ceramic plate from Fifty One and a Half

Have you seen these little mini peppers that the grocery stores are stocking now? Well, I've become a big fan of these and I always have a bag in the fridge. They make the nicest little appetizers. I even like them better than the large bell peppers for stir fries.  But one of the best things to do with them is to cut them in half, stuff them and bake or grill them.  

Here's a good reason to open a bottle of red wine - Drunken Pasta.  After slightly cooking your pasta in water, you finish cooking it in red wine.  It comes out a nice red color and very flavorful.   The recipe is easy and doesn't require a long list of ingredients. This is definitely a great little pantry dish.

What kind of red wine to use?  Something dry, fruity and good enough to drink - a Chianti or a Zinfandel works great. 

How would you like a super fast way to make lasagna?  I know I do a lot of pasta making from scratch on this site and I wanted to show you guys a really fast way to make lasagna without having to make or boil noodles and that would cook up much faster than regular lasagna.  This is also a much lighter lasagna - it doesn't have any bechamel or ricotta cheese in it, just a little sprinkling of mozzarella on top to finish it off. And it's incredibly delicious. In fact, I think it's maybe my all time favorite lasagna.

My farmer's market is just chock full of eggplant right now so it's the perfect time to make this dish from Sicily - Caponata.  It's an eggplant stew or relish that can be used in a variety of ways.  It does make a great vegetarian main dish, but it's mostly used a side dish, especially for fish.  I like to spread it on some good, crusty bread.

I have so much basil growing right now it's fantastic and a problem at the same time.  I always grow too much and this year I really overdid it.  In addition to planting some out on the patio in pots, I started some from seed in big trays inside.  I did three plantings at different dates. My plan was to actually remove the plants from the trays when they got 6 to 8 leaves - just at the perfect time to harvest.  This is what they do in Liguria, where pesto is King. They only use the youngest, most tender leaves. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I found myself cutting off the leaves and letting more grow! What a wimp.   Now I have a ton more basil than I need.  So I'm really making pesto a lot.  

If you're like us and avoid restaurants on Valentine's Day, this is the dish for you. This is killer. The beautiful deep magenta color of the pasta just reminded me of Valentine's Day. The filling of goat cheese, Parmigiano cheese and chives is so luscious and creamy. And I thought some toasted chopped hazelnuts on top would add the perfect texture.  The filling is a breeze to make and the pasta dough is just plain fun.

Pomegranates have become so popular - they're delicious and healthy.  But they can be a pain to deseed, squirting juice everywhere and making a mess.  I'll show you how to easily clean a pomegranate and get all those seeds out.

I'm going to be posting a lot of pasta dishes this winter, so I thought I would give you a nice refreshing, light salad first!  The key to making a great salad is two things:  1) make your own dressing  and 2) only lightly dress the greens.  Salad dressing shouldn't weigh down a salad - it should just lightly coat it.  The greens and the fruit or vegetables should be the star.   The salad should be refreshing, not a soggy mess.  

There's lots of eggplant in season right now and here's the dish you want to make with it. This wonderful pasta dish is hugely popular in Sicily. It is named after Vincenzo Bellini's opera "Norma".  Bellini was a Sicilian born in Catania, where my mother went to school.  This dish is a delicious vegetarian dish, that uses a lot of the best ingredients of Sicily - eggplant, ricotta salata and basil.   And it's a snap to make. 

Most "Pasta alla Norma" recipes call for frying the eggplant, but I think roasting it is tastier and easier and doesn't take quite so much oil. 

bowl is from Mystic Mud Studio in Hood River, Oregon

With all the tomatoes in the garden right now, here is great way to use some of those up.  This pasta combines two types of tomatoes - one batch that is slow roasted in the oven and another that is just cut up, fresh.  It requires no real cooking, just letting the little grape tomatoes sit in the oven for a couple of hours at 300 degrees F and then boiling the pasta.  Everything is just tossed together in the serving bowl to create a fresh summer pasta dish with a minimal amount of effort.

When buying the mozzarella, try to find the type that is packed in water and comes in tubs. It's much fresher tasting and the texture is better than the type that is vacuum sealed.

Tip:  I've also made this recipe with grape tomatoes for both the roasted and fresh.  Works great. And another great pasta for this is orrecchiete - it holds the sauce so well.

There's been a lot going on around here!  It seems like we haven't had much time at home because of all our out of town trips on the weekends.  All fun stuff, though.  I just have to share a couple of the highlights with you.  First of all, our oldest son graduated from college and I still can't get used to the idea. It was a great weekend in Chicago, with dinners at Anteprima, Va Pensiero and what turned out to be everyone's favorite - Uncommon Ground.  I'm going to be highlighting a cocktail we had in Chicago that we loved. I'll post about that next time.  Here is my Northwestern graduate with his brothers.  We are so proud!

I hope everyone had a nice Easter holiday. I was overwhelmed, once again, by how many people made the Italian Easter Breads.  I'm so glad so many of you enjoyed them and that your kids loved them.  Thanks for all the e-mails.  I baked so many desserts myself this past weekend and each once was special.  I made this fantastic cake from Sweetapolita, David Lebovitz's fantastic lime tart and this pretty cheesecake.

I didn't want to post this recipe, but Brian made me do it.  This is one of his favorite sauces and he'll ask me from time to time if I've ever put it up on the blog.  And the answer has always been "no", because although we love this sauce, it's not much of a recipe and I didn't think it was blog-worthy.  Well, I've caved in and here it is.  

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.

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.

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.  

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:

I know what you're thinking - what a carb load potato pizza must be!  Well . . . yes.  You certainly wouldn't want to eat it if you were doing Atkins, but if you're vegetarian or even vegan, it's the perfect pizza.  No meat and no cheese (the cheese is optional, but I think the pizza doesn't need it).  If you go to Italy, you will see potato pizza in most of the pizza shops.  The combination of potatoes, rosemary and onion is absolutely delicious and set on top of great pizza dough, it's so good.  Add a green salad and it's a nice dinner.  Cut it into small squares and it's a delicious, unusual appetizer.  

When confronted with these beauties at the local farmers market, what would you do with them?

Growing up, I never liked beets. I think that's true of a lot of people because we were used to bad canned beets. The best way to enjoy beets is to buy them fresh, roast them simply in the oven, peel them and serve them with just a little olive oil and sea salt. When I started reading Sunday Suppers at Lucques by Suzanne Goin, it inspired me to cook beets this way and I've loved them ever since.

Boy, talk about an easy appetizer. How about using just two ingredients (three if you want to add the chopped basil) for a pretty, delicious dish of bite sized morsels? Roasting the peppers is an easy thing to do and if you've never done this yourself, start now. You will have another great technique in your cooking arsenal that will come in very handy. You can use this method to make Peperonata or to roast peppers for a sauce or side dish.

My mom, Angela, passed away in 1985. She was from Sicily and I was just really beginning to get into cooking when she died. A short time ago, I was flipping through an old Italian cookbook of hers and saw this recipe, written by her, in the back of the book: