Alex and I started The Wire on hurricane weekend (that’s August 27-28 for those of you not on the East Coast). We were glued to the TV for at least an hour a night, sometimes more, til December. We watched the last episode not long before Christmas. I was heartbroken (spoiler alert!) at the unresolved trouble that had befallen 98% of The Wire‘s characters. But I not unhappy to be unglued.

Full disclosure. I’m not a TV person, not even necessarily for the Oscars or the Super Bowl. I grew up under an iron rule: no more than one hour of TV a week. Alex and I have a television but no cable. All our watching is done via Netflix or Alex’s collection of DVDs.

My curtailed TV education means I’ve never fully learned how to “half watch,” to have the TV as background noise while I’m hanging around the apartment. I’m either in or I’m out. For The Wire, I was in the game. For Mad Men I’m totally in. For Modern Family, I’m mostly in–the rest of me is folding laundry. For the Academy Awards it’s down to about eighth of my attention. The rest goes to friends I’m watching with, and to inhaling this popcorn.

Look, home-popped popcorn is great with a bit of salt. But even movie popcorn, buttery and delicious as it is, doesn’t command your attention–the whole point is to mindlessly eat it while immersed in a flick! To make popcorn special enough for an Oscar party, I’ve doused freshly popped corn with a mixture of almost-browned butter, lemon, Provence-inspired dried herbs, and thinly sliced almonds. Easy. Satisfying. And I can think of about a million other combinations that would also make this popcorn deserving of your full attention.

What are you making for the Oscars?

From my kitchen, albeit small, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Herb & Lemon Buttered Popcorn
Makes 1 big bowl

You could add 2-3 tablespoons of finely grated Parmesan cheese to the butter mixture if you want to make the popcorn richer!

Ingredients
1/4 cup olive oil
3/cups popcorn kernels
6 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon
zest of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/3 cup sliced almonds

Place a large, heavy pan with a lid on medium heat. Add the olive oil and 3 kernels. When they pop, add the rest of the kernels. Shake the pan to distribute, then cover it. Cook, shaking the pan occasionally, until you stop hearing kernels pop more than once every five seconds or so. Turn off the heat and leave the cover on for another 2-3 minutes, until all of the kernels have popped. Transfer the popcorn to a large bowl.

While the kernels are popping, preheat the oven to 300°F degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a small frying pan over medium heat. Keep cooking it, stirring occasionally, until it is very slightly golden. Pour into a bowl and add the lemon juice and zest, the pepper, salt, and spices. Mix well, then drizzle this over the popcorn in the bowl. Add the almonds and use your hands to mix the popcorn well, trying to get the butter mixture spread around as best as possible. Taste for salt, adding more as needed.

Pour the popcorn onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake until the popcorn has dried out slightly and the almonds are toasted, about 6-8 minutes.

Serve warm or room temperature. If you make the popcorn in advance, cool it completely before storing it in an airtight container.

Phoebe will be hanging with the Buckeyes this weekend, teaching a class on cheap dinners from the book Friday night, the 24th, followed by an author talk in the Ohio State Union Traditions room at 7pm. All OSU BGSK fans are encouraged to join the fun!

SEE ALL OUR QUICKBREADS, MUFFINS, AND SCONES!

If you scroll just a little bit back in our archives, you’ll see that between the two of us, we’ve been taking an awful lot of inspiration from Heidi of 101 Cookbooks.

I’m not going to make any generalizations about why, beyond to say that Heidi’s cooking is original and, well, inspiring. Any explanation of the phenomenon would distract me from showing you why this bread, which I call Oatmeal Quickbread with Walnuts and Heidi names “Easy Little Bread,” is so great.

First, it is really a quick bread. Though it is yeasted, it doesn’t have one of those all-night rises or anything. You simply mix the dough together, let it rise for about half an hour while you slowly sip your coffee, then bake it. I’m not saying this is sourdough, but it does have more personality than many quickbreads.

