Recipe: A la Bekah Pasta

While reading through one of my favorite blogs the other day I got the idea to make a pasta dish from scratch, minus the actual pasta of course. For lack of a better name I am calling it A la Bekah Pasta. For this recipe you will need the following

• Olive oil
• Butter
• Garlic
• White Onion
  
• Mushrooms (fresh not canned)
• Zucchini
• Chicken Broth
  
• Heavy Cream
• Plain Tomato Sauce
• 1 lb pasta of your choice
• Fresh Parsley
• Salt
• Pepper

To start you are going to need a large saucepan/skillet. Chop a small to medium white onion. Pick your size depending on your desire of onion in your dish. Now mince two cloves of garlic. Place your saucepan on medium heat and add 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons butter. Once the butter has melted a little, add the onions and garlic, letting them cook and stirring occasionally.

While that is cooking rinse off your fresh mushrooms. I used about 2 cups when I made my dish. Now put the mushrooms aside for a minute. We'll come back to them. Since we are near the sink, fill your pot for the pasta and put it on the stove to boil.

Taking a small to medium zucchini begin to slice it into pieces. I cut my pieces a little thicker because I then cut them into quarters. Once you have finishing cutting, gather your mushrooms and put it all into the saucepan. You are going to let these cook for a few minutes to soften them up. However, keep in mind that there are several other steps in this process, so if you like your veggies more firm than tender you aren't going to want to let them cook for long.

Add 1/2 cup of Chicken Broth. I used the vegetarian variety. Your creation should look something like this:

Find your trusty can opener and open an 8 oz can of plain tomato sauce, then add that to the saucepan. I hope you read my ingredient list at the top and noticed the heavy cream. It really makes a difference. Add 1 cup of heavy cream.

Stir.

Still with me?

By now your pasta water should be boiling or close to. Add your pasta to the water. While your pasta is cooking you are going to let the saucepan simmer, without a lid. You are also going to want to add any of your seasonings at this point. I threw some fresh parsley, pinch of salt, and fresh ground pepper into mine. The following day I thought some red pepper flakes might be nice for some heat. I'll have to try it nice time.

Funny thing... While I was making this dish I realized I didn't have any pasta when it came to the point of adding it to the water. Yeah, silly me. I had to leave everything on the stove and run to the store for pasta. I know, I know.. don't worry I made sure Jon was around to monitor the stove so I didn't burn down the house.

Ok, back to the recipe. Once your pasta is done cooking, drain it. I then just put the pasta into a serving dish and added the sauce over the top. After some quick stirring, ensuring not to break the pasta, it looked like this:

We added some grated parmesan cheese to the top of our servings and enjoyed. voila!

Stay Tuned...

to see what happens.

Bad Luck

I've had a little streak of bad luck lately. Slicing my finger open and having to get stitches and then on Saturday, Lucy (the car) broke down while we were on our way to a car show in Price. We can be lucky it broke down before we made it far considering Price is a couple hour drive from here, but she happened to break down on the freeway. Of course I am know you are thinking, that's not too bad of luck Bekah. Well.. where we broke down on the freeway they were doing construction and there happened to be no emergency lane!

I am going to spare the details because I don't really want to talk about it since it's now over and done with. But I am just going to say it really sucked.

We did have to leave Lucy behind on Saturday and go the rest of the way to Price without her. We had a good time at the car show and Lucy got towed home on Sunday.

I hear that bad luck comes in groups of three. I am just nervous for what's coming up next.

PS. Thanks Dad for the ride. You're a life saver.

Memory Lane

I've noticed that this is all the rage on other's blogs. Since I haven't pulled recent pictures off my camera to blog about, I thought I would post this. If you aren't a regular commenter on my blog and just a browser, I encourage you to post a memory.

1. Add a comment on my blog. Leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

Fireworks, First aid and Food

Oh boy what a holiday weekend it was. I managed to start the weekend off just right while injuring myself during a craft project. Unfortunately, I couldn't have done something simple like burn myself with the glue gun. Instead I managed to cut open my index finger with a very sharp pair of scissors. This injury, although a clean cut, was deep and began to bleed profusely. Thankfully Jon was nice enough to drive me to the hospital and reminded me to keep my hand above my heart to limit the blood loss.

Being the evening of the 4th of July the emergency room was very empty. I was expecting there to be people waiting who had blown off a finger playing irresponsibly with fireworks. Nope, just me, the girl who cut herself with scissors.

After quite the ordeal to get my finger numbed so they could stitch me up, I got three stitches.


After the stitches they wrapped me up in a split that I get to sport for at least a week. This is because, once again, I had to make things difficult and cut my finger near the joint and in order to heal I can't bend it. This splinted finger has resulted in many jokes on my behalf from Jon and my coworkers.


The whole weekend was not all tragedy though. On Saturday Jon, his brother Jason and I all went to a new restaurant that opened on Oakley Utah. This isn't just any old restaurant, it's an original classic diner. This diner was originally manufactured in 1939 in Elizabeth New Jersey. It began it's restaurant life in Fall River, Mass. until 1953 when it was sold and moved to Middletown, Rhode Island. There it operated until 2006. Oakley Utah was then picked as the new home for the diner and it was transported cross country here to Utah.

It's a great little place and has great food. There is a very retro vintage style to the diner, but also has modern conveniences such as air conditioning and remote jukeboxes. The jukeboxes weren't up and running yet when we where there but they were cool non the less. They also make their own potato chips, which I thought were amazing. If you go there to eat, definitely get the chips.


For those I didn't get to personally say Happy 4th to, I hope you all had a festive holiday weekend!