Another quick and easy dish based on this recipe.
You can use your home made pasta for this but I went with bought pasta and spent my free time making the sauce.
Pasta with a Danish Blue cheese sauce garnished with crispy strips of bacon and toasted walnut pieces. If serving to company, you can garnish with some fresh parsley, but I didn’t bother, especially because I didn’t have any.
The simplest Italian pasta dish is spaghetti aglio e olio, pasta with garlic, red pepper flakes and olive oil. If you’re on a budget, this is an inexpensive dish when paired with a big bowl of soup and a salad.
But you can build on this basic dish if your budget is more generous.
Instead of olive oil, you can use butter (or use both) and add some leftover roasted chicken. Or shrimp if you’ve just been paid. A bit of shrimp (100 gm per portion) can make you feel like you’re dining out at a fancy Italian restaurant, especially if you add a glass of a dry white wine to your meal. Clams or mussels are other protein options. Or a nice piece of salmon. If you’re avoiding meat but still want some protein in your dish, add a can of drained and rinsed chickpeas.
Add some jarred pasta sauce to the previous meal for a change in colour and flavour. And tomatoes are veggies, aren’t they? If you have tomatoes in your garden, dice up one and add that to the meal above. Grape or cherry tomatoes, cut in half, are another option.
If you’re not in the mood for tomatoes, transform your aglio e olio into an Alfredo sauce with the addition of whipping cream and grated Parmesan cheese. Sometimes the cheese goes on sale and it freezes well, grated or ungrated.
Another option is to add some whipping cream to the tomato sauce. The result is a fancy ‘blush’ or pink sauce. You can add white wine to thin out a leftover Alfredo sauce if you’ve got some in the your cupboard or fridge. Vodka is another add-in to a blush sauce instead of the white wine.
And, if you’re a veggie fanatic, add blanched spinach or Swiss chard or kale to your pasta dish.
Kale is a bit on the bitter side so you may want to blanch it ahead of time or sautee it with your olive oil and garlic. Asparagus is another alternative. And, of course, you can sautee your favourite mushrooms in the olive oil until golden brown and remove them from the pan before adding your garlic, and return them to the pan along with your cooked and drained pasta to warm through.
Today’s supper came to the top of the posting queue because it’s an amazing combination of two simply prepared dishes, a main and a pasta side, and a green salad of your choice.
I’ve made pan fried breaded chicken cutlets before so that wasn’t a big deal. It was the pasta dish that took it over the top.
The recipe came from this Youtube video but the ‘bones’ of the recipe are very simple: whipping cream, the zest of one lemon and a tablespoon of butter. Simmer together for a few minutes in a large saute pan until the sauce reduces a bit, add some grated Parmesan or Romano cheese and your freshly cooked pasta, stir it together tasting for seasoning (salt and pepper) and then serve with some more grated cheese on top. The recipe suggests adding some lemon juice as well, but, in my opinion, it didn’t need any. If you have a fetish for something green for a garnish, sprinkled some freshly chopped parsley over the top.
And gobble it down before it gets too cool.
Forget taking pictures for your blog.
FORGET it, I tell you!
The website where I found the ‘for one’ cake recipes also has savoury dishes. Especially pasta dishes.
Like this Ham and Pea Alfredo for One … I made it with linguine
I improvised this Turkey Cutlet Parmigiana with a quick and easy marinara sauce and one of the cutlets from my freezer.
Turkey Cutlet Parmigiana for One
Turkey Cutlet Parmigiana for One
1 turkey cutlet
1/4 cup grated Mozzarella cheese
100 gm dry pasta, cooked according to package directions
Quick Marinara Sauce for One – enough to dress about 100 gm dried pasta
1 cup canned, diced tomatoes, with juice
1/2 tbsp butter or margarine
1/4-1/2 cup water, as needed
1/8 tsp minced onion
1/8 tsp dried oregano
pinch of garlic powder
salt to taste
fresh oregano (sprig) and 2-3 fresh basil leaves, torn (optional)
sugar, as needed
In a large saute pan, combine the tomatoes, butter, 1/4 cup water, onion, oregano and garlic. Bring to the boil, turn down to a simmer, cover the pan, and simmer for 10 minutes. Puree the tomato sauce.
Add the fresh herbs and a pinch or two of salt. Add more water if needed. Cover and simmer for another 10 minutes. taste and add sugar and salt, as needed.
Add the cooked pasta and toss in the sauce.
Push the pasta to one side of the pan. Add the turkey cutlet, sprinkle the mozzarella cheese on top and put the lid on the pan. When the cutlet has warmed through and the cheese has melted, transfer to a serving plate. Garnish with fresh herbs.
I was going to do a giant post featuring the two chickens I bought a couple of weeks ago but I postponed it, again, for this Italian pasta dish featuring an item many people may not associate with Italy … chicken livers.
