Pasta – Page 2 – Rosemary and the Goat

Creamy Artichoke Pasta with Chicken

It’s a…….

Dear Diary,

It’s 1963 and “today I met the boy I’m going to marry” (as the song goes). Lots of sporting events, I attended, just to see the boy I was going to marry play football, baseball, basketball and track. High school went by so fast, where did that time go.

1969 — married and on our way to Panama City Beach for our honeymoon. Why are we the only car going South — oh, hurricane Camille coming and we had no idea what was going on with the evacuation. The hurricane missed our beach. My first glass of burgundy had me thinking I was not going to be a wine drinker (that changed). First helicopter ride (my last), back to college for hub and we spent a year and a half in Rolla.

1971-1976 — Our first move to Louisville, KY. First son born 1973, then second son 1976. Fond memories of Louisville and derby’s, friends and baby boys.

1980 — our daughter was born in Ft. Madison, IA

FAST FORWARD to 2016 — After a move from Iowa, to Chicago to Kansas City then our final move to Texas we are five grandsons richer with our daughter expecting again this February. Continue Reading…

September 10, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Pasta

Shrimp and Crab Stuffed Pasta Shells

Stuffed shells perfect for summer get together.

Do you cook more shrimp in the summer or are you like me and cook it year round when you get them on sale. This dish would be great with some lobster thrown in to the mix.

I love shrimp in just about any recipe. I’ve pickled them, corn dogged them, skewered them, coconut fried them, Bang Banged them, and like Bubba Gump I could go on and on listing the ways I like shrimp.

This recipe just happens to have crab meat in it along with the shrimp. After making this dish I decided that maybe the next time around instead of stuffing the shells this would be great just mixed in with a penne or rigatoni pasta; saves some time stuffing and the taste is going to be just the same.

Sour cream was supposed to go in this dish but my carton container something other than that when I opened it and I was in luck since grandson Thomas had just been for a visit and left behind a carton of plain yogurt. I like the yogurt and would probably use that the next time instead of the sour cream.

May 27, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Pasta

Red Chard, Shrimp and Artichoke Stir-fry

Beautiful and so easy and something red for Valentine’s Day.

These days when I’m trying to make things move a little slower I’m doing a stir-fry. Now does that make sense. A slow day but with a quick fast dish at the end of the day.

I’ve always got some shrimp in my freezer. In fact, when the x-large goes on sale here, I will buy 2-3 bags and put in my freezer for last-minute dishes like this or a quick shrimp cocktail. So, I can have a slow and relaxing day doing whatever I want and wait until the last-minute and do a quick dinner to feed the hungry.

I’ve been busy trying to catch up on all these new movies that I’ve missed out for the last few weeks, getting back into craft circle and trying to come up with a couple of projects I would like to make for the year, and still working on getting the outdoor kitchen finished up. I bought a cool copper vessel type sink to use but still have not had the granite cut or picked out a faucet to match the sink. Gotta get this done because before you know it we are going to want to be outside again.

February 14, 2016 By Sherry

Beef/Veal/ Entree/ Pasta

Ribeye Fettuccini with Mushrooms and Goat Cheese

Love that goat cheese!

Why do we all want comfort food when it starts getting cold, damp and wintery? That is not Texas weather right now but it may be getting cooler in your area. Last year after trying for weeks to sell my Ethan Allen dining set that we had purchased back in the 70’s, I ended up donating it to a women’s organization then I ordered a French bakery style table to use for a dining table and I envisioned having this dish on my new table set with an Italian table cloth, some beautiful pasta bowls, flowers in some old olive oil cans and some good bottles of wine and couldn’t wait to try and put together this recipe.

Pasta always reminds me of eating our way around Italy several years ago. I can only think of one bad meal we had on that trip; all the rest were memorable to the point that I can shut my eyes and taste every dish. I can’t wait to go back some day.

