Spaghetti with meatless meatsauce

Brrr. We have been hit by a tremendous cold front, which has brought tons of snow (or at least, tons by lake Lugano standards) and very cold temperatures, temepratures I had never seen around here. We are talking teens. We are talking "what the hell am I going to wear to work?" kind of temperatures.

I have pretty much locked myself in the house every single night. Going out for drinks or dinner? No thanks. All I wanted to do was sit by the fire or bake stuff in the oven to warm up the house.

The upside of it is that I've spent a lot of time cooking. The downside is that I haven't spent a lot of time writing about it because the cold made me lazier than usual. What can I say? That's the way it is some days.

Now the situation has improved a little, although we look like we are still very far from seeing the beginning of spring. Which is sad, because I have just realized that I'm so freaking done with winter. It's funny because I actually like the winter a lot and love the snow and skiing and all. But I reach a point, and this year that point was reached today, where I just cannot stand it anymore and I desperately want to wear spring clothes, eat asparagus and zucchini and sit outdoors with the sun warm on my face. So I keep looking at the forecast and end up being annoyed when I see no signs of spring in the near future.

And while I wait for spring to come I keep munching on winter vegetables that by now have really grown old, to say the least. I can barely stand them anymore. So I try to stick them in sauces and stews like this one, my first experiment at making "meatsauce" with seitan. I'm not a vegetarian and I will never be one, but I was intrigued by the description my friend gave me of seitan and wanted to try it. Well, it makes a really good "meatsauce", believe me.

SPAGHETTI WITH MEATLESS MEATSAUCE

For 2

1/2 pound spaghetti

1 seitan patty, processed until ground

2 carrots, minced

1 onion, minced

2 celery stalks, minced

1 cup tomato puree

1 cup water

1 vegetable borth cube

1 glass red wine

2 bay leaves

Salt and pepper

Evoo

Warm olive oil in a dutch oven, add onion, carrot and celery and sautee for a few minutes, until soft. Add ground seitan, season with salt and pepper, sautee for a minute or two, then add red wine. Let cook until it's almost evaporated, add tomato sauce, water, broth cube and bay leaves and lower heat. Simmer on low for at least an hour.

Serve with spaghetti.

Fregola with clams

First things first, I'm sure you are all wondering..."what the heck is fregola?" Very simply put, it's a special kind of pasta hailing from Sardinia, made by mixing water and semolina in a large terracotta bowl and then by kneading the grains between the palm of your hands with a circular movement until tiny irregular balls are formed. 

Now, did I do all that? Absolutely not. I bought it a the grocery store for 2 Euros for a pound. Rumor has it they also sell it in specialty stores around the U.S., although I'm not sure how much it would cost over there. Regardless, I highly recommend it. Its rough and porous quality is ideal for absorbing the scents and flavors of the ingredients you cook it in because, unlike regular pasta, you don't cook it in water. You cook it in whatever sauce you are going to serve it with. 

Since it was my first time making fregola I went with the most traditional Sardinian recipe I could find: fregola with clams. Definitely worth a try.

FREGOLA WITH CLAMS

Serves 4

2 pounds littleneck clams, soaked in water and salt to remove sand

5 garlic cloves

A glass of dry white wine

32 ounces vegetable broth

Olive oil

1/2 pound fregola

1/2 pound chopped canned tomatoes 

Salt and crushed red pepper

Fresh basil

Rinse clams and soak in water and salt for about an hour to remove sand. Rinse again. 

In a large casserole pour a few tablespoons of olive oil, add two garlic cloves and saute for a few minutes. Add clams and wine and cook over medium high heat until clams open. Remove from heat. Throw away any clams that haven't opened and separate most clams from shells, discarding shells (leave a few for decoration if you wish). Reserve cooking liquid.

In the same casserole heat up olive oil, add remaining garlic and crushed red pepper and saute two minutes. Add chopped tomatoes, cook for a couple of minutes, then add broth, reserved cooking liquid and the fregola. While fregola cooks keep an eye on it, should it absorb all broth add a little water. Cook for about ten minutes. At the very end, add clams. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and fresh basil on top. 

My top 5 pasta dishes

Excitement is in the air. After spending two months into what can only be described as a slump —a psychological one, mind you— here I am ready to leave for a new adventure. Two short ones, actually. Tomorrow morning I'm flying to Stockholm, Sweden, to meet up with a friend who's at a conference there. I'm thrilled beyond belief, not only because Stockholm is said to be one of the most beautiful capital cities in the world, but also because salmon is one of my all time favorite ingredients, so you know what I' will be doing from tomorrow until Monday. Yes. Salmon, salmon, salmon, in all its glorious forms, and especially in its most glorious one: Gravlax. Now, of course I make my own rendition and you can find the recipe here, but eating it at the source, surrounded by frozen lakes and people eating herring for breakfast will add a certain something to it, I'm positive. 

Then, after only one brief day of relax spent at home and running herrands, on Wednesday morning at 7 a.m. (gotta love those cheap Easy Jet flights), my best friend and I will leave for Amsterdam to celebrate her birthday. I've never been there either, so I'm equally stocked... although I am aware that Dutch food isn't necessarily famous for being exciting or flavorful. Which is why I already have my eye on a couple of Indonesian and Sumatran restaurants that serve exactly what I like: spicy, savory concoctions of meats, vegetables, rice and noodles.  

  

Because I'll be gone for a week, I want to leave you with yet one more of my "best of" posts, one that is 100% Italian: pasta dishes. I've cooked tons of pasta in my life and I've posted many different recipes on this blog, but I think the following five are my all time favorites. At least for now. 

