Growing up as a vegetarian surrounded by meat eaters, the cooks in my life would often make "meaty" meatless dishes. My mother, bless her heart, would often make 2 versions of dinner: one with meat for everyone else, and another one for me - and eventually my little sister as well, who also became a plant-based eater at a young age. For instance, I remember this spaghetti pie she would make that had crumbled beef in it, but for us, she made a mini spaghetti pie using meatless crumbles instead. It's kind of a weird dish to describe, but I used to love it. My grandma's go-to "meaty" dish for me was eggplant parmigiana. In typical fashion for her drastic personality - a trait that everyone knew her for - she knew that I liked it, so she proceeded to make eggplant parm just about every week ... [Read More]
Italian recipes
Risotto Caprese
A bunch of years ago when my hubby and I had just started dating, we went on a dinner date to a restaurant called The Risotto House. I remember that neither one of us were sure what risotto was and had to ask the waiter, who as I recall, looked at us like we were complete morons. Fast forward to now, and I get why the server thought the idea of us not being familiar with risotto was slightly ridiculous. I've since eaten it out at restaurants many times in Italy and also here in the states, and have made some awesome meals centering around it, including my recent dinner of sun-dried tomato risotto balls. Risotto is an Italian rice dish, that, when cooked the right way patiently standing over the stovetop continuously stirring it, comes out creamy and bursting with flavor. The other ... [Read More]