While visiting in Nashville a couple of years ago I had this dish at the Firefly Grille and it was delicious. As always, I’m thinking can I make this and I never know how it’s going to turn out. I love goat cheese either in an appetizer or breaded and baked to top a salad, so putting it in with some good steak and fettuccine was easy. After reading the menu and quizzing the waiter I found out all the ingredients; so who needs a recipe to recreate this dish, not me, it was fairly easy.

October 6, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Pasta/ Poultry

Butterflies with Chicken, Asparagus and Snap Peas

Thanks Ferrari-Carano for your inspiration for this dish.

I’ve said before that some of my favorite places to look for new recipes are winery sites; and I found this recipe at Ferrari-Carano.com.

Even though I have made pasta many times, I wasn’t up to making the bowtie pasta this time around. You may not remember me talking about our pasta making experience in Italy several years ago; believe me, it was an I Love Lucy moment for sure. We did make bow tie pastas along with about 5 other varieties. I remember the strip of pasta for the bow ties and tortellinis getting bigger and bigger as we rolled through the machine and we were folding it over our arms to keep up.

But, when I found this recipe a couple of years ago, I remembered some beautiful striped pasta I had seen in my grocery and what better pasta to use to make a butterfly pasta dish. If you want to try and make your own butterflies, visit their website and give it a go. Of course, when I went looking for the colorful little pieces of pasta, they were no where to be found but on Amazon. My Amazon Prime membership has really paid off because I order food products from them all the time and with no shipping it is a lot easier than driving all over the place looking for something. So, if you want to try the pasta I used, you can order it here.

September 1, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Pasta

Pasta Carbonara Primavera

Wow, a one pot meal.

I’ve always thought of one pot meals as being something you would throw in a crock pot and let cook all day or the way my mother use to make a pork or beef roast and put everything in one of those speckled dark blue roasters (I still have one and love it.) and put it in the oven and 3 hours later have a great dinner.

Tasting Table.com is a great site that sends out tips and chef recipes and lots of other information and when I saw their take on a Martha Stewart’s recipe for a one pot meal, I knew I was going to have to try it. Aren’t we all looking for ways to cut down on cooking time? I still like cooking and baking after almost (August 16) 46 years of marriage. Wow, that is a longggggg time but my cooking style, I think, has changed a lot over the years and I’m definitely more adventurous than I was as a newly wed who thought she had to do everything exactly by the book.

Still waiting on that outdoor kitchen to get started and as soon as it started, I will post some pictures along the way. Can’t wait to cook out there. Well, maybe when it starts to cool down a little; 96° doesn’t really make me want to even walk out the backdoor let alone cook out there but one day we will be out there cooking and entertaining.

August 17, 2015 By Sherry

Pasta/ Salads

Cubano Orzo Salad

The rice looking pasta.

This is another recipe using my Pappardelle’s pasta I bought at the Pike’s Market in Seattle last summer. (Can’t believe it took me a year to get around to using it.)

Years ago I tasted a rainbow orzo that I bought at Central Market in Houston. It had beautiful colors of purple, orange, green and white and for some reason it was discontinued and after that I could only find green, orange and white. That is until I happened upon this southwest blend that is made with blackbean, red pepper, red bell pepper and spinach and a lot of other flavors that make this beautiful and delicious.

For this recipe I am using what I remember from my favorite Central Market salad (and the ingredients were printed on the nutrition label, so how easy is that) but added in some of the ingredients from Pappardelle’s recipe they gave me when I bought the pasta.

August 7, 2015 By Sherry

Pasta/ Side dish

Pesto Pasta with Peas

A day in the garden.

Does this pasta look like it was born in a garden. Fresh basil and parsley from my garden, fresh spinach and English peas.

