Katie Stew

Technically, this recipe should probably be called something like, “Spicy Tomato-Cream Sauce with Italian Sausage and Egg Noodles”. However, a few years back when this was a regular favorite, I didn’t bother to give it a name and it became generally known as “that awesome pasta”. Now I just call it Awesome Pasta, and my boyfriend and I know what we’re talking about.

And it really is awesome.

And easy. And cheap. And delicious. All the things that make a recipe become a staple in a household. I’m not sure why, but it has been a very long time since I made this.

There were so many delicious tomatoes at the market this weekend that I thought back to this old favorite and decided it was time to dive back in. In fact, it is a little shocking that I’ve never put this recipe up here considering how often I used to make it.

Awesome Pasta

aka Spicy Tomato-Cream Sauce with Italian Sausage and Egg Noodles

Ingredients

A bunch of tomatoes, chopped (No definitive number. I used 7 here. In the past I’ve used more or less. About 3 cups is ideal.

1 TB garlic, chopped

1 tsp red pepper flakes

olive oil

1 pound spicy italian pork sausage, casings removed

1/2-3/4 pound egg noodles

2-3 oz cream

1-2 TB fresh basil, julianned

salt and pepper

Directions

First up, put water on to boil.

Drizzle some olive oil in your pan and add garlic and red pepper flakes. Saute until fragrant. Then add the sausage and cook until browned.

Drain the meat and add the tomatoes.

Mix and turn heat to simmer. Add some salt and pepper. Let mixture cook about 10 minutes, or until the tomatoes have become sauce. Stir occasionally and crush the tomatoes with the back of your spoon. You’ll end up with this.

Yummy.

While that is doing it’s thing, cook and drain the noodles.

Back to the sauce. When the tomatoes have cooked down, add in the cream and stir to combine. Turn off the heat, or keep warm if your noodles are still cooking. When the noodles are ready, toss the basil in the sauce and combine the sauce with the noodles.

Let sit for a few minutes to allow the noodles to soak up the sauce. They will become nice and glazed.

Add salt and pepper to taste if necessary and enjoy.

You really will.

This summer, I’ve been craving the food of the South. I’ve been looking for comfort foods, full of summer vegetables and love. I had some leftover sauteed corn from a bbq I went to last weekend, and decided to use it to make a corn casserole. You can’t get much more comforting than this.

It is so good, I’ve been eating it for lunch most every day this week. It is slightly sweet, cheesy, and just bursting with flavor from the fresh summer corn. This is a great staple dish for dinner parties, potlucks, or bbqs that will take you through the fall. I’ve made this at Easter, in the summer, and at Thanksgiving.

When I asked my mom for this recipe, she replied with this addendum attached: “I have used fresh corn and a bit of cream; I’ve used multiple peppers; or different cheeses. But the one below is tried and true.”

And trust me. It is.

When I made it this last time, much like my mom I shook things up. Like I said, I had some leftover corn that I had cooked with butter and peppers. So instead of the two cans of corn in the recipe, I used two cups of fresh corn.

I also used sharp cheddar on top, since that is what I had in the house, and panko instead of breadcrumbs, but other than that, the rest was on target. Find your own variations, but the corn, cheese, chilies and Bisquick combo is a winner. Fast and easy to assemble. Delicious.

Naomi Hatley’s Corn Casserole

1 small can drained niblett corn (can use mexicorn if you like)

1 large can creamed corn

1 can chopped green chilies

1 cup Bisquick

1 beaten egg

1 stick melted butter

½ cup milk

Sliced Monterrey Jack cheese  (with or without peppers)

Browned bread crumbs (use real bread)

Melt butter reserving about 1/3 to brown bread crumbs in. Mix all together except cheese, breadcrumbs and reserved butter.

Put in buttered baking dish. Brown breadcrumbs in butter in a skillet. Put cheese on top in the baking dish, then the bread crumbs. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Voila. Deliciousness. Happy summer.

The farmer’s market was such a wonder to me this week. There was such a huge variety of beautiful summer produce, that it was near impossible to choose. But, one of the things that always calls to me are the adorable little patty pan squash that fill the stalls this time of year. There was so much squash and zucchini, I couldn’t say no.

I mean really, how could you say no to this?

So adorable!

Sure, you can chop them up and eat them a million different ways, but I like to embrace thier cute little shapes and make perfect single serving dishes out of each one. I like to stuff them with yummy things and bake them until glorious.

Yummy!

I’m going to walk you through how I made these, but please, stuff them with whatever sounds yummy to you. These are filled with cream cheese, bacon, and basil. Boy were they good!

Step one, take a small slice off the bottoms so that they’ll sit flat.

Step two, cut off the tops at an angle (like carving a pumpkin). Like this picture below. (Now, I actually am doing these squash upside down. I cut off the tops for the flat side and used the bottom for the lids because I thought it was prettier. I’m telling you this so that you aren’t all like, she doesn’t know which end is the top!)

Once you have the lids cut off, scoop out the seedy inside bit, so you have a nice little squash bowl like this. I found that a grapefruit spoon is perfect for this task.