Second, it’s not sweet, at least not until you smother it with jam. Most breakfast breads, even the not-crazy-sweet Wake-Up Cocoa Quickbread, contain at least a half cup of sugar. I like my sweets at night for the most part (the exception is Olive Oil-Maple Granola), not in the morning. So see you at 8pm, Banana-Chocolate Chip Bread. Crusty, whole-grain quickbreads are for the AM.

Last, the bread seems to relish the addition or grains and nuts. I used oatmeal, as directed, and I subbed in kamut flour for the whole wheat flour (you can sub whole wheat right back in). Kamut is an older form of wheat. Its flour is fine, rich, and nutty. I added actual nuts–walnuts–to enrichen the flavor further: in my opinion, a handful of walnuts makes anything better. This was no exception.

I spread the bread thick with butter and a little raspberry jam. I turned leftovers into rich little croutons, which I threw on top of a salad that I’ll be writing about here in the next few weeks.

From my kitchen, albeit small, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Yeasted Oatmeal Quickbread with Walnuts
Makes 1 loaf

Adapted from 101Cookbooks

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups warm water (about 105-115°F–it should feel warm to your wrist but not hot)
2 teaspoons active dry yeast (one packet)
1 tablespoon honey
1 1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup kamut flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons neutral oil (or walnut oil if you have any)

In a medium bowl, sprinkle the yeast onto the warm water and stir until the yeast dissolves. Stir in the honey and set aside for a few minutes, until the yeast bubbles and gets foamy, about 7-10 minutes.

In the meantime, mix the flours, oats, walnuts, and salt in a large bowl.

Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir very well.

Oil a loaf pan generously.  Scrape the dough into the pan and spread it more or less to the edges. Cover with a clean, slightly damp cloth, and set in a warm place for 30 minutes, to rise. I like to inspect my kitchen, looking for the warmest place–don’t try to get your bread to rise if you’ve got a draft! Find a cozy corner, perhaps near the radiator, instead.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. When ready, bake the bread for 35-40 minutes, until the top is golden and the edges pull away from the pan. Remove from oven, and lift the bread out of the pan onto a cooling rack immediately. Let it cool slightly. Serve warm, with butter, jam, and slices of Swiss or cheddar.

Last year, our Oscar menu used the best picture nominees as jumping-off points for deliciously themed food–whether puns off movie titles or directly related to the movie’s scenes.

This year, we’re skipping the uncertainty of cooking for mere nominees and creating a “best of” buffet that features finger food from movies that have taken home the golden statuette in the past. In the interest of fun, this buffet is more over-the-top than our usual, manageable offerings. Feel free to simplify the menu, highlighting only your favorite dishes (or movies).

Arrange your Oscar-buffet with little flags so guests know what movie they relate to (we like these gumdrop flags for identification purposes). Or, make ‘em guess.

Then fill up your plates with vintage movie-inspired food, then turn on the TV, get settled, and come back to 2012 to toast this year’s winners.

**Best of the Oscars Cocktail Buffet**

Casablanca (1942)
Eggplant Caponata Crostini

Just like this old-fashioned love story, Moroccan food is distinguished by the judicious mix of sweet and savory. That’s assuming that Bogart and Bergman’s Morocco featured the same winning combination a full 70 years ago. Bring everyone back to the age when a romance could bring home an Oscar with these tasty one-bite treats.

Oliver! (1968)
Mushy Pea Crostini

Food glorious food! Hot sausage and mustard! Cold jelly and custard! While you could opt to illustrate Oliver! with skewers of sausage, we’ve decided to skip the cold jelly and make mushy peas, which Oliver and his cohorts must have eaten. It’s just so British.

Annie Hall (1977)
One-in-the-Pot-One-on-the-Floor Lobster Rolls

You all know that scene in Annie Hall, right–the one where Diane Keaton and Woody Allen are trying to cook lobsters and they’re just too neurotic to do so? Skip past that part and make lobster salad by buying cooked, shelled lobster meat and stuffing it into slider rolls.

