I love the comforting lushness butter adds to ramen. I used to make it according to the picture above with a basic chicken pack, but I have learned I like it more with less garlic powder and a tablespoon of onion powder. I leave the salt out. The seasoning pack is salty enough. The noodles will end up sitting in a yellow broth made from the egg yolk and the butter knob. Can’t be beat when you are only in the mood for comforting noodles.
Lunch today was leftover ‘Pasketti & Balls on soft buns. So good. So messy. So tasty.
I nailed this pasta sauce, if I do say so. And it really starts and end with good pasta sauce. This sandwich is a dud without it. I forgot the cheese, but I honestly didn’t care. I ate this with wild abandonment. đ
My husband’s loves this spin on a childhood fave food. It consists of a hollowed out bread loaf that’s been brushed with garlic butter, topped with cheese and spaghetti & meatballs. I put more cheese on top and bake it for 10 mins at 350*F. I let it cook for 10 mins, pulled it to rest 10 mins, and then cut it into slices to serve.
Garlic ‘Pasketti & Balls Bread:
1″ Bundle of Spaghetti
Pasta Sauce, of choice
Frozen Meatballs, of choice
Half Bread Loaf, cut lengthwise and middle mostly hollowed out
Garlic Butter
1/2 C Marble Cheese, either slices or grated, or both
1/4 C Parmesan Cheese, grated
Serves two.
Hollow out the bread and brush the cavity with the garlic butter. Lay down half the marble cheese and top it with half of the parm cheese. Roll the cooked pasta in the pot with the hot sauce and balls. (I cut the meatballs in half to make eating them easier.)
Carefully lay the spaghetti & balls over the cheeses and top with more meatballs. Push it down as you add more to condense it and really get that hot sauce melting the cheese to trap the spaghetti in place. Top with the last of the cheeses, and bake on a sheet pan.
It’s a real challenge to eat this without losing any of the balls or strands of the spaghetti, but that only makes it more fun to eat on some random night when you need something fast to make and filling to consume.
Sometimes I get tired of pizza because I’m not in the mood to chew a baked crust. And sometimes I also want Mac & Cheese at the same time as pizza. Enter the casserole version!
I mixed up my normal pizza topper ingredients I like (pepperoni chopped up, any veg I have kicking around, loads of grated mozza + marble cheddar plus a bit of parm cheeses), a bunch of cooked elbow pasta, the white mac & cheese sauce I always make (or close enough), and any spices I want (I stuck with the classic Italian blend).
This got baked covered at 375* for about 30 mins to get it hot enough to melt the cheese properly.
Ok, so I found this recipe link for a Low-Carb Pasta Alternative buried in my old Pinterest boards. In a board I haven’t looked at in about six or more years. Otherwise, I would have suggested this long ago.
Use that bagged slaw we use for stir-fries. It’s quite versatile. Anyway, if you’re missing pasta in sauce, this might be up your alley, E.
I saw this video from Sam The Cooking Guy making his version of this same dish, and thought, I can make that faster using canned soup. This was a lovely tasting change up on the classic pasta dish. One I liked enough to want to make again in the future.
French Onion Soup Mac & Cheese:
2 C Small Pasta
Salt
1 1/2 – 2 C Cheddar Cheese, grated
1/2 C Panko Breadcrumbs
1 1/2 tbsp Dry Rub (of choice)
1 can Onion Soup, hot
1/3 C Pasta Water, reserved
Scoop the cooked pasta into a large bowl to mix with everything else, including some reserved starchy water from the pasta pot. Top with some green herbs or green onion chops, as well as some cracks of pepper.
(From the archives.)
My husbandâs favourite pasta dish is my Smack & Cheese. I call it that in jest, but when you get this dish just right, you wonât stop eating it, It’s a fantastically horrible addiction.
Very basic ingredients were used like bacon, pasta, onions, butter, diced red peppers, milk, and grated cheddar cheese. Half the bacon went into the creamy roux sauce along with the red peppers as the milk was thickening, and it was all blended with the cheese in a bowl off the heat before serving. Thatâs it! No magic involved, but it tasted like there was some alchemy involved.
The main thrust of this dish is the bechemel sauce with cheddar cheese added at the very end over pasta. Thatâs it. Very simple, but very tasty when all is said and done.
Note: I donât use much in the way of salt for this dish. I let all of the salt that is already present in the cheese, butter and cooked pasta do all the heavy flavour lifting while adding some freshly cracked pepper on top at the table. I also use fresh herbs when my herb garden is flourishing during the summer months.