I then created the filling. I took about 3 tablespoons of cream cheese, chopped up two slices of cooked bacon, chopped about 1 tablespoon of basil, and mixed it all up together with a dash of lemon pepper.

Then rub the squash all over, inside and out with a little bit of olive oil. Now it is time to stuff the mixture into each squash!

Once you have that done, put the lids on and sprinkle all over with a little salt and pepper. Stick in an oven at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes. Generally, I would cook at 400 for about 30 minutes, but I had something else going in the oven at the same time. Either way, cook the squash until it softens and the cheese is nice and bubbly.

Serve each person their own adorable little squash. It can be your main item or a side dish. This is a tasty and easy way to use these adorable summer vegetables.

And hey, it certainly doesn’t hurt that the vegetables are filled with cheese and bacon.

Enjoy!

I was a crankypants yesterday. I hadn’t slept well, my day was long and frustrating, and so I was less than charming by the time I got home. When I went to make dinner, I needed something that tasted like summer. Something easy that would brighten my day and I found it.

I made up this recipe based off of a raw tomato pasta sauce that I saw in Bon Appetit this month. Check it out if you are interested. I had a ton of cherry tomatoes in the house and two zucchini and decided to make something awesome. I was thrilled that it was a success.

Yum!

I wanted to make a cooked sauce out of the tomatoes, but instead of simmering on the stove top, I decided to roast a sauce out of them. So I seasoned them up and put them in a pan to roast. I roasted the zucchini separately. They looked so pretty in the pans.

These fresh tomatoes were so delicious. I could have just eaten them up as is.

And trust me, I did with many of them.

But, roasting this sauce made it so sweet and delicious. Full of juices that soaked in to the pasta. I will definitely be making this recipe again. I just wish it hadn’t made my kitchen so hot! I certainly see why the original recipe was for a raw sauce.

Pennette Pasta with Summer Vegetables

1/2 pound pennette pasta, or mini penne
2 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1 large clove of garlic, minced
1 small jalapeno, or 1/2 large one, minced
2 zucchini, cut into small cubes
1 1/2 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar
1 1/2 Tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
1/4 cup basil, torn
parmesan cheese
olive oil
salt and pepper
lemon pepper

Preheat oven to 400.

Mix tomatoes, garlic, and jalapeno in large oven pan. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

In a second dish, toss zucchini with a drizzle of olive oil and season with some lemon pepper.
Put water on to boil.

When the oven is ready, put in tomato mixture and Zucchini mixture. Cook for 20 min.

Cook pasta in water to desired doneness. Try and coordinate everything to finish around the same time.

When tomato mixture is cooked and nicely bubbling, pull out and add the vinegars to the mixture. After that, add the hot pasta to the tomato sauce and toss with the fresh basil. Add Zucchini to the mix and sprinkle parmesan cheese on top.

Let the pan sit for about 10 minutes, mixing occasionally. This gives it time for the pasta to soak up all of the delicious juices from the tomatoes.

Voila! It will taste like heaven and cure even the crankiest of moods. It was like summer in my mouth and suddenly I had a smile on my face. Try it out if you find yourself with a surplus of tiny tomatoes.

I made a delightful dinner the other night that I want to share. It was fast, easy, and yummy. Nothing fancy about this dinner, but great for a quick weeknight meal.

As I showed you guys recently in a post, I’m growing spring peas this year. I had a bunch that were ready to harvest and came up with a really satisfying thing to do with them.

I picked these fresh out of my garden on Friday night. They were so vibrant.

I had the peas and found some asparagus in the fridge and decided to make some ravioli and enjoy my spring vegetables. I made a light, buttery sauce with the vegetables and tossed it all together.

Nothing complicated about this. Great way to enjoy some of those great spring vegetables. Adapt and taste to please.

Spring Vegetables with Ravioli 

Ingredients:

1 cup freshly shelled peas

1 bunch asparagus cut into 1 inch pieces

1/2 an onion chopped

2 cloves garlic

2 pieces bacon, chopped

lemon pepper

1 cup chicken stock

2 tb butter

1 tb basil

drizzle of olive oil

1 package cheese ravioli

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Put water on to boil.

In a large pan, drizzle some olive oil and add one TB butter. Over medium high heat, saute onions and bacon until bacon is cooked and onions are translucent. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Add asparagus and cook until begins to soften.

At this point, you can occasionally pour in chicken stock when the pan starts to look a little dry. This will deglaze the pan and start forming a sauce.

Give the asparagus a generous shake of lemon pepper and a sprinkle of salt. Add the peas and the remaining butter and slowly add stock over the next few minutes, allowing it to thicken.

Toss ravioli in boiling water and cook according to instructions.

Cook the vegetable mixture over low heat until saucy and ravioli is done. Then toss the pasta with the vegetable mixture and let sit off the heat for a few minutes to let the flavor soak into the pasta.

Getting all saucy and settled in the pan.

Salt and pepper to taste, serve it up, and enjoy!

P.S. I don’t know if any of you have discovered these, but they now sell chicken broth in one cup packages. They are the best. Just the right amount for sauces and things. I’m terrible about buying big boxes of stock and broth and then only using a little and letting them go bad in the fridge. I love these little boxes. They come in a four pack.

So smart!