Creamy Tuna Pasta

Yeah. It's good to be back!!

I've been very busy lately which has made me barely had a time to write something in here. My daughter's ballet recital, first communion, etc. Not mentioning all the preparation for all those events. Well, now they're all over and I think it's time to sit and write something in here.

This time, I would like to share one of my favorite pasta recipe. Creamy Tuna Pasta. My husband is tuna lover and my daughter is a pasta lover. If my daughter wants to have pasta for dinner, I mostly make spaghetti bolognese. It's easy and simple to make. Basically, I only need ground beef, onion, and bolognese sauce from a jar. It taste delicious at the first time (I was not really good at cooking back than). But after many times, I get bored with it and want to try something else.

Inspired by one of Pizza Hut's menu in Indonesia, fusilli tuna pedas (fusilli with spicy tuna). By combining my husband and my daughter's favorite food,  I tried to create a similar menu, pasta with tuna sauce. After all cutting, and sauteing all the ingredients, it's time to taste the result. Yum!!  It was not disappointing at all. :-)

Ingredients :

• 250 grams short pasta (I'm using fusilli)
• 1 can (185 grams) of canned tuna in oil
• 1 medium shallot (about 3 Indonesian shallots), minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tomatoes, cut into small cubes
• 1/2 red paprika, cut into small pieces
• 1/2 green paprika, cut into small pieces
• 60 ml heavy cream
• 40 ml milk
• 6 tbs tomato sauce
• 5 tbs sweet chili sauce
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• salt and black pepper
• 3/4 tsp tabasco (optional)
• Some grated cheese

Tip : Feel free to add some vegetables on the sauce. You can add carrot, zucchini, mushroom, broccoli, etc. Just make sure they are sauteed well. 

Preparation :

1. Fill in a big pot with water (until 2/3 of the way) and bring it to boil.
2. Once it's boiled, add some salt and the paste into the water.
3. Boil the pasta and pay attention to the cooking direction on the package to make sure the pasta is cooked well.
4. Meanwhile, in a big pan, preheat about 6 tbs oil from canned tuna and discard the rest of the oil from the can.
5. Saute minced shallot and garlic until they become aromatic.
6. Add paprika and tomatoes cubes and stir until they become soft and the tomatoes start to release all the juice.
7. Add tomato sauce, sweet chili sauce, heavy cream, milk, nutmeg, and tabasco (optional), and stir again.
8. Add tuna into the sauce and mix it well.
9. Add salt and ground black pepper into the sauce, stir, and reduce the heat.
10. At this point, the pasta should be done and cooked well.
11. Drain the pasta and add them into the sauce.
12. Mix the pasta and the sauce together.
13. Turn off the heat.
14. Serve the pasta on a plate and add some grated cheese on top.

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Tomato ravioli with cheese sauce

Do you still remember my craziness buying a lot of fresh pasta on sale? I've made perline pasta with creamy lemon chicken mushroom sauce before. I've made spinach lasagna and ravioli soup as well. This time I make another ravioli dish. I'm going to try to make a ravioli with cheese sauce.

I'm using tomato ravioli filled in with cheese and basil. It has orange color because it use tomato juice for its skin as a coloring agent. I think it's pretty, isn't it? I usually make a spinach, tomato and bacon sauce for my ravioli but I think something different won't hurt. Besides, It is very simple, fast, and easy to make. The ingredients are not hard to find as well. And of course you can use another type of pasta but I just want to try it with tomato ravioli that i have now. :-)

Ingredients :

• 1 pack (250 grams) fresh tomato ravioli
• 3 tbs (45 grams) unsalted butter 
• 2 tbs flour
• 1 1/2 cup grated cheese
• 1- 1 1/2 cup milk
• salt and black pepper
• fresh parsley

Preparation :

1. Bring water to a boil in a big pot.
2. Once it's boiled throw a pinch of salt and ravioli into the pot.
3. Boil the pasta and pay attention to the cooking direction on the package.
4. Meanwhile, melt the butter in the sauce pan.
5. Once it's melted, add the flour and keep stirring on a low heat for about 1 minute
6. Add milk gradually into the sauce pan and keep stirring until the sauce is smooth.
7. Add grated cheese and keep stirring until all the cheese is melted. If the sauce is too thick, add more milk.
8. Adjust the taste with salt and ground black pepper.
9. Drain the ravioli and serve it on a place. 
10. Pour the cheese sauce on the top of ravioli and sprinkle some fresh chopped parsley.