I love chicken livers and have had a craving for a while so I picked up two pounds on Saturday and set aside half a pound for use in this delicious dish that I ran across while net surfing a while ago.
Pasta alla Caruso is a chicken liver dish named in honour of the Italian tenor, Enrico Caruso, who was said to love it, and a speciality of his home town of Naples. The Italian name, “Pasta Con Fegatini Di Pollo, Cipolle E Funghi” refers to the ingredients … chicken livers, San Marzano tomatoes, onions and mushrooms.
Pasta alla Caruso – serves 2
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lb (225 gm) fresh chicken livers *
1/4 cup finely diced onion (or 2 tbsp sauted)
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 lb (225 gm) sliced mushrooms (half button and half cremini)
1 tsp dried herb mixture (equal parts dried parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme)
2 tbsp tomato paste
1/4 cup dry red wine (Italian preferred ie Sangiovese)
a dash of Worcestershire sauce
1 – 1 /2 cups canned, peeled plum tomatoes (San Marzano preferred)
salt and ground black pepper, as needed
* If you don’t like chicken livers, slice a zucchini into 1/4 inch rounds, coat them with flour and deep-fry. Drain on paper towels and then use them in place of the fried chicken livers.
Garnish – grated Pecorino Roman (or Parmigiano Reggiano, if that’s all you have)
200 gm thick pasta cooked according to package directions ie fettuccine or linguine or even bucatini
Puree the plum tomatoes and set aside until needed.
Rinse and trim the chicken livers. Drain well and cut into 1/2 in (12-13 mm) wide strips. Sprinkle about 1/8-1/4 tsp salt over the liver. Heat up the olive oil in a medium saute pan. Add the livers and fry over medium/medium-high heat until firm. Transfer to a small bowl and set aside until needed.
Wipe out the saute pan, add the unsalted butter and saute the diced onion over medium heat until it’s started to pick up some colour.
Add the sliced mushrooms to the saute pan, sprinkle about 1/2 tsp of salt over the top, and saute them until they start getting golden brown but are still a bit firm. Add the dried herbs and stir through.
Add the tomato paste and fry for a few minutes until you’ve coated the onions/mushrooms and the mixture is fairly dry. Add the wine and scrape up any bits on the bottom of the pan. Add a splash of Worcestershire sauce and the pureed tomatoes and liquid. Cook, uncovered, for 7-10 minutes until the sauce has thickened and infused into the vegetables.
Add the cooked chicken livers and any juices that may have come out of them and stir through. Cook just until the chickens are warmed through. You don’t want them to get tough.
Taste the mixture and add whatever else you might need – some more salt, some ground pepper, or even a bit of lemon if the sauce seems a bit flat.
Divide the freshly cooked pasta between two plates, ladle half the sauce over each portion and grate the cheese over the top.
Serve with a glass of the red wine.
Enjoy!
The rest of the chicken livers were sauteed in vegetable oil with a sprinkle of salt, Hungarian paprika and a medium sized onion. Just like my mother used to make for me. There’s nothing like chicken livers over mashed potatoes or mamaliga (the Romanian version of polenta). At least, I think so.
Freezer clear-out is going well with about eighty percent of the contents of the upstairs freezer having been transferred to the basement freezer. However, meals are going to be pretty unimaginative this coming week, as I scrounge out previously made and frozen mains and sides. The same old dishes are making an appearance so I thought I’d wax poetical on one of my recent big purchases.
Even though I usually make out a grocery list for my week’s shopping, late Wednesday evening when the online grocery store flyers are posted, impulse buys are my weakness. Sometimes though, you have to take advantage of an unexpected really GOOD sale.
Recently, I had occasion to visit a nearby Freshco grocery store for a few odds and ends, since it is conveniently located at the same mini mall where I just got my hair cut. While walking down the pasta/sauce aisle, I spotted a sale on my favourite pasta and pizza sauce … Prego. Since this brand isn’t available at Food Basics, at all, and there was none at Metro, my usual place to buy this, on my last visit, I decided to snap up a few bottles. Especially since the price was $1.99. Usually, this is product is $3.49 or even more. A sale price of $2.49 is really good and this was even better than that.
As I was checking out, the cashier noted the four bottles she was ringing in and asked if it was a good product. Of course, I said yes and she mused that at 99 cents she should pick up a jar or two herself. 99 cents?? A DOLLAR 99 cents, I corrected her … to have her point out that it was ringing in at 99 CENTS.
I took my groceries to the car, turned around and went back in for six more bottles and a wedge of Parmesan cheese as well as a few other things that I knew I could use.
Convenience and good flavour at a great price is worth going over your planned budget if possible.
