I just have to show you the Valentine's gift that my husband gave me.  He knows I'm a big Trekkie.  Did you get flowers or jewelry for Valentine's?  I got a pizza cutter.  And I loved it.  When I was a kid, my brothers and I had a model of the Starship Enterprise hanging above our T.V. set by a piece of fishing line.  Bless my little Italian mother - she never made us take it down, although it must have looked so dumb to guests.  I thought about hanging my new pizza cutter from my pot rack in my kitchen, just to bring back old times.   Maybe not.

We make ice cream at home quite a lot and I've posted several ice cream recipes in the past.  But I get asked enough about how to make gelato that I thought it was time for a post.

The big question for people is what is the difference between American ice cream and Italian gelato? When people taste gelato, they comment on the intensity of flavor and the different texture it has.  Gelato is very dense and this is because there is not the amount of air whipped into it like American ice cream.  Ice cream has a lot of air whipped into it and it makes for a lighter texture. Ice cream is also made from cream and sometimes eggs and has quite a bit of butterfat.  Gelato has much less butterfat and is made from milk. 

Lots of us are trying to eat less meat but we still want to enjoy some of our favorite dishes, like a great bolognese sauce.  This recipe lets you do that and satisfy any vegetarian friends. The meaty mushrooms are a great substitute for meat and this recipe uses all the usual ingredients of a great meat sauce - wine, broth and lots of aromatic vegetables.

When I posted about the Auction Dinner in November, I mentioned making my favorite vinaigrette for the salad. I got so many requests for the recipe, I thought I should go ahead and share it with you.  Many people do not know how to make a basic vinaigrette.  This is really something that is great to learn because homemade vinaigrettes are so delicious and fresh tasting and far superior to anything you can buy in a bottle. You can also use them to dress vegetables, not just salads.

It's hard to get back into the swing of things after such a lovely holiday break with all my sons home under one roof, but here we go into 2011.  I sure did a lot of cooking, baking and cleaning with all the entertaining we did and having family come from out of town.  What fun we had.  And I had such a picture perfect day for my birthday - sitting in front of a roaring fire with all my boys, watching my favorite Lord of the Rings movies and knitting to my heart's desire.  It just couldn't get any better than that.  

This is what you want to make on a cold winter day and then enjoy the rest of the week.  This cinnamon bread recipe makes two loaves, so you can enjoy one now and freeze one for later.  The dough is a pleasure to work with and roll out.   The recipe calls for a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar on the inside, but you can add some nuts or raisins also, if you like.   Try a slice toasted, with lots of butter on top.  You could even make french toast with it.  Enjoy.

We're on the home stretch for the holidays now.  Our older boys will soon be home from college and there's lots of menus to plan.  They both have birthdays in December, we have our big annual Christmas Eve open house to plan for and then out of town guests coming right after Christmas.  There's a couple of favorites that I plan to include in the Christmas Eve buffet - Sicilian Arancine, Pine Nut Croccante and these wonderful Sparkling Cranberries from Heidi that are so beautiful to put out in a big bowl.  Please look to the bottom of this post for some additional holiday links that I thought you might like.  They are worth checking out.

I'm making an appetizer for this dinner - gougeres.  They are delicious little cheese puffs that are traditionally made with shredded Gruyere cheese but I've changed them a little - I made them with grated Parmigiano Reggiano instead.  If you've never made gougeres, don't fret.  They are so simple to make.  You mix up the batter in a saucepan on the stove, dump it into a food processor and add eggs. Then you pipe it or spoon it onto baking sheets.  Now that doesn't sound hard, does it.  And the best part?  You can actually make these ahead and freeze them in ziplocks.  When you need them, just take them out and pop them on baking sheets and reheat.  An appetizer at a moments notice!  With a little glass of wine and some olives, they're hard to beat.

These just scream Christmas, don't they?  I wanted to show you this recipe to give you plenty of time to include this in your holiday entertaining.  I love cranberry desserts at the holidays - they are so pretty, with the cranberries looking like little jewels. These phyllo baskets are simply scrumptious and you can make the components of these ahead of time, making it a breeze to assemble right before you want them.

I'm a little overwhelmed by all the e-mails I received about the Auction Dinner.  I was so happy to share the menu with you and some of the fun touches from the dinner.  Thanks to all of you who let me know how much you enjoyed it.  

