Friday, January 18, 2013

What I had for lunch today

Waking up today, I didn't think I wanted to make anything, but turns out I had to make lunch for my family. So I made a quick trip to my local supermarket and I picked a few ingredients to make my healthier spin of a classic Italian tomato sauce called Amatriciana. 

Before I begin, I wanted to show the picture of what I use at home to cook my sauces. I know it's not the best pot, but I use what I have just to save some money for more dishes to post on this blog. It also shows my stove, so all the dishes I've made, its her babies (and I'm the godfather haha). 


Now I know many people like to use their own type of tomatoes whether its fresh or canned, I'd like to show what I use for the past few months. Every tomato sauce that I've create that took about 30 minutes to put together, used Pomi chopped Tomatoes. You can check their site about their product, Pomi Product. Pomi isn't canned; it's actually in a paper container. (Very Green!) The product is good for quick sauces because they don't contain a ton of tomato juice that can dilute a quick sauce. Pomi also doesn't need much sugar, so if you like your pasta sauces a bit on the sweeter side, use this Pomi and you cut out on the calories from the sugar. Try it out. There's also another Pomi product that I've just came across; it's the Pomi Strained Tomatoes. I will one day try that product out to see if it makes a even quicker sauce. 


Now the final product of all that I've talked about, the Amatriciana. Amatriciana is a tomato based sauce that usually consist of cured pork cheek, Pecorino Cheese, White Wine, and Tomatoes. This is one of my favorite Italian pasta dishes and will try it anywhere I can. Unfortunately I didn't plan on making lunch and I couldn't get my hands on cured pork cheek, I simply used turkey bacon (I thought it would be healthier and it was on sale.) At the beginning I said that this isn't the traditional Amatriciana, so the turkey bacon was my first substitution. I didn't use Pecorino, so I used Parmigiano-Reggiano. I didn't have white wine at home, so I used leftover beef stock (just a splash). Lastly the tomatoes from Pomi. Those are all the ingredients for the dish that I've took pictures of below.




My apologizes, I forgot to mention one ingredient. The Pasta. This pasta is special because when I was young, I've learn that one pasta shaped can hold on to this thick and rich tomato sauce. The name of this pasta is called Bucatini. This long pasta actually has a small hole, which soaks up the thick sauce that a Amatriciana is. So in restaurant menus, you would see this dish written as Bucatini alla Amatriciana. I love it.

The green bits are finely minced scallions or green onions. They're just for decoration to make the sauce brighter and look appealing. If you were to serve this, please use finely minced parsley. The grassy flavor pairs better in this dish.

After lunch, I was bored, so I decided to make Double Chocolate Chip Cookies. These are really small cookies that pack a nice note of sweetness, and silky rich milk chocolate chips. I ate like 4 of them already. I used a tablespoon scoop and they flatten a bit, but they are so worth it. Best snack I've had in a while.



If you want the recipe of any dish above, leave me a comment and it will be up on the next post.

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