"whole wheat pasta" news and stories

The Atlantic has an interesting piece up about a writer's newfound obsession with imported whole-wheat pasta. Though he'd never been a fan before sampling the Morelli family's toothsome noodles, now he's sold.

Among the interesting tidbits we gleaned: A century ago, before milling techniques evolved to enable refining of the wheat germ, folks were primarily eating whole wheat pasta. Maybe they were in better health too.

Whole-wheat pasta is supposed to be a relatively good-for-you carb. If our trusty copy of "The Food Lover's Companion" is to be believed, imported dried pasta is also considered superior, taste-wise, to its domestic counterpart. So we're going to look up these here Morellis.

Have you ever tried whole-wheat pasta? What'd you think?

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• The greens of winter.
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• Make your own donuts.
• This week's recipes: Kale and White Bean Soup with Chicken Sausage, Swiss Chard with Cannellini Beans and Tomatoes, and Beet Borscht.

For the last week or two, I've been feeling like my cooking mojo was off. It started with a sub-par batch of risotto. Then came the pizza dough that wouldn't rise and the dried cherry, pistachio and white chocolate chips that were inexplicably bitter. I was beginning to feel like I'd never cook successfully again. Until along came the baked penne pasta dish you see above.

Over the weekend I made two baked pasta dishes for a small dinner party (I'll post the recipe for number two tomorrow, as it was equally delicious). I realized that there were going to be some vegetarians in the bunch and so I plotted out two different sauces to accommodate the various eating styles. This one is the non-meat version and it was so good. It combines sauteed shallots, artichoke hearts, baby spinach, fresh ricotta cheese, pesto, whole wheat penne and fresh mozzarella. It got rave reviews and happily the leftovers have done nothing but improve while hanging out in my fridge. Follow the jump for the exact recipe.