Anthony's Sauce - Into the past of my Italian-American childhood...

Peseta Bar Italian Cookies

2011-12-19T06:01:00.000-08:00

This is a very special old-school Italian Cookie that my grandma Salerno used to make. It would only come out during Christmas time! It's my all-time favorite Christmas cookie and takes me back to the old days with grandma every time I make them. I too only make these during Christmas time. It's a tradition I cannot let slip away! This is a laborious cookie to make, but well worth the effort. I just finished making this video of the entire process. Very excited to have this finished!

Check out the Peseta Bar Italian cookie recipe for more details.

How to Make Spaghetti Sauce & Meatballs Video Series Part 1 and 2!

2011-01-04T09:07:00.000-08:00

Spaghetti Sauce and Meatballs Videos!

Very excited! Just finished a new 2 part video series on How to Make Spaghetti Sauce and Meatballs with all the meats! How to make the Sunday Gravy, all the steps on video. WooHoo! This took some work. I had to learn how to edit video. I finally have this down now I think :-) EnJoY! Happy Cooking, Happy Times and Share the Love! Ciao, Anthony

Spaghetti Sauce and Meatballs
Part 1 of 2 : Step by Step details! HD

Spaghetti Sauce and Meatballs
Part 2 of 2 : Step by Step details! HD

Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken Cutlets!

2010-10-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

This is an Italian classic I grew up with that just happens to be my favorite combination!

This past weekend the wives were away so just the guys got together and had a feast with Fettuccine Alfredo, Chicken Cutlets and Garlic Bread. Yum! I guess you could say we had vegetables because there was some fresh parsley in the Fettuccine :-) I will have a detailed recipe for the Fettuccine Alfredo very soon. Just have to write down all the steps. Already have this started so won't be long.

This particular combination of Italian Chicken Cutlets with Fettuccine Alfredo on the side is my very favorite dish. I have requested this from my grandmother and mom for my birthday meal on many occasions. I know know how to make all this yummy stuff for myself now so I no longer have to wait for my birthday for this combo :-) YUM!!! It's totally yum!

Jarred Homemade Spaghetti Sauce!

2010-09-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally decided to try and jar my Spaghetti Sauce. I was doing this for a friend to help raise money for a missions trip. What you see in the photo is what my pasta sauce recipe makes. One pot of sauce worth, almost 5 quarts. I made two full pots for this. Forgot to take the photo with all the jars completed. You can see that one of the jars was not completely full. So two pots of the sauce made 10 jars. I should have made more. They sold very fast. But with something like this, you could never make a profit. The sauce is too laborious. The real Sunday Gravy is meant to be cooked in the house all day and enjoyed in that same house with family and friends :-) Anyway, I thought I would through these photos up here just for fun. I had a fun time jarring the sauce. If you ever want to jar your own sauce be sure to check out this How to make and can homemade spaghetti sauce page.

Here is a related video I just finish on how to can tomatoes at home, from fresh tomatoes. Jarring tomatoes to use later for making the Sunday Gravy. YUM!

Italian Fried Dough (Pizza Freet)

2010-05-05T14:20:00.001-07:00

Pizza Freet like grandma used to make! What a treat!!! Actually makes a great breakfast!

Well, it’s been too long again since my last post. I am going to try and stay on top of this and keep posting yummy stuff from what I remember of growing up Italian and eating well!!! Just the other day I made some fried dough like my grandmother and my mother used to make. It was always such a treat! Really a good way to explain this would be Italian Doughnuts! In our family we called this “Pizza Freet”.

This is a simple dish that I remember my grandmother and my mother making when I was a kid. A real treat! Very yummy stuff! Fried Dough just like momma and grand mom used to make! There are so many variations you can do with this. The following are how we used to make these when I was a kid… Fried dough with: Powdered sugar , Melted butter and sugar, Spaghetti sauce and parmesan cheese, Ricotta cheese and sugar and last but not least Melted butter and grape jelly which was my favorite and used to drive my mother crazy! She would see me adding the butter and jelly to the fried dough and she would say.. “Oh.. That’s just wrong!”…. It still drives her crazy to this day J Oh but it’s so yummy, you should try it! But don’t tell my Mom ;-)

The first photo above is with the powdered sugar and is the most typical way to have the fried dough. Below I have placed some photos of the different ways you can flavor this wonderful Italian treat!

The easiest way to make this is just get some frozen dough from your local grocery and let it rise, roll it out and start frying in some vegetable oil. I talk a little bit about working with frozen dough in my Italian Sausage Bread Recipe. Might help you with the process. EnJoY….

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

2009-12-14T11:27:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-08-15T07:52:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-14T18:19:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-04T09:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-19T08:10:00.000-07:00

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