Il Casale di Mele

Hello Italian Food Forever Newsletter Subscribers!

I hope you like our new look. I was feeling constrained with the last newsletter software I was using so I've changed to MadMimi.com and I think we will all be MUCH happier here. I know many of you were not happy that I had to remove photos from my newsletter feeds, but now that I've switched they are back! What is great about this format, is that it allows me to share information with you, my newsletter subscribers, that will not be seen on my blog, and allows me to personalize my newsletters easily so I can add in fun things I want to share with you that no one else will see.

A week tomorrow we will be returning to Umbria, and I'm so excited to be back in our Umbrian farmhouse that I love so much. I'm told our 4 chickens survived the winter and I'm looking forward to have them back home again so I can spoil them with home cooked meals and delight in their daily gifts of fresh eggs for my kitchen. We will have to get busy right away planting flowers in all our pots, vegetables in our garden, and getting our rental farmhouse set up for our first guests.

I've also been making a list of all the upcoming food festivals, celebrations, and holidays that I hope to attend as soon as we return to Umbria, and it looks to be a VERY busy time over the upcoming months. We are starting our rental season out a little later than usual this year at Il Casale di Mele, but from the third week in June through the end of October we are fully booked and I'm really looking forward to meeting new friends, and visiting with others who return to stay with us year after year. You can check out our farmhouse rental 2014 calendar HERE!

This Weeks Recipes

Herb Ricotta Gnochhi With Fresh Tomat Sauce

I call ricotta gnocchi "fast food" Italian, as with just a little practice you can make ricotta gnocchi in as little time as it takes you to boil the water to cook them in. This really is a dish, sauce included, that can be prepared and cooked in under 30 minutes which makes it a fabulous choice for busy mid-week meals.

Gnocchi are basically dumplings, and can be made of almost any ingredient that can be formed into a dough. Gnocchi (pronounced NYOK-ee) are made in most regions in Italy, although they are generally made with different ingredients in each. Some gnocchi are round while others are oval and grooved to hold the sauce. Well-made gnocchi should be delicate enough to be described as tender and pillowy, yet sturdy enough to hold their own when combined with sauce. Find The Recipe @ SeriousEats.com

Cheese Puffs

Pecorino & Black Pepper Cheese Puffs When we entertain, my husband likes to start out the evening with a nice glass of crisp Prosecco wine. Prosecco is an Italian sparkling wine that is usually quite dry and is normally made from Glera, or "Prosecco" grapes. Trying to find something to serve our guests to nibble on along with the Prosecco isn't always easy until I started making these cheese puffs. These puffs are very easy to make using a choux pastry, a light airy pastry that is also used to make profiteroles and is made with butter and eggs. Read More....

Sauteed Broccoli With Garlic & Sun Dried Tomato We eat a lot of vegetables in our house, and with just two of us at home now, I usually always cook too much. Both my husband and I love to enjoy the leftover vegetables the following day for lunch, so having lots of vegetables around isn't really a problem. One of my favorite ways to prepare vegetables such as beans, broccoli, cauliflower or asparagus is to lightly blanch them and then quickly sauté them in a mixture of olive oil, red pepper flakes, and seasonings. Read More....