Suddenly I See

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Summer Herb Pasta

I am back to posting the recipes that I have made for "The Cooking Experiment". I have cooked more than I have posted so I need to catch up.

I made this recipe at the end of October. Maybe it needed to be summer for this to taste good. I don't want to hinder anyone from making it but I just didn't care for it too much. If you like all of the below ingredients than you may like it.



Ingredients

1 lb campanelle or corkscrew pasta
1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/2 tsp freshly grated lemon peel
1/2 cup loosely packed fresh parsley leaves, chopped
1/2 cup loosely packed fresh mint leaves, chopped
1/2 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves, chopped
4 plum tomatoes, chopped

Directions

1. Heat large covered sauce pot of salted water to boiling on high. Cook pasta as label directs.
2. Meanwhile, in bowl, combine ricotta, feta, lemon peel, and 1/4 tsp each salt and freshly ground pepper.
3. Reserve 1/3 cup pasta cooking water. Drain pasta and return to sauce pot. Stir reserved cooking water into ricotta mixture; toss with pasta to coat. Stir in herbs and chopped tomatoes.

So there you have it. If that sounds like something you might like then I would go for it. I guess I am just not a big fan of ricotta when it's not cooked (like in lasagna). It just didn't taste like a whole lot, kind of blah. At this point I should probably add that Rodger and I cooked steak to go with this. Normally the steak that Rodger cooks is great but for some reason he told me to marinade it in baking soda. He thought he had heard that was a good meat tenderizer. After we started eating the steak we realized that he must have been confused. Overall the meal just tasted a little too mushy and I believe that night we went out for some dessert.

I have two more recipes I made to post about before I am caught up. And I have two recipes that I bought ingredients for at the store tonight. I plan on making them both this week. I think this cooking experiment I assigned myself is working out because I am having fun cooking and eating new things and I plan on making one to two new recipes a week. I just have to keep up with posting about them.

Sorry if I didn't make this recipe sound too appealing. Like I said if you like those ingredients you may like this salad. And also if you chilled it for awhile it may taste better.

1 comment:

vickie said...

Might be too many cheeses in one plate... The ricotta and feta seem at odds with one another in this dish. Also, maybe add some EVOO, love that in anything!

And definitely no baking soda!