30 minute pasta: Fusilli with sausage and zucchini (with bonus for dessert)

This one took 46 minutes from walking into the kitchen to sitting down at the table. Part of that was because I elected to go with Guilliano Hazan's homemade sausage, and I hadn't made it ahead of time. (Actually, it was supposed to be made a day ahead and refrigerated for the flavors to meld, but we thought it tasted great, even made at the last minute.)

That's not the whole reason for the extra time, though, as the sausage only took a few minutes to throw together. It was easy-peasy: ground pork, garlic, salt, pepper, and dry white wine.

I'm actually not sure how this recipe could fit into thirty minutes, as there are several steps where things have to cook for 10 or more minutes. But it was still easy and totally worth it; I really loved this one! The sauce was made with onion, butter, sausage, zucchini, salt, and fresh tomatoes. Then it was tossed with the pasta and some freshly grated parm.

While it was cooking, I had the thought that mushrooms would be good, too, but because these recipes are so simple, I feel like I need to make them as written the first time to see what they're supposed to be. I will make this one again, definitely with mushrooms next time.

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After eating dinner and putting the kids to bed, hubby and I were craving something special for dessert. I'd been drooling over the recipe for Chocolate Cake Heart's Desire which Joanna posted (from the River Cottage Everyday cookbook) ever since she first posted, but we haven't had fancy chocolate in the house for ages! Luckily, we'd just been to the store and I'd remembered to pick up some Lindt 70%, so I was finally able to make this cake. I halved the recipe, and it provided us with a delicious dessert for two nights (with ice cream, of course). Yum!

Not-quite-30 Minute Pasta: Rigatoni with onions, pancetta, and pecorino

When my hubby walked into the kitchen tonight, looked up at the clock, looked at dinner on the table, and looked at the copy of Giuliano Hazan's Thirty Minute Pasta sitting on the counter, he said, "I think this book is worth purchasing ~ not just checking out from the library!"

I'm sure many of us have had the experience of going to cook a "quick" recipe for the first time and having it take twice as long as it's supposed to, as you figure out the methods, realize too late what you forgot to prep, have meat that needs to be cooked in two batches. So I knew that my first foray into 30 Minute Pasta would be pretty quick, but I was not anticipating 27 minutes from walking into the kitchen to sitting down at the table.

Kayte joined another cooking group: Thirty Minute Thursdays, and when she posted about it, I was intrigued. We are always looking for quick recipes for those kinds of nights (you know the type I'm talking about, right?), and pasta is pretty much never-fail in our house.

However, I can't commit to cooking on Thursday nights. You see, Thursday nights and I just don't get along. For some reason, I'm up for cooking (an intricate dish, something thrown together, whatever) pretty much every Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but for some reason when Thursday rolls around, I just can't get myself to walk into the kitchen. It took a lot of weeks of "What's for dinner?" arguments before we finally realized that they always happened on Thursdays, and thus Thursdays became hubby's night for dinner. Sometimes he makes one of his specialties: fajitas, tacos, eggs in a nest; sometimes he just goes and gets us a pizza. Whatever he decides, I take no responsibility for dinner that night, which always feels really good.

Anyway, today was one of those days: didn't get home until midnight from our debate tournament and 18-hour work day yesterday, had to be back at school at 6:20 this morning to make sure the debaters got on the bus for day two of the tournament, then went to swimming lessons with the kiddos, followed by a winter festival at the little guy's preschool. It was big day, and I did not have it in me to cook dinner.

Enter Thirty Minute Pasta! Hubby picked the recipe: Rigatoni with onions, pancetta, and pecorino. Besides those three ingredients, this recipe includes olive oil, salt, and pepper. That's it. And it was on the table in 27 minutes.

The final dish was too salty for my taste. The pancetta is salty by itself, and then GH has you salt the pasta water (I only used one of the two tablespoons of salt he calls for) and lightly salt the sauce. Next time, I think I'll omit the salt from the sauce and go even lighter on the salt in the pasta water. But it was a tasty, quick dinner, and perfect for a night like tonight. I can't wait to see what the rest of the book has in store!