Category Archives: Cooking with Kids

In our house, filled pasta is a dish to look forward to and, often made for celebrations. It isn’t as difficult as one might believe, but it takes time and patience and is well worth the effort. Soft pillows of pasta coated in a delicious tomato sauce, is the ultimate showing of love from a partner. Nothing can compare to eating food that is created with love and care from one’s companion.

This is a perfect layer cake for both a novice as well as seasoned baking veteran. The satiny texture is sublime and the cake turns out rich and wonderful.

Creating artichoke risotto can be a bit intimidating. The artichokes need to be trimmed properly and at first the technique can be a bit daunting. No worries, just a bit of practice is needed. We like to use the small artichokes that in our stores come in packets. They are more tender than the big globe artichokes and are easier to trim.

The only hard part in this recipe is waiting for it to cool. If we aren’t careful, we often will see smudge marks on the top where our youngest daughter has “checked” to see if it was ready yet. However, this is not just a children’s dessert, it is an elegant ending to an adult meal.

We woke up late on a Sunday morning and didn’t have to rush anywhere. We were able to enjoy each other’s company like the old, still in love, married couple that we are. I made these Easy sottocenre eggs for Giuliano and he pronounced them delicious.

The beauty of pesto is that it is easily freezable which makes it available at anytime. But to me, it is the quintessential spring dish. We tend to eat it in the traditional manner, just the pasta with a few boiled green beans and sliced potatoes; however, it is great as a primo, first dish, during an Easter Feast.

These are fun and easy cookies to make. Even the smallest child can assist. The greatest challenge is to get them to actually make the cookies rather than just eating the yummy dough.

After all the discussion of the new google mandates and just trying to figure out what a rich snippet is and figure out which google recipe plugins we should use, we will all need something sweet to pick us up. Since our girls are very much into baking, I thought it would be good for them to make one of the Sorelle Simili, the Simili sisters, fabulous treats, their Torta Della Nonna, or Grandmother’s cake. Long ago the sister’s had given their recipe of this homey and comforting pie to Giuliano. I thought it was a perfect chance for the girls to learn how to make custard and to roll out pie dough.

Lasagne makers are often judged on how many layers than can create. Five or six layers are considered the minimum for acceptability. Ooh’s and ahh’s occur the higher they go. For my birthday celebration, Giuliano created a spectacular 9-layer lasagne!

In Italy, il giorno della festa degli innamorati or Valentine’s day is considered to be an imported American holiday. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t celebrated, particularly with chocolates, roses, or in this case, Strawberry Gelato!