But I’m sick of waiting for spring to arrive to make delicious spring food!
So this recipe for Spinach Lemon Ricotta Pasta has spring ingredients that are still comforting in chilly weather – spinach with a lemony ricotta sauce over fettuccine.
I’m sure this happens to everyone: you go out and buy ingredients for a specific recipe, but then are left with “extras” from that recipe. Normally, it’s not a big deal and you can just incorporate it easily into another recipe. But when I went to make Sheet Pan Paella recently, my supermarket was only selling 50 packs of clams. That’s a lot of clams!
To use them up, I decided to make Linguine and Clams, but used what I had on hand to make it work. So, technically, I made spaghetti and clams. And it tasted just as good. 🙂
I love the relative simplicity of this dish. It also reminds me of my grandpa; linguine and clams were his favorite. So I was surprised that I hadn’t posted a recipe for Linguine and Clams on my blog yet. Time to fix that!
I adapted this version of Linguine and Clams from Bon Appetit.
Ingredients:
1 heaping tablespoon salt
12 garlic cloves, divided
4 oz day old bread, cut into smaller pieces (I used half of a sandwich roll)
2 tablespoons plus 1/4 cup olive oil
the zest of one lemon
2 teaspoons anchovy paste
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/3 cup dry white wine
2 dozen clams, scrubbed
1 (16 oz) box linguine (or spaghetti)
1/2 cup chopped parsley (I randomly had curly parsley on hand. Flat works too)
It’s a bit rare for me to share a recipe like this Slow Cooker Parmesan Herb Prok Loin because, for whatever reason, I tend to shy away from making pork or ham.
So when my friend and I were having our cooking marathon, I figured it was a good time to add one in for some variety.
We found this Southern Living recipe for Slow Cooker Parmesan Herb Pork Loin with Chunky Tomato Sauce on myrecipes.com. I couldn’t resist a freezer friendly slow cooker meal, especially when it’s served over pasta!
(Please excuse the quality of these photos. This recipe was too good not to share, even with crummy photos!)
Spaghetti Alla Carbonara is the definition of simple, elegant decadence.
Carbonara is typically made with pork fried in olive oil, grated hard cheese, raw eggs, and pasta. Versions use pancetta or bacon for the pork, pecorino romano or parmigiana reggiano for the cheese, and spaghetti, linguine or fettuccine for the pasta.
With just a few (ok, 6) ingredients, you can make this oh so delicious recipe.
I made a more traditional version of this, using a Mario Batali recipe as my inspiration.
My mom makes a mean pasta salad. Her mayo-less version is a mostly traditional Italian pasta salad which marinates in an Italian salad dressing for a few hours before enjoying.
This Grilled Vegetable Pasta Salad version is based on hers, but I decided to make it all the more summery but adding grill-friendly vegetables.
This is mostly a make ahead recipe. Right before serving (or while grilling up the main dish), you just add the veggies to the grill, then toss into the pasta.
You can never have too many weeknight meals, especially chicken recipes! For this dinner, I combined two Cooking Light recipes (Pesto Chicken with Blistered Tomatoes and Orzo and Herb Pilaf) to make one dinner, and served it with a simple salad on the side.
Any recipe that uses pesto is a winner in my book. This particular pesto uses spinach, basil, and parsley to deliver a more complex flavor.
This blog post has been compensated by Borden® Cheese. All opinions are mine alone. #BordenCheeseLove #CollectiveBias #Ad
As I’ve mentioned in the past, pasta night is a very important night in my house. Both my husband and I come from (partially) Italian backgrounds, so pasta once a week is basically a necessity.
There is something about pasta dishes that is so comforting. It’s the meal that my grandmother would make for me every time my sister and I visited, and it’s the meal we most look forward to when visiting my husband’s parents. Pasta dishes always feel like they are cooked with love, don’t they?
I also have quite a love of cheese, so baked ziti ranks pretty high on my list of favorite pasta dishes. Pasta + love + cheese = the perfect comfort food!
Food, especially cheesy food is one of the best ways to show love for those who are special to you. This weekend, I made a super cheesy, meaty, baked ziti for my husband and me, with the help of Borden® Cheese. This casserole-style dish is the perfect way to know you’ll have leftovers for later in the week, or to feed a large (or hungry) family!
This baked ziti is tossed in a ricotta-tomato mixture with ground meat. It is then topped with Borden® Cheese Mozzarella Shreds, which results in a wonderfully gooey, cheesy dish.
I found my Borden® Cheese at my local Acme, but check out this store locator to find Borden® Cheese near you. Borden® Cheese has a bunch of tasty cheese options, including Borden® Cheese Finely Shredded Four Cheese Mexican Shreds that I also picked up to use for tacos later in the week.
Pasta night at my house is a very important night. Every Sunday, we have a pasta dish, but like to switch up what exactly the dish is. It’s always fun to experiment with new ingredients, with pasta always being the constant.
So it is pretty important for me to use premium pasta, like De Cecco Authentic Italian Dry Pasta. Since 1886, De Cecco has made its pasta in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. The 130-year-old company still uses its original family recipe and high-quality ingredients to create a variety of pasta types.
De Cecco pasta is made with only the best coarse durum semolina, whereas flour is used in most other ordinary pasta brands. This translates into De Cecco being a firmer pasta that doesn’t get mushy or fall apart, even if you overcook it by a minute or two.
This week, I had a hankering for eggplant, so I decided to make Pasta Alla Norma. Pasta Alla Norma is a pasta dish with fried eggplant slices tossed in a chunky tomato sauce. The dish is topped with grated ricotta salata and basil.
