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snugglekittyI've seen that you enjoy developing your own (tasty) recipes. Do you like cookbooks or recipe websites? If so, how do you use them?
Over the course of two days, I made a variation on this recipe. For the first part of my answer to this question, I'm going to include a little explanation of how I came to make what I made in this case, which is pretty typical of my process. The main difference from most of my recipes is that usually I alter them more, which is why I don't usually post recipe links. But more on that tomorrow.
Anyhow, yesterday my brain said, "I must have cabbage and pasta." We had cabbage and pasta in the house. However, I'd never made a hot pasta dish with cabbage before, so I didn't feel comfortable just winging it. So I dialed up epicurious - you can search their recipe database from your Firefox search tab, if you use one - and looked for cabbage and pasta recipes. The very first recipe used green beans, which we already had in the house, and parsley, ditto. Also, I like salsa verde, so I thought it would be interesting to learn to make that. In fact, the only thing we didn't have in the house were the anchovies, but more on that later. So, I decided to make something like the recipe.
We had red cabbage, not savoy - I decided that was close enough. (And actually the color variation was really pretty.) The green beans were fresh, not frozen, so I microwaved them for a minute on a plate to get them a little softer. I threw some olive oil and minced garlic in the pan, added the cabbage and green beans. I saw a lonely sweet potato sitting on the counter, so I microwaved that for a minute, chopped it up, and threw it in to add a sweet note to the veggies. I noticed my roommate had left out part of a bottle of red wine, so I poured a few splashes of that in, which is when it started to smell amazing. Meanwhile I was boiling pasta. I had sort of an image of the recipe in my mind at that point, although without the amounts. I tried several times to convince myself to go out and get the anchovies so I could make the whole sauce, but no go - it was just too cold and gross out. I decided that the parsley sauce wouldn't be the same without the anchovies, so I just put in extra cheese and pine nuts and mixed it all up. (I had enough romano to just use that, but you know how I like cheese blends, so I did that instead.) I had that for lunch with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
omniamutantur, and we agreed that it was good, and interesting, but little dry. So that's why the sauce was so important! Okay. So today I went to the store and got anchovies and followed the salsa recipe almost exactly (we were a little short on capers). Very tasty. Next time I'd include a bit of lemon juice or white wine vinegar. Putting the pasta together with the sauce made it awesome. It went from tasting kind of - well, just like it's really good for you - to just tasting really delicious.
Pasta ingredients
1/2 sweet potato
2/3 bag red cabbage
1 c fresh green beans
whole wheat penne
three-cheese blend, adding up to about a cup and a half - I used cheddar, romano, and feta
pine nuts
olive oil
garlic
red wine
More on this question tomorrow. :) I know this isn't my usual recipe format, so let me know if you don't get enough detail from the epicurious verson and my explanation.
ETA: I know I normally post a vegetarian version. The meal is vegetarian without the sauce, but the sauce has fish. There are some vegetarian salsa verde recipes floating around the internet - it seems that principally you use bread instead of fish and add extra garlic for a similar effect.
Over the course of two days, I made a variation on this recipe. For the first part of my answer to this question, I'm going to include a little explanation of how I came to make what I made in this case, which is pretty typical of my process. The main difference from most of my recipes is that usually I alter them more, which is why I don't usually post recipe links. But more on that tomorrow.
Anyhow, yesterday my brain said, "I must have cabbage and pasta." We had cabbage and pasta in the house. However, I'd never made a hot pasta dish with cabbage before, so I didn't feel comfortable just winging it. So I dialed up epicurious - you can search their recipe database from your Firefox search tab, if you use one - and looked for cabbage and pasta recipes. The very first recipe used green beans, which we already had in the house, and parsley, ditto. Also, I like salsa verde, so I thought it would be interesting to learn to make that. In fact, the only thing we didn't have in the house were the anchovies, but more on that later. So, I decided to make something like the recipe.
We had red cabbage, not savoy - I decided that was close enough. (And actually the color variation was really pretty.) The green beans were fresh, not frozen, so I microwaved them for a minute on a plate to get them a little softer. I threw some olive oil and minced garlic in the pan, added the cabbage and green beans. I saw a lonely sweet potato sitting on the counter, so I microwaved that for a minute, chopped it up, and threw it in to add a sweet note to the veggies. I noticed my roommate had left out part of a bottle of red wine, so I poured a few splashes of that in, which is when it started to smell amazing. Meanwhile I was boiling pasta. I had sort of an image of the recipe in my mind at that point, although without the amounts. I tried several times to convince myself to go out and get the anchovies so I could make the whole sauce, but no go - it was just too cold and gross out. I decided that the parsley sauce wouldn't be the same without the anchovies, so I just put in extra cheese and pine nuts and mixed it all up. (I had enough romano to just use that, but you know how I like cheese blends, so I did that instead.) I had that for lunch with
omniamutantur, and we agreed that it was good, and interesting, but little dry. So that's why the sauce was so important! Okay. So today I went to the store and got anchovies and followed the salsa recipe almost exactly (we were a little short on capers). Very tasty. Next time I'd include a bit of lemon juice or white wine vinegar. Putting the pasta together with the sauce made it awesome. It went from tasting kind of - well, just like it's really good for you - to just tasting really delicious.Pasta ingredients
1/2 sweet potato
2/3 bag red cabbage
1 c fresh green beans
whole wheat penne
three-cheese blend, adding up to about a cup and a half - I used cheddar, romano, and feta
pine nuts
olive oil
garlic
red wine
More on this question tomorrow. :) I know this isn't my usual recipe format, so let me know if you don't get enough detail from the epicurious verson and my explanation.
ETA: I know I normally post a vegetarian version. The meal is vegetarian without the sauce, but the sauce has fish. There are some vegetarian salsa verde recipes floating around the internet - it seems that principally you use bread instead of fish and add extra garlic for a similar effect.