Bright green!

Apparently you all love Anne Burrell! Who knew? She rocked the poll last week with her book Cook Like a Rock Star.

As I mentioned in my review of this book many months ago, I really love the book in theory. The problem comes when you actually want to cook from it. A lot of the recipes require pretty rare and/or expensive ingredients.

So I tried to pick a recipe that would be accessible to people.

The pasta recipes called out to me. She really knows her pasta and while she pretty much always recommends making fresh pasta, a lot of the recipes can be easily adapted to use dried pasta.

This recipe caught my eye this week so I went for it. It turned out to be really interesting and delicious.

Arugula Walnut Pesto

Yield: Enough for 1 pound of pasta.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 cup walnuts
3 cups baby arugula
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup Pecorino cheese, grated
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup hot pasta water
1/2 cup heavy cream
Kosher salt
Big fat finishing oil

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor

Directions:

1) Lay out walnuts on a sheet pan and roast them for about 6 minutes at 350 degrees. Watch them closely and turn them once half way through.

2) Combine walnuts, arugula, cheeses, and garlic in a food processor and pulse until it's a rough paste.

3) Drizzle in olive oil and pulse again.

4) Add pesto to a small pan and add about 1 cup of hot pasta water to the pan. Stir well.

5) Bring to a simmer, stir in cream, and continue to simmer. Season with salt and pepper.

6) When pasta is done, drain it and add it straight to the pesto.

7) Serve with a drizzle of finishing oil and extra grated cheese.

Recipe from Cook Like a Rock Star.

The Basics

A normal pesto recipe is based on buckets of basil, garlic, Parmesan cheese, and pine nuts. A lot of times I won’t even follow a recipe for it. I’ll just kind of wing it with those ingredients.

This is a very similar recipe in theory but substitutes arugula for the basil and walnuts for the pine nuts.

Speaking of nuts, I’m pretty sure Anne Burrell is one. Under this recipe in her book she writes in big bold type:

“I love the feel of nuts in my mouth!”

Ok Anne. I don’t really know what to think about that so here’s a photo of some nuts just so we can make sure we are on the same page.

Love these!

Anne recommends, and I agree, that you toast these bad boys before using them. Just lay them out on a baking sheet and bake them at 350 degrees for about 6-7 minutes.

I recommend setting a timer and watching them closely because these will go from perfect to burnt in about 30 seconds.

Making the Pesto

Arugula is no where near as flavorful as basil so you really need to use a lot of it for this recipe. Don’t worry about over-doing it.

No basil needed.

Once your walnuts are toasted, add them to a food processor with a good amount of arugula, grated cheese, and some minced garlic and you’re ready to go!

Ready to blend!

Pulse this down until it’s a rough paste and then drizzle in your olive oil and continue to pulse.

Perfect paste.

Finishing the Pesto

The key to finishing this pesto, which is now way to dry to really use, is to make a sauce out of it.

To do this, add the paste to a medium saucepan and get it cooking over medium heat. Then add about a cup of hot water from the pasta that you’re cooking straight to the pot!

This water will be salty and starchy and really help make this pesto into something useable.

Magic ingredient.

Once you get the pasta water stirred in, go ahead and add some cream and your sauce will really come alive.

The color of this is amazing!

Love the color.

Put this back on the heat and keep it warm until your pasta is done.

The Pasta

Anne’s big on homemade pasta and so am I. I kind of think of homemade pasta as a special occasion thing though and not an every night situation.

So I just used some dried linguine and it worked great.

Homemade pasta would be best...

Big Fat Finishing Oil

In about 25% of the recipes in this cookbook, Anne recommends finishing the dish with what she called a “Big Fat Finishing Oil.” What she means by this is a really good quality olive oil (read: expensive).

You would never actually cook with this stuff because the heat would immediately break down the flavors. You just drizzle it on right before you serve the dish.

I’m not an olive oil expert, but I picked out a nice bottle that definitely tasted a lot fresher than the stuff I use to cook. It worked great to finish the dish.

Big Fat Finishing Oil?

Once the pasta is drained just stir it into the sauce and then serve it up!

Extra grated cheese and a good drizzle of the nice oil rounds out the pasta perfectly.

Really tasty!

I’m was really surprised by the flavors in this pesto. They were very different from normal pesto.

It was a great change and Betsy and I both gave it two big fat finishing thumbs up!

When in doubt, serve it on arugula!

I love my kitchen as much as the next food blogger. I feel very comfortable there. It’s normally very relaxing for me to cook.

But sometimes I just want dinner to be made. I want a dish that’s quick, flavorful, and simple.

I want a dish that I can make within the time it takes me to listen to one podcast of Car Talk.

This dish is that dish.

It can look a bit intimidating, especially if you aren’t use to cooking with a lot of Asian flavors. But really it’s dumb simple to make and utilizes one of my favorite kitchen tips!

Sesame Chicken Noodle Salad

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound chicken breasts, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 red pepper, sliced
1 pound linguine
Vegetable oil
Arugula

Sesame Sauce:
2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and diced
1/3 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1 tablespoon chili-garlic sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1/2 cup pasta water (from linguine)

Directions:

1) Season chicken with salt and pepper. Add a drizzle of vegetable oil to a large skillet and heat over medium-high heat.

2) Sear chicken on both sides for about 4 minutes, then turn down heat and continue to cook chicken, flipping occasionally, until chicken is cooked through, about 12 minutes total cooking time.

3) Remove chicken from pan and slice into large chunks.

4) Start cooking pasta. When pasta is almost done, scoop out some pasta water.

5) Mix sauce ingredients in a bowl. Stir well. The sauce should be very smooth and silky. If it's very thick, add more pasta water.

6) Using same pan that you cooked the chicken in, add another drizzle of oil and add red peppers. Cook for just a few minutes over medium-high heat until veggies soften.

7) Add diced chicken back to skillet and stir in sesame sauce.

8) Drain pasta and add to skillet. Stir together to incorporate everything.

9) Serve sesame chicken salad on a bed of arugula.

Heavily adapted from a Cook's Country recipe.

The Sesame Sauce

When I say this meal can be intimidating, it’s mostly because I’m not sure a lot of people keep their pantries stocked with the stuff to make this sauce.

If you have to buy this stuff for the first time, it’ll involve lots of words you probably can’t pronounce and at least one panda bear.

Lots of jars...

Have no fear though. Once you hunt down all the jars that you need, the only actual work you need to do for the sauce besides measuring is peeling and dicing some ginger. Not rocket science!

There is one problem though. When you mix all these ingredients together, it will taste very good, but it’ll most likely be a bit on the lumpy side.

Don’t worry about this right now. We’ll fix it later!

