Presto Pasta Nights #184 Roundup

I have the great pleasure of hosting Presto Pasta Nights this week, and I am happy to say that there are a lot of great dishes that I want to try out myself! I was very honored when Ruth of Once Upon a Feast asked if I would like to host Presto Pasta Nights; and of course I had to say yes!
So please enjoy this weeks roundup!

First of this week is Limecake who cooked up some Fried Bee Hoon; a dish that is made with rice vermicelli and is very veratile like fried rice.

Amritha of AK's Vegetarian Recipe World made Mixed Vegetable Vermicelli, and says it is a very common Indian dish and can be cooked for breakfast or for dinner.

Rachel of The Crispy Cook brings us a gluten free dish; Korean Chapchae. She says that the noodles had a springy texture and that the dish was even better the next day because the noodles absorbed more of the sauce.

Anu of Truth Personified brings us a wonderful dish to celebrate the end of summer vegetables. Summer Veggie Tomato Basil Fettuccine is full of zucchini and yellow pattypan squash and is a great end to summer veggies.

Elizabeth of blog from OUR kitchen made a delicious looking Smoked Penne and Cheese dish. I don't know about you, but I LOVE anything that is smoked! I'll have to try this sometime!

Daphne of More Than Words brings us a fresh and spicy Spiced Thai Style Soba Noodle Soup. I just love the vibrant colours of the soup and just want to dig in to it!

Aparna of Apy cooking! tried out her first citrusy pasta dish with Lemony Linguine with Creamy Mascarpone. I love the name of this dish! And she has a great tip on how to cook your veggies while cooking your pasta!

Val of More Than Burnt Toast made a Comforting Macaroni and Cheese. I really could have used some of this dish this week since I've been a bit sick! I'll have to give this a try now that it is starting to get cooler here in Ontario, Canada :)

Joanne of Eats Well With Others brings us a mouth watering Mom's Lasagna. I've always loved lasagna and this one seems like it has a good mix of different ingredients.

Supriya of Queen of My Kitchen gives us a great way to get some extra veggies into our day with Pasta with Loaded Pasta Sauce. I know I need to add more veggies to my diet, so I'll be sure to try this out :)

Chaya of My Sweet and Savory brings us a quick to make Pesto Pasta with Feta. I just love how easy this is to make and with how few ingredients that are needed. A great weeknight meal!

Christine of Kits Chow is frying up some Yakiudon this week. I love how easy and adaptable this recipe is.

And last but not least is my submission! I made a quick and adaptable Pumkin Ravioli with Brown Butter.

Thank you so much for joining in for this weeks roundup! Next week's host will be Claudia of Honey From a Rock. Send your pasta dishes for next week to claudiariley (at) yahoo dot) com and cc ruth (at) 4everykitchen (dot) com by October 14. The next roundup will be posted on October 15th.

Pumpkin Ravioli with Brown Butter

I was looking for a way to use up some of my pumpkin puree and some leftover wonton wrappers and was lucky enough to find a recipe that could do just that. This was a simple and easy dish to make and is sure to impress if you make them for guests. I made this for myself as a quick lunch! So go ahead and try it! :)

I'm really excited to be hosting Presto Pasta Nights #184. I've only submitted a few dishes to PPN, but I love seeing all the dishes that other bloggers submit! Every week there is always a bunch of posts that make my mouth water and that I want to make myself! I Can't wait to see all your dishes! :)
This is my entry for Presto Pasta Nights #184.

Pumpkin Ravioli
Serves 2, adapted from Cook this, not that.
(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:
1/2 can pumpkin puree (8oz)
1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
pinch of nutmeg
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated
salt and pepper to taste
24 wonton wrappers
1 egg white, beaten
2 tbsp butter
sage leaves (Optional)

Directions:
1. Mix pumpkin, vinegar, nutmeg, cheese and salt and pepper together in a bowl.
2. Lay down a wonton wrapper and spoon a small amount of filling onto the wrapper (don't over stuff). Paint the edge on the wonton wrapper with egg white and place another wonton wrapper on top and press the edges together.
3. Cook in salted boiling water for 3 minutes and then drain.
4. Heat butter on medium heat and cook until turning brown (careful not to burn the butter).
5. Add ravioli to brown butter and coat well.
6. Garnish with Parmesan and sage (if using).

