We don't always have steak, you know! We actually barely every have it, really. Now THIS pasta is much more like what we end up eating 3-4 times a week.
This is a really easy pasta to make for a lot of people. Between having to finish projects, train for various work places, video games, and who knows what else, most meals we make at the house are pretty quick and easy. Also, kale. Kale kale kale. Any and every way we can make it and eat it, we've been doing it. Raw, baked, fried with veggies for stir fry, or just thrown in with the pasta like we did here. Tonight, we grill it. BUT UNTIL THEN: pasta!
This made enough food for about four hungrier people. It fed three last night and two for lunch today!
Mixed Vegetable, Chipotle-Pesto Pasta with Kale
1 box of your choice of noodles (I usually use whatever we happen to have...hence the elbow macaroni!)
1 bell pepper
1/2 onion
1 sweet potato
1 clove garlic
1 chipotle pepper
optional sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 small can of tomato paste
1/3-1/2 cup pesto of your choice!
decent amount of kale
*optional bacon recipe explained at the end. we ate it the first way last night and the bacon way for lunch today! not as healthy though...
FIRST:
Put water in a pot big enough for your pasta and cook your pasta as per the instructions on the box!
SWEET POTATO:
If you use microwaveable sweet potatoes for quick cookin' like I do, microwave your sweet potato for five minutes (instead of seven) before taking it out of the microwave and running it under hot water. This stops it from cooking too much more as well as making it easier for you to hold! Then, I just pop off the plastic and chop it up in cubes!
If you don't cheat and microwave like I do, I would slice my sweet potato up and then boil the slices until tender. Then, like with the microwaved ones, cube them. Just makes nice, bite-sized pieces.
Next, you want to smash your garlic and mince it. Cut up the onion, bell pepper, sun-dried tomatoes, and chipotle. (you can add any veggies you want. we added a bit of green onion just because we had it, but feel free to add snap peas, broccoli, squash, etc.)
While your pasta is boiling, put those veggies in a pan with either some oil or some butter and get them cooking too!
Once your peppers are tender and your onions are a bit more yellow/transparent, add the tomato paste and pesto. Although these seem a bit clumpy or thick at first to be making a pasta sauce with, we really just want the oils to coat the noodles...kind of like when you just olive oil and a bit of cheese on noodles. Just keep mixing around until the tomato paste and pesto are both evenly distributed around the vegetables.
OH YEAH KALE. For the kale, what I did, was put the fresh kale in with the noodles when they only had about a minute or two left to boil until time for straining.
We had an avocado that needed to be used, so I put half in with the pasta at the same time as the pesto/tomato paste. It added a nice kind of creamy texture to the veggies.
FINALLY
Put your vegetable pesto medley in with the strained noodles/kale! Mix everything up and enjoy!
Don't think I had forgotten the bacon...
To make the unhealthier, bacon version (or to make your leftovers tastier, like we did):
Fry up some bacon in a pan. However much you may want, go for it. Or pancetta! That'd be good. Once you have crispy bacon, crumple it up and it to the pasta mixture. Remove some of the bacon grease (but not all of it!) Now throw the pasta into the pan and kind of fry it/heat it up in the natural bacon extract. It makes a delicious, hearty pasta!
Russ and I made another steak sandwich. I'm not sure how we got there twice in like, two weeks, but it happened and it was beautiful.
We went a slightly different route this time, though not by much.
Enjoy this update, new and improved, Open-Faced Steak Sandwich.
Balsamic Steak with Whipped Blue Cheese
1 loaf sourdough bread
8 oz or so ribeye, finely sliced
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
5 tbsp Balsalmic Vinegar
2 tbsp red wine
1 tsp organic jam (preferably raspberry or blackberry)
2 tbsp Oil from sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped onions
5 garlic cloves, smashed/minced
1 chipotle in adobo sauce, chopped
1/2 cup bell pepper, chopped
assorted peppers from the antipasto bar!
1 sweet potato, sliced
1/2 tbsp rosemary
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp italian seasoning
fresh basil, chopped
pepper
salt
If your bread needs baking, bake as per baking instructions!
Then, after cooling, (or when you first take it out of the bag, if already baked) slice it and place 2-4 slices on a baking sheet. Melt the butter and mix in 2 smashed/minced garlic cloves and a teaspoon of italian seasoning before spreading it over the sliced bread. Then, place the bread into the oven for 5 or so minutes to toast!
TO MARINADE THE STEAK:
Take your sliced steak and place it in a bag. But the Worcestershire, 3 tbsp
Balsalmic, and oil into the bag. Add 1/4 cup of the chopped onions, 1
smashed garlic clove, and half of a chopped chipotle pepper. Sprinkle in salt
and pepper, seal the bag - letting out the extra air, and move the steak
around to spread the marinade around evenly.
SWEET POTATOES:
First, wash/slice your sweet potato. Leave the skin on for added nutrients! Place the sweet potato slices into a bowl or Tupperware container. Pour two tablespoons of olive oil, the rosemary, garlic powder, teaspoon of italian seasoning, and chopped fresh basil on top. Add salt and pepper. Mix to coat evenly!
