Tiny Test Kitchen

The hubs and I recently took a trip to Park City, Utah for a wedding of some good friends. Ordinarily this trip would fill me with a fair amount of glee. Ski, waffles and crepes, aprés ski and a couple of cuties getting married, why yes please! The skiing and aprés skiing part changes slightly […]

Unlike yesterday’s Carbonara recipe, the origins of this dish are not so mysterious. It is well known that the dish was created in Amatrice in the Lazio region that lies within central Italy. It quickly spread to Rome where it was embraced and recategorized as a Roman recipe. Like the carbonara this sauce should also […]

Creamy and rich carbonara sauce is one of those dishes whose origins are obscure and disputed. There are of course many theories and claims. One is that it is named after a restaurant in Rome called Carbonara; others stem from the etymology of its’ name, ‘carbone’ means charcoal in Italian so did coal miner’s eat […]

I made this dish as a side to go with the Herbed, Pan Roasted Chicken with a Red Wine Vinegar Sauce. The creaminess of the extra cheesy bechamel cut the acidity of the vinegar sauce, and the smoked bacon and the blue cheese added other elements of flavor which are not as common in macaroni […]

In this month’s Fusilli with Summer Squash, Bacon and a Cream Sauce recipe I mentioned that we had just been to foodie heaven trip to Italy. We basically ate our weight in food everyday attempting to absorb as much of the local culture through our tummies. I have a huge, huge soft spot for Rome […]

Huge apologies on the massive gap since my last post!! The hubby and I have been on a whirlwind tour of the absolutely divine Amalfi coast in Italy. We flew into Naples and then travelled to Positano, Sorrento, Capri and flew back to London by way of Rome. Talk about a romantic and beautiful country, […]

Often I make dishes with ground meat, ragu, lasagne, meatloaf and I love to use a combination of organic ground beef, ground pork and ground veal. This usually results in my having leftover veal and pork. Not wanting to waste it I began looking for recipes that combined just these two meats. I simply could […]

One of the best things about making a dish like osso buco is the leftover potential. I love to take the meat off the veal shanks and add it to the remaining sauce. The best way to keep the veal as beautifully tender as it was the day before is to reheat the sauce slowly […]

When people extol the many virtues of fresh pasta I often agree with them, but when they do it at the expense of dried pasta I often stop. I do not think you can even compare the two. Dried pasta is something that I always have on hand in the pantry, you can store it […]

I feel as though I have always loved pasta e fagioli.  It is one of my earliest food memories and if I ever see it on a menu I get slightly too excited and I always order it. This means that I have had more than my fair share of bad bowls of this traditional […]