Spaghetti with turkey-pesto meatballs

This recipe is another favorite in my house. They're lighter than your average meatball, but the bread crumbs and pesto keep them extremely moist. It comes together very quickly, especially with the aid of a quality store-bought marinara. Of course you could use store-bought pesto as well, but I just don't like it as much as my own. I realize this is essentially admitting I make a crappy marinara... we all have flaws.

The other really great thing about this recipe is that it serves four and freezes beautifully, so I always make a full batch as written below and freeze half in a Ziploc, sauce and all. Simply defrost and reheat in a saucepan and dinner's almost ready on another night.

Linguine sugo di olive verdi

So, I have like 900 salted anchovies in my fridge. I need to start using these suckers. The other night during my routine bedtime viewing of Molto Mario reruns, Mr. Batali whipped this up. And it had my name aaaaaaall over it.

If you are an extreme olive-phile such as myself, this will tickle you in all the right places. The anchovy lends a richness, a roundness of flavor that you wouldn't experience if you used olives alone. Without the anchovy, it would be pretty flat, one-dimensional. Like the spaghetti with anchovy carbonara I made the other month, the addition of one little salt-cured anchovy elevates something quite ordinary to complex, interesting, delicious places. Also, don't skip the bread crumbs. I've seen Mario Batali sprinkle them over dozens of fairly austere pasta dishes and always thought, what the hell? Now I get it. The texture makes this a lot of fun to eat, but they're also like concentrated little bombs of the olive oil you cook them in, too. The result is just really delicious and interesting.

Fresh pea and bacon risotto

This is a salute to the noble English pea. Out of respect, I refrained from taking pictures of any other ingredients. You know what raw bacon and rice look like, right? Use your imaginations. The peas were just too pretty to look at anything else.

The presence of fresh peas snuggled in their cute little shells is my official notification that Spring is here. I've planted some in the garden and I really hope they take off because I just love them. Peas are one of the few vegetables that are generally better frozen than fresh because of the high sugar content; they start losing their glorious sweet fresh flavor just hours after being picked as the sugar converts to starch (I had actually written "glorious sweet fresh pea-ness" but then I said it aloud... Backspacebackspacebackspace.) But if you can get fresh ones very very close to the vine, there is nothing better.

Swordfish Involtini alla Siciliana with whole-wheat fettucini and wilted spinach

Olives. Capers. Pine nuts. Currants. Chili flakes. Mario Batali whipped this up a week or two ago on "Molto Mario", my favorite bedtime cooking show of late. Well, it was almost 10 years ago that he actually whipped it up, but it only entered my consciousness a week or two ago. I found myself sitting more and more upright watching as he grabbed so many of my favorite things, one after another and put them all together!! Apparently I should have been born Sicilian. I had to have it. 

These are salt-packed capers. They're purported to have more of an actual caper flavor, as the ones in brine are essentially pickled. I actually had a hell of a time finding them - they were not at Central Market (the fellow helping me claimed they were out, but they haven't been there any time I've looked over the past several weeks) nor Whole Foods. But they were at the extremely awesome Jimmy's Food Store, conveniently located a few blocks from my yoga studio. There were several brands to choose from, even! And they have salt-packed anchovies too! Now I just need to get the balls to buy some!! Anyway, the capers were great, very caper-y. I do recommend trying to find them.

Buy local!

Chicken saltimbocca with pesto pasta and sauteed kale

This is a great weeknight meal. Very quick and satisfying, but with a little touch of fancy too. It's another great find from the Williams-Sonoma cookbook series "Food Made Fast", specifically, "Simple Suppers". I highly recommend the series.

You could stuff your chicken breasts with any kind of melty cheese and salty ham you happen to like or have kicking around the fridge, although the original recipe calls for fontina and prosciutto or boiled ham. This time I used a delicately smoked Italian caciocavallo cheese with prosciutto. Twas lovely. It also calls for fresh sage but dried works just fine, particularly when it's 13 degrees outside and your garden is an ice skating rink.