Osso Buco with gremolata over creamy polenta

Valentine’s Day has just come and gone but there are plenty of evenings to cook a great meal for that special someone.

Osso buco is a dish that comes from the Lombardia region of Italy; the region surrounding Milan. It’s really simple to prepare. You just need to find a good source for the veal shanks and have some patience to let them do their thing in the oven.

Continue reading Osso Buco for Valentine’s (or any other special) Day at Our Italian Table.

Ciao tutti! Summer has been a magical whirlwind of travel, guests, family and friends. With my new kitchen now fully up and running, I have loved getting to know its rhythm whether the finesse of using the new range or the simplest of tasks in figuring out how best to stack the new dishwasher.  And I have loved having an excuse to entertain weekend after weekend.

With the summer season winding down and the chill of autumn not yet upon us, I find that our local farmer’s market is still loaded with tables of gorgeous tomatoes of all shapes and sizes – plump heirloom, sweet cherry, meaty San Marzano.

Continue reading Summer’s Last Hurrah: Roasted Tomato Torta at Our Italian Table.

A simple gluten-free ricotta almond cake with a kick of limoncello.....happy, happy.

Continue reading Limoncello Ricotta Almond Cake (and Gluten-free too!) at Our Italian Table.

Capri and the Sorrento coast are the undisputed home of Limoncello, although arguments persist as to which side of the Bay of Naples created this famous drink. I’m quite proud of the fact that I was bringing bottles of this magic digestivo home in my suitcase long before it became famous in the USA. I was the American “in the know” about this drink.

Less famous, but also something I drank on Capri with wonderful friends, is Liquore Allora, a limoncello drink of sorts made with young bay laurel leaves instead of lemon.

Continue reading It’s green!! – Liquore Alloro (Bay Leaf Liqueur) at Our Italian Table.

Panna Cotta is an Italian classic.  This very simple versatile dessert is my go-to dessert when I need to both keep it simple but add a little bit of vavoom to my dolci.  Panna cotta (‘cooked cream‘ in Italian) literally takes 10 minutes to pull together – that is it! It then rests comfortably for a few hours to thicken. You can even make it a day or two in advance, at the ready as a creamy backdrop for a whole host of toppings.

Continue reading Easy Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta with Salted Caramel at Our Italian Table.

My sister Michele visited me this week in L.A. for my official IBM retirement party. We thought hard about what to cook together. We’re focused on Sicily at the moment and discussed that nothing but nothing is more Sicilian than pasta con le sarde. Fennel and sardines are so plentiful in Sicily that this dish jumps right out of nature. And when combined with the sweet and sour flavors imported by the Arabs around 900 A.D., you get that classic Sicilian flavor palette.

Continue reading Pasta con le sarde (Pasta with sardines) – The national dish of Sicily at Our Italian Table.

For me, Easter is not complete without a slice of ricotta pie. I go weak in the knees when I think of this dessert and ever since spending time in Sicily, have added it to my own basket of Easter traditions. The Sicilians love their ricotta desserts – from the  infamous Sicilian cassata to the heavenly cannoli. According to Clifford Wright’s website, ‘cassata was early on a springtime cake traditionally made as an Easter specialty by the monastery nuns or for Purim by Sicilian Jews. 

Continue reading Sicilian Ricotta Pie (Torta di Ricotta) at Our Italian Table.

My Italian family always sat down for the classic Italian Sunday supper.  We would wake to the smell of meatballs frying or tomato sauce warming on the stove.  But we were never allowed to taste the sauce or meatballs before 11 AM church – a silly Catholic rule about not eating before mass. So we walked around the house in our Sunday best, drooling from the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen.  Occasionally, Mom made braciole, little Italian beef rolls stuffed with delicious yummy ingredients like pine nuts, raisins, cheese, parsley.

Continue reading A Chilly, Lazy Sunday and a Tender Braciole at Our Italian Table.

After leafing through a few Italian cooking magazines that I picked up while in Italy last week, a simple crabmeat pasta lodged in my brain and was all I could think of while having to sit through a long day of conference calls. A quick trip to the market and I was ready to create my own version of this Sicilian-inspired pasta.  This flavorful pasta is the perfect mid-week dinner – simple, fast and yummy. 

Continue reading Pasta with Fresh Crabmeat, Tomato and Basil at Our Italian Table.

Do not let the anchovies in this dish scare you away!! This is an incredibly flavorful way to prepare chicken thighs – a recipe handed down from my father’s side of the family that lived in Roseta, PA – an Italian immigrant enclave well-studied in the 50’s for its incredibly low incidence of heart disease. (Maybe it was the chicken with anchovies that contributed!) My dad’s sister, Mary and her family make this recipe each and every Palm Sunday and is a delicious and easy way to prepare for a crowd. 

Continue reading Chicken with Anchovies at Our Italian Table.