Category: Pasta

End of Summer Pasta with Zucchini and Spinach

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Last night, as I started making Mushroom Ravioli with Spinach from JuliasAlbum.com for a potluck at a friend’s house, I realized that what I thought was ravioli in the freezer was actually Chinese Dumplings and the mushrooms were sludge.

But I did have some nice pasta, fresh spinach and a giant zucchini from my neighbors Amy and Steve, so I switched it up and made Pasta with Zucchini and Spinach. It was delicious and bonus point: another way to enjoy excess end-of-summer zucchini!

Ingredients:

1 lb Trottole or any other nice chunky pasta, cooked al dente
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp butter
a sprig of Rosemary and a few sprigs of Thyme, or a generous pinch of dried Rosemary and 1/4 tsp dried Thyme.
4-5 cups thinly sliced Zucchini (If really large, cut into quarters first.)
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes
5 oz. spinach (I’d be happy doubling this.)
4 cloves of garlic, smashed or 1 generous tsp garlic powder
1 large pinch red pepper flakes
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Cook pasta in salted water until al dente stage and drain, saving 1/2 cup of the pasta water.

In a large frying pan, heat butter and olive oil on medium heat with Rosemary and Thyme. Add zucchini and sun-dried tomatoes with the oil they came in. Sauté for several minutes, until the zucchini have broken down quite a bit and are mostly translucent. They will reduce a lot in volume. Remove herb stems.

Add garlic and sauté for a couple of minutes. Add salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Then add spinach in batches, continuously stirring and folding so the spinach wilts.

Add in the pasta and 1/4 cup of pasta water to start and stir to coat the pasta with the veggies. Add more pasta water if it seems too dry. Check seasonings and serve immediately.

For a vegan version, skip the butter and just use olive oil.

Scruffy Eggplant Lasagna (Thank you, Jamie Oliver!)

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Beautiful eggplant image from Amber Engle, Unsplash

Can I just say that I’ve totally fallen for Jamie Oliver, his son Buddy and their “Keep Cooking and Carry On” videos made at home?

In particular, this recipe is genius.  I love lasagna but it can feel very laborious: start with a layer of this, then a layer of that, then repeat and try to keep them neat.

His “scruffy” version is so much easier! Here is a link to the original recipe:

https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/scruffy-aubergine-lasagne/.

I  am including the link, because he has lots of great substitution ideas. (Don’t have this? Try that!)  But since many Americans aren’t used to cooking by weight, I’m also sharing the recipe as I made it, using ingredients from my pantry.  It makes quite a large batch and you may want to halve it for a smaller group. (Or make the whole batch and know that tomorrow’s lunch will be spectacular, too.)

Ingredients:

1 cup water
2 large eggplants, stem removed  and quartered, then cut into 1″ pieces
3 yellow onions, cut into quarters and then cut in half
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp rubbed dry sage
1 tsp dry red pepper flakes (use less if you’re leery of the heat)
zest of one lemon
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can water
10 lasagna strips, cooked, cooled and cut into 4-5″
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 cups grated sharp cheddar
1 1/2 cups grated romano or parmesan cheese
1/4 cup ground almonds (Optional – Jamie uses, but I didn’t have and didn’t miss it.)

Cook lasagna for about 8 minutes to al dente, in boiling, well-salted water. Drain and set aside to cool.

In a large, ovenproof skillet bring 1 cup water to the boil.  Add eggplants and onions, cover and simmer for 20 minutes until both are starting to soften.  Uncover and continue cooking until most of the moisture has cooked away.  (It won’t run into the middle when you try to make a well, but will still have some moisture.)

Make a hole/well in the middle of the pan, and add the olive oil.  Let it heat for a few moments, and then add the garlic powder, dry sage, and red pepper flakes.  Stir the spices in the oil and let them cook for half a minute or so, stirring constantly.  Add the lemon zest and stir for another few moments, until the lemon zest takes on a golden color.

Quickly add the two cans of tomatoes and can of water. Stir to combine and simmer on medium/low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The liquid will reduce some, but there will still be quite a bit. That’s okay.

Remove from the heat and dd the cooked lasagna pieces, poking them under so they’re completely covered with the sauce.  Save a few for the top of the lasagna, but make sure they’re coated with sauce, too.   Top with cheeses, and sprinkle on the ground almonds if you are using.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes.  Devour.

Mushroom and Roasted Tomato Cheesy Pasta Cast Iron Skillet Bake

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Mushroom-and-roasted-pepperI love Christmas Eve, since we always celebrate with  my brothers and sister at my brother Ron’s house, and we all bring a dish to share for dinner.  In the middle of prepping my dish, I started to get hungry and decided to make something for lunch.  But what?

