lasagna recipes

Easy Lasagna
This is a relatively easy version of a Southern Italian Style lasagna with ricotta cheese and mozzarella. You can make it even easier by using no-boil lasagna sheets and skipping the cooking the pasta step. Some people might turn their nose up at the idea of using the no-boil pasta, but not all shortcuts are bad, and I have found that they work just fine in this lasagna.

Lasagna Bolognese
There are several things that differentiate Lasagna Bolognese from the Sothern Italian style Lasagna that is more familiar to Americans. The most noticeable differences are the use of Béchamel Sauce instead of ricotta cheese, and the absence of mozzarella--only Parmagianno-Reggiano cheese is used--which results in a more delicate lasagna. Lasagna Bolognese should be made using an authentic slow cooked Ragu alla Bolognese (Bolognese Sauce). Marinara sauce mixed with browned ground beef just won't do here.

Hand-Rolled Lasagna
Hand rolling each lasagna noodle is a wonderful way to not only make this classic comfort food look fancy, but it allows you to customize each piece--if you want to--without having to make a full tray of the flat, layered type. So, if someone doesn't care for peppers, for example, you can easily leave them out. It's also a perfect solution if you want to make lasagna for just a few.

Fresh Homemade Pasta
Making fresh pasta at home might seem like a daunting task, and while it is time consuming and with definite effort involved, it is not all that difficult and you will be handsomely rewarded for the extra work.

Seafood alla Siciliana

In the cookbook Seafood alla Siciliana: Recipes and Stories from a Living Tradition, author Toni Lydecker takes us with her on a trek through Sicily in which she visits fishermen, fish mongers, restaurant chefs and home cooks all over the Island. The result is a comprehensive and evocative volume on the rich culinary tradition of Sicilian Seafood that not only gives us great recipes, but an insight on how history and tradition have shaped the wonderfully eclectic cooking of the island.

Pasta Recipes
A collection of favorite pasta recipes from The Italian Chef.

Puglia: A Culinary Memoir
The first book in the new Italy's Food Culture series of cookbooks, translated from the original Italian, by Oronzo Editions, Puglia: A Culinary Memoir, covers a regional cuisine that I would venture not too many Americans are familiar with. Personally, I did not know much about the cooking of the Puglia. Being a bread baker, I was familiar with the two famous breads from the region, Pane Pugliese and Pane di Altamura, but that was extent of my knowledge, before reading this volume. The author, Maria Pignatelli Ferrante, does a comprehensive job of chronicalling what the preface refers to as "the miracle of the cooking of Puglia."

Food and Wine Vacations in Italy
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