This year I was co-chair (with my friend, Linda) for arranging programs for our garden club. We had been told about this garden up in Conroe, Texas, Hope Farms Gardens and knew we just had to see it. Barbara Lopez opens her home gardens for one month in April/May for people to tour and buy her plants. Her gardens are a fun place to shop because you know exactly where the plants belong. If the plants for sale are placed in her shady parts of her yard that means they belong in the shade. Same for the sunny parts of her yard and that will be where she has the plants needing sun during the day.

So, we decided to see if our Hospitality Chairperson would like to take a look at her gardens to see if she thought our members would like to have our end-of-year lunch there instead of a restaurant or country club. Everyone agreed so for all of last year I had been thinking about what I wanted to do for lunch.

After a trip to the dollar store, I came away with 45 $1 rectangle baskets perfect for our French inspired luncheon. I have literally hundreds (not really) French looking cloths (I do have about 175 cloth napkins though that I accumulated while working at Williams Sonoma). The menu started taking shape about a year in advance with the baskets to hold all the goodies. Nancy’s Chopped Salad from Smitten Kitchen caught my eye early on and I knew I wanted to put this in a wide mouth pint jar. I also knew I wanted to do a fruit crumble dessert in the wide mouth 8 oz. jars. This Pesto Pasta with Peas is a recipe I have been thinking about for a while because I knew I wanted to use these tinsey tiny bow tie pasta noodles. Homemade focaccia bread and some baby bell cheese rounded out the basket.

May 12, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Pasta

Southwest Pasta with Black Beans and Cotija Cheese

You can never have too many pasta recipes.

Doesn’t it seem like when we are invited to a dinner or potluck it’s hard to come up with something different to make. I know I have a problem and I’ve been cooking for a very long time. I’m always in search for something unusual that someone else might not show up with. And, when it comes to pasta dishes it seems like you see the same ingredients — tomatoes, peppers, onions etc. I really like the idea of the enchilada sauce in this recipe mixed with the yogurt or sour cream and then the addition of the Cotija cheese and green olives.

This is a great room temperature pasta main dish, side dish, or I guess it could pass for a pasta salad. Either way, it’s delicious.

The colors from this pasta blend from Pappardelle’s come from blue corn flour, red chili peppers, green jalapeño, dried spinach, paprika, grape skins extract and some turmeric. I really wanted the pasta to retain the beautiful colors even though it might be covered up with the enchilada sauce mixture; but it did not.

In our area this pasta is sold at Berings hardware in Houston, but they also sell in farmer’s markets across the US. So check out your state to see if you have one of their vendors close to you selling in a farmer’s market or store.

January 5, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Pasta

Shrimp, Mussels, Clams, and Linguini

A fond food memory of Italy.

What is it about remembering names and other things, like where did I put my phone, give me such a problem sometimes and then on the other hand I can think of a dish I had someplace and remember all the circumstances surrounding it.

For instance, it has been about eight years since we went to Italy but I will not forget one rainy night in Chinque la Terra going to dinner at Ristorante Miky (pronounced Mickey like my Michie). I started saving menus like my sister (she has some beautiful ones) and that rainy night there was one menu outside on a table and it was getting wet so I decided to rescue it from the rain and it now occupies a place along with my other menus. So I went back and took a look at the dish I had that night.

So, that rainy night the six of us were seated outside in a tented area and we had one of the nicest waiters and he talked us through everything on the menu and promised us a meal we would not soon forget. He even told us about his cousin who was a waiter over in Montecino and told us we should check out his restaurant while we were in that area the next week.

This was the first time I had ever had clams and mussels and I was a little hesitate in ordering it. It was delicious and will always be one of my fond food memories. I decided to add some shrimp to the dish the night I made this recipe.

I love looking back at old menus I have picked up during travels and recreating dishes that helped to make a great vacation. I have a journal full of great dinners from travels and love reading about what I thought of the meal.

When we were in Seattle for our anniversary trip back in August we had eaten so much fish in Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle that one night we just wanted some simple Italian food. I ended up ordering a dish similar to this Mussel, clams, linguine dish but it had the addition of tomatoes. So delicious and that brought up all the memories of our trip to Italy and the great food we had while there.

