Vegan cashew alfredo pasta
Bread stuffed with feta, ground beef and olives. A mother’s recipe: declassified.
A Sinful Loaf. Filled with peanut butter, chocolate chips, bananas, pecans, Reese’s peanut butter cups.
The Counter!
Fiore rigatoni with browned butter, crispy garlic and shaved Parmigiano Reggiano
I wish I had the same kind of love affair with green vegetables that I have with pasta, because after a weekend of cooking great food, the veggies would have been the wiser choice. However this unusual pasta’s been waiting patiently in my pantry for the past couple of weeks and I was dying to see how it cooked up. The answer is perfectly.
I melted a couple (generous) tablespoons of salted butter in a small skillet and cooked it until the foam resided. Just before it began to brown I added 3 minced garlic cloves and sautéed the garlic in the butter for about 30 seconds. The garlic got crisp, the butter turned golden and my kitchen smelled heavenly. I stirred the garlic butter into hot, al dente pasta and poured the pasta into a pre-heated bowl. Shaved Parmesan cheese and a light sprinkling of parsley finished it off. Serving size: Just for me!
Four Cheeses Macaroni
Difficulty:
★★☆☆☆ (easy)Yield:
8-10 servingsIngredients:
- 4 tbsp + 2 tbsp butter
- 500 g / 1 lb medium pasta shells
- 1/4 cup plain flour
- 3 cups milk
- 1 cup beer (replace with milk if preferred)
- 400 g / 14 oz (about 3-4 cups grated) of cheeses of your choice
- 1 tbsp each Dijon mustard and Worcestershire sauce
- 2 cups coarse bread crumbs (6 slices of bread)
- salt and pepper, to taste
Directions:
- Heat a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook pasta until very al dente, according to package instructions. Drain once almost cooked and pour into a lightly greased 9×13″ baking dish.
- Meanwhile as your pasta is cooking, in a separate saucepan, melt 4 tbsp of the butter until liquid. Add the flour and whisk so it forms a paste, cook for 2-3 minutes but do not brown. Slowly add the milk and beer, adding about 1/2 cup at a time and whisking each time until no lumps can be seen and the sauce thickens. Add a pinch of salt and a few generous grinds of pepper, the Dijon and the Worcestershire, and stir well.
- Grate or roughly chop all of the cheese and stir it into the white sauce. Continue stirring the white sauce on medium-low heat until no (or very few) cheese lumps can be seen. Taste and adjust as necessary—add more Dijon or Worcestershire, salt, or pepper (cheese is quite salty so you probably won’t need much salt). Pour over the mostly cooked pasta in the pan, and stir carefully so that pasta is coated with cheese sauce.
- Melt remaining two tablespoons of butter and drizzle over the bread crumbs, toss to coat slightly. Sprinkle evenly over the pasta in the dish. Bake at 400 F / 200 C for 15-20 minutes until topping is golden and sauce is bubbling. If your dish is very very full, be sure to put a rimmed baking tray under it in the oven to avoid a baked cheese mess!
Pasta with Chicken, Spinach, Tomatoes & Feta Cheese: This simple salad combines the heartiness of a pasta salad with the freshness of a tossed green salad. A tangy, citrus dressing ties it all together.