Crazy Cooking Challenge: Chickpea "Meat"balls and Marinara

It’s time once again for the Crazy Cooking Challenge!  In this challenge, all the participants make and blog about the same dish each month.  Each blogger is to scour other blogs for a unique version of whatever that month’s dish is.  The goal is to highlight and promote personal food blogs. This month’s assigned dish was spaghetti and red sauce.  So we were to find a unique spaghetti recipe, make it, and blog about it.

This challenge gave me an opportunity to try something I had been wanting to for a while now.  I saw a recipe for Lentil Spaghetti Sauce and put it on my “must make” list.  We are not vegetarian, but try to eat meatless one night a week.  I get bored easily, so I’m always on the lookout for interesting and different meatless main dishes.  I made Lentil Tacos once, and my meat-loving husband raved about them, saying he loved them just as much, if not more, than their ground beef counterpart.  So I figured the lentil spaghetti sauce would be just as successful.  I was going to make that for this challenge, but then I was sidetracked by another recipe in the same category (actually on the same board in my Pinterest account).  Similar idea, but with meatless meatballs instead of a meaty sauce. The balls are made of chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans), and are like an Italian version of falafel.  My husband loves falafel, so I was sure it was going to be a hit.  The original recipe is from Budget Bytes.  Here’s my version.

Chickpea “Meat”balls and Marinara

Ingredients:
2 (15 oz.) cans chickpeas, drained
1 shallot, minced
2 cloves garlic, grated
½ tsp dried basil
½ tsp dried oregano
½ tsp salt
1 large egg
¼ cup bread crumbs
¼ cup olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 (6 oz.) cans tomato paste
2 (15 oz.) cans diced tomatoes
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp brown sugar
1½ cups water
1 tsp salt, or to taste
6 servings hot cooked spaghetti
Fresh basil, for garnish

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°.

Place chickpeas in a food processor. Pulse until it forms a rough paste.  Transfer to a bowl and addso add the shallot, garlic, basil, oregano, salt, egg, bread crumbs, and 2 tbsp olive oil. Mix until thoroughly combined.  Measure out one tablespoon portions and roll them into a ball. Continue until all of the mixture has been made into balls.

Place balls on a baking sheet.  Place in oven and bake about 20 minutes or until cooked through.

Meanwhile, heat remaining 2 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet.  Add the chopped onion and cook until the onions have softened.  Add the tomato paste, diced tomatoes, basil, oregano, brown sugar, and water. Stir the mixture until it is thoroughly combined. Allow the mixture to simmer for about 5-10 minutes. Taste and add salt as needed.

Serve the chickpea balls over spaghetti with the sauce spooned over top. Garnish with fresh basil, if desired.

Makes 6 servings, 6 chickpea balls each.

I changed a few things.  First, I changed up the ingredients in the balls a little bit.  I swapped out fresh parsley for dried basil and oregano.  We’re not parsley fans.  I also omitted the Parmesan because my daughter is allergic to dairy.  I also added olive oil and decreased the bread crumbs because they seemed a little dry.  Secondly, I baked the balls instead of pan frying them.  I ALWAYS bake meatballs.  It’s so much easier and they actually turn out round!  When I have tried them on the stovetop in the past, they either fall apart on me or get all funky-shaped.  I bake my balls on stoneware and they come out perfectly every time.  

I got a little impatient rolling out the balls, so they got increasingly larger as I went.  If you use the tablespoon to measure them out, you will probably get 36.

The only other major thing I changed was that I doubled the sauce recipe.  I didn’t when I made them, but we found that there wasn’t enough sauce.  I actually busted out a jar from the pantry to get us through!  So I would definitely make more sauce.

Other than the sauce issue, my family really liked this dish.  It’s a great addition to my meatless main rotation.  And it’s great for families on a budget, as each can of chickpeas cost 84 cents, while a pound of ground beef is going for about $3.99 these days.

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Spaghetti with Bacon Meatballs

After doing Thanksgiving-y dishes all last week, it’s kind of nice blogging about something completely different.  Unless you are Italian, spaghetti would be the last thing on your Thanksgiving table.  I saw this recipe in Real Simple and couldn’t wait to try it.  Bacon in meatballs?  Awesome.