November 26, 2014 By Sherry

Entree/ Pasta/ Pork

Spinach Fettucini with Sweet/Hot Sausage

Good on a cold winter’s night.

Nothing taste better to me on a bone chilling night than pasta, a good salad and maybe some homemade bread or even a good loaf of some artisan bread you picked up at the store.

There are so many pasta and sauce recipes out there that you could probably make a different pasta each week and never have to repeat a recipe.

I found this recipe in a Creme de Colorado cookbook about 20 years ago and I have been making it ever since. I remember the first time I made this dish I was catering an event at a local art gallery. Two people came up to me after the dinner and said they would like me to cater the exact same dinner for them. So, I did make it again and actually a few more times before I ever TASTED the dish. Now, you may say, how could you do that. I don’t have an answer. Sometimes I read a recipe and I know I will like it. I guess I felt no need to sample the finished dish. After making the dish several times (I finally tasted it) it has become a favorite of mine. I love the sweet and hot taste of the Italian sausage together with the sauce. I heard the judges on a cooking show say “if you aren’t tasting, you aren’t cooking”, guess I should start tasting some as I go.

This recipe has a lot of olive oil and butter and of course you could always cut down on the oil and butter that make up the sauce and probably substitute some broth in place of it. If I were you I would follow the recipe the first time as written and then tweak the second time you make it. I cooked 1 lb. each of the hot and sweet sausage and you do want both the sweet and hot flavors or the different sausages. Sometimes if I find the sausage at the butcher counter then I will buy just 1/2 lb. of each. The day I made this I decided to go on and cook the whole package of each and add some extra meat to the dish. You can either freeze your extra sausage for another use or add it to the fettuccini.

I made this for our Bunco Christmas get together last week and it was a big hit. Thanks ladies for being my guinea pigs (tasters is a better term I guess).

Do you have a favorite pasta dish? If so, I’d like to hear about it; please leave in the comment section below.

December 10, 2013 By Sherry

Entree/ Pasta

Butternut Squash Ravioli with Browned Sage Butter

Fall is here! Hip, Hip, Hurray!

Fall is here and don’t you just love this time of the year. Thoughts of comfort foods start filling my head and this recipe turned out soooo good I almost knocked the breath out of myself patting myself on the back.

Our leaves haven’t started falling yet; sometimes that doesn’t start until December or even January before we see the sky full of floating leaves. But, with a fading summer and those nice cool nights ahead of us it won’t be long before we are seeing piles of leaves raked up just waiting for some kid to jump and play in them.

While in Chicago several weeks ago Fall was starting to show its prettier side. On our walk to take our grandson, Oliver, to school one day we enjoyed flowers still blooming but also sidewalks full of leaves that gave way to a crunchy sound as we strolled on top of them. We cooked some roasted chicken one night on the grill and a grilled salmon another night and the two sides that couldn’t wait to make their appearance again were Stephanie’s Magic Beans and my Cauliflower Mash with Kale which went perfect with both dishes and to top one of the meals off we cooked some chopped apples and cinnamon which we ladled over ice cream and I think this recipe is going to go onto my favorites list of things I have blogged.

I took a shortcut making the ravioli and used wonton pieces instead of making my own pasta. We all look for shortcuts and I think this is one shortcut you won’t mind taking. And, the good thing about this recipe is that you can freeze the uncooked raviolis for an easy meal some winter night ahead. (If you freeze the raviolis, put in a single layer and put in freezer until they are frozen then put enough in one bag for a meal.)

At the Firefly restaurant in Nashville back in the summer my husband had a Butternut Squash Ravioli with goat cheese and what better to go over it than a Browned Sage Butter. I think this ravioli screams for the browned butter and browned butter and sage are a perfect pair.

October 19, 2013 By Sherry

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