Barley Carbonara with Lentils

The last time I made carbonara I made the same excuse, "I didn't feel like going to the grocery store."  The only difference this time was that I also didn't have any pasta... so f-it I say!  I'll just literally use what I have!

What I have (serves 1; what? yup, I was alone for the night):
1/4 C dried barley
1/4 C dried lentils
2 slices prosciutto
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
10 stalks asparagus, stems chopped, tips left intact
1 small onion, diced
1/4 C frozen peas
2 egg yolks
1/4 C fresh grated parmesan
1/4 C light cream

1) Cook proscuitto quickly over medium heat until crispy, then remove to a separate plate.
2) Add olive oil to the skillet, then add the asparagus and onion, cook until soft, about 5min.

3) Add the cream and let cook at a simmer until slightly reduced and thickened, then add the frozen peas and heat for around 5-10min. 

4) In a small bowl, lightly beat the yolk of one of the eggs.  Add a small amount (a tablespoon at a time) of the hot cream mixture to the egg to temper it and prevent scrambling.  Then, add the egg/cream mixture to the saucepan along with the parmesan cheese.  Remove from heat.
5) Add the cooked barley & lentils to the egg/cream mixture and cook over low heat until the sauce loosely binds the barley.
6) To serve: Pour the barley and sauce into a bowl.  Top with the proscuitto and the yolk of one egg.  Sprinkle some parmesan cheese over the top, and let your roommate take a hilarious picture with your dinner:

For a vegetarian, she's really eyeing that proscuitto, eh?

This was really good and incredibly filling.  All that fiber I guess.  I have to admit, the substitution of barley for pasta was less than ideal, as I really love the texture and silkiness of pasta in carbonara.  But hey, for a pantry-only meal?  Delicious.

Turkey Agrodolce

Sorry its taken me so long to post anything after the holidays.  I've been cooking plenty, but haven't had time to sit down and write.  I'm not sure if it was writer's block or laziness or what, I was just lacking inspiration I guess.

This post is a little late, and by a little, I mean like 2 months.  This is the last of the Thanksgiving-Turkey-Overload recipes.  It was super-simple and was a perfect use of some of the last of the leftovers, namely turkey and cranberry sauce.  

Agrodolce is a traditional Italian sweet (dolce) and sour (agro) sauce.  The dolce is my favorite part, especially "la dolce vita".  In fact, dolce is so important to me that my nickname for my bike is "Vita", because riding around this great city in the summer truly is "the good life".

I created this dish because I would have had a nervous breakdown if I opened the fridge and saw anything related to Thanksgiving one more day.  Luckily, this finished the turkey AND the cranberry sauce off.

Ingredients

1 C leftover turkey, shredded or chopped into bite-sized pieces

3/4 C  leftover cranberry sauce (whole berry)

2-3 tbsp of honey (depending on how sweet your cranberry sauce is)

1 bay leaf

1/2 C balsamic vinegar

1/4 C red wine

1 medium shallot, diced

1 tbsp butter

salt and pepper, to taste

Pappardelle pasta, cooked al dente

Get ready for how easy this is:

1.  Cook the shallot until soft in a lightly oiled pan, about 3min.  

2.  Add the turkey, cranberry sauce, honey bay leaf, vinegar and red wine to the shallot and turkey mixture.  Let this cook low-n-slow, about 20min.  My turkey was mostly dark meat so this worked great, if you are using white meat you might want to add the turkey to the sauce a little later to prevent it from getting tough.

3. Taste your sauce, does it need something?  If so, add it (you love those vague directions dontcha?)

4. Top the cooked pasta with the turkey-cranberry agrodolce and ring the bell 'cuz its dinner time.

Boyfriend and I really enjoyed eating this, it was tart and sweet and different.  I enjoyed cooking it because I really didn't have to do anything.  I especially loved cooking this because IT USED UP ALL THE LEFTOVERS YEAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

I Win the "What to do with Thanksgiving Leftovers" Contest!!

Yeah, that's right.  I said it.  I win.

Here is a quick view of our Thanksgiving spread with my leftover ingredients (used in this dish) labeled:

and yes, we used our beer pong table as the buffet table... don't ask

I made the pasta using leftover Butternut Squash Gratin, some AP flour, semolina, and an egg.  I only used 1 egg since the squash was pretty "wet" and I realized I only had 3 eggs total and would need them all for other parts of the meal.  I ended up adding a splash of olive oil later though because the texture didn't seem quite right at the time.  It ended up being a good call.  A better call would've been to buy eggs at the store... but that's neither here nor there.

