Italian Recipes

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup of parmesan cheese, grated
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 ¼ cups of lukewarm water
• 1 cup of polenta

Directions:

Set the oven in 350 degrees F. Mix all the ingredients in a huge bowl and combine it well. Place all the ingredients in a greased baking pan. Bake without cover for 50 minutes. With the use of a fork, stir it well and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove it out of the oven and sprinkle on top with cheese.

Photo via myrecipes.com

Ingredients:

• ½ tsp, oregano (dried)
• 10 torn fresh basil leaves
• Red pepper, crushed, for tasting
• Salt
• 1 35 ounce can of whole plum tomatoes
• 4 garlic heads, peeled and chopped
• ¼ cup of extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Open your can of tomatoes and crush them using your hand in a bowl before you set them aside. Heat up the olive oil in a huge saucepan under some medium heat. Add up the garlic to your oil and cook until they are light brown in color. Just make sure that it won’t burn.

Add up the tomatoes with their liquid in the pan with oil and garlic. Watch out for the oil might splatter and then add some oregano. Stir it up and let it boil. Season it with some salt and pepper until it fits your taste. Lower the heat until the sauces simmers. Break up the tomatoes while waiting so that the sauce would thicken.

Add the fresh basil and wait for a few more minutes before the sauce is finally done. You can pour it over your pasta.

Photo via blog.pennlive.com

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp of capers
• ¼ cup of Kalamata olives. Chopped
• 6 tomatoes, sliced
• ½ tsp grounded pepper
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 tbsp parsley, chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 can of 28 ounce plum tomatoes

Directions:

Put all the ingredients except for the chopped tomatoes, capers, olives in the blender. Process them until they are smooth. Once you remove from the blender, mix in the chopped tomatoes, capers and olives. Serve it instantly and cover. You can refrigerate it for 2 days.

Photo via slashfood.com

Ingredients

• 1/8 cup sugar
• 1 ½ tsp vanilla pure extract
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 package of unflavored gelatin
• 2 cups of whole milk

Directions:

Pour the cup of milk into the big saucepan and combine the gelatin. Allow everything to sit and be softer in just 5 minutes. Then you must place the saucepan with low heat and stir consistently for complete 5 minutes until all the gelatin has been dissolved. Add the rest of the cream, milk and vanilla.

Now turn the heat and cook as you stir frequently. Stop when it starts to bubble but make sure that it does not boil. When you put in the sugar and it is completely dissolved, then you can remove the saucepan from the heat. Let it cool for 10 minutes and prepare the ramekins.

Spray all the ramekins over the cooled mix and chill inside the refrigerator for a total of 2 hours and even as long as overnight. Use a cooking spray.

Photo via myrecipes.com

What you will need:
• 1 lb Mostaccioli shells or broken lasagna noodles
• 1 lb ground beef or pork
• 1 lg. jar Prego extra chunky spaghetti sauce
• 6 oz. cottage cheese
• 16 oz. Mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

Directions
Boil meat in water until tender then drain it off. On a pot, cook the noodles. In a separate pan, mix all the ingredients and cook on low heat for 5 hours while stirring occasionally. Serve with cheese on top.

Being an Italian food aficionado, I have always appreciated anything Italian. Even my sons share this fascination with Italian food. So, I am really pleased to read about January 17th being celebrated as the International Day of Italian Cuisine. This is hosted by the chefs of the Virtual Group of Italian Cooks or GVCI.

To showcase the importance of maintaining standards of traditional and authentic Italian dishes, Italian chefs around the world will prepare a traditional dish of Tagliatelle al Ragù alla Bolognese. This dish is a popular contribution of the City of Bologna in Emilia Romagna.

Cesare Casella, Dean of the Italian Culinary Academy, will host the two day event in New York City participated by Chicco Cerea, Mario Batali and many other Italian chefs from around the world. Anyone can join the celebration and be part of the festivity.

Food lovers who believe in the authentic way of preparing Italian recipe can register and participate in the celebration or can try preparing Ragù alla Bolognese at home. There are many variants of traditional recipes of this dish but one can look up Tagliatelle al Ragu alla Bolognese recipe of Chef Mario Caramella, GVCI president.