A bit chunky...

The Chicken

The sauce is definitely the star of this show. You don’t have to use chicken for this dish if you wanted to make a vegetarian version. You could just toss the sauce with the noodles or use some seared tofu if you wanted.

I went the chicken route on this day though. Assuming you are using chicken, just season a few boneless skinless breasts with a good pinch of salt and pepper. I’m usually not a huge boneless skinless chicken fan, but it works well for this recipe.

Keep it simple.

In a large skillet, heat a drizzle of oil over medium high heat and once the pan is hot, add the chicken.

Sear the chicken for about 4 minutes per side. Then turn down the heat to medium and continue to cook until the chicken is cooked through, probably another 6 minutes or so. That of course will depend on how big your chicken breasts are.

Mine were on the smaller side.

Make sure it's cooked through...

Once the chicken is cooked through, scoop it out of the pan and slice it into big chunks.

You want the chicken to be visible in the final dish!

Big chunks work great.

Finishing the Dish

There’s just a few other things you’ll need to finish off this recipe. While it’s kind of optional, I recommend dicing up a red pepper and also getting some arugula ready.

Two quick veggies.

When it comes to the pasta for the dish, you can use almost any thin pasta. Spaghetti, linguine, angel hair… it would all work fine.

Fantastic Kitchen Tip Alert

Anytime you are making a sauce to go with pasta, one of the best sauce helpers you can have is the actual water that you cook the pasta in. Pasta water is starchy and salty and will help smooth out sauces and give them some body.

If you ever find yourself with a lumpy or lackluster sauce, try adding some pasta water to it.

In this case, we will add about 1/2 cup to that lumpy sauce that we mixed together earlier.

Wonderful water.

This will completely smooth out the sauce and make it perfect.

In the same skillet that you used to cook the chicken (no need to wash it even), add another drizzle of oil and then toss in your red peppers.

Cook them for a few minutes until they are soft and then add in your chicken. Pour your sauce over the whole thing!

Sauce is really smooth now.

Assuming you are decent at timing, hopefully your pasta is done as well right around this time.

Almost any pasta will work.

Then just stir your pasta in with the chicken and sauce.

It’ll look like a lot of sauce, but it’s just enough to coat all the stuff.

If at any point, the sauce gets too thick, just add a bit more pasta water to it and it’ll thin out.

This was my finished version!

All tossed together!

Now, you could just serve this in a big bowl, but I tried something a bit unconventional.

I served mine on arugula. This might sound strange to serve a pasta dish on greens, but it worked really well actually. The arugula is nice and peppery and holds up well to the strong sesame flavors.

And it makes for a pretty plate!

Pretty plate!

So there ya go!

If you can master the sauce, this dish is really simple to throw together, but really delivers in the flavor department.

Give it a shot if you’re in the market for a quick and easy dinner. And let’s be real… who isn’t in the market for a quick and easy dinner?

Health in a bowl!

I’m a huge fan of instant Netflix. In fact, Betsy and I don’t even have cable anymore.

Currently my queue on instant Netflix breaks down into:

1) Dorky science shows like Mythbusters.
2) Awesome TV series like Breaking Bad and Law and Order: SVU
3) Documentaries or movies that people have recommended to me about food.

Last week, I finally watched a show that a friend recommended to me approximately 6 months ago called Forks Over Knives. I think the movie can be summarized in the title of it, which I didn’t fully understand until halfway through the thing. I thought the title was forks over knives because you use a knife to eat things like meat and forks to eat things like veggies.

The real meaning of it though is that if you wisely choose what you eat with your fork you can almost certainly avoid going under the knife. It argues that as a society, we have put the knife over the fork and now we think that it’s much easier and less drastic to have a few surgeries instead of changing eating habits.

So, as a shout out to what I thought was a really interesting and very well done movie, I decided to cook something that I think the Forks Over Knives crowd would approve of… mainly because it’s from their website!

Spicy Orange Greens

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 bunch greens, like broccoli rabe, kale, or chard
1 red pepper, diced
1/3 cup water
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon orange marmalade
8 ounces soba noodles, cooked
1 tablespoon sesame oil
Chili garlic sauce (opt.)

Directions:

1) Wash and roughly chop greens and dice peppers and garlic clove. Cook soba noodles according to package. Drain soba and toss with sesame oil to make sure the noodles don't stick.

2) Add water, garlic, red pepper flakes, soy sauce to a large skillet or wok. Bring to a simmer over high heat and cook until garlic is fragrant, just a minute or two.

3) Stir in marmalade.

4) Add greens and red pepper to the pan and cover.

5) Cook for 2-3 minutes until veggies are soft. Stir everything together so the sauce evenly coats the veggies.

6) Serve greens with soba and top with chili garlic sauce.

Adapted from Forks Over Knives website.

Forks over Knives

Based on my post from the weekend, it’s pretty obvious that this movie didn’t turn me into a vegan. But it did reinforce a lot of what I already think. Namely, that through healthier eating, we would drastically reduce some of the health issues we face as a country.

This doesn’t just mean obesity, but even more radical diseases like heart disease and even some cancers. To make huge progress in this effort, the film argues that we have to basically completely eliminate from our diet three things: meat, dairy or other animal products, and processed foods and oils.

The problem that I have with the movie is that it makes the whole situation seem like a switch. It’s either on or off. You’re either eating healthily or you’re on a path to cancer.

I like to think of more as a sliding scale. Sure, if you eat nothing but deep-fried cheesesteak every day, you’re in for a rough haul, but having a slice or two of bacon on the weekends I don’t think is going to set my body into a tailspin.

Of course, Americans tend to have a problem with the word moderation so I can see how arguing for a cold turkey approach might be more effective.

Anyway, so I liked the movie. It has some fascinating statistics and compiles work from two very respected doctors who have been researching this stuff for over 40 years.

But enough about reviews… let’s eat!

Spicy Orange Greens

I wanted to cook something from the Forks Over Knives website after I watched the movie. One thing that I found ironic was that the recipe they posted probably leads to a lot of people breaking one of the main Forks over Knives rules!

The recipe calls for a tablespoon of orange marmalade and about 90% of marmalades in the store contain mostly high fructose corn syrup which the movie is very against. Oh well, nobody’s perfect. Of course, you can find marmalade without HFCS (I did), but I doubt most people would do this for the recipe. They would just grab a jar.

Anyway, this recipe was actually very delicious and takes less than 30 minutes to toss together which is cool.

You’ll need these things to make the sauce!

Good stuff.

One cool tactic that they mentioned in the movie, and that this recipe used, was that instead of stir-frying in oil, try to use water. So basically you make a very flavorful steaming liquid and cook your food in that.