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Macaroni Schotel

Macaroni schotel is actually macaroni casserole or baked macaroni dish. The name schotel is borrowing Dutch name because this dish is introducted by Dutch people during the colonisation era. The first time I taste this food is when I was still about 5 years old. I still remember I went to my aunt's house with my parents. Lucky me she just finished baking it and she gave me a slice of it. That was my first time i ate macaroni schotel and I love it!! Since then I always want to eat it especially when I went to her house. When I grew up and started to learn how to cook, I tried to find the recipe. Too bad my mom didn't have oven so the only macaroni schotel I could made was steamed one. It was good but didn't satisfied me. For me, baked one is still the best. Steamed macaroni schotel doesn't have crispy melted cheese like baked one. I tried to toast the schotel  using oven toaster after steam it, and it didn't work either.

Now, I have my own kitchen complete with an oven. Making macaroni schotel is not impossible anymore. Besides, actually it is not that hard to make. Last week I made it for dinner and everyone like it. I added some green peas during the process just because I had some leftover green peas in my refrigerator.

Like as usual, vegetable salad and sweet chilli sauce are perfect for its companion. Eet smakelijk! ^^

Ingredients :

• 250 elbow macaroni, boiled until al dente (look at the cooking direction on the package), and drain well
• 1 onion, minced
• 150 grams bacon strips
• 70 grams ground pork or beef 
• 3 tbs canned corned beef
• 50 grams green peas (optional)
• 4 beaten eggs
• 4 tbs flour
• 600 ml milk
• 2 - 2 1/2 cups (about 150 grams) grated cheese 
• 2 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• salt and black pepper
• 1 1/2 tbs white granulated sugar
• 3 tbs vegetable oil

Tip : If you do not eat pork, you can always use another kind of smoked meat such as smoked beef tongue, or smoked chicken. They will work as well.

Tip : For the cheese, you can use cheddar or parmezan cheese or mixture of old and young cheese like I did.

Preparation :

1. Preheat oven for 180 C (356 F)
2. Preheat vegetable oil in a pan
3. Saute the bacon for about 5 minutes or until they become golden brown and crisp. 
4. Remove the bacon from the pan and set aside.
5. In the same pan, put minced onion and ground beef or pork. Stir and saute them together until the onion become translucent and the ground meat become brown.
6. Remove them from the pan and set aside.
7. In a big bowl, mix together boiled macaroni, flour, corned beef, green peas, sauteed bacon, onion, and ground meat. 
8. Add beaten eggs, milk, ground nutmeg, sugar, and 1 cup of grated cheese. Mix them well.
9. Adjust the taste with salt and pepper.
10. Pour the macaroni mixture into an ovenproof dish.
11. Cover the top with grated cheese.
12. Put it into preheated oven and bake for about 45-50 minutes.

Tip : Cover the leftover with aluminium foil or place it in the airtight plastic container before store it in the refrigerator otherwise the edges will become dry and tough. You can always reheat it again with microwave or put it back into preheated oven 150 C for 15-20 minutes. 

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Perline Pasta With Creamy Lemon Chicken Mushroom Sauce

Sometimes it could be a little bit frustrating becoming a stay at home mom. Don't get me wrong. Being a mom and wife is great. But all those daily and repeatable quests from day to day sometimes could make me get bored and having a very bad mood. Yeah I'm a moody person. So, to entertain myself, I usually go to the grocery store and thinking, imagining what I could make for dinner, or snack, or lunch. I love to wander around just to check what item that has a big sale, comparing one store to another store and so on. That what I did last week. And when my eyes stumble on the big sale board on my favorite pasta shelf, I was so happy. That means I will be able to make some delicious pasta dish. Yaaaay!!! My brain started to work fast and thinking and combining all the ingredients that possible. I hope no one noticed my big grin while I was standing near that shelf. Look what I've bought! (I bought 7 actually and already used 2 of them)

I managed to serve a pretty good pasta for dinner few days ago. I made perline pasta with creamy lemon chicken mushroom sauce. Perline pasta is one of few types of filled pasta. Basically, it is same with tortellini or ravioli, but it is shaped like money bag. There are a lot of thing that can be used for their filling, such as cheese, prosciutto, spinach, mushroom, and many thing else.