Spaghetti With Bacon Meatballs


Ingredients:
¼ cup onion, chopped
3 slices bacon, very coarsely chopped
1 clove garlic
1 lb. ground beef
½ cup grated Parmesan (2 oz.), plus more for garnish
3 tbsp bread crumbs
1 egg
½ tsp salt
12 oz. spaghetti 
3 cups marinara sauce


Directions
Preheat oven to 400°. Bring a large pot of water to a boil for the pasta. 


In a food processor, combine the onion, bacon, and garlic; pulse until finely chopped, 10 to 15 times. Transfer to a medium bowl, add the beef, Parmesan, bread crumbs, egg, and salt; mix gently to combine.


Form the beef mixture into 16 meatballs (about 2 tbsp each) and place on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until cooked through, about 20-25 minutes.


Cook the pasta according to the package directions.


Heat the marinara sauce in a large skillet over medium heat, 2 to 3 minutes; add the meatballs and toss gently to coat. Serve over the pasta and sprinkle with the shaved Parmesan.


Makes 4 servings.

So I wasn’t really sure how these were going to turn out.  Honestly, I thought the bacon wouldn’t be that noticeable wrapped up in all that beef.  But I was wrong.  The bacon gives a nice smokiness to the meatballs. The texture isn’t that noticeable, but the flavor definitely is.

I didn’t use a food processor; I just chopped up my onions very finely and grated my garlic and mixed everything together by hand.  That works just fine.

These were a huge hit with my family.  It’s a nice change from the usual.  I wouldn’t make them every time we have spaghetti (I usually use ground beef instead of meatballs), but I will definitely make them again every once in a while for a change of pace.

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Shared at:

• Totally Tasty Tuesday at Mandy’s Recipe Box
• Tastetastic Thursday at A Little Nosh

Slow Cooker Italian Chicken and Vermicelli

This is a super easy slow cooker dish that I just kind of made up one day.  If you are a food snob, please turn away now, because this recipe involves throwing chicken into a slow cooker and dumping a bottle of sauce on it.  Not fancy by any means, but it’s a quick and easy way to get dinner on the table on a busy weeknight and it tastes really good too.

Slow Cooker Italian Chicken with Vermicelli

Ingredients:

4-6 pieces of chicken (drumsticks or breasts)

½ bottle of Tuscan Sun-Dried Tomato Marinade

¼ cup plus 2 tbsp parmesan, divided

4 servings vermicelli

1 tsp cornstarch

Directions:

Place chicken in slow cooker.  Cover with marinade and 2 tbsp parmesan. Turn to coat. Cook on low for 4-6 hours (bone-in will take longer than boneless).

When chicken is done, remove from slow cooker and set aside.

Cook vermicelli according to package directions.

Pour cooking liquid out of slow cooker into a small saucepan.  Combine cornstarch with cold water and add to liquid. Bring to a boil until thickened. Add ¼ cup parmesan.

Drain pasta and toss with sauce.  Serve chicken on top.

Makes 4 servings.

In the past I have avoided pairing chicken with spaghetti.  It seemed like it just didn’t “go”.  Spaghetti should be eaten with beef, if any meat at all.  But one day I didn’t have anything planned for supper for some reason, so I put some chicken in the slow cooker and then raided the fridge to see what kind of sauce I could put on it.  We were out of barbecue sauce, but this half a bottle of marinade caught my eye, so I thought, “Why not?”.  It’s really tasty and when you thicken the cooking liquid with cornstarch, it makes a lovely light pasta sauce.  

I think the first time I made this I used drumsticks, but the second time I used breasts.  They both work well.  

I was surprised at how much I liked this.  I learned that chicken does go with spaghetti!  My family really likes it too, so it’s one of my go-to easy slow cooker meals.

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Lemon Garlic Vegetable Lasagna

Last week was totally crazy.  There was a death in our congregation, a death in our family, the computer at church crashed, got a new one and it’s not compatible with the printer, and to cap it all off, on Sunday morning at 2:30 am we awoke to find a bat trapped in our bedroom.  Yep, it was one of those weeks!  

I didn’t do a lot of cooking last week, but I did manage to try out this new meatless main dish over the weekend.  It’s a veggie lasagna packed with onion, garlic, carrot, zucchini, yellow squash, mushroom, and spinach!  That’s a lot of veggies for one dish!  And they’re packed into layers of tender lasagna noodles with a creamy lemon garlic sauce and lots of mozzarella cheese.  Yum!  This is an adaptation of a recipe I saw on Kokocooks.

