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Archive for the ‘We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes)’ Category

Saturday Night Supper – Mushroom Lasagna w/Radicchio and Rosemary

Posted in Everyday Food, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes), tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Mushrooms near the composte

Mushrooms

Whenever we’re at the Shore I seem to cook much more than I do in NYC.  Perhaps it’s because I love to grocery shop here at my favorite market – Wegman’s!  Or maybe it’s because I have a real kitchen in my cottage and not the typical Manhattan work space.  Or maybe it’s not so easy to grocery shop in New York because I have to carry all my groceries home and/or have Peter tag along to carry a few bags or take my little red grocery cart and pile my bags in that.  But above all, one cannot deny how easy it is to eat out or order in any night of the week in The City.  BUT tonight we feasted on a savory Mushroom Lasagna and sautéed broccoli with garlic – A delicious vegetarian version of Italian food staple.

2 # mixed mushrooms – sliced uniformly (I used Shitake, Portobello, white, and Baby Bello)

1 onion medium dice

2 garlic cloves minced

2 TBS butter

1 TBS olive oil

1 heaping TBS of chopped rosemary

1 1/2 cups of whipping cream

2 cups of radicchio, cored and sliced

1 3/4 cups grated cheese

6 sheets of lasagna sheets (fresh lasagna noodles come in wide sheets)

Salt and pepper

Preheat oven 375 degrees

Melt butter and add olive oil and chopped onions. Saute over med-low heat till onions are soft and translucent but not brown.  Add in minced garlic and rosemary and cook stirring a minute or two till garlic is fragrant.  

Add mushrooms and 3/4 tsp salt and some pepper.  Increase heat to medium and cook mushrooms till soft 10-15 minutes.  Add cream and bring to a simmer 2-3 minutes.  Adjust seasonings.  Don’t make sauce too thick or there won’t be enough liquid to cook noodles.  

In a 9 x 13 baking dish, put 1/2 cup of the mushroom mix on the bottom.  Top with 2 lasagna sheets, then 1 cup of mushroom mix, 1 cup of radicchio and 1/2 cup of grated cheese.  Repeat.  

Top 3rd layer of noodles with all remaining mixture and 3/4 cup cheese.  Bake uncovered 35-45 minutes – Cool 5 minutes.

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Slow-Cooked Short Ribs Ragu – Saturday Night Supper

Posted in Everyday Food, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes), tagged , , , , , , , , on February 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »

a slow cooker Oval Crock Pot

A Slow Cooker Oval Crock Pot (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Blessed are the meals made in crockpots for those are the days free to go and do and not worry about getting home to make dinner.

Today was a lovely sunny Saturday;  Just the kind of day to clean up the rest of the snow on the walkways, to throw peanuts out to the squirrels and of course with the bright sunshine, I was able to see some more of winter/old radiator  dust!  It was also warm enough for Peter to put the sensor light we bought a couple of weeks ago. The days are growing noticeably longer and so when we went shopping this afternoon to pick up this and exchange that, we stayed out quite late.  Then we stopped by to see our friends Joe and Michael and have a pre-dinner cocktail.  Soooo relaxing and WHY?

Because my supper was already mostly made!  This morning I prepared  a recipe that I had never tried before.  I knew this would be a good night to try it out.  It turned out to be not only amazingly rich, but also economical.  

2 TBS vegetable oil

3 lbs. boneless short ribs cut into 3″ pieces

coarse salt and pepper

1 medium yellow onion diced small ( I used a good size Mayan onion)

1 large carrot diced small (I chopped up quite a few small ones) (the kind that come in a bag already peeled)

1 can (28 oz) whole peeled tomatoes

2 sprigs of oregano or rosemary

Serve with pasta or soft polenta

In a large skillet, heat oil over med-hi.  Season short ribs with salt and pepper.  In batches, cook until browned on all sides, about 10 minutes.  Transfer to ribs to slow-cooker.  Pour off all but 1 TBS of oil and add onion and carrot.  Season with salt and pepper and cook until vegetables are soft, about 3-4 minutes.  Add 1/2 cup of juice from tomatoes, stirring and scraping bits up with wooden spoon.  Transfer veggies and liquid to crockpot and add tomatoes, breaking up.  Add sprigs.  Cover and cook on high till fork tender – 6 hours.  *I only had rosemary and removed them after about 2 1/2 hours).  Skim fat off. Remove meat and shred with 2 forks and return to pot.

