Tag Archives: food

Pasta Fresca

This pasta dish with sweet white wine, balsamic vinegar, and veggies is incredible. Here’s how it came about. While casting about online for a copycat recipe for Noodles and Company’s Penne Rosa (you can see my version here), I came across the ingredient list for their Pasta Fresca dish. I’d never actually eaten it before, but I found the ingredients inspiring and created this little number a few nights later. About a month after that, I had the chance to order the ‘real’ Pasta Fresca at Noodles and Company, and discovered there was pretty much no likeness between their dish and mine. Similar ingredients, but completely different flavor profiles. Now I would have my version over theirs any day, but all I can say it make it and judge for yourselves–it’s simple and fresh and you will just love it. Here’s how to make it:

Ingredients

(Serves 3)

1/2 lb angel hair pasta

2 TBS olive oil

5-6 cloves garlic, sliced

2 TBS balsamic vinegar

6 roma tomatoes

1 red onion

salt to taste

ground black pepper

1 tsp cracked black peppercorns (heaping)

1/2 c sweet white wine (moscato)

1/3 c heavy whipping cream

5 oz baby spinach

handful basil leaves

Shaved Parmesan, to serve

First, chop all the ingredients: the onion . . .

. . . the tomatoes . . .

. . . and the garlic. Though I do like to thinly slice my garlic for this instead of mincing it.

You can also roughly chop the basil at this point, though that won’t go in until the end. Save a couple leaves to do some chiffonade. It will make everything prettier when you serve it.

While we’re at it prepping ingredients, let’s measure out those black peppercorns and give them a bashing with the old mortar and pestle. If you look closely, peppercorns are wrinkly and hilarious. Sometimes I like to eat one whole. It lights my mouth on fire, and also fills it with an almost lemony tang. If I were in the wilderness with no toothbrush, I would grab a peppercorn from a nearby peppercorn tree. It really makes your mouth, sinuses, and entire being feel cleaned out. Live on the wild side and crunch a peppercorn!

Hooray! Pulverized peppercorns. There’s nothing as pungent, spicy, and wonderful.

Except for Thai red chilis. Those suckers are just fantastic. Though you won’t find me eating one of those whole! No way.

Heat 2 TBS olive oil over medium high heat. Add the onion and garlic; cook for 4 minutes.

Add the balsamic vinegar. Reduce the heat to low and cook 5 minutes. The liquid should be gone at the end, completely absorbed by the onions. You could probably stop here and just eat some delicious balsamic onions. Though since the heavy cream hasn’t yet been involved, stopping here could also be the biggest mistake of your week. Or your life? Hard to say.

Add salt and pepper too, while you’re at it.

Add the chopped tomatoes. Turn up heat to medium high and cook for 2 minutes.

Add the sweet white wine. It’s very important that you use a sweet wine such as moscatel (I’ve seen this labeled “muscat” or “moscato” as well), because a dry white wine would give this sauce a radically different flavor. Take a swig while you’re at it–no one’s looking! They say it’s good for you, too. Seriously! I read it in Martha Stewart Living! Or was that red wine?

Cook for 15 minutes on medium high–it should be at a rapid simmer the whole time. The liquid should mostly reduce by the time you’re done.

Add the cream and cracked black peppercorns.

Cook on medium 3 minutes. Did someone just say “paradise”? Or did I inadvertently speak aloud?

Turn down heat to low and add spinach and basil. Yes, it looks like an invasion of the pot has taken place, but the heat will quickly cut these green intruders down to size.

Cook for 1-2 minutes, until just wilted.

I forgot to add the peppercorns with the cream, so I added them now instead.

Take your set-aside basil leaves and chiffonade them. Here’s how: roll up a leaf nice and tight . . .

. . . and slice it crosswise!

Couldn’t be easier, especially if you’re not trying to hold the knife and the leaf with one hand because your other hand is on your camera’s shutter release. Look at this precious little pile of curly-wurlies.

