If you are familiar with my recipe for Pie Dough in 60 Seconds, then you will be happy to know that you can do the same thing with pasta dough.  I make this dough in a food processor and it takes about 60 seconds.  I'm going to give you step by step photos to show you how to make a pasta shape called garganelli and even a little video to make it easy (scroll to bottom of post for video).  All you need are two ingredients - flour and eggs.  You could make it today!

I'm going to be doing a whole series of pasta recipes this fall and winter.  It's so fun to make homemade pasta and I hope if you've never tried before that maybe you will give it a go this year.  This recipe is for agnolotti, a stuffed pasta that is easy and fast to make.  I'm giving you step by step photos plus a little video to give you the confidence to try. 

This agnolotti is made with a swiss chard and cheese filling.  This filling isn't hard to make at all - the chard is simply chopped a little and then cooked down over the stove in a bit of water.  If you have a food processor, you can process the filling in a snap.  

There are a handful of classic Roman pasta dishes that you will find in almost every good trattoria in Rome: Cacio e Pepe, Bucatini all' Amatriciana and Pasta alla Gricia. These dishes are what I like the best - simple to make and with just a few ingredients that you already have in your pantry and can make at the last minute. No fancy recipes here - these recipes are all about technique.  This delicious pasta has just four ingredients, but it's essential to prepare it properly. 

It's that time of year again when the cherry tomatoes are overflowing in your garden and the Farmer's Markets. We love eating them raw in salads, of course, but how about roasting them until they are soft and sweet and serve them over pasta?  This simple dish is a snap to make and you probably have most of the ingredients on hand anyway. 

This dish is not about the pasta being overly dressed - remember, the sauce on pasta should just complement the pasta, not drown it.  Garlic is sauteed in a little good olive oil and then a spash of white wine and chicken broth are added with some seasoning.  There's a hint of tomato sauce, but not much.  The star of the show here is the roasted cherry tomatoes, so we let them shine with just a light sauce underneath them.

It still feels like winter here in Michigan!  I'm doing a lot of sewing and cooking wintry dishes like this one, until some nice weather arrives.  We do get to sneak out to Seattle, where one of our sons lives, where the weather is much nicer than here. And the food is so, so good! 

There is a wildly popular tiny Italian restaurant in Seattle's Pioneer Square area that has a line out the door every day.  It serves lunch only, Monday through Friday. It's Mike Easton's Il Corvo and it serves some of the best pasta in the city.  

We were recently in Seattle, visiting one of our sons, and had dinner at Spinasse. Spinasse is known around Seattle as one of the best places to go for homemade pasta and it did not disappoint. There were a lot of moans and groans coming from our table. The meal was delicious, from the amuse that they brought out (a heavenly little bite of crostini with butter and anchovy) to an oustanding dessert of coconut gelato with dark chocolate flakes.  But the real star of the show was, indeed, the pastas.

Did you know there are hundreds of different pasta shapes in Italy?  Each region seems to have a special shape or two which is popular in that area.  Thanks to the good folks at Barilla, you will be able to experience some of these shapes because they are introducing five new pasta shapes with Barilla® "Collezione" pasta. I'm so excited about this line of pastas. And Barilla is even offering a giveaway gift basket for you, which includes each pasta shape plus goodies from Williams Sonoma, to a lucky reader.

Do you remember the classic Sicilian pasta dish Pasta alla Norma that I posted a while back?   It's a great vegetarian dish made with eggplant, capers and tomatoes.  Well, I thought it might be fun to turn it into a lasagna for this post. 

It's very simple to make - the method I prefer for the eggplant is just to roast it in the oven instead of frying. I like it much better this way and it's in fact a lot easier and uses a lot less oil. The whole lasagna can be assembled ahead of time if you want and refrigerated.  Just bring it to room temperature a bit before popping it in the oven to bake.

I used to always make gnocchi with ridges - the way my mom taught me.  We would make the ridges by pressing the gnocchi on a fork and rolling it down the tines.  It works well.  I have also used a gnocchi board, which makes the ridges very easy.  But when I first had gnocchi in Italy, there were no ridges at all.  I thought maybe that was unusual, but I have had gnocchi several times after that in Italy made with no ridges.  So now I just don't bother with the ridges. If you want to press ridges into the gnocchi, though, by all means go for it. 

