Fusilli with Fresh Tomato Sauce & Ricotta Cheese

After college I moved to NYC to “grow up,” which means I worked three jobs in attempts to make rent & pay off student loans while having some fun too. Glamorous, right? One of my three jobs was waiting tables  in NYC’s Little Italy. During this time I survived on a few staples for dinner: cannolis, pasta dishes my boss would generously share with me & Chinese food from my favorite place a block away.

I really hadn't thought about these meals until I was watching Giada’s show on Food Network yesterday. She was in Italy making all kinds of pasta. The one dish that she made took me way back to my early twenties when I used to share fusilli (the long curly pasta) with tomato sauce & fresh ricotta with my boss. I easily ate this once or twice (maybe more) a week. Giada’s method was simple & straight forward so feeling nostalgic for it I recreated it from memory of what I learned earlier in the day. 

The one key method for making Giada's simple & super fresh tomato sauce sung out to my inner love of tomatoes - especially fresh summer tomatoes. She took fresh tomatoes & used a box grater to break them down for the sauce. Apparently if you do this in a fancy food processor or blender the heat from those kinds of appliances actually change the flavor of the tomatoes (& we don't want that). I had to try it. I did & I loved it. This maybe my new favorite way to make tomato sauce. It’s so easy & fresh that you’ll be making on the regular too. I think it’s time to get this dish back in my weekly rotation like when I first moved to NYC.

Do you have specific food that reminds you of your first “adult” years? I’d love to hear about them. Leave me a note in the comments below.

PS: remember if you make this pasta be sure to snap a pic & then tag me in your photos on instagram (@mrshoh or #HeatherOMade)!

3 Bean Escarole Soup with Garlic Oil & Homemade Croutons

Growing up my mom would make what my grandfather & father would call ’scroll & beans. For those not familiar with this language ‘scarole means escarole. If you’ve never had escarole I encourage you to try. It’s actually a lettuce but it tastes really good, almost sweet, when it’s cooked. I’ve always had it in chicken broth with canellini beans, grated cheese & crusty bread so when I found this recipe I channeled my youth & conjured up my take on this classic (to me) combination. I used three different kinds of beans because I didn’t have three cans of cannellini beans, so if you want to stick to one kind - go for it! You can skip the croutons & extra cheese if you like - but why would you want to do that? This is a quick & satisfying dinner especially while this weather continues to flirt with spring (it was 37 degrees yesterday & I think that’s pretty close to spring - today not so much.)

PS: For those observing Lent this will be a great meatless dish for your Friday dinner. Enjoy!

PPS: if you're gluten-free - skip my beloved croutons!

Savory Dutch Baby: Broccoli Rabe, Garlic & Pecorino Romano Cheese

Tuesday was National Pancake Day. To honor said day I wanted to make some kind of pancake for dinner but I didn’t want a sweet one, I wanted something more ‘dinner-like’, savory. After perusing the web for savory pancakes I found a bunch of savory dutch baby recipes so I made on a whim I made a savory dutch baby with the familiar flavors (to our house) of broccoli rabe, garlic & Pecorino Romano cheese.

It turned out to be somewhere between a pancake & a quiche if that’s possible. The pancake puffs up & gets crispy almost like the crust of a quiche but takes 1/4 of the time to prepare & bake.

I liked it. Chris liked it. I’ll definitely be making this again.

What do you put on or in your pancakes when you eat them for dinner?

Roasted Fennel, Mushrooms & Leeks with Grits

I really try my best to not repeat things for dinner. Granted sometimes, most times, I do. But let’s be honest that wouldn’t make for a very interesting blog so I mixed things up with some grits, mainly because I didn’t have the quick cooking polenta that this recipe called for so I combined it with the grits recipe that I made this summer. I think it turned out pretty tasty.

I thought the roasted fennel would be the star of this dish - don’t get me wrong I loved it - but what really did it for me were the roasted mushrooms. Y U M. They seemed to get a deeper flavor by roasting them in the oven than what I get when I make them on the stove top, which only means one thing - we’ll be eating a lot more roasted mushrooms in our house. Plus, you can really just love ’em & leave ’em in the oven while you do other stuff - & that is one thing I can get used to.

Happy Friday! Have the best weekend :)

Veggie Lasagna

My grandmother only makes lasagna on Christmas because my dad will be there to eat it. Lasagna is a labor of love & reserved for very special loved ones.  My friend Ashley was up visiting from Texas this past weekend. She is a lasagna worthy friend.  I even whipped up some homemade lasagna pasta sheets to make it extra special. You can of course skip the homemade pasta part & use the boxed lasagna noodles but whatever you do, make this for someone you love sometime really soon, preferably on a lazy Sunday when you have just as much time to make it as you do eat it in really great company.

Caramelized Onions, Mushrooms, Spinach & Goat Cheese Pasta

Kristin from Beauty Counter posted a photo of this onion mushroom pasta dish on her Facebook page the other day & I was inspired to try it although I didn’t follow the recipe exactly. I went off the ingredients that I had on hand plus a suggestion my cousin, Christy Ann made to add pasta water & goat cheese for a simple yet creamy pasta sauce.  Thanks for the inspiration ladies! I really liked what evolved from these ideas & I think you will too!

Garlic Scape Pesto

At lunch time I peruse the Union Square Farmers Market in NYC. It’s usually after I’ve already gone grocery shopping for the week but I can’t help but pick up the farm fresh produce they have. I mean there’s always room for blueberries & peaches & those random veggies I’ve never heard of.  A few weeks ago I saw garlic scapes for the first time offered at the farmers market (first time I noticed them that is). I looked at them & gave them a slight head tilt of curiosity & kept walking. Later that day on my Facebook feed Cookshop (a very tasty farm-to-table kind of New American style restaurant) had a photo for garlic scape "frites" they were serving that day.

I took it as a sign from the universe to check them out. So I did a bit of research (read: I googled them) & found out that they’re the top flower part of the garlic that grows out of the ground. They can be used the same way as green onions. They have a mild garlic taste. You can sautee them in olive oil & butter & toss them with tomatoes & pasta like my friend Kara does or even mix them into your meatballs like my friend Kim or make them into a pesto like I did & will be showing you today.  Whatever your choice of recipe, know that the season for garlic scapes if very short so if you see them buy them they might not be at the farmers market next week. You can even freeze them for later use!


How do you use garlic scapes? Please share below as I'd love new recommendations.

Have a great weekend!