Future Pasta (i.e. My Favorite Meal of All Time)

I do not know how Future Pasta got its name - I only know that it was from a conversation between an old friend and myself years ago - but basically, it's a caprese pasta and it is my favorite.meal.ever.
This pasta is simple, filling, and delicious.  It is my favorite meal when paired with roasted asparagus and some garlic bread (hello, carbs!).  I can eat an entire bowl of this and will go back for seconds and many times, thirds.  I have not quite figured out what makes this so addictive to me, but it happens, every time.  Please don't judge.

Future Pasta:
1 lb. penne or other short pasta
1 12 oz. container cherry or grape tomatoes, halved (I used a mix of grape tomatoes from our CSA box)
2 cups fresh mozzarella (I like using the pearl sized ones so I don't have to cut it up)
1/4 c. olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped*
zest and juice of one lemon
salt & pepper to taste

Then mix it all up.  Technically, I like to make a dressing of sorts with the olive oil, balsamic, lemon, and salt/pepper first, then add the tomatoes and mozzarella.

I let it all marinate together until my pasta is cooked, drained, and rinsed, then add that in and mix it up.  This can be eaten at any temperature and will be delicious no matter what.

*Tip: When chopping fresh basil, I have found that the easiest technique for me is the following:

Wash and pat dry the basil leaves.

Stack the leaves on top of each other, and roll them to make a sort of basil "tube".

Slice the basil tube into small strips, then slice the other way.

This enables you to get uniform pieces, and only have to chop once, rather than each leaf at a time.

On Water...Venice

Finally, the last post on Italy (just a few months later...) - our last stop, and the place we voted most "liveable" that we visited. Kevin and I both fell in love with the mindset of Venice, along with the canals, bridges, and narrow side-walked streets.

Sure, everyone can conjure up images of the canals and gondolas, or St. Mark's Square that Venice is known for, but being there made us realize what a different city Venice is from any other.  Being on the water (it's actually 6 islands connected by small foot bridges), means there are no cars or trucks or mopeds anywhere, which leaves the city quieter than most others. It also means that walking is the only form of transportation, and the Venetians have turned it into an art system, where there are specific rules (stay to the right, single file when people are approaching from the opposite direction).  You realize that when you take your trash out each week on trash day, a barge will be parked near the city-island, from which smaller boats will tour the canals, pausing to park and unload the trash collectors, who will then push large carts through the narrow streets, picking up each household's waste.
We also saw a funeral one day while walking the streets.  We watched as the procession made their way through the square to a church.  Later, we stood next to a grieving widow on the water bus and watched a private speed boat carry the coffin across the water. The bus stops at the cemetery, a completely separate island walled off from the surrounding water before making its way to Murano and dropping off all the tourists.
A lot more effort is put into each task or duty in Venice, the things we so easily take for granted here in the States.
We had some pretty good food in Venice too.

Kevin definitely enjoyed some seafood, and even took some risks with new things, such as octopus head (see picture below).

 

I had my favorite pizza of our entire Italy trip while perusing the glass shops in Murano.

And we had our absolute, hands-down, favorite meal ever on our first night in Venice, not because of the food so much as the company.  We went to a small restaurant pointed out to us by a local (we were completely lost and could not find our location on the map, so we asked for help and ended up getting a quick tour of one area of the city, along with a few restaurant recommendations).  We were seated outside at a small table and proceeded to order.  After putting in our order, a group of 8 was seated at the very close tables next to us.  My first thought was to try to move our table over to give them a bit more room.  As I attempted to pull our table and my chair over, the woman closest to me turned and said in a very French accent, "No, no, it is fine!".  I smiled at her and turned back towards my husband and our own conversation.  As Kevin and I chatted, we wondered if the group had actually thought of us moving over as an insult rather than an attempt to be polite.  We waited for our (Liter of) wine, and watched as the large carafe was delivered to the group, rather than us.  They looked surprised, as they had not ordered yet, so we mentioned it may be ours. They laughed, and we offered it to them (they politely declined).  It appeared that only one of the women spoke only a bit of English, and I only have my 4 years of high school French, but over that meal, we had amazing conversation. The group of 8 lived in Northern France, and consisted of 4 couples. Over many many drinks, we laughed and attempted to translate each other for over 3 hours.  At one point, hot whiskey drinks of some sort were ordered, and when they came out, proved to be a disappointment to one of the men, a hospital chef.  He walked to the back of the restaurant to speak to the bar tender, and when we looked over again, he was behind the bar showing the bar tender how to make the drink correctly.  The restaurant closed and we still talked and laughed.  One of the women bought me a rose from the street sellers, and made a toast, saying in her own words "Because of wine being delivered to the wrong table, we have made new friends from other places".  It was my favorite night because of that table next to us.

