Tag Archives: pasta

Recipe – White Bean and Pasta Soup from Epicurious

I’ve been trying to add more legumes into our diet this year.  I’ve liked all the recipes I’ve tried but the guys…not so much.  However, this White Bean and Pasta Soup from Epicurious.com was a hit with everyone – YEAH!  As usual, I had to make changes.  ;o)  If you click on the link to the original recipe, you’ll notice right off the bat that Epicurious’ version is white and mine is brown.  The recipe called for water but I needed more flavor than that to get my guys to eat it, so I used my fav vegetable stock.  Instead of cooking my own beans, I drained and rinsed a can of cannellini beans.  To get that garlic and sage flavor of the home-cooked beans they suggested starting with, I added a couple of cloves of minced garlic and some poultry seasoning before adding the stock, beans and tomato.  Why poultry seasoning, you ask?  I don’t have sage in the house but sage is in poultry seasoning and, let’s face it, the smell of poultry seasoning wafting through your kitchen just makes any day better.  I didn’t have green onion to top it with and I’m allergic to olive oil, so there was no drizzling of that.  However, it was absolutely delicious and filling, I froze the leftovers for another meal and I highly recommend you give it a try.

Leftover Wednesday – Creamy Portobello Pasta

I found this recipe for Ziti with Portobello Mushrooms, Caramelized Onions and Goat Cheese on Pinterest weeks ago.  *sigh* I wish I could take beautiful pictures of my food!  The picture of the recipe I pinned is very nice.  I showed the recipe to the hubs with such excitement, but my excitement went unmatched.  He is a rice man, I am a pasta woman.  Plus, there is no meat in this dish, either.  LOL

So yesterday, when I went searching through the fridges, freezers and pantries for Leftover Wednesday, I found a wonderful surprise!

I’m ashamed to say I bought these beauties on June 29th, put them in the “overflow” fridge in the garage and then promptly forgot about them.  But I was so excited to see them!  I could make the Ziti with Portobello Mushrooms, Caramelized Onions and Goat Cheese now!  I immediately went to the computer, looked up the other ingredients needed and compared that to what I had: butter, olive oil, 3 onions, salt, sugar, pepper, parsley, 1 lb portobellos, ziti, goat cheese, parmesan.  Hm.  I’m allergic to olive oil and was a tad short on most of the rest.  But, I can be creative and this is what I pulled together:

I had less than a half of an onion, Laughing Cow Garlic and Herb Cheese to replace the goat cheese (hey, it’s soft!), Parmesan cheese (phew!), Wegman’s Basting Oil to replace the olive oil, butter, salt, sugar, pepper and leftover cooked lasagna noodles to replace the ziti.  Not bad in my book!  I cut the recipe down to approx 1/4 to accommodate the amount of onion I had in the house and I made it for myself for lunch (so embarrassed and frustrated to only have 1/3 of an onion, but trying to teach myself a lesson to buy everything I need at the store once or go without until the next bi-weekly shopping trip).  Here we go…

Saute onions in a little butter and Wegman’s Basting Oil with a pinch of salt and a pinch of sugar for 15 minutes.
While the onions were caramelizing, I sliced up the cooked lasagna noodles.
I removed the onions from the pan and added the sliced shrooms.  There was no need to add more butter nor oil.  While they cooked for approx 10 minutes, I boiled some water and dropped the noodles in it for a few minutes to heat up. 
Once the shrooms were done, I added everything to the pan – onions, 1 wedge of Laughing Cow Garlic and Herb cheese, the noodles, parmesan cheese and a little pasta water.  See? My food pictures do not look good.
It took longer than I thought it would for the Laughing Cow to melt and the noodles were in the pan so long they appear to have absorbed some of the mushroom’s color.  Next time, I will remove the shrooms from the pan, add the cheese and some pasta water only and let those two melt together before adding the rest of the ingredients.  Regardless of how itlooked it tasted wonderful!
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