Makes 4.
1. Cook 2C Rotini or any other similar shaped pasta like penne in salted boiling water.
2. Cut 3 Bacon strips in half for frying. Chop coarsely after it cooked and cooled off.
3. Melt 2 tbsp butter in a sauce pot. When it foams up, add about 1 tbsp of oil; swirl it around. Dump in 1/2 C diced white onions and cook down for about five minutes.
Add 2 tbsp flour; whisk in until the butter and onions clump up and the colour starts to turn brown somewhat and the flour cooks a bit.
Add one pile of bacon bits + 1/2 of diced red. Stir to coat a bit. Add 1 1/2C of milk. Whisk to combine the flour and dairy. Stir the pot so the milk doesnât get scalded or burn on the bottom as it thickens. Taste test. Add a small pinch of salt if needed.
4. Scoop out about 1/3 C of the pasta water for your sauce; set aside. Drain the pasta about 1 minute before it hits al dente. Return the pasta to the same pot off the heat.
5.Grate 2 C of any cheese(s) you have; set it aside.
6. After the milk thickens and coats the back of a spoon, pour the bechamel sauce into the bowl over top of the waiting pasta noodles.
7. Dump the cheese in over the pasta + bechemel. Stir quickly until the cheddar is fully melted and coats the pasta in a lovely amber colour. Use any or all of the reserved pasta starch water to aid the coating process should the bechamel be too thick.
8. Plate your pasta into serving dishes and top with the second pile of bacon bits and some freshly washed and chopped herb of your choice. I love fresh basil or cilantro over my pasta, but go nuts. DH loves to add a few cracks of pepper over his pasta, as well.
Mange!
This entry was posted on July 8, 2011.
(From the archives.)
Here is a dish I have been wanting to update for awhile now.
Bowtie Ballsagna:
2-3 C bowtie noodles
2-3 C fresh spinach
3 C homemade pasta sauce + 12oz of tomato puree
24-36 mini meatballs
6-8 fresh Thai basil leaves
2 C ricotta cheese with S&P to taste
2 C grated mozzarella and parmesan cheeses
2 C toasted breadcrumbs (optional)
Bowtime Ballsagna layering, from the bottom up:
Thin coating of pasta sauce (no meatballs)
Cooked bowtie pasta noodles
Pasta sauce with meatballs
Wilted spinach (in a thin covering)
Ricotta cheese
Cooked bowtie pasta noodles
Pasta sauce with meatballs
Wilted spinach (in a thin covering)
Ricotta cheese
Pasta sauce (no meatballs)
Mix of grated parmesan and mozzarella cheeses
Breadcrumbs (toasted, and optional)
Start by cooking your bowtie noodles in water thatâs been generously salted. In a large non-stick pan, start wilting down the spinach with a small pinch of salt and a teaspoon of oil; set aside to cool when itâs all cooked down.
As you cook the pasta and wilt the spinach, reheat your prepared or jarred pasta sauce in a deep sauce pot. To this, add your freshly cooked (if you had time to make any, of course) or frozen meatballs, the tomato puree, some freshly picked and cleaned Thai hot basil (if using dry leaves, half the called for amount; whole or chiffonade) and freshly cracked black pepper. Let that cook long enough to heat the meatballs all the way through.
Note: If you donât have fresh or dried out Thai hot basil leaves, fresh sweet basil will be fine in the sauce. We like a bit of zing in our lasagna sauce, so thatâs why I grow Thai hot basil in my garden.
Scoop out a bit of the pasta sauce to spread all over the bottom of your lasagna pan thinly. Scoop out a few more spoonfuls of just the pasta sauce and set aside (this is for the topping). When your pasta is done cooking, drain it well. Layer more or less than half of the cooked pasta over the sauce in the lasagna dish. (Only use enough to cover the sauce, otherwise this lasagna will become very bulky.) Over the pasta, place a generous amount of sauce with half of the meatballs to cover the pasta noodles, but not much more.
Over the sauce and meatballs layer, lay half of your wilted spinach all over and top that with a few blobs of ricotta cheese; (I use a medium size offset spatula to) spread the ricotta over the spinach in an almost opaque layer. Top the ricotta with the second half of your pasta noodles and top them with the last of the sauce and meatballs. Top those with the last of the wilted spinach, and then top the spinach with the last few blobs of ricotta spread out and the reserved pasta sauce before finishing the lasagna with your two grated cheeses (and toasted breadcrumbs if you like).
