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.

Fire Roasted Tomato Kale Soup with Italian Sausage

Sometimes the only cure for a nasty cold is a warm bowl of soup. I love me some good chicken noodle, but the lack of grocery shopping this week (yet another side effect of this blasted cold) resulted in a new soup creation based on available ingredients. It only took a half hour, and is it stinkin' delicious. I want to make 10 pots of this deliciousness and run down the streets of our neighborhood singing and dishing out hot bowls of this soup, like I am in a Disney movie. Okay, that's just the cold medicine talking. But make this soup and you will see what I am talking about. It is heaven. In your mouth. Throw in a soft, buttery breadstick, and you will swear you have died and gone to the great beyond. Just a heads up-the breadsticks are a shameless indulgence. White flour and butter. But man, are they delicious. Just enjoy it and have a better day tomorrow.

A quick note-this soup is packed with kale. I don't know if you like kale, or have ever even tried it, but kale is a superfood. It is loaded with essential nutrients, and it is delicious. I am a New England girl at heart, and we ate kale all the time, especially in savory soups on cold winter days, steam rising out of the bowl as our breath fogged up cold windowpanes. It was very Robert Frost and Norman Rockwell. So trust me, and use the kale.

Ok...here we go. I don't have as many pictures for this post as I usually do. A lot of my ingredients were pre-prepped and in the freezer. But the result will still taste good-I promise!