pasta | Adventures in Thyme

Beef and Pasta in Red Sauce

June 8, 2016 by Dan Leave a Comment

Beef with Pasta in Red Sauce

Red sauce is so versatile at mealtime, we’ve been playing around with making a better one, and I think we’ve hit on a winner. Give it a whirl in the pot and let us know what you think!

2 lbs Beef
Olive Oil
1 cup Red Wine
32 oz box of Beef Stock
12 oz can Tomato Paste
14.5 oz can Diced Tomatoes
2 teaspoons dried Rosemary
2 teaspoons dried Basil
1 teaspoon dried Oregano
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Black Pepper
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tablespoons Honey
2 Tablespoons good Balsamic Vinegar

Start by slicing your meat into 1/8 inch strips and cutting the strips into bite sized pieces. Tip: If you cut against the grain it’s a lot more tender! Add a little olive oil to the bottom of your pot (a 3 or 4 quart pot with a lid) and heat the pot to medium on the stove top. Add the beef to the pot being careful not to over crowd it. Cook the beef in a couple of batches; cooking until lightly browned on both sides. Remove the beef and set aside (a bowl in your refrigerator is a good idea.). Add the red wine and beef stock to the pan and scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to get all the good bits off the bottom – that’s where the flavor is! Add the tomato paste and stir to combine. Add all of the spices. (I put all of my spices in a coffee grinder and ground them to powder before using.) Add the honey and balsamic vinegar, stirring until well combined. Bring the mixture to a boil and reduce the heat to low. Cover and let the sauce simmer for an hour or so. Return the meat to the pot and bring the mixture back to a simmer, and leave it to simmer for another 15 or 20 minutes.

Serve over your favorite pasta and add a vegetable and some nice, crusty bread for dinner.

Lasagna Rolls

October 22, 2015 by Ginger Leave a Comment

Lasagna Rollups, rolling

So many times when confronted with cooking a meal for family I can’t ask “What do I want to eat?” because I know that not every can or will eat what I want to eat. Instead I have to ask the question “What am I willing to eat?”. Tonight’s spin on lasagna helps alleviate some of that issue. With a little extra time, and a nice selection of fillings not only can you achieve dinnertime bliss but you might get the kids involved with helping make dinner too. So let’s get cooking!

Please keep in mind that this recipe is really more of an example, to show you how you can cook for a number of people with varying tastes. Change out any of my ingredients for ones you like better:

1 box of Lasagna Noodles – cooked just before al dente
1 lb fried Turkey “burger” meat
8 oz of goat cheese Feta
1 egg
5 0z of shredded Spinach (I used 1/2 of a frozen box of spinach)
caramelized Onions & Mushrooms
shredded Pecorino
finely chopped fresh herbs: Rosemary, Thyme, Oregano, Marjoram
Olive Oil
Marinara Sauce
Salt & Pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F and prepare a tall sided baking dish – as pictured below, your lasagna noodles will be standing upright, you’ll need the sides of the dish to be taller than the rolled noodles. Pour enough marinara into the dish to cover the bottom and keep the noodles from sticking.

I seasoned and fried the turkey meat, and in a separate pan caramelized onions and mushrooms. In a bowl I mixed the feta cheese, spinach, egg, 1/2 cup of pecorino, about two tablespoons of the herbs (combined) and about a tablespoon of olive oil.

When all your ingredients are getting close to done, cook your lasagna noodles to just before al dente. They will cook more in the oven so you don’t want to boil them to al dente.

Now’s the time to individualize the rolls. Lay out a lasagna noodle and place a thin layer of the spinach mixture as a base, then for the meat lover’s pasta roll add a couple spoonfuls of turkey and gently roll it up carefully placing it into the baking dish. Lay out a 2nd lasagna noodle, add a layer of spinach mixture, and for the veggie lover’s selection add a layer of the onion & mushroom mixture. These are thin layers, too much and rolling will be difficult and much of the layers will actually fall out of the roll, so be conservative with the layers until you get a feel for the quantity needed.

That’s really it, keep making noodles to match who wants what combination of filling. When ready spoon marinara over the top of each noodle to add some moisture. Cook about 30 minutes and bingo – dinner for everyone!

Enjoy!

Lasagna Rollups

Homemade Pasta with Sun Dried Tomatoes

August 26, 2015 by Dan Leave a Comment

Tomato Balsamic Pasta

Each of us have a “Mt Everest” on our cooking bucket list. Maybe it’s proofing the perfect sourdough bread, or recreating Mom’s Chicken Curry. Tonight we are happy to proclaim that we have climbed our mountain and have made pasta. Great pasta too! And are addicted to it’s fresh homemade yumminess.

We’ll start by making the pasta.

2 cups all purpose Flour
3 Eggs
1/2 teaspoon Oil (I used olive oil)
1/2 teaspoon Salt
cold water

Make a mound of flour in the middle of a good sized cutting or pastry board. Make a nice hollow in the middle. Place your eggs, salt and oil in the hollow. Start blending with a fork, pulling flour in as you go. Once I had a good amount of the flour blended in, the fork didn’t work so well, so I went to using my fingers. If the dough is dry, add cold water a little at a time. I ended up adding about 1/4 cup of cold water. Once you have a nice dough, kneed with your hands for about 10 minutes, until it is nicely elastic. Wrap in food wrap and let rest for 20 minutes or so.

Divide the dough into quarters. (Keep the pieces you aren’t using wrapped up so they don’t dry out.) Flour your hands, a pasta board and either a rolling pin or pasta machine. On the floured board, press out one of the balls of dough into a flat circle or oval. Using a rolling pin or a pasta maker, roll out the dough as thin as you can get it. If using a rolling pin, be sure to move the dough around to be sure it isn’t sticking. Roll from the middle out. Lay the pasta sheets out on a cookie sheet and cover with a piece of food wrap. Leave a piece of the food wrap between each sheet. (At this point, you can refrigerate the dough for a day or two, just keep them covered.) Once they are all rolled out, cut into thin strips.

For the sun dried tomato and balsamic pasta, you will need

Pasta (the entire batch above will feed 4 to 6 adults)
2 oz. Pine Nuts
1/2 to 3/4 cup sliced Sun Dried Tomatoes
1/2 cup good Balsamic Vinegar
1/2 cup White Wine
1 cup grated Pecorino Cheese (You can also use Parmesan cheese)
reserved pasta water
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, be sure to salt it and add a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Add the pasta to the water and boil for about 5 minutes (at my altitude it took between 7 and 8 minutes for the pasta to cook.) Do not drain the pasta.

As you bring the water up to a boil, take a large skillet and place it on the stove at medium heat. Once the pan is hot, add the pine nuts. stir them around regularly to toast them evenly. They can burn quickly so keep watch and stir often. Add the sliced sun dried tomatoes and a tablespoon of olive oil (you can use the oil the tomatoes were packed in.) Stir to get the tomatoes hot and let them just begin to color. At this point your pasta should be ready, if not, remove this from the heat until the pasta is cooked. Add the balsamic vinegar and let it reduce a little, stirring for a minute or so. Add the pasta, straight from the pot. Stir to combine. Add the white wine and cook, stirring constantly. Once the wine is boiling nicely and everything is blended together, add the grated cheese and stir to combine. Add a ladle or so of the pasta water. Stir while it simmers for a couple minutes. The sauce should thicken a little and will coat all of the pasta.

Serve hot and top with a little more grated cheese. Salt and pepper to taste.

Easy Carbonara

July 23, 2015 by Dan Leave a Comment

Simple Carbonara

We were blessed this past weekend with lots of friends and family gathering for a celebration. To feed the throngs of hungry, we smoked 18lbs of beef and ham – there wasn’t much left over at the end of the day! Tonight, like most after a long day at work, the final question of the day is deciding “What are we eating for dinner?” Our question went a little more like this “What are we doing with the left over ham?” And it was a no-brainer really, this is an easy (seriously easy) carbonara recipe. Enjoy!

