Pasta

Southwest Pasta Bean Soup

March 13, 2017 by The Partial Ingredients

Don’t you hate when you have almost all of the ingredients for something you want to make but are missing like 2 or 3 of the most important ones? I had this happen recently when I wanted to make Pasta e Fagioli (Pasta Bean Soup) but I was missing the Pancetta and the Cannellini beans. I was in a bit of a pickle until I realized I had regular bacon and pinto beans. Then I had the idea–why not make a Southwest version of the classic Italian Pasta e Fagioli (that’s Fajh-oh-lee) soup? Well, this is not exactly your grandmother’s pasta bean soup but it has a lot of the same elements of the traditional recipe. It’s made with almost exactly the same format as my recipe found here. There are a few choice differences though as the flavor of the bacon provides a smokier flavor than the pancetta. Instead of rosemary I used fresh sage and dried basil for the herbs. Instead of Ditalini pasta I opted for Gemelli since I had some of that laying around. It worked out nicely!

It’s funny how just a few ingredient changes transformed the recipe into something totally different. I still went with parmesan cheese as the garnish but you could probably use a white cheddar instead. I added about the same amount of red pepper to the recipe but adding another 1/2 teaspoon would really give this an extra oomph of heat. I loved the way these small changes did so much to change the recipe and it’s become one of my regular favorites!
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Slow Cooker Italian Sausage Noodle Soup

January 7, 2017 by The Partial Ingredients

It has been such a wet winter it seems like my slow cooker is constantly being called upon to make soups. I love Italian style soups but I don’t see too many of them ideal for a slow cooker. This one is perfect for the crock. The Italian sausage gets crumbled and tenderized after hours of cooking and all the flavor melts into the broth. You could probably translate this to a quicker over the stove method but honestly I love the way the meat melts into the broth with the slow cooker. I use a 6 qt. slow cooker so this recipe will make a lot of soup. I used a medley of summer squashes which was very nice in this recipe. Yellow squash and zucchini were great accompaniments but I’m sure you could experiment with whatever squash you have on hand. The “secret ingredient” for the broth is….*drum roll*… balsamic vinegar. Alright, so probably not that secret but it does offer a certain je ne sais quoi to the broth. Tomatoes and balsamic is, after all, a match made in heaven. I chose a mild Italian sausage but you could make this a bit spicier using the hot variety. Any type of small pasta noodle will do–I personally chose a small elbow macaroni for this recipe. Parmesan is great for the garnish but a sharp Romano or even slices of fresh mozzarella would be a beautiful addition as well.

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Penne Vodka Roasted Tomato Soup

September 22, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

Penne Vodka Roasted Tomato Soup

One of my favorite pasta recipes is penne with vodka sauce and one of my favorite comfort foods is homemade tomato soup. Recently I figured, why not combine these two awesome recipes? Since it’s the first day of Fall I figured it would be appropriate to share a cozy soup recipe. While I recommend using fresh tomatoes in this recipe you can use canned tomato sauce if you’re in a pinch. The roasted tomatoes broiled in the oven in olive oil do offer a little extra something to the flavor. The soup really does taste like a perfect combination of penne vodka and tomato soup! It offered great flavor but wasn’t overly rich or heavy. When I first started brain storming this recipe I was wondering how to incorporate the pasta into the soup. Penne Rigate is way too cumbersome to have in soup but after some searching I found the solution–mini penne! It’s about an inch long even after fully cooked which makes it a perfect size for soup. I don’t add the penne all at once but rather cook to order for each bowl, that way the noodles don’t sit over night in the fridge and soak up all that good broth! I recommended garnishing this one with grated mozzarella, parmesan and fresh basil.