Since I hadn’t really planned anything, I just checked the fridge and came up with a recipe on the fly.  Had some mushrooms and grape tomatoes on their last legs, half a red onion I wanted to use up, some lovely pasta and two nice chunks of cheese, only one of which I was sure was Asiago.

The dish came out so delicious I actually sat down and wrote it down right away.  Here is the recipe, in stages.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees, and start by roasting the tomatoes, since that takes the longest.

1 package grape tomatoes
little olive oil
salt and pepper – just a good pinch of each

Put grape tomatoes in a small baking pan and roll them in the oil, salt and pepper. Place in the oven and roast for quite a long time, (maybe 30 minutes?) until the tomatoes have collapsed a bit and there is a nice caramelized smell. No need to stir them or mess with them at all.

Veggies:

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 pinch red pepper flakes
2 packages sliced baby portabella mushrooms

Heat oil in a cast iron skillet. Add onions, peppers and seasonings and saute for a few minutes, until onion is softened. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring frequently, until the mushrooms have released their water. But don’t stop – keep cooking, stirring once in a while until the the water has dried up again.  Turn off the heat.

Pasta:

At the same time, bring a pot of salted water to boil and add 3/4 pound of any kind of pasta and cook to al dente. Drain the water and add the pasta to the veggies.

Check the tomatoes and if they’re softened, scrape them and any juices into the veggies.

Turn the oven to 350 degrees.

Create sauce:

Put the pasta pot back on the burner.

1/4 cup butter
2 Tbsp flour
/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
good pinch red pepper flakes
good pinch garlic powder

2 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 cup shredded Asiago cheese
1/4 cup some other shredded cheese – maybe it was a White Cheddar?

Melt butter in pasta pot and add flour, stirring well for a few minutes. Stir in the seasonings, then add in the chicken stock. Cook for a few minutes until the sauce is thickened a good bit, then add the shredded cheese, holding back 1/4 cup for later.

Stir until everything is nice and creamy and check the seasonings. Pour into skillet with veggies and pasta and stir gently. Top with reserved cheese and pop back into the oven for 20-25 minutes until the top is browned just a bit here and there.

Let sit for a couple minutes and serve. Soooo good!

Portobello Mushroom Lasagna

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portobello-lasagnaThis is one of Ina Garten’s recipes from “Barefoot Contessa at Home.”  It is a surprisingly easy dish to make and was really delicious.  I oohed and aahed about it so much that my friend Donna photographed the cookbook page.  So Donna, this recipe is for you!

Ingredients

kosher salt
good olive oil
12 lasagna noodles
4 cups whole milk
12 Tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) butter, divided
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 1/2 lbs Portobello mushrooms (I used three 8 oz packages of sliced Baby Bellos.)
1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375.
Bring a large pot of water to boil with a Tbsp of salt and a splash of oil. Add lasagna noodles and cook for 10 minutes stirring occasionally. Drain and set aside.

Heat milk in a glass container in the microwave until just starting to bubble at the edges. In a large saucepan, melt 1 stick of butter and add the flour. Cook, stirring constantly for one minute. Add the hot milk, 1 Tbsp salt, the pepper and nutmeg and cook over medium heat stirring constantly, until the sauce is thickened, for 3-5 minutes.

In a large skillet, heat 2 Tbsp of butter and 2 Tbsp of oil, until shimmering. Add the first 8 oz. container of mushrooms. Saute for 5 minutes, or until the mushrooms have released some of their juices and are starting to get golden edges.

Remove from pan, add a little more oil and butter and start second container of mushrooms. You’ll do the same for the third container.

Since each container gets its own layer of the lasagna, you can start creating the layers while the second and third batch of mushrooms are cooking.

To assemble the lasagna, pour about 1/3 of a cup of sauce in the bottom of a rectangular, ceramic baking dish. (My dish held three full lasagna noodles perfectly.)

Next, put three lasagna noodles, then about a cup of sauce, then the 1st batch of mushrooms, and about a 1/4 of the Parmesan. Second layer: again noodles, then sauce, then mushrooms and then Parmesan. Third layer: again noodles, then sauce, then mushrooms and then Parmesan. Add last three noodles and pour remaining sauce on top and sprinkle remaining Parmesan.

Bake for 45 minutes, or until the top is browned and the sauce is bubbly and hot. Let rest at room temperature for 15 minutes and serve hot. Yum!

