Yep, they are gross and expensive. I do them on occasion, but I don’t cook pasta dishes with them.
ETA: I do Asian rice noodles, but the substitute spaghetti/ziti/etc. doesn’t tend to be very good. So I skip it for the most part. It certainly doesn’t hold up to being the main ingredient in a dish.
There are two recipes I like a lot which I realize are very similar - basically you cook up some vegetables you like. One is summer stuff - red pepper, zucchini, and yellow squash, plus carrot, onion and garlic, sauteed in olive oil. The other is more fallish - butternut squash cubes, dark greens, red onion, sage leaves, and garlic, with a little brown sugar and red pepper flakes, mixed with olive oil and roasted on a preheated pan in the oven.
Then you mix the vegetables with some pasta, and stir in some half & half and parmesan to finish it. Totally delicious, and you only need a couple tablespoons of half & half for the whole recipe, so it’s still quite healthful.
I’m sitting here looking at all the recipes with cream and sour cream and cheese and I’m beginning to understand why in the past I haven’t eaten that much pasta. I loathe sour cream (it tastes… sour. Rotten. Food gone bad) and honestly, even though I like cheese I don’t eat it constantly. Does pasta have to have a heavy, cheesy sauce or is that just the way people are used to eating it?
Of course pasta doesn’t have to have a heavy, cheesy sauce–it can have a tomato sauce instead!
I’m mostly joking–epecially since adding tomatoes doesn’t preclude using cheese–but a little bit not.
Asian-y noodle recipes probably won’t have sour cream or cheese or other dairy.
But mostly, I think a lot of people LIKE heavy cheesy sauces, and it contributes to our being fat and happy.
It doesn’t, but honestly if you are ruling out tomatoes AND dairy, you are really limiting your options. (By the way, the mushroom, one I posted above could be done with cream instead of sour cream, and really, you won’t need much - the mushrooms, onions, etc. produce a fair amount of liquid, and then there’s the sherry.)
Pasta tends to be what I make when I have a bunch of random veggies to use up. My fiance has been making a North African salad that would probably be fabulous on pasta; basically, you just saute the hell out of a bunch of bell peppers in olive oil, until they are brown around the edges (any color will do, or a mixture; we tend to use what’s on sale). Then add some minced garlic, some balsamic vinegar, and some capers. As a salad, it can be eaten cold or warm, but it should be yummy on pasta.
I’m not ruling out dairy, I’m ruling out sour cream, which smells like *spoiled *dairy to me (though I’ll admit a dab can work nicely in some sauces)
You think I could just substitute cream for sour cream and it would be OK?
Cooking can be very frustrating for me as I do have a limited diet due to allergies, maybe that comes through even though I’m trying not to whine about them.
That, and I tend to very much be a 3-4 ingredient tops sort of cook. I really like simple stuff, with the flavor of the ingredients supplying the taste rather than a lot of spices or seasonings. But I still get lots of ideas from these sorts of threads, though by the time I get done with substitutions the result probably doesn’t much resemble the original.
Yes, I think it would be lovely. You were remarking above somewhat negatively, though, about how many pastas are served with cheese, etc., so it soundned like you were trying to limit dairy products, if not eliminate them entirely.
Oh, I feel you - I don’t have any food allergies, but many of the people I tend to cook for either have food allergies/intolerances, or are simply picky eaters. (My sister, for example, refuses to eat any cooked vegetables whatsoever if they aren’t potatoes. And she won’t eat anything remotely spicy, or many things with complex flavors, like Indian food. It makes cooking for family holidays into a real pain in the ass.) So I’m familiar with limitations, even if they aren’t my own.
I haven’t read the whole thread through, but I did a word search for “pumpkin” and “squash” and only found a couple for squash. So anyway… When I lived and worked on a farm in Italy they sometimes dressed their pasta with pumpkin. It not the jack-o-lantern variety, but a gray ribbed version. In any case I think it would work with other varieties of pumpkin and squash.
It wasn’t always done the same way, but at the base they cooked the pumpkin, put it through the blender, and had it with some cooked garlic and salt (maybe also some cider vinegar or something, I can’t remember if that was always done). I believe they also often added capers and parmigiano (or pecorino romano). I didn’t pay really close attention to the the exact ingredients because it seemed like they varied depending on mood. The basic point is that pumpkin (or squash) work very well on pasta with a bit of garlic and parmigiano, it’s nice to have other ingredients, but the base seems to be those three things (plus, as I said above, maybe some type of vinegar to taste).
