Pasta | The Humble Onion

Chicken, Bacon, Spinach and Tomato Pasta Bake

May 17, 2019

You guys, it’s been a while since we had a casserole here on THO. But I have a friend who just had a baby girl (hi Meaghan!). When I thought about what meal I could bring her I was bored with every casserole I had made before.

Enter this Chicken BLT one.

I’ve been on a BLT kick ever since I ordered one at Panera a few weeks ago. So simple! So delicious! My daughter even asked me if I had bought a large package of bacon or something because I had been cooking with it a lot. Does bacon come in bulk? If so, sign me up.

We all loved this dinner, it’s comfort food and it freezes and travels well, so it makes a great dish to share. Like most casseroles there are a few steps, but you could bake it in the same pot as the pasta is cooked in and you stir it all together if you wanted to.

The thing that makes this SO delicious is I cooked the tomatoes and the spinach in the bacon grease so it would take on the bacon flavor. I got the idea from a pasta dish at the Mother’s Day brunch we went to, where I bit into a cherry tomato and was like, that tastes like bacon! Wait, it’s been cooked in bacon grease! This had to be duplicated. And voila! It works perfectly here. I love when greens are cooked in flavor too.

I didn’t use bacon grease for the roux as I thought it would make the dish too heavy. Instead in the same pan as I cooked the diced chicken (to save time though you could use rotisserie or bake the chicken in the oven and then dice it) I made a roux with butter, onions and chicken stock and just a little cream and parm to make it delicious.

Then I poured it over the pasta to combine it. It’s important to let the sauce coat the pasta first and then add the tomatoes, spinach and bacon so you don’t burst the tomatoes or crumble the bacon too much.

Then you toss it all together and add this delicious parm and panko topping that really mimics the toast in a BLT.

Drizzle the top with a little olive oil so it turns brown in the oven (channeling my inner Giada here since she does this topping for every casserole she makes).

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until the panko turns golden, and then when you remove it, add another little crumble of bacon because why not?

True story, when I was taking these photos, I was getting my kindergartener ready to go to LaCrosse practice, and I took a few bites from this plate. It was so ridiculously good that the whole time we were at practice I was counting the minutes until we could go home and have this for dinner. (I finished reading My Brilliant Best Friend to keep my mind off of it thankfully).

Here’s to new babies, comfort food, and good books! Happy Eating, xoxo Katie

Chicken, Bacon, Spinach and Tomato Pasta Bake

Ingredients:

1 pound penne pasta

1 pound of bacon

2 c. cherry tomatoes

4 c. packed fresh spinach

1 Tbsp. olive oil

3 chicken breasts, diced (or meat from 1 rotisserie chicken)

1 tsp. salt

¼ tsp. pepper

1 onion, diced

4 Tbsp. of butter (½ a stick)

¼ cup flour

2 cups chicken stock

¼ cup cream

½ + ⅓ cup freshly grated parmesean

⅓ cup panko

Directions:

Cook pasta in salted water according to package, drain, and return to pot, drizzling with a little oil so it doesn’t stick. While it cooks, fry bacon (may need two pans or to work in batches if pan is too small). Once it’s cooked, remove and place on paper towel lined plate. Pour off all but 2 T. of the bacon fat. Add tomatoes and spinach to remaining bacon fat and cook on medium heat, tossing in pan instead of stirring so you don’t break tomatoes. Cook for 3-4 minutes until spinach is wilted and tomatoes are slightly blistered, taking care not to overcook. In another large pan, heat olive oil on medium high heat, then add diced chicken, salt and pepper. (If using precooked or rotisserie chicken you can skip this step). Cook until chicken is nicely brown, then remove from pan on a plate and set aside. In the same pan, melt 4 Tbsp. butter, and then add diced onions. Cook until onions are soft, about 4-5 minutes. Then whisk in flour for 1 minute. Then add chicken stock and whisk well. Then whisk in cream and ½ cup parmesan and mix until its melted into sauce. Taste for seasoning, adding salt if needed. Pour this mixture over the pasta and stir to combine. Then add the cooked tomatoes, spinach and chicken. Seperate 3 strips of bacon, and cut up the rest and add to the pot. Gently combine all these ingredients so as not to break the tomatoes and then pour them into a 9 x 13 casserole dish. Combine panko and remaining ⅓ cup parmesan and sprinkle over the top, then drizzle with a little olive oil. Cook at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until panko is slightly browned. Remove and sprinkle with remaining 3 strips of bacon, cut up.

