you take leftovers to work the next day. The recipe is in the Barefoot Contessa's newest cookbook and can also be found here.