pasta with spicy tomato sauce (all’arrabiata)

Pasta and sauce, there are countless recipes, yep just boil up some pasta and throw in a can or bottle of sauce your done !

OR…. Start some sauce early in the morning and tend the pot all day !

Strike a balance with this recipe , quick and easy, some prep involved but the time is worth the effort in the finish. No meat is involved so it could be served as a side dish as well.

Recipe and technic is from Nick Stellino

Pasta with spicy tomato sauce

 

• 1 lb pasta, penne
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper flakes
• 4 garlic cloves
• 3 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley
• 1 and 1/2 cups tomato sauce
• 3/4 cup chicken stock
• 4 tablespoons romano or parmesan cheese

In a pot of water under cook the pasta by 2 minutes

In a large pan (big enough to hold both the pasta and sauce) heat the oil and add the red pepper flakes 

 

 

 

 

…..add the garlic cook a minute or two  Add 2 tablespoons of the parsley to the pan, stir well.

 

 

 

 

Now add the tomato sauce and stock, bring to a boil and stir for 5 minutes.

 

drain and add the pasta

……and continue to cook till almost all the sauce is absorbed by the pasta.

Off heat add the grated cheese and stir to incorporate.

Plate and garnish with parsley and grated cheese.

Red pepper heat is as much as you add to the recipe. Reminds me of a traditional american chop suey recipe as the pasta is cooked in the sauce. As a personal note this is to me actually better served cold, once refrigerated, eaten from a tupperware type container later in the evening. 🙂

 

Risotto with mung beans

Cooking up the usual till I tried this.

Right! sounds like a strange combination but it worked….

Picking items off the shelve from the pantry ,aborio rice and a package of mung beans, ended up with this delicious combination.

Gage the rice/bean ratio to your liking.

However you decide to make your risotto, I sautéed some onion and garlic , fine dice of course, add the rice and continue. Just before adding the simmering stock, in this case chicken , with chicken fat, throw in some dried mung beans, add the stock in increments, stirring, stirring and stirring.

My finish  is on the creamy side, off heat add grated Parmesan and Romano ..

Plate up.

Chicken n’ rice soup

Prepare rice, as much as needed for your amount of soup and reserve.

Utilizing veggies, dice small , in this soup , onion, peppers; green, orange and red. Carrot,  celery and small amount of garlic. In a small amount of olive oil , better yet chicken fat or a combination of both sauté the diced veggies.  Add chicken stock, another household members poaches chicken breasts and reserves the stock for me. Also the trimmed chicken tenders from the breast are reserved for the soup. 

Add water or additional stock to bring the soup up to quantity desired figuring the additional rice to be added.

To round out soup I added about 1/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill  soup mix. 

Season to taste with salt and pepper and other spices to your palate. (A dash of curry, cumin, hot pepper, etc.)

Add the chicken meat diced, and greens, I was fortunate to have kale, Tat soi, and brocolli leafs.  

 Simmer slowly, I prefer to have the rice added to the bowl when served rather than mix into the soup. 

Garnish with grated Romano. 

  
Accompanies a cold damp night. A side of toast or croutons perhaps?

Breakfast

Baby spinach, eggs, grated Romano , salt pepper.
On a spent grain flatbread.
Mexican coffee

Pizza Margherita

Simple ingredients for a delicious pizza.
Fresh home grown basil was available and a must !

the recent weather gave the basil a boost, after waiting weeks to get this amount for a pizza, time for a trim.

fresh grated Parmesan and Romano, garlic, basil and tomato.

semi deep crust brushed with olive oil just a tad of spent grains in the dough.

baked

served with a strong ale.

Related articles

• Margherita Pizza (pickfreshfoods.com)
• Mangia: Grilled Thin Crust Margherita Pizza (labellavitajlf.wordpress.com)

Noodles and veggies

Cruising some of the food blogs, email newsletters and tweets gives some some direction as to what to cook. A simple recipe of pasta noodles, with ground pepper, grated cheese and parsley would be doable and bloggable. But with the availability of brocolli and grated Romano the recipe was soon modified.
A meal for one serving of pasta doesn’t really take too much time to whip up some fresh noodles.
.

Enter the pasta roller, A simple mix of an egg and flour with a touch of oil and water produces the dough, with a tad of salt, let it rest briefly while the other ingredients are prepped.

</a , ingredients prepped.

Roll it…..

on to the noodle attachment and into the boiling water.

a 2 or 3 on the thickness setting gives a semi thick chewy noodle.

dress’em up.

add the toppings, and toss with olive oil, but I could resist this time to coat with melted butter. Aha !

now toss and serve!!

White or Red ????

After shopping salad

With the warm weather, there has been less actual cooking, what can be made without heat is good . Baking bread if necessary is done at the later hours when it’s cool and usually flat bread that does’t require a hot oven. But for now a salad is great after shopping and a chance to taste the recent purchases.

over a bed of Romaine lettuce , sliced tomatoes, red onion, chunked Parmesan and Romano cheese and snap peas.

Some Balsamic and olive oil is all that’s needed along with a couple of bread rolls. DONE !

Pizza

A simple pizza, the fresh basil available from a container plant that hs been doing good this year. Keeping it trimmed to encourage growth. Also a wedge of Romano cheese has been purchased from the warehouse club. Good grade cheese is higher priced compared to the individually wrapped processed tasteless slices of what gets passed off as cheese. In the long run the increase in quality and price of the better cheese evens out as you need less to get what it is supposed to taste like.
A plain white bread dough recipe, enough to fill a large 14 inch cast iron skillet and a 12 inch skillet. The pizza additional shell is available for other family members to build their own.

rinsed and drained 14 ounce can of diced tomatoes.
Just a tad of sugar added. Fresh tomato is available but I opted to go with the canned for now. Some of the fresh tomato available is like a hot house variety, not tops on the list for flavor. None planned for the backyard this year…. On with the pizza…

fresh basil. Taste with your eyes….

no explanation needed.

drizzle of oil standard with this pie, not shown, some smashed garlic.

yep… Thick billowy crust for this pizza.

assembly complete, into the 500 degree or better oven.

out of the pan and on to the rack for the finish. Don’t mind some cornmeal falling to the bottom of the oven. I have a silicone mat, received as a gift, installed.

on to the chopping block.

glad the weather was cool this night…..

pizza

 tonight’s deep dish pizza

mushrooms, hot Italian sausage, beef, garlic onion, American cheese, parmesan, Romano.

pizza

 tonight’s deep dish pizza

mushrooms, hot Italian sausage, beef, garlic onion, American cheese, parmesan, Romano.