Tomato Fettuccine with Shrimp and Asparagus

A good bit of the fruit and vegetables that we eat comes from our garden and fruit trees.  At the peak of each season the good wife is kept busy canning the excess so we can eat it throughout the year until the next harvest season.  Tomatoes have been coming in strong for a bit now and we have 17 pints of homemade ketchup and 11 quarts and 1 pint of tomatoes canned for making sauces or adding to stews.  Earlier in the season the good wife found a website, http://joybileefarm.com/making-tomato-powder-scratch/?utm_content=buffer67519&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer, suggested an alternate use for the tomato skins that get removed prior to processing and canning.  The use she found was drying and grinding to powder to use for seasoning, thickening, etc.  Making powder was in lieu of composting or feeding to the chickens according to the website.  We'd always composted them.  The process is simple, put the tomato skins in a dehydrator or on a rack in the oven at the lowest temperature setting and letting dry until they were brittle.  Once they are brittle put in them in a food processor, blender, or spice mill.  I used the dry blade container for the Vitamix.  The powder is concentrated tomato flavor.

Tomato skins laid out ready to dry

Tomato powder

To this point we have about two cups of tomato powder and I was brainstorming on a use.  I've been trying flavored pastas with mixed results so I decided to use the same technique I'd used for some mushroom Fettuccine.  Once I had decided on pasta I Googled to see if tomato pasta was a thing.  Unsurprisingly, it was.  They all used tomato paste and it only seemed to be there to color the pasta and add a bare hint of flavor.  I figured my way would yield good flavor and color.

Tomato pasta freshly kneaded and ready to rest

What kind of pasta to make generated some discussion at work during a break.  The choices came down to cheese and shrimp stuffed ravioli or fettuccine.  I settled on fettuccine because it would be less labor intensive and I was wanting to use some asparagus that I had in the refrigerator.  I only had about 8 ounces of mushrooms on hand so I didn't have as many as I'd have liked.

Tomato Pasta with Shrimp and Asparagus

Pasta:
1.5 cups flour
1/2 cup + 2 Tbs tomato powder
3 large eggs
1 tsp salt
1 Tbs olive oil
2 Tbs water

1 lb 31-35 count shrimp
1 lb asparagus
1 medium onion
1/2 - 1 lb mushrooms
1 cup white wine
1 stick butter
salt
pepper
Italian seasoning

For the pasta:  Combine the flour, the tomato powder, and salt.  Make a well in the center and add the eggs, water, and olive oil.  Mix everything together until well combined and turn out on a floured surface.  Knead the pasta until it is smooth and elastic.  Wrap in plastic and let it sit for 20 minutes.  Divide into 4 pieces and roll to desired thickness and cut to the size you want.  After the pasta is cut place in well salted boiling water and cook until almost done.

Tomato pasta ready to run through the cutter

While the pasta dough is resting, cut the asparagus into bite size pieces, thinly slice the onion, and slice the mushrooms.  In 2 Tbs of  butter sautee the asparagus and onion, season to taste, and then place in a bowl.  Sautee the mushrooms in 2 Tbs of butter until they are done and put in the bowl with the asparagus and onion.  Place the shrimp in the skillet with the rest of the butter and put the pasta into the boiling water.  Cook the shrimp until almost done then add the rest of the ingredients back to the skillet.  Pour in the wine and stir to combine well.  Transfer the almost done pasta to the skillet.  Stir to combine the pasta and other ingredients.  The butter, wine, and pasta water will combine and make a sauce to coat everything.  Plate and serve.  This will serve 4 as an entree.

Tomato Fettuccine with Shrimp and Asparagus

If you don't have tomato powder, I believe tomato paste could be used for the same effect.  I would add a 6 oz can along with the wet ingredients and add additional flour to achieve the desired consistency.  I also think you could thinly slice Roma tomatoes and dry them until brittle and grind them into your own tomato powder.  I may have to break out the dehydrator to see how that works.

A tasty supper of Tomato Fettuccine with Shrimp and Asparagus

The final product had a distinct tomato flavor that went well with the shrimp, asparagus, and wine sauce.  The color is nice as well.

Give this pasta a try along with whatever you think will go well with it or use this whole recipe.  Either way, let me know what you think of the tomato pasta.

Uncle T

Mushroom Fettuccine with Miso Beef and Asparagus

Several years ago while we were stationed in Texas we would drive up to Wimberley for their Market Days.  The Wimberley Market Days was the 1st Saturday of the month and was a combination farmer's market, flea market, and arts and crafts show.  It took several hours to get through the whole thing even if you just took a quick glance at each booth.

