Bland As another reviewer said it was missing something. Won't be making it again. Too bad. Pros: Easy Cons: Rather flavorless
I made this for dinner last night for my husband and myself because I had some pancetta I wanted to use up and a little bit of fat free half and half. I figured it served six so we could get two dinners out of it. Wrong! There was just enough left for lunch today. I only had to change the recipe a tiny bit. When I fried up the pancetta it didn't release enough fat to cook the onion and garlic so I had to add a glug of olive oil. It was wonderful.
I made the recipe for 6 and then froze half the sauce (didn't want to be tempted to eat more than the "allotment") I used the exact 6 ounces of pasta. We had more than enough for dinner with a nice salad. There were leftovers which my husband ate for lunch today. Nice recipe but not a creamy as I thought it might be - and we could not taste even a hint of the vodka. We are very happy with Eating Well's recipes and are both learning about portions.
Not our favorite too tangy and acidic for us. We'll stick to the traditional spaghetti sauce.
Tried this recipe tonight.. used what I had for ingredients. The only thing I lacked was the italian meat so I used regular turkey bacon instead and sprinkled some italian seasonings in it. It turned out quite well and my husband and daughter loved it. I used fat free half n half to cut calories and since turkey bacon doesnt create much oil I used a couple tablespoons of olive oil. And because I cut the calories with the half n half I topped it with a little mozzarella cheese and the bacon. I enjoyed it and will definitely make this again. Next time though I want to try it with the pancetta.:)
Missing something... This recipe is missing something. It was fairly bland. It needs something in the sauce and could do with more veggies I think. I put a little Splenda in the sauce to take some of the tang out of the crushed tomatoes but it needs something more. The half and half doesn't really do what it's meant to here and the meal just tastes like you poured thickened crushed tomatoes with cooked onions and a dash of crushed red pepper over penne then sprinkled a little bit of capicola/pancetta on top for the fun of it. I used pancetta and it didn't really add much to the overall flavor as the recipe doesn't call for very much of it then asks you to drain it on paper towels which takes away most of its flavor-giving properties anyway.
Flavorful enough for grown-ups easy to make kid-friendly I loved the idea of adding worcestershire sauce and capicola to add a smoky flavor to this tomato sauce. To go with this theme (and make it sweeter for my kids) I used roasted canned tomatoes added a roasted red pepper (in a jar) and substituted 1tsp smoked tabasco sauce for the crushed red peppers (my kids are wimps). Amazing flavor! I also put the sauce in the blender to make the texture kid-friendly. This is my new tomato sauce stand-by!