While the pasta dough was resting.  I finely chopped up some leftover turkey (breast and leg meat), an onion, and a couple cloves of garlic.  I put the onions and garlic in a saute pan with a little olive oil.  When that got nice and soft, I added some white wine and let that reduce a bit.  The turkey went in next along with some tomato paste, chopped parsley and tarragon.  I let all of this cook together for about 10min, adding a sprinkle of water if it seemed to dry out too much.

Earlier in the day, I made some ricotta for the filling.  I've done it so many times now and its so ridiculously easy that I'm ashamed I bought it all these years.  I mixed the ricotta with an egg, some salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg.  The ricotta mixture was added to the turkey and a ravioli filling was born.

I love making ravioli.  Which, you've noticed since my last post was also ravioli.  Not intentional, I swear.  Its also ridiculous that it works out that my last ravioli recipe also involved turkey.  OK, I'm rethinking the title to this post now... I, in fact, may have actually failed epically.  Sorry to let you guys down like this... man.  I suck.

Aaaaaaaaand, I'm over it :)

Because honestly, how awesome does this look?

Ok, maybe it doesn't look awesome yet, but just run with it.

Brush between each mound of filling with egg wash (1 part egg, 1 part cold water) and seal with the other sheet of dough.  I cut these into circles (see? they are different after all... sort of... ) and let them rest while a pot of salted water came to a boil.  Once boiling, I added them gently, 3 at a time, and they only needed about 2-3 minutes before they were done-zers.

For a sauce, I chopped up our leftover brussel sprouts and kale (see picture above) and sauteed them in brown butter to use as a "sauce". 

A sprinkle of chopped almonds and parsley finished the dish.

It was LOVELY.  Different, yet still reminiscent of Thanksgiving.  Boyfriend was reluctant about the greenery on top of his ravioli until he tasted it.  We both just about licked our plates clean it was so good.

So, while I DO apologize for count 'em, TWO turkey-ravioli-style recipes in a row, I certainly didn't want to keep this gem from you any longer.  Thanksgiving redesign at its finest.  Squash pasta enveloping a turkey filling, with a brown-butter brussel sprout sauce.

And to totally run off on a tangent, do you want to know the worst part... WE STILL HAVE TURKEY LEFTOVER!!  Jesus, we'll be eating turkey for a month.  So far I've made this ravioli, spicy turkey curry, BBQ turkey sandwiches, regular turkey sandwiches, and (upcoming) turkey agrodolce.  I am a self-proclaimed math genius yet somehow this blows my mind because I seriously cannot figure how we fed 11 people with a 16lb turkey and still have like 10lbs leftover.  FRIENDS, I BEG YOU, WHY DIDN'T YOU EAT MORE??  WHY ARE YOU PUNISHING ME WITH ALL THIS LEFTOVER TURKEY??

Fettuccine with Shrimp in a Tomato, Olive, and Feta Cream Sauce

I had a revelation this weekend... fresh pasta is SO. MUCH. BETTER. than the dried stuff.

During prime tomato season on the farm, I oven-dried a bunch of tomatoes with whole garlic cloves and thyme, then let them marinate in olive oil and fresh-from-my-herb-garden basil for about a week.  Oven-drying tomatoes isn't hard, it just heats up your kitchen and takes a couple hours.  Store-bought sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil would be a great substitute.

And this dish is super-fast.  I mean, seriously, it was ready in T-minus 20min.

INGREDIENTS

1 pkg fresh fettuccine

1/2 lb shrimp

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 C dried tomatoes (oil-packed), roughly chopped

3 tbsp oil-brined black/kalamata olives, roughly chopped

1/2 C greek yogurt

1/4 C crumbled feta cheese

3 tbsps chopped herbs, I used mint and basil from my herb garden

sprinkle of crushed red pepper, optional

These are, of course, estimates in measuring... use your eyes and tastebuds as a guide.

1) Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

2) Melt butter and olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add shrimp and cook until just barely done (2min per side?).  Remove shrimp and put to the side.

3) Add the garlic and tomatoes (with oil) and optional red pepper to the previously shrimp-y pan and heat through over med/med-low heat. 

4)  When that's all nice, warm, aromatic and incorporated, add the yogurt and olives.  Let this simmer on a low burner while you cook the pasta. And that's the great thing about fresh pasta, it only takes 3-4min MAX.

