When I asked readers on our Facebook fan page to name a few Italian food fallacies I was expecting a response but I was, frankly, overwhelmed with the feedback to our simple question.  That is to say, while I’ve experienced many of the overt food fallacies found in Italian American cooking (both in professional and home kitchens) there were some items […]

  (photo: final dish: large rigatoni with braised short ribs in tomato sauce) Short (beef) ribs are cut from the plate and rib section of the animal and are one of my favorite additions to tomato sauce during the winter months.  Short ribs are easy to prepare, relatively inexpensive (especially with the bone in), and make an ideal meat for […]

The History of Pasta Shapes – The Italian People and Pasta Just in case you were having sleepless nights concerning the birthplace of pasta, the esteemed food critic, Oretta Zanini de Vita confirms that there were records of pasta in Italy 500 years before Marco Polo returned from China; so pasta was, in fact, invented in Italy.  I’m glad we cleared the […]

Our traditional, homemade tomato sauce, uses crushed, uncooked, tomatoes from our annual Fall tomato canning event.  Tomato sauce is easy to make and incredibly versatile.  We use tomato sauce for pasta, other sauces, soups, etc.  Making homemade sauce is a no-brainer, so don’t purchase the canned variety at your local supermarket.  Plus, our recipe hails from Calabria, Italy – a region that produces […]

Along with making our own wine and sun dried tomatoes,  my family also cans fresh plum tomatoes every August for use throughout the year.  The canned tomatoes are used mostly for making tomatoe sauce.  Canning your tomatoes produces a better tasting tomato sauce and, of course, saves you money over the long term (especially after you’ve owned the canning equipment for several years). Tomato […]