#chef-boyardee

#chef-boyardee

Our taste tester lauded Rao's canned minestrone for its diverse medley of ingredients, including the likes of potatoes, plump Italian tomatoes, al dente ditalini pasta, beans, and chickpeas. It balances heartiness and flavor well, making for a soup that you may even be able to pass off as homemade.

One of those enduring rumors is that Arby's roast beef comes to the store in liquid form, but that is a totally false allegation that was debunked years ago. The reality is that Arby's roast beef simply comes prepacked in a bag of liquid brine.

Somewhere in the late 70's or 80's, red sauce was no longer cool. It was no longer authentic. Tuscan was 'in'. ... You could eat in Italian restaurants in New York for ten years and never even see red sauce. We were almost made to feel bad about any secret appetites we might retain for spaghetti and meatballs.

Start with our cover star, food director Chris Morocco's one-hour bolognese that uses a pantry shortcut, Chinese black bean sauce, to kick up the umami. Then make his Green Chile Puttanesca Pork Chops where jarred jalapenos and guindillos offer buzzy heat and brightness to counterweight the rich meat. Senior Test Kitchen editor Shilpa Uskokovic also shared wintry vegetable dishes that can stand on their own.

Not unlike pot roast, another Boomer generation classic, beef stroganoff transforms an unglamorous combination of stew meat and mushrooms into an elevated, rich, stick-to-your-ribs, Russian culinary institution. In fact, beef stroganoff's old-school, vintage feel was already centuries old by the time it became a Boomer favorite. The dish is named for the eponymous Stroganov family, nobility tracing back to 15th-century Imperial Russia who served as the viceroys of Siberia as contemporaries of the heralded Romanov family ("Anastasia" Broadway musical fans, rise up).

When you're cooking with meat, it's hard to go wrong with ground beef. The versatility of ground beef allows it to be used in far more dishes than steak, chicken breast, pork chop, or shrimp. Once it's ground up, the texture and the flavor lend themselves to countless applications. It may not be the perfect ingredient, but it's certainly in the running.

Who doesn't love pasta? When I need a hug-in-a-bowl type of dinner, something cheesy and saucy is always what comes to mind first. Even when I'm thinking about making a special dinner, maybe for a date-night in or a friend coming over, comforting pasta recipes are always top of mind. If you find yourself needing a little something to look forward to at the end of the day, consider making one of these comforting pasta dinners this week. They all pair perfectly with a good

Classic spicy vodka rigatoni is such a glorious sight, beautifully orangey-red and glossy. That iconic look and luxurious texture sparked the idea for this dish. This pasta highlights the humble carrot by making it the star of the show and the base for a creamy, spicy orange sauce. I like buying carrots with the tops attached for this to make a lovely herby topping to balance the richness of the pasta, but if you can't find them, this dish is still a stunner.

Who decided Alfredo always needs to be served with pasta? Not me! Tonight we are breaking the dinner rules and swapping out the noodles for my absolute favorite pantry staple: fingerling potatoes. This Chicken Alfredo Casserole is the ultimate "family comfort food"-it's rich, bubbly, packed with garlic butter goodness, and incredibly hearty. It's one of those simple, cozy meals that makes the whole kitchen smell amazing and disappears from the pan in record time,

Classic carbonara receives a coastal makeover in an entree that combines noodles and a sauce of egg yolk, hard cheese, and black pepper with seafood such as shrimp, scallops, mussels, or clams. It may draw you in with its creaminess and maritime promises, but you'll want to resist the urge. It's a dish that's blacklisted even by top seafood chefs themselves.

Few low-prep dishes satisfy and delight on busy weeknights like one-pot pastas, and one of the best ingredients to take your pasta dishes to the next level is vegetable broth. Boiling dry pasta directly in vegetable broth instead of water imparts bolder flavor as the pasta soaks it up. Plus, you'll end up with a pot full of starchy cooking liquid from the boiled pasta, which can provide a solid base for building a pan sauce.

This story starts with mass migration. In the late 19th century, economic conditions in Southern Italy had deteriorated and millions of Italians set sail for America in search of opportunity and the gold-paved streets of which they'd been told. Many settled in the northeastern United States, sometimes strictly segregated by region. In New York's Little Italy, Sicilians lived on Elizabeth Street, Calabrians on Mott. The newly settled immigrants did their best to cook familiar foods with the ingredients available in this unfamiliar country. Their children did the same, and then their grandchildren. Dish by dish, Italian American cuisine was born, a hybrid culinary tradition that has become inextricably woven into our country's foodways.