Fall means knitting to me and this year I've become obsessed with doing mittens (it used to be scarves).  I just finished these purple and black Delphine mittens that a local shop owner here designed.  Was so much fun. Knitting is sort of my Zen place.

Wow, that sounds fancy, doesn't it? I love giving you a recipe that makes you look like a star in the kitchen. This one will have your family or guests think you're a fabulous gourmet cook, but it's so easy - I'll show you how. 

I do not like boneless pork loin. I don't even like the white meat of chicken or turkey. Yes, these meats are lean but they are boring, totally devoid of taste and dry.  The only decent parts of a chicken is the dark meat. If I ever fix a turkey breast, I butterfly the thing and stuff it, to add some taste.  I do the same thing with pork loin.  There's no use in fixing that cut of meat, in my opinion, unless you add something to it.  And it needs help.  If you like stuffing, why not make up a stuffing that you really love and butterfly the pork loin and put it inside?  And to make it even tastier, buy a bone-in rack of pork loin.  If you can't find a bone-in pork loin, just use a regular loin.  But if you like eating ribs, do try to find the bone-in version.

Isn't this time of year amazing?  It was such a horribly hot summer here and I'm really enjoying Fall.  Out here in the Midwest, our leaves are at their peak.  We got in another 18 holes of golf this weekend and it might be the last, since the rest of the month is so busy.   I have a big charity auction dinner to cook and a trip to Chicago to visit our boys in college.

I have so many recipe files that I've kept over the years, it's amazing to me sometimes.  Ever since I was young  and really started cooking, I've cut out every little recipe idea that appealed to me.  It's fun to go back to those really old files and see what inspired me back then. Sometimes I find something that I absolutely forgot about, like this recipe.  

When Brian and I were on our honeymoon (25 years ago) we really didn't have any money.  But we splurged one evening and went to an Italian restaurant, where Brian ordered this ravioli with five cheeses.  He raved so much about it that when I got home, I contacted Bon Appetit and asked them to get the recipe.  I was sent the recipe, hammered out on an old typewriter on a piece of paper.  I made the ravioli and then filed the recipe away and totally forgot about it - until I came across it recently and thought it would be nice to make this ravioli again for him. The restaurant is long gone, but it's a timeless recipe.

I'm thinking about Thanksgiving already.  That's right - but it's not because I'm so super organized or anything, it's because I've been saving and freezing chicken parts all year and now it's time to make some wonderful homemade chicken stock for Thanksgiving.  (I need the freezer space.)  I usually buy whole chickens from The Egg Man, cut the backbones out and cook them this way.  I just freeze these backbones and any other chicken or turkey parts that I may acquire through the year. Then, in the fall, I take them all out and make this super stock.  Making homemade stock is basic, easy and something everyone should learn to do.  

There has been a bonanza in tomatoes around here this month, thanks to our friends Brian and Diane.  They gave us a lot of their garden excess of tomatoes because they knew I would put them to good use and indeed I did. I took twenty pounds and made Roasted Tomato Soup and froze it in batches.  We then had one of our favorite dinners, Spaghetti with Roasted Tomatoes and Pancetta.  

So, how many zucchini breads have you made lately?  Too many? If you don't know what to do with all that zucchini that's coming out of your garden right now, how about zucchini + chocolate?  Great combination, really.  This cake uses quite a bit of grated zucchini, which keeps it moist and absolutely delicious, but you can't really tell there is zucchini in the cake.  Ask my kids. 

Before I get on with the cake, I wanted to thank Saveur for the nice surprise this past week in being featured on Saveur's "Best of the Web".  They featured my post on Marcella Hazan's Roman Style Artichokes.  If you are not a regular reader of the magazine, check out their web site.  It's very good and has all kinds of great content.  

A few people have asked me why I haven't been posting every week this summer. Well, to be truthful - I've been busy enjoying summer.  As Brian says, "life's short and the clock's running".  There's been a lot to do around here, we've had lots of company and I've been trying to keep up with my garden:

Here's a great little concoction to keep the party going - espresso shots!  An icy blend of Kahlua, Cointreau, tequila and espresso will give you that extra bit of energy.  Place a whole bunch of these pretty shots on a serving tray and pass them around.  It will pick up your party a notch or two!