Rosae Alfredo Pasta

When Living Sword and Chocolate Girl came over for a visit, I made this with what I had in my refridgerator and freezer. I had some of that marinated BBQ chicken from Costco in the freezer, fresh asparagus and parmesan cheese in my refridgerator, red onion and vine ripened tomatoes sitting on my kitchen counter. All I needed was some heavy cream. Since I knew we were going to Zerelli's, I also knew that I could get the cream there.

I used large tubed pasta for this dish but any shaped pasta would work too. I cooked it as usual in salted water for the stated time but just a minute before it is ready, I added cut asparagus to the cooking pasta. Once cooked, I drained both pasta and asparagus and returned it to the pot. While still hot, with the stove on medium heat, I added shreaded grilled chicken, freshly chopped tomatoes and thinly sliced tomatoes. Gave it a good toss and then added heavy cream and parmesan cheese to give it a lovely creamy sauce. Season to taste with a little salt and serve. It was good with some freshly ground pepper. I actually wanted to top it off with some fresh basil but I forgot. I think that would have give it that added flavour to the dish. Only thing messy with this is having to cook the chicken first and shreaded it before making the pasta. I call this a rosae because of the mixing of tomatoes and cream.

A Feast Laid Out

Doesn't this Italian feast look fantastic? Granted, its not the best photography but I couldn't resist. Last night we were invited to this lovely meal at Chocolate Girl & Living Sword's home. Knowing what a great chef Chocolate Girl is, we knew we were in for a feast. There was fresh bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, BBQed lamb sausages, BBQed hot Italian sausages, procini ravioli in a tangy lemon sauce, gorgonzola ravioli in what I think was a tomato pesto (yum!), garlic stuffed olives, tomato & mozarella salad and to wash it all down, San Pelligrino orange fizz!

After this yummy meal, a HUGE bowl of red cherries and Rainier cherries, and a plate of Lindt cherry chilli filled dark chocolate. Ho ho ho! These people never hold back on the yummies! All this of course was made perfect by the company and conversation.

Ever play Uno Stacko? Haha. We had such fun with this simple game. It wasn't long before more yummies showed up. Tranditional tiramisu. I was told by the chef that it was his grandmother's recipe who is still in Italy! And the finale, dessert wine. With our bellies filled, hearts connected and spirits high with laughter, we reluctantly departed for the night.

A platter of fun!

Its been so hot that I decided to do a play on little plates , tapas. The croissants were fresh from Zerelli's Mediterranean Market that I got that morning. The first tapas I had was marinated cherry tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and evoo. I added chopped fresh basil and red onion and topped it with lovely creamy goat cheese! Oh this combination is always a winner. The second tapas was garlic crimini mushrooms with butter and olive oil. This was lightly sauteed and served as is. We had this for lunch and it hit the spot nicely.