This is a Stanley Tucci recipe. What’s unique are the flavoring extracts – anise, almond and vanilla. Also, it was sweetened partially with honey.

When my friend Linda and I were in Florence a few months ago we bought a package of premium biscotti (actually we got them at the wine store 50 steps from our front door). They were just scrumptious. They were relatively plain – maybe they had chocolate chips in them, or maybe almond. I don’t remember which.

Every once in awhile I get the urge to make biscotti. I have a number of recipes in my collection. This one will be on rotation again. What I liked were the flavorings – the extracts used: anise, almond and vanilla. The cookies baked a bit differently than some – 30 minutes at 350°F and then after they’d cooled and I’d sliced them, 10-15 minutes (to dry them out) at 250°F. They sliced nicely, too, with only a couple that broke off the ends of the slices.

The prep was the normal stuff – cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add eggs and egg yolks, then the extracts. Honey is added also, and raw almonds. That’s what the dark specks are in the dough.

There are the usual ingredients in the dry mix and that was added in just until it came together and no specks of flour were visible. The dough needed to be chilled for awhile (30 minutes) then shaped into two long logs. Then baked, cooled some, sliced, and re-baked at a lower temp just until lightly browned.

What’s GOOD: these are just delicious. A little bit of crunch from the almonds, and subtle flavor from the extracts. I think next time I’ll add more anise (just because I love anise biscotti). Otherwise, the recipe is perfect. Notice how yellow the dough is – from the eggs and egg yolks. But they make the biscotti more tender, I think. And richer.

What’s NOT: not a thing. A keeper.

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Comfort food at its finest. Plenty of chicken and vegetables in a sauce or gravy then topped with super-flavorful English muffin cubes, Gruyere and Parm.

My mother used to make a wild rice casserole – I think it used all wild rice (not a blend with other rice types) and because my dad wouldn’t eat chicken I think she used ground beef. And canned cream of mushroom soup. It was a favorite of mine, maybe because we had it so rarely. I don’t think wild rice was all that expensive back then like it is today. In fact I couldn’t even find straight wild rice at my market. So I followed the recipe (mostly) from The Pioneer Woman, which uses a wild rice blend. It worked perfectly well in this case.

This casserole was so delicious. To me it was the gruyere that made it taste so darned good. Gruyere has a unique flavor – it would have been far less tasty using a more bland cheese, so don’t substitute. Trader Joe’s has imported Gruyere (what I used) and a domestic version. I’ve never used English muffins as a topping before, either, and it was so easy to do. Mixed with the gruyere and grated Parm, it made a very tasty mouthful. And the top of the casserole looked so pretty with those toasted bread cubes.

I won’t tell you this isn’t a bit of work – you have to cook the wild rice blend, then cook the vegetables, then make it into a kind of gravy. Some soy sauce is added to the sauce (adds good umami flavor). If you don’t already have cooked chicken to use, you’ll need to cook that too. I decided to combine the topping ingredients so they were mixed well. The butter has to be melted as well – yet another small pan to clean. There certainly was a bit of cleanup after making this. It could be made ahead (the topping is added after partially baking it). The topping can be made ahead also – just keep in the frig until needed. Don’t overfill the casserole dish you decide to use – it might overflow once it’s baking. Mine nearly did. The instructions tell you to put the bread topping about 1″ away from the edges. Good advice.

What’s GOOD: everything about this was good – wonderful flavor in the dish, and especially the Gruyere and Parm added to the bread topping. It will feed at least 10 people unless you have football players at the table.

What’s NOT: only that you’ll use a number of pots and pans, so quite a bit of cleanup required.

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Luscious and rich – chicken breasts with a creamy sun-dried tomato sauce. 

So the story goes, if you serve this to a guy he’s bound to ask you to marry him. I guess the advice is, be careful who you invite for dinner! Healthy, this is not. Delicious? Absolutely yes. This recipe, or a similar iteration of it became a Tiktok phenom, apparently. I heard about it and found numerous recipes online. The recipe I used came from the New York Times. I did make a few changes: I added paprika, and I used a little bit of flour to thicken the cream sauce.

As it happened my friend Dianne and I had invited six women friends for dinner on Valentine’s Day. I made the chicken and Dianne made garlic mashed potatoes. I roasted broccoli, served some lovely rose prosecco as guests arrived, and Dianne made appetizers and dessert. I found some Valentine’s Day trivia questions which made for some fun conversation. And we had each of our friends describe how they were proposed to. Wow, were there some interesting stories about that!

This chicken – oh gosh yes, it was delicious. I wanted to make the chicken breasts (boneless, skinless) thinner and usually I pound them. I had the darndest time trying to pound them – they just would not thin out. If you pound on the fleshy side it mostly obliterates the chicken flesh, so you need to pound on the side that has a light membrane on top. I did the best I could, but once I began cooking the chicken those thicker parts got thicker. Certainly don’t know what that was about. The chicken came from Costco; usually a good source. Anyway, the chicken was lightly floured, then seared in a big frying pan and removed.

The sauce starts with EVOO and butter, then garlic (lots), then more aromatics go in – oregano, tomato paste, red pepper flakes, paprika. Chicken broth is added, then heavy cream (lots). The chicken is added back in to finish cooking and re-warm, then at the last you add some grated Parmesan and diced up sun-dried tomatoes. When serving, sprinkle the top with fresh basil. Some folks like this with pasta, but Dianne and I opted for mashed potatoes.

Based on some reviews I read, I made more sauce – I’m glad I did because I knew the guests would want that lovely sauce on the mashed potatoes. I made the dish ahead of time and rewarmed it just before serving. Ideally I’d make everything at the last minute. The sauce had thickened more than I liked, so needed to add more heavy cream to it. Oh well!

What’s GOOD: everything about this was delicious. Even the leftover sauce (not much) on the last of the mashed potatoes. Good to the last bite on everything. A definite keeper. Would make a lovely company meal.

What’s NOT: Nothing, really. The sauce takes a bit of time, but worth it.

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Actually, really tasty, despite my low expectations! And it’s from Romania, not to be confused with being a “romaine” lettuce soup.

In my mind making “lettuce soup” seemed kind of a like a “why bother” exercise. But, I must say, this one made with a fair amount of bacon and some other tasty items, made it more than good. It was actually very good.

Do you remember back a few years ago when the nutrition experts told us that lettuce (I think they were referring to head lettuce) in much of any form was mostly worthless? Not worth eating – certainly not for any nutritional value. I never really subscribed to that evaluation, despite it coming from experts. I don’t eat a lot of head lettuce, but usually buy Romaine – have done for decades – as my salad green of choice. I love that 3-pack from Trader Joe’s that’s already washed (although opening a package recently had me rescinding that “washed” designation). In the last year or so I believe the experts have deemed lettuce having more value than thought. Good thing!

As it was, I made this on New Years’ Day – I was home by myself, and certainly thinking about all of the food indulging I’d done in the previous month, and how I should find some low-calorie soups that were more vegetable-centric. Having read recently about this lettuce soup I decided to try it. The only thing I didn’t have in my larder was fresh dill, and being a holiday, I wasn’t about to try to drive around town to find an open grocery store. So I used dried dill, and added a bunch of chives that I did have. What makes this soup is not the Romaine (obviously) but the bacon. What isn’t enhanced by the addition of bacon? The recipe is Romanian (who knew?) and came from Milk Street. As mentioned, except for the addition of dried dill and a bunch of chives, I stuck to Milk Street’s original recipe. If I’d had a leek on hand I might have added that, but I wanted to taste a true lettuce soup, not one that was blended with leek (which does have a lot of flavor).

