Hey there!
I recently realised that I haven’t posted many pasta dishes on my blog so I decided this week’s recipe should definitely be one with pasta as the star of the show. I’m actually surprised that I haven’t got around to post more pasta dishes so far since I am an absolute lover of pasta, especially with the right sauce.
The things I had left over in the fridge particularly influenced my dish. There was a lot of beetroot and also some ricotta cheese. I also added sundried tomatoes after I found them in the pantry while looking for the right shape of pasta. I decided to use whole wheat penne, I always use whole wheat because I personally prefer the flavour, but I guess you can use any kind of pasta, whatever your heart desires. As for spices I decided to use oregano and thyme, since these are the spices I usually use when I prepare baked veggies. As baked beetroot is the base of this dish I decided to flavour them with my usual mixture of those two herbs, balsamic, olive oil and some soy sauce. The reason, which made me decide to bake the beets, was plain and simple the fact that I just love the taste beets develop when having been roasted in the oven. Divine, simply divine!
To make the whole thing a little easier I then added all the ingredients into a casserole dish to heat the mixture through. This way I didn’t have to use an extra pan, since the pine nuts roasted while the pasta was heating through by being in the oven. Hence I had a little less to wash up after, which is always a plus, right?
I was extremely pleased with my creation and I absolutely loved it. I find that beetroot and ricotta just make a perfect couple. To conjure up the ultimate Italian pasta feeling I also find the pine nuts and the dried tomatoes the ideal addition. All in all I can only say I had an amazing dinner, I loved it and so did my host sister who I was cooking for that night. So if you’re a lover of beetroot or even completely unknown to the fact that beetroot can be served other ways than pickled in a salad you should definitely try this. Either to stretch your horizon or just plainly because well, beetroot’s awesome!
So, there you go the recipe.
Ingredients for four
- 200g penne (I used whole wheat)
- 700g beetroot (2 big ones)
- 140g ricotta
- 4tsp pine nuts
- 80g sun dried tomatoes
- 2tsp thyme
- 2tsp oregano
- 2tbs olive oil
- 2tbs soy sauce
- 2tbs balsamic
- salt
- pepper
- 200ml water
- Preheat your oven to 200°C
- Boil some water for the pasta
- Meanwhile peel the beetroots and cut them into one cm cubes, put them on a lined baking tray and add the balsamic, soy sauce, olive oil, thyme and oregano, also add salt and pepper to taste and put it in the preheated oven fro around 25 – 30 min
- By this time your pasta water should be boiling and you can add the pasta and some salt, cook the pasta until al dente
- When the pasta is cooked al dente, put the pasta aside until the beetroot cubes are nicely roasted and tender, meanwhile you can chop up your sundried tomatoes as well as the pine nuts
- As soon as the beetroot cubes are done combine all the ingredients, which are the boiled pasta, beetroot, ricotta , sundried tomatoes and also about 200ml of water in a casserole dish, then sprinkle the chopped up pine nuts over the top and bake for about 15 minutes or until the pasta is nicely heated through and the pine nuts have browned slightly ( the oven should still be on at 200°C from roasting the beets)
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Voila, done is your beetroot pasta, yum! I’ll make sure to post some more pasta dishes, there’s definitely a lack of them on my blog and they’re so easy to prepare. With this one you can even prepare it ahead of time and then turn on the oven as soon as you get home from a stressful day at work or in my case at school.
Bisous
Fanny, the foodie
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