Lately I am on a bit of a roll with Italian soup recipes. And why not? Soups provide a lot of bang for your buck. They can be so easy to imagine and cook up, the return on investment is high. I cooked up this Italian Soup With Orrechiette Pasta, Spinach and Pancetta the other night for dinner, and it was quite the hit. Admittedly, I am not the biggest tomato fan (unless it is a tomato sauce, yeah ...
Creamy Tomato Soup (without the cream)
We Italians sure do love our tomatoes. Obviously, we love them in our spaghetti sauce. But we can eat it just as well in our soups. Enter the tomato soup ... in this case Creamy Tomato Soup (without the cream). How in the world is tomato soup different from tomato sauce? Well, it is. You just thin it out by adding some vegetable broth. I decided to go with a creamy tomato soup version for this ...
Fifteen Items Every Cook Should Have
1. A Vegetarian Cookbook: You should have a great basic cookbook at the ready. Now I am no vegetarian, but I have learned a lot of what I know about cooking from this particular book. This book does not just provide you with recipes, it also provides knowledge on different cooking and chopping techniques, and gives you a good foundation with working with fruits and ...
Slow Cooked Steak Pizzaiola
This weekend I had some inspiration to make some Slow Cooked Steak Pizzaiola. Jaime recently bought me a new crockpot and last Sunday I made a meat sauce with meatballs, sausage, pork chops, and braciole (which will be its own post sometime soon), and I ended up having some steak and tomato sauce left over. So I got a great idea. Let's use these leftovers to put together something ...
Italian Wedding Soup
I will admit to a bit of confusion about Italian Wedding Soup myself. It's so obvious when you hear the name, it must be served at Italian weddings right? Nope, wrong. This soup has nothing to do with weddings. Marriages maybe, but not weddings. Okay, what the heck am I talking about? Italian Wedding Soup was another of these so-called peasant soup dishes, made with ingredients that were ...
Mozzarella en Carrozza With Marinara Sauce
Mozzarella en Carrozza with Marinara Sauce is one of my favorite special snack foods. Perhaps it will make a great snack food tonight for the Golden Globes? I don’t make it too often because it’s a bit of work and it is one of those guilty pleasures to enjoy in self-imposed moderation. And admittedly, it can be easier to just cook up some ready-made mozzarella sticks. But you know they are not ...
Spicy Sausage and Bean Soup with Escarole
Ahh, the ole Spicy Sausage and Bean Soup with Escarole recipe was perfect on this chilly snowy Saturday. Last night and into this morning saw a minor snow storm (being from the North this was but a minor dusting) hitting our area. Knowing it was coming, last night I went to the grocery to get the ingredients for this rather simple Italian soup and enough food for a few days, just in case. Every ...
Rigatoni Pasta In A Creamy Vodka Sauce
When you want to change your pasta up a bit from your regular marinara sauce, this Rigatoni Pasta In A Creamy Vodka Sauce recipe is a simple yet delicious twist on the old favorite. The vodka and crushed red pepper called for in this dish give you just a tiny hint of spicy, whereas the cream called for gives you a delicious and savory creaminess that can't be beat. The sausage and spinach make a ...