Fix-It and Forget-It

Is your pasta feeling a bit under-dressed these days? Missing out on the holiday spirit? Looking just a trifle dowdy surrounded by all the other festive holiday dishes on the table? Continue Reading...

Bet you didn’t know September 15 is National Linguine Day—or that linguine with an “e” is indeed the correct spelling. Continue Reading...

Mention macaroni and cheese in a group and you’ll probably ignite a frenzy of nostalgia. Who doesn’t have fond memories of this perennial childhood favorite? For that matter, what adult doesn’t occasionally experience a craving for that most noble of all culinary combinations, pasta and cheese? Continue Reading...

We know that slow cookers can’t be beat, but this time of year, with so many fresh vegetables available, a quick stove-top recipe is the best choice.
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We all know that the food we eat in childhood creates a deep sensory memory. Just a scent, a glimpse, or a taste transports us back to the long-ago kitchen where we tasted that food. We often prefer our childhood flavors to the newer recipes we’ve found.

Recently, we read an article that made us laugh: a chef flies his Italian mother to his New York restaurant several times a year to make tortellini by hand. He so desperately wanted to share the authentic flavor of his childhood with his restaurant patrons. We want to go to New York to eat Mama’s hand-rolled pasta, too!

Isn’t it interesting, the intersection between homecooking and professional restaurant cooking? We enjoy the entertainment and variety of fancy restaurant food, but we want homecooking for our souls.

Here at Fix-It and Forget-It, we support the home cooks who are creating memories for the children in their lives. You might be using your time-tested childhood recipes or experimenting with new ones, but the children will remember your cooking with love and longing.
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I’ve got 2 pint boxes of grape tomatoes stacked in my fridge. Plus 2 fat, purple (why are they called red?) onions, 2 golden summer squash, but no fresh basil unfortunately. I also unearthed a half-full box of farfalle in the cupboard, so this will be supper this evening.

I’ll keep the tomatoes whole, chunk the onions and the squash, douse them with olive oil and sea salt, and onto two baking pans with sides they’ll go. I’m still lamenting the absence of fresh basil, so I guess I’ll sprinkle the veggies with dried basil. Sometimes you have to make do.

I’ve learned to always scoop out about 1 cup of pasta cooking water before I drain the pasta, so I can soup up the dish if I want to, once I’ve put everything together. That little act is now on my Essential Cooking Tips list.
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I come from a little brood of 2 kids. Merle comes from a major tribe of 7 kids, all boys, by the way. I can only imagine. . . well, no, I really can’t.

The photo above is from the early years on the farm when the 7 brothers lined up to sing, which they always like to do. Merle is second from left.

Anyway, both kinds of families have their own particular advantages, and how lucky am I to have a toe in each!

A good many years ago, when Merle’s folks were still living on their farm but were starting to slow down a little, somebody in the family got a Christmas gift idea for them. Instead of giving them stuff when they were clearly starting to slim down their household, we decided to do fix-up projects around the homestead. Things they weren’t getting done or needed to hire people to do: painting, cleaning out the shop, fixing spouting, repairing mortar in the little stone smokehouse. . . those kinds of projects. Here we are in those early years painting the corn barn.
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Our daughter hates mayonnaise. She has disliked it since she was a child and still doesn’t make things that call for it. She says that the flavor simply isn’t good and ruins whatever it’s mixed with.

Well, we were looking for a colorful summer salad the other day and decided to try this one. We made it and gave it to her, intentionally forgetting to tell her that it was made with mayonnaise.
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