Archive for category Pasta
Chicken in tomato and basil sauce with goat cheese for pasta
Posted by monicajane in Food, Main Course, Pasta, Poultry on September 27th, 2009
Once again a recipe using my delightfully inexpensive all-natural chicken legs.
Ingredients:
three large chicken legs cut in pieces and skinned (or not, to your liking)
2 – 14 oz cans diced tomatoes
1 tbls butter
1 tbls olive oil
head of garlic diced
1 tsp red chili flakes
Salt to taste
3/4 cup white wine (red wine would be good too)
lots of fresh basil (see picture)
5 oz fresh goat cheese round
Brown chicken and garlic in butter and olive oil. Add the wine while it’s on high and let it boil down a tad. Add the tomatoes and the basil salt and red chili.
woops, a little steamy!
Cover and put heat to medium or medium low. After about 20 minutes uncover so that some of the juices will evaporate and turn the chicken pieces. Cook for another 20 to 30 minutes.
Once the chicken is done and the sauce has cooked down some add the goat cheese in cut and bits and stir in until melted.
Note: This is not a super thick sauce, it can be runnier than what most Americans consider pasta sauce should look like. In fact Italians do not eat the super thick tomato sauces we often see in America–I tend to cook my red sauces somewhere in the middle of what Italians and Americans like as I’ve been influenced by both cultures. I don’t imagine most of you know my parents are Italian and so I grew up eating as an Italian. All my cooking is very much influenced by my father in particular though both my parents are very good cooks.
Stuff like goat cheese are ingredients I’ve added as my culinary experience grew outside my home. We did not eat goat cheese in my home.
Chicken with white wine, shitake mushrooms and goat cheese sauce
Posted by monicajane in Food, Main Course, Pasta, Recipes on September 7th, 2009
The first part of this dish I diced lots of garlic (about a whole head of it) and sauteed it in olive oil. I then browned the chicken in the oil and garlic and topped it off with fresh rosemary and thyme from the garden. Salt and fresh ground black pepper, as well.
Once it was browned I poured in one cup of white wine and let it boil and then lowered the flame and covered the dish as it looks above.
I had dried shitake mushrooms which I brought to a boil in water. Above is what they look like before and after. I allowed the mushrooms to stay in the hot juices until they cooled and then I poured the left over juice into the cooking chicken and cut up the mushrooms in bits which also went into the pan with the cooking chicken.
When the chicken was completely cooked I took out the meat and added 1/3 of a pound of goat cheese into the juices. It looks like the above picture.
I then boiled some pasta and made the final dish. The picture unfortunately came out awful, but the food was delicious.
Basil — from the garden to a bowl of fettucine
Posted by monicajane in Food, Pasta, Side Dishes on August 11th, 2009
In our garden
Huge colander full of fresh basil
Pile of fresh cleaned basil next to food processor ready with a bunch of olive oil
The garlic ready to be coarsely chopped and tossed in
Pine nuts a top of some of the processed basil
parmesan/romano a top the pine nuts
finished! and yes that is the WHOLE pile of basil
Fettucine al pesto
Ground beef and eggplant lasagna
Posted by monicajane in Food, Main Course, Pasta on August 9th, 2009
I took a whole bunch of pictures of the process of this lasagna and managed to leave out the layer of eggplant!! How very annoying.
Here is the progression, sans eggplant. First a layer of pasta, then the first layer of meat sauce.
Then a hefty layer of parmesan:
Then a layer of cultured cottage cheese (yes it’s got a bit of a yogurt flavor)
Then the layer of EGGPLANT that is missing then you repeat the whole thing (the second time I did not put eggplant as the first layer was pretty thick–I sliced them in circles and lay them down on top of the cottage cheese) Then this is the finished product before cooking. After the second layer I finish with a layer of pasta and then just s tiny bit of sauce and cheese to top it off lightly:
This is overflowing so I put it on a cookie rack in the oven.
