Pasta with Bacon and Breadcrumbs

You know how you arrive home from vacation to find that you have virtually nothing to eat? You're craving good home cooked food because you've been eating out A LOT and you don't feel like running to the store? This recipe is perfect for that situation. I almost always have pasta, bacon and breadcrumbs on hand. This was the perfect meal to make after a long ride in the car with two kids. It goes together quick, easy, pleases everyone and best of all IS NOT ROAD FOOD. Amen to that!

Pasta, bacon, toasted breadcrumbs, garlic and red pepper flakes.....does it get any better than that?

Pasta with Bacon and Breadcrumbs
Adapted from Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express
Boil salted water for pasta and cook it, reserving some of the cooking liquid. Meanwhile, cut bacon into small pieces and fry it in a bit of olive oil until just crisping; remove from the pan and add two or three minced garlic cloves to the pan; cook over fairly low heat, turning until just fragrant, a couple of minutes. Toss in a cup or so of breadcrumbs and a pinch of red pepper flakes; cook, stirring, until the breadcrumbs turn golden (they go fast). Toss the pasta and the breadcrumb mixture along with the bacon and a little of the reserved liquid. Top with some more olive oil and a bit of chopped parsley or basil.

Notes/Results: We cooked one pound of whole wheat rotini with one pound of sliced bacon. It ended up being a good pasta to bacon ratio. I would definitely double the garlic and sprinkle in quite a bit of red pepper flakes next time. The pasta was great and disappeared in one setting!

This is my submission to this week's Better With Bacon theme over at IHCC!

I'll be skipping the Popsicle of the Week feature this Monday so that I can post about my trip to Michael Symon's Bar Symon. My husband and I were able to go without the children and had a wonderful time!

Before the Microwave: Rice Edition

Awhile back, my Mom and I had a conversation about cooking with leftovers before the microwave came along. Nowadays, we reheat dishes in the microwave pretty easily. Before the microwave, it was a little different. Pretty much everything was reheated in the oven, wrapped in foil. Once in awhile, my Mom would have something that needed to be reheated in the "gentle method" of placing the food on a plate over simmering water. As a kid, my favorite were the things that just didn't take well to being reheated in the oven or over simmering water: pasta, rice, potatoes, sometimes meat. In my Mom's hands, these leftover ingredients got new life as they transformed into dishes that were always better the second time around. With a happy heart, I was reminded of how much fun we used to have creating dishes from leftovers instead of just zapping something in a microwave. So with a blast from the past, I'm featuring recipes Before the Microwave. This is the Rice Edition.

You wander into the kitchen and open up the refrigerator for the tenth time today. For some reason, you are expecting to find something new in there. After all, there's got to be something in there you can eat. Just as you're beginning to think that nothing sounds good, you spot that leftover rice. Hmmmmmm...your mind wanders with possibilities and then you remember your Mom's Rice Cakes, the 1980's version, and you decide to put your own spin on it.

Mom's Rice Cakes
A Stirring the Pot Original
Recipe makes about 4 small rice cakes and can be doubled
3/4 - 1 cup leftover rice (white or brown rice, either is fine)
1 egg, whisked
1 teaspoon butter or oil
*A non-stick skillet helps
Optional: This recipe is wide open to any flavorings or toppings of your choice

Begin with a medium-sized bowl (big enough to hold the egg and the rice together). Whisk one egg. Add in any flavorings. I added salt, pepper, and sriracha.



Add in about 3/4 cup rice and mix together.


In a nonstick skillet, over medium heat, melt one teaspoon of butter or one teaspoon oil. The mixture will be too wet to form cakes. Instead, use a spoon to form a rice cake in the pan. The cakes are ready to flip when they begin to set and turn golden brown on the bottom. NOTE: You don't want the heat to be too high or cook them too fast because the rice is cold and you want it to warm through.


The rice cake is cooked through when it is golden brown on both sides, as shown in picture below.


You can top these rice cakes with anything. I topped my rice cakes with an edamame mix and some more sriracha. The possibilities are endless.

If you ask me, I would rather eat these fabulous rice cakes than plain old reheated rice any day of the week! I love the crispness of the rice cake with the veggies. I was in the mood for a light vegetarian meal and this really delivered! I've never made the rice cakes with sriracha before and I was really impressed with the flavor it added. A fun blast from the past, delicious, quick, easy and pretty healthy too! Next time you have leftover rice, give them a try. I guarantee you'll have fun thinking of ways to spice them up!

This is the third edition in the Before the Microwave Series. Click HERE for the Pasta Edition. Click HERE for the Potato Edition.

Before the Microwave: Mashed Potato Edition

Cooking was a little bit different before the microwave, especially when it came to leftovers. A week or so ago, I posted about how my Mom used to serve leftover pasta. This time around, I am posting about what my Mom used to do with leftover mashed potatoes. After all, before the microwave there really wasn't a great way to reheat leftover mashed potatoes.

If you are lucky enough to have leftover mashed potatoes, you should consider making these Potato Cakes. They are not healthy, whatsoever, but they are delicious.

