Our Italian food blogger friend, Marie of Proud Italian Cook has been blogging since 2007 and has been an inspiration for us at Our Italian Table ever since we started back in 2008. Marie is always quick to support the food blogging community and is always one of the first likes or comments we find on our posts. Marie recently was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer and we in the food blogging community are posting her recipes to lend support to our friend.

Continue reading Marie’s Ricotta Meatballs at Our Italian Table.

Our mother, Josie, was the champ of fresh pasta. She would turn out delicious homemade macaroni, gnocchi, passatelli with unrivaled speed. However baking was not really her thing – except for her Easter Sweet Bread (and oddly her molasses crumb cake). At Easter, I still think about her dense, delicious version of this Italian tradition and of course, to this day, I still cannot quite recreate her magic.

I do have a version of her recipe – a handwritten sheet of paper tucked into her old Italian cookbook.

Continue reading Mom’s Easter Sweet Bread at Our Italian Table.

Thought we would pop into your inbox one more time before Valentine’s Day with a quick dinner idea for the upcoming holiday! ❤️ Given Valentine’s Day is on a weeknight, we thought this recipe might come in handy for those needing to pull together a quick meal that will still leave your special Valentine’s heart all a flutter. This pasta recipe with the adorable name, Pasta Sciue Sciue (pronounced ‘shoo-ey, shoo-ey’ which translates to ‘hurry, hurry’ in the Neapolitan dialect ) simmers while the pasta boils and is ready to go by the time the pasta is ‘al dente’.

Continue reading A Quickie for Valentine’s Day: Pasta Sciue Sciue 😁 at Our Italian Table.

Sicilians love to roll things – beef, fish, eggplant – and these Involtini di Manzo (aka beef rolls) are very common everywhere on the island. There are many versions of these delicious rolls – some with cheese, others without. This version is my personal favorite – filled with raisins and pinenuts and gooey provolone cheese. I love the contrast of the sweetness of the raisins with the sharpness of the cheese.

The beef rolls are super simple to make and best of all, they are perfect for Valentine’s Day.

Continue reading Tasty Sicilian Beef Rolls (Involtini di Manzo) at Our Italian Table.

Lunch at wonderful Locanda Demetra

On our recent trip to Montalcino, Joey and I cooked up a Florentine stew called Peposo, which has a long history dating back to when Brunelleschi constructed his magnificent dome in the 1400s. Workers made a simple lunch of stew meat, red wine and peppercorns which was tucked into a clay pot and left to cook for hours at the mouth of the kilns where the bricks were being made.

Continue reading Easy Tuscan Peposo and Magical Montalcino ❤️ at Our Italian Table.

I am not sure what has me more excited….this crostata or that we are headed back to Italy next week! (Ok, I really know the answer to that but this salted chocolate crostata was pretty darn tasty 😉) First, lets talk about the crostata, shall we? This supremely chocolate-y piece of heaven is super simple and makes you feel like you were just hugged by a huge fuzzy chocolatey (nice) bear.

I had a hankering for something comforting and chocolatey this past week and remembered a photo in one of my bazillion cooking emails I receive that had a delicious looking chocolate and pear dessert – I thought the pears would at least add a little healthy kick atop a chocolate ganache filling – well, let me just say that once I poured the chocolate in the pastry I knew that was it – not a pear would touch that shimmering surface – but rather nice flaky sea salt.

Continue reading Salted Chocolate Crostata (& off to Italia we go!) at Our Italian Table.

Don’t let the purple color of this chicken dish scare you away! The taste of the chicken after having marinated in red wine is divine. 🙂 This recipe was one of our Dad’s favorite meals and one our Mom made often. She made it at home. She made it for company. She made it for picnics. But neither Joey nor I continued making the dish after we moved away – until relatively recently that is.

Continue reading Chicken Marinated in Red Wine (and a ladybug story) at Our Italian Table.

And suddenly – boom – we have all become full-time home cooks, forced to figure out what the heck to make for dinner for ourselves and our families almost every single night. Some friends are making epic meals, others using up those pantry staples. For me, the kitchen has always been my refuge at the end of a long day. I feel truly grateful to continue doing what I love while recognizing that many are not able to during these times.

Continue reading Comforting Tuscan Ribollita at Our Italian Table.

I adore lemons. And lemon trees. And the smell of lemons blossoms. Their sunny little faces can brighten a dreary winter’s day. Over the years, I have attempted to grow lemons indoors as my climate is too chilly to leave the little guys outside all year. My first attempt, years ago, resulted in nothing but lots and lots of lemon leaves but zero lemons. But when I moved into my new house a few years ago, I realized that I had a bright sunny window that just might be THE spot for my little lemon tree.

Continue reading A Little Winter Lemon Love at Our Italian Table.

Truth be told, I have gotten a bit carried away over the years in making antipasti for dinner parties – at times, spending way more time on preparing the antipasti than the actual meal. I always worry there is not enough food for the guests (the apple does not fall far) so better to err on the side of caution. But recently, appetizer boards have become a ‘thing’ and they, very candidly, have revolutionized the way I serve antipasto for company.

Continue reading Making Epic Antipasto Boards at Our Italian Table.