I was skeptical that this would work but it turned out to be great and definitely healthier than cooking the greens in oil which is what I would’ve done if left to my own devices.

Speaking of greens… you can use almost anything for this recipe. You want something hardy like rabe, kale, or chard though. I went the rabe route.

Love the rabe.

To prep the veggies, just wash and roughly chop the ingredients. Pretty simple!

Just a rough dice is good.

Soba Noodles (I bend the rules)

You could serve the greens over rice or something, but the recipe also suggested noodles and that sounded better to me.

So I went with soba noodles which are some of the healthier noodles out there!

One of my favorite noodles.

I really love soba noodles because they are extremely flavorful. They have a really nutty flavor. I also like them because they are very good warm or cold so they make for quick leftovers.

There’s one problem with the noodles that led me to slightly bend the Forks Over Knives rules.

Soba noodles stick together like they are made of Elmers. After you boil them and drain them, if you walk away for a few minutes, they will congeal into one big mass of noodles: like a noodle cake.

These will stick like glue!

There’s one cure for this and it’s not approved by the Forks Over Knives doctors, but whatever.

The cure is oil… specifically sesame oil. For me, I’d rather use a tablespoon of this stuff and have really flavorful (and separated) noodles, but I do not think that the doctors in the movie would approve.

Necessary in my opinion.

Finishing the Dish

Once the noodles are cooked, this dish takes about five minutes to finish up. It’s really quick and easy.

Basically, just add the water, garlic, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, and marmalade to a large skillet or wok.

Water. Not oil.

Bring this to a simmer over high heat and then toss in your veggies.

A quick steam.

Cover this up and cook the veggies for just a few minutes. So basically you are steaming the veggies but with spices and some sweet orange flavors.

When the veggies are done, just toss them a bit so they all get evenly coated with the sauce.

Maybe two minutes later.

I wanted to kick up the heat a bit more on mine so I added some chili garlic sauce as well.

Simple and delicous!

It’s hard to deny that it would be good if more people ate meals like this pretty regularly.

I was also impressed by how actually delicious and creative this dish was. The oil-to-water change was a great one and probably one that I’ll use regularly.

So, check out the movie if you’re interested. But, more importantly, make this dish. Some might say that by eating it you’re warding off cancer, but I’ll just say that I’m recommending it because it’s really tasty!

There's gin in there...

It seemed like there was a phase in the cooking world, and maybe it’s still happening, when vodka pasta sauce was the freakin’ bee’s knees.

It was the sexiest thing you could do to pasta.

I’ve definitely made it and ate it and enjoyed it, although I’ve never posted on it.

Here’s my problem with vodka sauce: Good vodka is specifically engineered to be tasteless. That’s why it’s great for mixed drinks. It really has almost no taste.

So wouldn’t it make sense to make a sauce with booze that has some flavor? More importantly, maybe booze that has some herbal flavors that would go well with tomatoes and cheese?

Gin has these flavors and it will kick your pasta sauce up a notch.

Gin Penne Pasta

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound penne pasta, cooked al dente
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 cup gin
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 cup fresh basil, minced
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Stick blender or normal blender

Directions:

1) In a medium pot, add olive oil, onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes and begin cooking over medium heat. Cook for 5 minutes until onions are soft and fragrant. Be careful not to brown the onions and garlic. You just want them soft.

2) Add in tomatoes and cook for a few minutes.

3) Remove sauce from heat and blend with a stick blender, or normal blender until sauce is fairly smooth. It doesn't have to be perfect.

4) Add gin and sugar to sauce and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes or so until alcohol cooks off from gin. You'll know when it's ready because it won't smell like strong alcohol.

5) Stir in cream, Parmesan cheese, and basil and season with salt and pepper. Keep warm.

6) Cook pasta according to package. Make sure to pull it when it is al dente or has a slight bite to it still.

7) Drain pasta well and add directly to sauce. Stir together.

8) Serve garnished with Parmesan cheese and fresh basil!

Gin Over Vodka

I was a bit worried when I had the idea for this sauce that I would go too far in the other direction. I was worried that gin would have too much flavor and completely overpower the sauce. I started slow and added a quarter of a cup to the sauce, let it simmer and tasted it.

At the end of it, I decided that about a cup of gin is the right amount. Even though gin has a pretty strong flavor on its own, when it cooks down and mixes with the other ingredients, it’s a subtle but nice flavor.

Basically, I think it gives the sauce some interesting complexity that definitely can’t be found with a vodka sauce. Gin after all is made with a fair amount of botanical herbs and spices while vodka is made mainly with… potatoes.

A few basics...

Starting the Sauce

While there is some simmering and stirring that goes on with this sauce, there’s really not much chopping. Just dice up some onion and garlic and you’re ready to start the sauce.

Just a few things to chop.

Add the olive oil to a medium pot with the onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Cook this over medium heat until the onions and garlic start to soften and it smells very fragrant.

You don’t want the onions to brown at all. They should just get soft over medium heat which will take around 5-6 minutes.

Try not to brown them.

Then add in your tomatoes and sugar. The small amount of sugar balances some of the acidity of the tomatoes.

Any diced tomatoes will do the trick for this recipe. I went with some fire-roasted Muir Glen tomatoes.

Any kind of stewed tomato will do the trick.

Continue to cook this for a few minutes.

I wanted my sauce to be pretty smooth so I decided to blend it up with my stick blender. You could also use a normal blender or just kind of mash the tomatoes as they cooked and go with a more rustic version of the sauce.

You definitely don’t need a blender to make this sauce, but if you can, I recommend taking it for a spin.

A quick spin.

Big Time Flavor

At this point our sauce is pretty standard, but it’s about to get a big bump in the flavor department.

Starting with the gin. A whole cup. It doesn’t really matter what brand of gin you use, but I wouldn’t use super-cheap stuff.

A whole cup!

Bring this sauce to a simmer and let it simmer for about 15-20 minutes, stirring regularly. Your goal here is to cook off most of the alcohol and reduce the gin flavors.

You’ll know when it’s done because the sauce won’t smell intensely like alcohol!

As a final step stir in some cream which will mellow out some of the flavors and give the sauce a nice, rich texture.

Mellows it a bit.

Any time I’m trying to make a really good tomato-based pasta sauce, there are two ingredients that I almost always include: Real Parmesan cheese, and fresh basil.

Must have flavors.

Add a good amount of these to the sauce and season the sauce with salt and pepper.

I recommend finishing the sauce and then just keeping it warm while you work on the pasta.

This was my finished sauce!

Done deal!

Finishing the Dish

For the pasta itself, just cook it according to the package. While I guess you could use any pasta, I think penne works perfectly for this dish.