Here are a couple of quick dishes made recently using the jarred sauce:
Tagliatelle using whole wheat pasta … for a meatier topping, add some cooked hot Italian sausages (previously bbq’d and frozen, in this case) to the sauce when warming it up to add to the pasta.
Individual pizzas made with sourdough flour tortilla
I wanted to make a white sandwich bread and picked this sour cream white bread recipe found on “The Spruce” web site for something that was a bit different.
Sour cream replaces the egg, milk and butter found in many enriched bread recipes. The resulting bread was nice and fluffy and tasted great either served as an accompaniment to a bowl of pasta or with jam as a snack.
The bread is meant to be baked in a 9 inch by 5 inch loaf pan but the amount of dough I had (820 gm) seemed a bit excessive to me, so I made four (54 gm) buns with part of it. I didn’t bother using the egg white glaze suggested to give the loaf a glossy finish, though I did brush melted butter on the buns.
The dough rose beautifully during the bulk proofing in the oven with the light on, taking only one hour, and though my loaf shaping was a bit lacking, the final proofing took only 45 minutes and baked up golden brown. For some reason, I decided to slash the top of the loaf before baking but, obviously, I didn’t put my heart into the matter as the cut turned out pretty anemic.
The loaf pan was oiled and lined with a small sheet of parchment paper which made removing the finished loaf a breeze.
I didn’t want my buns to round up too much during proofing so I pressed them down after 15 min, as in my earlier hamburger buns, and let them continue proofing for another 30 minutes. I found the oven spring a bit disappointing though the crumb was nice.
While my bread was proofing, I made a quick batch of spaghetti sauce with a couple of 28 oz cans of whole tomatoes (with herbs and spices) and 4 hot Italian sausages. I doctored the sauce with some additional dried Italian herbs and hot pepper flakes and served them over ditali pasta. There was enough sauce for 2 two serving containers to be tucked away in the freezer for later. All in all, a very successful cooking day.
A while ago I bought a big (100 fl oz) can of peeled, whole San Marzano tomatoes with the intention of making Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce with onion and butter. But you know what they say about ‘intentions’.
And then, a couple of days ago I was brainstorming an idea for a “Sunday sauce”, a pasta sauce that varies with the household making it. I was going to throw in some ground beef, a couple of pork chops, even a chicken breast, all of which transform a simple pasta sauce into a ‘gravy’. Then I realized that that pound of ground beef that I had in my freezer … wasn’t there after all. And I didn’t want to just use the chops and breast.
So I went to the market and ended up with five pounds of medium ground beef. At which point, I was faced with a variety of culinary possibilities. Three pounds were immediately portioned into freezer bags of one pound each and stored away for the future. I browned off the other two pounds and made a quick spicy beef burrito filling with half.
The second pound of cooked ground beef was drained well and frozen as well.
And now back to that can of tomatoes … I took out my dutch oven and sauteed a finely diced onion and a large clove of garlic slowly, over medium heat, in 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil and 2 tbsp of unsalted butter until they were soft but not coloured at all. Then, I added about a teaspoon of dried basil (as I didn’t have any fresh), a half teaspoon of salt and a heaping teaspoon of sugar, and half the can of the tomatoes, crushed by hand and roughly seeded, along with their liquid. I had a bit of Parmesan cheese rind so I threw that in as well. After simmering the tomatoes, covered, for an hour …
… I pureed them with a hand blender and then simmered the sauce for another hour. Taste for seasoning. You might want to add another pinch or two of sugar if the sauce is too acidic.
The result was amazing.
Serve the sauce over pasta or polenta, as a dip for bread or pizza rolls/bites, dress a meatball sub or chicken parmigiana or use as an ingredient in a decadent pan of lasagna.
Nothing new about this post. I had intended to make a different kind of pesto but my poor basil plants have gone to flower, cause I’m neglecting them. The big leaves at the bottom are turning yellow and dropping off. At least I’m watering every day which is a necessity in this hot weather and a hot weather alert is coming up again. I made a couple of tasty things while dealing with the visit from the handyman (and his wife and daughter who help out) who is here to weed the worst of the back.
PS: They got 1/2 the lemon curd rolls, all the cherry braid and the rest of the ciabatta bread that I’d baked earlier that day.
* * *
Of course, the classic Genovese pesto of basil, pine nuts, garlic and Parmesan cheese with extra virgin olive oil is familiar to most people but you can mix and match your herbs, the nut used and even the oil.
Basil picked from my plants … FINALLY
For a strong tasting meat, like a leg of lamb, make a pesto with fresh parsley, toasted walnuts and walnut oil if you have it handy … or just a nice neutral vegetable oil like canola. Butterfly your leg of lamb, spread the pesto over the meat, then roll it up, tie it and roast. The pesto will flavour the meat and keep it moist. If you put your leg of lamb on top of some potato wedges, the juices will flavour the potatoes. (Sorry, I dont’ have any pics to share.)
