Tortellini with Garlic Spinach Sauce

This is another easy standby, with many variations.  I thought tonight's was especially tasty so worth posting.  The sweetness of the tomatoes and balsamic vinegar contrast nicely with the red pepper flakes and garlic.

20 ozs cheese tortellini

1 bunch spinach, washed and coarsely chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup peas (had some already cooked)

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

2 cups tomatoes, chopped--I had some leftover San Marzano, always nice to have around!

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1/3 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp herbes de provence

2 tbsp olive oil

Begin boiling water for the tortellini.  Heat the olive oil in a large skillet, add the garlic and bell pepper.  Sautee for a few minutes, then add the tomatoes, herbes, red pepper flaks and vinegar.  Simmer for about five minutes.  Meanwhile, add the tortellini to the boiling water to cook according to package directions.

Add the spinach in a few batches, letting each batch start to wilt a bit before adding more.  Stir in the peas after all the spinach has been added.  Drain the tortellini, toss with the sauce, and, grated parmesan if you like, for an easy meal!

Friday Night Pasta

I probably don't make "Friday Night Pasta" the same exact way twice, it's really more of a strategy then a recipe.  At the end of a busy week, the food supply and my energy are often dwindling, ready to be replenished with a Saturday morning trip to Whole Foods.  But I can usually summon enough energy and ingredients to round up a simple, tasty meal with pasta and eschew the temptation to order pizza.

I get home, chat with Brendan and Jodi, and assemble what veggies and other ingredients and figure out what I can make of them.  Last night the suspects were:

8 ozs baby spinach (makes a lot more sense to buy by the pound)

about a cup of fresh ricotta, remaining from the lamb ragu I'd made

1 yellow bell pepper

extra toasted almonds and walnuts left from salad making

green beans--too far gone, had to toss (Brendan likes picking out beans at the store better than eating them)

1 red onion

and of course there is always garlic in our house--4 cloves

I got the water boiling for pasta, then heated some olive oil in a medium pan.  Chop the onion and garlic, begin to saute.  When onion softens, add diced yellow pepper. Season with dried oregano and marjoram (fresh herbs would be nice if on hand).  Had some small pasta shells on hand that seemed to make sense to catch the heavy ricotta, so got that cooking as I worked on the vegetables.

I blended the ricotta with 1/4 cup milk so that it would mix with the pasta better.  Add the spinach when the pasta is almost ready, stir in and cook until it starts to wilt.  Drain pasta, toss with the vegetables and pasta, and you have Friday night pasta!

Creamy pasta goes best with a full bodied white like a chardonnay or white Rhone, or a fruity, medium bodied red.  I opted for the latter in the form of the 2006 Chateau du Trignon Cotes-du-Rhone ($13), which showed big fruit and nice structure--a good match, and a bottle I'd like to have again!

A great wine find

Finding eggs might be more traditional for Easter, but Larry from the local wine ship Giles wrote in a recent email of "finding" a bottle of 2006 La Spinetta Langhe Nebbiolo ($30) on his counter on Easter.  His description of it made me unable to resist giving it a try, as I've become a fan of this Italian grape.  I wasn't disappointed!

Larry urged me to give the wine some breathing time in the glass.  I took the advice a step further, and decanted it for an hour before tasting it.  Yet after that hour, it still had a tart cherry taste, rather tight, accompanying the dusky aroma.  But it did blossom beautifully the longer it was in the glass, developing a soft, supple mouth feel with tasty ripe berry flavors.  Very well-structured and enjoyable wine.

This Nebbiolo proved a nice match for the pasta with lamb ragu I made following this recipe from Food & Wine.  A bit of a twist on a traditional Italian meat sauce with its use of coriander, cumin and other spices not typically found in a ragu; but it works well with the lamb.  The wine had the complexity to stand up to these various tastes.

Early Contender for Wine of the Year

Though it may be early in the year to be thinking about this, the 2006 Jean-Louis Tribouley Les Bacs Vin de Pay Des Cotes Catalanes is going to warrant serious consideration for top honors when I do my annual "Wines of the Year" list.  

This blend of Grenache and Carignan shows a deep reddish purple in the glass.  After an hour of decanting, it had a big robust taste and continued to open up very nicely over the course of a couple more hours.  A wonderful taste of raspberries, a bit of of spice and a nice long finish made it a truly pleasurable bottle of wine.

This wine hails from the sun-drenched and wind blown Cotes Catalanes, which right by the Spanish border in France's Languedoc-Roussillon region.  Vin de Pay typically signifies a simple country wine, but this complex bottle is anything but simple.  While the Languedoc's reputation was hurt by overproduction of cheap wines, I'm finding this region can be a great source of big reds that are great values, if one keeps an eye out for good producers like Jean-Louis Tribouley.