Polpettone in Crosta. An Italian take on Meatloaf takes the dish to another level! “Meatloaf” never looked more spectacular or tasted anything quite like Sofia’s Polpettone. Its crunchy shell of puff pastry revealed a richly seasoned pork and veal mixture greatly enhanced a handful of…

Don’t miss out on this year’s farm-fresh tomatoes. Make this now. I cannot get enough of this year’s tomato crop.  I would eat them every day if they all tasted like our Long Island tomatoes this year.  And when I made this recipe from Food…

Bon Appetit’s June/July 2021 is a keeper. Not just because its cover heralds “21 Speedy Summer Recipes”.  I’ve already cooked my way through four of them. Earlier this week, it was the jumping off point for our Corn Snap Pea Sausage Rigatoni.  Today it’s this…

Pasta once a week is a staple at our house.   We love the endless possibilities pasta presents.  With over 50 distinct types—even more when you add in the different sizes– that number goes even higher.  Today’s recipe is a riff on one in this…

This wonderful pasta dish is a great weeknight find.  A hack makes it even better.                       I like to make pasta at least once a week. It is our go-to comfort food. This week, I…

An eye-opening Bolognese from Tucci’s “Searching for Italy” We’ve always cooked Bolognese, arguably the most famous of all pasta sauces, for several hours. Its rich meaty flavor developed slowly. And before an ounce of beef was added to the sauce, the holy trinity of Onions,…

I was tempted to call this Maiale all Milanese Tonnato. Or Tonkatsu Tonnato. This creamy-rich tonnato sauce, flavored with premium tuna filets, creates a wonderful balance to its richness with fresh lemon and pickled caperberries. The luxurious sauce instantly elevates the dish with a perfect…

Stanley Tucci’s 6-part series for CNN is an Italophile’s dream. For one hour a week, its viewers are immersed in the food of a single region of Italy.  For lovers of the Italian language, there’s a surprising amount of it spoken here. Subtitles are provided…

I would be hard-pressed to find a recipe any easier than this one. As easy as it is, it delivers a wonderfully creamy rich soup so packed with cheese tortellini and fresh spinach and carrots, I’d be tempted to call it a stew.  The secret…

This bowl of cold-weather comfort revealed quite a secret. This hearty Tuscan bean soup is a perfect combination of smooth, silky soup topped with crispy, crunchy croutons.  It also fulfills our promise to put more plant-based meals together this year. And we’re not alone.  Americans…

MonteRosola is an Award-Winning Winery in the middle of the Tuscan wine-growing regions of Chianti and Bolgheri. 50 km from the coastal wine region of Bolgheri and 20 km from Chianti in the Tuscan hills, sits MonteRosola.  This relatively new vineyard has established its organic…

We could ‘fancy-up’ the name of this dish by calling it Pasta al Forno. It still wouldn’t alter the fact that this might well be called Cheeseburger Pasta. Ooey gooey, cheesy, meaty.  This is Andrew and my idea of comfort food times three. Baked Ziti…

Rome’s favorite and most famous pasta dish gets a major makeover. When I lived in Rome, I can’t count how often I would order this dish. At least once a week, I would sit down to a bowl of this pasta.  Just four ingredients made…

Ina Garten’s Winter Minestrone is remarkably simple to make.  Trust Ina Garten to give us a recipe so dead easy, that you could decide to make it an hour before dinner.  It’s from Ina’s 2012 cookbook “Foolproof” (Clarkson-Potter). I looked at the ingredient list and…