Carnevale has come and gone and the Lenten season is in full swing. In case you missed it, I told my Facebook fans about my plan, not to give something up for Lent, but to spend a little time each day doing something for someone else. So … if YOU need something, just shoot me a message and if possible-and legal!-I’ll happily oblige.
One of the traditions I’m not tweaking this year is the Catholic obligation to abstain from meat on Fridays. This doesn’t mean you are sentenced to six weeks of grilled cheese sandwiches and cheese pizza. Oh no, my friends, Italian food was created for vegetarians. With the rich array of cheese, vegetables and pasta, there is no limit to what you can do senza carne.
To help you get started, here are five of my favorite meatless Italian recipes.
1. Pasta Puttanesca
This salty concoction takes its name from the ladies of the night, but with black olives, capers and anchovies, it doesn’t matter what it is called, as long as it good. And trust me, it is good.
2. Shrimp and Asparagus Pasta
Crunchy asparagus and fresh shrimp are sauteed in butter and tossed with penne pasta. Does it get any better than this?
3. Gorgonzola and Grape Bruschetta
You might think bruschetta is just an appetizer, but if you eat enough of it-and believe, you’ll eat a lot of it-then it is a safe bet you won’t go to bed hungry. This bruschetta recipe calls for a bit of cream cheese, Gorgonzola cheese, sauteed onions and plump red grapes. Yum!
4. Cacio e Pepe
This is one of my favorite Roman recipes and it is ideal for a meatless Friday during Lent, a quick, easy pasta dish at the end of of a long day or a nice surprise for your vegetarian friends … and really, Italian cooking doesn’t get any easier than this.
5. Pasta e Ceci (Chickpea pasta)
This pasta dish is like chicken soup for the Calabrian soul. It is healthy, it is hearty and it is wholesome. Oh, and it is also delicious.
What is your favorite meatless Italian recipe to cook during Lent?
PS: Gina of Warm October is the winner of a bottle of Calabrian Olive Oil and Paula of Paula’s Talk won a $50 gift certificate to Monica’s Fine Foods. Thank you to everyone who played along and auguri to our winners!
LAST NIGHT; A bad day at Bangkok for rookie Excise man.(Features)
Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland) January 29, 1999 | Fulton, Rick THE KNOCK (ITV) POOR old Alex Murray, the Customs & Excise rookie, had a bad night last night.
First he thought he was going on a slap and tickle junket to Bangkok, only to find the drugs courier he was following was gay.
So rather than being surrounded by lovely young Thai ladies, it was young men in thongs winking at him.
Then he lost the drug courier who could lead him to Mr Big and got a massive dressing down from his boss Ancrom (Mark Lewis Jones).
Returning exhausted and ear bitten to his girlfriend, he hoped for some cosy comfort, only for her to produce a condom and accuse him of sleeping with prostitutes.
All the way through, Scots actor Daniel Brown looked like a big Andrex puppy. His great hound dog face kept registering disbelief that it was all going wrong.
Daniel added some light relief to this gritty thriller, which just gets better and better.
Cherie Lunghi was the guest actress in the first of a new three-parter.
She played Toni Maxwell (yes, I know she’s the face of Kenco coffee but even The Knock has an ounce – or should that be a teaspoonful – of humour) who had taken over her jailed husband’s business.
Wearing leather trousers or silky undies, she oversaw her minions – two dogs, a girlfriend and some heavies.
Toni gets Thai women to smuggle heroin concealed in breast implants.
Alex was trying to pin the smuggling on her, but by the end of the first part had botched the job, arrested the courier and lost any leads to her.
Meanwhile, Barry Christie (Steve Toussaint) was made to go undercover cleaning buses.
Someone is smuggling drugs through Customs and Excise in the buses and he gets a job as a cleaner.
He’s not happy, thinking that it is because he’s black, but uses a racist attack to get in with the smugglers.
After a shaky start this series has found its form. But it will have to keep up to the standards of last night’s show to match the sheer power of The Vice. this web site brier creek movies
SOAPWATCH BROOKSIDE (Channel 4, 8.30pm) THE friendship between Sinbad (Michael Starke, left) and Mick could be at an end as the rape continues to rip Brookside Close apart. The truth could soon be revealed after victim Nikki sees a familiar face in a flashback which could be the rapist. Ron has to decide between Bev and Anthea PICK OF THE BOX COMEDY: Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (BBC2, 9.00pm) STARS Kathy Burke and James Dreyfus manage to steer this sometimes- wayward comedy into funny waters. web site brier creek movies
Kathy just looks and acts brilliantly as Linda La Hughes. Dreyfus’ character Tom is slightly boring and one-dimensional, but he still has some withering lines.
Tonight, Linda’s long-lost sister comes to stay and Tom is suddenly inundated with offers of television work. Dale Winton makes a guest appearance.
DOCU-SOAP: Vets In Practice (BBC1, 8.00pm) VETS Trude Mostue, Hannah Pollard and Sam Robinson all reflect on their social lives this week.
Trude thinks her new boyfriend Patrick could be Mr Right, then has to worry about a dog’s possible pregnancy.
Hannah has a new look after losing three stones and takes it out on an overweight rabbit that she puts on a diet.
And Sam, who has little time to socialise, has to castrate a young stallion.
