Normally when I cook I put on some music, I pour myself a glass of wine, I stir slowly and gracefully chop; I take my time and I create masterpieces. It’s fun, relaxing and a totally unrealistic way of cooking for most people.
I’m sure everyone would love to have it be a relaxing part of their day but the truth is that when your afternoon has quickly ran into evening and you’re starving, you really just want something fast without a laundry list of ingredients. So when writing my book Meat On The Side I made an effort to make all my recipes easy and without too many ingredients.
I’ve been lucky enough to have spent 11 Valentine's Days with my husband.
Sometimes the older you get--or the longer you've been with someone--you start to think things like Valentine’s Day are silly.
Since I’m normally coming up with new and hopefully inventive recipes, there are definitely times in my kitchen where things don’t turn out quite as I expected.
And then there are the times that you put a pea on uncooked pasta, throw it in boiling water and instead of it falling apart, the pea and pasta fuse together for one insanely cute dish.
You know the commercial where Payton Manning sings “Chicken Parm you taste so good” in the Nation Wide advertisement?
Well that’s my husband, well the loving chicken parm part, not the being a professional athlete part.
Summer is my season; I am perpetually cold unless it’s 90 degrees outside and I’m pretty sure that I am a better swimmer than I am a walker sometimes. One of my greatest joys in life is my terrace garden with all my plants and my bird friend Harold.
Although I don’t like to admit it either, we have to face it, summer is coming to an end (can’t type… crying too much).
One of my all time favorite things is a Caesar salad, and considering my obsession with pasta, I thought…
Why not combine the two?? This dish takes all the components of a Caesar salad, from the dressing to the lettuce, and transforms them into a creamy sauce.
Since the premier of my show Junk Food Flip (Tuesdays, 9pmET on Cooking Channel), people have been asking me a lot about re-making comfort food dishes (probably because that is the premise of the show).
So today I had to share with you one of my absolute favorite recipe flips.
I’ve been obsessed with traditional basil pesto for a very long time.
When I first tried it I was at a point in my life when green things still made me feel a little queasy--but once I closed my eyes and took a bite, I realized how crazy flavorful and addicting pesto can be.
I was reminiscing yesterday, remembering that very first cooking video I shot in my kitchen. The lighting wasn't great, the sound was a little off, and as I felt the need to explain everything in utmost detail, it was entirely too long.
But people started watching. And since I was featuring “Zucchini Noodles” a fairly new and exciting concept no one seemed to mind the low budget quality or rambling host.
That first video is what started everything...
I'm a traditionalist when it comes to my Pesto. I like it just the way an old Italian Grandmother would make it. A few simple, fresh, quality ingredients tossed with some hot pasta and call it a day.
If you start using walnuts or almonds or anything besides pinenuts, I start getting angry. Throw in some parsley with the basil and I might just lose it.
Kabocha squash is like that quirky but cute guy you have been eyeing at the grocery store but are too afraid to approach. There is something about him that intrigues you and you have a feeling that he's better for you then some of the other handsome junk in the store but...
He seems like too much work to get to know. You wouldn’t even know where to begin. And so you walk away from Mr. Kabocha Squash, never knowing the love affair that could have been.
When your child is young you feed them pureed vegetables. This food is nutritious and easy to eat.
And then, without warning, it goes down hill...fast!! You start trying to give them whole broccoli instead of the pureed stuff.
This seems logical enough until the tree like foreign object is promptly rejected and dumped on the floor...
And there it sits, under their chair, next to the scary carrot and every horrifying brussel sprout.
But why give up the simple idea of eating pureed vegetables??
Hate the texture of a vegetable? Puree it!
Think veggies are too bitter or bland?? Add other more tasty pureed stuff to them!
Before you know it you’re eating a whole head of broccoli in a single serving...
Or maybe a whole eggplant...
People change... Times change... Feelings change... And though your Italian grandmother would scold me, I have to confess...My tomato sauce recipe...has changed....
Lucky for me I am still young. (Although the impending “3-0” this month makes me feel like I'm 10 steps away from the nursing home.)
But at 30 I’m pretty sure I am still young enough that I can change my “signature” sauce recipe. And hopefully by the time I'm 70 no one will remember how fickle I used to be with my famous “Sunday gravy."
Tomato sauce was one of the first things I ever made and it was the very first thing my husband and I ever made together.
(The first and the last, there is no room for two cooks in my tiny kitchen ;)
My mother-in-law loves lemons.
If I’m trying to get in good with her, all I have to do is whip up a dish that includes a burst of lemon and I’m in the running for Favorite Daughter-in-Law.