Whatever you do, don’t overcook the pasta. Soggy pasta is pretty much the worst.

Steaming hot.

As soon as the pasta is drained, toss it into the sauce (or toss the sauce into your pasta depending on your pot size).

Stir it all together. Even though it will look like a lot of sauce, as you stir in the pasta, all that sauce will get trapped in the penne pasta and you’ll be all set.

These guys will soak up a lot of sauce.

I like to serve pasta dishes like this family style which basically means I just pile it in a huge bowl and add some basil and cheese to the top.

I like to serve it family style.

Surprisingly, even with a cup of gin in this sauce, the flavor is pretty subtle. All of those gin botanicals, most importantly juniper, give the sauce this really complex flavor and fragrance.

It’s one of those dishes that if you were to eat it without knowing what was in it, you wouldn’t be able to put your finger on it, but once you know it’s gin, then it makes sense.

Let it be known: When it comes to pasta sauces, gin is the new vodka.

My first shells!

Let’s talk about something quickly that has confused me over the years: the difference between yams and sweet potatoes.

Here’s the thing. It’s actually hard to find real yams in grocery stores. They aren’t popular in America. But, there are two kinds of sweet potatoes that are sold: ones with a lighter skin and light yellow flesh and ones with a more orange tint to it.

Unfortunately, a lot of grocery stores label the more orange sweet potatoes as yams even though they aren’t. They are still sweet potatoes but just a different variety.

My grocery store actually had these labeled as “Sweet Potatoes/Yams” as if they were the same thing!

Real yams have a dark skin and are even sweeter than sweet potatoes. They are popular in Caribbean cuisine, but are actually a bit hard to find in most grocery stores in the states.

So let the record show: These wonderfully delicious baked shells are stuffed with sweet potatoes and definitely not stuffed with yams.

Sweet Potato Stuffed Shells

Yield: Serves 5-6.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 large yams, boiled and mashed
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 fresh sage leaves, minced
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1 28 ounce can tomato sauce
6 ounces mozzarella cheese, sliced
16 ounces pasta shells, cooked al dente
Salt and pepper
Fresh chives (garnish)

Directions:

1) Peel and cube yams and boil them in salted water until they are very tender, about 12-15 minutes. Drain yams and mash in a bowl.

2) You can cook shells in same water. Cook until al dente and then remove and drain shells.

3) Dice onions, sage, and garlic and saute in butter over medium heat until onions are soft, about 5-6 minutes. Don't brown the onions. Add red pepper flakes and a pinch of salt.

4) Add onion mixture to mashed yams with greek yogurt, cream, and walnuts. Stir together and season with salt and pepper.

5) Add half of the tomato sauce to the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish. Working with one shell at a time, fill shell with a few spoonfuls of filling. You can stuff them pretty full. It's also okay if they rip a bit.

6) Arrange stuffed shells in baking dish. Once the dish is full, top each shell with extra sauce and a slice of mozzarella.

7) Cover dish loosely with foil and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Then uncover and bake dish for another 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

8) Serve shells garnished with fresh chopped chives.

Making the Filling

This is really a perfect winter filling. You could do a lot of things with it actually besides stuff it in shells. You could layer it in a lasagna or put it in manicotti. You could put it in ravioli or add some cheese and extra cream to it and make a kind of baked dip out of it.

It all starts with sweet potatoes though. Two large ones should do the trick. Just peel them and dice them into pretty large cubes.

Peeled and cubed

Boil these cubes in salted water until they are very tender (about 15 minutes) and then mash them up in a bowl. It’s okay if they aren’t completely smooth. Some lumps are just fine.

No need to be perfectly smooth.

Filling Flavors

Sweet potatoes are a good start but we want to add a lot more flavor to this filling. I really like the onion/sage flavor profile that the polenta I posted on Thursday had, so I decided to use similar stuff for this filling.

Good winter flavors.

Dice up the onion, mince the garlic and sage, and saute the veggies in butter over medium heat until the onions are soft. Be sure not to cook them on high heat or the veggies might brown which isn’t what you want.

You just want them to soften a bit so they turn slightly sweet. It should take about 5-6 minutes.

Then add in your red pepper flakes and add this mixture to the mashed sweet potatoes. You can add your yogurt and cream at the same time!

Yogurt... or sour cream.

I stirred this all together and tasted it.

Very Important: Any time you are coming up with a filling like this, it’s very important to taste it as you go.

When I tasted this, I liked the flavor, but I thought the texture was a bit mushy. So I went rummaging through my pantry and landed on some walnuts that I thought would give this filling some great texture.

Great add-in.

Just remember… if the filling tastes good on its own (which this did) then it’s going to be even better when it’s baked and covered with cheese.

The Pasta

Like I said, I wanted to use shells for this dish just because I don’t use them very often. You could use almost any baked pasta thing though for this filling, so go crazy!

Whatever pasta you choose, just make sure you don’t over cook the stuff. Pull it out while the pasta still has a very tiny bite to it. It will continue to cook in the oven later.

Be careful not to overcook these guys!

Prepping the Shells

These shells are actually really easy to stuff assuming that you don’t overcook them. Just add a few spoonfuls of filling to each shell! You can really stuff them pretty full.

Easy as that.

In a large baking dish, add about half of your tomato sauce to the bottom of the dish and then start stacking these shells in the dish.

You might have some leftover filling or shells depending on a few things, but it’s better to have leftover filling then not enough!

Might have some leftovers...

Add the rest of your tomato sauce to the top of the shells and top each shell with some mozzarella cheese.

I’m always inclined to add a large amount of cheese to dishes like this, but I would really recommend keeping the cheese light in this instance. The filling is really the star of the show and very delicious and rich on its own. So just a small amount of cheese should do the trick.

No need to go crazy with cheese.

Baking the Pasta

Cover this dish loosely with foil and bake it at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Then crank up the heat to 400 and remove the foil. Bake it for another 15 minutes just so the tops of the pasta gets slightly browned.

Baked!

Serve these suckers with some fresh chopped chives!

Really great meal!

These were a delicious winter dinner and the leftovers were perfect also. Betsy and I ate these shells for a few days and I never got sick of them.

So remember: These are sweet potatoes, not yams.

And also remember to try this as soon as possible!

BAM.

My Mom wanted to do something slightly different for the holidays this year. Instead of a huge hunk of meat like a roast or ham or something for Christmas Eve dinner, she wanted to do a bunch of smaller plates in courses.

I’m almost positive that my loving mother chose this style of meal because it forces people to sit around the table and actually talk for a longer period of time.

Luckily, I like talking and eating and cooking, so I was happy to help her plan the feast.

