This year we wanted to have a seafood feast for two for New Year’s Day. Usually, we would make some variation of the San Francisco-style Italian-American soup Cioppino, such as Cioppino for the Beach . This time, for variety, I based our feast on a recipe in a new cookbook I got for Christmas, Food Read More …
This fish, potato, and olive oil spread is a variation on a Venetian classic Baccala Matecato and similar Italian and French spreads. The key difference is using smoked trout instead of dried cod as the fish element. This version is adapted from a recipe in Saveur. Since olive oil is a key ingredient, it is Read More …
After Thanksgiving, a common task is to find good uses for the leftovers. One of our standards is Leftover Thanksgiving Turkey Gumbo which I am making later today for dinner. I recently spotted an article in www.thekitchn.com about using leftover bread stuffing in Italian meatballs. This made good sense since what is stuffing but seasoned Read More …
Thekitchn.com recently had an article in which they raved about allrecipies.com’s “World’s Best” lasagna. That was intriguing, so I had to make it. My adaptation turned out very well. Note that the amount of sauce made for the lasagna is more than is actually needed, so you will have a few cups to use as Read More …
This is a lightly sweet member of the focaccia family which is flavored by grapes and anise liqueur. I have made this a couple of times over the years, this time as a way of using up some older grapes on the counter which had shriveled and did not have a good texture to eat Read More …
This is a quick dinner suitable for midweek. It is an adaptation of a recipe in the New York Times. It makes 4 entrée servings. ½ cup walnut halves ¼ cup olive oil (including the oil from the anchovies) 3 garlic cloves, minced 1 small can of anchovies ¾ lb. good spaghetti ¼ cup chopped Read More …
This is a good quick dish which is especially suitable for a weekday dinner. Almost all the ingredients are in a well-stocked pantry, except that you need fresh basil, which is currently plentiful in my garden. Use good oil-packed tuna – it makes a difference. This is adapted from a recipe in The Splendid Table, Read More …
This is the version of fresh pasta popular in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and consists only of eggs and flour. With such a simple recipe, this is all about technique. I am following here the instructions of Guiliano Hazan on Craftsy. I used some Italian 00 flour, since I had some in the pantry, Read More …
This splurge dish was the main course for Alyssa’s birthday dinner. The original idea came from Bon Appetit, but we made a couple of changes. We simplified the preparation by using lobster tails (readily available frozen from Wegman’s) and we used mafaldine as the pasta. (Mafaldine looks a lot like a half-inch wide lasagna noodle.) Read More …
I have seen a couple of articles on the internet in which ravioli is used to make a simplified version of lasagna. This sounded like a good idea for car camping, so last night I did a successful proof of concept adapted from a Food52 article. I plan on using this for dinner on the Read More …