Potato Cakes - adapted from my Mom
*Recipe can be doubled*
Nonstick skillet
1 cup of mashed potatoes (can also use sweet potatoes)
1 egg or egg white
1/4 cup a/p flour, plus a little extra to coat your hands and form the cakes
3 tablespoons butter, or oil, whichever you prefer
Put one cup of leftover mashed potatoes in a medium-sized bowl. (One cup of mashed potatoes will make about 2 large or 4 small potato cakes). Add in one egg or one egg white and about 1/4 cup of flour. Stir together. Form the mashed potato mixture into 2 large patties or 4 small patties. If the mixture is a little sticky, coat your hands with flour and pat mixture into cakes.
Melt about 3 tablespoons of butter over medium-heat in a nonstick skillet. I'm sure you could use any skillet, but nonstick seems to work best for this recipe.
Put the potato cakes into the skillet and fry over medium-heat. You want to fry them slowly so that the potatoes have a chance to warm through. When the edges of the potato cakes start to brown, it is probably time to flip.
Look at those delicious and buttery fried potato cakes - yum!! Fry on the opposite side until you achieve the desired color and crispness.
My Mom liked to serve these for breakfast with eggs and bacon. To this day, that is one of my favorite breakfasts. Of course, back then I could eat these fried mashed potatoes and not think twice about it:D These are also delicious served with pork chops or steak.

You can top these beauties with all kinds of fun things:
Sour cream
Salsa
Caramelized Onion
Fried Egg
Hot Sauce
Melted cheese

There are also all kind of things that you can add to the Potato Cakes to give them more flavor and/or to use up other leftovers on hand:
Cheese
Mustard
Green Onion
Ham
Any green vegetables
Diced up hard-boiled egg
Salsa

I've also toyed with the idea of forming the cakes, dipping them in egg, and then coating them with panko and frying. I think that would be delicious too!

I am also submitting this recipe to Reeni's Side Dish Showdown, click here for details. Reeni of Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice is hosting a monthly event to celebrate side dishes. I think that these Potato Cakes are one side dish that everyone, including kids, would love to eat!

Have you had Mashed Potato Cakes before?

What do you like to do with your leftover mashed potatoes?

Before the Microwave: Pasta Edition

Do you remember cooking before the microwave? If you do, good for you! If you don't, then this might cause you to do some thinking. Either way, cooking before the microwave was a little different, especially when it came to handling leftovers. My mom and I had a fun conversation the other night about all the things she did in the kitchen before she got her microwave oven. The conversation was a real hoot and prompted me to do a new weekly series to share stories and recipes that my family made prior to the microwave oven.

Although I was born in 1975, we didn't get our first microwave oven until about 1985. By this time, I was at least ten years old. I remember at first that my Mom didn't want one, but my Grandpa insisted that she would love it. He convinced her that she had to have it. I remember when he went up to Sears and bought it for her. In the 80's, microwave ovens were expensive , and not something my Mom would've bought for herself. I'll never forget the day they installed that strange looking beast. It was huge and loomed over the stove on a shelf. It was like a science experiment or something.

These days, Mom and I love our microwave ovens mostly for reheating leftovers or making popcorn, but back then it took some getting used to. Mom was used to being creative with her leftovers and had very different methods for reheating things. If you think about it, some things just don't reheat well in the oven. How would you reheat leftover pasta, leftover mashed potatoes, leftover vegetables, or leftover rolls? No wonder we had so many casseroles back then! The microwave really was a new concept in the kitchen. In many ways, it reinvented how people cooked.

One of my all-time favorite things to eat back then was pasta. When we had leftover pasta, my Mom would reheat it gently on the stove. I'm not sure if this was her own special way, but to me it is. I'd be very curious to know if some of you have also reheated pasta using this method. If not, you might find it interesting. Either way it is delicious and when I have time, I still use this method. It produces more dirty dishes, (which is another thing the microwave changed), but it is much better than reheating leftover pasta in the microwave.

Mom's Leftover Pasta, Reheated
*leftover plain or buttered pasta, any shape
*pat of butter
*about 3-4 tablespoons of milk

Put a pat of butter in a skillet over low-medium heat. Let butter melt.

Add about 3 - 4 tablespoons of milk (skim, lowfat, whole) to the skillet. The milk should probably be enough to just cover the bottom of the skillet.
Add in the desired amount of leftover pasta. Usually there is only enough room to make 1 or 2 servings.
Gently loosen up the pasta and let reheat in the milk and butter mixture. This takes about 2-3 minutes, or until the milk evaporates. This is a good time to throw in any other leftovers: chopped bacon, parmesan cheese, any leftover veggies, etc. It is a good way to use up any other leftovers hanging out in the fridge. Can you see the potential here.......much better than anything reheated in the microwave!!
The pasta is ready when it is warm all the way through and all the milk is evaporated.
Pile on a plate and enjoy. The pasta should have a sheen to it. The butter and milk almost make a delicate sauce that keeps the pasta hydrated. Although your pasta will not techically be "al dente", it will be much better than if it was reheated in the microwave.

Have you ever reheated your pasta this way? If not, do you have another method?

What do you remember that was different about cooking before the microwave? What did you cook on the stovetop or oven that you now cook solely in the microwave? Did you have any special method for reheating leftovers? Any special recipes you created to use up leftovers? If so, please share. It's kinda funny to go back and think about cooking without the microwave. I'm looking forward to some funny and creative stories and ideas.

Next week's edition is all about leftover mashed potatoes (before the microwave, of course)!!