 PASTA ALLA VODKA

If you ask any of my American friends what is my best loved, most famous recipes, you'll hear one answer only: vodka pasta! Creamy, spicy, boozy, this pasta dish is sophisticated yet fairly simple to make. The ultimate decadence? Eating it while sipping an ice cold vodka martini. You can find the recipe here.

 LOBSTER PASTA

Ever since watching "Julie and Julia", every time I hear the word lobster I find myself singing to myself "Lobster killer" to the same tune as the Talking Heads "Psycho Killer". That said, when I lived in Florida I used to catch my own lobster while scuba diving so no, I don't feel bad for killing lobsters. There are plenty of them in the Atlantic, as there are plenty of them in Sardinia, where this recipe hails from.

 SICILIAN PASTA WITH ONIONS AND CRUMBS

This recipe is relatively new to me, mostly because I grew up thinking I loathed anchovies. And although I still won;t gorge on them, I've reached a point in my life where if anchovies are few and only one of many ingredients I actually enjoy their natural saltiness. This Sicilian dish is the perfect example. Try it ones and you won;t get enough of it. Click here for the recipe. 

SPAGHETTI WITH SHRIMP AND ZUCCHINI BLOSSOMS

I've learned to make this dish last summer, on a torrid July evening during 2010's only heat wave. The lake was still. The air was humid and felt heavy. There was no way in hell I would even consider leaving my a/c. So I had shrimp and zucchini blossoms in the fridge and thought, why not? The result, even if I do say so myself, was amazing. A star was born. Here's the recipe, and I can assure you that's worth making regardless the outside temperature. 

PASTA WITH SAFFRON AND CLAMS

If you are wondering what is up with me and saffron, the answer is easy. First, I find it to be one of the most satisfying and fragrant spices in the world. Second, believe it or not, saffron is not that expensive in Italy. So when I found both littleneck clams and cherry tomatoes on sale on the same day I just knew I had to whip up some type of pasta concoction. With saffron of course. Because, just like butter, it makes everything better. 

Barbara's "Southern Italian" lasagna

First things first: my friend Barbara is NOT from Southern Italy. She's not from Italy, period. She's from Lugano, Switzerland, land of sharp cheeses, decadent chocolate and very precise (and expensive) watches. Definitely NOT the land of lasagna, if you know what I mean. 

Still, Barbara makes a mean lasagna —one of the very best I've ever had. She learned to make this particular recipe from the mother of her ex boyfriend who is from Naples, hence the "Southern Italian" in the title. It differs from regular Bolognese style lasagna because it has layers of ham and mozzarella added to the usual meat sauce and bechamel layers —which makes it delicious, but not too light in the calorie department. 

Oh well. It's cold outside. I guess we can all use the extra calories to keep warm, right? 

SOUTHERN STYLE LASAGNA

Serves 8

1 package fresh lasagna sheets

4 cups meat sauce

2 cups bechamel sauce

12 slices of ham

3 cups shredded mozzarella

2 cups grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Spread a little bechamel sauce on the bottom of a 13x9 baking dish. Make a first layer with lasagna sheets, then cover it with meat sauce, bechamel, ham slices. Sprinkle with mozzarella and parmesan. Repeat with another layer of lasagna sheet, meat sauce, bechamel, ham and cheese. Repeat until you run out of ingredients, finishing with a cheese layer.

Cook in the preheated oven for about 35 minutes or until bubbly.

Pasta with zucchini and saffron

There's been an almost imperceptible shift in the weather around here, one that made me at the same time a little happy and a little sad. I think it's safe to say that summer is pretty much over and the high temperatures are now lurking around the 76 degrees mark at best, while the Northern winds make the evenings and nights a lot chillier. 

My last 'real fall' was the fall of 2001, a mere couple of months before I moved to Florida and said goodbye to well definite seasons. Sure, the weather changes in the Panhandle too, but the end of summer doesn't come in September and it surely doesn't make you melancholic. On the contrary, by the time November rolls around most Floridians are so ready for the heat and the humidity to be over they can barely stand the excitement of wearing a sweater for reasons other than trying to survive the a/c at the grocery store or at the post office. 

Around here, though, things are different. People throw 'end of the summer' parties and they mean them as in 'let's have one last party outside before the weather turns to shit', not as in 'finally the stupid summer is over'. They also do things like swimming one last time in the lake before season is over or they already start talking about summer with nostalgic tones, which I like, because I always thought best to start being nostalgic in advance. 

The season is changing at the grocery store as well, where they are literally giving away tomatoes and zucchini and other summer staples, which is how I've found myself with the vegetable drawer of my incredibly small fridge filled with zucchini. So I had to come up with a few ways to use them up before I live for France tomorrow and this, my friends, is one of ways I came up with. Easy and fast, very end-of-the-summer like. 
 
PASTA WITH ZUCCHINI AND SAFFRON
Serves 4

1 pound spaghetti
4 large zucchini, cut into matchsticks
1 shallot, minced
Extra virgin olive oil
2 cups vegetable broth
2 packets of ground saffron
Salt and pepper

Cook pasta according to directions.

In the meantime, heat a little olive oil in a large skillet, add shallot and saute until fragrant. Add zucchini, season with salt and pepper and saute for a few minutes, until slightly less crunchy. Add saffron to hot broth, then slowly add broth to skillet and let it cook until most liquid has almost evaporated.

Add cooked pasta to skillet, stirring to mix. Season with fresh ground black pepper and serve.

Pasta salad with avocado, tomatoes and olives

In the past few days I've seen lots of status updates from my American friends counting down the days till the three day weekend, looking forward to Labor Day. I have to admit I had completely forgotten all about it being right around the corner —I have a whole new set of holidays to remember here, and my memory is what it is, so keep track of everyone's holidays proves to be difficult. Anyway, good old Facebook helps me remember some of them, and I thought I'd post a recipe that is ideal for Labor Day grilling and parties. If you are tired of good ol' macaroni salad, that is, which I am since many of you might know by know that I'm not the biggest mayo fan.

