ROTD: Tortellini & Pumpkin Alfredo Sauce

Its cold. And when it is as cold as it has been, there is nothing better than coming home to a warm house, filled with good food and great conversation. If you can’t find a bit of good conversation, don’t worry well help you at least supply the great meal to keep you from going stir crazy in that prison you call home.

Today is National Tortellini Day and we scooped up a recipe and gave it a bit of reworking to make it suitable for our readers who just don’t have all day to spend in the kitchen making an entire meal from scratch.

This recipe for Tortellini & Pumpkin Alfredo Sauce is quick, easy and delicious three things we really love around these parts.

Enjoy!

(click Read More for the Entire Recipe) 

ROTD: BLT Pasta Salad

The classic BLT Sandwich is a time honored, tried and true recipe that doesn’t seem to ever be going out of style. Perfectly balanced smoky bacon strips, with fresh crisp lettuce and juicy slices of tomato with a dab of mustard and mayo make for the perfect breakfast, lunch or dinner treat when you don’t feel like whipping up a huge meal. 

For those of you tired of eating sandwiches like your in grade school we decided to spruce up things a bit and turned the BLT into the BLT Pasta Salad and couldn’t be more pleased with the results.

Enjoy!!

BLT Pasta Salad

Ingredients

12 oz corkscrew-shaped pasta

½ cup milk

12 oz lean bacon

3 medium ripe tomatoes, cut into chunks

1 TBS chopped fresh thyme

1 clove garlic, minced

Kosher salt & freshly ground pepper

½ cup mayonnaise

¼ cup sour cream

4 TBS chopped chives or scallion greens

5 heads Bibb lettuce, quartered, or 5 cups chopped romaine hearts

Directions:

Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water as the label directs.

Drain and toss with the milk in a large bowl; set aside.

Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until crisp.

Drain on paper towels.

Discard all but 3 TBS drippings from the pan.

Add the tomatoes, thyme and garlic to the pan and toss until warmed through; season with salt and pepper.

Crumble the bacon into bite-size pieces; set aside ¼ cup for garnish.

Toss the remaining bacon and the tomato mixture with the pasta.

Mix the mayonnaise, sour cream and 3 TBS chives with the pasta until evenly combined.

Season with salt and pepper.

Add the lettuce; toss again to coat.

Garnish with the reserved bacon and the remaining 1 TBS chives.

Serve at room temperature.

Croque Monsieur Macaroni & Cheese

This one right here was put together after having a conversation with an old boss of mine from my music industry days. Without a doubt one of the coolest and most influential people in not only my life but in this World that most people have never heard of, is a gentleman named Côme Chantrel. When I used to work at LOUD Records, every afternoon we would get lunch and he would order a Croque Monsieur sandwich from this little café in Beverly Hills while we would power through all of the hustles that had to be perfected by weeks end so that we could enjoy the fruits of our labor.

I recently spoke with Côme on the phone after both going in separate directions as many friends and co-workers do when companies change ownership and just laughing about old times, made me think of the simple things in life, like how a good sandwich and profound conversation can really change your outlook on life.

Taking cues from the ingredients in the sandwich we flipped this beauty into a delicious bowl of Macaroni & Cheese. I hope the big homie, Côme enjoys this, wherever he is surfing the world and doing the fly sh!t that he always does.

Thanks for everything boss.

Enjoy!!!

(click Read More for the entire recipe)

Recipe Of The Day: Pasta / Ravioli Dough

Getting in the kitchen and making a meal that people enjoy is a feeling that everyone should be able to experience frequently. This being especially true if you have children or someone in your life that means something exceptional to you. It’s similar to planting a garden, fixing your own car or hanging a painting, its just another notch in your belt of accomplishments that we oftentimes don’t give ourselves enough credit for.

Today is National Ravioli Day. If you have never made your own pasta dough, today is the day that you should give it a try. This Ravioli / Pasta Dough really is simple a recipe that can be used as the base to create thousands of dishes, literally.

You can fill this dough with whatever your heart desires, so long as it is cod / cool to the touch. Anything hot will begin to cook the dough and result in a mushy product.

For a recipe such as this, you should have a pasta machine to achieve a uniformed thickness on the dough.

Master this Dough recipe, make it your own and hand it down to the next generation. You wont be mad that you did.

Enjoy!!!

National Spaghetti Day - Pasta Bolognese Made Easy

Today is National Spaghetti Day. Now we here in The Supreme Plate are lovers of carbs especially when they come in the form of great pastas drenched in sauces that truly need no help from the starch other than to help sop it all up. If you know how to make a good sauce from scratch, your already a few steps ahead in the game of life.

Bolognese is a meaty sauce that has a tremendous amount of Earthy flavors that once cooked down is a meal all unto itself. Add a quality piece of bread or some pasta and your set to go. You can change the falvors around however you like by adding more of one meat and less of another just make sure that you don’t get too lean of a cut, you want a little fat to help break down the proteins and give the dish that much more flavor.

The recipe for the pasta is a simple pasta recipe that can be applied to numerous dishes and cooks up rather quickly so make sure you don’t overcook your pasta.

Enjoy.

(click read more for the entire recipe)

Creamy Chicken & Pasta Salad

We have been bumping into a lot of people who think they either don’t have the skills or the time it takes to cook some of the meals they see on the site and I try to tell them they couldn’t be further from the truth.

 Planning out a meal isn’t hard as long as you have all of ingredients measured out (mise en place) in front of you and your focus is on the task at hand. Often times people begin to cook a dish and either the phone rings or someone walks into the house and they take their focus off the food and what happens next, the roast burns, the chicken catches fire you name it, we have heard it.

Today your going to make a simple Creamy Chicken & Pasta Salad that will resemble something you paid too much for, at your favorite restaurant for your entire family and trust us when we say they will love it.

This recipe right here is very easy to pull off, because one of the most important ingredients can be purchased from any quality grocery store, already prepared. We are talking about a Rotisserie Chicken, roasted to perfection by your local Grocer.

Enjoy this recipe this evening or try to make it ahead and take it to work with you the next day (if you plan on doing that, do not put all of the chicken / pasta mixture over the salad greens as they will be come soggy overnight.)

This salad goes great with Stella Rose wine, Mint Juleps, Sangrias and of course a glass of sweet Moscato.