 * I thought it didn’t look like enough sauce for 1 lb of pasta so I added about 1/2 to 1 cup of a tomato basil sauce and about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of red wine and heated it through in the slow cooker.  My intention was always to serve this Ragu over large shells pasta although I think the recipe may have been meant to be a main meat dish, served with sides of polenta or pasta and a vegetable.  We ate it as a pasta dish with Italian bread and a salad.  It was one of the richest sauces I have ever tasted.  And economical too.  

The costs were: Short ribs – $10.44

 Tomatoes – $1.49

                                      Bag of peeled carrots $1.29

                                      Box of large shells $1.29

                                     Mayan onion $1.00

                                    Italian bread – $1.39

                                   Half bag of salad mix w/dressing – $2.50

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ROMAN STYLE BUCATINI

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes), tagged , , , , , , , on November 19, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Bucatini

Bucatini (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lately, if it’s not soup, it’s pasta (we call it macaroni) and you know I love to cook both.  This past weekend I made a pasta dish I’ve been wanting to try for awhile.  It calls for using a macaroni known as Bucatini.  As for as long as I’ve known, Bucatini was a long spaghetti-like strand of macaroni that was hollow in the middle.  Heavier and thicker than regular spaghetti or linguine and a macaroni that needed a sauce to stand up to it.

However, when I went shopping for this pastas, what I found was a package being marketed as Bucatini but the pieces had been cut into lengths of about 3 1/2 inches.  Mmmm I thought this is not the real thing BUT as it turns out, this cut was probably better than the long strand version.  Why? Because the sauce was a bit soupy and with those two open ends, the sauce just slithered into the piece and oh what a delightful mouthful it was.

1 lb Bucatini (cooked per directions)

1 pkg (4oz) Pancetta diced

1 pkg (4oz) Prosciutto diced

2 cups thinly sliced red onion (about 8oz onion)

1/2 tsp or + crushed red pepper

2 TBS Chianti Red Wine Vinegar

1 jar of pomodoro sauce, 24 oz ( I used Wegman’s Grandma’s Pomodoro Sauce)

1 jar of water using sauce jar

2 TBS Extra-Virgin Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Use a braising pan.

1. Add pancetta and prosciutto to pan on MEDIUM.  Cook, stirring, about 5 minutes until browned.

2. Add onion and crushed pepper.  Cook 10-12 minutes until onions are softened.  Add red wine vinegar, stirring to loosen browned bits on bottom of pan.  Add sauce and water; bring to simmer. Simmer gently 5-8 minutes.

3. Add oil.  Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir.  Add cooked pasta to pan and toss.

Recipe from Wegman’s MENU Magazine 

I served this dish with an Arugula Salad which proved to be the perfect complement.

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SUNDAY SAUCE -Tasty Tidbits Tuesday

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes), tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 5, 2013| 1 Comment »

Sunday sauce

Sunday sauce (Photo credit: letouj)

This past weekend, I decided to make Sunday Sauce.  It is so tasty, so delicious and even though it takes a long time to cook down, it is well worth it.  Pick an afternoon you’ll be home and soon your home will be filled with the aroma of simmering tomato sauce.  I thought I could make it in my crockpot BUT my crockpot was not big enough.  Using a crockpot would make the whole process easier since you could just let it simmer away for hours.