Will you forgive me if I promise never to say “curly wurlies” again?

Serve the sauce with the pasta, topped with basil chiffonade and parmesan.

Would you just look at this beauty?

Let’s take a generous bite . . .

Hey! Who ate my . . . ?! What the . . . !? Oh . . . *patting stomach* . . . it might have been me. Well, thankfully there’s more where that came from. Time for seconds:

And I’m pleased to say, second verse same as the first: AMAZING!

Click here for printer-friendly version: Pasta Fresca

The leftovers tracking device

Our first year of marriage, I had a big problem: a grocery shopping problem. I headed to the grocery store and haphazardly bought things that I thought we would use. Inevitably, they went bad. The leftovers we had also went bad. I was a bad, bad wife and homemaker! The economy at large probably got a nice boost from me buying zucchini three times when I could have only bought it once, but the small economy of our home was just crying out for reform. The helpless whimpers of our bruised and battered grocery budget finally got to me. “Oh-KAY!” I yelled “I get it! I was never cut out to be a spontaneous food shopper anyway, gosh! I hereby repent of all my food squandering and will turn a new and glorious leaf!” And then I composed a small operetta which I promptly sang to celebrate the changing of my ways for the better.

So as you can see, I worked through my problems, and I am happy to report that I’m now perfect.

It’s a happy place, perfection. Except for the part where you keep messing up and have to conceal it from all your friends and loved ones–that’s really the only drawback.

Just kidding! I’ll do an in-depth review of all my flaws shortly, starting with the one that makes me obsessively pick at my scabs, blemishes, and hangnails even when my mama told me to leave them alone. I can’t help myself, mama! Sounds like one of them genetic hoobedihabbidy things again. In fact, I just now ripped off a hangnail with my teeth, though it seems to still be deciding whether or not to bleed.

Have I succeeded in making you cringe? It’s a goal of mine, at least once per day, to horrify someone out there with a shockingly unexpected comment. Normally this “someone” is my husband . . . but today I’m passing the baton to you. He’s been lambasted with so many ridiculous comments from me over the past few days that I thought he deserved a rest.

Getting back to the grocery shopping problem, I soon learned that I work best with a plan. After year #1 of marriage, aka the Year of Waste and Figuring Out this Whole Running a Household thing, I found my rhythm and now plan out meals for the whole week so that I only purchase groceries that are on the ingredient list–I talked about my obsessive planning strategies in this post a little over a week ago. That way I know what I have, I only buy what I need, and I can arrange the meals so that if there’s an ingredient that I know won’t stay fresh long (like basil), that recipe gets made early in the week. This system has helped me reduce our waste, conserve our national resources, and probably save the whales too. But there is another device that we have been using since that fateful first year of marriage that I would like to bring to the forefront: please welcome The Leftovers Tracking Device.

Here’s how it all went down: we purchased a small dry-erase board and stuck it on the fridge. The person who puts the leftovers away after a meal is responsible for writing that item on the board along with the date it was made. That way, we not only know what there is to eat at a glance, but we can easily see if the leftovers in question are past their expiration date—no more wondering “What day did we cook this stinky pile of cabbage? Was it last weekend or the one before?” or “Is this pot of Chicken Cacciatore really a year old, do you think? Should I take a bite and see if it’s still good?” The board will tell us what we need to know! When somebody does their household duty and finishes up a container of leftovers, they simply erase the item from the board.

Our board is getting kind of old and the marker isn’t wiping off as well, but a douse of our friendly reserve of rubbing alcohol, applied with a cotton ball, makes it at least legible.

Moral of the story: if you have problems remembering the contents of that container at the back of your fridge that has something brownish-greenish in it (that could either be old bell peppers or a pile of scrapings from the bottom of your neighborhood pond), buy a dry erase board! It’s a worthwhile investment in your future and the future generations.

And with that, I wish you all a happy, caffeinated Monday morning.