Posts tagged ‘mozzarella’
Recipe of the Week – Baked Pasta
From the Vegetarian Entrée Collection at emealsforyou.com
Baked Pasta
There is a wonderful Italian restaurant in Buffalo, NY that serves baked pasta two ways. The first is pasta with garlic butter; then cover the top with mozzarella and a sprinkling of Romano and bake in the oven until brown, serve with a side ramekin of good tomato sauce. The second is to mix the tomato sauce with the pasta, then cover with mozzarella and Romano and bake. Either way it is something special.
Pasta is something, like salad, that is very difficult to guess how much to make. All of us have made too much pasta at some time. This recipe makes great use of that extra pasta; stretching your food budget and giving your family a special treat. This recipe is so good you will forget that Buffalo is famous for its chicken wings and maybe a little Beef on Weck.
Baked Pasta
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Vegetarian Entrée |
| Meal: | Veggie – Little Italy (Theme Meal Plans) |
| 1 | lb | pasta, penne |
| 2 | Tb | salt, kosher |
| 3 | cup | tomato sauce |
| 1 | cup | cheese, mozzarella |
| 3 | Tb | cheese, Romano, grated |
Cook pasta in a large pot of salted, boiling water and drain well. Using your favorite jarred spaghetti sauce or part of the spaghetti sauce recipe which appears on this site, mix sauce with the cooked pasta, and place in an oven-proof dish. Grate mozzarella cheese and sprinkle generously on top; finish with a sprinkling of the romano.
Bakes at 400 degrees for about 4-6 minutes or until it begins to brown.
Shown here using spaghetti.
We do a great spaghetti sauce over at emealsforyou.com and our Italian beef is pretty good as well.
Recipe of the Week – Pasta alla Costco
From the Starch/ Pasta Collection at emealsforyou.com
Pasta alla Costco
This could be called Pasta alla Sam’s Club or whatever wholesale warehouse you belong to. The main point is that when you buy in bulk; purchasing large containers of everything leaves you with large containers of everything and needing a reason to use them. We call this Pasta alla Costco because the extra large jars of olives, artichokes and capers came from our local Costco.
This is ideal for a quick dinner or a Saturday lunch when you can’t figure out what you want to eat. I mean who doesn’t like pasta. Add some chicken, sausage or just as it is and you will think you are in a small corner tavern in Little Italy.
Pasta alla Costco
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Starch/ Pasta |
| Meal: | other (General) |
| 1 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 2 | Tb | onions, chopped |
| 4 | cloves | garlic, chopped |
| 1 | 14 oz. can | tomatoes, diced |
| 1 | Tb | capers |
| 1 | Tb | peppers, pickled rings |
| 2 | Tb | artichoke hearts |
| 2 | Tb | olives, mixed, pitted |
| 1 | tsp | garlic chili sauce |
| 0.25 | cup | cheese, mozzarella, shredded |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
| 1 | lb | pasta, cooked |
| 1 | Tb | cheese, Romano, grated |
Heat olive oil in a pan, add the onions, and garlic and sauté for 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, capers, peppers, artichoke hearts, sliced, the olives, chopped and the chili paste and sauté for 5 minutes or until the liquid is reduced by half. Cook and drain pasta. Add mozzarella and salt and pepper to taste to the pan. Add cooked pasta to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes to allow pasta to absorb some of the sauce. Plate and sprinkle ¼ of the Romano on the top of each plate.
Want some more easy meals; try emealsforyou.com
Recipe of the Week – Calzone
(From the Easy Recipes I Can Cook Collection at www.emealsforyou.com)
Calzone
I like the crust on pizza so it is a natural transition to calzone. These are, excuse me Tony at Aponte’s Pizza, folded pizzas. Just like pizza they are very good with any ingredients you wish to put inside. On this recipe I call for cheese and roasted red peppers. I used the ones in a jar from the grocery, but you can put cooked sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, onions whatever you would put on top of a pizza tucked inside. Use pizza sauce or any good store-bought tomato sauce that you like.
Served golden brown and steamy, right from the oven, they will give you an alternative to the pizza you usually serve. Your family will love them and you will appreciate the ease of preparation and clean up.