Announcing Presto Pasta Nights # 184

I have the pleasure of hosting Presto Pasta Nights # 184 this week. This will be my first time hosting any kind of event, and I'm very excited to see what great pasta dishes will be submitted this week :)

To participate you need to blog about your pasta dish between now and October 8th, mention and link to Presto Pasta Nights, as well as my blog Cook, eat, play, repeat. Email me your link and photograph at jenisnape AT gmail DOT com and also CC Ruth at ruth AT 4everykitchen DOT com. 

I can't wait to see your dishes! :) Happy cooking and blogging!

Penne Carbonara

We had no idea what to make for dinner last night. No idea at all. So Martin suggested that we make pasta. I agreed that that might be a good idea. It was really hot and humid outside last night so we were not going to be making any epic meals that night. Then Martin looked in the fridge and said: Carbonara? I said YES!!!
Now, if you know me you'll know why I said YES so quickly. The reason? BACON! I love bacon! :)

I also remembered that I haven't participated in Presto Pasta Nights in a while, so I thought this you be a great opportunity to submit a meal again. This weeks Presto Pasta Nights is being hosted by Ruth at Once Upon a Feast. Can't wait to see all the other submissions! There are always great recipes to be found :)

Penne Carbonara
Serves 2
(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:
1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, chopped
6 slices bacon, chopped
1/4 cup white wine
1 1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Parmesan cheese, grated
salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:
1. Sweat the onions, garlic and shallots over medium heat. Add bacon when the onion mixture is almost done.
2. Put a pot of salted water on the stove and boil (You want the pasta to cook while you finish the sauce).
3. Increase heat to medium-high to fry the mixture for about 1 minute, then lower heat so that the fat on the bacon will melt.
4. Increase back to medium high to fry again (By doing this everything will cook evenly and nothing should burn).
5. Deglaze pan with white wine to get all the yummy brown bits at the bottom of the pan.
6. Cook pasta in boiled water according to the packages instructions.
7. Add sour cream and stir well to combine.
8. Season with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper to taste. Grate in some Parmesan and mix well.
9. Drain pasta and add to the finished sauce. Toss to coat pasta.
10. Grate more Parmesan on top and add more pepper to garnish.

Spaghetti with Lemon, Garlic and Thyme Mushrooms

 Now that I'm working again, I need some of my dinners to be quick and easy. This meal is both of these. And delicious too! I was surprised at how tasty this turned out to be considering how simple it was to make. The mushrooms got warmed up by the pasta and they were soft and seasoned perfectly. And the lemon was not over powering. This was a nice light dish for a hot night.
I think next time I'll experiment with different pasta/mushrooms/herbs. I think this will be a staple recipe for me since it is so versatile and easy.

I'll be submitting this dish to Presto Pasta Nights again. This week it is being hosted by Janet at The Taste Space. I love Presto Pasta Nights because I always see lots of great dishes that I know I have to try to make at some point! Plus it's always just fun looking at the pics and finding new blogs to check out :)

Spaghetti with Lemon, Garlic and Thyme Mushrooms
Serves 3-4, adapted from Nigella Express
(Printable recipe)

Ingredients:
225g mushrooms (I used cremini), sliced
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp kosher salt
1 garlic clove, minced
1 lemon, zest and juice
5 springs fresh thyme
300g spaghetti
fresh parsley, chopped (to garnish, you can skip this if you like)
Parmesan, to taste
fresh ground black pepper

Directions:
1. Put the sliced mushrooms into a bowl with the olive oil, salt, garlic, lemon zest and juice, and the thyme. Mix them together to coat the mushrooms and let them marinate.
2. Cook the spaghetti according to the directions on the package.
3. Drain the pasta and mix it with the mushroom mixture.
4. Serve in bowls and top with parsley, Parmesan, and pepper.

Homemade Pasta with Tomato and Mushroom Sauce

Sorry for the long silence here. Things have been pretty hectic lately and I just didn't have a moment to blog even though I have tons of things I've been wanting to blog about!
So the exciting secret that I was talking about while ago was that we were going to be buying a house! But unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the deal fell through and we are still house hunting again. Not going into too many details about that, but lets just say that we would have had a house with no parking spot if we didn't look into things as carefully as we did!

