When I was growing up, late summer was the time to go blueberry picking. We would head off into the woods armed with buckets and covered in insect repellent. Of course, we knew where the big bushes were that would give us the biggest yield. Returning home with buckets full of blueberries, we would then [...]
Posts under ‘Flavors’
Crispy Oven-Baked Zucchini
Several years ago, I worked as an IT Call Center Manager. Many of you may not realize it, but it’s actually a very stressful job or, at least, it was where I worked. Our calls ranged from the mundane to the critical where we had a store with all of the registers not working and [...]
Crispy Risotto Croquettes
I promised a second dish made from my leftover tomato and pepper risotto. First though, I have to give credit to my inspiration. There are two different dishes that consist of fried balls of rice here in Italy. One is the supplì and the other is the arancino. The supplì is more of a football [...]
Tomato and Pepper Risotto
Every day we’ve got a glut of garden produce. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but besides freezing and canning, I’ve been using them in various dishes. It’s nice to know where the produce came from and how it was grown. On one of his last trips out to the garden O brought back a [...]
Polenta! Who knew?
When I was about 4 years old, we went to my grandmother’s house for dinner one night in the middle of the week. Once we sat down at the table, she spooned a lumpy yellow semi-liquid substance on my plate and topped it with a spoonful of tomato sauce. I won’t tell you what it [...]
Nature’s Bounty
Two days ago I spent hours doing some “down home” tasks and, while I know it sounds contradictory, it both allowed me to take my mind of things and gave me time to think at the same time. O brought home a basket of garden goods just in time, I guess. There’s something soothing about [...]
Buttery goodness
On a lighter note…. I’ve always been rather fond of cheese. Years ago, I remember my grandfather trying to change my mind by describing what cheese looked like under a microscope, but it was a futile effort on his part. Years later, when I spent a semester abroad in France, I think I tried to [...]
Pasta with Chicken and Grapes
This is one of the recipes I made for Luigi’s party. The mixture is rather unorthodox for Italians and some loved it while others wouldn’t even taste it. But, it’s a recipe that I found years ago in a cookbook and I used to make it whenever we had a potluck at work, where it [...]
Pasta with potatoes and speck
I know, it sounds like a starch attack, doesn’t it. But actually, in Italy you often find potatoes paired with pasta or even sliced thin and put on top of pizza. (White pizza that is, not pizza with tomato sauce). Pizza with potatoes does sound a little strange, but what could be weirder than pizza [...]
Decoction Concoction – Good for what ails you.
My latest bought with the cold, the flu, bronchitis, or whatever it was had me really worn out and tired. Coughing was an all-day, all-night affair and there were no medicines available to help out. I was “treating” myself by drinking hot honey and lemon and was stopping the cough with cough drops and hard [...]