Calzone
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Easy Recipes I Can Cook |
| Meal: | N/A |
| 1 | recipe | pizza dough |
| 2 | cup | cheese, low-fat mozzarella |
| 4 | oz | peppers, red roasted |
| 4 | Tb | cheese, Romano, grated |
| 1.5 | cup | tomato sauce |
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut dough into four pieces, form into rounds. Roll dough into four small pizza sized disks. Divide cheese and red peppers evenly and place on half of each disk. Fold pizza dough over to form a half moon. Seal edges of dough together, cut an X into top and place in very hot oven until brown. Plate and spoon tomato sauce on top.
Recipe of the Week – Baked Pasta
Baked Pasta
My wife and I grew up on the east coast and were lucky enough to have a section of Trenton called “The Burg” that had really great, small Italian restaurants on almost every corner. These were small storefronts or older homes turned into restaurants; the type where the grandmother did the cooking in the extremely small kitchen. Traveling for business for 20+ years, I always tried to find those interesting, character filled restaurants that reminded me of home.
There is a great Italian restaurant in Buffalo, New York called Chefs, that fits into the mold of the restaurants of the burg. At Chef’s the linen napkin had a button-hole in the top that allowed you to fasten it onto your shirt to avoid the business tragic sauce on the shirt syndrome. I haven’t been there for maybe 20 years but I still remember and recreate one of their specialties of the house, baked pasta.
This recipe takes a very simple meal, spaghetti, “gucci’s it up, by adding cheese and baking it in the oven. You go from “just get dinner over with” to “boy is this good” in about 7 minutes. What could be easier; more importantly what could be better. Napkins optional!
Baked Pasta
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Vegetarian Entrée |
| Meal: | Veggie – Little Italy (Theme Meal Plans) |
| 1 | lb | pasta, penne |
| 2 | Tb | salt, kosher |
| 3 | cup | tomato sauce |
| 1 | cup | cheese, mozzarella |
| 3 | Tb | cheese, romano, grated |
Cook pasta in a large pot of salted, boiling water and drain well. Using your favorite jarred spaghetti sauce or part of the spaghetti sauce recipe which appears on this site, mix sauce with the cooked pasta, and place in an oven-proof dish. Grate mozzarella cheese and sprinkle generously on top; finish with a sprinkling of the romano.
Bakes at 400 degrees for about 4-6 minutes or until it begins to brown.
Shown here using spaghetti.
Recipe of the Week – Homemade Mozzarella
Homemade Mozzarella
(from www.emealsforyou.com/Appetizers/Homemade Mozzarella)
I’ve always wanted to make my own mozzarella so when my wife found a company, Golden Age Cheese , that sells the curd needed; I thought, “what the heck”. I ordered 4 lbs and with shipping it was around $30. The cheese curd comes in a “cold pack” and arrived a few days after I ordered it. It may be frozen in the “curd state” or frozen after you have made the mozzarella.
Making mozzarella is both easy and fun. It would be fun to have a party and make this with the guests. A word of warning, this is probably not something you want your children to do as the temperature required for the curd to change to cheese is very hot. To make the cheese you simply heat a large quantity of water, add the curd, stir and then form into balls. Yeah, that simple and it is soooooo gooooood.
Golden Age Cheese recommends you add salt to the water. We tried it with and without salt. For those who are on a reduced sodium diet and probably are used to no salt; you will find it okay without the salt. I would suggest you use some lemon juice and olive oil poured over the top. For the rest of us, Michael Chiarello of NapaStyle, suggests you “put enough salt in the water to almost gag you when you taste the water. We made it pretty salty although nobody gagged.
The photo shows how we served it with the Oven-dried Tomatoes oven-dried tomatoes. It was a huge hit; gauged by the fact that it all disappeared instantly.
Homemade Mozzarella
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 8 |
| Category: | Appetizer |
| Meal: | N/A |
| 2 | lb | mozzarella cheese curds |
| 2 | gal | water |
| 0.5 | cup | salt, kosher |
Add salt to water and boil; pour into a very large bowl or pot. Add curd and stir until cheese begins to form long strands. Grab some of the strands and kneed into a smooth ball. Pinch the end and place the ball in cold water.
May be frozen at this point.
(more recipes and meal plans available at www.emealsforyou.com)
Recent Comments