The recipe called for trimmed Romaine. Do you think that means cutting out all of the ribs? I decided not as I wasn’t about to do all that much fussy knife work. I did with the larger outer Romaine leaves, but the rest of the head I used the lettuce and the ribs. Their recipes called for cutting the lettuce into 2″ pieces, but to me that seemed to big for an easy mouthful, so I cut them into about 1″ pieces.

The soup is easy enough to make – first rendering the bacon and setting it aside when it’s crisp, then using the bacon fat for cooking the onions, garlic and chives. Broth is added, the lettuce is slowly added in, and then at the end you mix up a bit of Greek yogurt and three egg yolks. You do need to temper those egg yolks with some of the hot broth, then carefully stir that into the hot (not boiling) soup. If you bring it to a simmer the mixture will separate. Don’t boil the soup at all – that’s the only way to maintain the nice subtle creaminess. If you don’t want to bother with yogurt, use heavy cream, then you don’t have to do the tempering step. I kept one of the green onions raw to add on top.

What’s GOOD: actually, this soup was very good – quite tasty – the lettuce itself doesn’t taste like much, but with the bacon as the flavor, the liquid (soup) is very nice. You could add cheese if you’re feeling indulgent.

What’s NOT: nothing, really. I liked the soup – it’s light, although with all the bacon and egg yolks, perhaps it’s not exactly low calorie.

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If you read all of the post I did about my trip to Florence in October, with my friend Linda, then you’ll have read the part about how we fell in love with mascarpone cheesecake while we were there. We visited one restaurant three times just so we could order their cheesecake. Until that trip I’d never gone back to any restaurant for cheesecake, as cheesecake isn’t usually up at the top of my dessert radar.

But since it did, we asked questions. The waiters at the restaurant weren’t Italian (they looked the part, however) but all they could tell us was that the cheesecake was made with mascarpone AND “Philadelphia.” We laughed about that – we know it as cream cheese, OR “Philadelphia cream cheese.” I did a deep dive about the subject:

Philadelphia Cream Cheese: It was invented in New York in 1872 by a dairyman, William Lawrence. He was trying to replicate French Neufchatel, but accidentally added an excessive amount of cream to the batch, which created a richer, smoother and more spreadable product. In about 1880 it was rebranded (probably that word didn’t exist back then) as “Philadelphia” because that part of Pennsylvania was renowned for high quality dairy farms. The cheese brand was sold several times and now is owned by Kraft.

When we were in Florence I noticed the grocery stores sold a product called “Philadelphia.” It didn’t have a “cream cheese” label at all. After I got home I looked up a dozen or so recipes for mascarpone cheesecake, and generally they were 50% mascarpone and 50% cream cheese. The recipe I used here came from Taste of Home, and used that 50/50 division. I added an extra egg yolk and have changed the baking just a bit. My cheesecake ended up quite golden brown on the top. The one we had in Florence didn’t have even a hint of golden brown. I may have baked it too high in the oven or longer than necessary. Use an instant read thermometer and remove the cheesecake when it’s reached 145°F.

There’s nothing new in this recipe for making cheesecake. A graham cracker crust and a filling composed of the the real-thing, Kraft’s Philadelphia cream cheese and imported Mascarpone cheese (thank goodness for Trader Joe’s who sells it all year round at a reasonable price), lemon juice, vanilla and eggs. Simple, really. Make certain you cool it completely before refrigerating. Too soon and the top may crack. Make it a day ahead. It’s serve about 16 people – yes, it’s rich. We served it with whipped cream. In Italy they served it with raspberries and blackberries and a little bit of a berry syrup. Plus a tiny dollop of whipped cream.

What’s GOOD; oh goodness, this is so delicious. I only got one small slice as I made it for Christmas dinner at Powell & Karen’s home, and left the remaining with them. It got eaten the next day. Hence, I want to make it again! So creamy and decadent.

What’s NOT: it’s an expensive dessert, but serves so many people. A good thing, not a bad thing. You probably could pare it down and bake in a smaller springform pan.

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