I loved Venice.  Of all the cities we visited, Positano was the most beautiful, Florence the most art-filled and historic, but Venice left a lasting impression on us, one that Kevin and I both decided was the reason we would be most able to live in that watery city.

Mio Dio, Firenze!

Florence has been my Holy Grail of travels since I was about 6 years old.  Something about seeing the pictures of medieval streets, hearing about the Duomo, and of course, the David in the Accademia has called to me...Such history and beauty.  Florence certainly delivered all of that to us, and so much more.  My two favorite things about the city were the Ponte Vecchio, which made me feel as if I were in medieval times just by walking across it, and the age-old towns scattered throughout Tuscany that we visited while there.  Oh, and Michelangelo's four Unfinished Slaves, housed in the same corridor as the David sculpture, but don't get as much recognition.  I had not heard much of these sculptures before seeing them, but was enthralled by the fact that while named Unfinished, Michelangelo seemed to have purposely made them look unfinished...meaning, perhaps they ARE finished...
However, Kevin and I were not so impressed by the food in Florence.  While we had a lot of wonderful wines (and brought a few Chianti's home with us from the Tuscan vineyards), we did not seem to find any amazing food there.  Good, but not great. Maybe we just went to the wrong places, I don't know.
There was, however, incredible shopping in Florence.  Yes, I did purchase a Florentine leather handbag, which I was quite excited about.  I was also excited about the shoes there, though I did not buy any (somehow).

A wall of shoes outside a shop in Florence.

View from the walls of Monteriggioni, a super tiny Tuscan village.

Grape vines from a vineyard in the Chianti region.

View of Tuscan hills from atop the village of San Gimignano

Kevin sat in with the jazz band playing in our favored restaurant in Florence, the Golden View.

What is left of my vegetable pasta and Kevin's.....what else?....gnocchi.

A close of of my vegetable pasta and all it's parmesan glory.

Happy Hour in Florence consisted of these orange drinks which I am still not entirely sure what they contain.  I know there is Prosecco in there, and I know they were delicious.  

A view of Ponte Vecchio from the next bridge up, the bridge with the four seasons at each corner.

Kevin also found a street band to sit in with in Siena.  Apparently they made A LOT of Euro.

Ohhhh Positano!

Positano was our second stop on our honeymoon, and is perhaps the most wonderful place on earth.  It was so. incredibly. beautiful.  I cannot put into words, or even show with pictures, my love for the Amalfi Coast.  It was our longest stay (4 nights), and we left wishing it were longer.




View from our fantastic hotel room

One night we were at the square on the water drinking a glass of wine, and there was an old Italian woman fishing with just a hook and a line - no pole, net, or anything else.  Kevin started to try to speak with her, and in the very few English words she knew and lots of hand motions, she was able to tell us that yes, she ate what she caught, and she was normally able to catch enough for the next day or two.  She opened a plastic grocery bag and showed us a fish and a sea anemone.  She quietly walked up and down the length of the square, casting out her simple hook and line with an amazingly strong arm.  At one point she paused, looked over at us, and pointed out to the water. "Barricuda", she said simply, pulling her line in so it wouldn't be cut by the fish's sharp teeth.  We looked past her pointing finger, and saw a very large, dark fish (apparently barricuda's in Italy are dark brown, not silvery blue like those in South America) prowling through the water.  It made me shiver.  We saw another (or maybe the same), some time later. As I had drunk a few glasses of wine, this resulted in me dancing and shimmying while singing Heart's Barricuda.


Kevin (not a barricuda) swimming in the sea

Obviously, this was the place for Kevin to get some amazing seafood.  I was perfectly content to fill up on pasta, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and, of course, lots of wine. One memorable meal we had was at La Tagliata, a restaurant recommended by our driver on our way to Positano.  A shuttle picked us up at our hotel and took us and about a dozen others, up the mountain on some very narrow and rickety roads.  Looking out the window of the shuttle, it looks like you are flying off the cliff - quite exhilarating! When we got to the restaurant, we walked in and were greeted by Pepe, and given a little table along the windows, which overlooked the cliffs and the sea.  It was beautiful.  The restaurant was family-style, so everyone was served the same thing.  We ordered a bottle of white wine, and were then tempted with about a dozen small plates of appetizers, including caprese salad, a zucchini rice salad, bruschetta, sauteed spinach, peas, cheeses, and so much more.  It was so good, and I am quite sure I could have filled up on these things alone.  But then we were served a salad, and after that, four types of pasta, and then Kevin got a whole platter of meat to himself.  The meal was finished with a couple types of desserts (the only one I recognized was tiriamisu), and limoncello, which originated on the Amalfi Coast (and let me tell you, the lemons there were as big as your head!).

