Orecchiette Pasta with Pancetta, Peas and Pecorino

photo by sara tady ©

Wow it's been busy!  A trip to Jamaica, planning for a move across country and starting a new role at work has lead me to neglect my blog, let alone cook!  Here's a delicious and very rich pasta for you.  It was inspired by something I had at Gilt Bar.

Ingredients:

1 cup of orecchiette pasta

2 1/2 inch slices of Pancetta from the deli counter

3/4 cup of shredded/grated Pecorino cheese

3/4 cup of frozen peas

Directions:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil, salt, add pasta

2. Dice the pancetta into little pieces

3. In a medium/large skillet, add diced pancetta and brown until crispy.

4. When the pancetta is browned and crispy, add the strained pasta and frozen peas to the skillet.  

5. Top with grated cheese and a little freshly ground pepper.

Pesto Pasta

photo by sara tady ©

Remember the almond arugula pesto I made?  Here's what I did with it :)

salted some boiling water, cooked some pasta, drained, stirred in the pesto, served with roasted red peppers.  done!  tomatoes would have been key here, I just didn't have any!  enjoy!

Pasta with Broccoli, Green Beans and Spinach

sara tady ©

We've all been there.  We went a little crazy at the farmer's market or the produce aisle.  Now we have vegetables that are withering away faster than we can eat them.  Here's my solution:  saute them together with a few special touches, and you've got a heart-healthy pasta dish that can be made a million different ways.

Ingredients:
Fresh green beans
Broccoli
Spinach
Rotini or Cavatappi pasta (a thicker noodle works best vs. a spaghetti type noodle)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Parmasean or Ramano Cheese (that kind you keep in your refrigerator :) )
1 garlic clove

Directions:
step 1: bring water to a boil, add a liberal amount of salt, drop in pasta noodles
step 2: chop ends off of green beans
step 3: chop broccoli into bit sized pieces, eliminating stems
step 4: roughly run your knife through the spinach leaves
step 5: in a saute pan, drizzle some extra virgin olive oil around the pan- just enough to coat the bottom, low-medium heat
step 6: grate in about half a clove of garlic (don't own a grater? you can simply chop it)
step 7: drop spinach leaves into saute pan, let leaves wilt.  Salt and pepper. Keep heat low-medium as to not burn garlic
step 8: When pasta has about 5 minutes to go, drop broccoli and green beans in the same pot of boiling water for the remainder
step 9: strain pasta, broccoli and green beans
step 10: drop pasta, broccoli and green beans into the pan with the spinach, oil, and garlic. Mix.
step 11: mix in some parmasean/ramano cheese and serve!

Penne Pasta, Spinach, Tomato and Basil

photo by sara tady ©

We've been using Irv and Shelly's Fresh Picks for produce for about a year.  We love it, but sometimes it's hard to use all the great fruits and vegetables before they go bad.  I created this tasty pasta dish in an attempt to not let any fresh veggies go to waste.  It's sort of a cross between creamed spinach with pasta thrown in the mix.  It was incredibly hearty, but not too heavy and very basic.  This is the perfect method to throw in any other veggies you have on hand.  I think mushrooms would be great in here- too bad my huz doesn't like them!!  I think you'll be pretty impressed with yourself when you pull off this dish!  

Hope you enjoy :)

Ingredients:

2-3 cups fresh spinach

1/2 box of Penne Pasta 

1-2 cloves of garlic chopped

1/2 cup Half and Half (you could use milk if you prefer...)

1 tbsp of flour

1 tbsp of butter

Chopped cherry tomatoes- 2 handfuls or so (or whatever other tomatoes you have on hand)

Olive oil

Salt and Pepper

Directions:

step 1:fill a pot with water for the pasta.  Bring to boil.  Add a liberal amt of salt to the boiling water, drop in pasta.  Set a timer for the pasta cook time.  Over cooked pasta is the pits!

step 2: finely chop garlic

step 3: in a large non stick skillet, drizzle olive oil into pan (roughly 2 tbsps or so), LOW-MED heat

step 4: drop chopped garlic in to pan, make sure the oil isn't too hot.  We are looking for a small "sizzle factor" here. Saute 2 minutes or so.

step 5: drop in spinach and tomatoes.  Cook until spinach is wilted.  4-5 minutes or so.

step 6: drop in butter, then sprinkle flour on top of spinach, stir together, cook for 2 minutes or so. It's important the flour cooks here. It should look a bit like a paste at this point.

step 7: add the half and half- stir, stir, stir!  Get all clumps out. Let sauce come together and thicken- 2 minutes.  Here's where you'll need to adjust thickness on your own.  If it seems too thick, add some more half and half.  If it seems really runny, add a little sprinkle of flour.  The key is you want the flour to actually have the opportunity to cook.

step 8: salt and pepper your sauce

step 9: drop your drained pasta noodles into the pan and mix together.  Serve!