Pasta with Shitakes and Smoked Tomato Sauce

I still adore the basic preparation of Shitake pasta I posted back in May, but I wanted to try something a little different.  However, I had no plan, so I just started digging around the kitchen, hoping for inspiration to hit.

 Last summer was so hot that only the cherry tomatoes made it to maturity.  Fortunately though, this particular plant was a workhorse, producing twice as many tomatoes as we could eat.  I absolutely love my stovetop smoker, and tomatoes are my favorite thing to smoke in it, so every time there were excess tomatoes, into the smoker they went.  And every time there were excess smoked tomatoes, into the freezer they went!  Even though I recently moved everything from the old freezer to the new, I had forgotten I still had a container of smoked tomatoes. 


While waiting for the tomatoes to thaw, cook your favorite noodles, roast some garlic, and saute the shitakes until they start to get a little dry.  Once the tomatoes are thawed, puree them with the garlic, a fair amount of salt, and a little olive oil.  Heat the sauce in a saucepan, then plate the noodles, mushrooms, and sauce.  Or maybe the mushrooms on top, I haven't decided which is better.  I served this with some broccolini that I baked with a little oil and garlic for 20 mins at 350. 

Shaved Brussels Sprout Pasta with Tempeh

Shaved brussels sprouts seem to be all the rage at restaurants lately, so I thought I'd try my hand at a dish I recently had at Terrene.  

I shaved the sprouts and some garlic and onions on a mandolin slicer and sauteed them along with cubed tempeh in a little olive oil.  The pink things you see are actually Japanese turnips, but I boiled them with some baby beets hence the colour.  I'm usually a fan of brown rice pasta, but in this case, I wish I would have used a more sturdy whole wheat.  Salt and pepper.  This isn't really a recipe I realize, but you get the idea.  Saute stuff and toss it with pasta.  Sprinkle parmesan on top.

Cannelloni Duo

Ingredients for the red one: 1 cup French green lentils, 1 big onion, thyme, cannelloni shells, watery tomato sauce

Ingredients for the white one: Butternut squash, 1 onion, goat cheese, sage, cannelloni shells and Béchamel sauce

Soak lentils and then cook them for 30 mins. Saute onion until soft, add thyme and saute one more minute. Transfer the onion thyme mix and half the lentils and puree until smooth. Mix remaining whole lentils with puree mixture and stuff into shells.

Finely dice one half of one butternut squash. Saute squash with diced onion and sage for 5 mins. Remove from heat and mix with 4oz. goat cheese. Stuff into shells.

In two separate lasagna pans, cover bottoms with one sauce each. Lay the lentil stuffed shells about an inch apart in the red sauce pan and cover with more red sauce. Lay the squash stuffed shells in the white sauce pan and cover with more sauce. Cover both pans tightly with aluminum foil and bake 30-45mins until shells are fully cooked. Serve side by side adding extra sauce on top just prior to serving. Garnish white one with a fried sage leaf and red one with parmesan sprinkle.

Cannellini Cannelloni

Lightly oil the bottom and sides of baking dish.  Next, lay down a thin layer of tomato sauce.  Place uncooked cannelloni shells (that have been stuffed with: 1 can rinsed cannellini beans, 1 egg beaten, sauteed onions and garlic, lots of chopped herbs)  in tight rows until you have filled the entire dish.  Pour enough tomato sauce to completely cover canneloni over the top and bake covered at 350 for one hour, adding parmesan cheese at the half hour mark.