Lemon Garlic Vegetable Lasagna

Ingredients:

¼ cup butter

5 cloves garlic, grated

¼ cup flour

4 cups milk

⅔ cup fresh Parmesan, grated

Zest of 1 lemon

Salt and Pepper

3 tbsp olive oil

½ large onion, diced

½ cup matchstick carrots

1 zucchini, diced

1 yellow squash, diced

1 cup mushrooms, sliced

4 cups baby spinach

9 no-boil lasagna noodles

3 cups shredded mozzarella

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°.

For the sauce: Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute garlic in melted butter for 1 minute, stirring frequently to keep garlic from burning. Stir in the flour with a whisk and cook for another minute. Whisk in the milk, stirring vigorously to prevent lumps. Heat sauce until bubbling and thickened. Reduce heat to low, add Parmesan and lemon zest. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and set aside.

For the vegetable filling: Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and carrot and cook until soft. Add zucchini, squash, and mushrooms. Sauté another 5 minutes. Add spinach and cook until wilted. Remove from heat and set aside.

To assemble the lasagna:Pour a little sauce in the bottom of a 9×13” deep dish baking pan. (Alternately, I use two 5x7x2” baking dishes and freeze one for later.) Spread sauce so the entire bottom is covered with a thin layer. Place 3 noodles on top of the sauce. Layer some of the vegetable filling, more sauce, then some mozzarella. Place another layer of 3 noodles on top. Layer vegetable filling, sauce, and mozzarella. For the final layer, use 3 noodles, sauce, and mozzarella. 

Bake 20-30 minutes, or until cheese is browned and bubbly. Remove from oven and let sit for 20 minutes. 

Makes 8 servings.

Let me tell you, this tastes as good as it sounds.  The lemon garlic sauce is so creamy and has just the right combination of lemon and garlic.  I didn’t tell my husband about the sauce before we ate (I just called the dish “veggie lasagna”), so I wasn’t sure he would even notice the lemon.  But after the first bite, he said, “I really like the little hint of lemon in here.”  Awesome.

The original recipe called for additional layers of ricotta cheese, but I don’t like ricotta, and it seemed like there was enough going on already that I just left it out without substituting anything.  As I made it, it didn’t seem like it was missing anything at all.

The original recipe also called for half parmesan, half pecorino in the sauce, but I simplified it by using all parmesan.  It also called for traditional lasagna noodles, but I much prefer the no-boil kind.  Not only does it completely eliminate a step (and the space that step takes up on your stovetop), but I really like the consistency of them better than traditional.  When they cook up, they are thinner and more delicate than the traditional ones.  I really like that.  I think the traditional ones are thick and kind of cumbersome.  The no-boils don’t have the ruffly edges, but they kind of get over-all wavy instead (as you can see in the pic above).  If you haven’t tried them yet, I highly recommend you do.  You can use them in any recipe that calls for the traditional.

If you can’t find matchstick carrots, peel and shred two carrots instead.  I usually have matchsticks on hand, so it’s just easier for me.

 Fresh out of the oven.  You can see it’s still bubbling around the edges.  Yum!

We couldn’t wait the full 20 minutes before cutting into it, so our servings were a little sloppy.  No one seemed to mind!

This was really good, but I would definitely consider it a weekend meal, as opposed to a weeknight meal.  Any recipe that has multiple steps and requires multiple pots and pans on the stovetop is a weekend meal in my book.  But it was well worth the work!

This recipe was linked up at Jane Deere‘s Fusion Fridays. And at Church Supper #7 at Everyday Mom’s Meals.

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Spaghetti Pie

This is a recipe I have been making for about 10 years now.  I started with a recipe I saw in Cooking Light magazine, but I have changed little bits about almost every time I make it.  I think I am finally done making changes and have settled on a recipe.

Spaghetti Pie


Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
¼ large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. lean ground beef
15 oz. tomato sauce
1 tbsp Italian seasoning (Tuscan Sunset)
1½ cups  low-fat sour cream
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
½ cup green onions, sliced
6 oz. spaghetti (I use vermicelli)
Cooking spray
1½ cups cheddar cheese, shredded


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°.


Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat.  Add onions and garlic and saute until onions begin to soften.  Add ground beef and cook until browned, stirring to crumble. Drain well, and return meat to pan. Stir in tomato sauce and Italian seasoning. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, and simmer for 10 minutes. 


Meanwhile, boil spaghetti according to package directions.  Combine the sour cream, cream cheese, and green onions in a medium bowl and set aside. 