I started with a large stockpot but then thought, “Oh why not use the crock pot?”   I filled the crock pot and still had a lot of sauce in the braising pan so now I had to make a decision;  I took half of the meat out of the crock pot and put it in the braising pan and cooked the sauce in both.  I tell you all this so you won’t make the same mistakes I made which made a fairly simple recipe into a complicated process.  Mangia!

SUNDAY SAUCE

(but you can call it Gravy!)

1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1.5 lb of boneless country spare ribs ( I used bone-in)

6 links of Hot Italian Pork Sausage (I used Hot Poultry Sausage)

2 cups (16 oz) chopped onions

8 TBSP of minced garlic (from jar) OR 20 cloves minced

2 cans of tomato paste

4 cups of water

6 cans of coarsely ground Italian tomatoes

4 TBSP dried basil (I used 2TBSP and basil from my yard)

16 meatballs (cooked)

Salt and Pepper to taste

You’ll need a large braising pan and a 16 Qt stockpot

Heat olive oil in large braising pan on MEDIUM HIGH; add ribs and sausage.  Cook, turning 2-5 min, until meats are browned on all sides.  Transfer meats to stockpot.

Reduce heat to LOW.  Add onions and garlic to braising pan; cook, stirring, 10 minutes, until veggies are translucent.

Raise heat to MEDIUM; add tomato paste.  Cook, stirring, 3-4 minutes, until paste just begins to brown.  Add water, stirring to loosen browned bits on bottom of pan.  Bring to simmer.

Transfer tomato paste/water mixture to stockpot. Stir in canned tomatoes and basil.  Bring to simmer on MEDIUM.  Reduce heat to LOW.  Cook, stirring occasionally, 5 hours.  Add cooked meatballs.  Cook, stirring occasionally, 1 hour.

Carefully transfer meats to serving platter; cut meats into manageable pieces. Transfer sauce to serving bowl.

Recipe from Wegman’s MENU magazine

Congratulations to me! This is my 1000th blog post!  Wow, I’ve had so much fun doing this, I hope my readers/followers are enjoying  this journey too.  Thank you for all your support and comments.  

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Sunday Supper-Super Shows

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes), tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Oh wow, what a great time I had last night.  I was in my glory and in full possession of the remote.  Well if not the remote exactly, I did pick all the shows we were going to watch on Sunday evening.  I had it all planned out and then the football game  screwed up the line-up.  It started out with 60 Minutes  starting late and running over past 8:00.  I wanted to watch The Amazing Race, the only reality show I think worth watching, so since I also wanted to watch The Good Wife, my solution was to DVR both of them as I was watching them BECAUSE Masters of Sex and Homeland  followed at their regular times.  Oh my,  such planning;  Two TV’s on two different floors and only one with DVR capacity.  Such is life in the 2000 millennium.  

My plan did not quite work;  We watched the shortened version of 60 Minutes and The Amazing Race and three quarters of The Good Wife.  I happily went upstairs to watch SHOWTIME, content with the knowledge that afterwards, I could go downstairs and find out what Alicia was going to do as she was caught in the middle of a fiduciary dilemma.  Best laid plans and all that jazz, I just never took into account that the DVR  didn’t know that the football game had run late, it recorded The Good Wife from 9:00 to 10:00 and therefore the ending was never recorded! 😦

There was just enough chill in the air to warrant closing the window and making a hearty soup for dinner.  The soup was  Escarole, Canellini Beans and Sausage and it hit the spot on this fall Sunday evening.  I served it with some great chewy Italian bread.

1 pkg (1 1/2 #) Italian mild pork sausage patties ( I used hot poultry sausage)

3 TBS basting oil divided

8 oz chopped onions

3 cloves garlic chopped

1 pkg (15 oz) escarole

Salt and Pepper

1 carton chicken stock

1 can cannelloni beans, drained

1 cup ditalini pasta

lentils + escarole

ESCAROLE  (Photo credit: joannova, a/k/a foodalogue)

2 TBS lemon juice

Cut each sausage patty into 6 pieces and roll into balls.  Heat 1 TBS basting oil in a large braising pan on MED .  Add sausage balls and cook, turning to brown on all sides 3-4 minutes.  Remove sausage from pan and set aside. Discard pan drippings.

