My Latest Kitchen Acquisition and Pasta with Ricotta & Mushrooms

This kitchen tool is my latest kitchen acquisition. It helps you drain water from the pan after you cook 'Pasta'. What you do is that you hold it at the upper rim of the pan as though it were the lid. The *wings* on its two sides help you hold it with the handle grips of the pan. You hold the pan and the perforated *lid* on the sink, as away from you as possible, and then drain the water. Which also means that you do not have to use a colander for that job. The pasta can stay in the same pan in which it was cooked. Isn't it handy?

Since it is so good, I put it to use immediately as well as frequently and made a few dishes with pasta, which will feature here in the next few weeks. Today is the lucky(!) day for

Spinach Tagliatelle with Ricotta & Mushrooms
(I found the original recipe in German here.)

Serves 2-3.

Ingredients:

250g. Ricotta Cheese
300g. Tagliatelle (I used the ones with spinach. You could use plain noodles too.)
200g. mushrooms, sliced thin
4-5 fat cloves of garlic, chopped fine
2 tbsp olive oil
Parsley or any other herb (I didn't use any.)
1 tbsp tomato paste (optional; not in the original recipe)
about 1/4 cup milk (I used white wine instead. Hic.)

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Take approx. 3 litres of water in a pan and put it to boil. Add a little salt to it. (I often add a vegetable stock cube instead; that gives the pasta some more taste of its own.) Once the water starts boiling, add the pasta and cook on high heat. The time taken to cook the pasta 'al dente' is normally written on the pack.
2. In the meanwhile, heat oil in a pan. Sauté the chopped garlic and sliced mushrooms in it.
3. Stir the Ricotta cheese with the milk/wine to make it smooth and slightly thinner. Pour it over the mushrooms. Add the tomato paste, if you like. I add it to give the sauce a nice tang.
4. Add salt and pepper to it and cook on very low heat. If using any herb, add it now.
5. By now the Tagliatelle should be cooked. Drain the water from it. (This is where my new baby comes in handy. :))
6. Serve the cooked Tagliatelle onto individual plates. Pour the creamy Ricotta sauce over it. Sprinkle some more pepper over it, if you like.

Serve with a salad on the side.

Green Tagliatelle with Ricotta & Mushrooms

(By the way, I bought the tool and also took the photographs in this post before I got my new camera. So, the pictures aren't as great as I'd love them to be. Clicking them all over again could have been an option, but I am too lazy for that. :( )

And no, this post isn't being sent to any event. Isn't that strange?

Tags: Pasta, Cheese, Ricotta, Mushrooms, Wine, Italian