1/2 pound Ham
2 or 3 slices Bacon
1 or more cloves Garlic chopped fine (optional)
12 oz. Pasta (We used Gluten Free Penne Rigate)
1 cup grated Pecorino Cheese
2 tablespoons fresh chopped Parsley
1 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Pepper
2 eggs, scrambled in a bowl

While your pasta cooks, fry your bacon until crispy. You can multi-task here and also cut your ham into 1/4 inch strips about an inch or so long. When the bacon is done, remove it from the pan and drain. (At this point, if you like garlic you can add it to the pan and cook in the bacon fat until it just starts to turn color. If you don’t like garlic, skip this part.) Now add the ham to the pan and cook until lightly browned.

Drain your pasta and reserve some of the pasta water. Return the pasta to the pot on the stove. Turn off the burner. Add the ham, bacon, salt, pepper, parsley and cheese to the pot and toss to combine evenly and to keep it from sticking to the pot. Add the eggs. Toss together so the egg coats everything and cooks with the heat remaining in the pan. If it is too thick, add a bit of pasta water and continue to toss. Repeat until you have a light coating on all of the carbonara. This will not be a heavy sauce.

Serve hot with a little more grated cheese.

Pasta with Lamb

October 15, 2014 by Ginger 1 Comment

Lamb Meatballs

Today’s dish was actually difficult to name. When one mentions “balls” these days, the conversation can quickly disintegrate into snickering akin to Beavis and Butthead, or be misinterpreted to a recipe involving lamb testicles, better known in Nevada as “lamb fries”. So we will simply say that this dish involves Pasta with Lamb (tho you are in fact making round balls, let’s be clear – and let the giggling begin). If you don’t like lamb, turkey would be a good substitute. Use your imagination! This is exactly what it’s for, and where our adventure begins…

Ingredients:

1lb ground lamb
1lb broccoli florets – cut into small “heads” or flowers
1 clove of garlic finely minced
1 small shallot finely minced
2 eggs
1/2 cup panko (or you could use breadcrumbs)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp basil
1/3 cup almond milk (or you could use cream)
1 cup shredded pecorino (or parmesan)
crumbled goat cheese
extra virgin olive oil
1 lb cooked pasta (we used gluten free rotini, but any small noodle will do)
Optional: red pepper flakes

To a large skilled add a couple tablespoons of olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the minced garlic and shallot, stirring continually until the shallot begins to be translucent (6-8 minutes). Remove from heat and empty the skillet into a large mixing bowl (save this skillet for later, you’ll use it again). While this mixture is cooling, add the salt, rosemary, thyme and basil. Stir well. Next add the lamb, one egg and panko to the bowl. With clean hands mix this well, incorporating all the ingredients together, then begin rolling your balls. Ours are slightly bigger than bite size, whatever size you prefer is what you should aim for. Smaller will cook faster, fyi. I roll the balls and place them back into my mixing bowl. Yes, I have a large bowl and prefer fewer dirty dishes to clean up!

This next phase will require some forethought and a bit of juggling. If you have larger balls, you’ll need to finish them off in a 450 degree oven for about 20 mins, if you have smaller balls, you won’t. Depending on how you answered that question, will determine when you should begin cooking your pasta! If you are going to use the oven, have your pot boiling when you place the balls into the oven; if you aren’t using the oven, time the cooking of the lamb, with the cooking pasta. Make sense? You want everything done at the same time. So cook your pasta when you’re good n’tooting ready!

Once your balls are ready to be cooked (and with clean hands), add a couple more tablespoons of olive oil to you skillet. When it’s hot (and the balls will sizzle) carefully add them to your pan. Depending on the size, you’ll need to turn them every 5-6 mins to get them uniformly brown. *If* you made larger balls, now it’s time to put them into the prepared oven, (450 degree oven for about 20 mins. I place mine into a parchment lined pan and cover with aluminum foil).

When the balls are done, return them to your original skillet (or just leave them in there) and add your broccoli. As the broccoli cooks it will turn a beautiful deep green. While this cooks whisk your egg and almond milk together in a small bowl. You don’t want to fry them crispy, just about 8 mins or so, if they begin to turn brown, it’s time to move on. Add your drained pasta, mix well remove from the heat; quickly add your egg mixture and mix constantly (yes, you will get some cooked eggie bits), then add the shredded cheese. Serve hot with crumbled goat cheese on the top and French bread with balsamic vinegar to dip in.

If you enjoy a little heat with your meal, sprinkle on red pepper flakes to taste.