5) When the pasta is al dente, add it to the sauce skillet with ~1/4C starchy pasta liquid.  

6) Add the shrimp and 2 tbsps chopped herbs.

7) Stir, mix, smell.  It should come together into something magical.

8) Top with crumbled feta.  Give it one more mix and serve, sprinkled the the remaining tbsp of mint/basil.

This dinner turned out better than I could have ever expected considering I made it up on the fly with ingredients sitting around in my fridge.  I hope you find time to try some fresh pasta, it really does make a dramatic difference.

Mangia!

Look how GREAT my mint and basil is doing!!

Beets Incognito Trial #1 - Gnocchi with Sage Cream sauce

Boyfriend loathes beets.  I was roasting some the other day and he said that the smell alone made him nauseous.

Crap.

Because I get a lot of beets in my CSA box this time of year.

The difficult thing about trying to sneak beets into food is that they turn everything bright pink/red.  Its a dead giveaway!!  And for the life of me I can't think of very many pink/red meals where you might not notice the color change from the beets.  Meatloaf maybe?  But eww... meatloaf...  I mean seriously people, its a loaf of meat.  I don't know how that meal ever became famous.  Although, it did originate in the days of tuna casserole, spam burgers, and jello molds... so I'm guessing Americans were willing to try anything back in the day.

Sorry, I got off on a little tangent there.

Man, I'm really hoping to get some golden beets soon because I think they'll be easier to mix into other foods unnoticed.  For reasons of color (not red) and flavor (milder than regular beets).

Last year I made beet bread that turned out OK.  This was, however, back when I truly believed I couldn't bake a loaf of bread to save my life.  I might try it again this year now that I have more experience and a KitchenAid mixer....

So, even though he'll probably guess that there is something different about this meal, I figured I'd give it a try anyway.  I've made sweet potato gnocchi before, why not beet gnocchi?  Maybe I'll just lie a little and say I dyed them pink with food coloring to show how much I loooove him. Puh-leese, he'll never buy that, it's way too sappy.  I don't even pull out that much sap during Valentine's Day.

Sorry sorry... distracted again... back on task:

Making the gnocchi:
I've tried making potato gnocchi in the past.  It was good, light, fluffy, etc.  I just screwed it up in the end with some too-aggressive sauce mixing which resulted in turning my beautiful gnocchi pillows into lumpy mashed potatoes.  With Gorgonzola cream sauce.  So, not a total failure seeing as anything covered in Gorgonzola cream is damn tasty.

Still, I'm feeling culinary-confident these days, so why not try some ricotta "gnudi" instead of potato gnocchi?  North vs South, baby (Italy, that is).

I mixed together 1 package (4oz?) of Vermont Creamery Goat cheese and the remainder of my homemade ricotta (3/4C?) in the KitchenAid along with 2 eggs, some S&P, and a pinch of nutmeg

I then added 1 cup of roasted, peeled and pureed beets:

The final addition is 2 cups of flour in 1/2 cup increments until a loose, sticky dough formed.  I tried not to overknead it, but this was a super-wet dough and I think I may have used more flour than I wanted to.  Anyway, HEAVILY flour your work surface and roll handfuls of the dough into a long snake:

Then, I just cut 1" pieces down the length of the "snake" and indented with a fork for that traditional "gnocchi" look:

I agree, these aren't the prettiest things ever, and I was still crossing my fingers that they would turn out ok despite the "heavy" flouring.

I dumped my gnudi (in batches) into a pot of salted boiling water and waited until they floated to the surface.  Once floating, I let the cook another minute or so then removed them with a slotted spoon and placed them on a baking sheet to dry a little.



I wanted to give them a little texture and decided to pan fry them in some butter and olive oil to crisp them up:

Once they were "crisped", I took them out of the pan, and added 1 tbsp of flour and a little more butter to make a roux for my cream sauce.  Wow, I just realized how terribly unhealthy this dinner turned out to be....  I added 3/4 C milk to my roux and some fresh sage and whisked over medium heat until it thickened up, similar to making a bechamel.

Season with a little salt and pepper, and pour over the gnudi.  Served with homemade bread (toasted) and some wine. 

And the best part?  Boyfriend liked it!  Ate the whole thing, didn't even flinch.  I never said a word... well... until now [insert sneaky grin here]

Another bonus: I'll quickly discover whether or not he actually reads my blog as he claims :)

Radish and Beet Greens Risotto

There are a few basic meals that make good vehicles for disposing of extra vegetables.  Risotto is one of them.  I love making risotto, despite the fact that you literally have to stand over a hot stove for about 30 minutes.... stirring....