One of the regular vendors would demo their pasta.  They had dry pastas of several flavors that they had developed.  Our favorites were the mushroom and the hot pepper.  I've not found any quite like them since we moved to Virginia.

I've tried different flavored pastas with mixed success.  My worst attempt was making black bean pasta.  The flavor was good but the texture was sadly lacking.  I've been researching alternative pastas and think I have a handle on some of the fixes.  I decided to test some of the changes on making the mushrooom pasta.

Most grocery stores have some small packages of dried mushrooms.  We went to Grand Mart, our favorite international market, and bought a large package of dried shitake mushrooms.  We also picked up a jar of miso at the same time.  I'd been thinking of the miso for soup but thought it would be an excellent seasoning.  I actually got Korean fermented soybean paste which is called Doenjang.  As I understand it, doenjang is a bit stronger flavored than miso.  I'm still calling it miso beef because more people are familiar with miso than the name doenjang.

Doenjang, fermented soybean paste

Mushroom Fettucinni

1/2 cup powdered mushrooms
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp olive oil
3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk

Put a handful of dried mushrooms in a food processor/Vitamix and reduce to powder.  Put 1/2 cup of the mushroom powder in a bowl.  Add the flour and salt and stir to combine.  Add the eggs, egg yolk, and olive oil and stir.  Once most of the ingredients are combined, turn out on a smooth surface and knead until smooth.  Wrap in plastic and let sit for 20 - 30 minutes.  Cut the pasta into 4 pieces and run through the pasta maker to flatten and thin.  Cut into desired lengths then run through the fettuccine cutter.  Spread on a tray with a bit of flour and repeat with the rest of the dough.  Add the fettuccine to heavily salted boiling water and cook until almost done.  This will just be a few minutes.  Add to the miso beef and asparagus and combine thoroughly.  The fettuccine will finish cooking during this mixing.

These are the dried Shitake mushrooms I used

Miso Beef and Asparagus

1 lb beef, I used strip steaks
1 lb asparagus
1/2 cup miso paste
2 Tbs olive oil

Cut beef into thin strips and put in a bowl.  Add the miso paste and mix thoroughly.  Let this stand for at least an hour.  Trim the asparagus then cut into thirds.  Heat olive oil in a skillet and add the asparagus and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Once the asparagus has cooked for 1 - 2 minutes add the beef to the skillet.  Cook until the meat is almost done.  This should be timed to be around the same time the fettuccine is done.  The pasta water that transfers with the fettuccine will combine with the miso paste to make a nice sauce to coat the noodles.  Serve and enjoy.  This will make 4 good size servings.

Mushroom Fettuccine with Miso Steak and Asparagus

This is a mighty tasty meal that reheats well if you have leftovers.  This would also work well with pork or chicken.  Give these out of the ordinary ingredients a try.  Let me know what you think.


Uncle T

Shrimp Alfredo with Cottage Cheese

There is a dairy that still delivers that we were introduced to shortly after we moved to this area.  A representative had a booth set up at a farmer's market in one of the local cities.  Of course she had samples and was signing people up for delivery.  I tried the whole milk and the chocolate milk and was blown away.  The whole milk was the best tasting milk and closest to raw milk I've come across.  As a result, we have a standing order consisting of whole milk, 2% milk, 1% and 4% cottage cheese, and eggs that get delivered each week.  If you live in an area where Oberweis delivers you are lucky and should look into getting your milk through them.


I used to take the 4% cottage cheese to work and eat it throughout the week.  Due to a couple of office moves I'm not eating near as much as I used to.  Since I had forgotten to cancel the 4% cottage cheese from the order for a few weeks we ended up with way too much 4% cottage cheese on hand.  One evening the good wife declared that I need to eat more cottage cheese or find a way to cook with it.


I looked online for cooking with cottage cheese and found some bread recipes that I'm wanting to try.  I had thought about using it for a pasta sauce and had it planned out when I decided to Google cottage cheese pasta sauce.  I found plenty of recipes for making an Alfredo type sauce using cottage cheese but they all called for low fat cottage cheese and either 1% or 2% milk.  You know Uncle T doesn't play that way.  In the end, I went with the plan I already had and it turned out great if I do say so myself.


