Everyday Pasta by Giada Laurentiis (summer beach reads TXT) 📕

is a sheep’s-milk cheese (in fact, pecorino means “sheep” in Italian). Again, you’re looking for the aged hard cheese, not the soft creamy one. Pecorino is aged, but not as long as Parmesan. It has a salty, tangy flavor and it melts beautifully on pasta and sauces. It is a little more assertive than Parmesan and can be substituted for it in many recipes if you want a sharper kick.

6 servings

You can make this kind of soup anytime, using any kind of pasta you like. Small shapes and short noodles are the obvious choices, but my parents often added spaghetti or fettuccine, broken into small pieces so we could still eat it with a spoon. The fettuccine looks a little more elegant, but if all you have on hand is spaghetti, that’s fine; the soup will have a more rustic, homey look.

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 leeks (white and pale green parts only), chopped and well rinsed

4 garlic cloves, minced

6 small zucchini, thinly sliced, about 4 cups

2 (13¾-ounce) cans quartered artichoke hearts packed in water, drained

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

10 cups vegetable broth

5 ounces fresh fettuccine, cut into 2- to 3-inch pieces (about 1½ cups)

½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme

Heat the oil in a large, heavy pot over medium-low heat. Add the leeks and sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add half the minced garlic, the zucchini, artichokes, salt, and pepper, and sauté until the zucchini is tender, about 10 minutes. Add the vegetable broth and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Bring the soup back up to a gentle boil over medium-high heat, add the pasta, and cook for 1 minute more (if you are using dried pasta or a different shape, adjust the cooking time accordingly to cook the pasta just to al dente).

Meanwhile, combine the remaining garlic, the Parmesan, softened butter, and thyme in a small bowl and stir with a fork until well blended.

Ladle the soup into bowls. Top with a dollop of the Parmesan mixture and serve.

4 to 6 servings

I love the velvety texture of this soup. Although it has four cloves of garlic, it’s not garlicky because they are poached.

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 shallots, chopped

1 fresh sage leaf

2 (15-ounce) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth

4 garlic cloves, halved

½ cup heavy cream

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

6 slices ciabatta bread

Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling

Place a medium, heavy soup pot over medium heat. Add the butter, olive oil, and shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, until the shallots are softened, about 5 minutes. Add the sage and beans and stir to combine. Add the broth and bring the mixture to a simmer. Add the garlic and simmer until the garlic is softened, about 10 minutes. Pour the soup into a large bowl. Carefully ladle one-third to one-half of the soup into a blender and purée until smooth. Be careful to hold the top of the blender tightly, as hot liquids expand when they are blended. Pour the blended soup back into the soup pot. Purée the remaining soup. Once all the soup is blended and back in the soup pot, add the cream and the pepper. Cover and keep warm over very low heat.

Place a grill pan over medium-high heat. Drizzle the ciabatta slices with extra-virgin olive oil. Grill the bread until golden grill marks appear and the bread is warm, about 3 minutes per side. Serve the soup in bowls with the grilled bread alongside.

Ribollita

4 to 6 servings

Broken strands of spaghetti are the starch in my family’s version of ribollita, a thick Tuscan soup that is usually made with cubes of stale bread. We always had odds and ends of long pasta on the pantry shelves when I was a child and serving it this way made a hearty meal out of a little bit of pasta.

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 carrot, peeled and chopped

4 ounces pancetta, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, with juice

1 (10-ounce) package frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

1 (15-ounce) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

2 teaspoons herbes de Provence

6 cups low-sodium chicken broth

1 bay leaf

3-inch piece of Parmesan rind

1 cup spaghetti broken into 1-inch pieces

Grated Parmesan, for serving

Heat the oil in a large, heavy pot over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, pancetta, garlic, salt, and pepper. Cook until the onion is golden brown and the pancetta is crisp, stirring occasionally, about 7 minutes. Add the tomato paste and stir until dissolved. Add the tomatoes and stir, scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to release all the brown bits. Add the spinach, beans, herbes de Provence, broth, bay leaf, and the Parmesan rind. Bring the soup to a boil, then add the spaghetti, reduce the heat, and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the pasta is al dente.

Discard the Parmesan rind and bay leaf, and ladle the soup into bowls. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and serve.

6 servings

Salade Niçoise meets all-American pasta salad in this all-in-one dish that’s perfect for a picnic or dinner on a hot summer night. The trick is to use the Italian canned tuna; the flavor of water-packed albacore tuna is just not comparable.

1½ pounds slender green beans, trimmed and halved crosswise

2 large red potatoes, diced

½ pound orzo pasta

⅓ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon dried oregano

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

½ cup chopped fresh basil

¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 (9-ounce) can Italian oil-packed tuna, drained

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the green beans and cook until crisp-tender, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes. Using a mesh strainer, transfer the green beans to a large bowl of ice water to cool completely. Drain the green beans and pat