And it works with a number of pasta types. I remember having it with spaghetti, penne, tagliatelle and strozzapreti (a type of pasta that is like short lengths of tagliatelle twisted around themselves. Hard to explain: Strozzapreti - Wikipedia)
Well, since it looks like Asian noodles dishes are okay, I would pretty much adapt any stir fry and serve it over noodles instead of rice. Should work fine.
A quick and easy one:
1 pound meat, minced (any lean cut of chicken, beef, pork, etc. Shrimp work, too, but don’t mince)
3-4 garlic cloves
2 shallots (if you’ve got 'em. half a red onion minced finely will do, too)
scant 1/4 cup fish sauce
scant 1/4 cup oyster sauce
1 cup basil
hot peppers
Pound shallots, garlic, and hot peppers in a mortar and pestle. Or food processor. Or just mince very finely. Fry in oil for 1 minute until fragrant. Add meat. Fry until almost done. Add fish & oyster sauce to taste (you can use soy, but I’d strongly encourage fish or oyster for flavor). Fry for a couple more minutes. Add basil. Cook for a minute or so until wilted. Serve over noodles. If you want to add a vegetable, diced zucchini and green beans work fine, although feel free to experiment.
If you don’t want to use basil, you can use about a generous inch or two of ginger and pulverize/mince it with the shallots/garlic/peppers. If you really like ginger, you can shred some fresh ginger over the dish as its cooking. I like adding mushrooms to the ginger version of this dish. Another substitute is instead of basil, use a teaspoon or two of orange zest, with beef as your meat, and add in some orange juice when you add the sauce (soy is fine for this version.) I would also add more dried red pepper pods if you can stand the heat.
You can make hundreds of really great Asian noodle dishes so easily. I love all the Thai curries so I always have, green, yellow and red curry paste in the fridge. I use them to make either noodle or rice dishes. It’s very easy and just awesome to eat. I keep fresh ginger, garlic, lemon grass and keefer lime leaves frozen so I always have them when when a craving strikes. Use peanut oil for all your asian stirfry needs. It does not burn at the high temperature you need to use for best results. I will give you a typical Thai noodle dish.
Your favorite veges, stirfried. I stirfry the garlic, ginger, hot peppers, lemon grass or whatever other spice I want right in with the veges.
Stir fry your meat in bite sized pieces. I like shrimp and chicken in this case.
Make your sauce. One can of coconut milk, one can of water, 3 to 4 tbs of curry paste, 2tbs of Nam Pla, {fish sauce} I always use a few oz. of pineapple juice but you can use sugar instead if you want, a couple of spoon fulls.
Thicken the sauce to your own liking with cornstartch.
use what ever kind of noodles you like.
I like lots of beansprouts in it and many people like peanuts or cashews.
I often use tofu in the dish.
it’s easy and you can be very inventive with Asian pastas. After making them a few times you get to know exactly how much of everything to use for your own taste.
SPAGHETTI WITH BROWNED BUTTER AND MIZITHRA CHEESE
Yields: 4 Servings
INGREDIENTS:
• 1 C butter (2 sticks)
• 12 oz Uncooked spaghetti or other pasta
• 1 C shredded Mizithra cheese, divided (see note)
METHOD:
• Cut butter in pieces; place in a 2-quart saucepan with a light-colored interior (to make it easier to gauge the color of the butter as it browns).
• Cook over medium heat until butter comes to a low boil, stirring frequently, about 3 minutes. Cook, stirring constantly to prevent residue from sticking and to prevent foaming butter from overflowing the pan, about 4 minutes or until foam subsides.
• Continue to cook until the liquid develops an amber color, 1 to 2 minutes longer. Butter should have a pleasant caramel aroma. Remove pan from heat.
• Set aside for 3 to 5 minutes to let the sediment settle to the bottom of the pan. Pour the brown butter through a strainer into a small bowl; discard sediment. (The brown butter can be refrigerated and reheated as needed.)
• Cook pasta until al dente; drain and divide into 4 servings.
• Sprinkle Mizithra cheese over each serving; top with the hot brown butter.
