Cooked From the Heart » Italian
Make Ahead Lasagna
Inspired by Jane Doiron’s book, Make Ahead Meals for Busy Moms, I have been trying to be more organized and cook something ahead of time so that I’m not always so harried to get dinner on the table during the week. Some of the tips on the book are really helpful and I have started utilizing some of them including the one about freezing a pan of lasagna for another day. That’s what I did when I made this double batch of lasagna that is loosely based on Jane’s recipe in the book. You know me, I just can’t leave any recipe well enough alone. I have to go and mess with it. Jane’s recipe is really simple and easy to follow AND easily adaptable which is what I did here. It … Read entire article »
Easy Carbonara
An easy and quick pasta dish is a staple in a pasta loving house like ours and nothing could be easier nor more comforting than pasta carbonara. You can have a bowlful in the length of time it takes for water to boil and pasta to cook. My daughter wanted spaghetti last week but I didn’t have time nor the inclination to make marinara sauce and we didn’t have any of the bottled variety in the pantry either. So I told her to consult her cookbook (she had bought the Essential Pasta Cookbook (Essential Cookbook) sometime ago) and this is what she came up with. We had all the ingredients she needed too so off we went. As I was reading the recipe, I realized it didn’t have lemon like our other … Read entire article »
Filed under: Italian, pasta, Quick meals
Pasta Primavera
There is nothing that says spring than fresh vegetables and what better way to welcome spring than a huge bowl of Pasta Primavera which simply means pasta with vegetables. From Essential Pasta Cookbook , this is what we had one night when The Clone was again begging for her favorite spaghetti. Since she was the one who chose the cookbook, I told her to look through it and choose another pasta dish to cook and she picked this one that had lots of vegetables in it. Great choice! She had a big bowl of pasta and vegetables and we who eat fish, paired it up with a nicely baked salmon. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Italian, pasta, vegetables
Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna (Lasagne Verdi al Forno)
The Daring Bakers have a new home in the Daring Kitchen! If you hadn’t heard of the daring bakers before, come visit with other cooks in the newly opened Daring Kitchen and participate in the monthly cooking and baking events that will be sure to challenge you and stretch your imagination. The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge. The recipe, as released by the hosts of this month’s daring baker challenge is posted in its entirety on the new Daring Kitchen: Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna. What I have posted here is my version (my comments in red). I tried to take photos … Read entire article »
Filed under: Daring Bakers, Italian, pasta, sauce
Basil Salmon & Pasta
I am still not up to cooking much. We have just been cooking old standbys like soups…lots of soups. It has been wickedly cold, but I am not going to complain because I know plenty others who are having a much harsher winter than we are. While going through my saved drafts, I realized that I haven’t posted this one yet. Perhaps it was because it was such a simple recipe that I decided to hold off on it. I don’t know. But when I saw the photos I just made me remember last summer when we had such an abundance of basil that I started putting it in everything until the kids had pesto coming out of their ears. Not really, that was just a figure of speech, but you … Read entire article »
Pasta with Broccoli and Lemon Sauce
I have one child who is a pasta addict and hates fish. Can you guess who it is? Yes, the Clone. The girl can eat spaghetti everyday. So just for a change because even I get tired of cooking the tomato sauce variety sometimes, we decided to try this recipe (Zucchini Carbonara) from Good Cooking – the new basics by Jill Dupleix. This cookbook is one of our best finds on the bargain section. We have cooked several recipes from this book and they are all good. This is one of them. The recipe is called zucchini carbonara, but when I got ready to make this I realized I only had broccoli on hand. We have since tried it with zucchini and it’s even better! Note: I made this … Read entire article »
Saffron Tiramisu
Ever since my sisterO gifted me with a potful of saffron and given my love of tiramisu, I had been fantasizing about Rowena’s Tiramisu allo Zafferano. I’m actually starting on a new quest of trying out all the versions of tiramisu there is. I found out recently that the ubiquitous ice box cake in the south is a close cousin to the trendy tiramisu. This, our first attempt at tiramisu, was delicious! Rowena said this serves 8-10. LOL! I had to laugh at that, there’s only five of us, and we finished three fourths of this bowl in one sitting. It was that good! The recipe below is just as it appeared on Rowena’s blog, I just changed some the ingredients based on what I used: 2 egg yolks 3 tablespoons granulated … Read entire article »
Baked Rigatoni
Olive Oil 2 lbs. ground beef 1 med. jar spaghetti sauce with roasted garlic 1 (28-30 oz. cans) can tomato sauce 1 (28-30 oz. cans) can diced tomatoes Pinch of dried oregano Pinch of dried parsley Pinch of dried basil Pinch of salt, plus additional salt for pasta water Pinch of pepper 1 med. onion, chopped 1 (1 lb.) bag shredded mozzarella cheese 1 (1 lb.) box rigatoni noodles Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Heat a large pot(for sauce). Boil a large pot of water for pasta. Add salt if desired. Add ground beef and cook until liquid has evaporated and the fat rendered. Add garlic and onions, and cook until fragrant and beef is starting to brown. Add tomatoes and sauce, spices, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 1 hour. Once water has come to a full boil add in pasta stirring frequently. Cook … Read entire article »
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