Penne alla' Amatriciana aka Bacon Pasta

This recipe is an old favorite of mine. I think it's one of the first things I learned to cook. Who doesn't love something with pancetta or bacon as one of the flavors?



Penne alla' Amatriciana
Serves 4 for dinner

Ingredients
1/4-1lb of chopped/cut bacon or pancetta
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, diced
6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 cans of petite diced tomatoes
1 small can of tomato sauce
1/2 cup of white wine
1 pound of penne pasta
1 tsp of red pepper flakes
1 tsp of freshly ground black pepper
Salt to taste
Parmesan cheese

Quick tip: It's really easy to cut bacon with scissors.



Brown the bacon in a large deep bottomed pan. When the bacon is done, remove it from the pan and set aside. Throw away the bacon fat left in the pan by pouring it out. Do not wash the pan; the bits of bacon left in the bottom of the pan have a lot of flavor.





Next, add the olive oil to the pan and sweat the onion and garlic with the red pepper flakes, and black pepper until the onions are soft.





Add the white wine to the pan, and reduce the mixture until there is almost no liquid left.



Finally, add the bacon, the tomato sauce, and the two cans of diced tomatoes. Bring to a boil.



Turn down and simmer the sauce for approximately 30 minutes to 1 hour, stirring occasionally.



Cook the pasta until al dente. Add to the sauce, and stir for about one minute, until the sauce binds to the pasta.

Serve piping hot, with Parmesan cheese to garnish.

Pasta Alla Carbonara

A quick and delicious pasta. And unlike many carbonara recipes, this one is not too rich. It’s light and delicious and full of flavor.

Pasta Alla Carbonara

Makes 4 servings. Recipe from Epicurious.

INGREDIENTS
5 oz bacon or pancetta
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 lb pasta (any kind would work)
3 large eggs
1 1/2 oz Parmigiano-Reggiano, finely grated (3/4 cup)
3/4 oz Pecorino Romano, finely grated (1/3 cup)
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup frozen peas, thawed and lightly steamed

DIRECTIONS
Cut bacon or pancetta into 1/3-inch dice, then cook in a deep 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring, until fat begins to render, 1 to 2 minutes. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is golden, about 10 minutes. Add wine and boil until reduced by half, 1 to 2 minutes.

Cook pasta in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water until al dente.

While pasta is cooking, whisk together eggs, Parmigiano-Reggiano , Pecorino Romano (1/3 cup), 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a small bowl.

Drain spaghetti in a colander and add to onion mixture, then toss with tongs over moderate heat until coated. Remove from heat and add egg mixture and peas, tossing to combine. Serve immediately.

Cooks’ note:
The eggs in this recipe will not be fully cooked, which may be of concern if there is a problem with salmonella in your area.

Not All Food is Good.

Some weeks, we do good (see: last week). Everything we cook is delicious and perfectly seasoned and nice looking to boot.

Other weeks, not so good. What sounds like a good recipe sometimes turns out to be bland, boring, or just plain bad. This was one of those weeks.

Black Bean Burgers with Salsa and Avocado.
Good concept, not so good execution. The patties had virtually no flavor, and they were practically impossible to cook. The recipe is here if you really want to try them. I’d suggest tripling the spices and seasonings at the very least. Also baking them might be a better solution vs. sautéing them, if anything just to avoid having to flip them. Again, it’s an intriguing concept, but just needs a little (ok, a lot) of refinement.

Roasted Balsamic Vegetable and Pecan Salad
Again, just a bit boring. It needed more of a dressing than just the little juice left from the veggies. We also made the mistake of adding Chinese Eggplant, which has a very tough and almost bitter tasting skin. Recipe here if you’re interested. It is a healthy meal, but needs some more work before we’ll make it again.

Bobby Flay, this time, you’ve not done so great. Maybe because we didn’t grill it, or because we used frozen salmon, or maybe because we used canned artichoke hearts, but this one was not so great. I liked it a bit more than Taylor did… the olive marinade was STRONG but had potential. The artichokes had potential as well… they just weren’t fabulous. The salmon burgers we made last week would have been a much better use for this salmon!

Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

Spaghetti alla Puttanesca

A traditional and satisfying italian pasta dish. A little spicy, a little tangy, a lot of salty. Our fail-safe pasta recipe is a variation of this, without the anchovies and capers, but this version is more traditional. Be careful though – the sauce gets very salty, fast, so you do not need to add more salt at any point. If you think about it, you’re mixing 3 very salty-to-begin-with foods, olives, capers, and anchovies, of course it’s going to be salty. I was worried at first it would be inedible, as that’s how it tasted in the pan, but once it had been diluted with pasta, it was just about right.

We’re very sensitive to salty foods anyway. I pin that to one episode with a shrimp recipe, which we followed to the T. Took one bite of the shrimp and just about gagged the thing was so salty. Ever since then we have been stingy salters, erring on the side of too little rather than repeat the horror of the over-salted shrimp. There are very few dishes we’ve cooked that were so bad we had to throw them out, only two in recent memory: a pretty nasty bitter eggplant something or other, and the shrimp. Blame that one on the salt.

Spaghetti alla Puttanesca

Makes 4 servings. Recipe from Bon Appetit.

INGREDIENTS
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 28.2-ounce can peeled tomatoes in puree with basil
1/2 cup Kalamata olives, halved, pitted
3 anchovy fillets, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons drained capers
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
3/4 pound spaghetti
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley
Grated Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS
Heat oil in large pot over medium heat. Add garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add tomatoes with puree, olives, anchovies, capers, oregano, and crushed red pepper. Simmer sauce over medium-low heat until thickened, breaking up tomatoes with spoon, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite. Drain pasta; return to same pot. Add sauce and parsley. Toss over low heat until sauce coats pasta, about 3 minutes. Serve with cheese.