Place the spaghetti noodles in a 2-quart casserole dish coated with cooking spray. Spread the sour cream mixture over spaghetti noodles. Top with meat mixture. Cover and bake for 25 minutes. Uncover, sprinkle with cheese, and bake an additional 5 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly.


Makes 8 servings.

Here are a few pics of the layering process:

 First layer: cooked spaghetti.  I decreased the amount of spaghetti from the original recipe because I couldn’t fit it all in the pan.  And it just seemed too dense.

 Second layer: sour cream/cream cheese/green onion mixture.  This is what separates this dish from regular spaghetti.

 Third layer: meat sauce.  

 Fourth layer:  shredded cheese.  The recipe calls for cheddar, but you can use whatever you have on hand.  Here I used a cheddar/Monterey Jack blend.

 Fresh out of the oven.  Gotta love all the melty cheesy goodness.

You won’t be able to cut squares (like the first pic above) out of it when it’s hot out of the oven.  When it’s hot, you just have to dish it out with a large spoon and pile it up on your plate.  After the leftovers have been refrigerated, you can cut neat little squares out of it and warm them up.

Edit 03.15.12:

One of my fellow Crazy Cooking Challenge participants chose to make this recipe as her entry in the spaghetti with red sauce challenge.  And guess what?  She won the challenge by getting the most clicks!  Check it out:

Cheese Curd in Paradise’s Crazy Cooking Challenge: Spaghetti Pie

Congrats, Ashley!

Gnocchi Mac and Cheese

This is adapted from a recipe I saw in a magazine I get, Cuisine at Home. It’s like a baked macaroni and cheese dish, but uses gnocchi instead of the macaroni. Comfort food at its best!

Gnocchi Mac and Cheese

Ingredients:

16-17 oz. gnocchi

2 tbsp butter

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp flour

1¼ cup milk

2 cups Fontina or Monterey Jack cheese, grated

⅔ cup soft bread crumbs

⅓ cup parmesan cheese, grated

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°. Coat a 1½ quart baking dish with cooking spray.

Cook gnocchi according to package directions.

Meanwhile, melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Whisk in flour until it thickens and bubbles, then slowly whisk in milk. Increase heat to high and continue to whisk mixture and cook until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes.

Turn heat down to low and add cheeses, ½ cup at a time, stirring until melted before adding the next ½ cup. When cheese is completely melted, remove from heat and add gnocchi.

Pour into prepared baking dish. Combine bread crumbs and parmesan and put on top of gnocchi.

Bake until cheese is golden and bubbly, about 25 minutes. Let it rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Makes 4 servings.

This is so good. Not something I would make every week, but like I said, comfort food.

I did make a few changes from the original recipe. It called for a total of ½ cup of cheese. ½ cup? For 4 servings? That would mean that each serving would have only 2 tbsp of cheese. I would expect a dish that has “cheese” in the TITLE to have a bit more than that! I was really surprised the first time I made it and it only had that much cheese. I also increased the sauce because it didn’t even make enough to cover the gnocchi.

The other thing I changed was adding the soft breadcrumbs to the topping. The original recipe called for just Parmesan cheese. But I always like a breadcrumb topping on traditional mac and cheese, so I thought it would be good on this. And it is.

The last time I made this I used whole grain gnocchi and that was just fine. Gnocchi comes in many different varieties, and any of them would be good in here.

The gnocchi are dark colored because they are whole grain.

Baked Pork Chops with Swiss Chard

I’m not posting a picture of the finished dish because well, it wasn’t pretty. It tasted good, it just did not look appealing. I know how to make it look better, so I will do that the next time I make it and post a picture of it then.

This is a recipe from one of my cookbooks, Food & Wine Magazine’s Quick From Scratch Italian Cookbook. I have several cookbooks on my shelf, but rarely do I make recipes from them. I have decided to include at least one new recipe from a cookbook each month when I do my meal planning. This is the one for August. I changed it just slightly, to fix the aforementioned ugly problem, and this is how I will make it next time.

Baked Pork Chops with Swiss Chard

Ingredients:

1 lb. Swiss chard, stems removed, leaves washed and cut into 1” pieces

2 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

1½ tbsp grated parmesan

2 oz. fontina cheese, grated

4 pork chops

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450°. In a large bowl, toss the Swiss chard with 1 tbsp of the oil, ¼ tsp of the salt and ¼ tsp of the pepper. Place chard in a 9×13” baking dish. Sprinkle the parmesan and fontina over the chard.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Season pork chops with ¼ tsp salt and pepper. Brown pork chops on both sides. Place pork chops on top of chard in baking dish.