We settled on Italian food because it’s pretty normal for that to be served in courses. Most of the courses were very straightforward and pretty simple to make, but I was particularly proud of the pasta course. I made some delicious homemade squash ravioli that turned out better than I was expecting.

I’m far from a ravioli expert and only a quarter Italian, but after making these I feel at least a third Italian.

Winter Squash Ravioli

Yield: Serves 4 as a meal.

Prep Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 2 hours

Ingredients:

Homemade Pasta:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
A pinch of salt

Filling:
1 butternut squash, roasted (~4 cups of squash)
2 shallots (about 1/3 of a cup), diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
Pinch of nutmeg
Pinch of salt and pepper

Sage Butter Sauce:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons fresh sage (about 5 leaves), minced
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons pasta water

Helpful Equipment:
Pasta Maker (or KitchenAid attachment)
Ravioli cutter

Directions:

To make Pasta:
1) Mix salt and flour and make a well on a clean counter.

2) Whisk together eggs and yolks and add them to the well.

3) Use a fork to slowly incorporate the flour with the eggs. The goal is to add just enough flour to pull the dough together. Ideally, you'll end up with a ball of dough in the middle of a well of flour as you won't need all the flour to finish the dough.

4) Knead the dough gently for a few minutes, adding more flour if it's sticky or loose. Then let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

5) Continue kneading the dough for a another 5 minutes or so, incorporating more flour as needed.

6) Wrap the dough tightly in plastic and let it rest for an hour.

To Make Filling:

1) Roast squash in a 350 degree oven for about an hour until they are fork tender.

2) In a large pan, add olive oil and cook diced shallots over medium heat. When shallots are soft, add in squash flesh. It should be very soft.

3) Cook the filling for a few minutes, mashing the squash together with the shallots.

4) Add cream, cheese, and nutmeg. Season with salt and pepper.

5) Let filling cool before filling ravioli.

Making Ravioli:
1) Cut pasta dough into quarters and work with one quarter at a time. Pass dough through pasta maker a few times on widest setting, making sure to flour it well.

2) Crank down pasta roller and keep passing through dough until it's on the second to thinnest setting (normally 7).

3) If you have a long counter, spread the pasta sheet out and flour it heavily on the bottom so it doesn't stick to the counter. I cut my sheet in half to make it easier to work with.

4) Add a large teaspoon of squash filling spaced about an inch a part on the lower 1/3 of the pasta sheet. You should get 12-14 for a full sheet of pasta.

5) Use a roller cutter to cut up the ravioli into individual pieces.

6) Working with one ravioli at a time, dip your finger in water and run it around the edges of the ravioli filling. Then fold the dough over and press out all the air. Press down to seal the edges. Repeat with all the raviolis.

7) Use a decorative ravioli cutter to cut around the edges of each ravioli. This will help seal them completely and also make them pretty.

8) Toss ravioli on a baking sheet with some flour. Repeat with all the pasta dough.

9) Before cooking ravioli, freeze them for a few minutes so they firm up.

10) Cook ravioli in salted, boiling water for about 3-4 minutes. When they all float, they are done.

For Butter Sauce:
1) When you put your ravioli in to cook, start sauce. Add butter and herbs to a small saucepan. Melt over medium heat.

2) When butter is just starting to brown slightly, add a few spoonfuls of pasta water which will thicken the sauce a bit. Swirl it around to mix the water and butter.

3) Drain raviolis and add to plate.

4) Drizzle butter sauce over ravioli and serve with extra cheese.

Making the Filling

I kept this filling pretty simple and while I used butternut squash for it, I think you could use almost any winter squash. You want about 4 cups of roasted squash so that might mean you need to roast more than one squash if you’re using a smaller one.

One large butternut squash is plenty though.

Pretty straightforward

Roast this bad boy for about an hour at 350 degrees until it’s very tender.

In a medium pot, add the olive oil and shallots and cook for a minute or two over medium heat. Then add in the roasted squash flesh and mash everything together. It’s okay if there are some lumps.

Stir in the cream, cheese, nutmeg, and salt and pepper and your filling is done!

Be sure to let this cool completely before filling your ravioli.

A bit chunky is fine.

Making The Pasta

My pasta making has come a long way. If you go way back to my first attempt at making pasta, you’ll notice that I had no freakin’ idea what I was doing.

I still only have a vague idea as to what I’m doing, but it seems to work for me these days so I’m just letting it happen.

Basically, I just mix together my flour and salt and then make a big well on the counter. Then I pour in my eggs which I’ve lightly beaten (upper right).

Next, I use a fork to just slowly incorporate flour into the egg mixture. After a few minutes of this, the eggs will form a loose dough. Then you can start gently kneading it (bottom left).

As you knead it, the dough will get sticky and you’ll want to work in more flour which is convenient because you will be kneading the dough in a big pile of flour.

After maybe 8 minutes of kneading, you’ll have a nice firm ball of dough and probably plenty of flour left over, which is fine (bottom right).

Once your dough is made, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest for about an hour (conveniently the time it takes to make the filling).

Now you can make some pasta!

Making pasta is pretty straightforward assuming you have a decent pasta roller. Work with a quarter of your dough at a time just to make it easier.

Feed it through the pasta roller a few times on the widest setting and then start cranking it down until it gets to the second-to-smallest setting (normally 7).

The key to making pasta that I’ve found is to really flour it up. It’s pretty hard to use too much flour because extra flour will just fall off.

This is some pretty perfect looking pasta if you ask me.

Artsy pasta shot.

Making the Ravioli

Assuming you have a long counter, you can just stretch the finished pasta sheet out in one long piece. I cut my pasta sheet in half though just to make it easier to work with.

Again, use a lot of flour on the bottom of the sheet so it doesn’t stick as you make the ravioli.

Then just dollop out large teaspoon sized lumps of filling on the pasta sheet. Make sure that you leave about an inch between the ravioli and also put the filling in the bottom third of the ravioli since we are going to fold them over.

A good teaspoon will help.

At this point, use a ravioli cutter to slice up the ravioli into individual pieces. It’s actually important to slice them before you seal them I’ve found because it lets you get a better seal on each ravioli.

Then, work with one ravioli at a time. Dip your fingers in some water and wet around the filling. Then fold the pasta over and seal it up! Try to press out as much air from the filling as possible.

These are looking really good.

Lookin' good.

Then take your ravioli cutter and run it around the edge of each ravioli. This will make the ravioli pretty, but will also make it really sealed well.

This is an optional step, but I think it helps.

The Important Part

The important part about making ravioli (I think) is to not freak out about them. Unless you’re working in a professional kitchen and people are paying $20 to eat 6 of your ravioli, they don’t need to be perfect.

