Ordinarily I reheat something leftover from a past supper for lunch, but when I was hungry this afternoon I found the fridge devoid of all forms of previously made food. It was time to improvise.
I cooked up the last of the 50% whole wheat penne – probably a cup and a half dry and saved the salty pasta water. Whole wheat would certainly be fine if you like the stuff – I find it resembles cardboard a bit too closely. Regular old “normal” pasta would also be fine – but I recommend penne or some other somewhat chunky pasta. This is not a time for spaghetti.
I sauteed a handful of button mushrooms, which I quartered, and four pieces of acorn squash leftover from the previous recipe, which I cut into cubes, in some olive oil. I added a little Italian seasoning and some chopped walnuts.
Once this was browned and crispy in spots I added a few tablespoons of heavy cream (half and half would totally work, didn’t have any – milk, on the other hand really wouldn’t) and a few crumbles of blue cheese.
Then I stirred in some chopped frozen basil and seasoned with salt and pepper.
Once the pasta was done, I added some of the pasta water to the creamy sauce stuff to thin it down (it was almost a paste consistency before I did that) and stirred it together with the pasta.
Sorry there’s no picture today – I already ate my bowl. It was good. I highly recommend you play with your food from time to time, the results can be really tasty!
* This is my attempt to practice some of the things taught to me by my mother/grandmother/great-grandmother. To quote my grandfather’s mother, my Gran, “a recipe is for medicine, a receipt for food.”
love that your blogging “recipe’s”. I thought I’d follow suit and put one of my “experiments” up today. I linked to you (but if you’d rather i take that down I can). its here: http://gayle-rose.livejournal.com/421205.html