So, for all of you who don't like mayo: there's absolutely none in this recipe. The pasta salad gets its creaminess from the avocado, which is not only delicious but it's also good for you. The other ingredients —fresh tomatoes, olives, evoo, Parmesan cheese, olives— compliment the avocado flavor nicely and the result is a refreshing dish that is a little different from your usual pasta salad.

And now I'm off to Bologna —not to eat like a pig, for once, but for the Arcade Fire concert. So excited!

PASTA SALAD WITH AVOCADO

1 box of penne pasta or other short pasta
1 avocado
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
A handful black olives
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
Crushed red pepper, to taste
Extra virgin olive oil

Cook pasta according to directions, drain and let cool, drizzling with olive oil so that it doesn't get gluey.

In a food processor pulse the avocado with the cheese and enough olive oil to obtain a smooth cream.

When pasta is cold, add avocado mixture, black olives, tomatoes and season with crushed red pepper and more olive oil if needed.

Spaghetti with bacon, leeks and clams

 

Last night I went to the beach bar here by the lake to have a quick drink and —as it often happens at the Bar Lido— one quick drink turned into many and I spent there a few hours downing spritz and chatting with the locals. I find myself in a weird 'in between' status here, where technically I'm not a local (not only I'm not from the village, I'm not even Swiss), but in actuality I hang out at said bar so much I've come to know many by name. 

It was a beautiful night, with the sun setting behind the mountains and the lake reflecting the light all around us. It was also chilly, as a northern wind picked up and made me shiver first and grab a jacket second. It was right then and there that I started realizing that summer is almost over. It struck me as funny because for the past eight years, I experienced no such change. Or at least I didn't experience such an obvious one for, no matter what people think, season do change in Florida. The changes are subtle, but they are there.

Here on the other hand, it was August 30th and, after a day of beautiful sun that screamed summer, a brisk breeze reminded me that summer won't last much longer. And here's the kicker. After having bitched and moaned that I love the cold and I don't mind summer being over for eight years, last night I found myself feeling a little sad, as if I were not ready to let go of the summer quite yet. It was a fleeting feeling, one that lasted only a few seconds, before the realization that all the things I love about winter are about to start happening around me. But it was there nevertheless. 

So when I came home I decided to make myself a dish that put together a little bit of summer —clams— and a little bit of fall —bacon and leeks. It was just what I needed. Only a few spoonfuls made me realize that yes, summer is almost over, but it was a great one and there will be more great ones in the future. And also that fall is almost here, and I've always loved the fall, so at least I have something to look forward to.

SPAGHETTI WITH CLAMS, BACON AND LEEKS

(Serves 4)

1 box spaghetti

2 1/2 pounds clams, washed and ready to use

3 leeks

6 ounces good quality bacon, cut into strips

A glass of dry white wine

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Place washed clams in a large skillet and pour wine over them. Cook over medium high heat until clams open. Discard those that don't. Reserve the cooking liquid and set aside.

Cook pasta according to package direction, adding the clams cooking liquid to the pot.

Wash and cut leeks into this strips. Saute them together with bacon over medium low heat with a little olive oil for about 5 minutes. Add clams, stir well together and remove from heat.

When pasta is ready, add it to the skillet, mix well with sauce over medium heat and serve immediately.

Spaghetti with clams, cherry tomatoes and saffron

When I was almost two years old, my parents and I went on a summer vacation to Isola del Giglio, a small island off the coast of Tuscany, close to bigger, more famous Isola d'Elba. It was a quiet family vacation that involved lots of hanging out at the local beach and eating simple local dishes which were, as they are on most islands, mostly seafood based. My mom especially enjoyed spaghetti with clams —the garlic and white wine, no tomato version. The version any spaghetti with clams purist loves. And although I wasn't even two years old, I loved clams so much I snatched them from my mom's plate with my chubby little fingers, leaving her with a dish of spaghetti in olive oil and parsley.

To this day, spaghetti with clams is one of my favorite pasta dishes and I love both the white and the red versions —there's something about the briny saltiness of the clams that makes me want to eat more and more of it. So the other day, when I found both clams and cherry tomatoes on sale at the grocery store I couldn't resist and decided to whip up some spaghetti with clams. The addition of saffron is something I thought of at the last minute, an idea that hit me because I had once eaten a guazzetto of clams and mussels in a tomato saffron broth and thought it was amazing. I have to say that it added a certain something to my dish, even though I'm sure my spaghetti with clams purist mom wouldn't agree.
 
SPAGHETTI WITH CLAMS, CHERRY TOMATOES AND SAFFRON
Serves 4

3/4 pound spaghetti
2 cups cherry tomatoes, quartered
Extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
1 glass dry white wine
1 teaspoon saffron
2 pounds littleneck clams
Crushed red pepper

Heat up some olive oil in a large skillet. Add garlic and red hot pepper and make it fizzle, without burning it. Add well-washed clams, drizzle with a glass of white wine, cover and wait until they open. When they are opened, remove most clams from their shells, leaving only a few for decoration. Discard any clams that haven't opened. Return clams to pan, add cherry tomatoes and saffron and keep warm over low heat.

In the mean time, cook spaghetti, and drain them slightly undercooked. Add them to clams, sautè everything for a couple of minutes and serve.

Ratatouille pasta with shaved ricotta salata

So many recipes, so little time. Literally. Between cookbooks, cooking magazines and food blogs, mt list of must-try recipes is getting ridiculously long and one day doesn't go by without me finding yet another one. Because I'm a huge dork, I have recently started a Word file on my computer with all these recipes and where I saw them and every time I look at it, besides feeling like said huge dork, I also have a feeling that if I stopped adding recipes and started making one out of the list every day, I would probably get through it by 2012, just in time to make it before the Mayan end of the world.

