{"id":24046,"date":"2017-01-18T17:30:15","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T17:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/?p=24046"},"modified":"2017-01-18T17:30:15","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T17:30:15","slug":"recipe-karens-checca-pasta-recipe-with-a-lot-of-choices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/recipe-karens-checca-pasta-recipe-with-a-lot-of-choices\/","title":{"rendered":"RECIPE: KAREN\u2019S CHECCA PASTA RECIPE\u2014WITH A LOT OF CHOICES!"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAREN\u2019S CHECCA PASTA RECIPE\u2014WITH A LOT OF CHOICES!<\/h1>\n

Who am I? All of a sudden I\u2019m coming up with recipes for you guys!<\/p>\n

It all came out of my having to start cooking a bit after my stroke. In the hospital, my new medical team broke down my for-the-rest-of-my-life dietary restrictions, and\u2014I\u2019m not going to lie\u2014I was gobsmacked! Not only did I not ever cook<\/em>, I never go to the market! Mr. X goes out and picks-up lunch for us almost every day that I work from home, which, prior to October, meant bring back sandwiches, pizza, burgers, you name it. Nothing was ever good<\/em> for us; it was all just convenient<\/em>. And<\/em> delicious, of course, as most unhealthful foods are.<\/p>\n

So, being the major foodie that you know I am, I had to totally re-tool my eating habits, while trying to still enjoy what I was eating. And, horrifyingly, we both had to start cooking for ourselves most of the time. But let me tell you\u2014I have come up with some winners! Including this wonderful pasta recipe. Mr. X is beside himself with joy when I say I\u2019m going to make this one. I can literally get him to go out with me nowadays, if I promise to make the Checca the next day! It\u2019s like a magic wand!<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>

One of these bowls is mine, and one belongs to Mr. X. Guess who is the saucier one?<\/p><\/div>\n

For those of you who have to eat as carefully as I do, for serious health reasons, I promise\u2014everything in here should be okay for you. But I included several choices of each ingredient, so you can tailor it to your own needs. And, let me happily tell the other peeps who can’t eat white flour either, I always<\/em> use wheat pasta. You can even use the new ones made from ancient grains, if you like, or even the vegetable pastas. It\u2019s hard to make this taste bad, especially if you\u2019re a garlic fan, as we are.<\/p>\n

And, one of the best parts of the recipe is that you don\u2019t even cook the \u201csauce!\u201d The only \u201ccooking\u201d you do is the basic pasta!<\/p>\n

I make this amount for just the two of use, but we don\u2019t eat any side dishes with it because we just love it on its own. And sometimes we even have some left over. But, if you augment it with salad, or soup, or even bread if you can eat it, (I recommend bread stix<\/em>,) this should be enough for a quartet. And I know I\u2019m giving you a lot of info on each step of the recipe, but that\u2019s what I always wish everyone<\/em> who writes a recipe would do!<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s get to it already!<\/p>\n

WHOLE WHEAT PASTA WITH CHECCA<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

INGREDIENTS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

5 or 6 tomatoes, seeded and diced (I use Roma ones, but I\u2019m sure any will work. Also, we love the tomatoes in this dish, so we use 6, but 5 will work for most people.)<\/p>\n

4 cloves of garlic, chopped really finely (The number of cloves really depends on the size of them, by the way. One chunk of garlic can have giant cloves and tiny ones. Go by the size of the them, the number of tomatoes you used, and how much you love, or don\u2019t love, garlic. But make sure they\u2019re really chopped up! Mincing them is not necessary, but you do want the pieces as tiny as possible.)<\/p>\n

1\/2\u2028 cup chopped fresh basil (I fill a half cup with the whole<\/em> leaves, and then<\/em> wash and chop them. That\u2019s so much easier than chopping and guessing!)<\/p>\n

1\/2\u00a0cup olive oil<\/p>\n

4 oz. Cubes of real mozzarella cheese (They don\u2019t really have to be cubes; just similar-sized pieces. Also, you can skip this, if you\u2019re not a cheese fan. But I love it, and it\u2019s one of only two cheeses I can eat, so I lay it on thick. And, I never measure this ingredient\u2014I just do a bit at a time, and stop when it looks like the amount of cheese we like.)<\/p>\n

A bit of salt, which is definitely optional! ( I never use it in this! And guess what? We don\u2019t miss it at all! If Mr. X feels he needs some, he sprinkles some pink sea salt on the finished product, right before he digs in.)<\/p>\n

12 oz. of angel hair pasta or thin spaghetti, preferably in whole wheat (So far, I can\u2019t find angel hair in the wheat variety, but \u201cthin spaghetti\u201d has proved just fine. Even regular width spaghetti is okay! It\u2019s your preference.)<\/p>\n

THE VERY SIMPLE DIRECTIONS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Combine tomatoes, garlic, basil, and olive oil in a big non-metal mixing bowl.<\/p>\n

Stir in a bit of sea salt, if you choose. (I never do, because I have to stay away from salt, and I swear\u2014it makes no difference. But I do<\/em> put a bit of salt in the pasta water.)<\/p>\n

Cover with plastic wrap.<\/p>\n

Leave it out, at room temperature for at least 2 hours. You can actually go for up to10 hours, which makes it a great dish to whip up before you leave for work, and have almost all ready when you get home.<\/p>\n

Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water (I do 8 quarts, and salt it just a tiny bit, after<\/em> it has boiled, right before adding the broken-in-half pasta) to your desired denseness. (We like it not<\/em> al dente. So, we find that 8 or 9 minutes is perf.)<\/p>\n

Drain.<\/p>\n

You can either pour the entire uncooked tomato concoction over the hot pasta, and toss, or let the individuals take the pasta first, and then top it with as much \u201csauce\u201d as they like. Just make sure you all get that garlic-y olive oil into each bowl!<\/p>\n

Enjoy! I know you will.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAREN\u2019S CHECCA PASTA RECIPE\u2014WITH A LOT OF CHOICES! Who am I? All of a sudden I\u2019m coming up with recipes for you guys! It all came out of my having to start cooking a bit after my stroke. In the hospital, my new medical team broke down my for-the-rest-of-my-life dietary restrictions, and\u2014I\u2019m not going to<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-recipes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24046"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26609,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24046\/revisions\/26609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}