Pasta Recipes Archives | finding time for cooking

Creamy Chicken Mushroom Pasta

April 27, 2013

I’ve been trying to break out of my pasta rut a little bit lately. Don’t get me wrong, my rut is quite delicious—homemade pesto or sauteed/roasted veggies and sausage with some kind of cheese in the sauce, you can’t go wrong. But pasta can be so many things, and I really under-utilize its potential sometimes.

I found this recipe in my Cooking Light magazine and pulled it out quite a while ago. It’s been sitting on my couch since then, largely because I had to remember to buy mascarpone at Trader Joe’s. You can also find it at certain grocery stores, though not all the time. But good ol’ TJ’s always has it.

The flavor was mild and yet really interesting. While I’m not a huge fan of mushrooms, they were great in this dish.READ THE POST

Giovanna’s Pasta con Pesto

April 20, 2013

I’ve long said that if I *had* to choose one scent and be able to smell only that for the rest of my life (who’s making me choose? why? don’t think about it that hard), I think it might be fresh basil. Fresh basil is one of the BEST smells in the world!

As I mentioned back in my tiramisu post a few months ago, I studied in Italy during college on a language immersion program, and I lived with this awesome couple named Pietro and Giovanna. Giovanna was an amazing cook and made us three- and four-course dinners every night, and also imparted a few of her family’s recipes to me. This authentic Ligurian pesto pasta recipe and the tiramisu are the two that have become a permanent part of my recipe book.

I make this every week or two during the summer when fresh basil is plentiful and high-quality. It’s my #1 go-to recipe because it literally takes 15 minutes from start to finish and is AMAZEBALLS. Basically, as long as it takes to boil pasta, that’s how long this dish takes.

As you’ll notice in the pictures below, I’m actually showing you pictures from two different times I made this dish (don’t be confused!), because there are two ways you can do it—the real way, and a slightly modified way with fewer ingredients. Both are really easy, it just depends on if you want to go to the trouble of buying two extra things.

First, I’m going to show you the weird secret to the best pasta con pesto.READ THE POST

Pasta with Gorgonzola, Chicken, Brussels Sprouts & Caramelized Onions

April 7, 2013

As everyone knows, I love a good pasta dish. And I love brussels sprouts. And Gorgonzola. So this recipe is very nearly perfect—that is, after I made a few changes.

I originally found this recipe through Pinterest, a pin from Kraft’s website, but decided to tweak it a little. It called for asparagus, which isn’t really my thing, and was quite expensive this time of year. And I found a really fun kind of pasta, something a little fancier than penne.
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Rosemary Chicken Lasagna

March 10, 2013

When my mom was here a couple months ago, we got quite ambitious with dinner one night. We started with this rosemary chicken lasagna, which I’d been wanting to make for forever, and finished with white chocolate lemon lava cakes. And despite the work, we weren’t sorry—we WERE stuffed!

The flavor on this lasagna was so interesting! The rosemary added a nice depth to the bechamel, the chicken and mushrooms provide good protein, and the lemon zest was such a lovely counterpoint to the richness of the cheese and sauce.

It was nice to have the second set of hands when assembling everything and making the bechamel, but it’s a fairly easy recipe—just make sure to give yourself enough time so you’re not frantic trying to put it together. For me, being frantic takes the fun out of cooking.

This is definitely the most interesting chicken lasagna recipe I’ve seen, and I will definitely be making it again!

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Traditional Tuscan Pasta With Walnut Sauce & Arugula (Version 1)

November 10, 2012

So, as I’ve mentioned a time or two (or seven), I recently was blessed to be able to spend a couple weeks in Italy and Croatia experiencing the culture, history, and food. Lots of food. Food all the time. As anyone who has ever traveled with me can attest, I pretty much need fed constantly when I’m traveling. And then my next thought is what we’ll eat next. I take it very seriously. I may have a problem.

At the hotel we stayed at for several days in Grosseto, Italy, the menus were set for every meal since we were such a large group. Most of them were adequate, but there were a couple dishes I absolutely loved and decided I had to try and recreate as authentically as possible when I got home. One was this pasta with walnut sauce and rocket (basically like arugula).

So I’ve been Googling all sorts of recipes for an authentic Tuscan walnut sauce, and found a few. I decided to try two of them out and see if either came close to the one I ate in Italy. So behold my first try.

This one (we’ll call it version one) was quite tasty. Not quite the same exactly as I had in Italy, but still a pretty great flavor. The walnuts gave it an interesting grainy texture that my pasta sauces don’t normally have, so that was a nice difference. Because it had nuts, it was quite filling too!READ THE POST

Leftover Pasta Frittata

November 5, 2012

Guys, today was a big day for me. Life’s been a little crazy, so leftovers have piled up in my fridge for the past week. My eyes were bigger than my stomach when I bought produce and I thought I would use more of my leftovers, but I was going to have to throw everything away. And then I found the leftover pasta frittata, and my life changed.

