Pioneer Woman’s Linguine with Clam Sauce

So for those of you that have never heard of Pioneer Woman…you are missing out. Greatly. She is amazing and inspiring and all of her food I have made thus far is FABULOUS!!!! Seriously that good! Her blog is: http://thepioneerwoman.com/ and she also has two cookbooks. I received one of those cookbooks as a wedding gift and am absolutely loving it! This is one of her recipes that I made for my husband…I have to tell you this is majorly branching out for us. We rarely eat seafood aside from tilapia, salmon, and California rolls (I don’t think those are technically real crab) and we especially don’t cook seafood aside from tilapia and salmon. So this was stepping out on a limb. I thought this recipe was super quick and easy to whip up and my husband and I both LOVED it! It’s very rich and creamy so if you want to lessen that (or if you want it to be healthier) you can use regular milk instead of cream.

Prep: 5 minutes

Cook: 12 to 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound linguine (the original recipe calls for 1 pound but I like my pastas with more sauce so I always cut back the amount of pasta I put into a recipe)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• two 10 oz cans chopped clams, drained, juice reserved (I like the Chicken of the Sea brand)
• 3/4 cup white wine (I used dry cooking vermouth because that’s what I had on hand…it is a lot sweeter so if you don’t like sweet tastes in your pasta choose a different white wine)
• juice of 1/2 lemon plus lemon slices for garnish
• 2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley chopped
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• salt and pepper to taste
• grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Cook the linguine until al dente. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add the olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter. Pioneer Woman says using both olive oil and butter allows you to heat the mixture at a higher heat before it starts to brown. Add the garlic and clams and stir together cooking for 3 minutes.

Pour in the white wine, scraping the bottom of the pan with the spoon. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes until the sauce is reduced and less watery. Add in 1 more tablespoon butter and stir to melt. Reduce the heat and squeeze in the lemon juice. Sprinkle in the parsley and pour in the cream.

Add salt and freshly ground black pepper. Stir well and taste for seasons. If the sauce is too thick add a little of the reserved clam juice. Cook over low heat for 3 minutes more. Pour the pasta in a heated serving bowl and pour the sauce over the top. Toss to combine and toss with Parmesan cheese and lemon slices.

Yields: 4 servings

*serve with bread and/or salad

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Summertime Mac & Cheese

My husband and I took a cooking class while on our honeymoon and one of the meals the chef prepared was Summertime Mac & Cheese. My husband was thrilled because Mac & Cheese is his favorite food. Both of us loved the recipe so much we made it within our first couple weeks of being home. The link for the recipe is here: http://evoo.biz/recipe/mac-cheese-summertime. One of the many great things about this recipe is that it doesn’t call for many different and expensive types of gourmet cheese…it simply uses sharp cheddar, provolone, and mozzarella.

Prep: 30ish minutes

Cook: 30-40 minutes

Ingredients:

• 16 ounces (1 pint) heavy cream
• 8-10 ounces rigatoni or other macaroni
• 1/2 head garlic, peeled, De-sprouted and pasted
• 1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1/2 cup provolone cheese
• 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes, roasted & seasoned (see recipe below)
• 1 recipe pesto bread crumbs

Directions:

Cook macaroni in lightly salted water. Blend garlic with cream and reduce them together to 1 1/4 cups. Blend with well drained pasta and toss with the cheeses.

To assemble, place half the cooked pasta & cheese mixture in the bottom of buttered casserole; top with layer of cooled roasted cherry tomatoes; add remaining pasta. Cover top with bread crumb mixture. Bake 350 F 30-40 minutes or until center is bubbly and bread crumbs are brown.

To roast tomatoes: spread clean whole cherry tomatoes onto sided cookie sheet. Lightly coat with about 1- tablespoon of EVOO. Season lightly over all with sea salt and coriander and pepper.Roast 400 until 10-15 minutes, or until lightly browned and skin is blistered. Cool.

To make basil bread crumbs: for every 2 cups of “panko”  or dried bread crumbs, add 1/2 cup pesto. Blend and crumble over top of dish to bake. (I used store bought pesto to save time).

Yields: 12 servings

You can have this by itself or as a side dish. We paired it with Oven Roasted Broccoli and Slow Cooker Green Chile Flank Steak!