Tagliatelle with Peas, Panchetta & Ricotta 2/16

So my best friend from college - Angie - called up and said she was going to be in town for a night!!  We of course had to get together, and by the time she got in and we would get home, I figured we could throw a quick dinner together.  The weekend before, I bought a big bag of dried tagliatelle, some fresh shelled peas, some thick cut bacon and ricotta to toss together a quick pasta.

We cooked up the thick pasta in hot salted water. Eric chopped up the bacon into small chunks and I sauteed it quickly in a hot pan.  I tossed in the peas and cooked for a couple of minutes.  I then strained the pasta (reserving a little water).  I threw some ricotta and fresh mozzerella over the pasta and tossed a little ricotta in with the peas & bacon.  I scooped some peas and bacon over the pasta and drizzled a little of the reserved pasta water to make a "sauce".  Overall the sauce wasn't the prettiest dish I have made, but there was plenty of flavor!  I wish I could have found panchetta, but the only stuff they had was sliced procchuito thin, so it wouldnt have worked so well.

A great fast and very filling meal!

Cauliflower Pasta 2/7

We almost ordered out... but I had this huge head of cauliflower in the fridge that needed to get used up, so I decided to make myself cook!  Eric really wanted pasta of some sort, and I figured I wasnt really feeling the plain old marinara sauce, so I quickly searched the web and hit a few like this Cauliflower Pasta Recipe.  Though even that sounded a little boring, so of course I added my own twists!

First I tossed the Cauliflower in the Oven on a baking sheet at 400 with some olive oil, salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder.  I also started the pasta water, and cooked the pasta per the directions.  We had a half a box of penne and half a box of rigatoni, so I just threw them together :)

While that cooked, I tossed some capers into a pan and sauteed them for 2 minutes.  Once the water started to cook out of them, I added some harrisa olive oil (Thanks Cynette & Tom!) and tossed in the garlic. I sauteed that for another 2-3 minutes until the garlic started to brown.  Then I added a few tablespoons of sundried tomatoes and a tablespoon of the oil from the sundried tomatoes. Sauteed that for a few more minutes.

I then added about 1 cup of panko bread crumbs to the pan and tossed and sauteed all of that until the bread crumbs began to brown, and then turned off the heat.

To assemble the dish, I put about a cup of pasta on the plate, I then put about 4 Tablespoons of Ricotta cheese in lumps over it.  I poured a few tablespoons of reserved pasta water over the ricotta and then topped that with the cauliflower.  I put about 1/4cup of the breadcrumb mixture over the top of that, and sprinkled it with 1 Tbsp parmesan cheese and some fresh parsley.

Awesome dish that was incredibly flavorful.  I could have made a thicker ricotta sauce if it was needed, but for a light and fast meal, this definitely worked and brought out the flavors of the cauliflower nicely!

Verdict - Worth doing again!!