Pasta Time

What do you do when you have extra heavy cream in the fridge that you want to use up? Why turn it into a creamy tomato sauce! I use pasta dishes as an excuse to use up ingredients in the fridge.

This time, I used 4 Trader Joe's Pesto Sausages, half of a sweet onion and 1 green bell pepper. I sauteed them with some olive oil and then added 6 ounces of tomato paste and some heavy cream until I get the consistency I want.

It is funny that the pasta of this dish is the least important part!

Pesto

Growing up, I was not a huge fan of pesto. Keith has always loved it, and after meeting him my appreciation grew. We frequently have gnocchi in a creamy pesto sauce, but the best I had ever had was from our cooking class where everything was made fresh. Since we were going to have friends come to town, I thought it would be fun to make gnocchi from scratch with creamy pesto sauce, but I wanted to pre-make the pesto.

This a nut free pesto since one of our friends has an allergy. It contained:

• 4 cups fresh basil leaves
• 1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 6 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1.5 cup olive oil

Of course we had to test the sauce out to make sure it would be suitable for company. I heated the pesto up in a 1:1 ratio with heavy cream and served on pasta with fresh grated parmesan cheese.

Fauxagna

It is no secret that Keith and I really like Lasagna. It is easy, fun to make, and there are plenty of leftovers. Now that I have a pasta press, it seems silly to me to purchase dry lasagna noodles (I still have to write up my post on my first lasagna from scratch.) Instead, I decided to make a faux lasagna with layers of pasta.

I love caramelized onions, and putting some into baked pasta dishes gives them a wonderful sweet twist. In the pictures above, I am caramelizing two whole onions because I wanted to save some for another dish I would make later this week. I wish that I had used a little less butter, not because of taste but because of health and there was plenty of liquid.

Keith loves garlic bread, and sometimes I'll make it from scratch. Today, I decided to just make some fresh bread to dip in the leftover tomato sauce.

The Francesco Rinaldi Chunky Garden tomato sauce is my favorite. I have no idea why I love it so much, but it really holds up well with a lot of cheese, so it is perfect for baked pasta dishes.

I cooked the pasta for 8 minutes, not the 10-12 recommended on the package because I knew it would cook more in the oven. I layered sauce, noodles and the cheeses. I used whole milk ricotta cheese (yes, I am bad), shredded mozzarella, and some spices.

The caramelized onions were sprinkled on top under the final layer of mozzarella. I only cooked it at 350 for 10-15 minutes since I just wanted to warm things up and let the cheeses melt.

I think the fauxagna was a complete success. Keith had 3 helpings!

Tequila lime shrimp

I used to love to buy margaritaville's tequila lime shrimp, but it has been so expensive that it is worth trying to find a recipe I like myself. I found a recipe that I could modify to my purposes.

My Tequila Lime Shrimp Pasta Recipe

• 1/4 cup butter
  
• 8 Tblsp tequila
  
• 6 Tblsp Lime juice
  
• 3 tsp minced garlic
• Frozen, pealed shrimp
• Cayanne pepper to taste
• 1 box pasta
• 1 cup frozen peas

Instructions

• Boil some lightly salted water (for the pasta.) Drop the pasta and cook according to the manufacturer's directions.
  
• Saute the garlic in the butter for 1-2 min, then add the tequila and lime juice.
• Once the sauce is simmering, add the frozen shrimp until they are cooked through (completely pink and curled up.) If the sauce isn't thick enough, then remove the shrimp and keep reducing the sauce.
  
  
  
• Drain Pasta (don't rinse) and combine with frozen peas, stirring thoroughly.
  
  
  
• Pour sauce and shrimp over the pasta and mix.
  
  
  
• Enjoy your yummy pasta dish!
  

Pasta Medley - Yum!

I had a bit of a dilemma when it came time for dinner. I had a lot of different kinds of pasta, but none of them were enough to make a complete meal. I therefore decided to combine a bunch and make a pasta medley.

The sauce had some stir fried kilbasa sausage, peas and tomato sauce.

I got really excited about this meal, and decided to take advantage of some more leftovers I had laying around. I had some homemade pizza dough in my fridge, but there wasn't enough for a pizza big enough for both me and Keith. (I had considered making an individual pizza for lunch, but had never gotten around to it.) I shaped the dough into stitcks, brushed them with olive oil and then sprinkled them with garlic salt.

I baked these breadsticks at 350 until they were solid (around 10 min). This meal that was just thrown together ended up being quite amazing! I will definitely make these breadsticks again.

Homemade gnocchi

It was time for me to try making homemade gnocchi all by myself. I started with 1lb 9oz of russet potatoes and boiled them until they were soft (30 min).

After they were pealed and put through the ricer, I had 1 lb of potatos to work with for the dough.

It really does look like rice!

For the dough I used 1 lb of the riced potatoes, 2.5 oz flour, 2 tsp salt and 1 egg. This ended up being fairly salty, so the sauce didn't need any additional salt.

I still don't have a gnocchi board, so I scored them with the back of a fork.

I'm not sure the scoring made a huge difference, but it was easy enough to finish rolling out the entire batch of dough.

