Chicken & Mini Farfalle Pasta Salad
This chicken and pasta salad would be a nice pasta salad to make use of whatever leftover chicken you’ve got in the fridge. Having said that though, I actually didn’t use leftover chicken here but I just want you to know that you could easily use leftovers. And this is just a different version of the other pasta salads I’ve made before. I just added chicken here and used raspberry vinaigrette instead of Italian dressing. And of course, different pasta.
Mini Rotelle Cold Pasta Salad W/ Cheese & Sunflower Seeds
Summer means a lot of things. One of them is making cold pasta salads. I suppose it’s ok to make them during winter too but it is usually during the Summer that I get to indulge in whipping up different kinds of cold pasta salads. They’d go with any grilled meat entrees, including kebabs, satays, burgers, just to name a couple. Pasta salads prefect to serve as side dishes during the summer parties in the backyard or as lunch for the family on regular days. This Mini Rotelle Cold Pasta Salad W/ Cheese & Sunflower Seeds is basically another version of Pasta & Broccoli Salad W/ Golden Raisins and Sunflower Seeds but without the golden raisins and chopped fresh broccoli. I added chopped eggs instead.
Domino’s Artisan Pizza: Spinach & Feta
I “won” this Domino’s Artisan Pizza 2 weeks ago through Facebook. Finally, I was one of the lucky ones who got the timing correctly. There’s a certain hour when you could enter and get 1 free pizza but it’s all about great timing. It doesn’t last all day and they give it to a certain number of entries.
Meatballs W/ Mushrooms & Green Peppers
When I took out the ground beef for dinner last night, I knew I wanted to make meatballs out of it but didn’t really want to cook another pasta dish. Yah know, like spaghetti and meatballs. We just had the cod fish and penne with asparagus the other night so another pasta night was really not an option. Who said you have to have pasta with meatballs anyway? Meatballs sub sounded good but I didn’t have the bread for it.
So what to do, what to do, tick tock tick tock, you’re husband is going to school in an hour or so, start cooking for dinner. That was my mindset in the kitchen yesterday. I finally made the decision to make large meatballs big enough to serve as main entree. I added sliced green peppers and mushrooms for an added texture and flavor.
Cod Fish & Penne W/ Asparagus
My fish and pasta combo experiments like salmon & penne alfredo, and the Catfish Spaghetti W/ Garlic-Tomato-Scallions Sauce have been very good so I decided to try this cod fish and penne with asparagus dish too. Like the 2 former fish & pasta combo dishes, this one is also a hit. After my husband and I had seconds , I had to put away the rest before getting the crazy idea of having a third serving each. Seriously!
Catfish Spaghetti W/ Garlic-Tomato-Scallions Sauce
Yes, another catfish dish. A dish that was surprisingly good. And definitely a seafood dish that’s perfect for people who are skipping meat this Holy Week. But catfish and spaghetti? Really? I KNOW, I was really surprised how good this is. My children loved it too. So let me show you how I made it.
Pastini Pastaria
Have you heard of Pastini? It’s a Portland, Oregon Italian restaurant which offers more than 30 authentic pasta dishes using fresh and local ingredients. Some of their pasta dishes include Ziti with Winter Squash and Gorgonzola Sauce which has roasted butternut squash, gorgonzola cream sauce, leeks, garlic, nutmeg and thyme, over ziti pasta. Another one of their delicious pasta offering is a Chicken Cacciatore with Rigatoni dish. The chicken is simmered slow in the traditional cacciatore sauce, cremini, porcini mushrooms, carrots, red and yellow peppers and white wine. Besides the main entree of pasta, there are also antipasta, salad, soup, and authentic Italian desserts.
Pastini is also a place that offers gluten free Italian restaurant menu. And if you’re looking for a Portland Italian catering, it’s available at Pastini as well via the lunch specials catering. Their combos are only less than $10 each but they’d be happy to help you out in creating a menu for office parties, seminars, and other events
You can find Pastini if these following Portland locations: Northwest 23rd, downtown, Northeast Broadway, Southeast Division, Cedar Hills Crossings in Beaverton, Bridgeport Village in Tigard, The Old Mill in Bend, and NW 9th St in Corvallis.