Slow Cooker Sauce Bolognese

November 16, 2018

A few weeks ago, right before I went to meet our farmer in Vermont and pick up our grass fed beef, I was running a 5k and thinking about all the different cuts we were going to get. I was like a kid in a candy store, and I thought to myself what should I make first??

This sauce popped into my head. It is so good, and one I used to make a lot at our ski condo since it is from the very aptly named Ski House Cookbook. I love that it cooks all day in the crock pot and then when you go to make dinner, you just boil a box of pasta.

They even recommend freezing half so it is always ready for you at your condo. I might be at home but I still took their advice, and I’m going to cook it this weekend when my sister comes over for her birthday so we can just catch up and relax.

This dish is a classic for a reason – the wine and the milk do some special alchemy to make this an elevated pasta sauce, and it it sticks to your ribs with not one but two kinds of beef – ground and cubed that are super tender from cooking all day. (If you’re in a pinch you can just used ground beef). And kids love this dish (don’t worry about the wine, all the alcohol evaporates) so it makes for great family dinners.

Definitely taste it for seasoning and add more salt if it needs it! Or just heaping piles of parm like I do.

Happy Eating! xoxo Katie

Slow Cooker Sauce Bolognese (printer version here):

3 Tablespoons canola oil

1 pound chuck stew meat, cut into ¾ inch pieces

2 small carrots, finely chopped

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

1 pound ground beef

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 ½ cups dry white wine

1 cup whole milk

1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes

1 (28-ounce) can crushed or pureed tomatoes

Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. When the oil is shimmering, add the cubed meat to the pan in one layer (you will most likely need to do this in batches) and brown it on all sides, about 6 minutes. Transfer the browned beef to the slow cooker. Repeat until all the cubes are browned.
Return to the skillet to medium heat, add the carrots, and cook for 2 minutes. Add the onion and continue cooking until the vegetables are softened, about 4 minutes. Add the ground beef and cook , breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon. When the meat is nearly cooked through (but not brown), about 5 minutes, add the garlic and continue cooking for 2 more minutes.
Add the wine and simmer until nearly all of the liquid is evaporated, about 6 minutes. Add the milk and simmer until nearly all of the liquid evaporates, about 4 minutes.
Transfer the ground beef mixture to the cooker and add the salt. Stir in the diced and crushed tomatoes. Cover the slow cooker and set it to low heat for 6 hours.
Stir the sauce and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper, and serve immediately, or cool, cover and freeze in small containers for up to 1 month. Reheat over medium-low heat until simmering, adding a little water if needed to prevent scorching.

Adapted from The Ski House Cookbook by Tina Anderson and Sarah Pinneo

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

October 11, 2018

I realized on my meal plan that I’ve never blogged about a staple meal in our house, probably because it feels so ordinary and I like a little fancy in a recipe to be blog worthy. But sometimes the classics deserve a space too.

Whenever my family comes down with a cold, like countless other mothers, I try to make a batch of this chicken noodle soup. I love how every mom makes it just a little bit differently and puts there own spin on it, so feel free to play around and make this recipe your own. This is my basic recipe but I like to change up the pasta and the herbs each time.

Sure in a pinch a can of soup works, but I don’t love the flavor anymore – it tastes like tin to me and I notice my kids don’t eat it. When you are feeding lots of people its just as easy and way more flavorful and nutritious to take 20 minutes and put a pot of this together. I usually have a batch of homemade stock in the freezer, and it really adds to the homemade, put-marrow-in-your bones feel to this dish, but boxed works fine.