They won’t be perfect. As long as they are sealed though, they will cook fine and still be delicious.

I graded myself on my first batch of ravioli. Even my “F” ravioli tasted delicious.

By the way, it is important to toss them in flour as you finish them just to make sure they don’t stick.

 A Quick Salad

A quick interlude on the ravioli thing. I just wanted to show you guys this delicious spinach salad that we served before the ravioli. Super simple ingredients: spinach, goat cheese, pomegranate seeds, and toasted walnuts. I also whisked together a quick apple cider vinaigrette that we served with this that was just out of this world.

No big deal.

Back to Ravioli

Once your ravioli are made, you can either cook them now or freeze them for later. Even if you are cooking them now, I recommend freezing them for a few minutes just to firm them up a bit.

When you are ready to cook the ravioli, just toss them in salted boiling water for about 3-4 minutes. When all the ravioli are floating, they are done.

Meanwhile you can work on the sauce which is just a few ingredients: butter, sage, red pepper flakes.

Hard to go wrong here...

As the ravioli cook, melt the butter down over medium heat and swirl all these ingredients together. I like to add in a few spoonfuls of the pasta water also which thickens the sauce a bit.

Drain the ravioli well, put a few on a plate, and drizzle the butter sauce over the top.

This is about as good as it gets if you ask me.

CHOMP!

People are intimidated by ravioli and I get that. They seem complicated. You have to make the dough, fill each individual thing, seal them up, and worry about presentation.

It’s a lot, but the key thing to remember is that they don’t have to be perfect. Once your guests try that first bite, they won’t care what they look like.

They will be delicious.

The other nice thing about ravioli is that you can make them way in advance. In fact, when I made these for our Christmas Eve feast, I made them the day before and just froze them until I needed them.

Are you a homemade ravioli fan? Have you ever made it yourself? Leave a comment!

Hello delicous salad!

I can only think of two possible explanations why orzo exists:

1) Elaborate joke. ”Look at this huge rice! But wait… joke’s on you. It’s not rice. It’s pasta. I just blew your mind!”

2) Elaborate mistake. Something went horribly wrong with the spaghetti machine and orzo happened.

Anyway, I’m glad that this joke and/or mistake happened at some point in history because orzo is one of my favorite ways to make pasta salad. This was one of my most recent versions of the dish that went over really well. It’s very fresh and reasonably healthy for a pasta salad.

Greek Orzo Salad

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound orzo pasta
1 cucumber, seeded, peeled, and diced
1 red pepper
1/2 red onion, diced
6 ounces feta cheese
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1 avocado, diced
Salt and pepper

Quick Lemon Dressing:
1 clove garlic
1 lemon, juice only
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt

Directions:

1) For dressing, dice garlic clove and mash it together with salt in a small bowl to form a rough paste. Then whisk in lemon juice and olive oil and season with salt. You might not need all of the dressing.

2) Cook orzo according to package.

3) Dice all the veggies finely. Take your time to make sure they are even-sized. For the cucumber, be sure to scoop out the seeds and peel it.

4) Mix orzo with veggies and crumble in feta cheese.

5) Drizzle on dressing and stir well. Start with half the dressing and add more if you want. It should be very lightly dressed.

6) Stir in chopped avocado and sliced almonds and season with salt and pepper.

7) Serve room temperature or chilled!

Orzo. What are you?

I like to imagine that at some point in history there was an old Italian mother who learned how to make orzo by hand. She then promptly relegated the task to her children.

Whatever your job is, be thankful that it’s not making orzo by hand.

I do not know how you are made.

Luckily, orzo is much easier to cook than to make. Just boil it like you would any pasta, in a large pot of salted water. Check your orzo directions for cooking times, but you’ll probably want to cook it for around 8 minutes.

Be sure not to overcook the orzo or it will get really mushy. Mushy pasta is no good.

The Salad Ingredients

Besides the orzo, just a few simple vegetables and some feta cheese is all it really takes to make a great salad here.

Basic veggies.

I’ve given onion cutting lessons a few times on Macheesmo, but to review: The best way to cut an onion is to slice it in half down the root. Then lay it flat on a cutting board and cut off the stem end.

Remove the skin and slice the onion horizontally and vertically to form a grid.

Then you can easily turn the onion and dice it up.

Get it?

Spend some time with the veggies in this recipe to make sure they are all chopped up evenly.

For the cucumber, be sure to scoop out the seeds and peel it.

Take your time with these.

Once your pasta is cooked and drained, toss it in with the veggies and stir everything together.

This is a good start, but it would taste a bit bland if you left it like this.

All mixed up.

The Dressing

I recommend using a very light lemon and oil dressing for this salad. To start it, use the garlic technique from my ranch dressing recipe. Dice up the garlic finely and then mash it with the salt to form a rough paste.

A quick dressing.

Then just whisk in your lemon juice and olive oil and season it well with salt. You might not need all of the dressing for your salad. I recommend starting with half of the dressing and taste it. You can always add more, but it’s pretty hard to get dressing out of a pasta salad once it’s in there.

So go slow on it.

Some Good Add-ins

Besides the veggies, pasta, and dressing, I recommend tossing in some extra add-ins just to give the salad a bit more flavor.

First, feta cheese is a logical choice. It goes well with all the flavors and will give the salad some saltiness and creaminess.

Second, avocado. Who doesn’t love avocado?

Third, slivered almonds. They give the salad an awesome crunchy texture.

The almond toss.

Stir this all together and serve it in a big old bowl.

Such a good salad.

You can serve this bad boy at room temperature or chill it.

It’s perfect as a side for a dinner party or you can make it and eat it for lunch during the week.

If you wanted to make a meal of it, you could grill some chicken or tofu and serve it on top of the salad. I think it’s a pretty filling salad as is though.

Give those orzo makers some business and give this a shot!

Well, these were good!

A quick brainstorm! Things you could do with leftover mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving:

1) Eat them cold with a spoon.

2) Put them in a bowl and melt cheddar cheese over them in the microwave.

3) Make a mountain out of them.

4) Start a mashed potato fight.

Or you could do the smart thing and make these awesome mashed potato gnocchi!

Mashed Potato Gnocchi

Yield: Serves 2 as a meal.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups mashed potatoes
1 large egg yolk
1 cup all-purpose flour, maybe a bit more
Pinch of salt

Sage Butter Sauce:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon fresh sage, minced
2 tablespoons cooking water from gnocchi
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (opt.)

Helpful Equipment:
Dough Scraper

Directions:

1) Mix together mashed potatoes and yolk with a fork until it's well combined.

