Recipes Discovered

Sweet Red Drunken Pasta Recipe

I have a new love of beets. They are popping up on menus everywhere these days, mostly in the form of salad, and are delicious. This recipe is very simple – combining pasta, beets, garlic, and a little Parmesan cheese. The beets are shredded first, so they cooked up pretty quickly and are super sweet. The recipe calls for cooking the pasta in wine, but I don’t think that added a lot of flavor to the pasta. Most the the color the pasta picked up was from being tossed with the beets. No matter how the pasta is cooked, it’s a delicious dish. And paired with a simple green salad topped with fried goat cheese, it’s an absolutely wonderful dinner.

Fried Goat Cheese Salad Recipe

Penna alla Vodka Recipe

For my wedding shower, everyone was asked to bring a recipe to share, which I am slowly getting around to trying all of them. This recipe was given to me by my sister-in-law, who said it was one of my brother’s favorite dishes. I made it for my parents because they just didn’t understand vodka in pasta sauce. I really liked the addition of prosciutto to the sauce, although bacon can also be used (apparently my brother’s favorite). My parents really enjoyed the meal as well, which I think surprised them. But really, who doesn’t like pasta with some tomatoes, cream, and a little vodka?

Shallota Pasta Recipe

Sausage and Broccoli Rabe Recipe 

Sometimes the simplest ingredients can make the biggest flavors. These two dishes are definite examples of that. Sausage (I used sausage links, but you can also use crumbled bulk sausage), garlic, and broccoli rabe are combined to make a spicy, slightly bitter dish while caramelized shallots, Parmesan cheese, and spaghetti make a sweet and salt dish. Together, they balance each other really well. It may seem like a lot of shallots, but they actually taste amazing and I added extra to the pasta. It’s may be a simple meal, but it has a lot of complex flavors.

Butternut Squash Ravioli with Brown Butter Sauce

One of my favorite restaurants in State College offers an ever changing seasonal menu. The last time Seth and I were there, one of the seasonal ingredients was butternut squash, and they offered it in the form of a ravioli. It was very similar to a recipe I had, except it was served in a cream sauce, and my recipe called for a brown butter sauce. Either way, it was delicious, and Seth and I had them again a few days after I had them at the restaurant.

The filling is fairly similar to the Butternut Squash Lasagna I made a few weeks ago, although I seasoned the squash with herbs de Provence before roasting it. After roasting it, I let it cool and mixed it with sauteed garlic and shallots, ricotta cheese, amaretti cookies, and nutmeg. Once the filling was done, I started assembling the ravioli. I used wonton wrappers for the pasta, which saves a lot of work. First, I tried folding a single wrapper over the filling, but I couldn’t get a good seal on the ravioli. I had much better luck just using two wonton wrappers and making a larger ravioli. Wetting the edges also helped seal the filling in. Make sure to keep the wonton wrappers covered with a damp cloth while you are filling them because they dried out pretty quickly. Once assembled, I placed the ravioli on a baking sheet and placed them in the freeze until they were solid. I then transferred them to a freezer bag. >> Read more

Shrimp with Basil-Mint Pesto Recipe

Linguine with Butter, Pecorino, Arugula, and Black Pepper Recipe

Having a large bunch of basil in the refrigerator that needed to be used, the first that came to my mind was to make pesto. The first recipe I came across was a recipe for shrimp with a basil mint pesto, which sounded really good and was really easy. Just combine basil, mint, toasted pine nuts, and garlic in a food processor (don’t try to use a blender, it doesn’t work), and drizzle in olive oil. To make the pesto a little lighter, I used half olive oil and half chicken stock. Once everything was worked into a thick paste, I transferred it to a bowl and mixed in grated Parmesan cheese. Apparently putting the Parmesan in the food processor changes the taste because of the heat from the blades. I don’t know how much or if it actually changes the taste, but I mixed the cheese in afterwards. Once the pesto was made, I sauted shrimp in some olive oil and garlic until they were pink and then tossed them in the bowl with the pesto. I was going to use the pesto as the sauce for linguine as well, but after reading some reviews that said the pesto was very potent, I decided to toss the hot linguine with butter, grated pecorino cheese, and black pepper. I used some of the pasta water to make a sauce, and then added chopped arugula. Although I really liked the pesto sauce on the shrimp, I am glad I didn’t use it for the pasta sauce since it did have a very strong flavor. It worked well on the shrimp though. And the linguine was so simple, yet so good. I used whole wheat linguine, which I think taste so much better than regular pasta. I thought the black pepper would be overpowering, but it went was balanced by the saltiness of the cheese. The arugula gave the pasta some color, but I don’t think it added much flavor. I could take it or leave it next time. Overall though, it was an easy meal that packed a major flavor punch. Seth liked it so much, he asked me to make it again tomorrow!

Shrimp with Basil-Mint Pesto Recipe

Linguine with Butter, Pecorino, Arugula, and Black Pepper Recipe