What would I do without my food processor in the kitchen?  Honestly, I don't know.  I absolutely love to make pestos in it and pie dough and grind cheese.   I puree fruit, make fillings, grind herbs, and blend sauces in it.  It's just a workhorse.  And it's always been a Cuisinart.  Until now.  The good folks at Magimix by Robot-Coupe sent me a Magimix food processor to try and I absolutely love it.  And because I love it so much, they are going to ship one (in stainless steel) to one of you lucky readers.  This is a $400 machine and you could have one in your kitchen!

Here's a good reason to open a bottle of red wine - Drunken Pasta.  After slightly cooking your pasta in water, you finish cooking it in red wine.  It comes out a nice red color and very flavorful.   The recipe is easy and doesn't require a long list of ingredients. This is definitely a great little pantry dish.

What kind of red wine to use?  Something dry, fruity and good enough to drink - a Chianti or a Zinfandel works great. 

How would you like a super fast way to make lasagna?  I know I do a lot of pasta making from scratch on this site and I wanted to show you guys a really fast way to make lasagna without having to make or boil noodles and that would cook up much faster than regular lasagna.  This is also a much lighter lasagna - it doesn't have any bechamel or ricotta cheese in it, just a little sprinkling of mozzarella on top to finish it off. And it's incredibly delicious. In fact, I think it's maybe my all time favorite lasagna.

I have some upcoming pasta classes in the next few weeks and it's always fun to demonstrate to students how easy it is to make homemade ravioli.  There's so many ways to make ravioli, but my favorite way is to use this mold.  I can make ravioli so fast with this thing.  All you have to do is to roll out the pasta sheets, press into your mold, place a little filling in each well and lay another sheet on top.  Flip the mold over, cut and separate the ravioli.  It's fun.  The mold enables you to make nice uniform ravioli, which will cook up evenly.

Happy 2013!  I hope everyone had a nice holiday. We certainly did, with our boys all home and lots of cooking and friends over and a few too many bottles of Prosecco opened.  I know a lot of food sites will be giving their readers recipes for juice cleanses and salads and lighter dishes for the new year, but not me!  I'm giving you Pasta Pie. 

This is a real comfort dish - this pie has a meat crust and is filled with pasta, cheese and tomato sauce. The meat mixture is basically just the same recipe that you would use if you were making meatballs, but you press it into a deep pie pan. The whole thing bakes up in the oven and comes out nice and crispy on top.  You cut it into wedges and serve it with a dollop of extra marinara sauce.  It's great on a cold winter's night.

I've received enough e-mails over the years from readers asking why I don't have a marinara sauce recipe on the blog that I've finally done it.  It's such a simple little thing to throw together, I really didn't think much of it but I do have a couple little tips that you may find helpful.  

There are so many ways to make marinara sauce and everyone has their personal preferences.  I guess the biggest question is what kind of tomatoes to use.  I definitely prefer canned San Marzano tomatoes.  Unless you have really exceptional fresh tomatoes, the canned San Marzanos will be your best bet.  These tomatoes are picked at their peak in the Campania region of Italy, where they grow in the volcanic soil.  They are a low acid, meaty tomato and make an excellent tomato sauce.  Most grocery stores carry these now.  If you can't find them or don't want to use them, I think the next best canned whole tomatoes are from Muir Glen. You can usually find these in most stores, also.  

Sometimes it's funny where you end up getting great recipes. On our way back from Italy in the spring, I was flipping through the channels on the TV on the Alitalia flight we were on.  There were movies, TV shows, sports, news, etc.  They also had cooking segments.  I couldn't resist that - I had to see what they were cooking up. This was one of those recipes and when I got home and whipped it up, it was a hit.  

I have so much basil growing right now it's fantastic and a problem at the same time.  I always grow too much and this year I really overdid it.  In addition to planting some out on the patio in pots, I started some from seed in big trays inside.  I did three plantings at different dates. My plan was to actually remove the plants from the trays when they got 6 to 8 leaves - just at the perfect time to harvest.  This is what they do in Liguria, where pesto is King. They only use the youngest, most tender leaves. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I found myself cutting off the leaves and letting more grow! What a wimp.   Now I have a ton more basil than I need.  So I'm really making pesto a lot.  

This is the first in a series of recipes I'm going to be doing for you that are inspired from our recent trip to Italy. This has long been an absolute favorite dish of mine to make, but having it in Italy again was just beyond great. This dish, like Cacio e Pepe,  is a very common pasta dish that you will find on so many menus in Rome. It's the best of Italian cooking, in my opinon - it has just a handful of great ingredients, is easy to make but totally gutsy in its flavor.