It's A Sunday Thing.

Hello June and Happy Sunday!  Kyle and I are heading to Squamish today to hike since it is so nice out!  But as we do every Sunday we'll come home and end our weekend with a pasta dish...

I grew up in an Italian family that loved parties, loved to eat and loved traditions. We still do! I also grew up with my Grandparents living next door.  My Grandmother was a Sicilian fireball and my Grandfather is a stubborn Calabrian.  I'm half Italian and half Irish, when I was little I asked why I didn't have an Italian last name like my Grandparents or all of my Cousins?  The answer I got still makes me laugh to this day:  I was told that although I am half Irish, when I was born, the Dr.'s took my Irish blood and when I turned eighteen I could go back and get it.  As far as I was concerned, I was 100% Italian.  Growing up next to my Grandparents was the best experience a child can have! I am not sure my parents always liked it but to me it was awesome!  My Grandma let me drink coffee, let me stay up late to watch Johnny Carson and my best friend growing up lived on the other side, so we would stay up all night talking to each other from our windows. My Grandma died unfortunately when I was seventeen years old. I will never forget that day and I will never forget all of the special times I was lucky enough to share with her. One of my favorite memories was the tradition of having sauce every Thursday and Sunday.  If those days fell on a holiday you could bet the house would be filled with Aunts and Cousins making homemade pasta while the sauce cooked for hours.  If the pasta wasn't being made from scratch, my Grandmother would go to the Italian deli to buy pasta. Sauce was never from a jar, that you could count on.

When my Husband and I moved in together we started making different pasta dishes on Sundays and it has now, five years later become our family tradition. When we have kids they will also know this tradition and hopefully have the same fond memories as I do. I love that so many of my Cousins still have this tradition and it makes me smile when I see a post on Facebook about sauce being on all day.  There are few things in life that I can never give up and pasta is one of them. I am lucky Kyle doesn't have a weird allergy to pasta, I am not sure how I would explain this to my family!

I thought I'd share a few of our favorite recipes that are on the Sunday rotation. I can't share the family sauce recipe but thankfully there's Pinterest and FoodGawker. I find tons of great recipies on there. 

Tag Pic Pac Pasta (Carrabba's Italian Grill)

I'm not a fan of Italian chain restaurants, but once Kyle made this for me, I was hooked!

Pesto Orecchiette With Chicken Sausage

I substitute with a mix of hot and mild Italian sausage.

 

Linguine with Asparagus and Egg  

Easy like Sunday mornings.

  People always ask what my favorite pasta dish is and I have to admit that although I grew up on sauce, my favorite is spaghetti aglio olio (garlic and oil).  It was actually one of my Grandma's favorites as well as my dads.  That's my go-to comfort dish!  Do you have a favorite pasta dish?  Leave me a comment below!