Phantom Firehouse Sausage Lentil Soup

A spicy lentil stew flavored with Italian sausage and rich with veggies – easy to do as a make-ahead recipe in a crock-pot if you want less fuss.

Spanish Chicken & Rice

Flavorful, colorful, easy to make – easy to see why it’s a family favorite. A Spanish sofrito of tomatoes, peppers and onions are baked with the chicken & rice to make an easy one-dish meal that also freezes well.

Rosemary Roast Chicken

Our favorite roast chicken recipe is also the simplest – 4 ingredients, quick prep, easy to make ahead and so fragrant and delicious!

Lemon Italian Ice

If you want the flavor of real lemons, something that’s satisfyingly tangy and light, this is an easy option you can make anytime you have a little space open in your freezer.

Hungarian Baked Cauliflower with Swiss Cheese – Rakkot Karfiol

I have nothing against plain cauliflower, but adding a light gravy and a good quantity of swiss cheese and breadcrumbs gives it a creamy-crispy golden deliciousness that’s pretty great. Also useful as a vegetarian foil to the sauerkraut and all the pork possible casserole I’ve already posted. Separating the cauliflower out into bite-size pieces is…

Polenta Cheese Bake – Polenta Pasticciata

Jump to Recipe This update to my “Ceci Polenta” recipe is now a casserole with melted cheese and caramelized onions and it’s super easy to make ahead. So yeah, that’s going to automatically make it one of my favorites. Also, having a delicious vegetarian gluten free Italian recipe in my arsenal is not a bad thing…

Welsh Griddle Cakes – Pice ar y maen

Have you ever wished you could have scones that are so delicious you want to eat them like cookies, but rather than baking them you could cook them like pancakes so they’d be golden and slightly crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside? No? That’s ok. You’ll learn. You’ll wish you could have…

Sauerkraut Pork Casserole – Kolozsvári rakott káposzta

If you love Eastern European smoked sausage as much as I do, you’ll find this recipe balances rich smoky meat wonderfully with sauerkraut and spices – made ahead. the melding of the different seasonings is especially delicious.

Garden Herb Salads

These recipes from Vietnam, Korea, and Italy make lovely colorful salads using the chives, basil, mint and more from my garden.

Family Favorite: Roasted Red Pepper Lasagna

If I was going to list my family’s top 10 favorite dishes, I think I could confidently say this would make the top five. It’s the most common dish on the menus I found when I reviewed my family’s Italian Birthday Feasts, and that doesn’t even include our non-Italian birthday menus, which still often manage to…

Ceci Polenta

This garbanzo polenta is an easy, healthy dish you can put together ahead of time and broil quickly to have hot to serve with dinner. Corn, of course, was not a native grain in Italy, so this is technically a more authentic recipe anyway. I find the flavor of using chickpea flour more savory and satisfying than corn polenta, though both are delicious.

Menu Planning: Italian American Birthday Feasts

No one in my family is the least bit Italian, but it seems this has become a traditional birthday feast choice around here. I didn’t realize how much so until I started writing this out. Italy, like India and many other countries with drastic climate differences and a very long history, has a wide variety…