Check out Pastini if you’re ever in those areas.
Shrimp Scampi W/ Fettuccini
What exactly is a Scampi? According to Seaffod Experts website;
Scampi is a type of lobster and is one of the world’s finest delicacies. There are, however, other species frequently referred to as scampi. For example, in the Midwest region of the US freshwater shrimp (Macrobrachium Rosenbergii) are referred to as scampi. So again, what exactly is scampi?
Is scampi a crawfish? Is scampi a crayfish? No, scampi are small clawed lobsters that unfortunately look a little bit like a crawfish. But they definitely shouldn’t be confused with the freshwater crawfish, which is primarily from the Gulf of Mexico and China. Crayfish is another name used for spiny lobster, and if that’s not confusing enough, in the southern US crawfish is called crayfish!.
“Scampi” is actually the tail of the “Nephrops Norvegicus” which is more commonly known as the Norway Lobster, Dublin Bay Prawn (although its not a prawn!) or langoustine. According to Wikipedia, the Nephrops Norvegicus is an orange pink lobster that grows up to 25cm in length and is typically found in the North East Atlantic, the North Sea and parts of the Med.
In short, Scampi is not how the dish is cooked, it’s actually a small clawed lobster that looks like a crayfish. But I bet you when you hear the word scampi you’d think of shrimps cooked in butter, white wine, lemon juice, with some sort of pasta, either spaghetti, linguine, or fettuccini noodles. Now that you know what a Scampi really is coz it certainly doesn’t hurt to know food trivia sometimes, let’s cook shrimp scampi with fettuccini coz that’s what we’re familiar with.
Salmon & Penne Alfredo
This Salmon & Penne Alfredo was inspired by the seafood with pesto cream penne alfredo from Ragazzi’s Italian Restaurant. The seafood with pesto cream involves basil with walnut pesto blended into penne alfredo sauce with sauteed shrimp and fresh salmon. It’s $14.99 a plate which I’m telling you is sooooo worth it coz it’s soooo good and you get so much of it. I can only eaT half of the plate then save my leftovers for lunch the following day. Delicious creamy pesto with alfredo sauce, and large pieces of shrimp and chunks of salmon. If I could somehow name a kid from this dish, I would.
My own version of course is very much simplified. It doesn’t have the creamy pesto sauce coz I didn’t have the stuff to make it(basil, walnuts) and I also omitted the shrimp coz we just had shrimp last Sunday. It was delicious nonetheless. I just love creating my own version of restaurant dishes that I love even though I don’t create the exact same thing all the time. I just have fun working in my kitchen with a particular dish to copy in mind.
Next time I’ll make it the Ragazzi’s way, but for now, here’s my simplified version.
Baked Penne
If you search the archives, you’ll find recipes for baked spaghetti with mushrooms, easy baked macaroni, and baked spaghetti alfredo w/ mushrooms & capers. The same idea, same concept, and same steps, different kind of pasta and sauce for variety’s sake. I’m adding baked penne in the archives. The end result is the same delicious pasta dinner that the whole family loves.
| Baked Penne |
- 1 box of penne pasta, cooked al dente
- 1-2 pounds of groundbeef
- 1 jar of spaghetti sauce
- a sprinkle of Italian seasoning (or dried oregano and basil)
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 3/4 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
- Cook the pasta according to its box. Al dente is good.
- While the pasta cooks, brown the ground beef in a pan. Drain the oil. Add the spaghetti sauce, 2 tbsp of sugar and sprinkle of Italian seasoning. Stir everything together. Cover and simmer, opening it occasionally to stir. Let it simmer for about 10-15 minutes or so.
- Preheat the oven to 365°.
- Transfer the cooked penne(sans the water) into the pasta sauce pan. Stir, then add 3/4 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese. Incorporate the cheese by stirring it again. Transfer the whole thing into a baking pan. Top it with the remaining 1 cup mozzarella cheese, evenly.
- Stick it in the oven and bake for about 10-15 minutes or until the cheese has melted.
- Let it sit in the counter for 5-10 minutes before serving.
- Serve with green salad and cheesy garlic bread on the side.
