Cenci alla Fiorentina (Deep fried sweet pastry) - Also called Italian Bowite Cookies

A tasty treat that only comes out for Weddings, Funerals and Christmas!

This is a wonderful Italian cookie that would always show up somewhere around Christmas, Weddings and Funerals. This was also called Fried Italian Bow Tie Cookies, Italian Knot Cookies, Fried Pasta Bow Tie Cookies and last but not least, Angel Wings!

Basically it's just friend pasta with powdered sugar on top. So delicious! I will have the recipe up on the main Sauce Site soon! Meanwhile you can see a new slideshow of all the steps necessary to make this lovely Italian favorite! Just like grandma used to make!

Cenci alla Fiorentina is a deep fried sweet pastry, well, a Sweet pasta really.

This is also a polish cookie which they call "Chrusciki" or "CHRUSCHICI", spelled several different ways actually. Also called "Polish Bow Tie Cookies."

Anthony's "Pasta Cooking" and "Leftover" and other Secret Italian Cooking Tips!

I just finished adding a brand new section to my site. Anthony's "Pasta Cooking" and "Leftover" and other Secret Italian Cooking Tips! This is a page where I will share all the secret tips I know and try to answer many of the questions I get in regards to all things Italian cooking. I just spent this past week doing a lot of behind the scenes coding stuff that will make the whole website a much better experience for all who visit. I am also working with a graphic artist on a new logo for SpaghettiSauceAndMeatballs.com, I'm VERY excited about it. I just saw the rough draft and am ecstatic at how it captured my vision for what I wanted. This guy here: http://bryansomers.com/ is a genuis. I had a long meeting with him, shared my vision for the site and the idea of what I wanted for a log and he nailed it!!! :-) More to come! Peace! Anthony

Italian Sausage Peppers and Onion Hoggie

An old family favorite! Perfect for a football game! :-)

This weekend I tried something new. I cooked my Italian sausage and peppers like I normally do, however, I added chili peppers this time and marinated baby portabella mushrooms (in garlic and butter) and I made a nice Italian Sausage, peppers and onion hoggie :-) Also, instead of using provolone like you would normally do for a sandwich like this, I used fresh Mozzarella. Oh, I also added butter, garlic and basil to the bread, toasted it a bit before adding all the goodies and melting the cheese. Quite a lovely sandwich!!! I will have the full recipe up on the site soon. I have placed a photo of the final product on the right here to give you a little idea of how the sandwich came out. I like to boil my sausage before frying it like I have spelled out here.

Freezing and Thawing The Sauce and Meatballs!

What to do with those yummy leftovers!

OK, well, I really am going to try and get this blog thing moving along here. I might use this space to answer some of the many questions I get from my Italian recipes site. One thing I get asked a lot is how to freeze the Spaghetti Sauce and Meatballs leftovers. What I normally do is make a large pot that is always too much for the group I am serving so I often have many leftovers. I like to freeze my suace in small one or two serving containers with one large family size container. I usually put enough sauce for two people in a small container with two meatballs in each container and then I will have one large container to thaw out for the family. It's nice to have the small containers ready to go when it's just me or the wife an I and not the whole family. I have placed in this post a photo of how I normally store the leftover pasta sauce and meatballs. What I do to thaw the Sauce and Meatballs after they have been frozen for a whileif just take out a container and defrost in microwave at defrost setting for meat. Halfway through I try to break it up a bit wiht a knife being careful not to break up the meatballs. After it's almost thawed out, I put it all in a small sauce pan and finish thawing out in the pan on low heat. Then serve. Quite yummy every time! There is this mysterious thing about Spaghetti Sauce, it's better as leftovers! Well, hope this helps. Happy cooking, happy times and share the LOVE! More to come. ~8-) Anthony

The Beginning

Well, hello all. I have decided to start a blog to help communicate with the visitors from my Italian family recipe website http://www.spaghettisauceandmeatballs.com. I will use this blog to just chat about Italian food, how much fun it is to cook and what I have learned from my Italian grandmother and mom and mother-in law about Italian cooking. So off we go, more to come when I get some time to write. Ciao