Moving on to the subject of this post!
One of the things we've been wanting to buy for a while now was a pasta machine. So we went on a shopping spree at a local shop called Vincenzo's that has a bunch of high end foodie stuff and hard to find food stuffs. We bought some really awesome salts, meats, and of course a pasta machine!

We also bought a pizza stone so expect some homemade pizza in the near future :)
Since we made pasta I thought it would be a good opportunity to take part in Presto Pasta Night again. This week it is being hosted by Mansi at Fun & Food Cafe.

Martin did most of the cooking for our pasta night and I just helped make pasta with the pasta machine ;) So here is Martin's recipe:



Homemade Pasta with Tomato and Mushroom Sauce
Serves 2
(Printable Recipe)

Recipe for Pasta:

Ingredients:
1 cup of grade 00 flour
1 large egg
1 tbsp of water

Directions:
1. Pour flour onto a clean surface. Make a well in the flour for your egg and water to go into.
2. Add egg and water to the flour well and slowly combine the flour with the egg in a circular motion and keep adding a little more of the flour to the egg until all the flour is combined.
3. Knead the dough a few times to make sure that the flour is combined well. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for xx minutes to sit.
4. Take the dough out and knead it on a floured surface for 10 minutes. The dough should be quite elastic when you are done.
5. Break off a small piece of dough and roll the dough on a floured surface until it is small enough to fit until the pasta machine.
6. Start at the highest setting and gradually reduce the pasta size until it reaches your desired thickness. 7. Hang rolled dough to dry out a little so the pasta does not stick to its self.
8. Cook the pasta or dry it to use at a later time.

Recipe for Tomato and Mushroom Sauce:

Ingredients:
1 cup and 1/4 cup of tomato sauce
1 tbsp of worcestershire sauce
5 mushrooms, sliced (I used crimini)
1/2 onion, sliced
1 tbsp of oil
hot sauce (to your own liking)

Directions:
1. Heat the oil in a pan at medium heat. Add onions and cook until soft.
2. Add mushrooms and cook until slightly soft.
3. Add tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce and hot sauce. Stir until well combined.
4. Season to your taste. Add pasta to sauce and serve.


Here are our pasta making adventure pictures :)

P.S. Sometimes you need to improvise! haha ;)

Fusilli Bucati with Tomato and Pancetta

Since we are moving back to Canada next week, I've been trying to come up with meals that either use up what we already have, or need food items that I can use in other meals. I choose this recipe because it was simple and quick and because I needed to buy some slab bacon for another recipe (which will be coming here in a few days). I browsed through my Nintendo DS game 'Personal Trainer: Cooking' to get some ideas for a meal, and this dish is the result. I just came across the blog Presto Pasta Nights, which hosts a weekly blog roundup of pasta dishes (I really can't wait to try some of these recipes!). Presto Pasta Nights are also held by guest bloggers and this weeks guest blogger is Chaya from Comfy Cook. 
EDIT: Chaya had computer problems so the round up will be at Presto Pasta Night by Ruth.

I'll be submiting this post Presto Pasta Nights, so go check out the roundup at Comfy Cook's blog on Friday :)

Fusilli Bucati with Tomato and Pancetta
Serves 2, Adapted from Personal Trainer: Cooking for Nintendo DS
(Printable Recipe)

2 tbsp olive oil
1 can peeled whole tomatoes
1 small onion (I used red onion), thinly sliced
2 oz pancetta, chopped into thin strips (I used smoked bacon)
1 red chili pepper, seeds removed
1/3 cup white wine
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
7 oz pasta (I used Fusilli Bucati)
Salt
Pecorino Romano cheese, grated
Italian parsley, chopped (I had some basil to use up, so I also used some in addition to the parsley)

Directions:
1. Crush whole tomatoes in a bowl, set aside. Chop all other ingredients that need chopping.
2. Heat oil in frying pan on medium heat. Add Chili and saute for 1 minute.
3. Add onions and saute until browned.
4. Add pancetta and saute for 1 minute.
5. Add white wine and cook off the alcohol.
6. Add the crushed whole tomatoes and bring to a boil.
7. After sauce comes to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.
8. Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to the package.
9. Add some parsley to the sauce to release the flavours.
10. Add pasta to sauce and stir until the pasta is covered in sauce. Season with salt.
11. Finish by grating Pecorino Romano cheese on the pasta and garnish with parsley.