From the category archives:

Pasta and Rice

Fettucine with Peas, Asparagus and Pancetta

Fettucine with Asparagus, Peas and Pancetta

April 26, 2011 Pasta and Rice

A secret technique for brilliant pasta sauce? Save some starchy pasta water. Put a few splashes in with your sauce almost without exception: it makes oily pesto creamy, and keeps alfredo from becoming goopy. It’s the secret helper in this springtime pasta with lemon cream sauce.

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Thumbnail image for Mac and Cheese with Caramelized Shallots

Mac and Cheese with Caramelized Shallots

March 10, 2010 Pasta and Rice

I may be more than six weeks late to the National Macaroni and Cheese Month party, but every month is Macaroni and Cheese Month for this girl, so I’m still celebrating.

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Thumbnail image for Pumpkin Rigatoni with Sausage and Mushrooms

Pumpkin Rigatoni with Sausage and Mushrooms

February 18, 2010 Pasta and Rice

This pasta is one of my favorites adapted from Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats, combining three of my top winter foods: squash, pasta and mushrooms.

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Classic Meat Lasagna

Classic Meat Lasagna

January 10, 2010 Pasta and Rice

My first love of lasagna is for the “classic”: tomato sauce, ricotta cheese, meat. My food snobbishness has in fact progressed to the point that I won’t make lasagna without also making the noodles.* In my mind, it’s totally worth the effort: the taste and texture differences between dried and homemade noodles are profound.

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Grown-Up Mac & Cheese

April 9, 2009 Pasta and Rice

I probably single-handedly kept Kraft in business from 1993-2000. I used to eat 3-4 boxes of orange-powder, blue-box “macis” (as I called them) each week. Ask my mom; ask my college roommates. It was obscene.

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Daring Bakers: Lasagna of Emilia-Romagna

March 27, 2009 Pasta and Rice

I had my first Daring Bakers outing last month, with the flourless chocolate cake white chocolate debacle. So this month, when I opened the challenge to find out it was homemade lasagna, I almost did a little dance with joy. An excuse to break out the pasta machine! A new lasagna recipe! Something I won’t [...]

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Autumnal Lasagna

December 12, 2008 Pasta and Rice

When the opportunity arose to prepare lasagna for my family’s day-after-Thanksgiving feast, I didn’t want to keep it easy and buy the noodles in a box. I also didn’t want to make a traditional meat-and-cheese lasagna. No, a major family meal is an opportunity to experiment recklessly with new recipes, and I was not going to miss my chance.

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Summer Carbonara

June 25, 2008 Pasta and Rice

Oh, how I’ve missed you… and this… and my kitchen! Forgive me for being absent the last month. I was a little busy with my new job and with moving at the same time. I got to enjoy the moving diet – you know, pizza, takeout, restaurants – for no fewer than 6 weeks! Thank [...]

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A Study in Mushrooms and Cream

February 23, 2008 Pasta and Rice

It’s been cold and icy here in the ‘Burgh, which to me means just one thing: an excuse to eat cream sauce. I saw an episode of Barefoot Contessa in which Ina Garten makes a mushroom lasagna – for lunch! – and I’ve been ruminating on the bechamel-mushroom combination ever since. Plus, Presto Pasta Night [...]

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Meet My New Friend, Garlic Scapes

July 31, 2007 Pasta and Rice

Another post from my backlog… whoopsie… I’m a newbie-foodie: although I’ve enjoyed cooking since I was a child, this is the first summer of my obsession with fresh, seasonal cooking. My passion was born in the winter, of all times. I read books and cookbooks and recipes and websites in the dead of winter, became [...]

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