We had our friends Matt and Sean over for dinner, and the pressure was on. They love food. They live in San Francisco and are used to eating at some of the best restaurants around. My goal was to make something delicious but still easy enough for me to enjoy their company. I decided on [...]
Archive for: pasta
While most of the Christmas-celebrating country was eating a fancy roast or goose or turkey, we were feasting on mac & cheese. It’s what happens when your Christmas is tradition-free. We’ve spent the past few Christmases with our neighbors – it usually involves a pot of chili, copious amounts of booze, and lots of inappropriate [...]
During the heady days of summer, when we’re bursting at the seams with fresh produce, I normally make at least one batch of ratatouille a week. It’s really the only way I’ll eat eggplant or zucchini, and the roasted version I make is really delicious. But then, we hit the breaking point. Larry will ask [...]
The perfect occasion for this simple cake: our friend Brandon was over for dinner, and he’s a picky eater. This cake is difficult for even the most picky of eaters to resist. I love that the cake is cooked in cast iron. My old skillet is pretty much nonstick at this point, a result of [...]
I’ve given up caring that the pasta dough from Ad Hoc uses 14 egg yolks. I love it. It’s so easy to make, delicious, and I love kneading it until it transforms from a shaggy mess to a silky ball of dough. Plus there’s no fear of kneading it too much – it should be [...]
I’m convinced after making countless versions of macaroni & cheese that the best homemade version is cooked stove-top, no baking involved. This is a fairly common recipe – make a béchamel and add cheese, then mix with the pasta and bake. I thought it was better pre-baking. Still, nothing comes close to being as good [...]
I used to make stuffed shells pretty regularly but haven’t made them in years. This version is good (not great – I think there’s something fundamentally wrong with nonfat dairy). The sauce is a simple meat sauce, and the shells are stuffed with a mixture of fat-free cottage cheese, mozzarella and parmesan. Like most baked [...]
I went with the handmade pasta from this recipe, but it can easily be made with dried pasta. Either way, once the pasta is in the water, this is a really simple dish. The pasta dough is easy to work with and can easily be rolled out by hand. I love the Thomas Keller recipe [...]
We had a somewhat spur-of-the-moment company night with our friends Chris and Julie. It’s something we don’t do enough lately (have people over for dinner). It seems as if dinner parties always works out better for me if they’re not over-planned, so I’m forced to just make things that are reliable and delicious, rather than [...]
I’m still tinkering with different recipes for macaroni and cheese. I’ve come to the conclusion that I like a classic stove-top mac most of all, the closer to Kraft of my childhood, the better. This one isn’t bad, although it doesn’t hold up very well as a leftover (very few macs do). It’s a good [...]
Connect
Recent Comments