Chariots of Fire (1981)
Pesto-Potato Focaccia

How would two British runners hope to do well in the 1924 Olympics if they hadn’t carbo-loaded beforehand? Whether you rooted for Eric or Harold, eating this potato-bread combination will give you the stamina to make it to the Oscar finish line to see who wins best picture for 2012.

Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
Atlanta Oven-Baked Ribs

During all that driving Miss Daisy must have noshed on something! Our choice: these slow-cooked ribs with lots of spices and a good southern mop for extra flavor. Cut them into one-rib servings to make the ribs fit in with your cocktail spread.

Forrest Gump (1990)
You-Never-Know-What-You’re-Gonna-Get Chocolate Bark

Life is like a box of chocolates (duh). Will the bark you bite into contain pineapple and papaya? Toffee and pretzels? Walnuts and dried cherries? I don’t know. Ask Forrest.

American Beauty (1999)
And-Then-I-Blackmailed-Him-for-Almost-$60,000 Pass the [Puff Pastry-Wrapped] Asparagus

Ah, the dark side of American suburbia! Before Mad Men arrived on the scene and made us think of the suburbs with nostalgia, there was American Beauty and the famous freak-out dinner table scene. Try not to throw your plate of delicate hors d’oeuvres at the window in imitation of Spacey.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Baked Potato Samosas

If it seems wrong to you to serve a dish inspired by a movie where children live in abject poverty, well, you just may be right. Still, we’d rather pay homage to this one with homemade samosa than with an empty plate. If echoes of “chai, chai,” still clamor in your head, add Chai Tea Lattes to your menu. If assembling samosas is too labor-intensive, you can also just serve our Potato-Pea Masala.

Toy Story 3 (2010)
To-Infinity-and-Beyond! Chicken Finger Rockets

Chicken fingers are kid food. But the whole point of Toy Story 3 is that Andy is too grown up for Buzz Lightyear and Woody. To herald his passage into teenagedom, these chicken fingers got a chipotle kick that’s clearly much too mature for any kiddo to enjoy.

One of the foodie new year’s resolutions I suggested for 2012 was that we all make more pancakes. Pancakes was really just a stand-in for any slightly involved, completely delicious breakfast treat. And I didn’t suggest it so we’d all enter 2013 all chubby from eating coffee cake instead of yogurt every morning (I have a wedding dress to wear in late 2012–remember?). On weekends, I like to make pancakes for Alex or cake and baked eggs for friends I’ve invited for brunch. It’s fun to spend longer in the kitchen than the time it takes to pour milk over cereal, and a little effort goes a long way in terms of sustenance and time spent together. Or at least I think so. I must get the inclination to make awesome homemade breakfasts from my mom.

**The Best Breakfast Sweet Treats**

1. Banana-Coconut Crumb Cake
This pioneering effort to create a dairy-free coffee finds flavor in fruit: rich coconut and homey banana. Perfect for lazy Saturday mornings or as part of Sunday brunch bread baskets.

2. Hot Raisin Bread
This one’s straight from mom’s kitchen: a scone-like quickbread studded with raisins whose best quality is the cinnamon sugar crust that encases the bread in a sweet buttery crunch.

3. Pumpkin Pancakes
These delightful pancakes make the most of the go-to pumpkin flavors, nutmeg and cinnamon. Those spices get a second moment in the sun, since they also get mixed into a sweet-salty honey butter, which is fantastic atop a stack of pumpkin pancakes
4. Apple Crumb Coffee Cake
This cake is inspired by one of the best bakers around, Rose Levy Beranbaum. It has crumbs both on top and inside, which means that warm wedges of it need nothing other than steaming cups of coffee for accompanimnt.

5. Zesty Lemon Crepes with Butter and Sugar
Nix the nutella filling, skip over the strawberries and chocolate, and no need for banana. The best crepes are filled with just butter and sugar–and a squeeze of lemon. Make these on a matin when you’re dreaming of Paris.

