Linguine with Broccoli Rabe and Walnut Pesto

The piggies are back!  We’ve been gone a while but rest assured, we are here for all of your eating needs.  We wanted to kick off our return with one (of many) of our favorite things to eat: pasta.  I had been eying this recipe for a while and finally got around to testing it out.  It’s the easiest recipe ever (boil water and press a button) and takes almost no time at all, so if you’re a fan of broccoli rabe, there’s really no excuse for you not make this except for your extreme laziness. 

 

We’re on a pappardelle kick, so we used that instead of linguine – I love a good wide noodle that will just soak up the pesto sauce.  We also added in

Penne a la Vodka

Lately, I’ve been craving pasta, so I thought I’d try to make one of my husband's favorites that has now become one of my favorites – Penne a la Vodka.  He loved ordering this from Fresh Basil when he was working late nights at his old job.  I used Giada’s recipe, but added diced jalapenos for an extra kick.  I originally wanted to add spicy Italian sausage as well, but my local supermarket didn’t have any so I settled for turkey sausage to get some protein in the dish. 

This may sound dumb, and though I realize it’s called Penne a la Vodka…did anyone know the sauce really contains vodka???  I definitely did not.  I don’t have any vodka on hand, so I had to pick some up from the liquor store.  I bought one of those small 8oz. vodka bottles – made me feel like an alcoholic as I grabbed my brown paper bagged bottle of vodka and stuffed it into my purse.

Time to get cooking!  The base of the vodka sauce is a simple marinara sauce – Giada’s recipe mentions you can use store bought sauce which is what I would normally do; however this time, I figured if I’m going to try to make homemade vodka sauce, I might as well make it from start to finish.  Otherwise, I’m most definitely all about shortcuts that save me time.  Less time cooking equals more time eating! 

This dish is fairly easy to make and doesn’t take too long.  One thing that tripped me up was the simmering of the vodka in the tomato sauce – 20 minutes was not enough to reduce the sauce.  I sampled after 20 and 30 minutes, yet it still had a strong taste of vodka.  I ended up simmering for almost 40 minutes to burn off the excess vodka.  After that, the rest of the recipe was straightforward.  We ended up with delicious homemade Penne a la Vodka!

Sauteing the veggies for the sauce