Case in point, pasta with ratatouille. The seed was planted when I read about a ratatouille pasta on Emily's blog. Then, a few days later, I saw another recipe for a ratatouille pasta on a magazine. Last but not least, I saw one on the menu at one of my favorite restaurants. I knew I had to try and make it. There are several things that I like about this recipe. First of all, it's easy, fresh and tastes like summer —I guess all those ripe fragrant veggies and basil will do that to a dish. Then there is the fact that it's a classic "let's clean out the vegetable drawer recipe", not much in the sense that you can throw any vegetable in it, but when your favorite veggies are zucchini, peppers and eggplants... well then it's a perfect match for you. And third, I love making ratatouille and, if I make too much of it, I now know that I can make a delicious pasta with the leftovers. 

The addition of ricotta salata —a saltier, harder version of regular ricotta— gives a little more flavor to the dish and pairs incredibly well with fresh basil leaves.

RATATOUILLE PASTA WITH SHAVED RICOTTA SALATA

Serves 4

1 pound rotini
1 red pepper
1/2 eggplant
2 small zucchini
10 ounces canned chopped tomatoes
1/2 red onion
Basil leaves
A tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
4 ounces ricotta salata, shaved

Cube all vegetables. Heat up a little olive oil in a pan, add onion, suatee until fragrant, then add the rest of the vegetables and cook, stirring occasionally, for about ten minutes.

Add chopped tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, then cook for another five minutes.

In the mean time, cook noodles according to package directions. When they al dente, drain and add noodles to pan. Mix well to combine. Season with more olive oil, if needed, then sprinkle with shaved cheese, basil leaves and thyme.

Penne with Calabrese style pesto

Surprises. You either like them or you don't'. I don't. And that isn't because I'm sort of grump that doesn't enjoy the spontaneous moments in life. Au contraire, I don't like surprises mainly because I have some type of sixth sense that tells me there is something going on —a surprise namely— and because I'm generally such a hopeful, positive person I tend to imagine said surprise to be something awesome, something a lot more awesome than what it actually is. And that, my friends, means that when I'm face to face with said surprise I have to act all happy and cheery, much like when I was nine and my great aunt gave me a house plant for my birthday. I mean, can you imagine being nine, hoping to get some cool Lego or a cuddly teddy bear, and getting a begonia instead? But of course I had to act all happy about it because my mom, from across the room, was giving me that "look happy" look. Faking happiness is not my style, but sometimes, alas, especially when it comes to surprises, one has to do it.

The other aspect I don't like about surprises is the suspense. Don;t you hate it when you walk into a room and everyone in it is on to something you don't know? They look at you, all expectant and barely able to contain themselves, and then —of course— someone yells "Guess what?"

Seriously, spare me the guessing. I loathe guessing. But you have to do it anyway, because they are relentless and everyone calls you a party pooper if you don't. So I guess. My guess usually is "you just got a promotion!", said with genuine enthusiasm and a tiny little hint of envy. Nope. I never guess it right. These days, because my friends are apparently getting old of the sudden, the only possible answers to their guessing game are either "We're getting married" or "We're having a baby". And since I'm not a wedding or a baby person there goes my "look happy" face, the one I learned to make when my great aunt gave me house plants for my birthday.

Of course there is such a thing as a good surprise, one that doesn't involve secretly planned birthday parties or guessing what happened. As it often happens in my life, most good surprises come from the kitchen —either mine or someone else's— or, in this case, from a cookbook I bought a while ago when I realized I was missing my cookbooks like crazy. Yes, people, the two things I miss the most about Florida are my boyfriend and my collection of cookbooks. 

Anyhow, when I think of pesto, I usually think of the traditional Ligurian kind made with fresh basil, pine nuts, garlic and olive oil. Little did I know that other regions —Sicily and Calabria for example— also make their own versions of it and use it over pasta or over toasted bread. The following recipe hails from Southern Italy, from Calabria, and let me tell you, it was so good it made me want to go there...


PENNE WITH CALABRESE STYLE PESTO
Serves 4

3/4 pound penne pasta
3 garlic cloves
2 tbsp pine nuts
2 tbsp capers
10 black olives, pitted
10 sun dried tomatoes
1/2 pound cherry tomatoes
Olive oil
A bunch of basil
Salt


Cook pasta according to directions. In the mean time wash and cube the cherry tomatoes. Place garlic, pine nuts, capers, olives, basil and sun dried tomatoes in a mixer and pulse until you obtain a coarse paste.

Heat olive oil in a large pan, sautee cubed cherry tomatoes for a couple of minutes, add the garlic and basil mix and season with salt if needed.

When pasta is cooked al dente, drain it, add it to the pan, sautee for one minute, stirring to combine with sauce and serve immediately.  

Pasta "fermo degli odori"

 

So, this pasta has a funny Italian name. Fermo degli odori. The thing here is, the name is kind of funny not only because it's an Italian name. It's funny even for those who speak Italian, because it literally means "stop the flavors". As in "trap the aroma and let it out later, when everyone is there to enjoy it". 

Makes no sense, right?

Well, let me explain.

This pasta is so easy to make, it's almost a joke, yet it never fails to impress whoever you make it for both because it tastes fresh and wonderful and because it has a certain dramatic flair to it, something that makes people ohhhh and ahhhh kind of like when you flambe crepes suzette in front of them. Only difference is that with this pasta you don't even have to set anything on fire and you don't have to worry about burning your hand. 