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Beef and Tomato Macaroni Soup

March 22, 2015 by The Partial Ingredients

For week night meals, I like to make a big pot of something tasty on Sunday to last me several days into the week. This is a great recipe for week night meals. It’s easy to throw together and the leftovers are just as good as the first day. The soup comes fully loaded with ground beef, elbow macaroni and the flavors of veggies, tomatoes and fresh herbs. This recipe calls for fresh thyme and marjoram, and I would recommend picking up some of the fresh stuff instead of the dried. It does impart way more flavor than dried herbs can. The combination of the fresh herbs with Worcestershire, tomatoes and ground beef were delicious. Garnish with a little grated parmesan and thyme springs and serve with some crusty french bread. As always with soups that have pasta, the noodles tend to soak up all the tasty broth if you add them in all at once. Make small batches and add a serving of noodles to each bowl so that none of the broth gets wasted.
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Chicken Piccata

January 13, 2013 by The Partial Ingredients

Chicken Piccata is a classic Italian pasta dish served with chicken in a lemon, butter and caper sauce. The chicken is pounded thin, lightly breaded and browned in a pan. Pounding the chicken thin is an important step because it helps cook the chicken more evenly. The drippings from the chicken are used to make the savory pan sauce which, in my opinion, is the highlight of the dish. The sauce is a simple combination of white wine, butter, lemon, and capers. Making everything only takes about half hour so this is a great meal when you’re short on time for dinner!

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Roasted Eggplant Linguine with Prosciutto and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

June 10, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

After making several batches of eggplant panini sandwiches I had some leftover eggplant that needed to be used up. First, I roasted the eggplant in the oven, and then cooked it in red wine with the prosciutto and tomatoes. The eggplant browned a bit in the oven and absorbed the flavors of the wine in the pan. It was pretty easy to throw together and doesn’t take long to prepare. The wine, eggplant, and prosciutto all complimented each other really well. I topped the pasta with a little fresh basil and feta cheese.

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Pumpkin Gnocchi with Brown Butter and Crispy Fried Sage

March 15, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

A classic way to eat gnocchi is with a brown butter and sage sauce. The sauce is really easy to make as it only involves melting some butter in a pan, letting it brown for a few minutes, and then frying fresh sage leaves in the butter. It is a perfect sauce for both pumpkin and sweet potato gnocchi. The next step is to toss the gnocchi in the sauce for a few minutes and the result is a delicious pasta with flavors of pumpkin and sage. I added a little lemon juice at the end to give the pasta a little more flavor.

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Pumpkin Gnocchi

March 9, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

Gnocchi is a flavored pasta dough and it can be mixed with sweet or russet potatoes, butternut squash or pumpkin. I made sweet potato gnocchi a while ago and I thought it would be fun to try it with pumpkin instead. Making gnocchi is somewhat time consuming but really isn’t too bad compared with making other pasta from scratch. All you do is mix the dough with the flavoring that you want, roll the dough into logs and cut them into small pieces. The dough is boiled and then fried. The whole process takes about 2 hours to complete but it is worth the effort as the little pillows of pumpkin practically melt in the mouth!

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Mushroom Ravioli with a Balsamic Butter Sauce and Toasted Walnuts

February 25, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

This mushroom ravioli is really easy to make if you don’t have time to make your own ravioli from scratch. Unfortunately I don’t have the tools (yet) to make my own pasta so hopefully I will be able to enjoy this recipe from scratch eventually. This is actually my boyfriend John’s recipe (he ate a lot of this during his bachelor pad days). He definitely did better than most bachelors with this delicious and easy to make recipe. The balsamic to butter sauce ratio is important as there needs to be enough butter to tame the bitterness of the balsamic vinegar. The sauce should be a medium brown color and not have a lot of bite to it. I let the sauce simmer on very low heat to let the balsamic vinegar caramalize a little while the pasta was cooking. The walnuts and sauce are perfect with the woodsy flavors of the mushrooms. The only thing I wish I did was get a good rind of parmigiano reggiano for this recipe.

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Farfalle with Preserved Lemon and Sun-dried Tomatoes

February 17, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

I have a lot of preserved lemons now that they are ready to use. I thought that a nice pasta dish would taste great with those lemons and this is what I came up with. It came out pretty well and all the flavors tasted good together. The sun-dried tomatoes, lemons, olives, and capers were delicious. I was originally going to use diced tomatoes but when John suggested sun-dried tomatoes I had to try it. I didn’t add any cheese but I think this recipe would be great with a little feta or parmesan on top.

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