Yes, I've always done it the "old-fashioned" way and probably always will.  I've read plenty of articles on "no-stir" methods of risotto, but to be honest, isn't that just making regular rice?  Its the stirring that breaks up the starches and give risotto that creamy texture, sans cream.

I'd been craving risotto for a while and figured now was as good a time as any.  I still had a plethora of radishes from my CSA box last week along with some beet greens that still needed to be used.  And I just picked up more this past Sunday.  Something needed to be done.

Unfortunately, risotto is one of those things that I've been making for so long now that I never measure anything.  I'll guess-timate, but honestly, you'd better rely on your own tastebuds to tell you appropriate quantities.

Ingredients: (for 3-4 servings)
1C Arborio rice
1 onion, diced
1/4 - 1/2 C dry white wine (I used Sauv. Blanc)
2-3 C chicken stock/broth
Radishes, sliced
Beet greens, washed, chopped, and cooked down
1/4 - 1/2 C Romano cheese, shredded (could probably use just about anything - Parm, Asiago, Chevre, etc)
Salt and pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
Butter

First things first, prep the radishes and greens:

You'll need 2 saucepans to make risotto.  I usually start by heating one saucepan over medium heat and melting together 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp butter.  In the other saucepan, I warm my chicken stock over med-low heat, you don't need it boiling, just warm.

I add my onion (to the first pan) and cook until soft, about 5min.  Add the rice to the pot and stir to coat all the rice kernels with the butter/oil mixture and slightly toast them, 2-3min or so.  Add the white wine and stir until the rice has absorbed it all and the bottom of the pan is dry, like so:

Now, you'll start adding the chicken broth.  I usually start with about 1cup, but for future additions use only 1/2 cup each time.  Add the broth and stir.  Keep stirring until the rice has absorbed all of the stock, then add more (1/2 C).  And stir.  Stir.  All absorbed?  Add more stock.  Stir.  Stir.  Add stock.  Stir.  Stir. Add.... you get the pattern :)

 * You can see my chicken stock in the back pot *

This will continue for about 20 minutes until your rice is almost cooked through and surrounded by creamy, starchy-ness.  At this stage, add the radishes, beet greens, and cheese.  The radishes give the risotto a slight pinkish hue... cute!

Let this cook for maybe another 2-5 minutes so that the flavors come together, then season with S&P as needed.  Ladle into serving bowls, top with a little extra cheese, and enjoy.

I served this with a salad (lettuce and cucumbers from the CSA box as well) and the remainder of my Sauvignon Blanc.  The crispness of the wine really balanced the creaminess of the risotto.  I really liked the combination of slight peppery bites of radish along with the earthy notes of the beet greens.  I'm thinking this easily could have stood up to a light pinot noir or petite syrah as well.

Mi Famiglia - Southern Italian Dinner

I've only been to Italy once in my life, and I can barely remember the small town where I stayed on Italy's western, sunny coast.  I do, however, remember the food.  Obviously.  According to my Mom, my great-grandparents, Angelo and Sofia, emigrated to New York through Ellis Island from Sicily back in the early 1900s.  Even though like most Americans I'm a bit of a European mutt, I connect with the Italian side of my heritage the most.  I love the culture of following passion, the poetic language, and especially the simple, yet paradoxically complex, food.

Now that summer is upon us I can feel the pull of Southern Italy again.  I remember the lemon trees mostly.  Tart lemons, salty olives, spicy pepper, earthy rosemary.... these are the sights, smells, and flavors that make me think of Italy in summer.

For dinner, I decided to make a lemon-y, southern Italian marinade for chicken breasts, served with cauliflower roasted with green olives and bacon, and fresh bread.  Easy. Flavorful. Summer.

Marinade
Combine 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil with 2 lemon rinds, a few bay leaves, a couple rosemary sprigs, a pinch of red pepper flakes for heat, and a tsp or so of cracked peppercorns into a pot.  Cook over moderate heat just until the olive oil starts sizzling and "frying" the other ingredients. Add a hefty pinch of salt and turn off the heat. Let the flavored oil cool slightly, then stir in the juice of your 2 peeled lemons and 1/3 cup water.

