Domestic Goddess or Italian Mama??

While awaiting my Nigella cookbooks I turned back to my old standby, Marcella Hazan. As I was going through picking recipes I began to realize, slowly but surely, that Italian food uses the exact same 12-15 ingredients for every recipe, but in different combinations. And, in fact, those are the only ingredients you can buy at the market. No wonder Italians only eat Italian food! Having bought these 12 ingredients, I now have everything on hand to make 12 different types of pasta, 4 risottos, three crespelle, three frittata, and to accompany any meat that I buy. How about that??? (ingredients: carrots, celery, dried mushrooms, cream, prociutto, pancetta, eggs, parmesean cheese, romano cheese, wine, onions, butter, garlic, olive oil, and obviously pasta of different types and also arborio rice ... ok so more like 15 or so, and this assumes you have a rosemary plant and a sage plant handy, like I do.)

So obviously I have challenged myself to go through and try all the Marcella recipes that I haven't yet, without repeating until I'm done. I started with an old favorite, Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter (pg. 152) which is so simple anyone could do it and I usually just make that. But then I branched out...


And I made spaghetti carbonara (pg. 202)! Who knew that it was tossed with a raw egg? It was very delicious - and I made it not without some trepidation, as it is purportedly Matt's favorite pasta dish which he no longer orders at restaurants becuase it's never good enough. He liked it. :)


Here we have ravioli with lemon and cheese (bought at the local fresh pasta store) with burro oro e salvia (pg. 192) - golden butter and sage sauce, which we had with chicken with rosemary and white wine (pg. 329).


Honestly, I've never had it cook up this well - the chickens here must be extra fatty. Or maybe Marcella's recipes only work in Italy?


Last night I made fettucini with pesto, green beans and potatoes (pg. 177) - ok I bought the pesto (basil is not in season) but also quite simple and delicious.

So... when I come back and they have to let out the wedding dress more, this is why.