The only thing you need to make this pasta is a serving bowl with a tight fitting lid. Or a big pot with a tight fitting lid. Or whatever you can think of with a tight fitting lid. The concept is very easy: take a bunch of fresh herbs —pretty much whatever grows in your garden— mince them with some garlic, place them on top of cooked noodles and some room temperature tomato puree... and then pour boiling hot extra virgin olive oil on it. Place the lid on your bowl right away, bring it to the table and, with the appropriate dramatic flair, remove the lid. The aroma of the herbs and garlic scorched by the hot EVOO will fill the room within seconds and, I guarantee this, everyone at the table will ohhh and ahhh even before they taste the pasta. Which, incidentally, is also something to ohh and ahh about.

FERMO DEGLI ODORI

Serves 4

1 pound spaghetti or short pasta if you prefer

2 cups tomato puree, brought to room temperature and seasoned with salt

A bunch of mixed fresh herbs (I used rosemary, basil, oregano, thyme and chives)

2 large garlic cloves

Crushed red pepper

3/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

Cook pasta according to directions.

Mince all the herbs and garlic together, and season with crushed red pepper.

In a small pan heat up the oil so it's very hot but not smoking.

Prepare your serving bowl with the tight fitting lid by warming it up in the oven. When pasta is ready place it in the bowl, top with the tomato puree and sprinkle the herb mixture on top. Pour very hot oil over it and cover the bowl with the lid immediately. Bring to the table, remove lid, smell the wonderful aroma wafting through the room, then stir the pasta until is well mixed and serve.

Pasta with shrimp, zucchini and saffron

What did I tell you about being on a fish kick? I mean, I seriously can't stop eating the stuff. And that's crazy because I've never been a seafood person. And yet, all of the sudden, all that I crave is shrimp, sole, tilapia, salmon... you name it. I'm not complaining, mind you. For once I crave something that is good for me, so I'm going to ride this wave until it lasts. Because I'm sure that, come the cold weather, fish will go back to being one of my least favorite things to eat. But for now with the temperatures rising and the sun (almost) always shining I'm eating all the seafood that I can.

I made up this recipe the other night, using stuff that I had leftover from making my branzino tartare. I still had some baby zucchini and their blossoms, I had tomatoes... and I had some pretty plump Atlantic shrimp tails I wanted to use. So I thought, why not making a nice pasta with all this great ingredients? I cut the zucchini into matchsticks, minced their blossoms, cubed the tomatoes and, at the very last moment, I decided that saffron would go well with the dish and cooked the noodles in water and saffron instead of plain old water. Even if I say so myself, it turned out divine. The saffron flavor was subtle, but definitely there, and it let the shrimp and zucchini really shine through. It was an experiment, but I can't wait to make it again when I have company.

PASTA WITH SHRIMP, ZUCCHINI AND SAFFRON

Serves 4

1 pound spaghetti
36 large shrimp tails, peeled and deveined
8 baby zucchini and their blossoms
2 large very ripe tomatoes
Extra virgin olive oil
Dry white wine
2 packets of saffron powder
Salt and pepper

In a large dutch oven bring water to a boil. Add some rock salt and saffron. Cook noodles according to directions.

In the mean time, cut zucchini into matchsticks, mince the blossoms and cube the tomatoes. Heat olive oil in a large pan, add shrimp and sautee for a couple of minutes. Add prepared vegetables, add a little wine, season with salt and pepper and cook for a few more minutes, until shrimp changes color.

When noodles are cooked, drain, reserving some of the saffron water. Place noodles in the pan with shrimp and vegetables, toss well to mix, adding some of the saffron water if needed. Serve immediately.

Spaghetti with cherry tomatoes, capers and olives

One of the things I missed the most during the nine years I lived in the U.S. is bright red, great tasting tomatoes. Which, come to think of it, is kind of a non-sense since tomatoes originally were brought to Europe from the Americas. Some believe that the Spanish explorer Cortes may have been the first to bring a small yellow tomato plant to Europe from the Atzec city of Tenochtítlan in 1521. Others believe Columbus was the first European to take back the tomato as early as 1493. Regardless, the Italian physician and botanistPietro Andrea Mattioli wrote about the new fruit in 1544 and named it "pomo d'oro", golden apple. Since then, Italians have fallen in love with tomatoes and have become the fifth biggest tomato growers in the world, after much bigger countries like China, the United States, Turkey and India. I'm not a tomato expert, I've done my research on it though.

As most Italians, I absolutely adore tomatoes in all their shapes and colors —from beefsteaks to cherry, and from green to yellow. So imagine my shock when I moved to Florida, the place where tomatoes come from, and they were... bland. Especially in the summer. I was baffled. I mean, how could it be? Thinking about it in retrospect I should have come up with this theory years ago, but I'll be honest and tell you that it came to my mind only very recently. How can the same fruit grow to be the same in soils and climates that are completely different? Simple: it can't. I'm guessing —I'm no botanist— that the heavy rains and the relentless Florida heat are a little hard on tomatoes and they leave them tasting like they have been watered-down. So, anyhow, I was very happy the other day when I went to the grocery store and found the tomatoes pictured above —pomodori from Pachino, Sicily— which are round, and bright red and downright delicious. They are amazing on their own, maybe with just a little salt and drizzled with EVOO, but I decided to go all out and make a nice pasta with them, although I was cooking just for myself on a quiet Friday night. The result was amazing, even though I say so myself!

SPAGHETTI WITH CHERRY TOMATOES, CAPERS AND OLIVES
Serves 6

One pound spaghetti
3/4 pound cherry tomatoes, halved
3 tablespoons capers preserved in salt, rinsed
A handful of green marinated olives, sliced
Crushed red pepper to taste
1/2 a lemon
A few leaves of basil, chopped
Extra virgin olive oil

Cook spaghetti according to directions.

