Weekly Gourmet

  Today is Wednesday. It's freezing cold today. I really wanted something homey to warm us all up so I decided on an old staple: split pea soup. Very old- this is my grandma's recipe! My grandma was a simple cook. This is just a simple soup, only to be jazzed up after Easter, when one has a ham bone on hand. Adding the ham bone is so good that I used to fight my (elderly, feeble) great-aunts for it. My mom would have to split it so we could each have some for our split pea soup the following week. Oh Italian women. Don't ask me about the gizzards on Thanksgiving. Simple, meatless meals like this are what my first-generation Grandma from Sicily had to offer.   Grandma B's Split Pea Soup Ingredients  1 bag dried peas 8 cups water, chicken stock, vegetable stock, or a combo thereof  1 tsp. salt, more or less I say more. I doubled. Note on salt below. 1 T. olive oil 1 cup diced carrots, more or less I used 2 big ones. ¼ cup finely chopped onion, more or less I used half ...

Today is Sunday. Blah blah cold, gray Sunday. My highlight of the day was going to our favorite bakery after church because the kids were only mildly horrendous. And then they were out of my favorite donuts! Argh! So, dinner had to become the highlight. I decided to make my husband’s favorite pasta dish. Not that he deserves it for any adorable deed he performed for me, but because I have some heavy whipping cream leftover that probably hasn’t expired yet. Whipping cream = tomato CREAM sauce = happiness. And of course, his favorite pasta dish isn’t even my recipe at all. My neighbor brought this over when we had just moved into our house and had no appliances. Why someone with a 5 year-old, two 3 year-olds, a 2 year-old, and a 1 year-old is making anything for anyone else is beyond me, but if I could cook this well, I would be dragging baked zitis all over town. I better see an adorable deed happen for this.  Reprinted with permission from Jenn Segal's Onceuponachef.com ....