6. Cornmeal-Crusted Buttermilk French Toast
Brought about by a gift of sorghum syrup from Kate, Cara’s sister, this French toast has Southern flair in the form of a buttermilk soak and a buttery cornmeal crust.

7. Oatmeal with Blueberries and Dried Cherries
A healthful alternative to some of the more indulgent breakfast sweets here, the secret to this oatmeal is the brand of grains: Old Wessex All Natural 5 Grain Cereal Though it’s full of fruit, you don’t actually need any fresh ingredients to make it. Score!

8. Orange Marmelade Muffins
These muffins are a baker’s dream. More precisely, they are a non-baker’s dream. There is no creaming of butter, no fancy stunts, not even any zesting of oranges–which you’d think you’d need to get the deep, delicious orange flavor.

9. Wake-Up Cocoa Quickbread
This loaf cake/bread is firmer and less rich than the muffin-like loaf cakes that are often served at breakfast and brunch, inspired by the flavorful French pain d’epice rather than a dense banana or applesauce bread. As a result, you can eat more of it and spread it more thickly with cream cheese or butter.

10. Bacon and Egg Sandwich with Pepper Jack
Now this list is all about sweets, because sometimes breakfast just needs some sugar. But just in case you’re the type who can’t abide by French toast, coffee cake, and pancakes, here’s an indulgence that’s all about the savory richness of eggs and bacon.

Crispy Pimenton Chickpeas
Makes 4 cups

These addictive chickpeas make for great party food. Put them out in bowls, and let your guests graze, or use them to top Spanish Rice!

Ingredients
Two 15-ounce cans chickpeas (4 cups), rinsed and drained
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ teaspoons sweet paprika
1 ½ teaspoons smoked paprika (pimenton)
½ teaspoon salt
Zest and juice of half a lemon
1 teaspoon fresh thyme

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Use a dish towel or a salad spinner to make sure the chickpeas are as dry as possible. Lay them flat on a non-stick baking sheet. Roast in the oven for 10 minutes, then shake to redistribute, and cook for 10 minutes more. Combine the remaining ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. Add the roasted chickpeas and toss until well coated. Return the chickpeas to the baking sheet and roast in the oven for 5 more minutes, until very fragrant. Serve warm or at room temperature as a table snack, or use them to top Spanish rice!

These past two months, Mag Club ESP has been in full effect. And what was on the menu? Beans, beans, and nothing but beans.

At Julie’s, we had falafel, spicy black bean dip, two types of lentils, white bean and cabbage salad, and hummus. A few weeks ago at Michelle’s, the spread was a little more diverse, but no sooner had I whipped out my Tupperware of Spanish Rice with Crispy Chickpeas than I noticed Kate’s bowl of roasted chickpeas in full crunchy glory sitting on the coffee table right before me.

Roasted chickpeas have become a potluck go-to of mine recently, and clearly Kate was onto the same thing. As we waited for the remaining Mag Clubbers to arrive, the contents of the chickpea bowl quickly disappeared (mainly, into Jordana’s mouth). Kate had chosen cumin, while I had dusted mine in paprika, but no matter what you put on them, crispy chickpeas never cease to be an amazingly addictive snack.

For this particular Mag Club offering, I ended up whipping together some Spanish rice and tossing it together with the smoky chickpeas. The leftovers made a great side dish for Mussels with Chorizo and Cherry Tomatoes, and if you added a few more veggies, it would be a totally legit vegetarian main course.