Ingredients (for serving 3 person) :

• 250 grams perline pasta 
• 300 grams boneless skinless chicken, cut into cubes
• 150 grams champignon mushroom, thinly slices
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 70 ml white wine
• 150 ml milk
• 3 1/2 tbs flour 
• 3/4 tbs lemon juice
• lemon zest
• olive oil
• salt and black pepper
• some parsley

Tip : I was using cheese perline pasta. You can always use perline with any kind of filling that you want. 

Preparation :

1. Fill in a big pot with water (until 2/3 of the way) and bring it to boil.
2. Once it's boiled, add some salt and the paste into the water.
3. Boil the pasta and pay attention to the cooking direction on the package to make sure the pasta is cooked well.
4. Meanwhile, in a big pan, preheat about 5 tbs olive oil.
5. Put minced garlic into preheated oil and saute until fragrance.
6. Add mushroom and chicken cubes into the pan and saute it until the chicken is cooked.
7. Add white wine and keep stirring until all the alcohol is evaporated.
8. Add flour into the pan and stir again for awhile. Be careful not to burn the flour.
9. Pour some milk, lemon juice and lemon zest into the chicken mixture and keep stirring.
10. Adjust the taste with salt and ground black pepper
11. At this point the pasta should be done. Drain it well.
12. Serve the pasta on the plate and pour the chicken sauce on the top.
13. Garnish with some chopped parsley and olive oil. 

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Pasta Casserole

Sometime, being a mom and a housewife needs some creativities to make something good for the family using limited resources. The best example is when you need to cook something good for dinner using leftover or limited ingredients because you were too busy to do some shopping. It happens to me almost all the time especially because I have a very active little baby who loves to play (and make a lot of mesh) and an adorable daughter who is still needed to be picked up from school everyday. Beside, I usually cook or make something based on special price on the week in nearby grocery store. When they give special price for ground beef, paprika, and tomatoes, I will make Mexican chilli or stuffed paprika. When they have discount for potatoes, I will make roasted potatoes or hutspot for dinner.

This time, I still have some (about 150 grams) ground beef on my fridge, macaroni, 2 tomatoes, and half a jar of instant bolognese sauce. Well... we have been eating rice for 4 days in a row anyway. I think pasta will be great for dinner then. But I want to make some variation out of it. Hmm... let's see. I sill have a lot of cheese as well. So, I will make some pasta casserole. It's easy to make. Even actually, it can be made from leftover pasta from the day before. It is fast, easy, and delicious. I can pretend it was made fresh from scratch even actually it was made from leftover pasta. Just make sure that the leftover pasta is still edible and taste good. I only need a ovenproof dish or bowl to make this casserole. Transfer the pasta into the dish or bowl and level the surface, drizzle it with some olive oil, cover it with grated cheese, and bake it for about 20 minutes or until the cheese melted and become golden brown. It's so easy, isn't it? And it is a good variation to eat pasta.

Serve it hot with sweet spicy sauce as condiment and salad as a side dish. Perfect. :-)

Ingredients :

• Any leftover pasta that you have
• A lot of grated cheese
• Olive oil

Preparation : 

1. Preheat oven for 180 C (356 F)
2. Prepare an ovenproof dish. Make sure the dish is not too big or too small for the pasta that you have.
3. Drizzle it with some olive oil
4. Transfer the pasta into the dish and level the surface.
5. Drizzle the pasta with some olive oil.
6. Cover it with grated cheese.
   
7. Put it into the oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until the cheese melted and become golden brown. 
   

Tip : If you want your casserole more cheesy and creamy, feel free to add some more grated cheese and few tablespoon of heavy cream on your pasta. Mix well them together before covering those pasta with more grated cheese. You can make this into one portion serving as well by using small ramekin bowl instead of big ovenproof dish.

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