A Recipe to Celebrate World Pasta Day

October 25, 2011 By Andrea

I told you guys about World Pasta Day yesterday, so I thought it would be fun to share with you how we passed the day, and celebrate with a pasta recipe. The dilemma I was left with yesterday was whether to have pasta with a red marinara sauce or a white garlic cream sauce. (Tough dilemma, I know. 😉 Well, the white garlic cream sauce won. After a trip to the market today, I decided to add broccoli and mushrooms. Yummm!

Here is what I used:

500g Tagliatelle pasta (long, flat pasta similar to fettuccine)
1 bunch broccoli
500g mushrooms (funghi)
200ml heavy cream (panna)
about 60g butter (burro)
2 cloves garlic (aglio)
salt & pepper to taste (sale e pepe)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. While the water is coming to a boil, slice the mushrooms and chop the broccoli into small pieces. When your water begins to boil, salt the water, then add your pasta. Right after, add the chopped broccoli pieces to the boiling pasta water.

In the meantime, sauté the mushrooms in a little butter or olive oil in a separate pan. When ready, add the butter and let it melt. Once melted, add the heavy cream. Stir together, then grate the garlic cloves over the pan. Salt and pepper to taste.

Once the pasta is ready, drain the water. Combine the mushroom and cream mixture with the pasta and broccoli. Mix all together and serve.

Of course pasta is even better when accompanied with a glass of wine. I had a glass of Italian Sangiovese today with our lunch. I purchased the bottle of wine for only €1,29. It still blows my mind every time I purchase wine! If you missed it, you can read more about my cheap wine finds in Rome here.

We finished the meal in true Italian fashion … with Tiramisù. Our neighbor made the tiramisù today and shared with us. Such a great treat, and it was a perfect ending to our Italian meal as we celebrated World Pasta Day.

La Dolce Vita Series: Pasta

October 24, 2011 By Andrea

Photo courtesy 4umagazine.net.

Pasta! Who doesn’t love pasta? From spaghetti to vermicelli, from penne to farfalle, or from lasagne to linguine … the pasta possibilities and varieties are almost endless. To most people, pasta is synonymous with Italian food. If Italian food is being served, then you can just about expect to see at least one pasta dish on the table. Italy is known the world over for its simple and (oh so) delicious pasta dishes. Italian food, especially pasta dishes, has always been my favorite type of cuisine. It’s such a comforting food. Living in Italy, we eat pasta all the time, and prepare it at home quite often. I simply love it!

I recently learned there is a whole day dedicated to pasta. It is known as World Pasta Day, and is celebrated each year on October 25th. Care to take a guess where the day originated? Yep, no other place than Rome, Italy! It was established on October 25, 1995, by the World Pasta Congress. (Who knew there was such a thing?) The focus of the day is to promote pasta and its benefits when incorporated into a healthy diet.

I don’t know about you, but I really did not need another excuse to enjoy a big, yummy plate of pasta. That is what is on the menu for tomorrow as we celebrate World Pasta Day here in Rome, where it first originated. The only dilemma … the sauce. Red marinara sauce with fresh chopped vegetables or a white garlic cream sauce? Don’t you just love these kinds of decisions? 🙂

In honor of World Pasta Day, I would like to leave you with a poem about a delicious type of pasta … linguine. Enjoy!

LINGUINI

by Diane Lockward

It was always linguini between us.

Linguini with white sauce, or

red sauce, sauce with basil snatched from

the garden, oregano rubbed between

our palms, a single bay leaf adrift amidst

plum tomatoes. Linguini with meatballs,

sausage, a side of brascioli. Like lovers

trying positions, we enjoyed it every way

we could-artichokes, mushrooms, little

neck clams, mussels, and calamari-linguini

twining and braiding us each to each.

Linguini knew of the kisses, the smooches,

the molti baci. It was never spaghetti

between us, not cappellini, nor farfalle,

vermicelli, pappardelle, fettucini, perciatelli,

or even tagliarini. Linguini we stabbed, pitched,

and twirled on forks, spun round and round

on silver spoons. Long, smooth, and always

al dente. In dark trattorias, we broke crusty panera,

toasted each other—La dolce vita!—and sipped

Amarone, wrapped ourselves in linguini,

briskly boiled, lightly oiled, salted, and lavished

with sauce. Bellissimo, paradisio, belle gente!

Linguini witnessed our slurping, pulling, and

sucking, our unraveling and raveling, chins

glistening, napkins tucked like bibs in collars,

linguini stuck to lips, hips, and bellies, cheeks

flecked with formaggio—parmesan, romano,

and shaved pecorino—strands of linguini flung

around our necks like two fine silk scarves.

