Penne Alla Vecchia Bettola (adapted from Nick and Toni through The Barefoot Contessa)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

1/4 cup good olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, diced

1 1/2 dried oregano

2 (28 oz) cans peeled whole plum tomatoes (can use diced as well)

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Fresh oregano

Heavy cream

Parmesan cheese (and we're not talking about the shelf kind here. are there really people who still use that stuff?)

Heat oil in large oven proof pan. Add onions and cook until translucent. Add garlic and oregano and saute until fragrant. Add tomatoes (undrained) salt and pepper and mix to blend. Cover pan with tight fitting lid and place in preheated oven. Cook for 1 1/2 hours.

Remove pan from oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, cook pasta until al dente.

Using an immersion blender (can also do batches in blender) blend sauce until smooth.

Add 2 T. fresh oregano and enough heavy cream to make the sauce a good consistency. Drain pasta and add to pan. Cook a few minutes longer until pasta is entirely coated with sauce. Sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan, if desired.

Comments

heart cookies

got this recipe from martha for valentine's day. it is a mix between an oatmeal cookie and a shortbread cookie and oh so yummy. i'll be taking these to a preschool party and around to some of my friends tomorrow. they are reminiscent of graham crackers and chocolate frosting, which my husband and kids love, so i'm hoping they enjoy these. the dough turned out be a bit different than the recipe claims, but i made it work. i've changed the recipe only slightly-i dipped the hearts in melted chocolate chips rather than sandwiching nutella between two cookies. one great tip on melting chocolate is do it in the microwave! it's so easy and you don't have to worry about a double-boiler and all that clean up. ina garten, the barefoot contessa and one of my cooking idols, gives a great explanation on how to do it here . i'm sure the nutella way would be good, too. it's just not something i regularly have in my pantry, for good reason.

hash brown quiche

sorry i've been m.i.a. for a while. i haven't really been m.i.a. i just moved across the country in the middle of the first trimester of my third pregnancy and i've been a little wonky the past few months. (ask my husband) while in the throngs of packing up our house full of junk, er... things, i just couldn't keep up with all my responsibilities, so the blog had to go...temporarily. plus, i mean really, along with all the yucks of those first few months like feeling like your stomach is turning inside out and you can barely keep control of your balance and you don't even want to think about food, i had a strange aversion to all things cyberspace. even the thought of facebook or checking my email or this blog sent me into a spin of nausea. strange, i know. i can't really explain it. i do have a friend who said when she was pregnant she had a strange aversion to certain people. anytime she saw someone in particular, it would make her si

pear salad with lemon-garlic vinaigrette

i have a friend who served me this salad. it was love at first taste. i think i could spend the rest of my life with that dressing. i found myself wanting to eat it so often, i had to find something else to pair it with (just plain drinking it was not an option, although, it did cross my mind.) it actually happened by accident. i added pears to my salad one day and loved it so much, the next day i decided to leave out the lettuce/spinach altogether. the result: a fantastic and easy salad that just may make your lips pucker up and make your heart skip a beat. 2 fresh pears, peel on and diced grated parmesan, or any other sharp cheese almonds, chopped or slivered (the original recipe calls for crumbled bacon, which would be fantastic even in this salad!) lemon-garlic vinaigrette juice of one lemon small clove of garlic, minced 2/3 cup canola oil salt and pepper to taste combine in a jar and shake to emulsify (or you can whisk in the canola oil to emulsify.

a new nothing with a speckled handle

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