Bake until the pork chops are just done, about 10-15 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Makes 4 servings.

The reason it turned out so ugly is because the original recipe did not call for browning the pork chops before adding them to the baking dish. You were just supposed to put the raw pork chops right on the chard. I thought it was kind of weird, but I did it anyway. It came out tasting just fine, and they cooked through completely in the time indicated (18 mins.), but the pork chops were really pale and not appetizing to look at. I was afraid that if I posted the picture of them, no one would want to make it! Which would be a shame, because it really was a tasty dish.

I had never had Swiss chard before and this was an easy recipe to try it out with. I got the red chard; apparently you can buy green too. The chard does lose a lot of water during cooking, so if you buy the red, don’t be alarmed by the pinkish liquid in the bottom of the baking dish. At first I thought it was blood from the pork chops, but soon realized that it was from the chard. I really liked it. I would say that if you like spinach, you will probably like Swiss chard. The chard cooks way down, like spinach does when you cook it. Here is a pic of it when I first put it in the baking dish:

Pretty! I was astonished when I pulled it out of the oven. I was like, “Where did it all go?” It cooks down until there’s just enough to make a nice little bed for each pork chop to sit on.

I didn’t have fontina on hand (forgot to put it on my list), so I just added a bit more of the parmesan than called for. Probably wasn’t the best idea, as it turned out a bit on the salty side. Next time I will get the fontina and try it that way.

So check back to this post in a month or two and hopefully you will see a pretty picture of a pork chop sitting on some brightly colored Swiss chard!

Gnocchi Alfredo

This is another Taste of Home recipe I tried last night. I had a little trouble with it; mostly because I read it wrong. (That’s why it doesn’t look so hot in the picture.) It can be made as a side dish, or as a main dish with the addition of cooked chicken. I found the serving size to be off, so here is my amended recipe.

Gnocchi Alfredo

Ingredients:

1 lb. gnocchi, frozen, refrigerated, or boxed

3 tbsp butter, divided

1 tbsp flour

¾ cup milk

¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Dash ground nutmeg

4 oz. baby portobello mushrooms, sliced

2 cups chicken breast, cooked and cubed, optional

Directions:

Cook gnocchi according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt 1 tbsp butter. Stir in flour until smooth; gradually add milk. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened. Remove from the heat; stir in cheese and nutmeg until blended. Keep warm.

Drain gnocchi. In a large skillet, cook remaining butter over medium heat for 5-7 minutes or until golden brown. Add mushrooms, gnocchi, and chicken. Cook and stir 4-5 minutes or until gnocchi are lightly browned and mushrooms are tender. Serve with sauce.

Makes 4 servings.

Nutrition Facts (excluding chicken)

Serving Size: 1 cup gnocchi with ⅓ cup sauce

Calories: 529

Fat: 14g

Sat. Fat: 8g

Cholesterol: 46mg

Sodium: 996mg

Carbohydrates: 81g

Fiber: 5g

Protein: 19g

Taste of Home, August/September 2009

So where I went wrong was with the sauce. Every bechamel sauce I have ever made called for a one-to-one ratio of butter to flour. So I didn’t notice that this one called for 1 tbsp butter and 1½ tbsp flour. I made it with 1 tbsp of each. Which would have been fine, except that the recipe originally calls for 1½ cups of milk. That is not enough flour for that much liquid and it didn’t thicken up for me. I melted another tbsp of butter and mixed it with another tbsp of flour and added that to the saucepan and then it thickened up for me.

So the other issue I had with this recipe was the serving size. It originally called for 2 lbs. of gnocchi and 8 oz. mushrooms. It said that it made 5 servings, but I thought that 2 lbs. of gnocchi for 5 servings seemed like a lot. I decided to cut it in half, using only 1 lb. of gnocchi. That was fine, the problem was that I didn’t halve the sauce. I realized this after it was done and I set it aside to cook the mushrooms. I decided I would just use half of it, and save the other half in the fridge for some other application. Again, that would have been fine, except that by the time I added the sauce, I had forgotten and accidentally added it all. Oops! It was way too much sauce and looked gloopy and yucky. It tasted okay, but did not look pretty enough for a picture. I had taken some of the gnocchi out of the pan before adding the sauce because my daughter is somewhat lactose intolerant and can’t have much dairy in the evening. I added a teeny tiny bit of the sauce to her serving (not enough to bother her), and took the picture with that.