Side note: One of my rules of feeding a family is always feel good about homemade stock, but never feel bad about boxed. Maybe you already know about the peaceful and easy rhythm of using up your rotisserie chicken carcass and bottom of the veggie drawer contents, and how good it makes your house smell. If not, see how I make chicken stock in this (very old!) blog post.

One of my favorite things about this soup is using really fine egg noodles. They are creamier than spaghetti noodles, but about the same diameter. You might already have a preference, like larger egg noddles, but its fun to play around with the pasta in this soup. Ditalini? Alphabet Shapes? Orzo? All so fun especially for younger kids. But I usually have a bag of this vermicelli egg noodles in my pantry for this soup. It also goes by thin egg noodles in some brands but it’s the same thing.

And as for herbs, play around with those too. In general, bay leaf, thyme, rosemary, sage, and parsley are all perfect here. I use either a tablespoon of freshly chopped or a teaspoon of dried. We like it herby.

I could go on about the health qualities of this soup but I’m not a nutritionist. Ok fine – herbs have potent healing properties and so does garlic, so feel free to double the amount if you like. My mom used to scrape raw garlic on Triscuits when were sick, which you could also do if your children will eat it.

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup (print recipe here):

2 T. olive oil
2 medium onions, diced
5 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
5 medium celery stalks, sliced
5 cloves garlic, minced
8 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon dried thyme (or 1 Tablesoon fresh thyme, I was out)
1 Tablesoon chopped fresh Rosemary (or 1 teaspoon dried Rosemary)
4 cups chicken, shredded or chopped – you can use raw or cooked, see recipe for when to add
6 oz. (about half a bag) thin Egg Noodles
salt and pepper to taste
Fresh parsley for garnish
A splash of lemon juice, optional

Directions:

Melt oil in large pot over medium heat. Add onion and cook for 3 minutes. Add garlic, cook for 2 minutes more. Add carrots, celery, bay leaves, thyme and rosemary. Cook, stirring frequently, for a few minutes until onion begins to soften and brown a bit.
If using raw cubed chicken add it after herbs and cook for 5 more minutes
Add chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low. Simmer for about 5 minutes.
Add noodles. Return heat to high. Bring soup back to a boil. Reduce heat to medium high. Boil for about 20 minutes until noodles are cooked through.
If using cooked chicken add it here
Taste soup and add additional herbs, salt, and pepper to your preference.
Serve with chopped parsley for garnish

Easy Eggplant Parm

October 5, 2018

I know that Eggplant Parm elicits strong feelings in some people. You either like it or you don’t. If you don’t like it, may I suggest checking out my Chicken Parm recipe? It’s similar in construction and my family loves it maybe a bit more than eggplant parm. Still, we try to eat a meatless meal once a week usually on Fridays and this is one I know they’ll eat.

I love eggplant parm – its such comfort food to me.

It is a great meatless meal, and I’m always astounded at how the eggplant takes the place of meat in terms of meatiness, or substance, in a dish.

This is really an assembly dish, and once you get the hang of it you can make it in 15 minutes. The one point of debate I’ve had with others is that they don’t like this dish if the eggplant gets too soggy. A really easy way to avoid this is to salt it before you start breading it. I lay all the slices in a colander with a big handful of kosher salt covering it. Then I put some weight on it to help extract the water.

My weight of choice was a heavy terra cotta planter (#reallife):

Once you’ve rinsed your eggplant from the salt, its time for the standard flour-eggwash-breading assembly line. Be sure to heat up your canola oil in a large fry pan before you start.

It might seem like a lot of work, but it goes very fast and really gives the dish its decadence.

Once you’ve fried all of the eggplant slices, you layer it in your baking dish, with a layer of sauce on the bottom.

And…that’s pretty much it. The hard work is over. Just pour the rest of the sauce on top and layer slices of mozzarella. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and browned.

Hope your family loves this dish as much as mine! (ps even the babies loved it!)