SITCOM: Frasier (Channel 4, 10.00pm) THE pompous brothers Niles (David Hyde Pierce) and Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) are red faced when they can’t get tickets for the hottest new theatrical show in town.
Could they be losing their status within Seattle society?
Meanwhile, the wonderful Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves) becomes a minor celebrity when the local newspaper shows a whole new side to her.
CHAT: Parkinson (BBC 1, 9.30pm) PARKY is joined by Mo Mowlam, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in what promises to be a great show.
The MP has battled against a brain tumour and lost her hair. But she refuses to be vain and simply ties a bandana around her head.
They are also joined by Alan Davies, the stand-up comedian and star of the quirky comedy drama Jonathan Creek.
MOVIES BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL (Ch4, 1.45pm – 3.30pm) Bigoted Southern boy Robert Wagner learns tolerance when serving in the Pacific. Soapy war drama. 1956 FOR THE FUTURE: The Irvine Fertility Scandal (BBC2, 3.30pm – 5.00pm) Marilu Henner given dubious treatment in another true-life story. 1996 TAKE YOUR BEST SHOT (Ch5, 3.30pm – 5.20pm) Struggling actor Robert Urich tries to revive his career and his marriage in hollow comedy. With Meredith Baxter. 1982 A PROMISE TO CAROLYN (Ch5, 9.00pm – 10.50pm) Abused sisters seek vengeance on wicked stepmother in true-life teledrama. 1996 LOCK UP (BBC1, 10.25pm – 12.05am; Scotland, 10.55pm – 12.35am) Saintly Sylvester Stallone at his most humourless as a framed convict transferred to a hell-hole run by vicious warden Donald Sutherland. Manipulative melodrama. 1989 WITH A VENGEANCE (Grampian, STV, 10.30pm – 12.15am) Melissa Gilbert in tele-dramatics. 1992 THE WIZARD OF LONELINESS (BBC2, midnight – 1.50am) Young Lukas Haas is despatched to his grandparents during World War Two. Poignant drama with many memorable touches, impeccably acted. With John Randolph. 1988 THE HAPPY HOOKER (Ch5, 12.30am – 2.20am) Lynn Redgrave unhappily cast as New York madam Xaviera Hollander. 1974 STEEL JUSTICE (ITV regions, 12.35am – 2.15am) Lame robot monster cop thriller with Robert Taylor. 1992 BLUE CITY (BBC1, 1.05am – 2.25am) Cynical drifter Judd Nelson attempts to solve his father’s mysterious murder in routine Ross McDonald yarn. 1986 THE DEMOCRATIC TERRORIST (Ch5, 2.20am – 4.05am) Trashy Euro-action drama. 1992 THE IRON CURTAIN (Ch4, 3.25am – 4.50am; S4C, 3.45am – 5.20am) Dana Andrews in dull defection tale. 1948 Fulton, Rick
I make the shrimp and asparagus with lobster. We find already cooked, frozen lobsters for 6 Euros at Christmas time and stock up for Lent. The same ingredients also make a good risotto if you use a veg stock. Sometimes I tweak it with fresh corn, cut from cob, tomatoes and basil.
I *so* shouldn’t have read your comment before lunch. These sound fabulous!
.-= Martha´s last blog ..March 1, 2010 =-.
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Since I am on a low carb diet, my favorite vegetarian dish is impossible, but the Umbrian version of pasta e fagioli I published a couple of years ago is IT.
You coastal types can have spaghetti alle vongole. Mmmm.
Hmmm, I’ll have to look up your Umbrian version. I love pasta e fagioli!
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I could quite happily eat these pasta dishes all year round, not just for lent. The less meat with my pasta the better.
I’m with you-I could (and do) eat these all of the time. I do love a good amatriciana, though!
.-= anne´s last blog ..Our Anniversary Evening…… =-.
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Oh boy – I completely forgot about pasta e ceci. I’ve got to make it this week. I’ve been eating shrimp with pasta, crabcakes and steamed mussels on these Lenten meatless days.
Oooh, crabcakes sound pretty good to me, Linda!
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I’m always amazed at the apparent simplicity of Italian regional food; proves how the secret to good food is fresh ingredients. Going to try the cacio e pepe tomorrow (in theory even I can’t mess this one up…)
Can’t wait to hear what you think. BTW, I wrote about you today (for tomorrow’s post!)
.-= andrew´s last blog ..The great debate on French culture [1] =-.
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Our staple during lent is the frittata, and the possibilities are endless. Another good meatless pasta…the norma! Or pasta with tuna, which is what I am making tonight.
Ha! That’s what I made, too!
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Pizza! I love veggie-topped pizza anyhow, I don’t even need it to have sauce on it. In fact last night I made a dough, chopped up some scallions and parsley and threw those on top with some garlic powder and salt, then covered it up with strips of fresh mozzarella. It turned out delicious! Of course I eat a lot of pasta too. I’m pretty much a carb hog.
Ha. I’m on the No Carb Left Behind program, myself. Your pizza sounds fab!
.-= Maria´s last blog ..Mar 1, Quick Pizza Dough Recipe =-.
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WHOA! I must try that grape and gorgonzola bruschetta! That sounds so interesting.
Oh, let me know what you think, Erin. I *love* this. I just made it again this past weekend.
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