Its beauty is in its simplicity and flexibility. Seriously almost anything can go in this frittata. Leftover beer mac & cheese? Check. Orange bell pepper and spinach getting close to expiration? Throw them in.

Generally I don’t have the time or energy to cook on a work night, but this was so easy. I even got some yoga in while the frittata was baking in the oven!READ THE POST

Easy Baked Beer Mac & Cheese

October 29, 2012

I was kind of “meh” all last week. Nothing bad happened. It wasn’t a particularly hellacious week at work. Nothing was wrong. I just wasn’t feeling it.

So to banish the “oncoming winter” blues, I decided beer was the answer. Specifically, beer with carbs and cheese. This baked beer mac & cheese had been staring at me from my Pinterest page for quite some time, and I decided it was time to make it reality. Add beer bread into the equation, and you’ve got the recipe for an awesome Sunday night (with a lovely Malbec, a good friend, and The Artist on Netflix, of course).

The thing I love about this recipe (besides the beer, cheese, and pasta), is that it’s really not that bad for you relative to how awful mac & cheese can be. Sure, there’s quite a bit of cheese, but you use whole grain pasta, I used skim milk (most recipes call for heavy cream), and the whole recipe only takes 2 tablespoons of butter.READ THE POST

Tomato, Spinach, & Roasted Garlic Pasta with Ricotta

September 26, 2012

I didn’t really plan on cooking last Sunday. I have a bunch of travel coming up and my schedule’s so busy, I figured some nice pre-made ravioli or a Kashi pizza with wine would make a lovely end to the weekend. But then as I was browsing my Pinterest boards that morning, I came across this little pasta recipe and decided I could handle something this simple despite being tired (that was before, of course, I decided to make some chocolate hazelnut biscotti at the last minute, but that’s a story for another time).

This recipe was easy, a little different from what I normally do, very budget-friendly, and was a nice last “hurrah” of summer.

I also learned how to do a pretty great facsimile of oven-roasted garlic (which takes like almost an hour) in about two minutes, which is a very useful skill to have with my busy schedule.

The ricotta sauce (with a little help from some starchy pasta water) was creamy and light, and the parmesan (if you use it) adds a nice flavor. It was delicious fresh, though a little bland as leftovers a few days later (had to use much more salt and pepper).

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Pasta with Asparagus, Lemon, Goat Cheese, & Kale

September 23, 2012

I basically live on pasta. But mostly I stick to one or two recipes I’ve used for years (pasta con pesto and pasta with roasted veggies) and am too lazy to try new ones. So this recipe stuck out when I saw it on Pinterest, because it included goat cheese and lemon, two of my favorite things. I added the kale part myself, due to my great and abiding love for it.

I made this easy asparagus & lemon pasta recipe about a month ago when my family was in town. We went on a cooking and baking spree, trying new recipes left and right. This was actually a side dish when we made it, not the main entree, but it would make a great main dish as well. If you needed more protein, you could toss some pre-cooked chicken in with it too.

Goat cheese makes a really great, quick, creamy pasta sauce. And whether you blanch your pasta with asparagus or swap in string beans, edamame, or any other veggie, this dish comes together so quickly that you can put it in a regular year-round rotation and use whatever is in season.

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Baked Ziti with Summer Veggies & Chicken Sausage

September 3, 2012

I have a secret. I’ve never made a non-lasagna baked pasta dish (with the exception of the kale mac & cheese I made a few weeks ago). It’s weird, actually, given how much my diet has relied on pasta over the past decade. I think it’s because that just seems like too much work—I mean, the reason I love pasta is because I can cook it quickly, toss it with any kind of sauce or veggies, and have a meal on the table in 15 minutes. Baking just seems unnecessary. I also haven’t loved much baked pasta at restaurants…they always seem so dry.

Needless to say, I approached this baked ziti recipe with some trepidation. But I was shocked by how GOOD it was! Delicious, great, bold flavors, a whole host of textures, and hearty enough to keep me feeling full for hours.

The original recipe was vegetarian, and didn’t call for the chicken sausage. But I had some on-hand and I’ve been crazily craving protein so I decided it couldn’t hurt. And it actually added an awesome flavor to everything.

It’s important to note, I doubled the recipe (or thereabouts) to make a 9×13 pan, because only cooking half the package of pasta didn’t make a lot of sense to me. That way I had lots of leftovers to feed me through the work week. It made possibly a bit too much pasta, but otherwise worked out just fine.

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