Happy Eating, xoxo Katie

Easy Eggplant Parm (printer version here):

2 eggplants, sliced 1 inch thick

Kosher salt

½ cup flour

3 eggs, beaten

1 cup bread crumbs

1 cup parmesan cheese, grated

¼ canola oil + more for frying

2 jars of good quality marinara sauce (we love Rao’s)

1 large package of sliced fresh mozzarella (enough to have 9 slices)

Directions:

Slice eggplant and lay in a colander in layers, generously salting eat layer to draw out water.

When each layer is sliced place a plastic plate or container on top and lay something heavy such as tin cans or a heavy bowl on top. This will help draw out more water. Wait 15 minutes, then rinse well.

While the eggplant is being salted, lay out three trays or plates. Put the flour on one plate, the eggs on a second, and the breadcrumbs, parmesan, and a pinch of salt mixed together on a third.

Preheat oven to 350.

Warm up ¼ cup of Canola oil in a large frying pan on medium heat.

Working in an assembly line fashion, take a slice of eggplant, press it in the flour plate, then the egg plate, then the breadcrumbs/parm mixture. Then place into the hot oil. When the pan is filled, flip the eggplant rounds starting with the first one you put in the pan. It should look golden brown. If not, let it cook for a little longer. When both sides are golden, remove eggplant slices and sprinkle with a pinch of kosher salt while still warm.

Keep working until you’ve breaded and fried all of the eggplant slices.

In a large 9 x 13 inch pan, pour a thin layer of the marinara sauce to prevent the eggplant from sticking to the pan. Then layer in the fried eggplant in slices until dish is full. Then pour the rest of the marinara sauce on top. Lay slices of fresh mozzarella on top.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until mozzarella is melted on top.

Let cool for 5 minutes, then serve over favorite cooked pasta.

Lemony Ricotta Pasta with Basil

August 29, 2018

When I cook dinner, I very often focus on the meat as the star of the show – a stuffed chicken breast, a pork tenderloin with lots of flavors, a well cooked piece of beef. I’ll rely on a box of rice or couscous, or the perennial favorite – potatoes – to round out the meal. But sometimes, it’s nice to have a side that’s fancy, and let someone else (like Target for example) bread your chicken cutlet for you.

So it was that I had this recipe printed out and stuck to my cork board in the kitchen, waiting for the night to try it. Its attractions included 1) Lemon 2) Parm 3) It looked easy. And it totally was.

And I was really intrigued by the directions to just stick a metal bowl right in the pasta water to heat up the ricotta and make the sauce. (Or in my case, your daughter wanted to help and the pasta was cooked before you were ready to make the sauce so you scooped it out and left the water boiling and used that. But think I could use this method a million times in the future. Also had to hurry and used bad kitchen lighting. But doesn’t her sunshine face make up for it?)

The sauce comes together in a snap, and with the lemon, parm, salt and pepper and basil, it has so much flavor. My kids loved it, and it made a lot so they also loved the leftovers the next day (it totally got better with age.) The recipe encourages you to make your own ricotta, and if you have the time it is worth it. We were in between homework and soccer and did not have the time, but ONE DAY I will make this with fresh ricotta. (This recipe for fresh ricotta is my favorite.)

And, once you’ve stirred together this sauce, you’re pretty much done.

You just stir, add some more salt, olive oil or lemon zest to taste if you want, and top with a load of fresh basil.

Now that I know about this technique of stirring ricotta in the hot water to make a sauce, my creative juices are flowing. Porcini and pancetta? Sun dried tomatoes and olives? Let’s see where the future takes us.

Happy Eating! xoxo Katie

Lemony Ricotta Pasta with Basil

Serves 6

Ingredients:

1 pound dried short pasta, such as gemelli, fusilli, penne, or rotini

1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese, preferably freshly made

1 cup finely grated Pecorino Romano or Parmesan cheese

Finely grated zest of 1 large lemon

Juice of 1 large lemon

1/2 teaspoon

kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon

freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced

Pinch red pepper flakes (optional)

Good-quality olive oil, for serving

Directions:

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil over medium-high heat. Add the pasta and cook according to package directions until al dente. Meanwhile, prepare the sauce.

