Potato Gnocchi is a favorite Italian dish, but when you add Gnocchi to a casserole loaded up with a good pasta sauce and lots of cheese, you have a beautiful baked meal. And, a scrumptious Italian Ricotta Crumble Cake will win your heart and tummy! Plus, meet Isabel Baney, the wonderful creator of the all-natural and beautifully scented Sonoran Sanctuary candles!
vanilla extract
Sheet Pan Lasagne and Cannoli Cupcakes
Finally! A recipe for Lasagne lovers who don’t love the assembling! Here, you’ll get all of the goodness of lasagna in a simple sheet pan method! And, if Sicilian Cannoli are a favorite dessert but a bit intimidating, try these scrumptious Cannoli Cupcakes!
Chicken Parmesana and Trifles Two Ways
Once you discover how easy it is to make homemade Chicken Parmesan, it will be a regular favorite on your dinner table! This recipe is from my cookbook and served at our famous Italian restaurant In Lake Tahoe! Then – English Trifle two ways! First up, the traditional trifle with fruit and cream. But to make it even easier, check out the second method, using store bought chocolate éclairs!
Lemon Ricotta Cake with Fresh Blueberries and Whipped Cream
I’ve been teaching a lot of Italian cooking classes lately. While I love teaching all types of cuisines like Middle Eastern, Greek, Thai and French, Italian is just in my DNA. This week we ended one Italian cooking class with this luscious, gorgeous dessert called a Lemon Ricotta Cake with Fresh Blueberries and Whipped Cream. It’s fun to whip up—a cake batter with the classic European hint of lemon zest and a smooth, creamy and rich ricotta. (We made our own homemade ricotta in class for this cake!) It works well in a spring form pan. Just pour the batter into the pan, top it off with fresh blueberries and a little sprinkling of sugar and bake. If you’re not using a spring form pan, you will turn the cake over onto a plate and flip it over to reveal the berries on top. If you’re curious why lemon and blueberries pair so week in many desserts, this cake will satisfy your curiosity!
Torta Della Nonna
It’s a beautiful dessert that has made quite a comeback in recent years. Torta Della Nonna, (Grandmother’s Cake) Is a classic treat typical of the Tuscan region of Italy where it originated, and is now loved and appreciated all over the world. This rich cake is made of a sweet pastry dough cake on top and bottom, and filled with a lightly lemon-zested pastry cream in the middle. Pine nuts and a light shower of powdered sugar adds an elegant finish to this Italian favorite. Would you like to make it for your Nonna sometime soon?
Holiday Maple Pecan Pie
This season I finally had a chance to scratch one off of my Bucket List. I’ve always wanted to visit New England in the fall. I had always heard that the changing of the leaves is spectacular, and I wanted to be there during the peak week. (Me and everyone else on the planet, I discovered!) While our Sonoran Desert holds its own beauty, brilliant red, yellow and orange leaves are pretty scarce. My trip to Woodstock, Vermont was worth the trip, and while there, I wanted to immerse myself in the New England food scene. That brings me to maple syrup. I couldn’t get enough of it, whether it was on my breakfast pancakes, a delicious ham slathered in a Vermont maple glaze or those iconic maple leaf-shaped candies. I came home with plenty of bottles of syrup which came in handy for this scrumptious holiday Maple Pecan Pie. This time of the year, while pumpkin pie is the go-to, pecan pie is right up there in popularity, and this version is definitely holiday worthy! It starts with a light and flakey crust, the perfect bed for a sweet, nutty and maple syrupy filling. So just in case searching for perfect holiday pies is on your bucket list, this one will not disappoint!