So I can’t say that dinner last night was a success, but I will be trying this recipe again, using the right ratio of sauce to gnocchi! I did like how the gnocchi and mushrooms were sauteed in browned butter; I snuck one of the gnocchi out of the pan before adding the sauce, and it was delicious. Too bad I then drowned it in alfredo sauce!

So that the picture does not turn you off completely from trying this recipe, here is what it was supposed to look like:

Mushroom Ravioli with Smoked Gouda Sauce

This is a copy-cat recipe. It is supposed to be like Olive Garden’s Ravioli di Portobello, my favorite dish of theirs. I got it from one of those copycat recipe sites, Flora’s Hideout. But you can find the same recipe on a large number of websites. It gives you the recipe for making your own mushroom ravioli, but I am not that ambitious. I bought refrigerated ravioli and just made the sauce. Here’s the recipe for doing it that way.

Mushroom Ravioli with Smoked Gouda Sauce

Ingredients:

¼ cup butter

¼ cup flour

2 cups milk

8 oz. smoked gouda, shredded

3 sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped

18 oz. fresh mushroom ravioli

2 green onions, chopped

1 tomato, chopped

Directions:

Put a large pot of water on to boil for the ravioli. In a large saucepan, heat butter over medium-low heat until it melts. Whisk in flour and cook for about 3 minutes. Add milk slowly, whisking constantly. Cook another 2 minutes or until sauce is thickened.

Add gouda and sun-dried tomatoes to the sauce. Stir over medium-low heat until cheese is melted.

Meanwhile, boil ravioli according to package directions. Drain.

Pour gouda sauce over warm ravioli. Top with chopped green onion and tomato.

Makes 4 servings.

I didn’t call it Ravioli di Portobello, because it’s not exactly the same as the Olive Garden dish. But it is pretty close. I didn’t have jarred sun-dried tomatoes, so I used some dried ones that I had and rehydrated them. They worked okay, but I think it would be better with jarred ones. I’ll use those next time. I also forgot about the green onion and tomato for toppers (because the copycat recipe didn’t list them on the ingredient list). I did miss those and think it will taste more like the real thing to me if they are on there. The sauce was really thick; I ended up thinning it out a bit.

The refrigerated ravioli I got for this was AWESOME. As you probably know by now, I love filled pastas. I heard about a new Buitoni one a month or so ago. Wild Mushroom Agnolotti. I’ve been wanting to try it ever since. This was the perfect dish to try it in! I loved it. Even though the sauce wasn’t quite the same as Olive Garden’s, the ravioli was as good (if not a little better!). It would be delicious with any kind of sauce under the sun. I definitely have a new favorite kind of filled pasta.

I will certainly be making this dish again. I might tweak the sauce a little bit as I go.

I think my picture looks pretty close to the Olive Garden dish:

Like I said above, I didn’t have the green onion and tomato, so I sprinkled on some dried chives I had in my spice cabinet.

Italian Peas

This one comes from Allrecipes.

Italian Peas

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil or butter

½ onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 lb. frozen green peas

1 tbsp chicken stock

Salt and pepper to taste

Fresh basil, finely chopped

Fresh oregano, finely chopped.

Directions:

Heat olive oil or butter in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in onion and garlic; cook about 5 minutes. Add frozen peas, and stir in stock. Season with salt and pepper. Cover, and cook until the peas are tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and add fresh herbs.

Makes 6 servings.

Nutrition Information (using olive oil instead of butter)

Servings Per Recipe: 6

Calories: 106

Total Fat: 5g

Cholesterol: 0mg

Sodium: 159mg

Total Carbs: 12g

Dietary Fiber: 4g

Protein: 4g

These were pretty good, but I made a couple of changes. The original recipe called for 2 cloves of garlic and I found the end result to be a bit too heavy on the garlic. It’s unusual to hear me say that, because I love garlic, but it was just too much in this dish. So I would only add one next time. I also cut down on the onion a bit.

The only other thing I changed was the addition of herbs. The original didn’t call for any herbs and when I tasted it, I felt it needed a little something. Onion and garlic alone didn’t make “Italian” enough for me. So I added some dried basil and oregano. It helped, but I think fresh would be better. So I will definitely try that next time.

I served them with Brown Sugar Glazed Salmon and Muffin Tin Potatoes.