Pasta Near Miss

Seriously... doesn't it LOOK delicious? So how come, even with all the wonderful ingredients like sun dried tomato bread panko crumbs, white wine, roasted chicken, and mushrooms, it tasated a little dull. The crunch of the toasted crumbs (first tossed with some good olive oil and some minced garlic) was lovely. It's just that somehow the recipe I saw in this month's Cooking Light Magazine - Fusilli with Caramelized Spring Onions & White Wine - (and should have stuck to), didn't turn out quite as I expected.

While it's technically true that it's April, and therefore Spring, here in Halifax, Nova Scotia, ramps, asparagus and Spring onions are only visible in magazines. So already I was at a disadvantage. Plus I didn't really have time to caramelize the onion - just a quick chop and saute. I just added a handful of sliced mushrooms to one chopped onion in a large skillet with some olive oil while I was toasting the bread crumbs and adding the cooked chicken chunks to heat them through. Even adding the white wine and a couple of pinches of red chili pepper flakes didn't pump up the flavor enough. Not that it was bad... just... not great. I probably should have stuck to the recipe verbatem.

So what does one do with a mediocre dish of pasta? Well you beat up some eggs, turn the oven up to 400F/200C, toss the left over pasta into the egg mixture and whip up a frittata. . What's your "cure" for a mediocre pasta?

Don't forget that this week, Sweet Artichoke will be hosting . Send your PPN entries (I'm sure they'll be awesome) to sweetartichoke(at) gmail(dot)com and cc ruth (at) 4everykitchen (dot) com by Thursday night and check back for the roundup on Friday.