The garden has been good to me this year and has given me lots of eggplants and peppers. I had too many the other day and decided to make a Sicilian-inspired baked ziti! It’s tasty, delicious, comfort food and today I’m sharing my recipe with you! It’s pretty easy and also makes for good leftovers. P.S. If you love romances packed with tasty food, grab a copy of SOUTH BEACH LOVE, now a Hallmark Original Movie. It’s specially priced at 99 cents (https://amzn.to/3Y10qJx) or free when you sign up for my newsletter (https://bit.ly/CaridadsNewsletter)!

Ingredients

1 large eggplant, peeled and cubed
1 red (or green) pepper, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup sliced mushrooms
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 35-ounce can crushed San Marzano tomatoes (it does make a difference!)
1 32-ounce tub of Galbani Whole Milk Ricotta Cheese (Yes, it is the tastiest)
1 16-ounce whole milk mozzarella cheese, grated
1 large egg, beaten
2 tbsp parsley, chopped
4 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt for pasta water
Salt & pepper to taste
1 tsp dry oregano
1 tsp basil (Fresh if you have it)
Water for pasta
1 pound penne rigati (works better than ziti)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9×13 baking dish (I use an aluminum foil one for easy clean-up). Fill a pot with water and 2 tsp salt and bring to a boil to cook the pasta.

For the sauce, place 2 tbsp olive oil in a pan and heat until shimmering. Once oil is hot, add eggplant and saute for at least 5 minutes or more. Then add mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes. Finally, add pepper, onions, and garlic and saute until the onions are translucent. Add crushed tomatoes and simmer for no less than 30 minutes. If you can let it go an hour, even better.

In a bowl, place ricotta, beaten egg, 8 ounces of the grated mozzarella, and the chopped parsley. Stir well.

Bowl the penne but do not cook all the way. My brand said to give it 9-10 minutes but I only cooked it for 5. Why? You are going to mix with the sauce and also bake it. That will keep cooking the pasta. You do not want it to get too soft.

Drain the pasta and mix with the tomatoes and veggies. Cook for about two minutes. Place half this mixture in your baking dish.

This next trick I learned from my daughter. Spread the ricotta mixture across this layer. Then top with the remaining pasta, tomato, and veggie mix. Top with the last of the grated mozzarella. You can also top it with some grated parmesan at this point.

Bake for 30 minutes. Broil for another 2-3 minutes to toast the mozzarella.

Serve with garlic bread, salad, and a nice red wine! Bon Appetit!

For many years I tried to make potato gnocchi with no luck but I refused to give up on making these tasty potato dumplings. It wasn’t until my husband’s grandmother gave me this trick that I finally got them to come out right: use baked potatoes not boiled. Wow, what a difference that makes because you don’t have all that extra moisture from the water. So today, I’m sharing a simple recipe for potato gnocchi! P.S. If you love books with lots of food and chefs, check out SOUTH BEACH LOVE, my Hallmark Movie featuring two chefs battling for a possibly life-changing magazine spread while falling in love Even better, it’s specially priced at 99 cents! Grab your copy today at https://amzn.to/3MHno2W.

Ingredients

3 large baked potatoes (Russetts work best)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 large egg (beaten)
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Scoop out the potato insides and place them in a ricer. I found I had to do this a little at a time or it was difficult to get the potatoes through the ricer.

Rice the potatoes into a bowl. If you don’t have a ricer, just mash the potatoes. Normally you’d put the flour on a board, make a well, and add the egg and potato. I dumped the egg and flour into the bowl and worked the dough in there until it held together.

Then I dumped it out onto a slightly floured board and kneaded it for about 3-4 minutes until it was no longer sticky and holding its shape. Don’t add flour if it’s sticky as this will make the gnocchi very heavy. Just work the dough until it comes together.

Cut the dough into 5 or 6 even pieces and then roll out each piece into a rope about as thick as your thumb. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Cut 1-inch pieces from the rope. Gnocchi usually have a distinctive striation that is made with something called a gnocchi board. The board looks like a small cutting board with a handle and striations cut into the wood.

You don’t need anything that fancy. Place a fork tines down and just roll your 1 inch piece across the tines to create the striations.

Place your gnocchi on a lightly floured baking pan. Let them sit for 20-30 minutes before boiling. To cook, place in salted boiling water. The gnocchi are ready when they float to the surface which only takes 1-2 minutes. Yes, that fast!

Serve with your choice of sauce. I made these gnocchi with pesto, but they’re great with any sauce. For a variation, make with sweet potatoes and serve with brown butter sauce and sage for a fall version!

I don’t know about you, but we take pizza seriously in our family. It’s one of our favorite foods and when we hear about an exciting new pizza joint, we like to try it out. There is also a running discussion if Pete’s Pizza in Columbus, NJ is as good as L&B Spumoni Gardens) in Brooklyn. But for some amazing thin Jersey Shore style pizza, Vic’s in Bradley Beach is the place for us. What about you? Do you have a fav pizza place? P.S. If you love all things Jersey Shore, check out the At the Shore contemporary romance box set. It’s specially priced at 99 cents for 3 full-length novels. Grab your copy today at https://amzn.to/3XfFzBH.