That reminds me. I really need to pick up a leg of lamb.
If you don’t want to buy a whole leg of lamb and butterfly it, pan fried lamb shoulder chops with a mint-cilantro pesto pasta is amazing.
Pesto garlic bread – Combine equal parts softened butter and pesto. Add some grated Parmesan cheese to the mixture as well, if desired. Spread over your favourite crusty bread and place the bread on a baking sheet under the broiler just until the bread is crunchy and the butter is melted
Creamy Chicken Pesto Pasta
Creamy Chicken Pesto Pasta – serves 2
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast cut into 3/4-1 inch cubes
1/4 cup whipping cream or chicken broth if you want to watch your calories
2-3 tbsp pesto
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
150-200 gm fettuccine, linguine or spaghetti cooked according to package directions
In a large saute pan, heat up the oil over medium high heat. Saute the chicken cubes until cooked through.
Reduce the heat to medium and add the pesto, whipping cream and cheese. Mix well and add the cooked pasta.
Add salt and pepper as desired.
Serve with crusty bread and a salad.
VEGGIE Add-ins: Steamed broccoli florettes or halved cherry tomatoes sauteed briefly in the same pan, after the chicken was browned. Sauteed pepper strips or sliced mushrooms would also be great.
I hadn’t picked up a butternut squash in ages, so when I happened to spot a heap in my grocery store, before Christmas, I brought one home. And then forgot about it until I ran across it while looking for something else. The question was … what to do with it. I wanted to be creative but after the Christmas eve day and Christmas day meal preparation, I didn’t want to get TOO complicated.
And then I did.
(When I throw together the recipe for the soup, I may post it below. Or maybe I won’t. We’ll see.) DONE
Butternut Squash
Wash off the outside, cut into half. Scoop out the seeds and then cut each half into quarters. Place in a microwave safe bowl with about 1/4 cup of water and microwave on high for 5 minutes at a time until tender. (15-20 minutes should do it.) Peel and then puree.
I turned part of the pureed squash into a filling for home made ravioli.
Butternut Squash, Stilton Cheese and Bacon Ravioli in an Aglio e Olio (Garlic and oil) sauce
Easy Ravioli Dough – makes enough dough for 15 3 inch diameter or square ravioli with some leftover dough
1 cup flour
1 large egg, beaten lightly
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
pinch of salt
Knead the dough for a few minutes, cover with food wrap and let sit on the counter at room temperature for about 20 minutes. Roll out to a thinness of 6 (out of 7) on pasta maker.
Butternut Squash, Stilton and Bacon Ravioli Filling – fills 15 3 inch diameter or square ravioli
4 oz/ 1/2 cup butternut squash puree
2 oz Stilton cheese, crumbled
4 strips bacon, fried to crispy and chopped
pinch of salt
grind or 2 of black pepper
Garlic and Olive Oil Sauce/Aglio e Olio
1 clove garlic, finely mince
1-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
pinch or two of hot red pepper flakes (optional)
freshly grated Parmesan cheese, to taste
Mix the above together. Taste and add additional salt and pepper if needed.
Fill ravioli and boil for about 2 minutes from fresh.
Saute minced garlic clove in extra virgin olive oil until just golden. Add cooked ravioli and toss to coat. A pinch of red pepper flakes may be added for a bit of a kick. Serve hot with grated Parmesan cheese.
The rest of the pureed butternut squash (~2 cups) became a curried sweet soup with the addition of some leftover poached pears.
Butternut Squash and Pear Curried Soup
Butternut Squash and Pear Curried Soup – serves 4
1 tbsp butter, unsalted
2 cups butternut squash puree
2-3 cups chicken or vegetable stock, divided
1 garlic clove, finely minced
1-2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and finely minced
1 heaping tbsp caramelized onions
1/2 cup sweet potato, coarsely chopped
1 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp cumin powder
1 pear, peeled, cored and finely chopped*
sour cream to taste (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
* used ~1/2 cup leftover poached pear puree (cranberry mead, honey, sugar, vanilla pod, cinnamon stick)
In a large saute pan, fry the ginger, garlic and caramelized onion in butter, over medium heat until the garlic is translucent. Add curry and cumin powder and fry for about 1 minute more.
Add 2 cups of stock, sweet potato, pear and butternut squash puree. Simmer for about 20-25 minutes or until the sweet potato is tender.
Using a stick or counter blender or food processor, puree the mixture until smooth. Return to saute pan if not using the stick blender and taste, adding salt and pepper to taste. If it’s too thick, whisk in additional stock and warm.
Stir in sour cream, if using.
Cooking is Fun ... Really!! 