Weekend Snapshots are coming up in just a bit, but in the meantime: this lasagna deserves its own post.
It’s kind of labor-intensive what with all the spinach-chopping and layering, but you’re going to have to trust me when I say that it’s worth it (and it makes so much that you’ll be able to freeze lots of leftovers for later).
I mean…you know something’s good when it requires a two-spoon approach.
Here’s the thing about marriage: it involves compromise about lots of different things. Most things, actually. But not always everything.
Two things that my marriage doesn’t really involve compromise about: TV shows and dinner. Basically because I’m kind of picky about both of these things, but very luckily appear to have married a man who loves all TV shows and all dinners, and generally seems fairly thrilled when one or the other is put in front of him, regardless of the content.
And so I generally make dishes that follow The Rules Of Things I Like To Make – 1) Fast, 2) Easy, 3) Inexpensive – and handle the fact that Kendrick loves spicy foods and I do not by dousing his meals in Sriracha.
Except…sometimes we go out to dinner. And when we do, Kendrick without fail chooses something from the menu that is completely perplexing to me, like…I don’t know, pickled duck sprinkled with jalapeños or something. So he clearly has things that he sort of wishes we were eating, and is just really accommodating about letting me cook what I want. And then is really nice and complimentary about whatever it is that I make. Because he’s nice.
But sometimes, you know, I’d really like to make him what he wants. Even if it’s not what I want.
And so Sunday night I asked him to name an ingredient that he really wishes I’d put into a pasta dish but never have, and he came out with ‘sausage’. Which, oddly enough, I’ve never cooked with before. So: challenge, whee, let’s do it.
And guess what? I totally loved it, too. Horizons expanded, et cetera.
What you need:
1 package pasta of choice (pictured here: mezze penne)
1 package sweet Italian sausage (or sausage of choice)
4-5 slices thick-cut bacon, cut into matchsticks
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 large (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes
Salt & pepper
Olive oil
What you do:
1. Remove the casings from the sausages and discard. Roll sausage meat into approx 1/4″ balls, as pictured above.
2. Heat some olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet, and cook sausage, stirring frequently, until meat is cooked through (about 5 minutes). Remove sausage to a bowl (leaving drippings in pan) and set aside.
3. In the same skillet, cook the bacon, onion, garlic, and red bell pepper, stirring frequently, until the bacon is crispy and the pepper is tender (5 minutes or so should do it).
4. Cook the pasta according to package directions.
5. While the pasta is cooking, add the white wine to the skillet. Let the white wine cook down just slightly, until the smell of alcohol dissipates.
6. Return the sausage to the skillet and add the tomatoes. Season to taste, and cook on low for about ten minutes.
7. When the pasta is cooked, strain and toss in the skillet with the sauce.
Serve with grated parmigiana if desired.
I know what you’re thinking: kind of a weird combo.
I know.
But it’s really good.
I would never have thought of it on my own. First of all: beets? Super random. But I was at an eBay Fashion event last week, and Christine from MyStylePill and I basically dove head-first into a bowl full of farro, oranges, and golden beets…so I figured I’d see if I could whip up something similar at home.
My grocery store doesn’t carry farro, so I swapped in orzo (quinoa and couscous would also be nice in this dish). I also went for clementines because it’s that time of year, and added red beets and asparagus for color. We ate this all on its own as an entree (and our son seems to enjoy it for breakfast), but it would also be awesome as a side dish alongside some roasted chicken. Yum.
What you need:
1 package orzo
1 small bunch beets
1 bunch asparagus
4 clementines, peeled and sectioned
Juice of 2 lemons
Olive oil
Sea salt
What you do:
1. Cook orzo in salted boiling water according to package instructions.
2. Cut the tops from the beets, cut beets in half, and place in a microwave-safe baking dish with 1/2 cup water. Cover and cook 15-20 minutes, or until tender. Rinse, peel, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces. (Or just use canned ones; those are fine, too.)
3. Cut off tough ends of asparagus (use this test to find out where to cut them), toss with olive oil, and lay on a baking sheet in a single layer and roast at 400F for about 6 minutes, or until tender. Remove from oven and cut into 1″ pieces.
4. Toss cooked orzo with beets, clementines, and asparagus, and dress with lemon juice, olive oil, and sea salt.
Can be served either warm or cold.
Caprese pasta (from a recipe sent to me ages ago by reader Felicity) is the best, and is up there in my All-Time Summer Favorites.
All you do: toss (preferably fresh) cooked pasta, diced tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and chopped basil in a bowl with olive oil and sea salt. Maybe a squeeze of lemon. That’s it.
There are lots of fun spins you can put on it, like adding peas or asparagus, transforming it into a lemon pasta by substituting lemon zest for the tomatoes, or serving it as a cold pasta salad the next day (I love it for breakfast).
For accompaniments, I’d suggest the following:
APPETIZER: Melon and prosciutto (drape thin slices of prosciutto over sliced melon or wrap up cubes and serve on skewers, as pictured above)
SIDE DISH: Perfect roasted asparagus (with lemon drizzle)
DESSERT: Peach sorbet cups
I’m very much a creature of habit when it comes to weeknight meals: I have a stable of standards that I rotate through on pretty much a weekly basis, but very rarely have the time and/or inclination to come up with something totally new to try out, mostly because that requires the employment of brain cells and energy that seem to have flown the coop in recent weeks.
