Pasta - The Pasadena Chef

The Pasta I Make When I Don’t Feel Like Cooking

September 1, 2026September 1, 2026Leave a comment

I get this question fairly often: when you spend much of the day working on recipes and talking about food, don’t you eventually get tired of thinking about what to cook?

The answer is yes.

There are evenings when the last thing I want to do is research a recipe, measure twelve ingredients, or spend an hour standing over the stove. That’s when I fall back on a handful of things I can make almost without thinking.

This is one of them.

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Pasta alla Norcina: Authentic Creamy Sausage Pasta from Umbria

August 1, 2026August 1, 2026Leave a comment

This pasta from Norcia, in the Umbria region of Italy, is made with a crumbled fresh sausage which is traditionally made without fennel and seasoned with garlic and white wine.

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Rigatoni with Peas and Bacon/Sausage

July 26, 2026August 29, 2026Leave a comment

Sometimes the best Italian meals are the simplest. This rustic rigatoni pasta combines smoky bacon or flavorful Italian sausage with sweet peas, garlic, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and just enough cream to bring everything together into a silky sauce.

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Sicilian Marinara Sauce-Workhorse of Nonna’s Kitchen

July 11, 2026August 1, 2026Leave a comment

I got this marinara recipe from a friend’s grandmother. She had emigrated from Sicily in the early 1920’s and settled in the North End of Boston. She wrote the recipe down in a piece of scrap paper with a stubby little pencil. I had that piece of paper for years and then it disappeared. I admit I was pretty upset. I was planning on framing it.

She always had a batch of this sauce going on her stove, and always served it with rigatoni or mezze rigatoni.

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Pasta alla Gricia-Pasta with Italian Bacon

July 7, 2026August 29, 2026Leave a comment

This is not a totally traditional Pasta alla Gricia, as made the Lazio region, as it has some additional ingredients, but it’s very good.

That being said, sometimes we can get bogged down between what’s the “real” recipe and what tastes good. I’m a big believer in what tastes good.

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Italian Lemon Pasta with Pancetta (Pasta al Limone con Pancetta)

July 5, 2026August 1, 2026Leave a comment

This pasta starts with slowly rendered pancetta, then removed from the pan while crispy so it doesn’t get soggy.

Fresh lemon zest for aromatic oil and fresh lemon juice for acidity, emulsified directly into the starchy pasta water and a hint of the pork fat. Fresh arugula for a peppery bite or torn sweet basil to lift the dish.

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Stanley Tucci’s Favorite Zucchini Pasta- Spaghetti alla Nerano

June 11, 2026August 1, 20261 Comment

If I’m being honest, I’ve never been a big fan of zucchini. So when I saw this dish, Spaghetti alla Nerano, on Stanley Tucci‘s special, Searching for Italy, I wasn’t initially that interested.

But when he said, it was his favorite pasta of all time and that he made it at least once a week, I thought to myself I have to give this a try.

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Rigatoni with Tomato Sauce and Sausage

October 11, 2025August 1, 2026Leave a comment

This is such an easy pasta to throw together and so rich and satisfying. Sometimes less is more and the basic ingredients can really sing when left to their own devices.

While this isn’t a recipe tied to one specific village or city, it reflects the rustic cooking traditions of central Italy, particularly around Rome.

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Pesto Genovese Inspired by Marcella Hazan

June 18, 2025August 19, 2026Leave a comment

Marcella Hazan is the chef that taught me how to cook authentic Italian. She was tough and demanded authentic ingredients and no short cuts, but the recipes are timeless and still work today as well as they did 30 years ago. If you want one cookbook on Italian cooking, you can’t go wrong with her classic, “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking”.

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Nonna’s Jumbo Pasta Shells Recipe

April 20, 2025August 19, 2026Leave a comment

These jumbo pasta shells are the kind of comfort food that I really enjoy cooking. It is the kind of food your Nonna would make on Sunday, and it is both comforting and very tasty.

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