What I’m Cooking in Italy

I’m a self taught home chef- over the years I’ve grown from someone who struggled to heat up frozen garlic bread to someone who genuinely enjoys creating meals for her family. The hour I spend making dinner each day is my wind-down time. I have a glass of wine, listen to a podcast, and relax as much as I can while simultaneously trying to keep Marcella from cracking her head open on our hard stone floor.

What have I been cooking? The short answer is: most of the same stuff I cooked in Seattle. I’ve had to adapt a bit: my kitchen isn’t quite as well stocked (I miss my Instant Pot so much), and there are some ingredients I can’t get a hold of easily like cheddar cheese and cilantro, but there are other new ingredients to experiment with, and soon our herb garden will make life even easier.

You might think I cook a lot of Italian food, but that’s not really the case. There’s just no point- if we want really great Italian food we have literally hundreds of legitimate, affordable restaurants within walking distance of our house. Why would I slave over a lasagna when I can go buy delectable, freshly made lasagna around the corner and just reheat it?

No, what I crave is the stuff that I can’t just go and grab. Asian food: Chinese (the real stuff), Vietnamese, Indian, Japanese, Korean (Mexican food too, although that is a bit harder to recreate with the ingredients on hand). There are a few subpar Chinese and Indian restaurants here but nothing compared to what we could get with minimal effort in Seattle.  Luckily there is one very well stocked asian supermarket here where I’ve found almost everything I need from spicy bean paste to panang curry paste to udon noodles. If that place every goes out of business I’m seriously screwed.

 

Of course I don’t always have time to do something complicated, so we eat a lot of simple food too: roasted veggies and sausage, stir fries, casseroles etc. We eat plenty of quick pasta lunches and the occasional tagliere plate of cheese, meat and olives. We also order pizza once a week because, duh, we live in Italy.