For our anniversary this year, we went to Paesanos. After having wanted to go there for the last four years, we finally did - and boy was it good! We chanced upon mushroom bruschetta for our appetizer, and you know how I'm not fond of mushrooms, but after this - I've eaten SOOO much mushroom, it's not funny.
When done right, this is a healthy high protein finger-meal with such little effort.
(Pictures will come later, this is my version of the paesano's dish)
Ingredients:
- Crusty italian loaf or sourdough bread cut into slices (sometimes, I buy a half baguette and slice it up or if I'm near a Trader Joes, I buy their Sourdough presliced bread)
- Prepared Basil pesto sauce
- Mushrooms (do not use white button mushrooms - I used a mix of Portobella, Cremini, Inoki and Wild), sliced
- Garlic finely finely chopped (I used about 2 cups of slices mushrooms and about 4 cloves)
- Black pepper and salt
- Olive oil
1. Clean and wipe the mushrooms - slice them, and lay them out on a baking tray - drizzle with olive oil, salt and black pepper and chopped garlic. Use your hands to combine and mix this, so the mushrooms are evenly coated with all of the oil, garlic and salt/pepper.
2. Bake at 400 for about 10 minutes - the mushrooms will bleed water and cook in their own steam, and then they'll start browning really well. Let them stay in the oven on the bottom rack.
3. Brush the sliced bread with olive oil, and throw them into the oven - broil for 11/2 minutes or till the bread is toasted and brown.
4. Remove the bread, move the mushrooms to the top rack and broil the mushrooms for about a minute or till they crisp up on the ends.
5. Spread pesto on the toasted bread, heap up the mushrooms and eat!
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Penne Al Arabiatta
This is an absolutely wonderful recipe stolen and adapted from a 4$ book called "Mmm...pasta"- and no, I didn't buy it, but my roommate did after spending a little too long in the TJ Maxx checkout line. It has a nice little section for vegetarian pastas, and I'm trying them one by one. This particular recipe is an adaptation of the original, retaining the flavour profile but changing up the quantities to suit a 2 person meal.
Arabiatta is literally an angry red sauce - I find marinara too sweet and most tomato-basil sauces too bland. This is also a great pasta to make when you don't want to pay attention to your pot, and you just want something to simmer and you can come back and stir it once or twice, but focus on something else.
Ingredients:
-1 can of San Marzano tomatoes/Italian Plum Tomatoes (Do not use the regular diced or crushed tomatoes, you lose half the flavour by skipping this)
- Three big cloves of garlic, slit into quarters and slightly crushed
- Three or four dried red chillies or crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp of black whole peppercorns
- 2/3 cup of dry white wine (most white table wines will do, but the driest possible - use either Pinot Grigios, Chardonnays or Sauvignon Blancs - do not use Rieslings or Moscatos or anything sweet)
- Olive oil for flavour and to cook
- Flat leaf or curly parsley (whichever you prefer) for flavour and garnish
- Parmesan cheese
- Rigatoni or ridged penne (so it will absorb the saucy goodness)
1. Add the olive oil into a saucepan and heat it till it's almost ready to smoke and then turn the heat down to medium-low
2. Add the garlic cloves in, and let them brown - crush them down into the oil so the garlicky goodness oozes out, and remove the garlic cloves and throw them out.
3. Add the can of San Marzano tomatoes and allow to cook for 15 minutes, till the tomatoes cook down and the oil begins to separate (you only need to watch this two or three times and give it a quick stir)
4. When the tomatoes have cooked down, add salt, chillies, black peppercorns and the white wine and allow to reduce (this takes about 5 minutes - turn the heat up to medium-high at this point)
5. Cook the penne pasta for about 10-11 minutes in salted boiling water and set aside.
6. Add half the chopped parsley into the sauce, add a little more wine to liquefy the sauce.
7. Combine the pasta in the sauce, toss to coat - add the rest of the parsley and shave parmesan on top!
Arabiatta is literally an angry red sauce - I find marinara too sweet and most tomato-basil sauces too bland. This is also a great pasta to make when you don't want to pay attention to your pot, and you just want something to simmer and you can come back and stir it once or twice, but focus on something else.
Ingredients:
- Three big cloves of garlic, slit into quarters and slightly crushed
- Three or four dried red chillies or crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp of black whole peppercorns
- 2/3 cup of dry white wine (most white table wines will do, but the driest possible - use either Pinot Grigios, Chardonnays or Sauvignon Blancs - do not use Rieslings or Moscatos or anything sweet)
- Olive oil for flavour and to cook
- Flat leaf or curly parsley (whichever you prefer) for flavour and garnish
- Parmesan cheese
- Rigatoni or ridged penne (so it will absorb the saucy goodness)
1. Add the olive oil into a saucepan and heat it till it's almost ready to smoke and then turn the heat down to medium-low
2. Add the garlic cloves in, and let them brown - crush them down into the oil so the garlicky goodness oozes out, and remove the garlic cloves and throw them out.
3. Add the can of San Marzano tomatoes and allow to cook for 15 minutes, till the tomatoes cook down and the oil begins to separate (you only need to watch this two or three times and give it a quick stir)
4. When the tomatoes have cooked down, add salt, chillies, black peppercorns and the white wine and allow to reduce (this takes about 5 minutes - turn the heat up to medium-high at this point)
5. Cook the penne pasta for about 10-11 minutes in salted boiling water and set aside.
6. Add half the chopped parsley into the sauce, add a little more wine to liquefy the sauce.
7. Combine the pasta in the sauce, toss to coat - add the rest of the parsley and shave parmesan on top!
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