Turn your Christmas tree trimming into a party, and you’ll have your halls decked in no time at all. Invite family and friends, queue up a holiday playlist and serve up hot cider or sparkling wine, garnished with cranberries and a sprig of fresh rosemary for instant holiday appeal. As for food, set out a buffet of simple — and simply delicious — fare, such as this sensational saucy pasta from Homeroom co-founder Allison Arevalo and bar cookies from San Francisco’s Guittard family.
Late last year, an overstressed Arevalo left her popular mac-centric restaurant to focus on her family. Inspired by the big Italian Sunday dinners she grew up with, Arevalo began hosting Pasta Friday — big, casual parties at her Rockridge home with family and friends, a big salad and a giant pot of pasta, a different variety each week.
Now Pasta Friday is a cookbook — due out from Andrews McMeel Publishing next September — with a lineup that includes her father’s creamy roasted red-pepper sauce served with penne, rigatoni or cannolicchi.
You couldn’t ask for better party fare, she says: “We would beg, BEG, my dad to make this sauce. My sister, Lenore, and I would cause such a scene that he would have no choice but to say yes. Then we’d call Jen, our best friend and neighbor, and tell her to run over quick because dad was making ‘the sauce.’ We wouldn’t have to say which one. She knew.”
Soon you will, too. Serve the pasta with a big salad and garlic bread. Finish with something sweet, such as this layered fudge brownie-meets-butterscotch blondie. The recipe hails from San Francisco’s Guittard Chocolate, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.
Dad’s Famous Roasted Red Pepper Sauce with Cannolicchi
Serves 4 to 6
Ingredients:
3 pounds red bell peppers, roasted, peeled, and seeded (see note below)
1 pint heavy cream
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 head garlic, roasted and squeezed into a bowl (see note below)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon ground Calabrian chile or marash pepper
Kosher salt
1 pound cannolicchi, penne, rigatoni or campanelle pasta
Finely grated Parmigiana-Reggiano, for serving
Directions:
- In a blender or food processor, puree roasted peppers with the heavy cream in a blender or food processor, working in batches if necessary. The amount of cream listed here works well for 3 pounds of peppers, but keep an eye on the color of the sauce. You want a bright, bold orangey pink, not a muted mauve.
- Melt the butter in a large heavy pot over medium-low heat. Whisk 1 tablespoon of the roasted garlic into the butter. (Reserve the rest of the garlic for another use.) Next add smoked paprika, chile powder and 1 teaspoon of salt.
- Add the puréed peppers to the pot and stir. Decrease the heat to low and let the sauce simmer for 10 to15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Taste for salt and add more if needed.
- Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil and add 2 tablespoons of salt. Cook the pasta until it’s slightly firmer than al dente (2 minutes less than it says on the package). Drain. Add the pasta directly into the pot with the sauce, and gently stir to fully coat the pasta and to finish cooking, about 3 minutes longer.
How to roast peppers:
Turn on the broiler. Place the red bell peppers on a baking sheet, drizzle them with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt. Broil the peppers for about 6 minutes, or until the skins are completely charred. Flip them over and broil the other side for another 6 minutes. When the skins are all black, place the peppers in a brown paper bag to help steam them and loosen the skins. When they’re cool enough to handle, remove the stems, seeds and skins. Do not rinse.
How to roast garlic:
Cut the top third off the garlic head. Place it on a small sheet of aluminum foil, and drizzle olive oil and salt on top. Close the foil around the garlic and roast, cut side up, for 45 minutes or until the garlic is caramelized and soft. Squeeze the garlic cloves into a small bowl.
— Courtesy Allison Arevalo, “The Pasta Friday Cookbook” (Andrews McMeel, September 2019)
Guittard’s Butterscotch Fudge Brownies
Makes 16 two-inch squares
Ingredients:
2 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups (12 ounces) Guittard semisweet chocolate chips, divided
2 cups (12 ounces) Guittard butterscotch chips, divided
2 tablespoons water, divided
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
¾ cup (3 ounces) coarsely chopped walnuts
Directions:
- Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter the bottom of a 9-by-9-inch pan and line it with foil.
- In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt .
- In a microwave-safe bowl, melt 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips with 1 tablespoon water at medium power (50 percent) for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring well after the first minute, then at 30 second intervals until smooth. Set aside. If oil separation occurs, it will stir back in later.
- In another microwave-safe bowl, melt 1 cup butterscotch chips with 1 tablespoon water following the same procedure.
- Using an electric mixer at medium speed, cream butter and brown sugar together until it resembles a ball of dough. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and vanilla, beating until smooth, stopping to scrape bowl as needed. Add flour mixture on low speed just until incorporated.
- Divide the batter into 2 equal parts, adding half to the bowl with the melted butterscotch chips and the other half to the melted semisweet chips. Return the contents of the butterscotch bowl and the walnuts to the mixer bowl and mix until evenly combined. Spread into bottom of prepared pan. Sprinkle with remaining 1 cup semisweet chips and 1 cup butterscotch chips.
- Add the melted chocolate-batter to the mixer bowl and mix until combined. Gently layer over chips and spread to edges to cover chips as evenly as possible.
- Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until the top looks set and dry and springs back when lightly touched. Cool on rack for 90 minutes or overnight, then refrigerate for 1 hour to fully set the chocolate before cutting. To cut, remove foil-lined brownie from pan and cut into 16 squares with a large sharp knife.
