Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes, Swiss Chard and Pancetta

Because it's pasta night! 🍝 And it's ALMOST spring! ☀️ Plus a few updates

Ciao ciao, dear subscribers! Welcome to Our Italian Table. You’re receiving this email as a subscriber to our free newsletter and monthly recipes. We are grateful that you are here. If you’d like more, we’d love to have you pull up a chair and linger for a while. Over the next few months, as part of our paid membership, we are venturing deeper into the land of our maternal grandparents - beautiful Sicily - let’s share stories, our favorite images, and of course, talk about the glorious food! Grazie grazie mille! 💛  

Suddenly it is March! 🙏 Winter is almost behind us. The weather is warming up; the sun is shining; the birds are singing (and driving my cat, Luna, bonkers as she races up and down the steps, from window to window as the birds fly higher.) Soon enough, we will be cooking lighter – gone will be the stews and braises and soups. Don’t get me wrong – I adore all the winter food but it starts to feel heavy and same-same by this time every year. Did you know that Spring will be here one day early this year (thanks to it being a leap year)? Only a few weeks to go! What are you cooking during this shoulder season? Still in the depths of winter or headed towards lighter spring? Let us know in the comments!

A dear friend (grazie Sherry! ❤️) popped by with the most beautiful head of Swiss chard last week – it was so beautiful that I was almost tempted to put it in a vase filled with water rather than cook it. But my appetite got the best of me and I decided we needed a pasta night featuring this gorgeous head of chard.

Shoulder season - winter meets summer

With one eye toward winter and the other laser-focused on spring, I paired the earthy chard with sweet getting-closer-to-summer roasted tomatoes. (ok, I know summer is still a long way off but we all need a dream). The two stars of the recipe complement each other beautifully. The usually bland winter tomatoes intensify in flavor when roasted as they emerge from the oven juicy and lightly caramelized in spots. It was a great addition to the slightly bitter chard.

I fried up some diced pancetta until crispy to add something crunchy to the pasta (and I had a piece of extra pancetta in the fridge.) You can totally omit the pancetta to make this vegetarian. Just cook the onion and chard stems in a bit of extra olive oil. For crunch, some toasted pine nuts, almonds, or other nuts would work beautifully. Or toast a 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs in a bit of olive oil and season with salt, pepper, and parsley. Sprinkle on top. If you do use the pancetta, remember that it can be salty – so taste accordingly.

Set a place in the fading afternoon light near a window, pour a glass of vino, and enjoy as we await the rapidly approaching spring! 🌟

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In other news…..

• I am headed back to glorious Sicily at the end of March 💃🏻 Off to spend a week in Palermo and Trapani and the western part of the island….on the hunt for new products for our shop and to cook with a few new friends….stay tuned!

• Out in LA, Joey spent a few days at a croissant 🥐 class at @gourmandisela in Santa Monica where he whipped up some very professional, tasty-looking treats - check out his IG post. Can’t wait until I get to sample some of his new baking skills in person…

  

  Joey’s finished croissants - yum!

• Here in PA - Jay is in the throes of building us a pizza oven - by hand! This has been years in the making - piles of books and sketches and *finally* we found a spot that we could agree on 🤭 Current state of the project:

  

  Once the weather breaks, let the building continue! We will hopefully be flinging pizzas by late spring! So - please start sending ANY pizza-making tips and wood-fired recipe ideas you have - best dough? sauce? What will I make in the oven as the embers die down overnight?!? So many ideas…and so excited! 🍕 Better get practicing the pizza toss!!

Alla prossima,