Cooking Italian for ACTUAL Italians

Okay, I'm getting ready to "toot my own horn" so if you find that annoying please stop reading and go back to goofing off on facebook or playing solitaire. So to start this story, about a year ago I watched my girl crush, Giada de Laurentis, make basil pesto on the Food Network. (She is hot, smart, sweet, funny and a great chef, I don't feel bad about having a crush)

Giada on a photo shoot


I tried the recipe and liked it so much that it inspired me to get a basil plant, which I kept alive for over a year. And that has blossomed into a full on herb garden this year.

So the thing I love about this dish is that if you have a basil plant, then it is one of those things that you can whip together in about 5 minutes and it is really good and healthy to boot. So I just keep pine nuts in the freezer and always have garlic and a brick of Parmesan and with my plant, I am good to go. I have given this recipe to lots of people and so far everyone thinks it is great, including my Italian roommate. She swears it tastes just like the pesto in Italy. But she is one of the world's nicest people and I was always just a bit suspicious that she was just being nice.

So last night we were making a different Italian dish called Caponata, when one of her friends from Italy called and said he was going to stop by to say goodbye to Bianca before she leaves on Sunday. So we invited him and his roommate to dinner. We look down at what we've got on the stove and decide it isn't going to be enough for 4 people and consider our options. After surveying the fridge and pantry, I tell Bianca we have stuff on hand for Amatriciana or Pesto but that's about it. She beams, "Emiliano is from the region in Italy where Pesto is famous, he would be so happy if you made it"

Great I think skeptically, a dumb Okie who thinks she can cook, is going to make Italian food for 3 Italians, one of which comes from the place where they actually know what this is supposed to taste like! But as they were expected in less than 30 minutes, I got to work. So they came, they ate my pesto and swore it was great. And both the guys went back for seconds, so I know they were telling the truth. I know it sounds dumb but I am so proud, Italians are very picky about their food and for me to pull this off, feels is a great culinary accomplishment. So below is the recipe for Pesto, basically it's Giada's except I don't measure anything anymore.

Two preparations notes: Bianca says that they only eat Pesto with a long pasta like spaghetti, fettuccine or linguine. I love it with the whole wheat tortellini that you can get in the refrigerator section. Also Bianca says they would never put any kind of meat in with the pasta but I love it with some shrimp tossed in that you sauteed in garlic and oil (grilled chicken is also good)

Buon Appetito!

Basil Pesto

about 1/4 cup of pine nuts (toasted)
2-4 cloves garlic
2 big handfuls fresh basil leaves
little salt and pepper
3/4 to 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 to 1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan

Put everything but the cheese and oil in the food processor. Turn it on and slowly drizzle in the oil until it makes a runny paste.
Remove from good processor and mix in with the grated cheese. Toss with hot cooked pasta and enjoy.

Basil Pesto

A Virgin Blogger

Me and Bianca at work, a self portrait


Pasta Amatriciana

Okay, so I don't really understand how this whole blogging thing works and I don't think that I have anything particularly interesting to say but I do really enjoy reading the blogs of my friends. So with inspiration from Amber, Colby, Sarah and Mendy: what the heck, I'm bored at work and I like to write, I will give it a shot.

Currently, I am finishing up the breeding season in Whitesboro. I have been here working 7 days a week since the last week of January. While Trent is living about 4 hours south, doing a surgery residency at A&M. So a quick consultation of my desk calendar reveals that when I leave next week, I will have worked 188 days in a row with no day off. It has been a pretty tough breeding season. The economy really affected the horse business but all in all we stayed busy and our numbers held to what we did last year. I really love my job and the 7 days a week, no life policy that goes along with it doesn't really seem to affect me until about the middle of June. Then it seems like no matter how hard I try, I just lose all motivation and it is all I can do to finish out the breeding season. I'm sure being seperated from Trent for 6 months has a lot to do with that and I really think that it will be a lot better for me once we live together year round like a normal married couple. But I do have to remain grateful that we have been given such great opportunities in our careers and have faith that eventually all this sacrifice will pay off in a big way.

Soon all this breeding season drama will quickly melt away when I go home to College Station for one night to reunite with Trent and pack my bag. Then we will be off to Playa del Carmen, Mexico with 4 of our best friends in the whole world. We used to take such fun trips together in vet school and we all promised ourselves that we would keep it up after we graduated. It has now been 3 years and no trip! So we decided that no matter what, we would all find a way to make it work this year. And a bonus, Trent and I will have our 5 year wedding anniversary while we are there. Hard to believe it has already been five years. It still kind of seems like we are in the exact same "unsure about our future" spot as we were 5 years ago as vet students. But there I go again; I really didn't intend to write a Debbie Downer Blog!

Okay new topic! So I accidentally re-discovered my friend Sarah's blog today and read the whole thing. It was really cool and now I feel like I have watched little Nathan's first 8 months fly by before my eyes. Something she did was post recipes of things she had tried and liked. How many times do you try a recipe from the internet or a book and it fails to meet your expectations? So now you have a recipe from a person you actually know and an opinion you actually value. So in honor of Sarah, I will also try to post a recipe a week.

So for those of you who don't know, we have had a fabulous veterinarian from Italy working in our practice the past two years. Her name is Bianca and she is getting ready to go home to Rome for good and start her own breeding and embryo transfer business. Bianca is an absolute joy to be around. She is truly one of the nicest most genuine people I have ever met. We were roommates this year and needless to say, I got to eat awesome authentic Italian food all the time. I made her teach me to make a lot of her recipes and have written them down. One of my favorites is a really simple dish called Pasta alle Amatriciana (just means pasta from Amatriciana, a town about one and a half hours from Rome, it is very common that the Italians name a dish after the town it "comes" from) so here it is:

Pasta alle Amatriciana

1 box Rigatoni (Bianca will only buy Barilla pasta when she is here)

3 small cans tomato sauce (like Hunt's)

1 small onion, finely minced

3-4 carrots, finely minced

3-4 celery ribs, finely minced (I just put onion, carrot and celery in the food processor)

olive oil

2-3 pieces of bacon (I firmly believe Wrights pepper bacon is the only one anyone should buy)

salt and pepper

pinch of sugar

So cook the onion, carrot and celery in a little olive oil until it is soft and the onion is transparent. Pour in the tomato sauce, let it simmer while you start the pasta water. To do this just bring a pot of water to a boil, once the water is boiling and only once the water is boiling (the Italians are very picky about this) add a huge handful of salt to the water and then put in the pasta. (Bianca also thinks you should only use sea salt). Now roughly chop the bacon and add it to the sauce, add a little salt and pepper and a pinch or two of sugar and continue to simmer while the pasta cooks. Cook the pasta al dente, Bianca gets very upset if I use a timer, she thinks you should continually taste the pasta until you decide it's done. But near as I can tell you should remove it about 2 minutes before the box says it is al dente. Drain the pasta, toss with the sauce, top with grated parmesan and serve.

I'm telling you, quick, inexpensive and yummy! Okay, thus ends my first feeble attempt at blogging, does anyone have any better ideas for a blog name?