Seeds from Italy

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If you've been around here for a while you may have noticed my love of Italy (fondly referred to as 'The Homeland' by Baby Sister and I).  You can imagine how excited I was to come across a source of seeds from Italy here in the U.S.  Seeds From Italy is located in Winchester, MA and imports more than 350 varieties of traditional Italian vegetable, herb & flower seeds. 

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I purchased two varieties of tomatoes, basil, oregano, flat leaf parsley, mint, and zinnias.  I am especially excited for the San Marzano tomatoes and the basil. 

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I purchased a really inexpensive shop light from Lowe's to use as a grow light and installed it in my laundry room underneath wall cabinets. 
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The light is hung by chains on a pair of hooks, so when I'm done with the light I can take it down and store it away until next season.

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I planted the seeds in an organic seed starting mix in peat cell packs.

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The seeds are planted, the light is on, and now I'm just waiting to see some growth!

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I've never started tomatoes from seed before but I always grow a couple.  I love having fresh tomatoes & herbs all summer long.  With a little luck, I'm hoping the seeds will do as well as my plants did last summer.  At the height of the season I picked a bowlful almost every day!

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Weekend Kitchen: Pasta con peperoni e salsicca

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If you ever find yourself on the Amalfi Coast of Italy, do yourself a favor and go here.  You can thank me later.  My sister and I spent a day at Mamma Agata's cooking school and it was amazing {side note: no one in our class believed we were sisters!  We don't know why - they kept referring to us as "black & white!".  Haha, we think it's pretty funny.}
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Here we are:
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And here is the beautiful view.  Can you imagine looking at this out of your kitchen window every day?  The gardens you see on the hillside are Mamma Agata's.
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This weekend I made one of our favorite pastas from the class:  Pasta con peperoni e salsicca (Pasta with peppers and sausage).  Unfortunately I can't post the recipe because it isn't published anywhere online and it doesn't seem right to give out Mamma Agata's secret.  She did, however, just come out with her first cookbook.  If you feel like dishing out a whole bunch of Euros, you can purchase it here.  I wish they sold it on Amazon!  I'm going to have to break down and get it because I know everything it is probably amazing.
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Back to the pasta - I searched high and low online to find a recipe that was similar.  This one is the closest that I could find.  The ingredients are similar but the technique is not. 
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Here's a few pictures from my pasta:
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This pappardelle pasta was good - it's a little wider than fettuccine.

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I canned tomato sauce this summer using Mamma Agata's recipe.

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Here's everything simmering together:

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All finished!

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Sorry about this post without a recipe, but I wanted to talk about Mamma Agata's!  I'm going to have leftovers right now. . .

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