And I feel kind of bad about that.
Because while I think that my staple meals are pretty good and don’t personally require a ton of variety in my diet (I’m one of those people who will eat the same breakfast cereal every day for a year)…I know that Kendrick likes it when I try something different. It’s so fun to present him with a brand-new creation: he totally lights up (because he knows it makes me happy) and always declares that it’s his New! Favorite! Dish! (also, I suspect, because he knows it makes me happy).
And so here’s what I do when I want to try something new but don’t want to spend forever getting all imaginative and/or rifling through cookbooks, putting together a menu, shopping for tons of ingredients that aren’t already in my cupboards, and figuring out how to cook something I’ve never even touched upon before:
I play the “What’s About To Go Bad In My Refrigerator Game.”
And then I take those three or four ingredients, do a minute of free associating to come up with how they might work together with the addition of one or two more items…and then type those key words into Google to see if anything strikes my fancy.
When I checked out my refrigerator around 5:30 last night, I discovered that the following items were in attendance and looked quite delicious, but were most certainly on the downhill slope and wouldn’t be any good within a day or two: 1 mango, 1 avocado, 1 head of butter lettuce, 1 box fresh spinach linguine
A little what-would-be-good-with-this free-association led me to: Scallops!
And a little Googling showed me that (as I’d already suspected) a white wine and garlic sauce would be the way to go. Google wanted me to add scallions. But I forgot to get those when I went to the supermarket.
Anyway: one quick trip to the supermarket for parsley and scallops, a stop at the wine store for a bottle of white, and dinner was ready twenty minutes after I stepped through the door.
MANGO, AVOCADO & BUTTER LETTUCE SALAD (Inspired by The Daily Julie)
What you need:
1 head of butter lettuce, chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 ripe mango, diced
1 avocado, diced
Fresh lemon juice
Olive oil
Salt & pepper
What you do:
Just toss everything together in a large bowl. Maybe throw in a little goat cheese, if you have it.
SEA SCALLOPS WITH WHITE WINE & GARLIC OVER SPINACH LINGUINE (serves 2)
What you need:
1 box fresh linguine
1/2 lb sea scallops
3-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
About 1/2 cup white wine
Fresh lemon juice
Olive oil
Salt & pepper
3 tbsp butter
1 handful parsley, chopped
What you do:
1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil for the pasta.
2. Heat olive oil in a heavy-bottomed saute pan, add the garlic, and cook for a minute or two. Add the white wine and a splash of lemon juice, and allow to reduce slightly.
3. Meanwhile, add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to package directions (fresh pasta should only take a couple of minutes).
4. Add the scallops to the saute pan and cook for about a minute, then turn and cook for a couple of minutes on the other side, until just cooked through (be careful not to overcook them, or they’ll be tough). (Note: you could also sear them first for that pretty caramelized color, but I’m a newbie to scallop-cooking, and totally forgot. Still good!)
5. Drain the pasta, leaving a bit of pasta water in there to loosen it up, and toss in the scallops with white wine and garlic sauce, butter, and parsley. Add salt & pepper to taste.
This one. The gnocchi with mozzarella and basil at Carpe Diem.
Now, granted, both Morgan and I were pregnant last time we ate there. So that might have had something to do with the fact that we were practically rolling on the floor with the gnocchi, it was so good. But I can’t be certain, so I think I may need to do a little scientific exploration in eating-there-again-as-soon-as-possible form.
Anyway, this is my version: it’s basically the simplest pasta ever, but what takes it to rolling-on-the-floor level is the quality of the ingredients you use: when you can count the number of ingredients in a dish on one hand, it’s best to go for the (really, really) good stuff. Fresh basil. Top-quality mozzarella. Fancy-pants tomatoes. That kind of thing.
All you do: cook the pasta in salted boiling water (fresh pasta, which is ideal, should only take a couple of minutes) while heating a can of best-quality crushed tomatoes in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir a little heavy cream into the sauce, and add salt and pepper to taste, then toss into the pasta along with a little reserved pasta water, a cup of cubed fresh bufala mozzarella, and a large handful of shredded basil.
There are many reasons why this is the perfect warm-weather pasta, including the fact that it’s so pretty and spring-y-looking and uses all those delicious things that are just started to appear on grocery store shelves…
but mostly? It involves zero cooking (other than boiling some water for pasta), and keeps you away from hot things like stoves. And it’s ready in fifteen minutes flat, so you can spend your precious evening hours doing things like enjoying the weather rather than parking yourself in your kitchen.
(It also makes a delicious lunch served cold from the refrigerator next-day, so make extra.)
RAINBOW GARDEN PENNE
What you need:
1 box penne (or pasta of choice), cooked according to package directions
2-3 medium-sized heirloom tomatoes, cut into pieces
1 largeish ball of fresh mozzarella, cut into pieces
1 large handful fresh basil, torn into pieces
Best-quality olive oil
Sea salt & freshly ground pepper
What you do:
Toss it all together with a splash of pasta water. That’s it.
This is my idea of a great night.
For press inquiries as well as marketing, collaborations, sponsorships & partnerships, please contact my management team.