From my kitchen, inhaling crispy chickpeas, to yours,

Phoebe, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipes**

Spanish Rice with Crispy Pimenton Chickpeas
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup long grain basmati rice
8 ounces (1 cup) tomato sauce
½ teaspoon sweet paprika
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups water
Juice of half a lemon
1 cup crispy pimenton chickpeas (recipe follows)

In a small Dutch oven or lidded saucepan, heat the olive oil over a medium flame. Saute the onion until translucent, 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute, until fragrant. Add the rice and toss around in the onion-oil mixture until combined. Carefully pour in the tomato sauce, followed by the paprika and salt. Saute for 2 minutes to help the tomato sauce reduce slightly. Then add the water and bring to a boil. Once bubbling, turn the heat down to low, cover, and cook for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to stand for 10 minutes in the pan. Uncover, fluff with a fork, add the lemon juice, and taste for seasoning. The rice should have a little bit of a bite to it–similar to paella. Add more salt if necessary. Top with the crispy chickpeas (recipe follows) and garnish with thyme or parsley (optional).

Crispy Pimenton Chickpeas
Makes 4 cups

Ingredients
Two 15-ounce cans chickpeas (4 cups), rinsed and drained
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ teaspoons sweet paprika
1 ½ teaspoons smoked paprika (pimenton)
½ teaspoon salt
Zest and juice of half a lemon
1 teaspoon fresh thyme

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Use a dish towel or a salad spinner to make sure the chickpeas are as dry as possible. Lay them flat on a non-stick baking sheet. Roast in the oven for 10 minutes, then shake to redistribute, and cook for 10 minutes more. Combine the remaining ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. Add the roasted chickpeas and toss until well coated. Return the chickpeas to the baking sheet and roast in the oven for 5 more minutes, until very fragrant. Serve warm or at room temperature as a table snack, or use them to top Spanish rice!

There is perhaps nothing I like better than finding leftover quinoa in a Tupperware in the fridge. And if there’s a night when I’ve gone out to dinner with friends while Alex stays home, it’s not unlikely that the next day I will get to feast on the remains of his dinner–unless he’s made himself a pot of quinoa and eaten the whole damn thing.

Some of the most fantastic leftover-based lunches start with that container of cold quinoa. I’ve used it like fried rice, eaten it simply with olive oil, parmesan, and thyme, and recently created a combination so good I can’t believe I’d overlooked it up til now: sautéed mushrooms and quinoa.

Mushrooms have long been paired with grainy carbs. I think of them most of all in kasha, which is one of my least favorite dishes (but then again, mushrooms and I have a long and not always happy history, so you have to take the good with the bad). The point is, their earthiness can complement a grain’s innate earthiness, and when you combine them with the right flavorings and some wilted onions, you’ve got a perfect wintry culinary match.

Since Alex hadn’t left me all that much quinoa, I topped my bowl with an olive oil fried egg. If you’ve got more quinoa to work with or you’ll be on the go, the quinoa and mushrooms are great on their own or with any of the protein-filled toppings suggested below.

From my kitchen, where it’s the year after the year of quinoa (according to an SKC writer, Alex), to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Thyme Mushroom-Quinoa Sauté
Serves 1

Since this makes a great packable lunch, you can obviously just make the quinoa without the fried egg. Though the grain itself is high in protein, to make the dish an even more filling lunch, try added a handful of toasted walnuts or a sliced, hard-boiled egg. Cubed grilled chicken is a good option too.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 small onion, cut into half moons (or 3 scallions, sliced)
6 white mushrooms, wiped clean and sliced
pinch salt
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup cooked quinoa
2 tablespoons grated parmesan
Olive Oil Fried Egg

Heat the oil in a small frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring almost constantly, until translucent, 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and a pinch of salt and cook another 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly, until the mushrooms are golden and have given up some of their liquid. Add another pinch of salt, the thyme, and the garlic. Cook another minute, then add the quinoa and cook as if stir-frying to combine all the ingredients together. Turn off the heat, add the parmesean, and give it a good mix. Transfer the sauté to a bowl.

Quickly fry an egg in very hot olive oil as directed here, load it on top, and serve.

