Christine from our Facebook fan page recently asked if we had a marinara sauce recipe and my quick answer was that we haven’t documented it on the site but we make it consistently during the summer months.  Christine’s question also made us think deeply about the difference between tomato sauace and marinara (and there are many), not touching on the further differentiation associated with […]

When I asked readers on our Facebook fan page to name a few Italian food fallacies I was expecting a response but I was, frankly, overwhelmed with the feedback to our simple question.  That is to say, while I’ve experienced many of the overt food fallacies found in Italian American cooking (both in professional and home kitchens) there were some items […]

  (photo: La Castellina extra virgin olive oil used to make handmade ravioli with tomato sauce) Every once in a while a particular recipe I’ve made hundreds of times tastes like something completely different.  For example, my wife Erin (who secretly does much of the cooking behind Scordo.com!) made a batch of tomato sauce and I quickly proclaimed it “the best sauce […]

One of our standard pasta dishes here at Scordo is Pasta with Ricotta, Tomato Sauce, and Parmigiano Reggiano.  Our  ricotta is often homemade (see our recipe) and the tomato sauce comes by way of our canned tomatoes.  The pasta condiment produced here is the ideal representation of tomato, rich cream, and hearty flavors (think of it as lasagna or pasta al […]

The History of Pasta Shapes – The Italian People and Pasta Just in case you were having sleepless nights concerning the birthplace of pasta, the esteemed food critic, Oretta Zanini de Vita confirms that there were records of pasta in Italy 500 years before Marco Polo returned from China; so pasta was, in fact, invented in Italy.  I’m glad we cleared the […]

This week’s Scordo Pasta Challenge was special to me, you see the Scordo family canned tomatoes this past weekend and the penne lisce we consumed included the first tomato sauce made from 2010 tomatoes! “Penne Lisce”, or smooth penne, is essentially the standard penne you can find in any supermarket and on most menus at restaurants.  The second, standard, penne […]

August is prime season for canning tomatoes and this year’s Jersey plum tomatoes are outstanding!  The Scordo family purchased about five bushels of locally grown plum tomatoes and canned only passato (passato is essentially pureed tomato, in the past we canned a combination of passato and whole tomatoes).  As the site e-rcps.com points out: Tomatoes are usually preserved in three […]

(photo: Tripolini close up) The Northeast saw a monster wind and rain storm over the weekend with many downed trees and electrical lines.  Some of our neighbors in NJ also lost water pressure.  Luckily our home was spared and we didn’t see any crashing white pine, sycamore, or silver maple, as was the case a couple of years ago when […]

Along with making our own wine and sun dried tomatoes,  my family also cans fresh plum tomatoes every August for use throughout the year.  The canned tomatoes are used mostly for making tomatoe sauce.  Canning your tomatoes produces a better tasting tomato sauce and, of course, saves you money over the long term (especially after you’ve owned the canning equipment for several years). Tomato […]