I love strawberry shortcake. I love it so much that hubby and I had that as our wedding cake! There’s just something about that mix of sweet cream, tasty biscuit, and the sweet/tart of strawberries that’s wonderful. When strawberries are in season, hubby and I often do strawberries, cream, and those little dessert shells for a treat! What about you? Do you love strawberry shortcake? If you want to try making your own, here’s a quick recipe for you! P.S.-If you love stories with chefs, I’ve written a number of them! Check out SOUTH BEACH LOVE or the books in the At the Shore series. You can find them all at https://amzn.to/3RnvrVG.

Ingredients

For the strawberries:
2 pounds strawberries (hulled and sliced)
1/4 cup sugar
Juice of one orange

For the Biscuit:
2 cups flour (sifted)
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
8 tbsp unsalted butter (chilled and cut in cubes)(one stick)
1 1/4 cups cream
1 tbsp orange zest

For the Whipped Cream:
1 1/2 cup heavy cream (the colder the better)
2 tbsp sugar

Directions:

Zest the orange before you juice it for the strawberries.

In a bowl, mix hulled and sliced strawberries with sugar and juice of one orange. Set aside in the fridge for at least 3-4 hours.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In another bowl, sift flour, sugar, and baking powder. Cut butter into the flour mixture until it looks like sandy soil. Add orange zest and cream and mix until it’s combined, but don’t overwork it or it will become tough. The dough may be sticky and that’s okay.

Using an ice cream scoop or large spoon, scoop the dough into eight evenly-sized mounds onto the parchment sheet. They should be placed about 2 or so inches apart.

Bake until bottom until the bottoms are brown and the tops are golden! This will take about 15-20 minutes.

Cool the biscuits.

In another bowl, or in a stand mixer, whisk the sugar and cream until stiff peaks form. Do not overwhip unless you want sweet butter!

You can make the whipped cream in advance, but it’s usually better to do it when you’re getting ready to serve the shortcakes.

To finish, slice the biscuits in half. To the bottom half, add the strawberries with some of their juice. Top with whipped cream and the other half of the biscuit. Top with some more strawberries. Serve immediately. Shortcakes do not keep well so it’s best to make them when you are ready to eat them.

I felt inspired the other day as we were cleaning out some things from my mother-in-law’s home and I discovered a very old ravioli wheel cutter. I suspect that it was my hubby’s grandmother’s tool which made it very special for me. Because of that, I decided to give it a go and make some ravioli. Since I had an eggplant and some mushrooms in the fridge that needed to be cooked, I decided to use them for the filling! I was a little worried about how it would work out, but they came out very well, although I have to confess I used pre-made lasagna sheets for the pasta dough instead of making it myself. Still, nom nom. They came out very tasty and I will definitely make them again! P.S. – If you like seeing recipes like these, you can visit my Cook’s Treat section on the website or download a copy of Recipes for the Romantic Soul which contains recipes and excerpts from some of my books. It’s available for free with Kindle Unlimited!

Ingredients

1 medium eggplant, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch slices
1 pound mushrooms, cut in half
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Lasagna/Pasta Sheets (usually available at Italian specialty stores like Pastosa or Uncle Guiseppes)
1 cup ricotta
1/2 cup parmesan
Olive oil (as needed)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

I find that roasting vegetables always imparts a lot more flavor and so I decided to roast the eggplant, mushrooms, and garlic. I roasted the eggplants and mushrooms separately since mushrooms have a lot of water and I didn’t want the eggplant to steam instead of roast. I roasted the garlic with the eggplants.

To roast, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss the eggplant and garlic with oil and some salt and pepper. Place on a greased pan and cook for about 15-20 minutes. Repeat with the mushrooms.

Cool the roasted vegetables until room temperature. Once cool, place it into a food processor and chop until almost like a pate.

Place the eggplant/mushroom/garlic mix into a bowl. Add the ricotta and parmesan and mix.

Layout your pasta sheets. Make sure to keep the sheets you’re not using under damp paper or kitchen towels as they will dry out and be difficult to work if they dry out.

Place around 2 tbsp of filling about 2 inches apart on the pasta sheets. Wet the area all around the filling with water in order to get a good seal. Place a sheet on top of the sheet with the filling and press down to create a seal. Also, try to ease out any air from around the edges since too much air around the filling will cause them to explode in the boiling water. Press down around the edges to seal.

I used a sharp knife to cut the ravioli into squares and then used grandma’s ravioli wheel cutter to seal the edges with that distinctive fluted edge you see on ravioli.

While I was roasting the veggies, I made a quick marinara sauce in a large flat skillet. Why flat? Because I wanted to give a last minute or two of cook to the ravioli in the sauce. Lately I do that a lot with my pasta because I find that it gets a lot more flavor when I finish the pasta in the sauce.

Back to the ravioli! Since it’s fresh pasta, it will cook quickly. Usually only a few minutes. You’ll know when the ravioli rise to the surface. At that point you can remove them and give them those last few minutes of cooking in the marinara sauce.

Remove from the sauce into a pasta bowl. Spoon some sauce over the ravioli and top with fresh basil and more parmesan! Bon Appetit!