Shrimp with Orzo, Tomatoes, Dill, Lemon and Feta

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Great dish for supper last night! I found the original recipe here, but made some changes:  I swapped out celery for fennel, lemon juice for lemon zest and dried dill instead of fresh, because it’s what I had.  It was supposed to also be baked for 8 minutes at 450, but it cooked just fine right on the stove.

INGREDIENTS

1 lb shrimp, peeled
kosher salt & freshly ground black pepper
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups celery, in bite-sized pieces
1 Tbsp crushed garlic
1⁄8 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1⁄2 lb orzo pasta
1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 cup pitted kalamata olive, halved if large (small is fine intact)
1 1/2 Tbsp dried dill weed
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2⁄3 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
5 ounces feta, coarsely crumbled, for serving

DIRECTIONS

Dry shrimp with paper towels and season with salt and pepper.

Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a large skillet. Add shrimp and cook 1 1/2 minutes per side, turning once. Remove to a plate, and turn heat down to medium.

Add 2 Tbsp olive oil to pan, and add celery, garlic, chili flakes, 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper. Cook for several minutes, stirring frequently to keep the garlic from burning.  Stir in white wine and let reduce for a minute or so.

Add orzo, garbanzo beans, cherry tomatoes, olives, dill, and lemon juice. Stir to combine. Add chicken broth, stir again and return shrimp to skillet.

Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low.  Cook for 8 or 9 minutes until Orzo is cooked to al dente. If it seems to be getting too dry, add a little more chicken broth. Check seasonings.

Serve immediately, with feta sprinkled on.

Note:  you may want to cut the tomatoes in half, as they got very, very hot and kind of exploded into tomato napalm in our mouths.

Spaghetti (Well, Really Oriecchette) alla Carbonara and Lemony Green Beans

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spaghetti alla carbonara

In the newspaper a couple of days ago, a challenge was issued: make Spaghetti alla Carbonara!  I looked at the ingredients, which are quite simple and thought, what the heck – I’ll take that challenge.

Since I was going right by the Mexican grocery store, I stopped to pick up the ingredients I would need. (First change to the printed recipe: it should have been an Italian grocery store, right?  I also didn’t use Pancetta, or Guanciale, or Pecorino. Will the modifications never stop?)

I’d gotten a beautiful bag of green beans from Gary and Dorie, our dear friends and thought that would add to a great supper.

Arriving home, the usual happened – we were out of spaghetti! However we had plenty of Oriecchette, which we love anyway.

Oriecchette alla Carbonara was delish – and so were the lemony, garlicky green beans.

Ingredients:

1 big Tbsp kosher salt
1/2 package of turkey bacon or thick-cut regular bacon, cut into 1/2 inch slices.
Freshly ground black pepper, maybe 1/4 – 1/2 tsp?
2 cloves of garlic, crushed or 1 tsp garlic powder
1 pound good spaghetti, or whatever pasta you have on hand
4 large eggs, stirred well and kept in a bowl
3/4 cup parmesan cheese
Fresh, chopped Italian parsley (Ali brought in about 6 good stems.)

Fill a big pot of water for the pasta, add the salt and bring it to the boil. As soon as the water is boiling, add the pasta. You want to cook the pasta until it’s very al dente. Save out about a cup of the pasta water.

In the meantime, in your largest frying pan, begin cooking the bacon. Let it cook for 8-10 minutes until it’s really nicely crispy and browned. Drain off all but 2 Tbsp of the pan drippings.  Add the crushed garlic and saute for a minute or two until it’s cooked.  (If using garlic powder, just add with the black pepper.)

Grind some black pepper into the bacon, and add 1/4 cup of the pasta water. Scrape up all the brown bits from the bottom of the pan.

As soon as the pasta is just barely al dente, drain out the water, and add the pasta to the frying pan. Gently stir the pasta to coat it, and add a little more pasta water if you need to. Let the pasta cook for 1 minute on medium heat. Remove from the heat altogether.

Add the eggs and blend quickly and gently to prevent the eggs from cooking too much. If it starts to get sticky at the bottom, add a little more pasta water.  Stir for a minute or two.

Add the parmesan and parsley and keep gently folding the pasta. Add one more grind of black pepper over the top,  check salt and serve.

Pepper, Mushrooms & Eggplant on Pasta

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We had roasted eggplant a couple of days ago, and had some leftover.  I also had peppers in the fridge and a bunch of mushrooms, so we threw together a lovely dish. A little parmesan would have been good, but we were out. It was delicious as is.

Maya wanted “hodge-podge” pasta tonight. (We keep a large mason jar with the tail ends of all different pastas. Even if they cook at slightly different times, they’re usually close enough to be fine, plus it’s fun to have all different shapes.)

