Spaghetti with Mushrooms and Cranberry
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Author: Matt Long Status: published license cc-by-nc-nd tags: recipe, food, pasta, kitchen, 2007, eats, memorymotel,
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Share on TwitterIngredients:
- Spaghetti or Vermicelli. Grab about 1 inch worth for 2 people
- 1/4 of an onion, diced
- hand full of cranberries, dried ( like raisons ), diced. You certainly could use raisons but I had some leftover from the holidays and the red looked better. ;)
- jarred mushrooms
- a small amount of ham, bacon or Prosciutto. Basically, something salty. I ended up using some old turkey bacon tonight.
- basil, chopped. ( 4-5 leaves worth )
- Parmesan cheese, buy the actual cheese. It tastes much better.
- half and half milk
-Butter
- cayenne pepper
Directions
Get a pot of water boiling. Always add some salt to the water as you bring it to a boil and before you add the pasta.
In a large sauce pan add some olive oil and get the pan hot. Add diced ham and cook for 3-5 minutes. Once it's crispy spoon off a bit of the bacon grease.
Once you have done this add in the diced onions and mushrooms. Cook for 5-7 minutes on medium heat
Add in some half and half and a spoon full of butter. Grate in a good amount of parmesan cheese. Stir to mix. Add pepper to season. Mostly likely you will NOT need to add any salt since you will be adding the cheese that contains lots of sodium
Add in chopped cranberries and some of the basil. Add a sprinkle of cayenne if you like a little heat.
Now, add more cheese and milk to suit your taste. You can also add water to thin out the sauce a bit. I don't have exact amounts because I did it all by eye. Normally, I don't do this but for this recipe I did.
Once the pasta is a shade UNDERDONE ( called al dente ) remove from water and drain. DO NOT add any oil to the pasta like you might normally. The oil will not allow the sauce to stick to the noodles if coated.
Now, pour pasta into sauce pan and mix. The pasta will cook a bit while in the sauce pan. That’s why you want it a shade underdone.
Make sure you have extra cheese,basil and cranberry to put on the top of the pasta stack