If you enjoyed this poem, and it left you hungry for more, you can check out the book What Feeds Usfor additional poems by Diane Lockward.

La Dolce Vita Series: Location, Location, Location!

October 17, 2011 By Andrea

In last week’s Friday Fun post, I told you guys we were planning to go to Paris, France, to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. Well, we went, and we had an AMAZING time! We walked around the Eiffel Tower at night (the lights started to sparkle right as we walked underneath it…so magical), took a river boat tour along the Seine River, saw the Cathedral of Notre Dame, spent the afternoon at the Louvre Museum (saw the Mona Lisa, Athena Nike of Samothrace & Venus de Milo…my three highlights), relaxed by a large fountain in a beautiful park, walked along the Champs Elysees, ate plenty of French food and enjoyed just walking around Paris and taking in the city. It was the perfect first anniversary celebration, in the city of love and lights!

One of the great things about living in Italy is being so conveniently located to other European countries. It took us less than two hours to arrive to Paris. Breakfast in Rome, lunch in Paris…not a bad day. 🙂

Another great thing about Rome is having access to low cost airlines, such as Easyjet and Ryanair. The hubby and I both were able to fly to and from Paris for only around €100. That’s about €50 each for a round-trip ticket. Pretty incredible!

We can’t wait to decide when our next travel will be. We are already talking about other countries we would like to visit soon.

To see more La Dolce Vita stories and photos, click here. You can also check out other expats’ sweet lives in Italy, or join in the fun by sharing your own stories of la dolce vita. Just click the banner below:

Why Rome?

La Dolce Vita Series: Surreal Moments

October 3, 2011 By Andrea

As I’ve mentioned before, the hubby and I like to ride bicycles around the city. One of my favorite places to ride is next to the Tiber River. It’s so nice and quiet along the river. At times, I almost forget there is a big, bustling city carrying on right above us.

On this particular day, we stopped to take a drink of water from our bottles (that we filled from one of the public fountains in Trastevere, which you can read about here), and watch the ducks interact with each other as they swam by. As we were getting ready to hop back on our bikes, a saxophone player all of a sudden appeared and starting playing a beautiful song. I had to ask myself, “Ummm, is this really happening?” The moment felt surreal. Although I know differently (I think), it was like he was there just to serenade us as we enjoyed the lovely afternoon.

To see more La Dolce Vita stories and photos, click here. You can also check out other expats’ sweet lives in Italy, or join in the fun by sharing your own stories of la dolce vita. Just click the banner below:

Why Rome?

Public Transportation

September 12, 2011 By Andrea

Although I seem to have a love/hate relationship with the public transportation of Rome, most days I love it.

When I lived the in the States, I drove a GMC Yukon, a large sports utility vehicle (SUV). While I loved my truck and wouldn’t dream of driving a smaller vehicle, I really like the fact I don’t have to drive anymore. I can get just about anywhere I would like by train, bus or metro. This applies to Europe, not just Rome. Living in Rome, the capital city of Italy, we also thankfully have access to fairly cheap flights and trains to take us anywhere in Europe.

You can’t always depend on public transportation (this is where the hate part of the relationship comes into play). Sometimes trains run late or bus waiting times seem a little too long when you’re in a hurry to get somewhere. Depending on the time of the day, transportation may be crowded and you may not always find a seat. It also really stinks to wait under an umbrella for a bus when it’s raining. Then there are the dreaded transportation strikes where the unions feel like they have to ‘punish’ the ‘regular people’ in order to get the attention of the ‘big dogs’, but we won’t bother to go into detail on that.

On the other hand, however, public transportation is a much cheaper option. As you can imagine, my large sports utility vehicle (SUV) used its fair share (if not more) of gasoline. And as we all know, gas is not cheap these days. When I owned my truck, I had to pay a good deal of money each month in order to be able to use it … monthly note, insurance, gas, maintenance, repairs (when they unfortunately happened).

Here in Rome, I pay a monthly fee of €63 for a ticket (this is less than what I payed just for gas each month). The monthly ticket allows me unlimited use of buses, trams, trains and the metro … access to all of them inside the city and any direction outside the city up to 60km. Not bad! I now do not have to pay a car note, insurance, gas, maintenance or repairs. I also don’t have to search for a parking place each day, or navigate my way through traffic (the worst).

While some days I would still like to just jump in my truck and go, I really prefer using public transportation. I definitely prefer the difference in costs!