2) Add in flour and mix well until the flour is incorporated. You should be left with a fairly dry dough. It shouldn't be sticky at all. If it is, add more flour a few tablespoons at a time.

3) Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and cut it into 4 even pieces.

4) Working with one piece at a time, roll the dough out into a long strand about 1/2 inch wide in diameter. Try to get it as even as possible, but it's okay if it's not perfect.

5) Use a dough scraper to chop the strand of dough into 1 inch dumplings.

6) Once your dumplings are chopped, use the back of a fork to gently press into the gnocchi and make some grooves.

7) Once all the gnocchi are made, cook them in simmering salted water. They are done when they float, about 3-4 minutes.

8) For butter sauce, melt butter in a large skillet. Once melted, add cook water, herbs, and spices, and stir well. Toss drained gnocchi with the sauce and serve immediately!

You might think that gnocchi are a lot of work, but the fact that the potatoes are already cooked and everything really cuts down on the prep time. Start-to-finish, you can have these guys on the table in about 30 minutes.

The Dough

The tricky part about devising this recipe is that everybody probably has a different mashed potato recipe. This can be a blessing and a curse.

The blessing is that whatever flavors you put in your mashed potatoes (butter, cheese, garlic, etc) will also be in your gnocchi which is great.

The bad news is that the consistency of your dough might change a bit depending on how creamy your mashed potatoes are. So this recipe is a starting point.

Measure out exactly two cups of mashed potatoes and add an egg yolk to them. Easy enough so far!

Just the yolk.

Once that is all mixed together, add a pinch of salt to the dough and stir in about a cup of flour.

The tricky part is that you might need more flour if your mashed potatoes are really creamy. But start with a cup and see where that gets you.

If, after you stir in the flour, your dough is still sticky, then you need more flour.

At some point you’ll end up with a fairly dry dough that you can scoop out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead this a few times just to make everything is combined well.

A starchy dough.

Cutting the Gnocchi

Once you have your dough ready, chop it into four even pieces just to make it easier to work with.

Then use your hands to roll one of the pieces into a long strand of dough. Try to make it about 1/2 inch in diameter and try to make it an even strand. It probably won’t be perfect unless you work in an Italian restaurant and make gnocchi every single day of your life.

Once you get the strand rolled, then just chop up the strand into individual dumplings! I like to use a dough cutter to do this. It makes quick work of the job.

This really isn't hard, people.

Once your gnocchi are chopped up, use a fork to put the signature grooves in each dumpling. These just help the gnocchi hold on to the sauce.

Plus they are pretty.

Groovy!

Once you do one strand, you’ll get fast at this. You should be able to pop out a plate of gnocchi in no time.

I’m well aware that my gnocchi aren’t 100% perfect or even the same size.

I have to ask though… who cares?!

Pretty things.

Cooking the Gnocchi

When you’re ready to cook the gnocchi just get a large pot of salted water simmering. A good ratio is 1 Tablespoon kosher salt for each gallon of water.

It’s really important that your water is just simmering and not boiling. A rough boil could just rip your soft little gnocchi into bits.

After simmering for a few minutes, the gnocchi should start to rise to the top which means they are done!

These will cook really fast. Must faster than pasta.

Float when they're done!

The Sauce

These guys are good with almost any sauce you can think of. If you’re looking for something lighter, you could definitely serve them with a light tomato sauce. The simple tomato sauce I made for my homemade trial would be a good one.

I made a quick butter sage sauce though because it just seemed like the right thing to do. I just melted a few tablespoons of butter in a large skillet and then stirred in a few tablespoons of cooking water from the gnocchi. The salt and starch from the water will help the sauce really come together. Then I added in some fresh sage and a pinch of red pepper flakes.

Once my gnocchi were done, I just tossed everything together!

Delicious!

Can't go wrong with butter and sage.

The Full Story

Ok. I can’t lie to you guys. The truth is that the gnocchi that you see above was actually my second attempt to make some sort of dumpling out of leftover mashed potatoes.

At first I thought it would be easier to make a spaetzle, which is similar to gnocchi but smaller.

I failed miserably at this project and made possibly the most unappetizing thing of food ever.

I knew I was onto something though because even though these didn’t look great, they actually tasted pretty solid.

So I just worked on the dough consistency a bit and figured that gnocchi might be easier than spaetzle.

If you have some leftover mashed potatoes after tomorrow, try out some gnocchi!

Or make a mountain. Your call.

Some of my favorite flavors.

Sometimes I get desperately sick of normal pasta sauce. Betsy and I eat pasta at least a few times a week and at some point in the week I’ll exclaim, “I’ll put anything in the world on that pasta except tomatoes.”

It’s not that I don’t love tomatoes. I definitely do. But a dude can only eat so much ragu.

The sauce I worked up on this particular night has a sesame base and has a delicious, rich flavor. At the same time though, it’s pretty light. You can’t really even see it on the pasta, but you can smell and taste it.

I wasn’t sure if Betsy would like my sesame sauce so I just served it with her favorite pasta, angel hair. I figured that would probably win her over. Luckily, the sauce turned out to be so good that I could’ve served it on a plate of kitchen twine.

Sesame Angel Hair Pasta

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound angel hair pasta
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup safflower oil
1 clove garlic
2 inches fresh ginger, grated
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons chili garlic sauce
1/2 pound edamame, steamed
1 red pepper, diced
Sesame seeds (garnish)
Chopped scallions (garnish)
Sriracha sauce (garnish)

Directions:

1) Mince garlic and peel and grate ginger.

2) Whisk garlic and ginger with soy sauce, safflower, sesame oil, sugar, and chili garlic sauce to make a dressing. Set aside.

3) Steam edamame in the microwave or in steamer until soft. Toss with chopped red pepper.

4) Cook pasta according to package and toss with dressing and vegetables. You might not need all the dressing so add it slowly.

5) Serve warm or cold.

The Sesame Sauce

If you have even a decent Asian pantry, you’ll probably have some of the ingredients for this dressing. At a bare minimum, most people have soy sauce. And most people should have rice wine vinegar and chili garlic sauce because those go great in a lot of dishes.

Basic sauce stuff.

The ingredient that gives this sauce it’s kick though is the sesame oil. This stuff is flavor-packed and a little goes a long way.

Just a few tablespoons will be more than enough to flavor a whole pound of pasta.

This stuff rocks.

Add all your sauce ingredients to a medium bowl and whisk them well to combine them. I knew this was going to be a winning recipe when I tried out the sauce on its own.

It’s slightly spicy, but its main characteristic is a deep savory flavor.

Really flavorful dressing!

