pasta

tomatoes, garlic, and mushrooms

~ nancyruth ~ 5 Comments

These aren’t really recipes but comments on throwing ingredients together to make meals. Yes, I suppose that is what makes  a recipe. Anyway the amounts of the vegetables in the following meals will be entirely up to you and what you have and want to use.

This is a bunch of tomatoes, garlic, and mushrooms served over egg noodles. My Hubby likes egg noodles. When he makes pasta he cooks bunches of it. He does this for tuna-noodle in the summer and with spaghetti which then becomes his spaghetti pie. I try to cook just enough for the meals I am planning.

I have vegetables delivered weekly from Imperfect Produce. You can google that and see if it would be right for you. I may have mentioned it in a previous blog but am not sure. So I had a bunch of tomatoes that arrived green. I let them sit on my counter for a couple of weeks and they did turn red. Meanwhile I had 3-4 other tomatoes in a weekly delivery. And the mushrooms have been very nice lately. I am still trying to put more vegetables in our meals. We’ve done a lot of big roast ups of whatever vegetables are on hand but Hubby has let me know that he is done with broccoli!

  • 6 or so smallish tomatoes
  • 3 cloves garlic
  •  8 ounce package white mushrooms
  • Italian seasoning to taste
  • Egg noodles or pasta of your choice
  • Grated Romano or parmesan cheese to serve

Boil water and cook the noodles. This will take 5-8-10 minutes depending on how al dente you like your pasta. You can use whatever pasta you have on hand. This might be nice with bowties.

Slice the garlic and sauté in oil or butter. Slice mushrooms and add to pan. Roughly chop tomatoes and add them to the skillet and stir together with a few shakes of the seasoning. The garlic will take about 3 minutes; the mushrooms add 5, and then the tomatoes for about 5 more.

Drain the pasta. We put our pasta in the bowls and then add the tomato mixture. Serve with grated cheese. Enjoy!

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Not Tuna Salad

~ nancyruth ~ 6 Comments

We were going to make tuna noodle salad to have for dinner on one of these hot summer evenings. Hubby likes to put raw onion in these salads; I can do without. But we have Vidalia sweet onions in the pantry and these are easier to eat raw. Hubby says to let him make the salad as he knows how to. I abide by his wishes and agree to just cook the elbow noodles so they would be cooked and chilled for his return home from work.

But this did not turn out to be tuna noodle salad made with elbow pasta…

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So first of all, I found no elbow pasta in my pantry. I had two whole boxes in there recently, or so I thought. I did have these curly pasta, cavatelli, capatelli, something like that. I cooked all of that up; it was almost the entire pound package.

Hubby comes home and I start looking for the tuna. We have no tuna in the pantry; we have only one can in the Camper. This is not enough so he searches through the fridge for his ingredients. He leaves the tuna out altogether.

Can you guess what is in there? I have no clue what spices and herbs he used. But it was a very tasty dish and we had it for two suppers.

I do know some of the ingredients. He used broccoli, green pepper, Vidalia onion, shredded cheese, chunks of cheddar cheese, chunks of a beef summer sausage, and carrots.

 

 

It’s Just a Pasta Dish!

~ nancyruth ~ Leave a comment

notebooks 001

I spent a morning organizing my recipe notebooks in which I had collected clippings and printings of recipes I have used and/or want to try. It was quite interesting going through the most recent collection. I removed some that were duplicative and that I would not really use again. I have another one that also has “classic” recipes from my early days as a wife and mother. I did not glean through that one. When these are changed up it is kind of like losing the ambiance of the thing. I have three of my mother’s notebooks. I wonder if my daughter will do this? I gave her one to start on but…?

pasta with beans and greens 005In organizing the two notebooks I came across this newspaper clipping from a year or so ago. In deciding what to cook for supper I wanted to use Italian sausages and thought this recipe could be the inspiration for supper. We like pasta dishes that have more “stuff” than the pasta.

I gathered what I wanted to use. I did not have fresh greens (Swiss chard) nor cannelini beans but that never stops me from going forward!

  • 3 1/2 pounds sweet Italian sausages in links (my addition)
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 8 oz pkg of baby portabella mushrooms, roughly chopped (my addition)
  • 1/2 pint grape tomatoes, cut in halves
  • 1 cup frozen spinach (my substitution, but I like cooking with spinach)
  • 1 15.5 ounce can pinto beans, drained (substitute for the canellini beans)
  • 1/2 cup of broth
  • olive oil for the skillet
  • 8 ounces whole wheat fusilli pasta (less than the pound of the newspaper recipe)
  • sprinkle of red pepper flakes
  • grated Romano cheese to serve (at son’s suggestion)

First put on a big pot of water to boil for the pasta. Cook pasta according to package.

I sliced up the sausage links. This is easier to do when the meat is partially frozen.Heat olive oil in a large skillet and brown the meat. Be sure to cook it through. This takes about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally so that all gets evenly cooked. Meanwhile chop the vegetables. When the sausage is browned remove from the pan and drain most of the fat. Saute the onion and the garlic in this pan with a bit of the fat. When fragrant and caramelizing add the mushrooms, tomatoes, and beans.

Stir the mixture and cook for about 5 minutes, then add the broth, the spinach, and the sausages to the pan and simmer while waiting for the pasta to finish cooking. This should cook for another 10 minutes.

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Blend in the drained pasta, add a shake or two of red pepper flakes, sprinkle on the Romano, and dinner is served:

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This was a big hit with hubby and son who were home for dinner. Which means I will make this again. This serves six. Son had two helpings. I put the remaining two servings in a freezer container for an “emergency meal” for the future.

Thoughts for changes that would be nice: use more spinach (or other greens of choice), use canellini beans (or less than a full can of pinto/brown beans), artichokes could be added, and an addition of black olives would be spectacular!