Tantalizing Thursday- Straw and Hay

Welcome to Tantalizing Thursday on Chief 187™Chatter. Holidays are synonymous with good food. Feeding crowds, hobnobbing with neighbors, and surrounding ourselves with loved ones provide ample opportunity to dig up great recipes made with rich ingredients to treat those we socialize in December. As this is the first day of Advent I wanted to share a recipe I have

always enjoyed that is both easy and fast to prepare. Children usually enjoy the dish because it is plain and simple and adults like it for the elegant and satisfying outcome. The following recipe is Straw and Hay (Paglia e Fieno) for the donkey that carried Mary and is an attractive mix of spinach linguine and regular linguine mixed with a garlic-olive oil sauce and topped with Parmesan cheese.

Straw and Hay
Recipe by Jeff Smith, The Frugal Gourmet

Ingredients:

½ cup Butter
¼ cup Olive oil
4 Cloves garlic, peeled and minced
½ lb. Spinach linguine
½ lb. Regular linguine
1/3 c Parmesan cheese salt to taste freshly ground pepper to taste
Additional cheese for topping


Directions:

1. Heat a small frying pan and add the butter, olive oil, and garlic.

2. Saute the garlic briefly, but do not burn.

3. Set aside.

4. Bring a large pot of water with a pinch of salt to a boil and in it cook the pastas. (Check the cooking times for both types of pasta so that you can time them properly. ) Drain.

5. Return the pasta to the pot and toss with the reserved butter and garlic mixture, the cheese, and salt and pepper to taste.

6. To serve, top the individual portions with additional cheese.

From: The Frugal Gourmet Celebrates Christmas Jeff Smith William Morrow and Company Company, Inc., 1991 Entered by: Candice Smith


Sometimes a meal this simplistic during the holidays gives one time to pause, reflect, sit, and relax. This is comfort food, pantry food, and plain old good food. Serve with a tossed salad and the meal is complete. As with any recipe with relatively few ingredients, it is vitally important to purchase the best items to create the meal as each ingredient will be highlighted. I highly recommend you find a copy of Jeff Smith’s The Frugal Gourmet Celebrates Christmas

cookbook as the stories associated with the recipes in the book are interesting and makes for a very satisfying read just as this recipe makes for a very satisfying meal.

Please join me tomorrow for the Friday Music Blog on Chief 187™Chatter.