Bites, nibbles, crumbly blobs of Parmesan and breadcrumbs on small pieces of eggplant. This experiment made at least a dozen rounds in my kitchen before reaching this blog. It sounded good, but unless I took out duck-tape, the ‘breading’ had no inclination whatsoever to actually stick to the eggplant. I tried egg whites and whole [...]

Please tell me you have tried this. We eat our broccoli this way 90% of the time. And we have it every single week. Yes I am serious. Don’t you have side dishes that are frequent visitors? The stand-by, consistently good, easy-to-make-in-your-sleep vegetables?
This is ours. I was mortified when I was searching my blog-of-over-4-years and [...]

New favorite vegetable: grilled, marinated zucchini.

It is because of this recipe, that my sons fell in love with zucchini. Francesco was a tad bit envious the other day, when I snagged some of these zucchini from the fridge, piled them on a plate and topped them with a poached egg… he even went so far [...]

As a food blogger, I receive my fair share of promotional emails. It might be about a new cookbook, a kitchen tool, a new recipe application for iphone or a food product. Actually, this summer I am testing a new wire contraption for growing tomatoes; no doubt you will hear about that gadget later this [...]

The truth is, I like getting acquainted with new ingredients, foods, vegetables, products and wine. I like opening  a cookbook from an unfamiliar culture. I like a culinary challenge. But mostly, I like to add to my kitchen mastery. Think wizard with a wand—only I wield a sword. My apron is my armor.
I chat a [...]

The containers are critical. You need containers that are no larger than the slices of eggplant being layered. The eggplant is both the bottom and ‘lid’ layer. I used fresh tomatoes, but I also made it successfully with really yummy jarred tomatoes. The sky is the limit: look in your fridge for the little bits [...]