I love making Beetroot Fettuccine with Butter and Sage for a number of reasons. First off, I love making homemade pasta, both hand-rolled and with a pasta machine. It’s relaxing and there’s nothing quite like the consistency of freshly made pasta. One of my favorite things is beautifully colored pasta as it looks so great…
Pasta
Creamy Lemon Spaghetti
Did you know that January 4th is National Spaghetti Day? So if you haven’t figured out what to make today – or any day! – then go for a great plate of spaghetti! I hadn’t made spaghetti with a creamy lemon sauce for a while so that’s what I made for lunch. We have a…
Farro Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce
Farro pasta with fresh tomato sauce is a luscious whole grain pasta dish! Sometimes the best pasta dish is the simplest: just a basic tomato sauce with olive oil, tomato, and garlic. Actually it’s the pasta dish we have most frequently. I confess that generally I prefer a standard egg pasta over anything else, but…
Radicchio Ravioli with Chestnut Cream, Sizzled Pork Jowl and Fried Sage
When fall rolls around it’s time to make dishes that bring together some of the season’s best ingredients. Radicchio Ravioli with Chestnut Cream, Sizzled Pork Jowl and Fried Sage is one of those dishes! This recipe was adapted from a La Cucina Italiana recipe. Since these delicious ravioli can be made in advance and frozen they…
Cameroni farro pasta with pioppini mushrooms, peperoncino and tomatoes
Cameroni Farro Pasta with Pioppini Mushrooms, Peperoncino and Tomatoes has amazing flavor and a great textured farro pasta. I can’t seem to give up eating well in the interest of shedding a few pounds so I’m always on the search for ways I can have both. Every once in awhile I come up with a…
Penne with sizzled garlic & hot pepper, anchovies and parsley
Olive oil, garlic, a touch of hot pepper, a few anchovy fillets and fresh parsley are all you need to make this scrumptious pasta dish, in just three minutes! Well, a few more if you include the ten minutes it takes for your pasta to cook. Penne with sizzled garlic & hot pepper, anchovies and…
Penne with Eggplant Sauce (alla Norma)
If you saw my recent Instagram post then you know we had a mega-festa for the ferragosto August holiday. I made enough Penne with Eggplant Sauce (alla Norma) for over 30 people and by the time we got to the pasta course we had eaten so much else that I ended up with leftover pasta!…
Corzetti Pasta
What are corzetti? I love making unusual pasta shapes and forms and one of my favorites are corzetti, a disk shaped pasta with an imprinted design; the below corzetti have a giglio fiorentino (fleur de lis) design. The Encyclopedia of Pasta, by Oretta Zanini de Vita and masterfully translated into English by Maureen B. Fant, dedicates a…
Orecchiette with Spicy Baby Calamari
Orecchiette with Spicy Baby Calamari When our now 31-year-old daughter was an infant we started spending our summers in Sperlonga at the seaside home of a delightful Italian family of contadini (farmers). Although already well into retirement age this couple still dedicated their days to their vegetable garden, lemon orchard, chickens and many plants on…
Ricotta and Pear Filled Pasta Sacks
Pears are delicious when in season; I adore baked pears and pear tarts but my favorite by far are these delicious ricotta and pear filled pasta sacks. I first tasted these ricotta and pear filled pasta sacks at one of our favorite restaurants, located in the northern Lazio hill town, Civitá Castellana. We’ve not been…
Pasta alla Carbonara
Pasta alla Carbonara is a delectable and quite simple pasta dish that is a cornerstone of the Roman cuisine. There’s not a restaurant in Rome that doesn’t serve it. Follow these simple tips and it’ll be perfect every time! One of the key ingredients in Pasta alla Carbonara is guanciale (pork jowl) which adds amazing…
Pasta and Wild Boar Sauce
Pappardelle and Wild Boar Sauce is my favorite dish on cold winter days! If you don’t have pappardelle on hand then use another pasta like rigatoni or fettuccine. There are many dishes that I love but make infrequently because they just take too much time to prepare. I found that a pressure cooker allows me to…