Shrimp Alfredo


1 - 1.5 lb peeled deveined shrimp, large 31-35
1 recipe fresh pasta or 1 lb dried fettuccini
1 cup whole milk
16 oz 4% cottage cheese
3 Tbs butter
3 large cloves garlic, sliced
3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 Tbs olive oil
salt
pepper
nutmeg
garlic powder


Sauce


Melt butter in a pot and add the garlic.  Cook until the edges of the garlic turn golden.  Add the milk and bring to a simmer.  Add the cottage cheese and stir to mix well.  Bring to a simmer and add the parmesan cheese and stir to combine.  To help speed the melting of the cheese use an immersion blender to break up the cottage cheese.  Season with a pinch of nutmeg, a pinch of pepper, and a pinch of salt and stir.  Once the cheeses are melted keep the sauce on low heat until everything else is ready.


Fettuccini


If making fresh pasta, cut the noodles and cook in heavily salted water.  Prepare dried fettuccini according to the manufacturer's instructions.  Time the pasta to be almost done at the same time the shrimp are almost done.


Shrimp


Remove the tails from the shrimp and season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder before you start the sauce.  Once the sauce is done, heat a large skillet and add the olive oil.  Once the olive oil is hot add the shrimp.  When the shrimp are half done, turn them over to finish cooking.


Once the shrimp have been turned over remove the fettuccini from the pot and add to the skillet.  Don't worry about any extra pasta water that gets in the skillet.  Pour in half the sauce and stir to combine.  Keep adding sauce a little at a time until all the pasta and shrimp have a light coat of sauce.  I had about 1/3 of the sauce left.  Once all the components are mixed it is time to eat.  Serve and enjoy.  Makes 4 servings.

Shrimp Alfredo made with Cottage Cheese

I had sauce left over because we don't like to have the shrimp and pasta swimming in pool of sauce.  If you like lots of sauce then add it all.  My left over sauce will be used in a potato soup so be on the look out for that in the future.


I used my immersion blender to help things along but it is not necessary.  The cottage cheese and parmesan cheese will melt while you stir but will take longer.  If you want to speed things up and don't have an immersion blender carefully pour the sauce into a regular blender to reduce the size of the curds then return the sauce to the pot.


Do be sure to use good parmesan cheese for this.  If you use pre-grated cheese make sure it is a good quality parmesan.  If it is sitting out on the store shelves don't get it, look in the dairy cooler.  Of course grating a wedge of parmesan would yield the best sauce.  I use a good quality grated parmesan that I find in the dairy cooler.


This is a rich creamy sauce that is still lighter than a traditionally made Alfredo sauce made with heavy cream.  If you want to try it with low fat milk and 1% cottage cheese go ahead but I'll not guarantee the results.


Give this a try and let me know what you think.  I do believe you'll enjoy it.


Uncle T

What to do with Arugula

What the heck is arugula?  That was my reaction the first time I heard it mentioned.  Arugula was something  I'd never heard of until I was grown.  Of course, as a food inspector I learned about all sorts of vegetables and leafy greens that were unheard of in my small town Southern upbringing.  Even though I knew what it was, we'd never had it unless it was in a salad mix at a restaurant.


Arugula is a green that has been popular in France and Italy for a long time.  It has a peppery or mustard like flavor that adds a spicy kick when used in a salad.  It is also a good low calorie source of several vitamins, vitamin K in particular.  Most of the recipes I've found for arugula have been for salads but there are a few for cooking them.  I found one for a white bean and arugula soup that I'm anxious to try.


We had our first hard cold snap of the winter earlier this week.  I went out to cover the more susceptible of the Fall garden plants and ran short of coverings.  Three hills of arugula and two of kohlrabi couldn't be covered so they got harvested.  We have lots of arugula because when we found the sets at a nursery they were rather small and spindly so I got 2 of the 4 packs.  Well, with the wet warm Fall we've had they exploded.  Now that I had 3 hills worth of arugula in the refrigerator, what was I going to do with them?  After all, the good wife and I can't eat that much salad.


I decided to use part of them in a pasta dish to take advantage of their sharp peppery flavor.  I also wanted the arugula to just be wilted rather than cooked to maintain some texture and more of the nutrients and flavor.  To that end I decided on fettuccini and arugula with mushrooms and pancetta.


Now, if you've looked around here much, you know I cure my own pancetta and make most of my own pasta.  While I encourage you to try your hand at them both, if you get good quality products from the store they'll work just as well.  Of the 4 primary ingredients, I grew or made 3 of them.  Alas, I still haven't taken to growing my own mushrooms.


