Fire Roasted Tomato Cream Pasta

Imagine eating a rich, velvety sauce, coating al dente whole wheat pasta, your tongue savoring every bite, wishing you could eat this everyday without looking like you ate something as naughty as Fire Roasted Tomato Cream Pasta everyday...man, that's the dream, isn't it? The Fire Roasted Tomatoes lend a smoky sweetness to this sauce that is perfectly complemented by the robust flavor of Parmesan and ricotta. That sounds straight out of Cook's Illustrated, doesn't it?

Apologies for the lack of posts over the past week and a half. I sort of went into a bit of a tailspin and needed a break, but I am back and onto new and more delicious things!

I have been fighting this internal battle over healthy eating and body image lately. I have a lot of thoughts that I will share over the next few weeks in snippets here and there, but my thought for today is this: As long as I try to define who I am and my self-worth by the way I look, I will never truly know and understand my intrinsic value and nature. That doesn't mean I ignore my health or appearance, but that I realize that the only way I can define myself and my worth is by learning to love myself the way my Father in Heaven loves me. So that's where I am focusing now, and in the meantime, on some days, when I feel like indulging, I will eat this heavenly pasta.

"Skinny" Chicken Francese with Summer Squash and Zucchini

So for two weeks in a row, I have received some massive, fragrant, delicious lemons in my Bountiful Basket. I have been using them in all sorts of yummy dishes this week, but was at a bit of a loss as to how I wanted to incorporate the lemons into a main dish. Then, like a piece of blessed inspiration, I remembered how much I adore Chicken Francese. The real stuff is breaded in white flour and pan-fried in a lot of oil and drenched in a buttery-lemony-white-winey sauce. It's so danged good, but so danged bad for you.

So I set out to make a lighter, less offensive version for more frequent consumption, because I honestly eat the straight-up version of Chicken Francese like, once every two years. The skinnyfied recipe uses a small amount of flour cut with Panko, adhered with egg whites instead of the full egg, a smidge of extra-virgin olive oil, a modest amount of butter, no white wine, and fat-free chicken broth. It's paired with whole-wheat pasta, and topped with some fresh veggies. So the sin level is decidedly lower, and you can feel good about eating this baby for dinner like, once a month. Heck yeah. That's how we roll in my house. 

Fresh Egg Pasta with Tomato, Basil and Garlic Sauce-Fresh Pasta Tutorial Included

Don't you just want to dive into that?

I think I have marinara sauce in my veins. There are few things in this world that can make me as weak in the knees as the combination of tomato, garlic, basil and a delicious Italian cheese. I grew up in New England, raised on the cooking and baking of some very skilled Italian aunts and a mother who makes a killer sauce and meatballs. My dear Italian Nona, bless her heart, seems to have passed all of the cooking genes down a few generations and failed to keep any for herself. I'm grateful for this marinara flowing through my veins and for the torrid love affair I have had for the past few years with learning the basics of Italian cooking.

I haven't been to Italy (keep in mind that my dream vacation is eating my way through Europe with my best friend), but I think culinary curing in the Boston/New York/New Jersey area is the second best thing. I have dreams of  melt-in-your-mouth fresh zeppole, made in front of you at the local Catholic Italian Church feast. I fantasize about perfectly pounded and fried chicken parmigiana, or pizza with a crust so thin that you can cook it in five minutes flat. Someday, I will go to my ancestral homeland and come back 30 pounds heavier, stuffed with mozzarella and polenta and San Marzano tomatoes and fresh pasta. For now, I will be as authentic as I can in my little kitchen in the Salt Lake Valley.

My mother is an angel, and for my birthday last month, sent me a hand-crank pasta machine, complete with a beautiful Cook's Illustrated pasta cookbook and ravioli mold. Aren't they beautiful? I love my husband, but if this pasta machine asked me to run away with it and live on a white, sandy beach, I might consider it.