Place the ricotta, Pecorino or Parmesan, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, and black pepper in a large heatproof bowl and stir to combine. When there are about 2 minutes remaining in the pasta’s cooking time, place the bowl over the pot and slowly stir the ricotta mixture. You should see it loosening as it warms.

When the pasta is al dente, drain it well. Add it to the bowl of ricotta and mix well to evenly coat the pasta in the sauce. Add the basil and red pepper flakes, if using, toss, and serve immediately. Drizzle olive oil over each serving.

This recipe originally appeared on TheKitchn.com

BLT Pasta

September 8, 2015

Don’t you love how kids negotiate?

They are like master lawyers and politicians combined. They’re ready for the Supreme Court by the time they hit 2nd grade.

I firmly subscribe to the advice I got from my first pediatrician – your job is to put healthy food in front of them, their job is to eat it. Anything else is a power struggle. There are so many times I am inching towards a power struggle, and as soon as I start to notice it, I just remind myself of this idea. I do hold out that you have to eat your veggies to get a small (trying to get back to small after some epic bowls of ice cream this summer. Like I said master negotiators. With school in session I try for 1 small scoop or yogurt or sugar free pudding) dessert, so I guess technically that is a power struggle but its working and we all know not to mess with what’s working.

The reason for this tangent is that my kids talk a lot about 50/50. They like foods that are half healthy, half yummy. And this dish was born out of that logic. Also, our mutual love of bacon.

Spaghetti is loved by everyone in our house (oh, yours too?) and I use Dreamfields pasta (this is not sponsored, we just like it), so I normally feel pretty good about serving it because its like 50/50 pasta.

And kale is 100% healthy. Bacon is 0%, so combined they are 50/50.

Same with tomatoes (100%) with alfredo sauce from a jar (0%). But their 50/50 is a surprising vodka sauce-like taste.

I was really surprised by the outcome of this dish – it had a hint of the original inspiration of the BLT sandwich, and when I took a bite with some chewy french bread it came out even more. But it had a quality that was its own and tasted like, umm, what’s that fluffy place in the sky again? Oh that’s right, heaven. It really has everything to do with that onion creamy goodness in the sauce. And of course the bacon.

If you have more then a nanosecond to make dinner like I did the night I came up with this dish, you could make your own easy alfredo sauce like the Pioneer Woman. And feel free to mix up this dish with whatever version of B and L and T that you love or have in the fridge. Penne or bowtie pasta would be yummy. Good to have options. But I have to say we all loved how this combo played out. I really recommend the kale because the heartiness of it really gave some ‘meatiness’ to the dish since the bacon was thin. I always try to add garlic to kale because it absorbs the flavor so well, hence the garlic salt. You could use spinach too but I think it would be a lot lighter and might get lost. And of course cherry tomatoes work too.

The total time for this dish? 15-20 minutes. So save if for your total craziest day because you know that is when you’re gonna need comfort food the most.

xoxo Katie

BLT Pasta (Printer version here) –

Ingredients:

3 T. olive oil

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced

1 head of kale, stems removed and chopped

1 teaspoon garlic salt

½ teaspoon pepper

2 large ripe tomatoes, squeeze to remove juices and seeds then diced

1 jar of alfredo sauce (if you are really fancy, make your own like this one by the Pioneer Woman)

1 package spaghetti (we love Dreamfields)

8 slices of bacon (turkey bacon if you want to be healthy!)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400. Arrange bacon on a cookie sheet lined with foil. Cook for 12-15 minutes for chewy bacon, a few minutes more for crispy, starting to check at 12 minutes for doneness.

Boil spaghetti according to package. Meanwhile, warm up 2 T. of oil over medium high heat and add onions. Cook for 5 minutes. Then add garlic on top, cook for 1 more minute. Add kale, additional 1 T. of olive oil, and garlic salt and pepper. Cook for 5-7 minutes, until wilted. Add tomatos and cook for 2 minutes until warm. Then add alfredo sauce and stir until warm.

Drain spaghetti and combine with sauce. Add cooked bacon on top. Serve immediately with crusty bread.

Older Posts