Pasta e fagioli à la neko style

Of course I made changes to the EDC recipe. I changed only portions of content and so of course it can't be called a pasta e fagioli any more.

Ingredient differences, I:

• used Cannellini beans and Butter beans instead.
• used a can of Roma tomatoes instead of 2 fresh tomatoes.
• 2 small brown onions,
• 2 cloves of garlic.
• lessened the chilli to 1/2 - we're not a spice-centric Asian family.
• added 1/2 smoked chicken breast and 1 cooked chicken breast.
• chopped some fresh parsley.
• used risoni instead of ditali pasta, and
• added baby spinach in the TM server.

Method:

I did poach the smoked chicken a little bit, the smokey flavour is quite strong and you should add it in last with about 3-4 minutes to spare on the final cooking time. This just mixes it through and allow the subtle smoke flavours to mix in but not permeate all the risoni.

I also added 1 minute to the onion cooking time. And at least 2-3 mins to each batch of cooking time due to the increase in ingredients. The risoni remained al dente upon serving into the TM server.

The smokey flavor completely changed what sometimes can be a plain dish. Other alternatives to add flavour included placing more parsley in the initial stages and red onion. I'm not a huge fan of parsley so I usually like to refrain from using it too much. Other than the chicken this could be made into a vegan dish :)

Recipe success: 5 out of 5 stars. My father ate it! Ok, he eats most things I cook but he's "picky". He liked this, so I'd say the variations worked out fine!
Taste: 4 out of 5 stars. Personally, I don't like smoked chicken that much. It's mom's favourite.

Food vs Study...

Ok, procrastination hat on - Soup Sunday! And to be precise, mushroom soup. TM recipe aside, I added extra mushrooms (only 100 g more), extra cream and refrained from adding parsley. There's almost parsley in every recipe! Hmm I think I shall call it - Soup Sunday! Yes corny I know, but I bow before many a greater rhymers before me or alliteration advocates - e.g. Meat Free Mondays! (which by the way I do not observe).

Oh and I made hearty pasta with zucchinis and a chilli tomato sauce for dinner. It's not a recipe in the book and I only did it becuase I had spare zucchini and I bought chillies intending to make Red Curry Paste from the EDC and forgot shrimp paste (yes, my Asian household doesn't have shrimp paste). So I couldn't do the Curry Paste but I could make pasta - again!

Method:
1. Chop 1/2 a medium onion & 1 small red chillie (suggestion, if you don't want too spicy avoid the bird's eye sized red chillies - ahhh the voice of reason/experience) - speed 6, 2-5 seconds
2. Add 50g of oil & saute the usual way (2 mins, 100 C, Sp 1)
3. Add large cubed zucchini, don't worry this will cook down and soften but give texture. Add TM vegetable paste 2 tbspns & 700g of water.
4. Cook for 7 mins, 100 C, Sp 1 Reverse. Reverse because you want the zuchinni cubes to remain intact as much as possible to add colour and a taste explosion when you bite into it.
5. Add pasta, 300 - 400g, zucchini gives out a lot of water and could mean that you will need to add more pasta than you originall thought.
6. Cook for 10 mins, 100 C, Sp 1 Reverse. Add Salt & Pepper to taste.

To serve: Place some baby rocket in the bottom of the TMServer. Pour in pasta - if very saucey, don't panic, the pasta will soak up more of the sauce and you can also add parmesan or chopped cheddar to it if you like.

I served it with Catalano's grilled crumbed sardines and green salad (optional).

Photos are on my i-Phone which I'll upload soon.

Later at night I did try to practice the recipes. Hummus & Sorbet... I didn't remake custard, it never gets finished in the house and I hate wasting food. I invited a girl friend over to eat the sorbet and try the hummus. It was too garlicky and a bit too gluggy - shall add more oil in future. Also found out the inherint 'goodness' in tahini. I shall not be making many hummus dips for home eating in future. LOL as if the cream cheese one is much better for my wasitline. Delicious on my lips, deadly (if I keep eating in this quantity) on my hips.

Oh and it took me until today to realize the blog time was set to PDT instead of WST (Aust). WOW... where have I been? No wonder I felt like the weekend just ran away like a Herbie race.

TM creamy tomato & salami fettuccine

Page 89 of the EDC.

 

I came home after the meeting a bit peckish, but also realized at 10:20pm with the night's dinner being left overs from the weekend, I had nothing to bring to work for lunch.

 

A quick look at the pantry and fridge, yup, I had almost all the ingredients for this recipe. Of course I substituted the following:

• Can of Roma tomatoes (I didn't have fresh ones)
• - Angel hair pasta instead of fettuccine. I had at some point bought angel hair instead of the spaghetti no. 5. Never seem to have fettuccine on hand. OT: I'm also our of spirellini or mini spiral pasta.

 

I also doubled only two of the veggies, com'on what am I to do with 1/3 zucchini left in the fridge? I mean I already have a huge jar of TM vegetable paste, my next batch might be two weeks from now. And the capsicum did look a bit on the small/medium size.

Luckily dad bought me some salami while he was wondering the Hyde Park Community Fair earlier this month, 1/2 kg roll. I was at a loss as to what to do with all that salami - other than throw a party and snack on antipasto & drink copious amounts of red wine.

 

Well, now in 1 hour of dawdling and sampling sauces, snacking on salami - I tossed through some baby spinach & sprinkled some parmesan Reggiano, voilà I give you the fruits of my labour.

Of course I couldn't help but have a small bowl to taste-test.

Rating: 4.5 stars.

Next time will remember to not toss in the baby spinach, but blanch them first - the colour rentention of the green wasn't so nice the next day.