Monday, February 27, 2012

Pioneer Woman Cooks…And So Do I!

I love Pioneer Woman’s blog, and I think her recipes are great.  I love how she takes pictures as she cooks, because I am a visual learner.  It helps me when I can see what is “supposed” to happen :).  Many of her recipes are too involved for me, or for our household. I like quick, easy, simple meals. 

I saw this recipe on her blog months ago, and have never tried it.  It sounded really easy, and looked delicious.  Tonight I finally tried it, and it was fantastic.  It is called Pasta In Tomato Cream Sauce.  The flavor was so good, and it was great just paired with a side of whole green beans.  This is what it looked like plated (don’t I sound cook-smart? :)

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I shall present this recipe to you as Pioneer Woman does.  First we have our “cast of characters.”

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2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter (sorry it didn’t make the picture :)
1 medium onion finely chopped
4 garlic cloves minced (I used my Tupperware chopper…love that thing!)
1/4 teaspoon salt ( I used sea salt)
1/4 teaspoon  black pepper 
2 15 ounce cans tomato sauce
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 dash of sugar (to cut down on the acidity from the tomatoes)
1 pound fettuccine noodles
1/4 teaspoon chopped basil (I just used dried basil, and it was fine)

Start by cooking your noodles and set aside ( I did this about halfway through the sauce prep so that the noodles would not finish cooking too soon).  Reserve one cup of pasta water to thin sauce at the end if needed.  In a heated skillet melt 2 tablespoons of butter, and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add onions and garlic and saute for about a minute.  Add tomato sauce, salt, pepper, and sugar to taste.  Reduce heat to low and let simmer for 25-30 minutes stirring occasionally. (About 15 minutes into this process is when I tossed my noodles in to cook)

This is what my sauce looked like at this stage… It tasted HEAVENLY. I could have stopped there, and it would have been great. But we move on…

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Remove sauce from heat.  Add heavy cream, and cheese (to taste…you might not need the whole 1/2 cup cheese.  I love it, so I added the whole ding dang thing :) If the sauce needs to be thinned a bit, this is where you would do that by adding a bit of that pasta water you reserved.

Mix the pasta with the sauce, sprinkle the basil on top, and voila! You have dinner!

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I’m not kidding when I say the flavor in this dish was SO DELICIOUS.  You could taste the garlic so well, and the combination of the tomato sauce, cream, and parmesan cheese was wonderful.  I would DEFINITELY make this again.  It took me around 45 minutes to prepare this, including the time the sauce had to simmer, and the noodles cooked.  Yum, yum, yum!

Since we are a diabetic household, I must add this.  You can make this recipe just as good, and just as yummy if you use the fat-free or low-fat version of every ingredient I listed (or most of them anyway).  I didn’t tonight, but I have used them and it would be fine.  I cooked it the way Pioneer Woman does, and just had a very small portion.  It was very filling, and SO SO SO yummy :)

As I said earlier, I served mine with a side of whole green beans, and I had a dish of parmesan cheese in case anyone wanted that on top.  It really didn’t need it. :) Try it, you’ll LOVE it!

2 comments:

Kelly said...

Oh boo, this looks SO good! But I can't have dairy right now....

I'll have to bookmark it for later.

Deeds said...

This looks delicious Kath! I missed this one on her blog. I love to read it too and have it in my google reader so I dont' miss it! LOL!

You have posted this beautifully - very PW! :)