 I am such a summer berry fanatic. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries - you name it - I love it. The fresh, sweet berries need very little adornment to make them shine. Dust a handful of berries with powdered sugar and serving them alongside a slice of pound cake to highlight the bounty of summer berries. Cream Cheese Pound Cake 3 cups cake flour 1 teaspoon salt 4 eggs plus 2 egg yolks 1/4 milk 2 teaspoons vanilla 3 cups sugar 24 Tablespoons butter 6 ounces cream cheese
Bake 90 minutes at 300.
Cool 15 minutes in pan. Invert onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Dust with powdered sugar before serving.
 I am leaving it up to your imagination to picture this decadent cake with a heaping helping of fresh summer berries. It's really hard to beat a simple pound cake topped with fresh summer fruit for a summertime dessert.
Ciao!
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 Summer and smoothies go hand in hand. As a special treat in the summer, the kids and I will stop at Smoothie King on our way home from the park. It's a treat for all of us. We've tried making our own smoothies at home but it seems like we are always out of at least one ingredient when we want to make them. We like the smoothie packs from the grocery store but they are really expensive. I saw for homemade "smoothie packs" on pinterest and I took the idea and ran with it. Since my son is the biggest smoothie lover of us all, I decided to try my smoothie packet experiment on him. I asked him to tell me his favorite kind of smoothie - chocolate, strawberry, banana. (Who knew?)  I started by freezing some yogurt into drops. If you need the directions for this, check out my blog post on frozen yogurt drops.
I bought a bag of frozen strawberries so there was no prep work there. Once everything was frozen, it was time to start experimenting with quantities of each to make the perfect smoothie. 
He added some skim milk, blended it up and voila - homemade smoothie.
We are set for summer now. We have ready to blend, smoothie packs in the freezer. Bring on the heat.
Ciao!  I never realized just how versatile my meatballs recipe really was until recently. I made a batch of meatballs a couple of weeks ago and I put a few of them into a timpano. I served some of them with a side of pasta and the rest I turned into meatball burgers! The kids liked them all three ways but the biggest surprise of all was the meatball burger. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure how these were going to turn out. It was an experiment that could have gone either way. Fortunately for me, they were delicious. (And way quicker to make than rolling meat into tiny balls.)  Meatballs 1 pound ground turkey 4 splashes milk 1 pound ground beef 4 eggs 1 pound ground pork parsley 1 chopped onion parmesan cheese 4 slices bread 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and pepper
Combine onion, bread, milk, eggs, parsley, cheese and salt and pepper in food processor. Pulse until chopped finely.
Shape into meatballs and place on a broiler rack.
Place meatballs in a saucepan with spaghetti sauce and let cook for an hour. Remove from sauce and serve with spaghetti or in a timpano. You can also shape the meat into burgers and grill for and even easier way to enjoy meatballs.
One batch of meatballs - three ways. Love it.
Ciao!  There are some things that were just meant to go together - milk and coffee, Oreos and milk, peanut butter and jelly, coffee and chocolate. OK, so maybe that last one doesn't seem so obvious but in my world, they're a match made in heaven. A dark chocolate cake infused with a rich coffee flavor is hard to beat. This three layer cake is really delicious and even non coffee lovers really like this moist, tender cake. I turned this particular cake into a birthday cake for a fourteen year old soccer player. No matter how you decorate it, a mocha chocolate cake will not disappoint. Mocha Three Layer Cake 1 cup butter 3 cups brown sugar 4 eggs 3 teaspoons vanilla ¾ cup cocoa 3 cups flour 3 teaspoons baking soda ½ teaspoon salt 1 ½ cups brewed coffee 1 1/3 cups sour cream
rost and decorate. You could go for a triple chocolate threat and fill this cake with chocolate ganache and frost it with chocolate buttercream. I filled my cake with a whipped cream filling and frosting it with swiss meringue buttercream.  Ciao!
 Chicken parmesan is one of my favorite things but I rarely order it in restaurants because it's almost always breaded and fried. As I was leafing through the June issue of my Cook's Country magazine, a recipe for GRILLED chicken parmesan caught my eye. Could you really make a grilled, healthy version of the classic Italian dish without all of the oil and breading? It was worth a try.
Grilled Chicken Parmesan 1 Tablespoon butter 2 Tablespoon minced shallot 1 clove garlic 1 can diced tomatoes 2 Tablespoons fresh basil, chopped 1/2 cup parmesan cheese 6 chicken breasts 2 Tablespoon mozzarella
Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese, tent with foil and let rest 10 minutes.  I served my grilled chicken parmesan with a green salad.  This was sooooo good. I am definitely going to be making this chicken again soon. Both kids scraped off their bruschetta and ate the chicken plain but I'll keep working on that.
Ciao! |
