Not a TV dinner, but television-inspired: Chicken Fennel Soup

Fennel bulb, onion, celery, carrots, garlic, chicken, cannellini beans, pasta and lemon. What else do you need to know? Recipe below.

I’ve been not cooking lately. Yes, we’ve been crazy busy at times, with long hours away from home and non-meshing schedules. But it’s been more than that or simple midwinter malaise. I just didn’t seem to be in the mood to get in the kitchen, even when all the ingredients for a particular dish were in the house. I needed a kick in the pants to get over myself. It came in the form of a PBS show. Continue reading “Not a TV dinner, but television-inspired: Chicken Fennel Soup” →

Pasta shapes: Playing with your food, Italian style

Getting playful with dinner can be as simple as trying some new pasta shapes.

Growing up, I knew three kinds of pasta (and nobody I knew called it pasta): spaghetti, elbow macaroni and shells. The Italians, though, are quite inventive when it comes to their defining national food. Besides their numerous long pastas—spaghetti, capellini, fettuccine and linguine, to name a few—they have created a vast assortment of shaped pastas, both playful and practical. Here are a handful to explore. Continue reading “Pasta shapes: Playing with your food, Italian style” →