Andrea’s Recipes

Summer is finally over here in Northern Virginia. We had a few free extra weeks in October with temperatures in the 90s F/30s C, but we got more peppers and tomatoes as a bonus! Fortunately we also got three days of rain last week, which was a welcome change from the drought, though we’re still […]

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In my view, fresh, ripe tomatoes are meant to be enjoyed in their natural state, and nothing beats the taste of a tomato straight off the vine. When I start gathering the tomatoes from my garden, I’ll often stand near the plants and just enjoy inhaling the wonderful smell. I follow my family’s tradition and […]

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I’m certainly not the first food blogger to reference Marcella Hazan, and I think I can safely predict that I will not be the last. She is considered one of the foremost authorities on Italian cuisine, and her book Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is one that I constantly turn to when cooking Italian dishes. […]

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This is Michael’s mom’s spaghetti sauce, the one he grew up with. His mom has quite a sense of humor. She jokes that she isn’t Italian so she can’t make Italian spaghetti, but she’s Polish so she can make “Polish spaghetti.” Authentic or not, it’s a good, easy multi-purpose sauce that you can use for […]

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At the risk of jinxing things, I have to say that our garden is really doing well this year. We have tons of tomatoes that will be ready for picking next week. The herbs are going crazy. The Italian parsley and the dill are about three feet tall with lots of leaves, the oregano and […]

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