Recipes Collection: me

Showing posts with label me. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

About Me

Hi, thanks for checking out my blog! My name is Michele and I’m a thirty-something born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and now residing in Northern New Jersey. I started this blog as a tribute to my Italian Grandmother, Emilia. My grandmother, who I refer to as Nanny, lived with me and my family until she passed away two years ago at the ripe age of 98. Unfortunately, she didn’t write her recipes down and she never measured. The recipes that you see here are my interpretations created from my memory. Along with the help of my family, I use all my senses to recreate her dishes as I recall the taste, smell and feel of her cooking. Although Nanny has inspired me to create this blog you will also see recipes from other people who have taught and inspired me to cook. I am still learning new things every day and enjoy trying out recipes from some of my favorite Chefs. You will find those here as well. I hope you enjoy what you see and read here and maybe even try out some of the recipes yourself!

Happy Cooking!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

This Spaghetti Aglio e Olio Recipe Spaghetti with Garlic and Oil Almost Left Me Speechless!

I hope this video recipe for Spaghetti Aglio e Olio looks better than it sounds! A fairly minor cold led to a few days of semi-laryngitis, but I just couldnt wait any longer, so I summoned up my best Phyllis Diller impersonation and went for it. Like Phyllis always said, "the show must go on!"

Spaghetti aglio e olio is about as primal a pasta dish as there is. This is easily the most popular spaghetti recipe in Italy, and if youll pardon the probably-annoying-to-Italians analogy, the comfort food equivalent to our "mac and cheese."

This is a very simple recipe – in fact, the recipe is much easier to make than pronounce. You know a recipe name is hard to say when you cant even come up with a respectable phonetic spelling. Its something close to "ah-leoh-oh-leoh." Give it a couple tries, and if you cant do it, feel free to just call it garlic spaghetti.

Anyway, this is my version (no two spaghetti aglio e olio recipes are alike), and I think its pretty true to the classic method. The key is slowly toasting the garlic slices to a perfect golden-brown in the olive oil. If its too light, you dont get the full flavor, and if its too dark, it gets bitter. My advice? Do it perfectly. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 pound dry spaghetti

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

6 cloves garlic, sliced thin

1/2 cup olive oil (note: I prefer a regular olive oil for this recipe, as opposed to a strongly flavored extra virgin olive oil)

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste

1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley

1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese (highly recommend Parmigiano-Reggiano)

*Its not traditional, but for extra richness add 1 tablespoon of butter when you toss with the cheese.

View the complete recipe