Fry 'em up with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil OR bake at 450 F for about 20 minutes, flipping occasionally until tender and golden brown.
NEXT:
Personally, I like to cook things in their marinade. So, to cook the steak, I put a little butter in the bottom of the pan just so that i'm not putting meat on a completely dry pan. Then, I put a couple of slices of steak, along with a bit of the marinade, into a pan on medium heat and cook for about...3-5 minutes? I flip my steak often, so as to heat thoroughly and evenly, but I don't cook it for long because I like mine still alive and kickin! If you like your steak cooked well, keep flipping and cooking until it's to your liking!
While cooking the steak, take the remaining garlic, onions, chipotle, and all of your chopped peppers and fry them up, too! We got to use our very first pepper from the garden, too! A good sized banana pepper. I'm going to leave what you fry them in up to you. I like to either do the sun-dried tomato oil or butter, but you can certainly use olive oil or vegetable oil or really anything!
BALSAMIC REDUCTION:
Whilst cooking everything, (you can see why it takes two of us to make a simple sandwich!) in a small saucepan put 2 tablespoons of the balsamic vinegar, the two tablespoons of red wine (we used a sweet Shiraz called Jam Jar) and the optional spot of jam. Heat on high and whisk throughout the boiling process! Watch the saucepan, the mixture will reduce roughly by half. Heat until syrup-like or until reduced by about half!
WHIPPED BLUE CHEESE:
1 cup heavy whipping cream, very cold!
1/3-1/2 cup blue cheese
1/5 tbsp butter, softened.
This can be made plenty ahead of time and kept in the refrigerator for about two days.
Place all ingredients into a bowl and whip until desired consistency! Even though the whipping cream needs to very cold, the blue cheese and butter should be relatively close to room temperature. Don't leave the blue cheese out too long though...it's cheese. That stinks. Shouldn't just be hanging out for awhile on your counter!
Let's eat! Take one of your toast slices, put some sweet potato fries on top, then a bit of steak, the peppers and onions, a drizzle of balsamic reduction, and finish with a dallop of whipped blue cheese! I recommend a napkin or a knife and fork...or all three.
This, chers amis, was a spontaneous late-night dinner a few evenings ago.
Russ and I had been doing something all day. I think cleaning. (We all had a big party here a couple of nights ago.) Woke up early, cleaned all day, studied or made music or something, and then FINALLY realized we should probably eat dinner. At like 9:20something on a Thursday night. And then - in the midst of, I think, video games - Russ casually said, "what about Chinese buffet?"
....this is the happiest phrase in the world.
SO, we manage to convince Z to go with us and quickly scamper into the car. But we should have known getting Z to spend $10 on a Chinese buffet was too good to be true, because as soon as we started to back out, he clambered out saying something about making stir-fry before his veggies went bad. And of course his second guessing made us second guess and we wound up at Kroger. (This may have also been to avoid getting gas...)
Russ decides steak. He mentions steak so often, I'm surprised we hadn't really had it before now. We found a steak just big enough for two sandwiches, and made this beauty:
Open-Faced Steak Sandwich:
1 of your favorite loaves of bread. (we used a take-and-bake garlic)
8 oz or so ribeye, finely sliced
3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp Balsalmic Vinegar
2 tbsp Oil from sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped onions
3 garlic cloves, smashed/minced
2 chipotle in adobo sauce, chopped
1/2 cup bell pepper, chopped
pepper
salt
bleu cheese crumbles, to top.
If your bread needs baking, bake as per baking instructions!
Then, take your sliced steak and place it in a bag. But the Worcestershire, Balsalmic, and oil into the bag. Add 1/4 cup of the chopped onions, 1 smashed garlic clove, and one chopped chipotle pepper. Sprinkle in salt and pepper, seal the bag - letting out the extra air, and move the steak around to spread the marinade around evenly.
Leave sit for 15-45 minutes, depending on how much time you have.
Next, place a slice of butter (enough to melt and spread around the bottom of a medium sized frying pan) into a medium sized frying pan and melt it. Then, pour the contents of the bag of steak into the frying pan. Cook until your steak is as done as you like it to be. For us, that was pretty rare.
While doing this, sauté the remaining veggies in another small frying pan and slice of butter. Sauté for 5-8 minutes.
ALMOST THERE.
So, slice your lovely bread of choice. Lay down a slice on each of two plates. Next, take a few - three or so - slices of steak and lay them on top of the bread. Lay on top of that a few sun-dried tomatoes, then bell peppers and onions, then bleu cheese. If you want to get fancy (like Russ did) and garnish your plate with a bit of olive oil+balsalmic vinegar for your extra bread, I encourage you to do so.
Now, go enjoy those steak sandwiches.
It's never too late to start a blog, right? Russ always tells people when they talk about their interests, that they should start a blog. Well, we are starting one. On cooking and gardening and such.
Here they are, everyone. Our plants:
Stay tuned for plant updates, these aren't anywhere near their size right now!
Tomorrow's Post: Open Faced Steak Sandwich