Fettuccini with Arugula


1 lb fettuccine
4 oz thick cut pancetta, diced
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
4 cups arugula, cut/torn to bite size pieces
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbs butter
salt
pepper


Fry pancetta in a skillet.  Remove the pancetta and add the mushrooms to the skillet with the pancetta grease.  Cook until lightly browned and add the garlic.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Remove from heat.  Cook fettuccini in a pot of boiling well salted water.  Once the fettuccini is nearly done, add the pancetta back to the skillet and bring up the heat.  When fettuccini is almost al dente, pull it from the water and place in the skillet with the pancetta and mushrooms.  Turn to combine the components.  Melt the butter in the skillet and add a couple of ladles of the pasta water, about 1 cup.  Stir the skillet contents until the butter and pasta water form a sauce that covers everything.  Add the arugula to the skillet and turn the contents with tongs to evenly distribute the arugula and wilt the leaves.  Remove from heat and serve.




Fettuccini with Arugula

We topped the dish with a bit of grated parmesan cheese.  I didn't make any, but this would be good with some hot crusty bread with butter or olive oil


The only real new thing I did with this dish is add the arugula.  Part of the reason I made this is so we could more accurately judge the affect of the arugula.  We were quite pleased with it.  The good wife did say she would have liked a bit more arugula in hers.  Next time I'll use 5 - 6 cups of arugula and just add it to the pasta in batches.


If you've not tried arugula or have only had it in salads, give this dish a try.  It's simple and quick and an easy way to feed 4 people.  Give this a try and let me know what you think.


Uncle T

Red Wine Pasta

It seems this is a pretty big thing.  My good wife and son were talking about it this past weekend because his beloved had liked a recipe.  I had missed that somehow and got them to tell me about it.  After that it was up to Google and I found lots of recipes.  I also got our son to send me the link to the recipe his beloved had found.  In the end, I combined bits of other recipes and added my own twist to come up with a great supper.


Most of the recipes I found involve nothing more than the pasta, typically spaghetti, along with red wine, shallots, and garlic.  They also tended to be intended for side dishes.  I came across a couple that added nuts and/or Feta cheese or goat cheese.  I found one where they added pancetta to the mix.  The one with pancetta said it could be eaten by itself or used as a side dish.


If I was going to have the big pot for the pasta and the big skillet on the stove I didn't want to have to make something else to go along with the pasta.  So what does Uncle T do, he adds more stuff.  For my version you include pancetta, mushrooms, and asparagus.

A skillet full of goodness

A couple of things to note, you can use either a box of pasta or a recipe of fresh pasta for this.  I used fresh fettuccini using the recipe in this post, Pasta Recipe.  The second thing, use a wine you'd like to drink.  After all, you'll have some left over and there is no need to let it go to waste.  Most of the recipes I found called for a Zinfandel or a Cabernet Sauvignon.  I used an Australian Merlot.


So without further ado, here it is.


Red Wine Pasta


1 lb spaghetti or fettuccini, boxed or fresh
4 oz thick cut pancetta, diced
1 shallot, minced
4 - 6 cloves garlic, minced
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
1 lb asparagus, cut in bite size pieces
1 bottle red wine
2 Tbs butter
olive oil
salt
pepper
Italian seasoning


Heat skillet over medium/medium high heat and add diced pancetta.  Cook until slightly crispy and remove from skillet.   Put the shallot and garlic in the skillet with the grease rendered from the pancetta.  Cook until the shallot is translucent then add the asparagus.  Stir the asparagus and cook until slightly under done and remove from skillet.  If there is not enough of the pancetta grease left add a bit of olive oil and dump in the mushrooms.  Add salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning to taste.  Cook the mushrooms till they are lightly brown on the bottom then turn and brown the other side.  Add the pancetta and asparagus with the shallot and garlic back to the skillet.  Pour in 1/3 of the bottle of wine.  Bring to a simmer.  Time cooking your pasta so it is almost done at the same time you add the wine to the skillet.  When the wine is at a simmer, remove the pasta from the pot and put into the skillet.  Once all the pasta is in the skillet start turning it to get it all in the wine.  Add the butter to help thicken the sauce.  Once the wine has been cooked into the pasta and the pasta is al dente it is done.  Plate and top with cheese.  Eat and enjoy.

Red Wine Pasta plated up and ready for cheese

This would go well with some good Parmesan or Pecorino Romano cheese.  I didn't have any of those on hand so I used a blend that contains Parmesan, Asiago,

Red Wine Pasta with cheese

This dish or a variant of it will definitely become part of the rotation.  It is too quick and tasty for it to not be.  If you can't find thick pancetta you could dice some slab bacon and come close to the same effect.  If you are in the mood for pasta with a twist give this a try.  If you do, let me know what you think.


Uncle T