Annie’s Favorite Pasta
(Cartwheel Pasta with Breakfast Sausage and Creamy Tomato Sauce)
Makes 4 servings
Hands-on time: 10 minutes
Total preparation time: 35 minutes

When I told my sister Annie that I’d begun working on a new cookbook, she insisted that this time I had to include her all-time favorite pasta dish. Adapted from one of our most-loved Italian cookbooks, it is flavored with regular old breakfast sausages, tomatoes and cream. In typical non-Italian fashion, I significantly increased the amount of sauce in the recipe, which will probably horrify all the Italian home cooks out there. But I see pasta as a vehicle for sauce, not the other way around.

Kosher salt
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
8 ounces frozen breakfast sausage, sliced 1/4-inch thick (Note: do not defrost sausages before cutting them)
1 garlic clove, minced (about 1 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon rinsed, dried, and chopped fresh sage or 1/4 teaspoon dried
1 teaspoon rinsed and dried fresh thyme or 1/3 teaspoon dried
Two 14 1/2-ounce cans chopped tomatoes
1 pound rotelle (cartwheel) or other shaped pasta
2/3 cup heavy cream
Freshly milled black pepper
1 1/2 ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, finely grated (about 1/2 cup)

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat until hot; reduce the heat to medium, add the sausage, and sauté, stirring occasionally, until it is just cooked through, about 5 minutes. (Don’t discard the fat released by the sausage.) Add the garlic, sage, and thyme; cook 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, reduce the heat to low, and simmer the sauce for 20 minutes.

During the last 10 minutes, add the pasta to the boiling water and cook until al dente, 10 to 12 minutes. Add the cream to the sauce and simmer just until the sauce has thickened slightly. Add salt and pepper to taste. Drain the pasta, reserving 2/3 cup of the cooking liquid. Stir the pasta cooking liquid into the sauce and toss with the drained pasta. Top each portion with some of the Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Ricotta Gnocchi with Sautéed Cherry Tomato Sauce
Makes 4 servings
Hands-on time: 25 minutes with Sautéed Cherry Tomato Sauce, 15 minutes with bottled sauce
Total preparation time: 40 minutes with Sautéed Cherry Tomato Sauce, 35 minutes with bottled sauce

These are a snap to make (especially compared to the more traditional potato gnocchi.) You put a pot of water on to boil, throw all the ingredients into the mixer, and then drop small mounds of dough into the water. It is a rustic dish; the gnocchi can be misshapen. If you have a very small ice cream scoop kicking around, that’s the ideal tool for the job. Just dip it in warm water and pick up a mound of dough, which will fall easily into the water from the scoop. The homemade cherry tomato sauce is a delicious complement to the gnocchi but your favorite storebought tomato sauce is just fine in a pinch.

Kosher salt
One 15-ounce container whole-milk ricotta
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3 ounces Pecorino Romano cheese, grated (about 1 cup)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly milled black pepper
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 recipe Sautéed Cherry Tomato Sauce (recipe follows) or your favorite bottled sauce
2 ounces Italian Fontina cheese, coarsely grated (about 1/2 cup)

Preheat oven to 400° F. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Beat the ricotta cheese and eggs together with an electric mixer until well combined. Stir in the flour, half of the Pecorino cheese, the salt, pepper, and nutmeg until just combined.

Scoop up a rounded tablespoon of the gnocchi dough, then use a second tablespoon to scoop the mixture off the spoon and into the boiling water. Repeat to make as many gnocchi as will fit in the saucepan without crowding. Simmer for 7 minutes. When they are cooked through, transfer the gnocchi with a slotted spoon to a shallow baking dish. Repeat until all the dough has been cooked.

Meanwhile, prepare the Sautéed Cherry Tomato Sauce. Spoon the sauce over the gnocchi and top with Fontina and remaining Pecorino cheeses and bake for 10 minutes or until cheese has melted.