Pepe, the waiter (and son of the Owners/cooks) at La Tagliata

The last night we were in Positano, we ate at a restaurant, Buca di Bacco, that was recommended to us by our waiter in Rome.  This is where Kevin ate multiple sorts of seafood.  In my opinion, it was pretty gross and I was unable to look at it, but he said the seafood platter was delicious.  As it was our last night in Positano, we splurged and ordered more food than we really needed.  I had eggplant croquettes, which were delicious, and Kevin ordered fried meat ravioli as our appetizers.  I ate a lot of bread that night, and also fell in love with Italian "pretzels", while Kevin had the seafood platter.  I also ordered my spaghetti pomodoro (yes, again!), and Kevin ordered gnocchi (yes, again! - what can I say, we know what we like!).




Eggplant croquettes

Ahh, the seafood platter - anchovies, calamari, a small catfish (whole), and much more

More seafood, blech

Bread and "pretzels"

Fried Ravioli

Kevin's gnocchi

Spaghetti pomodoro, my favorite

A super cute cappuccino

The meal was delicious and ended with super-cute cappuccinos, but overall, I will remember Positano for it's breathtaking views from every direction, lemons as big as your head (and the scent of them everywhere), perfectly clear blue water, and very happy people.  It was the best four days of my life.

When In Rome

It's been a while since I have posted anything, but I feel like I have a good excuse, in that it was my honeymoon, so I wasn't suppsoed to do anything I didn't feel like doing right now.  However, a month later, I suppose it's time to come back to reality.  Plus, I have a million things to share about our most amazing trek through Italy. 
I think the best way to to this is to go through each city, one post at a time.
Rome first, since that's where we flew in to. As I look back at it, I love that city more and more.  Obviously, it was amazing since it was our first stop, and we were all excited and giddy about being in Europe, and NOT in Pittsburgh or at work. ;)

So here it is, Rome through our eyes (with maybe a few words of description).



Our very first food stop in Italy - gelato, of course!  Pistachio was my tried and true favorite.  We did not miss one day of gelato in the entire 2 weeks we were in Italy. It was THAT GOOD.

 

Sitting in the courtyard of our hotel in Rome, we ended our nights with a(nother) bottle of wine next to the fountain.

Italian happy hours are amazing!  Buy one drink, and they offer all you can eat appetizers, including pizza, bruschetta, and so many other yummy foods. It was amazing.  The drinks weren't bad either.....!



And speaking of food, our favorite restaurant of the entire trip (we went twice) was Trattoria Cadorna dal 1947, as noted on the bottle of water here.

A tomato-based farro soup and a pear and walnut salad were the beginnings of our first meal here.

Which was followed by bruschetta with grilled vegetables.  Delicious!!

My spaghetti pomodor was perfecto!

Kevin was very pleased with his gnocchi as well.

And a perfect ending to a perfect meal - tiriamisu and cappucino, on the house from our very nice waiter.

St. Peter's Square, meet Morgan.  Morgan, meet St. Peter's.

 

After a day at the Forum and Colisseum, the Spanish Steps offered a nice spot to rest and people watch.

All Mixed Up, Like Breakfast For Dinner

Yesterday I had high hopes to get out of work a bit early, go to the gym, and then go home and cook dinner.  I had my menu planned out - a butternut squash and rosemary type-pizza to use up that squash that has been staring at me from the top of my refrigerator for the last 2 weeks, a pear and arugula salad, and peach cobbler (that will save for another day's post).  But, plans many times fail, and by the time I got out of work, it was much later than anticipated, and let's be honest, I was too damn tired to even think about cooking a full-on meal.  On my way to the gym, Kevin called me to let me know he would be stopping by his grandfather's and then having dinner at his parent's house, so my motivation lessened even more. After a nice hour-long workout session, I was hungry, and wanted something easy, and most of all, quick.  But not unhealthy, processed quick.  I did a mental inventory of my cupboards and refrigerator, and landed on the dozens of wholewheat banana pancakes (thank you 100DaysofRealFood!) I had made and frozen a month or so ago. Perfect! Breakfast for dinner! There was a recipe from 101 Cookbooks for Herbed Cream Cheese Eggs that I have been wanting to try, so I grabbed my phone and scrolled through the ingredients. After a quick run through the grocery store on my way home, (and after a shower!), I was ready to go. 

The recipe for the eggs can be found here, the recipe for the banana pancakes is here, and of course, the pictures of everything I did are below.

 

I actually followed the recipe but didn't have any tarragon, so omitted that and made up for it with the oregano and thyme.  These eggs were seriously rich, but so amazing. 

I heated up my frozen pancakes, topped them with some vanilla bean maple syrup, and threw on to the plate a few veggie sausage breakfast links for some added protein.

Let me tell you, when I made the perfect bite by layering the pancake with a bite of veg-sausage and some of the eggs, I was in heaven.  And yes, I did have a Bloody Mary. Perfection.