CHORIZO, MUSHROOM & ROASTED GARLIC RIGATONI

This pasta dish is a staple in our house. I've always made it with Chorizo because it's one of my favourite things to eat and cook with.When you pair it with a Ragu Pasta sauce,it's even better!I sometimes fry them and serve it alongside rice and it kind of takes the place of Beef Ulathiyathu.If you have never tried it, you should. It's a pork sausage with a lot of spice in it.It's delicious and makes everything that you make with it taste awesome!There are two kinds of Chorizo,fresh & dry. I like to use the fresh ones and you can use it just like how you would use a ground meat.

I rarely buy pasta sauces but when I do, I prefer to buy Ragu. It's such a well balanced sauce and it's not overtly tart. Some bottled sauces are so tart that you really wouldn't know how to fix the dish in the end. I used Ragu's Roasted Garlic Pasta sauce because I do have a weak point for roasted garlic,for that matter everything with garlic in it. I don't mind if the sauce is chunky or smooth. This roasted garlic sauce was made chunky.

Assunta made the voyage from Italy to America with a little something extra up her sleeve,her family's recipe for tomato sauce - a secret and sublime combination of vine-ripened tomatoes,fresh basil,fennel,garlic and ground pepper,meticulously writing down every detail and hiding it for safe passage.She must have known she was onto something when the neighbour's raved about it. Then the neighbour's neighbours. Word spread and when people in Iowa started grabbing it off the shelves,well,the legend was off and running.

It wasn't easy,Assunta grew up in a man's word during America's toughest time -the Great Depression.And in a time when people expected less,she gave them more. When people were forced to put their hoped,dreams and aspirations on the back burner, Assunta placed hers directly on the front burner.Her recipe literally became the recipe for her success...Thus, Ragu pasta sauce was born! Hundred of pasta sauces have graced the shelves over the past 80 years, but only one has become America's number one.

Ragu pasta sauces are made with farm grown ingredients and contains no artificial flavours or high fructose corn syrup.

CHORIZO,MUSHROOM & ROASTED GARLIC RIGATONI
My own recipe
Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 fresh Chorizo links,case removed
1 small box button mushrooms,cleaned and sliced
1 small onion, diced
1/2 box good quality Rotini pasta
1 1/4 cups of Ragu Pasta Sauce ( Chunky Roasted Garlic)
Fresh parsley
Salt & Pepper

Method:
In a medium sized pan,on medium high heat, saute the crumbled chorizo till it starts to release it's oil. Add the mushrooms and onions and saute till all the water from mushroom dries up. Add the pasta sauce to it and cook covered,on medium heat for 25 minutes.
Meanwhile,cook the pasta according to the instructions on the box.Do not drain the pasta.
Check the sauce for seasoning and set aside.When the pasta is done,using a slotted spoon,add the hot pasta directly into the sauce and mix well.Check for seasonings.Garnish with chopped parsley and serve hot!

If you want to thin out the sauce,you may use the pasta cooking water for the same.

This is a good one, try it someday. I am sure you will like it. If you are planning to use ground meat instead of chorizo,make sure you season them accordingly. Chorizo is very very flavourful!

There is a sweeps contest running on Food(dot)com. The contest is titled Ready. Set. Cook! and it challenges home cooks to create new and unique recipes featuring Ragu sauce plus a set list of other ingredients! Click here for more details!

20 - MINUTE HOMEMADE MARINARA SAUCE

I try to cook food from scratch as much as I can. But, having said that, I do take shortcut methods when I am pressed for time or when I cannot keep my hands off of trying a recipe which calls for shortcut ingredients.We have decided to go local as much as we can so we buy a lot of ingredients for our daily cooking from the local Co-op. Off late, I am reading a few cookbooks written by fellow food bloggers. I follow them on their social media too,to get inspired with their meal planning for their families.It's an inspiration of sorts for the lifestyle they follow and not exactly the recipes.

When I read a cook book, I enjoy reading the headnotes more than the recipe itself. A cookbook without headnotes doesn't go well with me.It gives a personal touch to each recipe. Like, how they came up with that idea and how it evolved into a recipe gives you an insight of their day to day life. I am a person who imagines a lot when it comes to food. I can spend hours and hours on it. Infact, I've spent almost 3 weeks trying to develop a recipe based on an appetizer we ate at the wedding in Chicago.I read similar recipes online but, nothing came close to what we ate there.But, since I decided I would not give up on it, I did some calculations in my head and made a batch of that amazing dip and it tasted awesome. Infact,it was so much better than the one we had in Chicago, if I say so myself.It was served at Ian's 2nd Birthday Party as Thai Curry Chicken Wontons. 

We used to buy Marinara sauce all these years but after reading and following Jennifer, I made a mental note to try out her recipe next time I needed some sauce for my pizza and pasta. Ian loves pizza.Be it Pepperoni,Sausage,Cheese...anything as long as it's a pizza.He now knows that it comes in a thin cardboard box too! So, recently we had a package delivery and it came in a sleek carboard box. He was sleeping when Jobin brought it in. We didn't throw the box because we know that he loves to play with it. When Ian woke up, he saw the box and exclaimed,'Pizzi!'. He was very sure there was Pizza in it and when he realised there was none, he started asking me for it!

Yesterday, after putting him to sleep, I set out to caramelizing some yellow onions with thyme,olive oil, butter and white wine. The house smelled incredible and I knew that would wake him up because from the time he was a baby, any food that smelled good woke him up. No, I am not kidding! He would also tell me what exactly he is eating everytime I gave him something to eat! I know I am raising a Little Foodie and I am very happy about it.So, he did wake up and then immediately asked me to give him Pizzi! I wouldn't blame him. It did smell like an Italian resturant with all those onions caramelizing along with fresh thyme!

So, I decided to make a Pizza just for him with the sauce I've been itching to make.All things came together very well and I baked a thin crust pizza for him and the dough was made according to Jennifer's recipe too,from Homemade with Love. It was a very good one.Even though I made it *just* for him, it ended up being our dinner :) I wizh we had a slice of that Simple Strawberry Pie that I made a few weeks ago, using Jennifer's recipe for dessert. It was so good! Do try to make some before the sweet Strawberries go out of season. It hardly takes any time to bake!

20-MINUTE MARINARA SAUCE
Makes about 1 quart (900 grams)

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1 (28 ounce /784 grams) can whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes*
Handful of fresh basil leaves, torn into pieces
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method: Heat oil in a fairly large pot over medium heat. Add the whole garlic cloves and cook until they are fragrant and golden, 2-3 minutes. In another bowl, break up the tomatoes with your hands and add them to the garlic,along with the tomato juice from the tin.You can puree the tomatoes if you like a smooth sauce or just break it up roughly,if you want a sauce with some texture,like I did.Season with salt and pepper and add the torn basil leaves. Stir it and let it cook on medium-low for 15 minutes.If not using immediately, let the sauce cool completely before storing it in the refrigerator. It will stay fresh for upto 3 days. They will stay good, frozen, for up to 2 months.

*IF you want to use fresh tomatoes, blanch -peel -deseed them before using. The taste will vary a bit because they don't taste exactly the same as the tinned ones. There's no harm in trying,though! A pinch of sugar may be needed to balance the tartness of the fresh tomatoes. This is just my suggestion.

I was really happy with the results. If you find it a bit tart, I would suggest that you add a pinch of sugar to balance it out. This sauce worked very well with Ian. I saw him peel off the cheese layer to lick the sauce.One of the first words he learnt to say clearly was sauce. He loves ketchup and must have thought this Marinara sauce was it's cousin. They are in a way, right?