The farmer’s markets in Los Angeles are finally filling up with summer vegetables. Summer squash of all shapes and colors, Italian and Japanese eggplant, bell peppers of all colors. I’m still waiting for really good tomatoes but all in good time. And fresh summer vegetables are the perfect ingredient for antipasti platters served with fresh sliced bread.

Here’s two recipes to make a great summer appetizer plate. You can also serve this with sliced Italian meats like Prosciutto di Parma, Mortadella and Capicola.

Continue reading Celebrating summer vegetables – Emilia-Romagna style!! at Our Italian Table.

Sicily’s cuisine is vastly different from the rest of Italy and heavily influenced by its Mediterranean neighbors. The classic sweet and sour flavor palette, along with exotic ingredients such as saffron, all came from North Africa and the Middle East. In fact, hard durum wheat and rice both came to Italy via Sicily and saffron dates back three millennia.

This classic Sicilian dish is common to the city of Palermo, where cauliflower is called broccoli.

Continue reading Pasta with saffron and cauliflower (Pasta con i broccoli rimestati) at Our Italian Table.

I arrived home from a business trip this week to find a copy of the latest addition to my cookbook collection, Cooking with Italian Grandmothers, on the doorstep.  And after a few days of planes, trains and automobiles, I was looking forward to making a simple dinner and curling up with my new book.  Luckily, I had a beautiful head of cauliflower and some fresh sausage from the local farmer’s market at the ready. One of my favorite ways to prepare cauliflower is with pancetta, capers and lemon.

Continue reading Roasted Cauliflower with Pancetta and Capers at Our Italian Table.

Another cold and snowy week here in Pennsylvania! But alas, I know spring is around the corner because my gardening catalogs have begun to arrive – wohoo!  New tomato varieties to pick from, new climbing roses to plant!! I can feel the thaw in the air! And what better time to look at all those wonderful catalogs than over a plate of warm pasta, a glass of hearty red?  I haven’t made this dish for quite awhile and with a beautiful crunchy head of cauliflower in the refrigerator, thought it would be the perfect simple dish for dinner. 

Continue reading Pasta with Cauliflower, Pancetta and Anchovies at Our Italian Table.

Snowy, snowy day here in Pennsylvania! Blizzard conditions with over a foot of snow outside! Hmmm, what to make for lunch to hold me over until I can sneak outside to make snow angels??  After spying a head of cauliflower in the fridge, I decided to try my hand at a Sicilian recipe of Pasta con Cavolfiore e Pangrattato (Pasta with Cauliflower and Breadcrumbs).  Now this dish may sound a bit bland but boy does cauliflower truly shine when paired with pasta!

Continue reading Pasta con Cavolfliore e Pangrattato (Pasta with Cauliflower and Breadcrumbs) at Our Italian Table.

I first saw a recipe for a ‘sformata’ over the summer in an Italian cooking magazine and have been dying to try one. ‘Sformata’ basically translates to ‘flan’ and can think of a million ways that I would like to try thi technique. So when this recipe popped up in the November issue of La Cucina Italiana, I had to add it to the menu for the holiday. This was very easy to make and I made it early morning on Thanksgiving and re-heated later in the day….was delicious!

Continue reading Sformato di Cavolfiore: Cauliflower Sformato at Our Italian Table.