So the recipe:
Red meat sauce
1 lb grass fed beef (I have a very inexpensive source for organic ground beef so I’m eating red meat a whole lot more than I used to!)
1 small onion
3 cloves garlic
14 oz can diced tomatoes (these happen to have roasted hot peppers in them so the sauce will be spicy!)
1/4 cup frozen pesto sauce (from our garden)
Salt to taste
Saute onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil. Toss in beef and brown. Pour in can of tomatoes and the pesto sauce. Cook just long enough for flavors to blend. (this is a meat heavy sauce…I don’t like heavy tomato in my lasagna)
So I cooked the lasagna pasta before I started all this. I used brown rice lasagna pasta. I only cook the noodles for about 5 minutes. I take them out when they are still very firm as they cook a lot in the oven and aid in keeping the lasagna firm and not watery.
Also before putting this together brush slices of eggplant with oil and put under broiler for a couple of minutes until soft.
I placed one layer of pasta at the bottom of the dish then put a layer of meat sauce, followed by a generous amount of parmesan, followed by a layer of cottage cheese then a layer of eggplant.
Repeat.
Finish with a last layer of pasta, a very small bit of sauce, parmesan and lastly I put a small layer of mozzarella for looks.
Cook for (I just went to check on it) it was perfectly done and took about 50 minutes. I did not heat the oven up first though so go by how it looks on top…nice and lightly browned, like this:
It did not overflow. You can of course use a cheese other than the cultured cottage cheese. I used it simply because it needed to be eaten and I cook completely based on what is currently in my fridge.
Fresh Pasta with Asparagus and Pine Nuts
Posted by Van Santos in Main Course, Pasta on May 6th, 2009
With the stress of life and the recent lack of time, I haven’t given much time to Yes, We Cook! This is simply due to the lack of actual cooking I’ve had the chance to do. Well, today I said enough is enough and get back up on the horse.
Some time back we had a discussion regarding fresh pasta. Well, JT, a fellow writer on the site, introduced me to The Pasta Puttana (Yes, if you are Italian – Gianna – you know what this means) and her freshly made pasta. I picked up a package of the fresh white-wine tagliatelle at the local Chicago market, along with some fresh asparagus, and decided to make a quick meal.
As this way my first experience with Pasta Puttana, and with the fact that this was flavored pasta, I didn’t use my saltwater in the cooking. I have never cooked fresh pasta before and didn’t know what to expect, but it turns out the actual cook time is VERY short. Like 1 minutes short. So, I got the water going to a raging boil, dropped in the pasta, and before I knew it was done.
Remembering that the pasta was flavored, I made a quick butter / celery seed / dried oregano mix to drip over the dish. I simply used 1 teaspoon of butter, added a pinch of each seasoning, and melted together.
For the fresh asparagus, I used the technique previously used in the “Fusion” steak recipe.
- 1 bunch Fresh Asparagus
- pinch of garlic powder
- lemon juice
- 1 pad of butter
- freshly crushed black pepper
Cut the asparagus into inch long cuts. Add enough lemon juice to cover the bottom of the pan, include your pad of butter, and boil the juice for roughly 5 mins. Your asparagus will turn a nice bright green when it’s ready. Once bright green, take off the flame and drain off remaining lemon juice. Add the garlic powder and black pepper, mix with the pasta, add pine nuts and you are set.
Let me say, and I’m sad to say, I did not have the camera available for this dish. So there will be no food porn available. Sorry.
First off, the fresh pasta by The Pasta Puttana was some of the best pasta I’ve ever had. The white wine was not overbearing in anyway at all. The addition of the butter mix wasn’t even necessary, actually. I did not take away from the pasta but it didn’t add much either.
I love my Lemon Asparagus but it was not appropriate for this dish. The lemon was too strong for the subtle taste of the white wine pasta. I would suggest simply steaming the asparagus in water.
Bottom line: If you have a local pasta source, give it a try. If you are in Chicago, contact The Pasta Puttana and get some of her freshly made goods.
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