I wanted to make the gnocchi so badly that I hadn't given much thought to the sauce. I like to use a creamy pesto mix for gnocchi, but I couldn't bring myself to use a packaged sauce on my first batch of homemade gnocchi. I therefore whipped up a simple browned butter sauce.

I thought the packaged gnocchi I bought from Trader Joe's cooked up fast... but man these started floating almost as soon as I had them in the pot! I put them in a bowl to toss with the sauce, but the gnocchi were so soft that some of them got a bit squished. Next time, I'll either put them directly in the pan with the sauce or directly into the serving bowl.

Needless to say, Keith was very excited to come home for dinner. The whole process is so yummy, I know I will be making gnocchi a lot. Soon I'll have to try out some variations and see how well they keep frozen.

Chicken Parmesan

I am thrilled to finally own a meat tenderizer! I'm ready to pound some chicken for the first time to make Chicken Parmesan.

I pounded the chicken breasts inside ziplock bags (where they had defrosted). The breast on the left has been pounded about 1/4 inch thin, the breast on the right is unaltered.

I pan fried the chicken breasts for ~5 minutes on each side.

Our pans are VERY non-stick, so we only needed the tiniest amount of oil.

Our griddle pan hadn't arrived in the mail yet, so I had to use two different pans to cook dinner. Thank goodness these pans are dishwasher safe!

What Italian meal would be complete without garlic bread? I had this in the oven to crisp as the chicken was cooking on the stovetop.

After I put the mozarella cheese on top, I stuck the pans directly in the oven at 300 degrees for a min so the cheese would melt.

This meal was so fast and easy to prepare. I cannot see myself ever using pre-breaded chicken again!

Pasta Workshop

Keith and I received a gift for a private cooking lesson from Artepicure last Christmas. We made sure to take advantage of this class before we moved away from the Boston area. The walk to the school was a little sketchy, but the classroom itself was full of character. The instructor and his wife live in the studio, and they have the most incredible collection of art... the walls are COMPLETELY covered with their collections.


The Class: Pasta Workshop
This class teaches the art of fresh pasta making. We will make potato gnocchi, filled ravioli and a hand formed pasta shape. This class will explain the science behind the choice of different flours, the proper cooking techniques for obtaining the best results, which sauces go with what shapes and the ease in which anyone, with a little understanding, can create beautiful artisan pasta at home.

My one disappointment with the class was that Keith and I did not prepare the sauces that went with pastas. But the meal we prepared was fantastic.

The best tip of the day was to use a food scale to measure the ingredients for pasta. The volume of flour can change a lot depending on humidity, but if you rely on the weight then you will get perfect pasta dough every time.

Two pasta doughs, one with egg (right) and the other without (left). The eggless dough was easier to kneed.

We made an egg pasta dough to create the butternut squash ravioli. (The instructor made the filling, but this is something that I've done myself before.) The big aid was how to fill and cut the ravioli easily (see pictures below.) When I made ravioli myself, I cut out circles and then folded them in half with the filling on the inside. I can see how I could make them much faster using this method. I also learned how great it is to use a pasta roller - rolling the dough out by hand is so hard!

I forgot to take a picture of the final dish, but the ravioli were served in a sage and browned butter sauce.

The second pasta we made was Orrechietti (translation - little ears). These were completely hand shaped. First, you roll out the dough into a snake, and then cut it with the pastry scraper into even pieces. You then press each piece down with your thumb to form the ear-shaped pasta.

I thought the flavor of the dough was great, but the texture of the shape was a bit reminiscent of spaghetti-o's (especially since it was served with a tomato sauce.) This would be a great shape to make with kids - it is a fun "craft" project.

Last (but not least), we made gnocchi. This was the dish that we were anticipating the most, since Keith loves gnocchi so much (I love them, too.)

This was the star of the day. These gnocchi just melted in your mouth. They were served in a creamy pesto sauce (just heavy cream and pesto and bam!) I have never tasted gnocchi this fresh in my life. This is a great kind of pasta to make at home, because the equipment that you need is minimal (just a potato ricer). Sure, having a gnocchi board would be great, but you can score them with a fork or just leave them unscored. This dough is so fast to make, I can see myself making gnocchi frequently (which will make Keith very happy!)

Immediately after the class, I went home and added some of the tools from this workshop to our registry (food scale, gnocchi board, pastry wheel and pastry scraper.) After this lesson Keith was also on board for the KitchenAid Pasta Roller Attachment)


Class Notes (I am afraid that I am going to loose the sheet that came with the class, so I am making note of the proportions for each of the pasta doughs here. )

• Egg Pasta Dough
• 9 oz all-purpose flour (2 cups spooned and leveled)
  
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt (or 1 tsp table salt)
• 2 large eggs
• 1-3 tablespoons cold water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
  
• Pasta Dough
• 12 ounces all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 6+ ounces cold water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
  
• Gnocchi
  
• 1.5 lbs russet potatoes (We learned that the most common error in gnocchi preparation was the wrong choice of potatoes.)
• 3.5 ounces unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 egg, lightly beaten