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.
Category: Italian
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.
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…
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…
Ingredient Note: Rice
Rice, of course, is a primary staple in many areas of the world. It’s cheap, it’s healthy, and it’s easy to start cooking (especially with a $20 rice cooker from Target). Last winter I woke up one morning and decided to catalog my rice. In this post, I’ll go over some tips and tricks about different types of rice I’ve learned to appreciate in my exploration of different cuisines.
Roasted Red Pepper Risotto
Risotto requires a bit of patience, something I’m usually in short supply of on a Monday night. But a last week – when I first said I’d be “restarting this blog” – I came home on a cold dark evening to find no one would be home for a while. I was hungry and felt…
Homemade Gnocchi
Gnocchi uses very simple ingredients to create something that tastes sublime. Store-bought frozen gnocchi simply can’t compare – but the warnings on the recipes I’d read made me think it must be hard to make. I didn’t find that to be the case when I actually tried it, though you do have to be willing to get your hands a bit messy.
The Kitchen Tourist 
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