I’ve had blocks of parmesan in my fridge for months, and massive stockpiles of canned tomatoes since the beginning of the pandemic when we completely lost our minds and started hoarding canned foods, and it was just time to use it all up. I’ve also had this green chile vodka from St. George Distillers for months, and I’ve been wondering how I could incorporate it into some food. Then, the other day, as I was rooting through my spice cabinet for some dinner inspiration, my entire giant bottle of crushed red pepper flakes fell out onto the counter and the top flew off, spraying red pepper all over my kitchen and sending me into a fit of violent sneezing. Suddenly, it hit me: Vodka Sauce!!?
Read MoreEating so many butterhorns that I get sick is my Christmas tradition, and now it can be yours too!
Read MoreLife has been crazy over the past couple months. But mainly it’s been mega hot summer misery - Every time I cook, I end up needing a shower after just to clean off all the sweat. Boiling water and cooking meats especially is a killer on the temperature inside the house. Opening windows is clearly not an option, because spiders live outside. Needless to say, kitchen time has been kept to a minimum. That being said, I still require pasta.
Read MoreI had leftover potatoes, and any recipe I’ve ever used that calls for tomato paste only calls for 1 or 2 Tbsp, so I had like 3 half-used cans of it. What could I do other than obviously just add butter and make pies?
Read MoreTo be honest, Bolognese is a bit of a luxury item in my home. It has three kinds of meat in it…. THREE! That, paired with the sheer amount I produce, makes it a pretty cost-prohibitive meal. But fuck it, this is worth the splurge.
Read MoreAlright everyone! I’m back in America and fully back in the swing of things when it comes to the kitchen. I got the stomach flu while I was in Taiwan, and lost a ton of weight, so I’m carb-ing up in earnest up in here. That means you can expect a lot of pasta in the near future. This one is similar to my last post, yet so different at the same time.
Read MoreFig season is coming to a close, and autumn is on the way, so I tried to combine the two!
Read MoreMy mother-in-law has been asking me to make her gelato for over a year now, and she is in town visiting this week because Jess is defending her PhD (yayayayayayayayay!!!). Mother-in-law knows best, so..... here we go!
Read MoreMy grandma makes these cookies every Christmas, and they are my least favorite cookies. BUT, when I dip them into a mug of strong coffee, they become my favorite cookie!
Read MoreYou all ready for some garlicky insanity??! This pizza is worth the stink tongue.
Read MoreAnyone who knows me even a little bit will know that I know how to say "Where is my pizza?" in 50+ languages. In any form, it is my favorite food by far. This pizza was inspired by my mom, who tried to make her minestrone soup fancier one day by putting something with a French name (pistou) on top of it. Little did she know that pistou is just pesto without pine nuts. It's so easy to make, not fancy at all, but still vibrant and powerfully flavored. It adds crazy freshness to the plainest of foods. It completely transformed my mom's minestrone, and when I put it on this pizza it was just like Blam Blam! Massive flavor explosion.
Read MoreMaking my own fresh pasta recently became very important to me because I convinced myself that I am very authentic and have a duty to uphold the traditions of my Italian heritage. That concept doesn't really represent my upbringing, which was full of homemade sauce at Christmas time or whenever I visited my grandma, but not too much fresh pasta. But whatever!I convinced myself that it was important to get back to roots, and thenceforth labored to get really good at making fresh pasta.
Read MoreI was feeling gloomy so I made this pear cake for happiness, but still made it look like it was next to a rainy window on a stormy day, even though that is ridiculous because I live in San Diego, and San Diego would never betray me like that...
Read MoreEvery single Christmas for my entire life, my grandma has made almond paste cookies. This is her recipe!
Read MoreBolognese is the first recipe I ever cooked out of a cookbook with Jess (wife)! It was my idea to make the sauce, unknowing that Jess was Buddhist and did not eat pork. I just thought, hey, I'm Italian and I have never actually made Bolognese sauce before, so let's do it! Jess, ever the angel, did not mention that she was morally averse to eating or cooking with pork, so she just helped chopping veggies and stirring the flavors together and we talked about Harry Potter.
Read MoreThis is the kind of party I can get behind.
Read MoreI found myself in Boston recently with a gluten-intolerant wife, a best friend with Celiacs, three other besties plagued by vegetarianism, and a pescetarian brother. Like, come on, seriously? So I vowed to make some food that everyone would enjoy, and thus were born these vegetarian gluten-free stuffed peppers that actually tasted awesome, I promise.
Read MoreOk so this soup isn't technically Italian Wedding, but I eat it for the same reasons: cold and rainy days, or just when I'm feeling depressed AF. It's also just my favorite soup to make, so I make it a lot...
Read MoreMy current most favorite thing to make? Pizza. A thousand times pizza. I am eating it for every meal and happily gaining a thousand pounds in the process. The dough is simple and easy. The sauce is even easier. The toppings are all delicious in any combination. My feelings at the moment are "Only dumb people would eat something other than pizza"...
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