The Add-ins

You could just toss some pasta in this sauce and call it good, but I thought it’d be nice to give the dish some color with some fresh vegetables. I just diced up a red pepper and steamed some frozen edamame.

If you can’t find edamame, any pea would work great.

Great colors.

The pasta

Like I said, I used angel hair because I know it’s Betsy’s favorite and I rarely use it. You could use almost any noodle pasta for this dish though. Rice noodles or even spaghetti would work equally well.

Betsy's favorite pasta.

Finishing the Dish

Whatever pasta you decide to use, just cook it according to its cooking instructions. As soon as you drain the pasta, add it to a bowl and pour in about half of your sauce.

Check out this action shot!

Action shot!

You might not need all the sauce for your pasta so start with half of it, toss the pasta a bit to combine everything. Taste it and add more sauce if you think it needs it. I used almost all of my sauce.

As soon as the sauce hits the hot pasta, an intense sesame flavor will smack you in the nostrils.

Then just stir in your edamame and red peppers and you’re ready to go!

All mixed up.

I served this garnished with chopped scallions, sesame seeds, and Sriracha sauce.

Garnishes are fun.

The really nice thing about this dish is that it keeps really well and is awesome cold. So it works great for lunches!

In fact, I think I liked this dish better as a cold noodle salad on day two.

If you’re feeling the tomato twinge and need a change, try this guy out!

This is some serious flavor.

When goat cheese won the poll last week, I started immediately having Paradox of Choice woes. There’s just so much that you can do with goat cheese.

Staring at a log of fresh goat cheese is the food blogger equivalent of a fiction writer staring at a blank page.

I started immediately brainstorming. I could put it in some fancy appetizer. I could make a salad. I could make some strange (but probably delicious) dessert out of it.

Or I could do the right thing and make macaroni and cheese.

I almost always do the right thing.

Macaroni and (Goat) Cheese

Yield: Serves 6.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound macaroni, cooked
2 roasted red peppers, diced
1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes (from oil), minced (about 6)
4 tablespoons butter + a bit for the pan
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups milk
6 ounces cheddar cheese, grated
1 cup goat cheese
1/2 cup bread crumbs
Salt and pepper

Directions:

1) Roast red peppers over a flame. If you have a gas stove, you can stick them right on the flame or you can grill them. You can also just used jarred peppers. Cook them until they are nicely charred all the way around.

2) Add peppers to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rest for 10 minutes and then peel off pepper skins. It's okay if some skin is left on.

3) Dice peppers and sun-dried tomatoes.

4) Cook macaroni according to package.

5) For cheese sauce, add butter and flour to a medium pan over medium heat. Whisk together once butter has melted to form a roux. Cook for about 3 minutes, whisking constantly.

6) Slowly add milk to the roux, starting with just a few tablespoons. Whisk it constantly so no lumps form. Keep adding milk in small increments until all your milk is added and your sauce is silky smooth. Turn your heat down to medium-low and continue to cook it until it thickens.

7) Whisk in cheeses into the sauce and season with salt and pepper.

8) Drain pasta and mix with peppers and tomatoes, then stir in cheese sauce.

9) Add macaroni to a buttered baking dish (2.5 quart or 9x13). Top with bread crumbs and bake for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees.

10) Let cool briefly before serving.

Adapted from a recipe in How To Cook Everything.

The Add-Ins

You could leave out the add-ins in this recipe if you wanted and still be left with a pretty rocking macaroni and cheese. But there’s something about the deep flavor of the peppers and sun-dried tomatoes that works really well with the goat cheese.

Plus it’s fun to roast peppers on a gas stove.

Any flame will do.

If you don’t have a gas stove, you can also roast these guys on a grill or in a 450 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

You can also just buy the jarred peppers and use those.

If you do roast your own though, stick them in a bowl after they are nice and charred all over and cover them with plastic wrap. Let them sit and steam for about 10 minutes. That’ll make them much easier to peel.

Then just start peeling off the skin of each pepper. It’s okay if the peppers aren’t 100% peeled.

Some skin is okay.

Then just remove the seeds and dice them up along with a few sun-dried tomatoes. I like to use the sun-dried tomatoes that are in oil for this recipe. If you use the dried ones, reconstitute them in some hot water for a few minutes before using them.

Sun-dried tomatoes are also in there.

The Cheese Sauce

Besides the peppers and macaroni, the only thing left for this recipe is the cheese sauce. And let’s be honest. It’s the star of the show.

You’ll need this stuff.

A cheese sauce!

Start by adding the butter and flour to a medium pan and get it cooking over medium heat. It’s probably a good idea to melt the butter first and then add the flour, but I like to live on the edge so I just threw them in together.

The beginnings of something beautiful.

Once the butter melts, whisk the butter and flour together until it forms a paste (a roux to be specific and French). Continue to cook and whisk this paste until it turns a light brown color. This will probably take 3-4 minutes and you’ll end up with something like this.

That's the color you want.

Then start to slowly add your milk. When I say slowly, I mean start with just a few tablespoons and whisk that in. Then add a few more and whisk whisk whisk. If you add to much milk at once, your roux will get lumpy which will lead to a lumpy sauce.

Nobody likes a lumpy cheese sauce.

So work slowly and after a few minutes you should have all your milk incorporated with the roux and you’ll be left with a light gravy basically. Again, you could be French and refer to it as a Béchemel, but let’s be real. It’s gravy.

Once you have that part of the sauce done, you’ll need some cheese. Goat cheese is the star of the show obviously, but I added in some grated cheddar also just to give it a more complex flavor.

Hard to go wrong here...

Finishing the sauce is as easy as dumping all this cheese into the white sauce and continuing to whisk it until the cheeses are melted and smooth.

Lots of cheese....

Then just season the sauce with salt and pepper and you’re ready to make some serious mac and (goat) cheese.

Finishing the Mac and Cheese

Cook and drain whatever kind of macaroni you choose. I went with shells this time around, but you could use anything except those little wagon wheels.

I’m just kidding. You can use the wagon wheels. I have an irrational hatred of them for some reason.

Sorry. Getting sidetracked.

Add the peppers and tomatoes to the pasta and then pour on all of that delicious cheese sauce.

Whoa man.

Stir this all together and feel free to serve it up like that if you like or you can take it to the next step.

The next step being to pour the mac and cheese into a buttered casserole dish, top it with bread crumbs, and bake it at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Bread crumbs give some texture.

The bread crumbs should crisp up a bit and give the dish some really nice texture.

Yum.

It’s pretty hard to go wrong with goat cheese I guess, but that should just make you even more confident to throw it in random dishes with abandon.

Betsy and I ended up housing about half of this in one meal which, for the record, is a lot of macaroni and cheese.