In a large serving bowl mix tomatoes, capers and olives. Season with crushed red pepper and very little salt (capers are very salty, so be careful), dress with olive oil and lemon juice. Set aside.

When spaghetti is ready, drain and add to the bowl. Mix well, sprinkle with basil and more olive oil if needed.

Baked pasta with cauliflower

When people think of Italy, they envision rolling hills basking in the sunshine and imagine that the weather around here is always mild and basically beautiful. Well, if they had been here since April 22nd like I have, they would definitely change their mind. The term "unseasonably shitty" has taken a whole new meaning here and, although this may make me sound like an old lady, I'll say it: I have never seen weather like this in May and this might be the coldest spring of the millennium.

To be honest, cold temperatures have never bothered me. What is getting old really fast is the monsoons of freezing cold rain we have been having pretty much every day for the last two weeks. It's May, for crying out loud, it should be in the 70s and beautiful, not 55 and rainy!

So what's one to do with this weather? Every morning I wake up dreaming of going to farmers markets and the likes, and every morning I have to change my plans because to go to said markets I would have to take a canoe to navigate the streets. So instead I've been cooking dishes that normally wouldn't cook in May like bean soups and pasta bakes. This particular one I've made before my parents went back to the U.S. and I liked a lot, although my dad said it could have used more salt. But since he says that pretty often, I wasn't too surprised. What I liked about it is that it's an easy and quick recipe, and that it has tons of cauliflower in it and since cauliflower is my new favorite vegetable I can't get enough of it.

BAKED PASTA WITH CAULIFLOWER
Adapted from Cooking Light

6  cups  cauliflower florets (about 1 1/2 pounds)
Salt
8  ounces  pasta
1/4  cup  all-purpose flour
3  cups  1% low-fat milk
2  teaspoons  chopped fresh or 3/4 teaspoon dried thyme
3  garlic cloves, crushed
1  cup  (4 ounces) shredded reduced-fat sharp cheese
1/2  cup  (2 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
3/4  cup  finely chopped chives
2  teaspoons  Dijon mustard
Black pepper
2 slices white bread
2  teaspoons  butter, melted

Preheat oven to 400°.

Bring water to a boil in a large saucepan; add cauliflower and 1/2 teaspoon salt to boiling water, and cook 4 minutes or until tender. Remove cauliflower with a slotted spoon, reserving cooking liquid; set cauliflower aside. Bring cooking liquid to a rolling boil. Add pasta, and cook 7 minutes or until al dente; drain and set aside.

Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup, and level with a knife. Combine flour and milk in a saucepan, stirring well with a whisk. Stir in thyme and garlic; cook over medium heat until thick (about 8 minutes), stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in 1/4 teaspoon salt, cheeses, chives mustard, and pepper. Combine cauliflower, pasta, and cheese sauce in a large bowl. Spoon the cauliflower mixture into a 13 x 9-inch baking dish. Place bread in food processor; pulse 10 times or until coarse crumbs form to measure 1 cup. Combine breadcrumbs with butter; sprinkle evenly over cauliflower mixture. Bake at 400° for 20 minutes or until lightly browned.

Orecchiette with broccoli

I have told you many times how much of a pain in the ass I was a kid and how long my "I don't like/eat this" list was. What I've never told you is that my pickiness ceased to exist as soon as I left the comfort of my home and was having lunch or dinner at a friend's house. Their mother would ask me something like "Do you like asparagus?" and since I was too shy or too polite to tell her that I didn't I ended up forcing myself to eat whatever it was in my plate, something that of course didn't make me love asparagus or spinach any more than I did before.

When I was 15, however, a miracle happened. My —then— new friend Francesca invited me over for lunch on a Saturday and when we got to her dad's house he was already in the kitchen, cooking away. "I made your favorite," he told his daughter. And then to me: "I hope you like pasta with broccoli!"

I hated pasta with broccoli.

The pasta part was fine, of course, but broccoli were one of my least favorite vegetables. What I really didn't like was the odd consistency of the florets, which my parents loved and always left whole. Well, that one Saturday afternoon at Francesca's house I was in for treat. The broccoli was sort of mashed, first of all, which solved the consistency problem, and it was wonderfully spicy and flavorful. In other words, it was the best pasta with broccoli ever. I ate it and when I got back home that day I told my mom that, if she wanted me to eat broccoli, she would have to prepare them like that. What a revelation.

To this day, orecchiette with broccoli is one of my favorites and this past weekend Francesca prepared it for me as a way of saying "welcome back". It was delicious as it always is.

ORECCHIETTE WITH BROCCOLI

In a large pot bring water to a boil, season it with salt, then blanch the broccoli in it until crisp tender. Using a slotted spoon transfer broccoli to a pan but keep water and use it to cook pasta.

Drizzle broccoli with olive oil, season with salt and crushed red pepper to taste and add a few tablespoons of the water to the pan. Add half a vegetable bouillon cube and cook over medium heat and mash broccoli with a fork or wooden spoon. Serve over pasta.

Grandma Licia's red pasta bake

Last night I had my going away, which was graciously hosted by my friends Jayne and Bruce. The original idea was for me to make vodka pasta, my signature dish, but as the headcount raised, I decided to make something a little less time consuming and labor intensive: grandma Licia's red pasta bake. Grandma Licia wasn't my grandma, but like most Italian grandmas she had a bunch of fabulous recipes she was famous for. This pasta bake, made with tomato sauce, sharp cheeses and olives, is one of them. Let me tell you, it turned out great as it always does and everyone loved it so much they forgot all about the original idea of having vodka pasta. Which is great, because in these last few days before my departure I could definitely use something that went down smooth and easy.

