Rigatoni w/ Vodka Sauce

Happy Valentines Day! 

Nick and I spent Saturday evening preparing Rigatoni with Vodka Sauce for our early Valentines dinner.  After a little angst over the measurements that were NOT on the recipe I decided to use, the chopping was done and the flambé was complete and the sauce was in the pan.  After about an hour of simmering, the heavy cream was added.  YUMMY is all I can say.  Well, I will say one other thing…when you write a recipe, how about putting the quantity and sizes on the recipe.  For instance, this recipe called for “4 Cans of Crushed Tomatoes”…Really?  You can’t give me a can size?  Although it’s not relevant to the complaint, I will say that the recipe I was using was for 4 to 5 pounds of pasta and I was cutting it in half so we would have leftovers (but not too much) for this week.  Regardless, I did not realize that information was missing until I was making my list for the grocery store.  And, I found out that Nick and I have different thoughts on what the size of the can could be.  When I think of a “can of crushed tomatoes” I think of a 14.5 ounce can…a regular size can.  Nick, on the other hand thinks of a 28 ounce can.  This became an issue with me ALL day.  So, we used 2-28 ounce cans (to half the recipe) and the sauce was very good and that’s what counts.

I want to thank Michele Brigante who writes the blog at  http://www.myitaliangrandmother.com/.  She gave me such a quick response on my question concerning the can size.  She has some great recipes and this is only ONE of them.  Check her out.

Vodka Sauce

2 onions, chopped

1 bunch scallions, chopped, (separate light and dark green parts)

5 cloves of garlic, chopped

Extra virgin olive oil

¼ lb Prosciutto di Parma, sliced into strips

1 ¼ cup vodka

2 cans tomato paste

4 – 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes

1 Qt heavy cream

Kosher salt

Black pepper

Directions:

In a large saucepan, sauté onions, garlic and light parts of scallions until soft on medium heat. Add Prosciutto and let cook for about one minute. Add vodka; turn up heat to medium high and cook until alcohol burns out about 4 minutes. Lower heat and add tomato paste and crushed tomatoes; stir. Add green parts of scallions, kosher salt and black pepper. Turn up heat until boiling, then lower heat. Let cook for 1 hour. Add cream; let simmer until starts bubbling and turn off heat.

        

This is enough sauce for about 4-5 lbs of pasta or more.

"One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating." -- Luciano Pavarotti

Birthday Weekend

I had a great weekend!!!  Besides getting another year older the weekend could not have been better.  I'm sure that getting another year older is better than the alternative but a little disturbing too. 

The sun was out Saturday and Sunday with the temperature soaring to 66 and 70 degrees.  Nick and I took Bailey to the park Saturday morning so all of us could enjoy the wonderful weather together.  That evening Nick and I we to a Japanese restaurant for dinner and had a great time.


On Sunday Bailey and I visited my Dad for a while and Nick got some reading done for his classes.  After a painful and irritating trip to the grocery store Nick made his “quick” sauce and we had spaghetti.  It was delicious and the perfect way to end my birthday weekend.  My Mom made me a cake (German Chocolate layer cake with cream cheese icing) and it is wonderful.  I’ll have to get her to share the recipe, it’s the best birthday cake I’ve had!

Another year older and this week started the same as last week…funny how that happens! 

"Everything you see I owe to spaghetti." -- Sophia Loren

Filet and Chicken

Mai Tai

Birthday Spaghetti

Plans and Chicken Parm

Last weekend was more eventful than I had planned.  The plan for Saturday was to hit the grocery store with the other 100,000 people in town to get ready for the snow BUT it was not to be.  I spent from 11 AM until 4 PM helping my wonderful, kind and generous Dad replace the water pump in the Tahoe…UGH!  It was so cold but luckily we pulled the Tahoe in the garage and closed the door and had a heater running the garage.  You know, replacing a water pump is not that fun but I did enjoy spending time with my Dad although I would rather have spent time with him on his boat with a fishing pole in my hand (not with it 25 degrees and windy but you know what I mean).  So, after 2 trips to the parts store, lunch from Burger King and hours of wrestling, scraping and wrangling, the water pump was in and everything was back to some semblance of normal.  No wonder mechanics charge so much…nothing is easy.  Thank goodness Nick got back from his class meeting when he did, that trip to BK helped give us the energy to finish the job.

Sunday evening I made chicken parm with spaghetti.  Nick made his “quick” sauce for it…it was SO good.  As you can see the pieces of chicken are gigantic after pounding them out and frying them.  We have Nick’s “quick” sauce quite often with spaghetti, it was perfect for the chicken parm.  I call it “quick” sauce because it only cooks about an hour not the ‘simmering all day” sauce.

The whole time I’m cooking I’m looking for the snow as I had already planned on NOT being able to work Monday.  Finally at Midnight we had our first flake with almost 8” to follow.  And I couldn’t work Tuesday either…woo hoo!  Bailey LOVES the snow!

Monday I put on a crock pot full of taco soup and it hit the spot with all that snow on the ground.  Those chicken parm leftovers were great on Tuesday too. 

The snow is melting and I’m back to work but at least it’s Friday.  I’m not sure what the menu holds for the weekend…maybe meatloaf and mashed potatoes, we haven’t had that in a long time.  I have a great recipe for meatloaf cooked in the microwave but I may go old school and cook it in the oven…hmmm decisions, decisions.

Eat something good this weekend!!!

WOW what a weekend!!  We had 7" of snow and ice but the power never went off...thank goodness.  I have pics to share of the chicken parm and of the snow but with all the sitting around and playing in the snow I didn't get them from the camera to the computer.  Being back at work with all this snow on the ground stinks but whatcha gonna do?!?

Hope everyone has a great week!