Return pan to heat, add remaining 2TBS of basting oil. Add onions. Cook, stirring occasionally 2-3 minutes until onions are translucent. Add garlic, cook, stirring till softened-1 min.  Add escarole, cook, stirring, 1-2 minutes until wilted.  Season with salt and pepper.  Stir in stock, beans and browned sausages.  Heat to boiling on MED-HI.  Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.  Add pasta, simmer 10 minutes.  Add parsley and lemon juice.  Season with salt and pepper.

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Quick Marinara Sauce with Ziti and Mozzarella Cubes

Posted in Everyday Food, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes), tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 7, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Sweet Tomatoes, Creamy Mozzarella!

Sweet Tomatoes, Creamy Mozzarella!

Sunday night supper!  A few days ago I happened across one of Lidia’s recipes and it seemed simple enough and was just perfect for simple supper after a day at the beach.  I thought the season was perfect for Garden State ingredients but I was slightly off.  I called one of our favorite Market Stands and I was told that it’s still too early for native plum tomatoes.  As you know I’m a huge fan of Wegman’s but there are some vegetables that I will only eat in season and bought from a fruit and vegetable stand and tomatoes are definitely in that category.  Well, at least I had the fresh basil growing in my backyard!  Lidia allowed for the fact that you might not be able to get your hands on 2# of fresh plum tomatoes so she suggested you use a 28 oz can of peeled Italian tomatoes – so I did.

This really is a quick and easy recipe  and so damn good!  

1/4 cup olive oil

8 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

3 # fresh plum tomatoes, peeled and seeded or 28 oz can of peeled Italian tomatoes

2 sprigs of fresh basil

pepperoncino (crushed red pepper to taste)

1 # Ziti

2 cups of mozzarella cubes ( 1/2″)

1/2 cup granna padano grated ( I used shredded Parmesan/Peccorino)

1/2 cup basil leaves, shredded and packed loosely

Bring a pot of  salted water to boil for the pasta.

Add the oil to a medium size saucepan over medium heat.  Add the garlic and cook till lightly browned – about 2 minutes.

Carefully add the tomatoes and their liquid.  Add the basil sprigs.  Bring to a boil and season lightly with salt and crushed red pepper.  

About 10 minutes after the sauce has been up on the stove, add the ziti to the boiling water.  Reduce the heat for the sauce to a simmer and break up the tomatoes. Sauce should get chunky and thick – anywhere from 10-15 minutes.

Taste the sauce and adjust seasonings  Lydia says to remove the garlic and the basil sprigs.  I didn’t.

Drain the ziti and add to the sauce – toss till pasta is covered with sauce.  Turn off the stove, add the mozzarella cubes and the grated cheese.  Serve immediately and garnish with shredded basil leaves.

Recipe by Lidia Bastianich

 

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Cooking and Posting in REAL TIME – PASTA WITH VEGETABLE SAUCE

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes), tagged , , , , , , , on June 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

A whole and halved red bell pepper

A whole and halved red bell pepper (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well this is a first for me.  I am in the process of cooking and posting simultaneously.  This could be interesting or disastrous.  I have to keep jumping up to stir the vegetables in the braising pan.  I spent some time prepping, sort of creating my own                  mise en place.  I thought it would be prudent to chop each of the vegetables ahead of time so I could add them to the pan in order of the time it would take for that vegetable to soften.  

So I started with some olive oil in the pan and tossed in the celery. I chopped two stalks.   Originally I was going to start with the sliced garlic, however, I somehow never quite soften garlic without browning several;  I let them sauté a while and then added the Vidalia onion.  I had cut up about 1/2 of a largish medium onion.  I didn’t chop it or dice it, it was somewhere in between.