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 red pepper, sliced thinly
1 green pepper, sliced thinly
2 Tbsp butter and 1 tsp of bacon drippings (optional)
2 cloves of garlic, crushed or 1/4 tsp garlic powder
8-10 large mushrooms, sliced fairly thinly
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
Roasted eggplant
Pasta

Start water boiling for pasta. When you start the mushrooms, you can start the pasta and it comes out about the same time.

Meantime, heat olive oil in a large saute pan. Add peppers to oil and stir fry for a couple of minutes. Turn the heat down a bit, and loosely cover the pan with a lid. (I used a lid that was smaller than the pan, but still covered the peppers.) After a couple of minutes, I uncovered them, and stirred again. Back on with the cover for another couple of minutes.

Stir again, and remove the peppers. Wipe out the pan in case anything was getting close to burning. Add butter to the pan, and the bacon drippings. Add garlic and cook for a couple of minutes until it starts to brown. Add the mushrooms and cook them the same way you did the peppers. Stir fry, then cover, stir again, cover and stir again.  For the final cook, you’ll want to leave them uncovered until most of the liquid dries up.

Add the peppers back into the pan, along with any juices. Using a spoon, scrape the flesh out of the roasted eggplants along the edge of the pan. Break up the eggplants into smaller chunks. Some parts will be stringy, but that’s okay. Toss with the peppers and mushrooms to warm and season with salt and pepper to taste. Yum!

I added another little pat of butter to my pasta since I love butter!

Quick & Yummy Pasta Bake

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Tammy made a version of this for us the first time in Niobrara and for Kumy it was love at first bite. It’s perfect for cooking at a cabin, because it literally only takes one pot.  For a vegetarian version, just leave out the sausage.  (You may want to add a pinch of red pepper flakes if you leave out the sausage.)

1 1/4 lb. spicy bulk Italian sausage
1 24 oz. jar good spaghetti sauce
hot water

1 package rotini
1/2 cup parmesan
2 cups mozzarella

Brown meat in a dutch oven or large pot.

Add spaghetti sauce. Fill the spaghetti sauce jar with hot water, and add to the pot, along with the rotini and parmesan. Stir well, cover and bake at 400 for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven, sprinkle Mozzarella on top, and return to oven for 10 more minutes without a cover.

Penne Adriana

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1 lb. penne pasta
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 package spicy Italian sausage
1 package mushrooms, thickly sliced
1/2 cup beef or chicken broth
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
3 cups fresh spinach, roughly chopped or use baby spinach
3 Tbsp parmesan cheese.

Cook pasta to al dente in salted water. Heat olive oil in a frying pan, and cook sausage and mushrooms until sausage is cooked through. Remove from heat and slice into 1/2″ thick slices. Add back into frying pan, and add broth, and pepper. Stir well, and add spinach. Cook until spinach is just wilted.

Serve in bowls, and sprinkle with parmesan and another twist of black pepper. This makes me hungry just thinking about it, and rated a “Yum!” in 2003.

Update:  This looked so good that I made it for supper last night.  I only had smoked sausage, and no mushrooms, so I added more pepper and a pinch of red pepper flakes.  It was so amazingly delicious.  We’ve grown to really love cooked spinach and I think you could add 4 or even 5 cups of spinach.

Spaetzle

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Spaetzle is a delicious soft pasta that’s made fresh and then fried in butter.  It’s a German staple.  My  mom used to make Spaetzle when I was younger, using a metal colander and wooden spoon to push the super soft dough into a pot of boiling, salted water.  I have a way cool spaetzle maker (thank you Colleen B!) that looks like a grater with a hopper on top, but the colander and spoon method works just fine, too.

2 1/8 cup flour  (500 gms for anyone who cooks that way.)
1 cup water
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp nutmeg
Butter

Mix the dough really well. It will be very sticky and soft. Start a large pot of salted water boiling, then turn down to a simmer. If you’re using a colander, dump about a cup of the dough at a time in it, and holding the colander over the simmering water, start scraping the wooden spoon back and forth across the bottom, so the dough drops out of the bottom holes. The noodles cook very quickly, so have a slotted spoon ready to take them out of the pot.

Meantime, melt some butter in a frying pan. When you pull the noodles out of the boiling water, shake as much water out as you can, and drop them into the melted butter to fry for a minute or so.

If you have an awesome spaetzle maker like mine, you just put the grater portion on top of the pot, dump in the dough in the hopper and slide it back and forth over the water.

Makes a ton of noodles and is so delicious.