Using the rule of five, you too can dive into a bowl of silky, luscious bacon pasta.
Pasta Carbonara:
5 oz Spaghetti
5 Bacon Strips
5 Egg Yolks
5 Cracks Black Pepper
.05 oz Parmesan Grate (the good stuff only)
As your water boils, pan fry the bacon and separate the yolks. Reserve the egg whites for something else, like adding a bit to oatmeal to up your protein intake, or use them to make some meringue cookies.
Add two teaspoons of salt to the boiling water and dump your pasta in. Immediately start to stir it around so it falls under the water line and it doesn’t stick together.
When the bacon is to your liking, remove to rest on paper towels for chopping when you can touch the strips without burning your fingerprints off. Keep stirring the spaghetti so it doesn’t clump up.
When the pasta is close to el dente, add a tablespoon or two to the yolks in a large bowl and whisk into the yolks quickly so the eggs don’t scramble. What you should have is a silky, shiny liquid egg custard. Add the cooked pasta in the bowl, top with the cheese, pepper, and bacon chops.
Toss it all together and add a bit more pasta water to loosen up the noodles as needed. As you twirl the spaghetti when you eat it, the strands should glide apart from each other because the sauce coats all of the noodles evenly and properly, not stick together like they were crazy glued together by all the cheese. Test it before you plate the noodles.
Serve with more cracks of fresh black pepper and a bit more parm on the side.
Fra diavolo is loosely translated as âbrother devil,â or devilish brother pasta, and itâs not a traditional Italy manner of serving pasta dishes. Itâs something American-Italians made up from what I gather.
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All skillet pasta dishes like this one are very easy to assemble and plate using pre-grilled chicken, pre-made sauce, pre-cooked pasta from the fridge *, and prepped veg.
But, if you don’t have time to prep the night before, or the morning of, you can still make this dish on the fly when you get home in under an hour (assuming you’re giving the chicken 30 mins on the counter to come up to temp for more even cooking).
Boil the pasta water while the oven heats up, and start slicing up the vegetables. Roast the pillared or butterflied chicken in the middle of a sheet pan surrounded by vegetables coated in oil and red pepper flakes (this deepens the heat of the flakes and spices up the veg) at 400 degrees for 10-12 mins. Salt the boiling water well, and drop the pasta in. In a small sauce pot, heat up the sauce or med-high heat.
Flip the chicken at the halfway point of roasting. Heat up a big skillet and get it hot enough to add oil to it. Cook the pasta to almost al dente. The pasta finishes it cook in a sauce pan with the veg + sauce over a high heat. Pull the sheet pan out when the chicken reads 165 degrees with a thermometer.
Let the chicken rest off the sheet pan up to ten minutes before slicing. When the sauce and pasta are finished, add 2 tbsp of oil to the heated skillet and add the roasted veg to soften a bit more, followed by the pasta for a minute or two. Add some pasta sauce, and heat the whole dish through. Add a bit of the pasta water to thicken up the sauce in the last minute of cooking.
Plate the pasta into a bowl plate and top with slices of the chicken, some chopped green onions, and a smattering of a grated parm. If too many red pepper flakes were used, use pinch of toasted breadcrumbs can be snowcap the pasta to sop up a bit of the stinging.
Chicken Penne Fra Diavolo:
2C dry Penne noodles
6C heavily Salted boiling water
2 large seasoned Chicken Breasts, butterflied or pillard
1 1/2C Pasta Sauce of choice (I use a jar sauce when pressed for time)
4C large cuts of Red & Orange Peppers + Broccoli florets
Neutral Oil
A pinch Red Pepper Flakes (to taste)
1 -2 Green Onions (finely chop stems only)
This will make enough to serve 4 hungry people comfortably.
Topping Ideas: Can be fresh cracked black pepper (a smidge â you will already have spicy veg and flakes in the dish) and fresh shavings of parmesan or any other cheese of your choosing, and a small sprinkling of breadcrumbs to compliment the sting of the red pepper flakes.
* Often I will cook a pot of pasta the night before as I cook another meal that night, and lay the noodles out across a plate or a sheet pan in a thin layer to rapid cool it all down before storing it in an airtight container in the fridge. That pasta will get dropped in a pot of slightly salted boiling water for up to a minute to heat through before transferring it to another cooking vessel like a skillet or a casserole dish. It really does speed meals up.