The weather has not been cooperative for my last Florida weekend —we had an annoying drizzle all afternoon yesterday that made poor Jayne move the patio furniture seven times. And then today the rain has been (and still is!) coming down so hard all our plans of going boating had to be canceled, and we are sitting in the living room watching "Cape Fear" instead, which is not exactly what I had in mind for my last weekend in Florida. Oh well. There's always gin and tonics, right?

And if that weren't enough, there is this stupid Icelandic ash cloud that has thrown most European airports (including my destination of Milano) in a total chaos and nobody knows when and how flights will operate again. Needless to say, it had to happen when I'm moving back there. On the bright side, I'm almost done packing my suitcases. Plural. Two suitcases. But I figured out that when you are moving you are allowed to have a little extra baggage. I'm also almost positive I've forgotten something incredibly important, but if I did, I can always use it as an excuse to go to Zara and H&M and shop like there's no tomorrow.

Anyways, back to the recipe. Last night I made a triple batch, two 13x9 baking dishes, but here's the original version, for a normal sized crowd!

RED PASTA BAKE

1 1/4 pounds rotini or cavatappi
1 medium onion, chopped
2 large cans crushed tomatoes
1 can  green olives
1 can black olives
1/2 pound sharp provolone cheese, cubed
1/2 pound asiago cheese, cubed
2 tablespoons olive oil
Crushed red pepper, to taste
Salt, to taste
6 tablespoons bread crumbs
1 tablespoon butter

Preheat oven to 450 F.

In a large pot bring water to a boil. Cook noodles  being careful not to overcook them... remember they have to go in the oven afterwards.

In the meantime heat olive oil in a large skillet, saute the onion until tender and add tomatoes and olives. Season with salt and red pepper and turn off heat. Set aside.

Grease a large baking dish with butter, and sprinkle with 4 tablesopoons of bread crumbs.

Drain ziti and add to skillet. Mix noodles and tomato mixture very well. Add cubed cheese and stir. Tranfer into baking dish and sprinkle with remaining breadcrumbs. Bake for 30 minutes, then cover with foil and bake for an additional 15.

Spicy pasta bake

I'm sure you've all had a bad day, here and there. Maybe even a bad week. Shit happens. No big deal, right? Right. Well, I guess I'm having a bad-few-months. First I break my knee. Then I get laid off. Then, last night, I get an e-mail from Columbia University saying thanks for your interest, but we are not accepting you into our journalism program. Alright. It kinda made me feel like the clumsy kid who gets picked last when the cool kids are making teams. It also made me laugh out loud for a few seconds —a weird reaction I tend to have whenever something sucky happens to me. And then, after I was done with my brief auto-commiseration pity party, I thought it wasn't all that bad. I guess things come in threes, so this should be it. Or at least I'm hoping so, because really, why is the universe conspiring against me?

Unless...

Unless, maybe, said universe is conspiring towards greater things. Like moving to Europe. Which, for those who don't know it yet, is the next step. A big step. A huge step. I was born and raised there, but haven't lived there for almost 10 years. And all of the sudden I know that sometime in late April I'll grab my suitcase and a bunch of random crap I can't live without and propel myself into my next adventure. It's exhilarating and scary at the same time. Which, I guess, is why I've been finding myself cooking lots of comfort classics —dishes that make me feel warm and cozy and happy even when life seems to be spinning out of control at the speed of light all around me. I've also started cooking strictly out of the freezer and pantry, buying only perishables and using them right away. Emptying the fridge, the freezer and the pantry is a challange, but it's also going to be fun. Kind of like an episode of Iron Chef, with the bonus that no one will critique my food. This pasta bake is great both because it definitely falls into the comfort food category and because it made me get rid of the last of my elbow macaroni (which I use only to make this dish!), the last of my carrots, some of my canned tomatoes and random cheeses I had laying around the snack drawer.

Oh, yeah, and it's delicious.

SPICY PASTA BAKE
Adapted from Cooking Light

4 ounces small elbow macaroni
Cooking spray
1  cup  chopped onion
1  cup chopped carrot
2  teaspoons garlic
1  pound  lean ground sirloin
1  cup  tomato sauce
Crushed red pepper
Salt and pepper
1  cup  milk
2  tablespoons  all-purpose flour
1/8  teaspoon  ground nutmeg
6 ounces sharp cheddar cheese
Grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350°.
Cook pasta according to the package directions, drain. Lightly coat pasta with cooking spray.

Heat a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion and carrot, and sauté 4 minutes. Add garlic; sauté 1 minute. Add ground beef, season with salt and pepper; cook 5 minutes or until browned, stirring to crumble. Add tomato sauce, season with salt, pepper and crushed red pepper. Cook for 2 minutes or until most of liquid evaporates.
Add pasta to beef mixture in pan, stirring to combine. Spoon pasta mixture into an 11 x 7-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.

Place milk, flour, nutmeg, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt in a medium saucepan; stir with a whisk until blended. Cook over medium heat 2 minutes or until thickened, stirring constantly with a whisk. Add cheese, stirring until smooth. Pour cheese mixture over pasta mixture; stir. Sprinkle evenly with grated cheese. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Pasta Amatriciana

On the last night our good friends Erica and Jeff were in town from Michigan we were all worn out and tired from four days of too much drinking and not enough sleeping. Earlier in the day, when we were halfway sober and ambitious, we had decided to make cheeseburgers by the pool for their last dinner in town, but then the weather turned from shitty to shittier, and we all went into a semi-catatonic vegetative state on the couch, which meant one thing: nobody wanted to go to the store anymore and nobody wanted to grill by the pool either. So, as it always happens when I have to come up with something quick and easy to make, I turned to my Italian origins and made pasta.

This particular recipe hails from the town of Amatrice, near Rome, and is so simple to make it's almost a joke to post the actual recipe. But here it is, so Erica can try and make it in Grand Rapids.

