I can’t help but love lasagna with all its gooey richness. The flavor of the sauce melds with the pasta and mingles with the cheeses and fillings, the cheese stretches from the pan to the plate as you serve it, and the sides start to collapse slightly from the weight of the hot fillings. It’s [...]
How to Roast a Head of Garlic
May 15, 2007 By 4 Comments
Michael and I used to frequent an Italian restaurant in Norfolk, VA called Castaldi’s. It was a fun place with delicious food and singing waiters. Yes, you could get a yummy meal while being serenaded with Broadway and big band standards or Italian arias. I mean, doesn’t Italian food taste so much more “Italian” when [...]
Chicken Cacciatore
October 23, 2006 By 1 Comment
When the leaves start to turn red and gold I begin thinking of my favorite cold weather comfort foods, and this dish certainly qualifies. It’s perfect homestyle food, a dish of fried chicken and vegetables with a delectable sauce. I’ve played around with this a bit, sometimes using chicken breasts instead of a whole chicken, [...]
Classic Spaghetti Carbonara
October 20, 2006 By 1 Comment
I’m certainly not the first food blogger to reference Marcella Hazan, and I think I can safely predict that I will not be the last. She is considered one of the foremost authorities on Italian cuisine, and her book Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is one that I constantly turn to when cooking Italian dishes. [...]
Ann’s Spaghetti Sauce
October 11, 2006 By 2 Comments
This is Michael’s mom’s spaghetti sauce, the one he grew up with. His mom has quite a sense of humor. She jokes that she isn’t Italian so she can’t make Italian spaghetti, but she’s Polish so she can make “Polish spaghetti.” Authentic or not, it’s a good, easy multi-purpose sauce that you can use for [...]
Pizza Caprese
August 14, 2006 By 5 Comments
After posting the Napoletana Pizza Dough recipe, I just had to follow up with my favorite way to use it. Our basil and tomatoes are coming in like crazy, and this is certainly a tasty and easy way to enjoy our garden bounty. You just layer on sliced tomatoes and chopped basil, sprinkle on some [...]
Napoletana Pizza Dough
August 10, 2006 By 6 Comments
I believe that each of us has a food that we could eat every single day and never tire of. For Michael, it’s pasta; for me, it’s pizza. I’ve been through several pizza phases in my life. In junior high, you either went to Godfather’s or Monical’s. In high school, the deep dish pizza made [...]
Basic Basil Pesto
July 10, 2006 By 2 Comments
At the risk of jinxing things, I have to say that our garden is really doing well this year. We have tons of tomatoes that will be ready for picking next week. The herbs are going crazy. The Italian parsley and the dill are about three feet tall with lots of leaves, the oregano and [...]