BASIL-PARMESAN ANGEL HAIR
INGREDIENTS
• 1 package (16 ounces) angel hair pasta
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 can (12 ounces) fat-free evaporated milk
• 2/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
• 1/4 cup minced fresh basil
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• Additional fresh basil
• 12 lemon slices
PREP 15 min.
COOK 15 min.
TOTAL 30 min.
DIRECTIONS
Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and return to the pan. Add oil; toss to coat. Add the milk, Parmesan cheese, onions, basil, lemon peel, salt, garlic powder and pepper. Cook and stir over medium heat until heated through. Sprinkle with additional basil. Serve with lemon.Yield:12 servings.
SESAME NOODLES
DIRECTIONS
SHRIMP LO MEIN
Yield: 6 Servings
Ingredients:
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup reduced sodium soy sauce
3 T cornstarch
1 T oyster sauce
1/2 tsp ground ginger
12 oz fettuccine
1 tsp dark asian sesame oil
2 T vegetable oil
1 1/2 pounds med shrimp, cleaned
4 scallions, cut into 1 inch pieces
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 pound snap peas
2 sweet red peppers, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 1/2 cups bean sprouts
Directions:
in small bowl whick together 1 cup water, broth, soy, cornstarch, oyster sauce and ginger for the sauce.
cook fettuccine according to pkg instructions. drain. toss with the sesame oil.
Heat wok over high heat. Add 1 T veg oil. Add shrimp and stirfry until pink. 3 minutes. remove with slotted spoon.
Add remaining oil. add scallions, garlic, snap peas and peppers. stirfry 5 minutes. Add sauce. bring to a simmer and cook for 30 seconds.
stir in sprouts, then fettucine and shrimp…mix thoroughly to coat and heat thru, about 1 minute.
Singapore Noodles
One package rice noodles
3 thin cut pork chops, thinly sliced (can sub chicken)
1/2 pound large shrimp,
2 Cloves garlic, crushed
2 Stalks celery, thinly sliced
3 tbsp Vegetable oil
2 tbsp Soy sauce
3 tbsp Curry powder
1/2 Onion, thinly sliced
1/4 Cup water
Soak rice noodles in hot water for 20 minutes or until soft
In a deep skillet, heat oil and stir fry pork and garlic on medium-high heat.
Reduce heat to medium-low and add onion and water.
Cover and steam it for about 5 minutes.
Add celery and shrimp, stir well.
Cover and steam for about two minutes.
Mix soy sauce and curry powder, add to skillet and stir together till blended and cook for 4 to 5 minutes.
Toss with noodles and serve.
This is one of my favorite pastas. Basically, soften some garlic in olive oil. Add soft shell crab and cook for around 15 minutes (on low heat) , cutting up the crab and letting the juices flow. Season with basil, chili flakes, salt, pepper. Serve over pasta. The crab might be a little pricey if it’s fresh from a fish market, but you can get it frozen for a reasonable price.
SESAME NOODLES
DIRECTIONS
I totally forgot cabbage “casserole.” It’s apparently a German dish, so my grandmother tells me, but the name escapes me. Very simple, few ingredients, although it uses several pots and pans.
Basically just boil a head of cabbage, and in a second pot boil egg noodles according to package directions. Meanwhile, fry up bacon until crisp and sautee a medium onion coarsely chopped. Throw the drained egg noodles and cabbage in a big bowl, crumble the bacon and toss that in there, and add the onion. You can then choose to either throw some bacon grease or butter or margarine in there, add a little salt and pepper, and voila! Cabbage casserole.
Easily adaptable, but the original recipe is very tasty.
This is one of my favorites too! Delicious.
Recently at the farmer’s market here, they’ve been having garlic greens (aka garlic scapes), so this is my own personal recipe for garlic greens pesto:
One bunch garlic greens, with garlic and greens chopped up
One bunch of raw spinach
Walnuts to taste (I’m guessing around 2/3c., but could be more)
Olive oil to bind together
Parmesan cheese to taste
I put this all in the food processor and blend until it looks like pesto. Adjust to taste, and might need salt. The garlic greens are very strong, and the spinach cuts them nicely and stretches the recipe by a lot. It’s also pretty nutritious and is the only way I can get my husband to eat spinach, because it’s unnoticeable in there. My last batch served both of us, and we had enough left over to freeze for another meal.