These garlic toasts are great with any dish involving broth, for example, these Mussels with Sweet Italian Sausage and White Wine. You can also use them as crostini with your favorite toppings, such as olive tapenade and feta cheese, hummus, tzatziki or a fresh tomato bruschetta topping. Use them as croutons on a caesar salad to add serious drama to the salad bowl. Imagine those giant croutons on your salad!… Read more
We enjoyed Rosé-Aperol Spritzes all summer and continue to serve them at our fall dinners. Everyone loves them.… Read more
Simple syrup is great for sweetening cold drinks, such as lemonade, iced tea or coffee. It also comes in handy when making cocktails, like this Rosé-Aperol Spritz.
It is much easier to sweeten cold drinks with simple syrup than with sugar. The syrup easily blends with liquids, unlike sugar, which sinks to the bottom of the glass and takes ages to dissolve.… Read more
Summer offers numerous opportunities for entertaining, from picnics at the beach to backyard barbecues, from cocktail parties with little bites to potluck neighborhood dinners. I love looking at newly released cookbooks to get fresh ideas for summer entertaining. I’ve selected a few new cookbooks with recipes offering exotic flavor combinations, suggestions for using the unusual vegetables in our CSA baskets and tasty tidbits to serve our families and friends.… Read more
After reading Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir, Blood, Bones and Butter, I have been craving some of the food and drink she writes about in her book. In the memoir she talks about drinking Negronis during her annual summer trips to Italy. It was only a matter of time (a very short amount of time in fact – I didn’t make it to “official” summer) before I made my first Negroni cocktail. It did not disappoint.… Read more