Pasta e Fagioli

My pasta e fagioli is a beautiful, thick, hearty, and decidedly non-authentic dish. This dish has ground beef browned in minced garlic and a splash of olive oil. Once drained of excess fats, I added a large can of pink beans, boiled ditalini pasta, a large glass container of Muir Glen Garlic Roasted Garlic Organic Pasta Sauce, and the frozen remainder of the Asiago Cream sauce I made on New


Year's Eve since I had prepped it separately from the seafood and it had such a rich cheese flavor that perfectly suited this dish. I served this with roughly julienned carrots. They were woodsy and thick cored, extremely flavorful, quite earthy and I barely steamed them to keep them as close to raw as I could. I generally can't stand to eat a carrot raw. Don't know if it's the cold snap when you take a bite or the flavor, but I didn't want them fully steamed either. These turned out perfect!

New Year's Dinner

We celebrated our Yule dinner on New Year's Eve with all the family squeezed round the table. Much like Thanksgiving, the table was loaded with all kinds of deliciousness. There was a giant salad, sherry mushrooms, sweet potatoes in maple syrup and La Fiera's 2009 Montepulciano d'Abruzzo.

As it was our first year as a married couple I decided to start an old tradition of "Feast of the 7 Fishes". Some families have multiple dishes with fish or shellfish being the main ingredient, coupled with vegetables and/or pasta. I made one dish with three types of seafood; Salmon, Shrimp, and Lobster. 

The fettuccine pasta was perfect for building a nest for the sauce and fish. The cream sauce was 1 1/2 cups of milk, 1 cup of water, 8 oz cream cheese, and 12 oz freshly shredded aged Italian asiago cheese. It was rich without being heavy and the flavor from the asiago was heavenly!