 2025 was a quite a year: Thousands of photos shared, 142 recipes and over 70,000 of you stopped by to check out my little blog! All I can say is ... thank you! Thank you to each and every one of you who has taken the time to read my blog, leave me a comment, follow me on social media or signed up to receive my emails this year. I'm beyond grateful for my amazing and supportive blog community.☺️ You don't see ads on my recipe blog because my motivation to share my stories and recipes isn't to generate income through sponsors or marketing partnerships - it's YOU! Nothing warms my heart like hearing from a follower who has made one of my recipes. If I inspired even a few people to try a new recipe or a new ingredient in 2025 - my job here is done.😅  This is my last blog post for 2025 and I think it's only fitting that I leave you with one of my favorite, chocolatey, decadent and delicious desserts. My Christmas gift to you... Torta Caprese ... recipe.😅 (That I ate.🤣) I'm not sure if it's appropriate to eat the gift that I give to someone else but in this case - let's call it market research. I fully enjoyed every bite of this chocolate torte and it gets bonus points because it's also gluten free.  Torta Caprese 1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips 1 cup butter 5 eggs 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup sugar 1 1/2 cups almond flour 1 teaspoon vanilla
 Bake 40 minutes at 350 until puffed and top begins to crack. Cool completely in pan.   Decorate with whipped cream and fresh berries.  Until next year ... Ciao!
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Last year we hosted Christmas in Georgia and I probably don't have to tell you that we had an abundance of delicious food and drinks. We're Italian - it's what we do. 😂🇮🇹 After we ate more than we probably should have, we spent the afternoon playing reindeer games.🦌 This year, we'll be hosting our family for Christmas again and I've got a pretty traditional Christmas menu planned but I also have a few new surprises up my sleeve too.😉 I am going to sneak in a couple new desserts for the family to taste test along with a festive Christmas punch. 🍾 This Christmas punch was originally planned as an adult beverage but it's equally delicious without the alcohol. (I know - I've tried it both ways.😂 ) So if you're looking for a new drink to serve at your holiday party this year - this is the recipe might be just what you're looking for.  Christmas Punch 5 cups (40 ounces) 100% cranberry juice 2 bottles very dry sparkling brut wine (750 ml bottles) 2 cups apple cider 1 ½ cups (12 ounces) ginger ale 1 ½ cups dark rum or brandy (12 ounces) 2 oranges thinly sliced into rounds 1 cup fresh cranberries  Pour cranberry juice, sparkling wine, apple cider, ginger ale, and rum into bowl or pitcher. Top with the orange slices and fresh cranberries.
Ciao! --- and Cheers.
 Stockings, reindeer, holly, candy canes, oh my. I've made so many Christmas cookies this week that I feel like I've gained 5 pound just from being surrounded by so much sugar.😅 Don't get me wrong - I love sugar cookies but there comes a point (typically after 7 or 8 hours of decorating) that I don't want to see another cookie for at least a week.😬    I love my job and I'm incredibly grateful that I have the ability to make cookies for other people but after a week of nothing but cookie decorating - even I need a sugar break. I can tell that I've eaten too many cookie mistakes when I start to crave salty snacks like pretzels and potato chips.😳😬  If I wasn't constantly surrounded by cookies, I'd like to believe that I'd make better food choices during the holidays.😂 The issue is that I don't have a lot of extra time this month and with broken cookies always on my counters, they end up being my quick and easy, go-to lunch.😬 So for all of us who've already eaten a few too many sweets this month and for everyone who just needs an alternative from all of the sugar - this blog recipe is for you. I made a few of these Pomegranate salads earlier this week to keep in my frig so I can grab them for a quick and easy lunch alternative to cookies.🥗🍪  Pomegranate Salad 10 ounces salad greens 1 apple, thinly sliced 1 avocado, thinly sliced 1 cup medium pomegranate seeds 1 cup pistachios 2/3 cup shaved Parmesan cheese Dressing 3 Tablespoons Persian lime olive oil 3 Tablespoons lemon vinegar
 Fill bowl with salad greens.  Top with apples, pistachios, avocado, pomegranate seeds, and parmesan cheese.  Drizzle with dressing before serving.