PASTA ALL'AMATRICIANA

Serves 4

1 box curly pasta such as cavatappi or fusilli
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
8 slices of bacon, chopped
1 28 ounce can of good quality pureed tomatoes, such as Cento or Pomi
1/2 cup grated pecorino romano cheese
Crushed red pepper


Cook pasta according to directions.

In the meantime heat up olive oil in a large skillet, add onions and bacon and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, season with crushed red pepper and keep cooking until warm. When pasta is ready, drain and add to the skillet, to mix with the sauce. Ladle into bowls, top each bowl with cheese and enjoy immediately.

NOTE: don't put any salt in the sauce -the bacon and the cheese are both very salty and infuse flavor to the sauce.

"Cioppino" pasta

 Lately I've been literally obsessed with cioppino, the Italian seafood stew and have been ordering at several local restaurants. The best one yet was the one I ate on my mom's birthday at Sea Salt on Third Avenue South in Naples. Not only the seafood -mussels, snapper, shrimp, calamari and scallops- was masterfully prepared and just tender enough, the tomatoes Chef Fabrizio Aielli uses are so red and so flavorful they make your taste buds sing. Or at least they made mine sing, because you know how obsessed I am with good tomatoes.


The idea of making a Cioppino pasta came a coupleof days after my mom's birthday dinner when it was time to decide what to make with the leftover Cioppino. It was too much for me to eat at lunch but it wasn't enough to serve for the two of us at dinner, so I thought, why not make a good pasta out of it? All that I had to do was adding more good quality canned tomatoes (I used Cento) to the stew to thicken it up a little and serve it over pasta with a side of garlic bread. It was out-of-this-world. And of course, next thing I knew, I was looking for a recipe to make it from scratch -which I found and then modified a little on epicurious.com



"CIOPPINO" PASTA
Adapted from Epicurious.com
Serves 6

4 large garlic cloves, minced
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 1/2 cups dry red wine
1 (28- to 32-ounces) can whole plum tomatoes, drained, reserving juice, and chopped
1 cup bottled clam juice
1 cup chicken broth
18 small (2-inch) hard-shelled clams (1 1/2 pound) such as littlenecks, scrubbed
1 pound skinless red snapper or halibut fillets, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
1 pound large shrimp (16 to 20), shelled (tails and bottom segment of shells left intact) and deveined
3/4 pound sea scallops, tough muscle removed from side of each if necessary
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 box short pasta, such as cavatappi or fusilli

Cook garlic, onions, bay leaf, oregano, and red pepper flakes with salt and pepper in olive oil in an 8-quart heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring, until onions are softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in tomato paste and cook, stirring, 1 minute.

Add wine and boil until reduced by about half, 5 to 6 minutes. Add tomatoes with their juice, clam juice, and broth and simmer, covered, 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Add clams to stew and simmer, covered, until clams just open, 5 to 10 minutes, checking every minute after 5 minutes and transferring opened clams to a bowl with tongs or a slotted spoon. (Discard any unopened clams after 10 minutes.)

While clams are cooking prepare past according to package directions.

Lightly season fish fillets, shrimp, and scallops with salt and add to stew, then simmer, covered, until just cooked through, about 5 minutes. Discard bay leaf, then return clams to pot and gently stir in drained pasta. Garnish with parsley, if desired. 

Pappardelle with lobster sauce

Ahhh, the New Year is here. I'll tell you what -2009 couldn't go away fast enough. I had such great expectations and hopes for it and it turned out to be a pretty crappy year for many reasons that I'm not going to dwell on. The whole decade, really, was quite a disappointment. Yes, there were some good times, but there were some really bad ones too. So one -me- can only hope this year and this decade are going to be better. And one -me- can also do something about it, instead of sitting one's -my- ass and just wait for things to happen and happen in a perfect way.

There is no perfection in life, love or friendship. There will always be flaws, tiny ones maybe, but flaws nonetheless. That's why I love cooking. Of course I love it because I find eating to be one of the greatest pleasures in life, but the real reason why I love getting behind the stove is that it gives me control over a tiny -but important- part of my life. Because when it comes to cooking, to food in general, there is such a thing as a perfect dish or a perfect meal. It doesn't happen very often, but it has a greater chance to happen then, say, finding the perfectly paid perfect job or a perfect person to perfectly spend the rest of your perfect life with. Perfect dishes are possible and I take great comfort in knowing that I can make them every once in a while. If had been good at math, I'd probably find comfort in knowing that the mathematical laws that rule the universe are perfect and unchangable. But I'm far better at cooking, so I find soothe and comfort in knowing that if you mix great ingredients and you pay attention to what you are doing you can make a perfect lobster sauce, just like the one pictured above.

And yes, I have just said that it myself. It was perfect. I wish you could have all been there to try it. Happy 2010, everyone. Let's make this year the best year of our lives (so far).

PAPPARDELLE WITH LOBSTER SAUCE

4 tablespoons of butter
4 tablespoons of olive oil
Cognac or brandy
1/2 cup of heavy cream
1 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup of diced onions
4 lobster tails, with shells
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
Salt and pepper

Heat a frying pan over medium heat, add olive oil and butter and let them melt. Add onions and garlic and sautee for a couple of minutes. Add the lobester in their shells into the pan until they turn bright red. Add a couple ounces of cognac, and ignite (be careful because the flames will be high for a few seconds). Allow the cognac to burn off , remove the shells and carefully extract the meat from the shells. Return meat to pan, add the tomato sauce, season, bring to a boil, and allow to simmer for 20 minutes at reduced heat. Add the cream. In the mean time cook pasta. When pasta is done strain, add to the pan and mix well with sauce before serving.