The idea here is to  put in those veggies that take longer to soften and also add some of their own liquid.  Next came Red Bell Pepper. I used a whole pepper and sliced and cut it up in about 1″ pieces.  I  tossed in the garlic slices a few moments ago.  Probably the vegetables are supposed to be crisp but I think my husband is not going to like this dish if everything is a little chewy.  I just tested a piece off celery and clearly that should have been on its own in the pot for longer before I started adding other ingredients.  And what does a good cook do?  I put the lid on the braising pan which should quicken some of softening and also add some more liquid because basically what juices and oil in the pan are supposed to be my sauce!   Oh boy, we’ll have to see how this plays out.

ALERT! I should have turned the gas down lower when I put the lid on – it was only a few minutes but the onions turned brown.  

I removed the lid and added zucchini and yellow squash.  I used 3/4 of the yellow and about 2/3 of the zucchini.  I put the lid back on and lowered the gas and I see that I don’t have much liquid in the pan.  I think I’ll be adding pasta water to this thin sauce but I still have the tomatoes to add and they’re juicy – I am loving me those Jersey Tomatoes.  This vegetable sauce is really a work in progress and I am up and down and up and down, stirring everything.  

I just put the pot of water on to boil – I will be cooking linguine which is Peter’s favorite.  The water is boiling but I turned it off because since I have never made this dish before I don’t really know how long it’s going to take and the veggies can sit in the pan while I cook the pasta.  I added the tomatoes and the mushrooms.  I had chopped up two fairly large tomatoes and sliced about 20 white mushrooms.  I also put the lid back on.  The lid is going on and off about as often as I jump up to stir or check the pan.

The linguine is in the pot and I checked the vegetables – the tomatoes are doing their job and juicing things up.  Of course mushrooms are mostly liquid and they’re helping.  Gotta go in kitchen and stir the pasta.

NOTE: When I added the tomatoes (which I had salted right after I cut them up so they would juice more) I added some salt and pepper to the mixture.  I’m going to sprinkle some Romano cheese into it also.

The pasta is almost done, I have scooped up a measuring cup of pasta water and turned off the sauce. It looks juicy and everything looks soft.  I’ve decided to serve it all in the braising pan.  I drained the linguine and put in the pan with the vegetables – It looks good!  I sprinkled some of the cheese all over the top and voila Dinner is served!

WHAT I LEARNED:

By writing a blog and cooking at the same time, I was really distracted and it was only when I opened up the refrigerator to get a beer, I saw the arugula.  Oh dear, that was supposed to be salad tonight-oh wellllllllll.

AND it was absolutely delicious!  I mean really delicious and we ate most of the pound of linguine I cooked.

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Linguine with Lemon-Cream Sauce – Pasta recipe

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes), tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 14, 2013| Leave a Comment »

This image shows a whole and a cut lemon.

LEMONS-It Must Be Spring

We mostly called it macaroni, sometimes shells and sometimes spaghetti – today it seems it’s just pasta.  But whatever you call it, this dish is a delightfully different main or side dish for this season.

Coarse salt and ground pepper

1 lb linguine

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

2 shallots minced

1 cup heavy cream

1 tsp grated lemon zest, plus 2 TBS lemon juice (from 1 lemon)

In a large pot of boiling water, cook pasta according to package instructions.  Reserve 1 cup of pasta water; drain pasta and return to pot.  Meanwhile, in a small pot, heat oil over medium  Add shallots, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring, until tender, 4 minutes.  Add cream and lemon zest.  Bring to boil and cook until slightly thickened, 8 minutes.  Add lemon juice and season to taste with salt and paper. Pour cream sauce over pasta and toss, adding enough pasta water to create a thin sauce that coats pasta.

