I believe I’ve said in a past post that my love for pasta goes to the moon and back. Well, just in case you were wondering, my position on pasta remains unchanged. I usually don’t add a lot of things to Ragu but I’ve decided to change it up a little. I went to a restaurant a couple weeks ago and had Penne alla Vodka..it rocked my entire world..Maybe one day I’ll try making it but not today. You know once you’ve had something so good, you don’t want to ruin the memory of it by trying it again? Thats kinda how I feel about cooking sometimes, especially since I’m not a grade A cook, I don’t want to mess up a dish that I have extremely high hopes for. Anyways, I experimented with adding a few ingredients to Ragu’s “Old World Style” traditional red sauce.
I added: a spoonful of vegetable broth, onion, half and half, Italian parsley (I couldn’t find fresh basil), garlic powder, and traditional Italian seasoning including oregano etc.
Why vegetable broth you ask? I saw it somewhere online that it gives regular red sauce extra flavor, like adding some pasta water. Turns out I could have done without it. Funny story about the half and half: I usually don’t like purchasing ingredients that I know I will only use once..I don’t drink/use half and half regularly, in fact I never use half and half or regular milk (I’m slightly lactose intolerant). However, this is a tomato “cream” sauce so I knew I had to use some sort of creamy substance..so I took a couple (6) half and half creamers from our coffee break room at work..See picture below
I decided to be fancy and use “bowtie” pasta..but I really should have just used penne.
I sauteed the chopped onions for a while before adding 2 cups of Ragu sauce. Then I added the vegetable broth, half and half, chopped parsley, seasonings, salt and pepper. I let it simmer while I cooked the bowtie pasta in another pot.
Below is the final product, the sauce looks a bit chunky here but it was actually pretty smooth.
You can also add cheese on top if you’d like. It was pretty good, when I do it again I’ll use more cream (just a few more packets from the break room) and not include the broth at all. While I’m on this pasta kick, I think I’ll try something different for my next post..stay tuned..
Food Therapy 