Yes, I’m bringing the MTK out of retirement. How have you managed to cook without it? So Pioneer Woman had a photo of some bow-tie pasta on her site and it looked so good I wanted to try it. BUT I wasn’t really in the mood to get all legalistic with a recipe. Why do they have to have so many steps? I don’t have time to run to the store for asparagus and something called boursin cheese! So I thought I’d sort of wing it. You know how good I am at winging it! Spoiler alert – no one had to go to the emergency room, so it’s got a happy ending.
So, I read over the recipe that I was NOT following and decided that there was one portion I liked – oven roasted tomatoes.
First I halved some cherry tomatoes and lay them on a cookie sheet. Then I cut up tiny pieces (also know as “Julienne”) of basil and threw that on top. Then I sprinkled sugar and salt over them and drizzled some olive oil. The instructions said something about putting garlic with it but since I didn’t have any, I skipped that. Those pesky instructions said bake at 225 degrees for THREE and a HALF hours. Uh, these are tomatoes, not a whole cow! So I put them in at 250 and said “I’ll see you when I’m hungry.”
Then I watched Oprah. Did you know she’s going off the air? There might have been something about it on the news.
Okay, about TWO hours later I got hungry and started the pasta. It’s basic bow-tie pasta in boiling water, no need for a photo. Use your imagination. Then I took a skillet, threw in some butter, mushrooms, a handful of frozen spinach and sauteed it until it seemed cooked.
But then I started thinking maybe I needed garlic. So I opened a can of:
Notice that the camera focused on the bow-tie pasta in the background and NOT what’s in front of it. A food photography career may be out of the question. So at this point, you’re probably thinking I dumped the whole can in and called it a day. But, no! I didn’t want a red sauce, I just wanted a bit of garlic. So I just spooned out a few of the juicy tomatoes. I’m pretty sure I saw that on Emeril one day.
Then I dumped the pasta in the skillet and mixed it all together.
You know, that doesn’t look half bad. But I had one more ingredient –
Feta cheese. So my first bite was just okay, but then JD came in and put some cracked pepper over everything, voila! Delish! IF the bite had a mushroom, pasta, tomato, and feta – YUMOLA. If not, still pretty good. Next time I’ll double up on the tomatoes, use real garlic, and put more spinach. But even JD gave it two thumbs up. Moron Test Grade – A!
Now I know why the Moron Test Kitchen has been failing – too restricting. I need to wing it more!
Here’s the original recipe if you’re interested.
Looks good – How was the tomatoes?
The tomatoes were yummy and 2.5 hours worked fine.
Your post inspired me so I fixed Alan and Lou pasta the next night. I had penna instead of bowtie, no spinach or mushrooms and only a few minutes to fix dinner so I sauted the tomatoes with garlic and one forth of an onion in some olive oil and at the last minute added basil, parsley and chives from my herb garden and a small can of salmon (the boys need meat at every meal). Topped with feta, a little Parmesan and fresh pepper. Everyone loved it. I know this doesn’t sound anything like what you made, but I wanted to let you know you gave me the courage to just try and it worked!
Thanks for your blog. It brightens my day!
Thanks, Michelle! Yours sounds delish!