ITALIAN PASTA CLASSICS: Penne alla Vodka; Tuscan Spaghetti Bolognese; Crispy Spaghetti Carbonara with Dandelion Greens and Pecorino; Linguine Aglio e Olio con Acciuga; Garlicky Angel Hair with Shrimp and Scallops; Sardine Linguine with Sundried Tomato and Olives; Pasta with Spicy Italian Sausage, Broccoli Rabe, and Sun-dried Tomato Pesto; Genovese Pesto Pasta

Recently, I had a bunch of friends over for taco night. It’s such a good dinner for entertaining a crowd–we’ve done it here and here, and my family’s been making fajita buffets for ourselves and guests for as long as I can remember. There isn’t that much cooking involved, which is why it’s an amazing weeknight choice in the first place. I’d made a big pan of chicken thighs, grated cheese, and diced a couple avocados. My guests chipped in with chips, salsa, and beer. Low maintenance, don’t you think?

So then why, when Anika went to put her sixpack of UFO Hefeweizen on the refrigerator shelf next to other guests’ six packs of Pacifico and Brooklyn Lager, did I feel the need to apologize profusely for the state of my fridge, so stuffed with non-taco night ingredients that we had to play Tetris to find a spot for six 12-ounce bottles?

Because I’m messy by nature, and because to me refrigerator doors are perfect shields for separating my eclectic assortment of jars, bottles, and containers of leftovers from the apparent organization of my shiny-countered kitchen. I have to take photos in there! And Alex and I have to live and eat there. So the messy collage of my kitchen life is perpetually framed only in my fridge, the opened bags of almonds, pecans, and walnuts that I need for my weekly batch of granola, the opened bags of chocolate chips that I like to eat handfuls of for dessert, the dozen bottles of champagne (don’t ask). I may not have needed much space for taco ingredients, but that was good, because the fridge was full long before I invited anyone over for Mexican.

And really, how could I throw out that red onion jam, when it has the ability to transform itself into French Onion Grilled Cheese? Or that little plastic bag of cold linguine, begging to become breakfast’s Fried Noodles? Leftovers are my currency, my inspiration.

Obviously, I also would never have tossed those capers from last fall’s Chicken Marbella, or those black olives from an impulse buy at Sahadi’s, or the rest of the chickpeas from the big batch I made in my slow cooker. And in they all went to a classic pasta that, like me, adores the remnants of the fridge: spicy, tangy Puttanesca.  In it, half-full jars of capers, olives, anchovies, and chickpeas are cooked in olive oil and tomatoes until those tomatoes are richly flavored.

From my kitchen, loving leftovers, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Linguine Puttanesca with Chickpeas
Serves 3-4

I’ve written before about Alex and my love for pasta and our Sunday night spaghetti tradition. Leftovers or not, that’s really why I’m posting this now: it’s a great main dish for Valentine’s Day, whether you’ve been dating someone for a while or are cooking for him/her for the first time.

Ingredients
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
5 cloves of garlic, minced
4 anchovies
pinch red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons capers
1/3 cup black olives, pitted and chopped coarsely (you’ll want about 16)
One 28-ounce can whole tomatoes, pureed with a handheld blender or food processor*
3/4 cup chickpeas, drained
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
Salt
3/4 pound linguine

Note: I like to buy whole tomatoes, then blend them myself because I think they taste better. However, you can buy pureed tomatoes, or you can simply mince the whole tomatoes pretty finely and skip the blender.

Bring a large pot of water to boil for the pasta.

In a large, heavy saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for about 1 minute, then add the anchovies and break them up with your spoon, helping them dissolve into the oil. When the garlic is just golden, about 2 minutes more, add the red pepper flakes, capers, olives, and tomatoes. Stir to combine, then bring the mixture up to a boil. Throw in the chickpeas and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is no longer watery. Add about half the parsley, and taste for salt, sprinkling some in if needed (you might not need any–anchovies and olives are salty).

When the sauce is nearly thickened, add at least 2 tablespoons of salt to your boiling water, then add the pasta and cook according to package directions. Reserve 3/4 cup cooking water, then drain the pasta and add it to the saucepan with the Puttanesca sauce and stir to combine, adding some of the reserved pasta water to help the sauce coat the noodles.

