Sure, most of us have bucket lists of big dreams we want to accomplish in our lifetime, but what about the smaller, everyday things we always think about doing but never actually make the time for? For those of you subscribed to my monthly newsletter, you know I not only love but encourage annual bucket lists! These can be smaller, more manageable (and less intimidating!) goals you set for yourself or things you'd like to try during the year that you can look forward to. I've found that for myself, in the past if I never set aside time to think about these things, the entire year would pass before my eyes and I wouldn't have anything to show for it. So what better way to create new memories than with an annual bucket list?
The first on mine? An entire Italian dinner made at home, purchased from Eataly!
There are several Eataly locations throughout the states (LA, NYC, Dallas, Boston, Las Vegas, and Chicago) and many more overseas, and since my first time visiting the LA location a couple years ago, I always thought it would be fun to come back and get all the ingredients needed for an Italian dinner at home. So my boyfriend and I set a date, and checked this first item off of my 2021 Bucket List!
For those of you who're unfamiliar, Eataly was created in 2002 and is the clever combo of "eat" and "Italy" to create a one-of-a-kind experience of what it means to "Eat Italian." You can learn about Italy's diverse food culture & history, shop authentic Italian products to cook with at home, or dine at one of their restaurants.
The LA location has literally everything you could ever need for an Italian dinner - besides the market full of Italian imports, there's an area for freshly-made pasta, cured meats, produce, dessert, and a bakery! Also, can't leave out their extensive wine section, either!
I came up with this idea a while ago, since I had read** and been hearing for a while that those with a gluten intolerance have no problem eating gluten products in Europe. I'm not gluten intolerant, but I do try and stay away from it most days (click here to read why), so I was curious as to what made gluten products in Europe, and more specifically Italy, easier on the digestive system. And I couldn't think of a better place to get authentic Italian pasta than Eataly!
For our dinner, we decided on the following menu:
Spaghetti with Tomato & Basil sauce
Fusilli with Vodka sauce
Baguette (half for dipping in olive oil, the other half for garlic bread)
Meat & Cheese Appetizers
A selection of red, white, and rosé wine
We really wanted to get dessert as well, but we had forgotten to bring the cooler and didn't think any gelato would make it on the drive home. Which turned out not to be a bad thing, since we had no room for dessert after this dinner!
What We Got:
Two bags of Felicetti organic pasta (spaghetti & fusilli; they were having a two for $4.00 sale!!)
One baguette from the bakery
One jar of Lidia's organic tomato and basil sauce
One jar of Ponti tomato & vodka sauce
One tub of grated Pecorino Romano (very similar to Parmigiano-Reggiano, but sheep's milk)
Wagyu beef no-nitrate salami
Three bottles of Italian wine
There were a couple things we chose not to get because we had them at home and wanted to stay within a reasonable budget (olive oil, garlic, grass-fed organic beef, sliced cheese and herbs), but this was all available at Eataly if we needed them.
Now, time to Eat!
We started with a glass of the rosé with the Wagyu beef salami and slices of Trader Joe's gouda-style and cheddar goat cheeses as an appetizer. Neither of us had tried beef salami before, let alone Wagyu beef, and the fact that the ingredients list was so short, there were no nitrites/nitrates, AND the entire container was less than $9.00, we had to try it!
10/10 would absolutely recommend the salami. It was fun to try something different at a great price point, and it tasted delicious. A few of the slices were very thin, so we'd double up on meat, but overall it was a great appetizer and purchase from Eataly. The rosé was also a great choice! It was crisp, refreshing, not too sweet but not too dry, and definitely had a hint of strawberry, which we love in a rosé. For reference, we're big fans of the Belle Glos pinot noir blanc rosé, and would still choose that over this one, but this was a great first Italian wine to start off the night and was priced lower than our Belle Glos (usually $16.99).
On to Dinner!
Next, we opened the bottle of white for a glass to enjoy while we started cooking dinner. I'd say for flavor, the white wine was alright, but the most intriguing quality about it for the both of us was how crystal clean the finish was. There is truly no other way for us to describe the aftertaste except for clean - in that way, it was fantastic. No taste or texture left on the tongue, no harsh sulfites, just clean.
We put on this awesome playlist on Spotify called Italian Cooking Music, and got to work on cooking! I began making beef meatballs for our spaghetti while my boyfriend started cooking the pasta. Once I put the meatballs in the oven, I started to work on the garlic bread so I could throw it in the oven once the meatballs were done. For the meatball recipe, I used this one (minus the breadcrumbs & milk, and substituted onion for onion powder). When the pasta was done cooking, we drained both pastas and began to heat up both of the sauces on the stove top. Then we added the fusilli to the vodka sauce, the meatballs to the tomato & basil sauce, and popped the garlic bread in the oven. For the garlic bread, I used this recipe (except I also may have possibly quadrupled the amount of garlic...and now know not to do that again, haha!). While the garlic bread was in the oven, I sliced up the rest of the baguette for dipping in olive oil, and after that, we were pretty much done! The olive oil dip we made as soon as we got home; we just added some Italian herbs like basil, oregano and rosemary, and let it sit for several hours.
Right before we sat down to eat, I tossed some spaghetti with the tomato & basil sauce, and put a spoonful of the Pecorino Romano into the olive oil dip and mixed it around. I lit some candles, opened the bottle of red, put on the "Martin Scorsese: Music from the Films" playlist and we sat down to eat our Italian dinner!
Everything was SO GOOD. The red wine was definitely our favorite of the three bottles we bought (and the price point was great, about $10! For reference, we usually drink Meiomi pinot noir or Petite Petit). The sauces were delicious. The bread was soft and fluffy with a crispy crust, and was perfect for both dipping and the garlic bread. And the pastas were definitely worth the wait. This was a cheat meal I had been looking forward to for a very long time!! The spaghetti with the meatballs and Pecorino sprinkled on top was perfection, and the fusilli with vodka sauce was everything I imagined it would be!!
It's difficult to gauge if any bloating or inflammation from this meal was similar to eating American gluten products, only because I over-indulged in everything! But it was all very good, and for what it's worth, I didn't feel as bloated or full the next day as I expected to be after the amount I ate. So maybe it helped? Either way, it was a fantastic dinner, a fun experience, and a great way to spend our Saturday: a trip to Eataly in the morning, an appetizer in the afternoon, and cooking at night!
Some Helpful Tidbits
-The leftover spaghetti made a fantastic pasta bake; I tossed the spaghetti with some more sauce, put it in a glass container and kept it in the freezer. When we were ready to eat it again, I put it in the fridge the night before, then popped it in the oven the next night with some shredded goat cheese mixed in with the noodles and sprinkled on top. We enjoyed it with our leftover wine and it was delicious!
-All in all, the entire dinner didn't take us more than 30-35 minutes to make.
-The LA Eataly is located in the Westfield Century City outdoor mall on the third floor. Parking is free for the first hour.
**I had been hearing it mostly through word of mouth, but a couple articles referencing the difference between American and Italian gluten that I read are this one and this one.
Comments