My lovely friend at The Sweet Kitchen invited me to participate in Presto Pasta Night this week. She instructed me to make a pasta recipe and post about it. Slightly daunting since I am being invited to do so by a culinary goddess who also happens to be Italian and a pasta wizard, but I decided to try regardless.

I chose a recipe from the Rebar cookbook, from the restaurant of the same name in Victoria, British Columbia. It is a quirky, hippy vegetarian restaurant filled with patrons with mountain man beards and a lot of hiking boots and Birkenstocks. The Sweetie and I try to go every time we visit his sister in Victoria. The recipes are always a sure thing without the need for tweaks or alterations.

I decided to prepare the pasta dish on a night when I was going out for a pint with a girlfriend, leaving The Sweetie to fend for himself for the evening.  I was thrilled by the idea of pretending I was a good and dutiful 1950’s wife. I planned to say “ I’m going out tonight honey, but dinner is ready, just warm it up and add a dollop of sour cream. There’s some beer chilling for you too, and your slippers are by your favourite chair.”

Instead my dinner preparations were a race against time. My time management and organizational skills are not the best. The result was a frantic whirling dervish tornado in the kitchen culminating with me running out the door yelling, “Okay, don’t forget to stir the sauce and then boil the noodles, then mix up some poppyseed butter, and sorry about the mess, pay no attention to that. So long!”

The combined effect of my mess making and The Sweetie’s finishing touches resulted in a super tasty and rich pasta that will be perfect winter comfort food. I will definitely make this again and next time I will leave a lovingly prepared plate covered with tinfoil for The Sweetie.

Here is the recipe:

Poppyseed Papparadelle with Mushroom-Sweet Pepper Ragout (I used broad egg noodles):

1. Saute 1 diced onion and 1/2 tsp salt in 1 tbsp each of butter and olive oil until onion is soft (don’t burn it by getting distracted the way I did)
2. Add 8 minced cloves of garlic (yum), 1 tsp chili flakes (I’ve just realized I added a tbsp, now I know why it was so hot), 1 tsp dried dill, and 2 tbsp paprika ( I may have overdone it on the paprika as well), saute for 5 minutes
3. Add 2 1/2 pounds button mushrooms ( I used sliced cremini) and 1 1/2 tsp salt, stir and cover
4. When mushrooms start releasing liquid add 3 diced red peppers and 1 1/2 cups red wine
5. Let reduce for a little bit, then add 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, and some chopped fresh parsley and dill
6. Simmer partially covered for 30 minutes
7. Try to pay attention to your time so that this isn’t the moment that you discover you are supposed to meet your friend at the pub, thus leaving the mess and remaining work for your long suffering partner
8. Cook 1 pound noodles in boiling water, strain, then mix with a 1/4 cup butter mixed with 1 tbsp poppyseeds
9. Top with the tasty sauce, sprinkle with chopped parsley and dill, add a dollop of sour cream and call yourself a pasta princess!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 6:50 pm and is filed under Cooking & Baking . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.