Once the marinade was cool, I poured it into a freezer bag and added 2 chicken breasts.  I let this marinate for about 2-3 hours.  Depending on what you're marinating, you don't want to let it go too long because the citrus will slowly "cook" your protein.  So, for example, if you want to use this on fish, I'd say marinate for an hour tops.  In case you're wondering, the "citrus-cooking-protein" thing is the rationale behind ceviche....

To cook, I heated up a saute pan, added my chicken breasts and some of the marinade, and cooked about 4min per side until they were cooked through.  Easy peasy.

I attempted to make a light sauce by adding some cream to the pan juices after taking it off the heat.  I should have known better.  The marinade/pan juices were wayyyyy too acidic and my cream broke in the sauce.  Still tasty, just not very pretty.  Oh well.  Failure breeds success.

Roasted Cauliflower with Green Olives, Bacon and Walnuts

I've mentioned it before, but I truly believe that roasting cauliflower is the best.  To give it that "Italian" flare, I decided to roast it with some green olives, bacon, and toasted walnuts. I'm sure this sounds like the strangest combination ever, but trust me, it was delicious!  Probably my favorite cauliflower side dish so far.  I would rather have used prosciutto instead of bacon, but I didn't have any, its expensive, and I'm on a budget.

Simply enough, I cut up the cauliflower florets, roughly chopped some green olives (real ones, not the kind with the pimentos), diced a couple slices of center-cut bacon, sprinkled on some salt and pepper, and tossed it into a 400F toaster oven.  Yes, I used the toaster oven.  Why?  Because it was a million degrees outside and the last thing I wanted to do was heat the apartment further by turning on the real oven.  The toaster oven worked just fine!  After plating, I sprinkled some toasted walnuts on top, and I think pine nuts would have been a comparable, or maybe even better, substitution.

I love love loved this dinner.  Light and refreshing for a hot summer night.  Pretty easy too.  I had a glass (or 2) of Sauvignon Blanc with this and the citrus notes really complemented the dish.  Boyfriend stuck with beer.  I guess white wine is just too girly for him :)

I'll definitely be using this marinade again, likely on fish next time.  Maybe halibut or tilapia... with roasted asparagus or maybe creamed kale from my CSA on the side?

3 Cheese and Kale Pizza

So, funny story.  Back when I was younger (aka the majority of my 20's) I was convinced that I didn't like pizza.  I know!  Crazy!  Who in their right mind doesn't like pizza?!?!?  I always found it super-filling, yet strangely un-satisfying.  I don't know about you, but when I feel like my stomach going to explode, I want to be completely satiated, not just full.

I blame this on Pizza Hut (high-school years) and Papa John's (late-night drunk college years).

Anyway, my best friend and roommate in graduate school worked very hard to change all of that.  She grew up in Chicago and ate pizza at least 5 times a week.  I wish I was exaggerating.  She thought I was crazy when I'd order a salad at our local pizza joint.  I now realize how correct she actually was... I was completely batshit.

This is the "Greens" time of the year for the CSA crowd so I'll do my best to make it fun and exciting.  Today, I decided to make it a star ingredient in a vegetarian pizza. I got a monster-bunch of kale this week, so I cleaned it, chopped it up, and threw it in a skillet with some olive oil, and let it cook down for about 10min.

After that was done, I caramelized some onions in the same pan, wiping out the kale juice and adding 1 tbsp butter and some more olive oil.  Caramelizing onions is a bitch but they are just so damn tasty.  Low heat, don't stir too often, be patient.  I, unfortunately, wasn't patient enough and mine were soft but still yellow-ish instead of dark brown.  Oh well. 

 

In the meantime, it's dough-time!  This is the first pizza dough I've ever made.  I used Mario Batali's recipe, which you can find here. It turned out really good, but I might try some variations on this just to experiment.

*dough rising.... rising..... RISING....RISING!  There was a lot of yeast in Mario's recipe so I'm not surprised....

I preheated my *new* pizza stone in the oven set at 500F while I assembled my pizza.  I rolled out the dough on a cornmeal-coated parchment paper-lined baking sheet.  Topped it with a drizzle of olive oil, some fontina cheese, some of my homemade ricotta, the caramelized onions, and the cooked kale.  I finished it off with a sprinkle of fresh grated Parmesan cheese and threw it in the oven.

 

 *before*

I let it cook for about 15minutes or until the crust looked golden brown and the cheese was gooey and bubbling.  Here it is fresh out of the oven:

I literally went running into the living room where Boyfriend was doing work, jumped around like a little girl, and shrieked about how perfect this pizza turned out.  I believe I may have called it my "masterpiece".  I told (shrieked at) him to get excited because this pizza was going to "blow his mind".  He stared at me like I had just blown a gasket and the Laura-train was now officially headed straight to Batshit-Crazy Town.

