Remember this segment? Yeah, I doubt it. Last recipe was from IndianapolisEater on February 10th. Understand that since my son (el diablo) is 9 months old, my pursuit of “the good stuff” is compromised. Additionally, where I would normally have two hours to cook dinner, I now have 25 minutes and 1 hand. I know…it was my choice to have a kid, stop yo’ b**chin wibia.
Now, I look for a few shortcuts here and there and ways to add flavor to items that are already in my pantry. In this case, pasta night to a lot of people looks like this:
Look familiar for pasta night?
Emeril’s sauce is okay and I would give it a 6/10, but it is what I had. Don’t buy the really cheap canned stuff…spend a few bucks more. Same goes with the pasta, buy good quality dried pasta. This is a start, a sad start, but if you add a few things, you might have something to talk about.
Getting warmer...
Ingredients: L->R Garlic, Parmigiano Reggiano, Italian Sausage (links), Spanish Onion, Baby Bellas, Sauce, Pasta, Italian Seasoning, Fennel and Red Pepper.
Again, this is quick, easy..cheap and pretty flippin’ good. The trick is, how you prepare this. Let me explain.
So take the pork sausage links (4), cut off the casing. Roll it into a ball like this, and then cover it with the whole fennel, red pepper, and italian seasoning.
TIP: A lot of times, pork sausage is cheaper than ground pork. Watch your prices.
Then break it into pieces, something like this…
Two count of olive oil into a pan and drop the balls of sausage in the pan. Have a big enough pan that they are not sitting on top of each other. Could you have put all the sausage in at one and then break it apart with a spatula? Sure, but that is more of a bolognese and not what we are doing here. After a few minutes, add onion and garlic. Be careful not to burn the garlic.
After about 10 minutes, it should look like this. TIP: the sausage needs to be dark on the outside. In fact, almost a little burnt. Don’t stir this a lot, otherwise it will not carmelize.
It's ready
Add the sauce to the pan above (if most of the oil/fat is gone, if not, dump the oil out). Cook for about 3 minutes until it is warm. I sautéed the mushrooms in a separate pan with 1 T of butter and a two count of olive oil. If you time it out correctly, you can cook the mushrooms in the above pot. Either works just fine.
Add it all together and give it a snow shower of Parmigiano Reggiano on the Microplane and call it dinner.
In future segments, I will teach you how to make all of this from scratch. This is my version of “Semi-Homemade” from wibia.
Enjoy,
wibia
Tags: At Home, Food, mushrooms, parmesano reggiano, Pasta, sausage
Quick pasta with store bought sauce is a favorite of mine. Makes for an easy, cheap and creative dinner. I remember I used to buy Preggo, until my Mom pulled me aside and asked what the hell I was doing. My rule is I never buy a sauce that lists “Tomato Puree” as the main ingredient.
Do they sell Bove’s around youThrowdown? It’s made by the guy who beat Bobby Flay in the (gag) lasagna episode. It’s great stuff and usually only runs for about 5 bucks.
@ John. We have Boves at a few stores. I have never tried it though. I have to admit that I like the Mario Batali line…. However, I usually make my own sauce, freeze it and take it out as I need it. Preggo…ha…learned my lesson there.
Nice post, a solid pictures.
Like the At home feature and hope they continue. Nice step by step/explanation and the final pic looks crazy good.
As far as homemade sauces go, they can get almost endlessly complicated, but few taste better than Marcela Hazan’s 3-ingredient sauce. It’s just tomato, onion, and butter (and salt, if you use unsalted butter), and it’s a great way to show people how easy cooking can be.
I would post the recipe or a link to any of the numerous blogs that have mentioned it, but being a newbie to commenting here I don’t know what policies there are (if any) with respect to such things. Either way, a quick google of Marcela, tomato, onion, and butter will point you in the direction of bliss.
@Nick: As long it is not porn (well, food porn is okay), links are okay. But I did the work for you and here’s a link for everyone else:
http://steamykitchen.com/8375-marcella-hazan-tomato-sauce-with-onion-butter.html