Category

pasta

  • Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe

    Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe

    Here are your tools–black pepper, spaghetti, water, salt, butter and cheese–now make something delicious. Ok? Go. Maybe it’s because these ingredients are so unglamorous that I shied away from spaghetti cacio e pepe for so long. Sure, it’s a classic Italian spaghetti dish, but I’ve always favored the ones with garlic and anchovies (see my…

  • Fusilli with Tomatoes, Bacon & Blue Cheese

    Fusilli with Tomatoes, Bacon & Blue Cheese

    There it was, in the pan, ready to eat. A big panful of fusilli, coated in a sauce I’d improvised with bacon, red chile flakes, tomato paste and a can of tomatoes. I’d let the sauce cook down until it was nice and thick and then boiled the fusilli until just al dente, lifting it…

  • Leftover Brisket Ragu

    Leftover Brisket Ragu

    Last we spoke, we made an eight-pound brisket. Here’s the thing about making an eight-pound brisket. If you make it? You’re going to have leftovers. And then you have to ask yourself: “What should I do with those leftovers?” That’s why I’m offering you this follow-up post, a quick recipe for leftover brisket ragu.

  • The Easiest Pasta Dinner in the World

    There are certain readers of my blog–and I know they exist, I’ve met them in real life–who see the food I make as aspirational. Instead of thinking, “Oooh, that’s easy, I can make that” (as many of you think when you read my posts), they think, “Oooh, that looks tasty, I wonder if someone will…

  • Spaghetti and Meatballs

    Spaghetti and Meatballs

    There are certain dishes everyone should know how to make; Spaghetti & Meatballs is one of them. It’s funny, though, because even though I’ve been cooking consistently for the past six years, cooking my way through the staples (here’s my favorite chili, my new standard roast chicken, my go-to chocolate chip cookie) I’d never really…

  • Cooking For A Group, Part II

    Cooking For A Group, Part II

    You may recall a post, back from September 15th, 2008 called “How To Cook For A Group.” In that post, I whined about how I wasn’t good at cooking for a group: “The truth is that to impress a large group of people, you’ve got to cook large. Some folks are better at cooking large…

  • How I Cooked Dinner for The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck

    How I Cooked Dinner for The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck

    Picture it: you’re in your kitchen, starting to make dinner, and you look out your window and there on the street below is The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. What do you do? Why you turn to Twitter, of course.

  • Ramps: What Up With That?

    Ramps: What Up With That?

    There’s this SNL sketch that Craig and I find pretty funny. Actually, I’m not sure it’s even that funny; it’s more amusing than funny. Essentially, there’s this talk show host (played by Kenan Thompson) who hosts a show called “What Up With That?” and he sings a theme song (also called “What Up With That?”)…

  • On Breadcrumbs & Croutons

    On Breadcrumbs & Croutons

    Molly Wizenberg, who many of you know as Orangette, has cooked for me three times over the course of our friendship. All three meals have been documented here on the blog: the first meal was in January of 2007, the next was a New Year’s Eve dinner (actually I can’t find the post about that)…

  • Nick and Toni’s Penne Alla Vecchia Bettola

    Nick and Toni’s Penne Alla Vecchia Bettola

    Once, long ago, I found the following statement on someone else’s food blog: “I’m sick of The Amateur Gourmet, all he cooks is pasta.” I usually let such cutting criticism roll off me, but this–like a piece of wet spaghetti thrown at the refrigerator–stuck. I haven’t stopped cooking pasta (not by any means: it’s my…