Tag Archives: Italian

Alfredo Lasagna

I was going to call this a white lasagna but as you will see there are plenty of ingredients that are not white.  Alfredo sauce was involved and I called on a previous recipe (which we featured twice) of ours for that.  I won’t say that this was that difficult, but it did take a while which was well worth it because it was “one of the best things I made in a while.”  That was an actual quote from Eileen about this great dish and I think she was right!

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Grilled Meatballs

Yes that heading is correct, I made grilled meatballs.  Had some ground beef and a hankering for meatballs during some pretty hot days and decided to give grilling meatballs a try.  It worked amazingly well and produced a great taste of the grill with the Italian meatball flavors which were great dressed up with some sauce and cheese.

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Tomato Vodka Sauce

When I was younger and my family would go out for Italian dinners I would often get the penne or rigatoni ala vodka (aka a tomato vodka cream sauce). For some reason I forgot all about my love for this sauce until I came across a recipe for it one day as I was reading blogs. Luckily, this sauce was super easy to make and just as decadent as I remember. We served it with sausage for some added protein and spaghetti squash instead of pasta. It was divine! I encourage you to try this, you won’t be disappointed.  Continue reading

Italian Wedding Soup

Amazing!  I have always loved Italian Wedding Soup but have never tried to make it.  We were turned on to this recipe by a visit to Eileen’s dad recently.  We like Lidia, and it is a recipe of hers which featured a step that I had not seen before and of course it worked out perfectly and was genius.

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Spaghetti Squash “Lasagna” Casserole

On New Years Day our friends (and Wisconsin alum)  invited us over to watch the Rose Bowl. The Badgers didn’t win, but they made an awesome lasagna using Ina Garten’s turkey lasagna recipe. It was so good and we were so impressed that I literally made it for us the very next day… with a twist of course. Instead of using lasagna noodles, I used spaghetti squash. If you are a fan of spaghetti squash and lasagna then you will truly love this recipe! No noodles at all and you won’t even miss ’em. There’s also goat cheese in this recipe. Need I say more? It is a match made in heaven as far as I am concerned!

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Caesar Salad

For Christmas eve Greg and I were asked to bring a salad and veggie option to our family party. I thought it over and decided to make a homemade caesar salad, with fresh made dressing and croutons. Homemade dressings make such a difference. You can taste each ingredient and they are just far superior to any bottled dressing you find in the grocery store. Making caesar dressing was easy and and the outcome was delicious!

Greg got a loaf of bread from Mancini’s- tomato basil bread to be exact- and I made croutons with it. I don’t see any pictures of them on my camera so I guess I forgot to snap a few. Croutons are easy to make. I cut the bread into small cubes and placed them on a lined baking sheet. I brushed the pieces of bread with olive oil and baked them at 350 degrees for about 8-10 minutes. Keep an eye on them so they don’t burn.

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Deep Dish Lasagna

I love lasagna but I have found that making it in a traditional rectangular lasagna pan limits the amount of layers and fillings I can add. So I decided to try something different this time around and made my lasagna in a dutch oven. For those who do not have a dutch oven you could also use the ceramic pot of your crock pot as the vessel for this classic dish.

I started off by making my fillings for the lasagna. First I sauteed some onions and mushrooms and set those aside.

Another filler I typically add is sausage. For this dish I used hot Italian Sausage.

I just cook it up and try to break it down into small bite size pieces. Once it’s cooked through I drain it and set it aside as well.

The next filler is one of the most important- the ricotta cheese. To the ricotta I add an egg, freshly minced garlic, and my dried spices- typically salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and crushed red pepper.

Once all the fillers are set it’s time to assemble everything. I cooked the pasta as the directions on the box specified (I used Dreamfields low carb pasta) and gathered tomato sauce and shredded mozzarella as well.

Then it’s really up to you how you want to layer everything. I always start of with a layer of sauce and then noodles.

Here you get a sense of the depth of this pot.

I trimmed my pasta so it would fit in here. Obviously with the round dish it’s a bit more challenging, but it worked out just fine.

I sort of freestyle the rest of the layers- ricotta, sauce, pasta. Sausage, sauce, pasta. Mushrooms and onions, sauce, pasta… you get the idea. Go until you reach the top or you run out of ingredients! I topped it all with some shredded mozzarella.

The next step is to bake it. What I also loved about using the dutch oven was that I could cover it using the lid. In the past when I used the lasagna pan I would cover it with tin foil and since I would fill the pan to the top the cheese would always melt and stick to the tin foil. When I would take the foil off, half of the cheese would come off too. By using the lid here I was able to avoid that mess.

