A tasty Dinner and some great comfort food.

Hello everyone. This is Chris here, another member of the Entropic kitchen team, with a couple of tasty recipes to share. The first is something I concocted a little while ago, while the second is an old family recipe (All Italian families have a few) for a great comfort food!

So, without further ado, let's get started:

Pasta in a Fire roasted tomato, red wine sauce

• 1 large can of diced tomatoes
• 1 small can of fire roasted diced tomatoes
• Olive oil
  
• 2 cups red wine
• 1/2 large onion
  
• 2 Tablespoons minced garlic (~6-7 cloves) <- I love garlic, so this could be cut down to personal taste
• 1/2 Roasted Jalapeno pepper
  
• 1 zucchini
• 1 cup fire roasted corn (we used frozen stuff from Trader Joe's)
• Several Handfuls frozen green beans
• 2 Hot Italian Sausage Links - removed from their casings and crumbled
  
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
  
• 3-4 Tablespoons Oregano
• 3-4 Tablespoons Basil
• 1-2 Tablespoons Fennel
  
• 1-2 Tablespoons Rosemary
• 1-2 Tablespoons Parsley
• 1 Splash liquid smoke
  
• Salt and pepper

1) Dice the onion and roasted jalapeno. Saute these in olive oil with the garlic, oregano, basil, rosemary, and parsley (hold a bit of the garlic and onion back for use with the sausage). After a few minutes, slice and add the zucchini. Let cook for several minutes until the garlic browns and the onion becomes translucent.

2) Add the two cans of diced tomatoes, the red wine, and the vinegar to the mixture followed by the frozen vegetables, fennel, liquid smoke and salt and pepper (add to taste). Let simmer for ~10 minutes stirring occasionally.

3) In a separate pan, brown the sausage in olive oil with the remaining onion and garlic. Once browned, drain off most of the fat and add some of the sauce from step 2. Let simmer for ~5 minutes.

Serve over your favorite pasta with Parmesan cheese!
Note: If you're not cooking for vegetarians, the sausage could be browned along with the zucchini in the first step. For us, we used some of the vegetarian sauce to coat the pasta and served the sausage containing sauce on the side.

Not too hard, right?

Alright, so maybe you had a bad day, or just don't feel like getting too fancy. No problem, here's a bonus recipe for a dish that always cheers me up. It's great for a cold winter day too.

Pastina and Eggs

• 1/3 - 1/2 pound Pastina
• 3 eggs
• Parmesan cheese
• Salt and Pepper

1) Boil the Pastina until tender.
2) Strain the pastina, return to pot and add the eggs. Cook, with stirring, on low heat until the eggs have cooked.
3) Add Parmesan, salt, and pepper to taste.
4) Enjoy!

Absolutely delicious, and very simple, what more can you ask for?
Enjoy.