Recipe from Martha Stewart’s Every Day Food

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Linguine with Spring Vegetables – A Pasta Dish

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes), tagged , , , , , , , , on May 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Linguine with Spring Vegetables

Linguine with Spring Vegetables

Pasta is such a seasonal dish especially when you cook it with vegetables.  The winter sauces are hardy, rich and often made with root vegetables.  Come Spring and Summer, we lighten up the dishes with lighter sauces and lots of garden fresh vegetables.

Coarse salt and ground pepper

3/4 lb linguine

1 lb asparagus (trimmed) and cut into 1″ lengths

1 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced

4 oz sugar snap peas (stem ends trimmed), halved

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 TBS buter cut into pieces

2 TBS fresh tarragon leaves

In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta 4 minutes short of al dente; add asparagus, zucchini, and snap peas.  Cook until vegetabless are crisp-tender, about 3 minutes.  Reserve 1/2 to 1 cup of pasta water.  drain pasta mixture and set aside.

In the same pot, bring cream and butter to a simmer.  Toss in pasta mixture and enough pasta water to create a thin sauce (it will thicken as it stands).  Season with salt and pepper, and top with tarragon.

Recipe from Martha Stewart’s Every Day Food

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Orechiette with Brocoli Rabe, Oregano and Lemon Zest

Posted in Everyday Food, Marthaspeak, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes), tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Tasty Tidbits Tuesday has been missing in action more often than I would like to admit.  I made the pasta dish I featured a week or so ago – the Penne with Cauliflower and Swiss Chard.  OMG, I have to tell you it was sooooooo delicious.  It had a delightfully light flavoring yet strong enough that you could savor every bite.  I admit I couldn’t taste the  Swiss Chard but since it added a different texture and the goodness of a dark leafy green vegetable, I was happy it was in it.

Actually it wasn’t the ingredients as much as it was the cooking technique that brought such flavor into every mouthful.  If you recall, the cauliflower was blanched for 3 minutes in the pot of boiling water that would also be used to cook the pasta.  So when the pasta was cooking in the water that the cauliflower had been in, it absorbed a light flavor that was as I said, delicious!  

Well my passion for pasta got me thinking about how many of my Tuesday recipes were pasta dishes and so I’ve decided to make a new category on the blog; We Called It Macaroni.  And I’m going to be publishing a LOT of pasta recipes! I’m no Lydia however, I’m taking on the job of educating my readers to the joys of Italian cooking, particularly PASTA, and taking them beyond red sauce and meatballs!  You can now search the blog category We Called It Macaroni for any of the pasta recipes published previously.  “Mangia”

Lovely light and flavorful pasta dish.

Lovely light and flavorful pasta dish.

Orchiette with Brocolie Rabe, Oregano and Lemon

Coarse salt and ground pepper

3/4 orchiette or other small pasta shape

1 bunch broccoli rabe (1 lb) – trimmed, cut into 1 1/2 ” pieces

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 TBS fresh oregano leaves, for serving

2-3 TBS fresh lemon juice , for serving

In  a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta according to directions, adding broccoli rate 4 minutes before the end of cooking.  Meanwhile, in a small saucepan heat oil, garlic and red pepper flakes over medium heat until garlic begins to sizzle, 2 minutes.  

Drain pasta and broccoli rabe and return to pot.  Add oil mixture and toss to coat;  season to taste with salt and pepper.  * I always sprinkle a little Peccorino-Romano or other Italian grating cheese on top of my pasta dishes

To  serve, sprinkle oregano over pasta and drizzle with lemon juice.

** As you can see, this recipe uses only olive oil as the sauce for the pasta dish;  Therefore you should definitely use the small pasta shapes such as orchiette and secondly when I see a recipe calling for so little sauce I often save a cupful of the pasta water to add to the sauce. Also I would use as many garlic cloves as I wished and just shake the red pepper flakes in and not measure.

***  You can also add cherry tomatoes with the garlic and cook them till they burst, add yet another dimension of flavor and texture to your dish.

Recipe from Martha Stewart’s Every Day Food

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