Serve immediately, topped with the remaining parsley. (I skip the cheese on this one: it doesn’t really need it.)

Italian cuisine plays a lot of roles in our kitchens. It’s easy. It’s cheap. It’s comforting. And despite being all of the above, it’s also romantic.

Proof? The best way I can think to celebrate Valentine’s Day is with Alex and a few of my best friends over brick-oven pizza at a downtown NYC Italian restaurant. Comforting, easy, and full of love.

But pasta is the Italian staple we come back to the most. We’d venture to guess that you do, too. And as such, it can sometimes get old. Pasta with tomato sauce is a classic and our favorite, but there are times when we need to move beyond the familiar into pasta territory so exotic we and our dinner guests or family members will barely even realize they’re eating the same old. Inspired by old Italian favorites and new fusion flavors, here are our ways to break out of your rut.

1. Penne alla Vodka
If Phoebe’s ex-boyfriend had his way, he would have eaten Penne alla Vodka for every meal. No matter what the venue — New York diner, upscale Italian restaurant, or our college dining hall –he would try to order this pasta dish, and amazingly enough, most of the time he got his way. It may have been mundane for North, but for us, Penne alla Vodka is an awesome departure from the ordinary.

2. Linguine Primavera
Second in our rotation after pasta with tomato sauce, this versatile linguine dish gets you your dose of greens pretty harmlessly. You can switch it up depending on the seasons, using whatever vegetables you like or you find at the market. The trick is to get everything sauteeing beautifully in lots of olive oil, as the arom of onion, garlic, zucchini, spinach, and asparagus waft through your apartment.

3. Shrimp Angel Hair with Three Herb Dressing
The beauty of this dish is that angel hair only takes 4 minutes to cook and shrimp only two. Fresh herbs just need to be washed and snipped, and there you have it: a light pasta dish–almost a pasta salad–that’s ready in almost no time.

4. Baked Gnocchi with Pesto, Peas, and Pancetta
With good-quality groceries from your favorite mom-and-pop Italian shop, this dish comes together easily, but, like a lot of baked pastas, feels elegant in an Italian countryside sort of way. Plus, gnocchi contains potato, and its sink-your-teeth-in texture is a nice change of pace from regular dried pasta.

5. Eggplant-Zucchini Lasagna with Fontina
Lasagna is already a different beast than plain pasta, and this vegetable-laden dish mixes it up in a few different ways, including being made in a round pan and using fontina instead of the typical mozz.

6. Teriyaki Rice Noodles
These thin rice noodles are a gluten-free pasta lover’s delight. Not to mention the thick, sweet teriyaki sauce and freshly pickled vegetables. These noodles taste a bit like the yummy, sauce-saturated rice left on your plate after devouring Chicken Teriyaki.

7. Sardine Linguine with Sundried Tomatoes and Olives
Sardines seem to be having a moment in the sun, but if you’re like most of us, they’re still not a part of your daily dinner rotation. That’s a change, isn’t it? The mix of ingredients in this pasta are salty, fresh, and pungent, and the sardines are fishy, but in a welcome way. Plus, it’s super cheap.

8. Eggplant Parmesan Rigatoni
Making Eggplant Parm is a pain in the ass. There is frying. There is the pot it takes to do the frying, the one it takes to make the sauce, and the dish in which the eggplant is finally arranged and baked… So it’s great that this pasta satisfies the craving without much of the hard work: you’ve got rich eggplant, gooey cheese, and crunchy breadcrumbs. With a little imagination, this pasta dish serves up the same satisfaction as the real deal.

9. Capellini with Roasted Yellow Tomatoes
If your loyalty will always lie with pasta and tomato sauce, then this dish will at least shake things up a little tiny bit and provide sweet relief to the people you dine with. After 10 minutes in the oven, cherry tomatoes burst then thicken into sauce, becoming an ideal topping for pasta. Add diced mozzarella while it’s hot, if you dare.
How do you spice things up when your go-to fettucine or linguine gets old?