Garlic and nuts mafalda corta

This nutty garlic pasta was inspired by the "Tagliatelle with walnut sauce" from The Big Book of Pasta. Fried bits of garlic mixed into a nutty creamy sauce is good enough to eat with just about any type of starch!

Ingredients:
Pasta cooked according to package directions, save pasta water

Olive oil
3 - 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 cup of ground walnuts, with chunky bits
1 cup of ground cashews, with chunky bits
1/2 cup breadcrumbs

3/4 cup cream
1/4 cup pasta water
lots of ground black pepper

salt to taste
fresh chopped parsley


In a skillet, saute chopped garlic in olive oil until slightly browned, then add walnuts, cashews, and breadcrumbs until heated through. If bits stick to the pan, that is ok. Add cream, pasta water, and pepper to nut mixture and bring to a bubble. Once sauce has thickened, turn off the heat and mix in cooked pasta. Add salt and fresh parsley. Buon appetito!!

Lemon garlic pasta

This month will be garlic month, when at least one meal of every day will include garlic. Why garlic? Because it's stinky and bulbous and healing and versatile and essential and yummy and scares the vampires away. Let's all welcome our friendly garlic for this month!

The first dish to welcome the month of garlic will involve lemons and other goodies like pine nuts and peas. This was inspired by a lemon dill smoked salmon linguine made many years ago (from The Big Book of Pasta published by Parragon Books).

Ingredients:
2 large cloves of elephant garlic, chopped (roughly 2 tbsp)
Olive oil
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 cup peas
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley

1/2 cup grated Parmasan or Romano cheese
Zest of 2 lemons

About 3 cups of cooked globular shaped pasta that can capture the garlic bits and the peas and pine nuts.

Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste


Heat olive oil in skillet and fry up the garlic until they just begin to brown, then mix in bread crumbs, peas, pine nuts, and parsley until heated through. Add cheese and lemon zest.

Take off heat and stir in cooked pasta. Pour lemon juice over and season with salt/pepper to your liking. Buon appetito!