Benvenuti amici. Welcome to Isabella's Bella Cucina and my name is Isabella Morgia di Vicari and I'm going to teach you a healthier rigatoni dish with a fresh tomato sauce and mozzarella. The recipe when they first gave me the name, it said diet rigatoni. I go, what is this diet all about? Because in America, we need to get away from those words diet, and we need to learn to accommodate our lifestyle and our cooking habits all together. Make them healthier and that's what we're going to do. I'm going to teach you how to make how to make this wonderful penne pasta but before we get started, what do we have to do? Is cook the pasta of course. So let's put this rigatoni in the water right now. Here we go. So that rigatoni is in the boiling water and remember, you get one shot at salting that pasta or flavoring that pasta and that's in the pot where it's boiling. So make sure that salted water tastes like salted water or the ocean as I tell my family and friends. Let's stir that pasta real quick. Now in this beautiful stock pot, I'm going to throw in, before I throw something in I need some olive oil. Extra virgin olive oil. Here you go. Got a couple of turns here of the olive oil and I'm just going to take this meat and I'm just going to toss it in just like this. Break it up. Okay, what we're going to give is you're going to brown this meat up really well and we'll break it up in the meantime. But, what I want you to do right now is take these beautiful cloves of garlic. I'm going to say about four and we're just going to slice them, chop them, mince them. Whichever you prefer. By the way, I've got a great tip for you. I just read that all the enzymes and the health benefits of garlic actually comes out after you leave, after you chop your garlic. Let it sit there for about ten minutes or so. Then, throw it in the pot to cook with because that's when it releases all the health benefits. So, if you can remember to chop that garlic ahead of time, let it sit there for about then minutes, it'll be much more healthier for you. Okay, I've got some nice chopped garlic right here and I love d'aglio and that garlic cloves in Italian. I'm going to break up this meat and, of course, what do we do? Every single time we add a different layer, we're going to season. So, we need some kosher salt. Just like that and you know me, I'm the woman who loves her cayenne. A little more. There we go. Stir it up. Perfect. Okay, now we're coming back and we're going to cut these beautiful vegetables. I'm just going to cut them in big chunks just like this because we're going to put them in this food processor. So, what do we have? We've got a couple of stocks of celery, we have two carrots, and I've got a nice sized onion. I've got a half an onion because it's really a really large onion that I was using. All I'm going to do is just cut this in chunks, throw it right in, and we're going to process this. There you go. A little more. Perfecto. Perfect. I want you to see. This is what I want it to look like. See how everything is chopped and pureed? Now, let's go marry this in the pot. You're going to love it. Now before we put that in, remember that garlic that I set aside? I'm going to put that in. I'm going to add this. Give it a quick turn and cut that meat up just a little bit. Now, I'm going to add these beautiful vegetables. Remember we have the onions, the carrots, and the celery and we're going to stir that up really well. Now, you're going to put your flame on high. You're going to let this cook for a few minutes. All right, we're going to let the onions often up a little bit with the celery and the carrots. They're all going to soften up at this point. Momentarily, we're going to add the vino, all right, and the sauce and we're going to let it simmer and see how quickly we put this together. Let's talk about the healthy benefits one moment. Remember, this is a healthy rigatoni recipe. What makes it healthier is because we used a leaner beef. Now, you can use ground sirloin, you can use sirloin that's a ninety-ten or an eighty-twenty. Now I got to tell you the eighty-twenty has a lot more flavor like a ground chuck but if you're really watching that fat, go with the sirloin. You'll be good. All right and you'll absolutely love it. The other thing you want to do to make this as healthy as you can make it is use whole wheat pasta. There's nothing healthier for you than whole wheat pasta. Of course some people are not really keen on that flavor so the key is, if you're going to use just regular pasta, you want to use, you want to actually serve yourself a smaller portion. And in reality, we should be able to eat whatever we want to eat if we have control, all right, of what we put in our mouth and how much we put in our mouth. That's the key. Let's check our vegetables. This looks really nice. Can you smell this? Now in every Italian's home there's a sauce, or two or three, where we're going to add a little bit of vino. I'm going to tell you to use a nice dry white wine and we're going to put that in. Now, remember the rule is if I don't drink it I don't cook with it and I hope that's your rule too and I got to tell you today you can find many affordable wines that you really enjoy. It doesn't have to be high priced all the time. Okay, we got the vino. Now, remember that fresh tomato sauce? The one that I taught you earlier? I want you to use that as well. We're going to dump that in there. We're going to stir this up. We've got the stove on high if you notice. Now, remember we added a couple of layers of flavor. What did we do? We added a layer of vino. We added another layer of tomato sauce or pomodoro, tomatoes. Now what I'm going to do, I'm going to season again. A little bit of kosher salt and I think I'm going to use crushed red pepper right now. But, you know what? If you want to cayenne, use cayenne. If you want to use black, use black. You see, cooking is about cooking the way you enjoy eating. That's the beauty of taking a dish and making it your own, the way you and your family will eat it. That's what's going to get them to the table. Okay, I love the chunks of beef in here right now. We're going to let that simmer a little longer and momentarily we're going to add the pasta right inside this pot. Now, what are we going to do? This time I'm taking my slotted spoon and I'm going to take my rigatoni and I'm going to put it right there from the pot right into the sauce pot. Why? Because I actually want some of the pasta water. That starchy pasta water because it's actually stretch that sauce a little bit. Looks like I might need a little more and there you go. We'll get it right from the pasta and you notice with the rigatoni, it's got this great big tubular shape, all right, there's some water in the middle there too. So that will help loosen up that sauce a little bit. So we got just about all of it right now. Going to stir it up. Turn this off. That looks fabulous. Can you see the chunks of carrots and celery and beef? I love it. And what I love about this dish it's that it's not heavy at all. Okay, let's take this over to the table. Now, look at this fabulous dish. That's a little hot. I'm stirring this right now. Now, before I do anything else, what am I going to do? Add a little bit of Romano. I'm going to add a little bit of mozzarella. Now the recipe says you can have a cup. You want to make it healthier, I'm going to say add a half a cup. But, you know what? In reality? You're not going to eat this whole pot of pasta so if you put a cup in there, you're still good. Because you're not going to eat that whole cup. And last but not least I'm going to take my knife, cut up as few of these herbs because I always want fresh herbs in my pasta. Remember, whenever you are using herbs you want to throw them in at the very end. It's great, here we go. Toss that in. Look at the beautiful color. Here we go. Doesn't that look amazing. Now look at this beautiful, beautiful plate of pasta. You know what? I'm going to get myself a bowl. Course I've got to try this. I want piece right here. I've got all the meat in there. I've got the celery and the onions. All right, here we go. I'm going to tell you now, if this is the perfect bite. You're going to love this. You've got your protein and your vegetables. You've got your cheese. You know honey, if this doesn't bring your family to the table, nothing will. We will see you again. This is Isabella Morgia di Vicari, vivere bene amici. Live well my friends and
buon appetito.
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