#spritz-cookies

#spritz-cookies

What goes into the ideal Italian cocktail, as a result, is as much about sociability and presentation as it is about a specific flavor profile or provenance of ingredients. It isn't just a drink, it's a way of life. As soulful as a Puccini-penned opera. As colorful and exuberant as a summer sunset over the Amalfi Coast. Equally as expressive regardless of time or season.

The ravioli-type dish, also known as casunziei all'Ampezzana, consists of homemade half-moon shaped pasta filled with boiled beets, topped with a sauce of melted butter, Parmesan cheese and poppy seeds. It's a simple dish that harks back to the Alpine region's poorer past - long before Cortina transformed into a winter playground for the international jet set. Even in the coldest days of winter, local families had the ingredients in their cupboards.

With a bit of slow cooking, those impossibly pert, shiny tomatoes relax and soften, releasing their juices to mingle in a deeply satisfying dish. A supporting cast of bold ingredients rounds out the mix. In this skillet dinner, spiced sausage, tender broccolini spears and piquant cheese join forces with the tomatoes. For a midwinter pasta dish, it doesn't get brighter - or more satisfying - than this.

The Park Street Deli Chocolate Chip Cannoli Dip is decadent and delicious, and while the dip may be intended to be spooned on top of cookies or fruit, we have found a different way to savor the creamy, chocolate chip-speckled treat. Clocking in at $3.29 for a 10-ounce package, this cream cheese-based product is ready to be introduced to your next batch of fudgy brownies.

If you're unfamiliar with the unabashed pageantry that is Italian cassata, let me enlighten you. The Sicilian showstopper consists of a booze-soaked sponge cake layered with sweetened ricotta that's cloaked in a bright green marzipan cape and adorned with all kinds of candied fruit with decorative piping. It's a cake that demands attention, and one that rejects the notion that simple is best. With cassata, more is more.

Let's talk about holiday baking that goes beyond cookies! These are the festive winter bakes to try. The list includes an ultra fragrant gingerbread cake, a bright citrus loaf, and the perfect flourless chocolate cake. Few people love baking holiday cookies more than me, but a good amount of my favorite December baking happens outside the cookie platter. Think fragrant spice cakes, all things citrus, buttery, and bright - or deep, melty chocolate on the frostiest nights.

Northern Italian cooking is built for long meals, cold weather, and patience, which is exactly the sort of food you want when settling in for hours of competition. From Lombardy and Piedmont to Emilia-Romagna and Liguria, these regions favor slow braises, creamy risottos, rich broths, and breads meant to be torn and shared. Whether you're feeding a crowd or committing to a cozy afternoon

Originally from Sicily, cannoli are handheld treats of fried dough filled with a creamy, slightly sweet mixture, sometimes topped with a wide variety of items like mini chocolate chips or pistachios, and can come in other flavors as well. A bite into a perfect cannoli begins with the cracking of the crisp pastry shell, followed by the rush of the cool, decadent filling, along with the textures and flavors of any toppings.

Is there anything more delicious than tiramisu? This Italian dessert consists of decadent layers of espresso-dipped ladyfingers and plush mascarpone cream. It's perfectly creamy and only lightly sweet, with a rich dusting of cocoa powder on top. On our first trip to Italy, I ordered it at every restaurant Jack and I went to. It's just that good. After I shared this strawberry tiramisu last summer and this pumpkin tiramisu in the fall, I couldn't resist developing a classic tiramisu recipe too.

Making it onto this list of our best pasta recipes is kind of a big deal. We tried to count how many pasta dishes we've developed over the course of this publication's history-modern mathematics cannot accommodate such a figure. You can imagine how painstaking it was to whittle down this list to just 31 recipes. But, fueled by a second helping of rigatoni alla vodka, we did it.

These candied nuts have become one of the cornerstones. You can make them with whatever nuts you have on hand, they keep beautifully for over a week, and they're an easy win as part of a larger snack-y spread. They also bridge the sweet-savory gap wonderfully and I've been serving them with a range of spreads, flatbread, and other bite-sized sweet treats.

This butternut squash and cheese-stuffed shells recipe, written with developer Michelle McGlinn, highlights the creamy, nutty flavor of butternut squash by first combining it with Italian sausage and then making it into a creamy, cheesy sauce. Paired with three different types of melty cheeses, a pinch of cayenne, and fresh sage, this stuffed shell recipe is perfectly rich and balanced with the savory flavors of fall and winter.