Friday, September 16, 2011

Easy Tomato and Wine Pasta

This recipe is incredibly easy and flexible. You can add or delete items to fit your needs. This recipe is essentially a baked vegetable sauce with wine served over pasta. The base vegetables are tomatoes and capers for a little tang. Below is the recipe I used. Make it with Moonshine alcohol is White wine.

Ingredients:
6 roma tomatoes, quartered
1/2 onion - diced
2 tablespoons capers
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup of white wine, I used Reisling
1 lb pasta with grooves, I used spiral noodles.
1/3 cup grated hard cheese, I used Asiago
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup seasoned Italian bread crumbs. I just used panko and Italian seasoning.
Grilled chicken, pork, beef, or salmon. (optional). I used grilled pork chops.
Olive oil
Fresh herbs for garnish. Basil is perfect in this dish.

Directions:
Preheat an oven to 350 degrees. Oil a baking dish liberally. Toss all ingredients except pasta, cheese, bread crumbs, and meat together. Other veggies you might want o add include artichoke hearts, minced sardines, bell peppers, or squash. You can use just about any kind of vegetables. Add wine to the mixture and sprinkle liberally with bread crumbs so that it creates a nice even layer on top. Drizzle just a bit of olive oil over the top of the bread crumbs and bake for 45 minutes. The bread crumbs will brown and form a nice crunchy texture. The veggies should cook down and sweeten into a little broth. For more broth, add more wine or use chicken broth instead of wine.

If you are serving meat with your pasta, this is the perfect time to grill your the meat. Alternatively, you can also roast or bake (depending on what style like like) the meat in the oven with the veggies in a separate dish. I grilled my pork on the stove with just salt and pepper.

Once the veggies have baked, turn off the oven and leave it while you prepare the pasta. Cook pasta according to the box in salted water. Once drained, toss the cheese with the hot pasta so that the cheese sticks to the pasta. Toss the baked veggies with the pasta. Serve by topping with meat and/or herbs. Enjoy with some wine!
Veggies pre-baked
Just going into the oven.
Pasta and cheese.
Final dish.

Saturday, September 10, 2011