Browsing Tag

gluten-free

Rice-Stuffed Tomatoes

August 23, 2016

The last time Peter and I were in Rome, we rented an apartment on Via Caulonia just off of Piazza Zama in the IX Appio Latino neighborhood, a few blocks up the street from my zia Franca, who lived in an apartment on Via Centuripe. She has since moved into her late sister’s apartment in another neighborhood to be closer to her nieces and nephews, but her former neighborhood will always be one of my favorite areas of Rome. It’s home to the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano and the catacombs of San Callisto, but it’s mainly a residential neighborhood with one apartment building after another […]

Caprese Salad

August 16, 2016

Tucked away in an old photo album somewhere is a picture of a seven or eight year-old me in long, wind-whipped pig tails and sunglasses pointing to something in the distance, a mouthed exclamation caught midway. The photo was most likely taken by my dad, who was quite the shutterbug when I was a kid. We were traveling aboard a speedboat around the Blue Grotto on the island of Capri. It’s all I remember about this photo; I have no recall of anything else–how we got there, why we went, where we stayed, or what we ate. The thought of this photo is never […]

Roasted Bell Pepper Salad

August 8, 2016

During the summer months, bell peppers are one of my favorite vegetables to have on hand. They’re practically overflowing out of the bins at the grocery store and they’re priced affordably, which gives me the perfect excuse to make this roasted bell pepper salad, one of my favorite summer side dishes. In Italian, this dish is known as peperoni arrostiti. I grew up eating this often where it was served alongside grilled flank steak, pork roast, or roasted chicken. Lately, this salad has been part of our Friday night “no-cook” dinners where I serve it with a platter of prosciutto, a refreshing Caprese salad, and […]

Pesto Genovese

July 26, 2016

I never gave much thought to the seasonality of fresh produce. I grew up eating seasonally both at home in Maryland and at the homes of my paternal grandparents, and great-aunts in Italy. There was a small garden in the back yard in Maryland, and an enormous garden in my paternal Nonna’s back yard in northern Italy, complete with fruit trees and a chicken coop. For my maternal great-aunts in Rome, apartment living only gave them room for a few pots of flowers and herbs on the balcony, but they shopped for the produce from a nearby mercato daily and it often came from a […]

Tropea Onion Jam

July 19, 2016

Last month, my fellow food blogging friend Domenica Marchetti sent me a copy of her newest cookbook, Preserving Italy: Canning, Curing, Infusing, and Bottling Italian Flavors and Traditions (grazie, Domenica!). My kitchen bookshelf is lined with all of Domenica’s cookbooks and I’m thrilled to add her latest one right next to the others. I haven’t been able to put it down since I received it. Domenica is the author of six cookbooks on Italian cooking, including The Glorious Pasta of Italy and Rustic Italian (two of my favorites). Preserving Italy is her seventh cookbook and it has become another one of my favorites. Among the many cookbooks about canning […]

Older Posts

Newer Posts