Pasta Sarah

A few weeks ago, my creative juices were flowing and I decided to make a pasta dish for dinner. I didn't really know what I wanted to make, so I just grabbed some ingredients out of the fridge and let the magic happen. 

I had some Italian sausages from Sorgs Quality Meats and Sausages so I chopped them up and decided to pan fry them. browned them and made sure they were cooked through and then removed them from the heat and set them on the side.

 I boiled up some Fettuccine noodles in salted water.

 Then I grabbed some zucchini, gold and red cherry tomatoes and chopped them up.

I put them in a pan with a little EVOO and sauteed them for a few minutes. The spinach wilted really nicely.

Then it was time to put it all together. I chose to cut up the sausage a bit more to 1) make more pieces in the dish and 2) make the pieces more bite size. I received a small tasting of Tomato & Basil cheese from World Market and decided to shred it up and add it to the dish.

I added just a bit of the leftover pasta water to keep it from gluing together and then added some grated Parmesan to complete the dish. In a matter of 10 minutes, this meal was done.

This came together really quickly and smoothly and I think the cheese is what made the meal have such great flavor. I'm sure I won't be able to make this meal taste the same again, but I'm really proud of my creativity. I shall call this Pasta Sarah.

Tortellini with Mushroom Sauce

2014 will be the year that I make homemade pasta, however last night wasn't the night. I'm still getting settled in and I didn't want to destroy the place just yet :) And I had to work with what I had in the house due to the ridiculous weather (-50 windchill, no joke!)

I stumbled across this recipe a few weeks ago on Pinterest and used it as the model for my dinner tonight. I have to say - this recipe is so easy to prepare and can feed a lot of people.

I had a container of white mushrooms and about 3/4 of a container of baby bellas so I threw both in the pan to saute.

After then were done I added some chopped onion to add some flavor. I didn't have actual garlic (and I wouldn't have used 20 cloves like the garlic-loving recipe creator did!) so I improvised with garlic powder. I would estimate that I used about a teaspoon and a half. I would guess minced garlic would work too if you didn't want to chop up your own, just didn't want to go out in the #polarvortex

I had some fresh spinach left over from another meal and decided to wilt some into the meal.

Add in the Parmesan cheese, cream and the mushrooms back in and voila, it's done.

Boiling the tortellini is as easy as boil, dump, stir and drain.

Garnish with a little more Parmesan and enjoy! Perfect for a cold weather day and great flavors.