What?  So I get excited about cooking... that's why I have a blog, remember? :)

Before slicing and devouring, I drizzled some truffle oil over the top, just to really go overboard with it.

So cheesy, so flavorful, so SATISFYING! :) I win.

Never buy Ricotta again!

What can you do with a quart of milk, 1/2 cup of cream, salt, lemon juice and 15min? 

MAKE YOUR OWN RICOTTA!

I swear to all things holy, it really is that easy.  I didn't believe it myself, but thought, "Hey, I'm making pizza tonight anyway, let's give it a shot".

Step 1: Heat milk

I used a quart of whole milk and 1/2 C of light cream.  I realize this will make it fatty, but I wanted it to work the first time around and it seems that every time I try to experiment by making things lower in fat they don't turn out.  Perhaps this is why I still believe that I'm incapable of baking desserts....

Heat the milk, cream, and salt (1/4 tsp or so) in a pot over med-high heat, stirring occasionally until it reaches a simmer.  Now, listen up everyone.  A simmer is NOT a boil.  Simmer means small bubbles barely coming to the surface.  If you let this come to a rolling boil prepare yourself for scorched milk and possibly a new sauce pot.

Step 2: Add acid

Once the simmer stage is reached, add 1 1/2 or 2 tbsps of fresh lemon juice (in the blue bowl on the right).  Stir quickly just to mix, turn down the heat to maintain a light simmer, then sit back and watch the curds form.  After a minute or so, stir again.  Let it simmer for a couple minutes then stir again.  After 5 minutes or fewer, all the curds will have separated from the whey.  

Line a colander with some cheese cloth, and dump in your curds/whey mixture.  Let it drain in the sink for about an hour, turning and/or squeezing at the half-way point.

Easy as that.  Boom! Best ricotta I've ever had.  Next I will try this with goat's milk or maybe a different type of acid just to see how the flavors work out.

Oh, and about that "pizza for dinner" thing.... I'll post it tomorrow I promise.

Cappellini with White Clam Sauce

Boyfriend asks me to make this dish for him All. The. Time.  I think its his comfort food.  I've tried it many different ways - different types of sauce, different types of pasta, different veggies or no veggies at all....

I think this version was my favorite so far.  Boyfriend wasn't a huge fan of the cauliflower, but overall really enjoyed it.

Ingredients:

8 oz Cappellini (aka half a package of angel hair - use whatever you like except shells, those were a disaster)
2 cans clams (I used both canned and fresh, but using just the cans works fine)
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp oil
1/2 C dry white wine
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
pinch of red pepper flakes
1/4 C frozen peas
1/4 C greek yogurt
2-3 tbsps light cream
1-2 tbsps chopped parsley
1/4C shredded Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper, to taste

*Note: all my measurements are actually guess-timates, I seriously never measure anything...

1. Add butter and olive oil to pan over medium heat.
2. Add onions and saute until starting to get soft (4min?) then add garlic and red pepper flakes (another 2-3min).
3. Add white wine and the liquid from one of the cans of clams.  Bring to a simmer and reduce by half.  If you're using live clams add them here.  Make sure none of them are open already (that means they're dead and bad eats).  Once the clams fully open in the cooking liquid remove them from the pan.  You don't want to over-cook them!
4. If you're using cappellini pasta, start it in salted boiling water at this stage.  It cooks so fast that by the time the sauce is done it will be ready.  If using a different pasta you'll probably need to start it earlier.
5. Add the clams (from the cans and the cooked live ones), frozen peas, yogurt and cream to the sauce and turn the heat to medium-low.  Cook for 2min or so.

*can you see my cauliflower florets in there?*

4. Drain the pasta but keep about a cup of the starchy pasta water in case you have to mess with your sauce.  Add the pasta, chopped parsley, 3 tbsps of the Parmesan, salt and pepper.  Mix well and cook another 2-ish minutes.
5. Serve with a sprinkling of Parm and parsley, and some good bread for dipping.

*Troubleshooting: if your sauce is too thick, add some of the pasta cooking water.  If its too thin, add a slurry of cornstarch and water.

A good Chardonnay would have been nice with the richness of this dish, unfortunately, I never buy Chards anymore so I didn't have any on hand.  Oh well.  Next time.  Because seriously, Boyfriend asks me to make this All. The. Time :)