A Week of Dinners // Mid-Autumn

Around this time of year, my hubby gets nostalgic about Sunday dinners with his rambunctious Italian grandmother. Add Eric Wareheim's new cookbook, a pasta machine for his birthday, and many episodes of Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, and you get a month overflowing with Italian food. We're talking smashing whole canned tomatoes with the backs of wooden spoons, infusing olive oil with garlic, dropping in whole basil leaves, grating fresh mozzarella, whisking raw egg into hot pasta, making said pasta from flour and eggs, and so on and so forth. I have had many carb crashes on the couch, and it has been 100% worth it. 

We cooked other kinds of things too, so here is a list of some dinners we loved in October crowned with a Sunday menu for the absolute best Italian meal we've ever made:

MONDAY
Pork chops with thyme-scented apples
Polenta in the instant pot
Cucumber slices

TUESDAY
Minestrone with sausage and kale
GF cornbread muffins

WEDNESDAY
Takeout or leftovers

THURSDAY
Bacon-wrapped chicken thighs
Mashed sweet potatoes (peel, cube, and boil sweet potato, then mash with butter, maple syrup, and cinnamon)
Brussels sprouts and kale salad with lemon and parm

FRIDAY
Sarah's fall salad
Oven-baked chicken
Crusty sourdough

SATURDAY
Chicken tonkatsu (recipe from Tokyo Cult Recipes)
Cucumber and carrot pickles
Sticky rice

SUNDAY - Special Meal
Italian Feast (recipes from Foodheim: A Culinary Adventure)
    Nice meatballs
    Nonna's sauce
    Fresh egg pasta