Mamaliga

Pesto Rigatoni

In hot and humid Chicago summer days, when the AC is almost always on, (don’t remind me of the electricity bill), the last thing I want to do is spend the afternoon in the kitchen having the oven or stove on. I admit, I need an effort to become creative at whipping out dishes (decent ones, mind you) under one hour. I usually take refuge doing something on the grill, but there are days when I couldn’t bear the sight or smell of barbecued meat (as much as I love it!). So then, what do I do? Start by opening the fridge veggie bins for some inspiration. That quickly turns me off since sometimes all I find are some pathetic wilted scallions or forgotten half bell peppers. I am a very clumsy meal planner, so most of the time I have to improvise with what’s at hand. And oh look! What’s on our counter!! A beautiful bouquet of fresh basil that my brother in law brought over from his garden! My creative wheels start to turn. I open the freezer, there lies a package of walnuts. A jar of sun dried tomatoes in the fridge. Enough garlic to feed an army. I look at the clock – it’s 5:15 p.m. Heck, I might be able to pull it off too feed them for our religious 6 o’clock-dinner-on-the-table time. It’s Pesto!

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Spinach Ravioli

This Wordless Friday’s cooking was (among others) a superb spinach ravioli with a 4-cheese filling (Blue, Feta, Parmesan and Cream cheese) sprinkled with sauteed sage, and in a fennel-butter-anchovies sauce. As always, let me know if you need the recipe.

Popularity: 54% [?]

No, that’s not a name of an obscure pasta dish, or anything near – just the title for my blog post on how to make pasta from scratch.

I enjoy cooking with store bought pasta (Barilla) but for certain dishes I like having home made fresh pasta (Pasta Fresca), since it adds a whole new dimension to the equation.

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Popularity: 66% [?]

In days when the inspiration muse doesn’t strike, it is always helpful to fall back on some good old recipes you know and tried before. One of them is my mushroom sauce.
A humble sauce but not with a humble attitude, my universal mushroom sauce makes many dishes happy, such as pastas (linguine in my case), stuffing, etc.
The one discussed here is a fresh linguine pasta I made with Semolina (Durum) flour.

Mushroom Sauce

It has a sublime texture, aroma and taste using simple but excellent ingredients such as garlic, plum tomatoes, mushroom and olives.
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Popularity: 11% [?]