[Rione]

I'm getting bored, and I want to cook something. Anyone have any suggestions? I'd prefer something Italian for dinner, but anything is fine.

[Suzanne]

What do you have lying around in the cupboards and fridge? If you have spaghetti, bacon, eggs, and Parmesan cheese, you can always do spaghetti carbonara. It's one of my "I-don't-know-what-to-make-tonight" go-to dishes.

[shel]

I saw this and thought it looked good ...

Cinnamon-Pancetta Carbonara

Shel

[kuan]

Broil some huge shrimp. Get some U7's, slit the top of the shell, pull the meat out and let it sit on the shell, devein, broil with garlic/butter/parsley.

[siduri]

first course: pasta with cauliflower

Cut a cauliflower into flowerets and the bigger of these in quarters. Put a good thick film of olive oil in a frying pan, slice several garlic cloves, a little bit of hot pepper flakes or two or three whole dried hot peppers, and put on very low heat. Don't let the garlic brown! Just begin to cook, and when bubbling a bit around the edges, add the cauliflower, and just barely cook, covered, stirring often so it doesn;t brown.
Cook large short pasta, penne, rigatoni, whatever is handy except spaghetti (the cauliflower will all fall into the dish as you eat spaghetti, instead you can scoop it up with your short pasta) - when al dente, drain, and immediately mix in the cauliflower. Grate parmigiano on top and eat.

second course: straccetti

wash a good plateful of rughetta (arugola? rocket? don;t knwo what they call it in english). season with olive oil and a little balsamic vinegar or lemon, salt and pepper. lay in a serving dish.
Prepare very thin slices of beef (you may have to cut them yourself freezingt the meat first)
Slice a garlic clove per person into a frying pan well filmed with good olive oil and crumble a couple of leaves of sage (or chop if fresh).
Turn heat to high, fry a minute and then add the beef, salt and pepper, before the garlic takes any color, and sort of stir fry it, tossing and turning till it's cooked. Remove meat and place on the bed of rughetta.
add wine - marsala is traditional, but it could be dry vermouth, dry sherry, etc, and deglaze. Pour over the meat and rughetta.

[DC Sunshine]

Crumb some lamb chump chops, oven bake about 180-200C in a little oil 15 mins per side, drain on paper towel, sprinkle over parmesan and lemon juice, serve with some penne in a tomato and olive and basil sauce. We had that last night -yummmm! Chops were very tender and no fuss cooking too.

Desert was very lazy - tinned peaches and icecream.

Slept well

DC

[Rione]

Wow these all sound good. And it's great to hear from someone from Italy! Though from Rome I'm surprised you don't use pecorino romano cheese that I grew up with. Parmegiano tastes quite odd to me. Anyway, I think I'll try your cauliflower/pasta recpie, considering I have extra cauliflower lying around. Not sure what rughetta is in inglese though I am fairly decent with Italian.

The aspiring young chef,
Ryan
Viva l'italia!

[siduri]

Originally Posted by Rione

Wow these all sound good. And it's great to hear from someone from Italy! Though from Rome I'm surprised you don't use pecorino romano cheese that I grew up with.

I'm not roman, i was born in america and came here in my 20s. My parents were born in province of Lucca and went to the states when they were children with their own parents. Pecorino romano is not quite as popular here in rome as parmigiano, though of coures it's the traditional cheese used in rome. There has been some leveling of tastes, and in rome people now eat dishes from naples and milan. When i first came in the 70s nobody i knew in rome knew what pesto was, now everyone eats it.
anyway, I prefer parmigiano, except sliced with pears, then pecorino is also really nice, and in certain dishes i like it. All a question of personal taste.