Note: Ricotta Salata in America doesn’t pack as much punch as its Italian counterpart. If you can find it, go for an Aged Ricotta Salata. If not, use a bit of grated pecorino Romano along with your Ricotta Salata.
Ingredients:
4 medium sized eggplants (look for ones that feel heavy for their size)
½ cup olive oil, plus more if needed
4 garlic cloves, minced
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 (28 oz) can of San Marzano whole tomatoes, undrained
I recently received a nice email from Deiss Kitchenware, a German-based company that makes some snazzy kitchen products. They were kind enough to send me their Citrus Zester and Cheese Grater. I knew I had to make a dish that let me zest and grate my little heart out to try their product, like this recipe for Linguine with Lemon Sauce!
This recipe for Linguine with Lemon Sauce is so simple, and uses mostly ingredients you probably already have on hand. (What? I’m the only person with some Parmigiano Reggiano on hand at all times?)
Ingredients:
4tablespoons (1/2 stick) salted butter
the zest of 1 lemon
1 (16 oz ) box dried linguine
1/2 cup heavy cream
the juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, plus extra cheese to serve on the side
This Slow Cooker Short Rib Ragu is the ultimate comfort food and is perfect for busy fall weeknights!
It is definitely feeling like fall in Philadelphia now. The days are getting shorter, and there is a chill in the air. Which means my slow cooker is back in full force!
I absolutely love my slow cooker (paid link). It makes me so happy to come back to an awesome comfort food meal at the end of the day. This recipe for Slow Cooker Short Rib Ragu is basically a really thick meat sauce, made with shredded boneless short ribs. And. It’s fantastic.
This can be served over pasta, egg noodles, polenta, or even mashed potatoes (I went with pappardelle pasta for this round). The recipe makes quite a bit, so you can stock your freezer for nights you just don’t feel like cooking.
My mom recently put in a request for braciole. And by put in a request, I mean she went to Esposito’s in the Italian Market, purchased braciole, and told me I was going to make it. So. Slow Cooker Braciole it is!
I was excited to try; I’ve never made braciole before. Braciole is a thinly pounded meat that is topped with a filling and then rolled up and secured either with string or toothpicks. The rolled meat is browned and then added to a tomato sauce to cook.
I have to let you know. Braciole is a labor of love. There is so much prep work! The version I am sharing below is a recipe from a family friend that my parents have been using for years. I decided to make it in my slow cooker so that I could leave and run some errands while it cooked. Because of the prep work involved though, this is definitely a weekend meal.
Ingredients:
For Braciole:
3 eggs, hardboiled, diced
2 russet potatoes, boiled and diced
1 green bell pepper, finely diced
1 onion, finely diced
1 lb mushrooms, finely chopped
1/3 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
1/4 cup Italian breadcrumbs
8 pieces of braiole, or 2 lbs top round, cut into half inch thick slices
You can never have too many quick side dishes to help complete a meal. This one comes highly recommended by my husband; the first time I made it, I didn’t even get a taste because he gobbled up all of it before I could!
I changed the original recipe slightly because I was feeling particularly lazy and found diced pancetta in my supermarket. Everything else I kept the same.
Ingredients:
2 1/2 ounces diced pancetta
3/4 cup uncooked whole-wheat orzo (rice-shaped pasta)
1 3/4 cups unsalted chicken stock
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives, plus more for garnish
There are some nights where I just don’t want to cook, mainly because I don’t want to clean up after I cook — so many dishes!
On such nights, I reach for a one-pot meal. This Cheesy Pasta Bake from this month’s Cooking Light is all made in one pot and has dinner on the table in 30 minutes. I doubled the recipe so that it would work for a normal sized box of pasta (16 oz), so now I have lunch for the week too!
This time of year delivers some pret-ty great produce. All of the green veggies are in season! This recipe from Cooking Light for Spring Vegetable Penne with Lemon Cream Sauce makes the most of some spring vegetables, asparagus and peas.
The pasta recipe is a “two pot meal” so it comes together pretty quickly without giving you too make dishes afterwards!
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 Vidalia or other sweet onion, chopped
1 (10-ounce) package presliced mushrooms
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup half-and-half
1 cup fresh or frozen green peas
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons shaved Parmesan cheese, divided
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #DareToPair #CollectiveBias
Hooray for spring! The weather may be warming up, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up my beloved pasta! However, I can at least lighten up my weekly pasta a bit. My favorite way to add a little spring to my pasta? Pesto, like in this recipe for Roasted Tomato Pesto Pasta!
Pairing fresh ingredients with pasta can really lighten up a comfort food favorite like pasta. I added in some slow roasted cherry tomatoes to add a bit of tomatoey goodness to the dish.
Barilla has a few Better for You Pasta’s to make lightening up you pasta dish even easier. I picked up a box of Barilla ProteinPLUS Rotini Pasta from Walmart; other options available at Walmart include Whole Grain Pasta, Veggie Pasta and Gluten Free Pasta.
Note: there is a great Ibotta offer right now for Buy any 3 select varieties of Barilla Products and earn $1.00 at Walmart! Details can be found at the link above.
Barilla ProteinPLUS has 17g of protein from all-natural vegetarian ingredients, so it’s a great way to add more protein to your pasta meals without adding meat or seafood.
Ingredients:
2 pints cherry or grape tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
ground pepper, to taste
1/4 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 cup grated pecorino cheese
1 box of Barilla ProteinPLUS Rotini (or Spaghetti)
