Hi, Foodies! Happy Friday!
I recently read a blurb about a recipe that was trending on TikTok, and while I’m not on that platform, the idea of the recipe – baked feta pasta – sounded so good I decided to give it a try. I’m not sure what the original recipe entails, but I bought myself a block of feta and set to work. It was so easy and turned out so delicious that I had to share!
The flavors melded so well that I could easily see turning this into a cheese spread and eating it on a cracker!
The only thing I’d do differently is that instead of a long pasta, I’d use a pasta with a shape, like shells, bowtie or ziti to catch even more cheesy goodness.
Ingredients:
1 block of feta cheese
1 tomato (sundried would work, too)
1 shallot
3 cloves of garlic sliced thin
halved Kalamata olives
capers
pine nuts
seasoning
olive oil
sherry or cooking wine
pasta of choice
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Spread 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of a baking dish. Place your block of feta in the center.
Add chopped or sundried tomato, shallots, garlic, olives, capers and pine nuts to the dish, surrounding the cheese.
Drizzle with olive oil. Add a splash of sherry or cooking wine. Sprinkle with seasoning. I used coarse sea salt mixed with herbs de provence and some fresh pepper.
Bake 30-40 minutes until cheese is soft.
Toss with your pasta.
That’s it! Big flavor with little effort! If you try it, please let me know if you like it!
Have you jumped on the baked feta craze? How’d you prepare yours?
Check back next Friday for another Foodie Flavor!
It’s probably clear by now that I LOVE pasta. Seriously. But my husband – not so much. So, pasta night is a two different dinners night . . . usually. While he occasionally requests my scallops and pasta in blue cheese cream sauce (yum!), and my pizza stuffed shells (who wouldn’t?), there’s only one other pasta recipe (so far) that gets him excited about pasta night, and this is it: Garlic Lover’s Bacon Carbonara Pasta.
Bring pasta water to a boil. For the average pasta cooking time of 9-11 minutes, it’s usually time to add to the water after the bacon’s been cooking for several minutes.
the bacon is almost done, remove most but not all of the fat (I soak it up with paper towels – be careful, it’s hot!). Add shallots and chopped garlic, stirring until shallots are almost done. Add crushed garlic and stir until fragrant, about one minute. If you wanted to kick it up with some crushed red pepper, now would be the time to add it.
much easier and adds more flavor!)
additional cheese once plated because it makes the pasta easier to dish out as leftovers.) Top with green onions to garnish if desired.
This week I was craving seafood pasta in a creamy cheese sauce, but I was feeling lazy – I didn’t feel like making a roux, or stirring constantly – I really just wanted to do minimal effort, tossing some ingredients together, while enjoying maximum flavor. This creamy blue cheese sauce is the solution!
In a large pan combine olive oil with melted butter. Usually I’d say sear the scallops a couple of minutes on each size until they caramelize a nice, crusty brown, but I got a new pan and that didn’t happen this time. 😦
Now, I’ve got to be honest about this – if you had told me even a year ago that I’d not only be eating a recipe made with canned clams, but loving it, I wouldn’t have believed you. It’s not something we had in the house when I was growing up.
Chop shallot and garlic. (I save all my largest garlic cloves for this recipe.) Add olive oil and butter to a large frying pan, melt butter over medium high heat, then add shallots and garlic. Sauté until shallots are translucent.
better, it tastes really good. This is one of the few recipes where I prefer shaker parmesan to fresh, but a bit of cheese really brings out the flavor of this dish!
I’ll tell you – one of the hardest parts about developing food sensitivities in adulthood is that you’ve spent years indulging in all the wonderful things you’re no longer supposed to have. And while many great strides have been taken by manufacturers to eliminate certain ingredients, like gluten, all the gluten-free breads, pizza crusts, beer, etc., still contain yeast, which is a major bummer, but . . . I’m pretty determined, so I’ve created several recipes to help me feel like I’m not missing out on too much.
Preheat over to 350 and bring salted water to a boil.
bound to break.)
Put ricotta in a bowl (I used about 12 ounces) and season how you want. I used garlic powder, nature’s seasoning, and fresh basil. Mix well. Add onion, pepperoni chunks, and mozzarella cubes, and mix again.
When all your shells are stuffed, cover with more sauce, then add shredded cheese. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until the sauce and cheese at the edges begins to bubble. Enjoy!
Shannon Hollinger 