Sautéed Cherry Tomato Sauce: Combine 1 large onion cut into 8 pieces and 6 garlic cloves in a food processor fitted with the chopping blade; pulse 2 to 3 times until coarsely chopped. Heat /4 cup extra virgin olive oil oil in a large skillet over high heat until hot. Reduce the heat to medium; add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are softened, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, place one pint of cherry tomatoes in the food processor bowl and pulse 3 to 4 times, until coarsely chopped. Transfer to a bowl and repeat twice with 2 more pints cherry tomatoes. Add the chopped cherry tomatoes to the onion and cook, stirring frequently, until they form a sauce, about 10 minutes. Add kosher salt and freshly milled black pepper to taste and serve over Ricotta Gnocchi. Top with 1 1/2 ounces Romano cheese, grated (about 1/2 cup) and 2 tablespoons chopped mixed fresh basil and oregano, if desired. Makes about 4 3/4 cups.

Quick Asparagus Lasagna
Makes 4 to 6 servings
Hands-on-time: 20 minutes
Total preparation time: 65 minutes

This is a recipe for spring, even though you can buy asparagus from South America out of season. Asparagus is tastier if you buy it locally and in season. All the thicknesses are fine with me – from pencil-thin spears to thick stalks. However, I recommend that if the asparagus is thicker than, say, one-third of an inch, you should peel it from right below the tip to the end of the stalk. Break off the woody section of the stems first, which usually means the bottom inch or so. By the way, there is no reason to put this recipe on the shelf when asparagus is out of season. It’s just as delicious with broccoli florets or sautéed spinach.


2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly milled black pepper
1 pound asparagus, trimmed
1 medium onion, halved and sliced (about 1 cup)
2 garlic cloves, sliced (about 2 teaspoons)
One 15-ounce container ricotta cheese
2 teaspoons unbleached all-purpose flour
18 refrigerated wonton skins
8 ounces Italian Fontina cheese, coarsely grated (about 2 cups)

Preheat the broiler to high. Lightly oil a rimmed baking sheet and a lasagna pan (9-by 13-inches roughly). Combine the oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper in a shallow bowl. Peel the lower stalks of the asparagus if they are thicker than 1/3 inch. Toss the asparagus in the oil mixture and arrange at one end of the oiled baking sheet. Toss the onion and garlic in any remaining oil in the same bowl and arrange them on the other end of the baking sheet. Broil until the edges just begin to brown, about 5 minutes.

Reduce the oven to 375°F. Combine the onion and garlic with the ricotta, flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper in a blender; puree until smooth. Cut the asparagus into 1-inch pieces. Arrange 6 wonton skins in the bottom of the pan. Top with half the asparagus, one-third of the ricotta mixture, and one-third of the Fontina. Add another 6 wonton skins, the remaining asparagus, and another third of the ricotta mixture and Fontina. Top with the remaining wonton skins, ricotta mixture, and Fontina.

Bake the lasagna in the top third of the oven, 30 to 35 minutes, until bubbly and lightly browned.

Note: On the show I added the onions and garlic to the asparagus; if you prefer to do that rather than purée them with the ricotta, that is fine.

Tips

Be sure to cut the breakfast sausages while they are still frozen. Once thawed, they flatten out when you try to cut them.

The best way to store fresh herbs is to trim the bottoms of the stems and place them upright in a glass of water as you would flowers and set them in a cool place on your kitchen counter or in the fridge. If you need to substitute dried herbs for fresh, the ratio is – for every tablespoon of fresh herbs you will need 1 teaspoon dried.

The next time you make a pasta dish, undercook your pasta slightly. Then drain it, reserving about 1 cup of the pasta cooking liquid, and add the pasta right to the pot of sauce. Let the pasta finish cooking in the sauce, adding some of the pasta cooking liquid if the mixture seems dry. The pasta will pick up more of the flavor of the sauce if you finish cooking it this way. Also, the pasta cooking liquid, which has some starch in it, will help to bind the sauce to the pasta.

How much pasta do you need to buy for a meal? 1 pound is enough for 4 people for an entrée.

Wonton skins freeze well and they can be used in any recipe you would have used fresh pasta.

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