Ciao! 
Now my mom has a different opinion about Cocoa and when asked about him, she'll tell you a different tale. To this day, at the mention of his name, she will emphatically declare "Cocoa was a BAD dog."😂 I think her judgement mainly stems from a Christmas cookie incident that occurred over 40 years ago.😳 According to her, one December, she had baked LOTS of cookies to take to a Christmas cookie exchange. When she finished, she stored all of the cookies on top of the dryer to keep them off of the kitchen counters and out of the way. You can probably guess what happened next.😅 My relatively small dog somehow managed to reach the top of the dryer and eat all of the Christmas cookies! Now that I think about it, do you think it's possible that my brother ate the cookies and framed the dog?🤣 Just kidding bro. I think it was fate that as an adult, when I first started my catering business, we had a dog that ate a counter full of very intricate royal icing cake decorations that took me days to make.😫 That was that day when I finally understood why my mom will forever refer to Cocoa as a "bad dog".😅  I honestly have no idea whether my mom rebaked all of the cookies that were eaten by the dog or if she showed up to her Christmas cookie exchange with a package of Oreos.🤷🏻♀️ I suspect that she had some emergency dessert in her freezer though. A batch of brownies or an unbaked pie ready to be popped into the oven.(A little trick I adopted from her.😉) I usually have some frozen cookie dough or a pie in my freezer for last minute dessert emergencies too.🤣🍪🥧 These chocolate crackles are the perfect thing to keep in your freezer for when your dog eats all of your dessert or when you just want a delicious cookie.😉😅 I scoop my cookie dough into balls, put them in ziploc storage bags and freeze them. When I get a serious chocolate craving, I can take out the number of cookies that I need, defrost them 30 minutes, roll them in sugar and then bake them up fresh.  Chocolate Crackle Cookies 2.0 1 cup cocoa powder 1¾ cups sugar ½ cup canola oil 4 eggs, room temperature 2 teaspoons vanilla 2 cups flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup powdered sugar
Place on silpat lined baking sheets. Only coat as many dough balls as you can fit on baking sheets at one time. Refrigerate remaining dough balls and roll in powdered sugar just before baking.  Bake 10-12 minutes at 350.   Ciao!
 How's your Christmas shopping going? As for me - I'm about 87% of the way to having all of my gifts bought and wrapped.🎁 Unlike me, my husband thrives on the hustle and bustle of the last minute Christmas shopping scene. He's one of the only people I know who actually really enjoys being out amongst the impatient shoppers in crowded stores with long check out lines during the last couple of days leading up to Christmas.😬 I may never understand it but I do take advantage of his enthusiasm and send him with any last minute gifts that are still on my list every year.📋😅  It's usually the little things that procrastinate buying the longest. The small tokens that I hand out to our faithful delivery drivers, holiday party hosts and our super tolerant neighbors. Typically, these are a combination of purchased and homemade treats. If you're needing a last minute gift and you prefer not to go out and face the crazy holiday traffic and chaos of the stores, do what I'm doing and stay home and bake biscotti.😂 I'll be handing out biscotti to lots of friends this year and for whoever needs to hear this, paired with a coffee shop gift card, it makes a great gift for teachers too.😉
Dark Chocolate Peppermint Biscotti 1/2 cup butter 1 cup sugar 3 eggs 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract 3 1/4 cups flour 1 Tablespoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup crushed peppermint candies 1 cup dark chocolate chips
Place slices on baking sheet and bake for another 8 minutes. Flip and bake 8 minutes on the other side.  Melt chocolate in a shallow bowl and dip bottoms of biscotti in melted chocolate. Set on foil to set.  Ciao!
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