I baked it for about 35-40 minutes at 375 degrees and took the lid off for the last 5 minutes of cooking. Once the sauce is bubbling and the cheese is melted it’s done. Its tough to do this, but if you can let it rest for a good 15 minutes before you cut it. Easier said than done though! 

It came out great. You can see all the layers below.

It takes a while to prep this dish but as you can probably guess you will have leftovers for days. Leftover Italian dishes always taste better than the first night too! I hope you like this one.

– Eileen

Chicken Crocks with Garlic White Romano Sauce

A friend was coming over and I wanted to make a little afternoon snack.  It wasn’t too hot out so I didn’t mind baking something.  I started by pan sauteing some cubed chicken breast with some salt and pepper and putting it in the crocks.

I started on the sauce by sauteing the aromatics in oil.

Browned garlic is the key for this one

I sauteed the aromatics a little longer than usual to really brown the garlic and get a deep almost smoky garlic taste.

Once the garlic was browned enough, I added some fresh basil for the last few minutes of sauteeing.

Then add the rest of the sauce ingredients which is basically an alfredo.  The cheese was grated imported Romano which we got in the Strip District for $6.99 a pound.  What the Strip provides is amazing and limitless!

Then pour the sauce over the chicken until covered.

Add a bit of mozzarella and throw into the oven at 350 for about 15-20 minutes or until browned.

Top with some fresh basil and chopped tomatoes.

Recipe for Garlic White Romano Sauce

Greg


Stuffed Banana Peppers

These were simple and good but they sure were hot!  Start by making the stuffing which was primarily hot sausage with chopped onion, garlic, and Italian cheese.  Make the stuffing with the proportions of your choice.

Cook the sausage about half way and drain the grease.

Add the other ingredients once the sausage is ready and put aside.

Cut the stems off of the peppers and remove the seeds and pulp.  You may want to wear gloves and be sure not to touch your face….TRUST ME!

Then stuff as much filling as you can into the peppers and line in a baking dish.

Cover with a bit of tomato sauce and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

We put them on a bit of pasta to cut the heat of the peppers.

Enjoy!

Greg

Crab Pesto Grilled Pizza

Yes another crab dish and I think that this may have been the best one yet.  We had a hankering for some pizza and being that we live in Maryland, making your own pizza is the only option.  So we stopped at Marchone’s Italian Market in Wheaton and grabbed a frozen dough ball.

A thorough thaw is very important

This was about 2 hours of thawing and the dough had expanded to about twice the original size.

Thoroughly thawed and ready to work with

If the dough is not thawed to room temperature, it will be very difficult to work with which I have learned from experience.  At the same time, you can’t work with the dough too much and remember that flour is your friend!

I rolled the dough out to the desired size while the grill was heating up.  Once the dough and grill are ready, give the top of the dough a thorough spray of oil.  You will then put the dough on the grill otherwise plain.

Straight on the grate oil side down and plain

Leave the dough on for about 3-5 minutes.  Just until the down side is lightly browned and basically firm enough to pick the whole piece up without folding and flopping like raw dough.

We need a new grill!

The bottom of this piece is uncooked.  The top would look better if we had a better grill that cooked evenly(grill companies we are looking for a sponsor!).  When we move, the gas grill is not coming.  The grill doesn’t know that, but I guess once this is published the news will be out.

Now it is time to dress the pizza with your toppings as you normally would and then throw it back on the grill.  Instead of a red sauce we used a pesto base.

Summer basil is great

Next we used some more of the famous leftover crab which was starting to run low.  Note that this was published well after the dish was made and we did not keep fresh crab in the fridge for 3 weeks.

We were able to be pretty generous with the crab since we had so much.  This was almost but not quite a pound.

Cheese it up

We used a store bought Italian blend.

Fresh tomatoes

We love fresh tomato slices on pizza.  Now it is ready to go back on the grill for a little longer than the plain dough.

Close the lid, which will help to melt the cheese.  I gave it a few turns because of our extremely uneven grill as you can see the full blast flame or no flame options.  It would be a good idea to give it a spin either way though.  This stage will take closer to 7-9 minutes to melt the cheese and cook the pizza through.

Summer basil again

It turned out great!  Slice it up, cheese it up, and go to town!

Recipe for Standard Pesto with Walnut

Greg

(Since I have been begun posting over the last month, we will start to tag our posts)