Tag: 5 stars

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Summer Vegetable Gratin

This shows exactly how to assemble the gratin.

Occasionally we need to make up a little something for a dinner meeting that takes place once a month. It’s never any trouble; in fact, often, the hardest part is deciding what to make. This month, we discussed various options for a vegetable side dish, but none was “vegefied enough.” They all relied on some sort of starch to bulk them up: you know, pasta- or rice- based casseroles, that sort of thing. So, we went back to the stacks in The Scratchin’ It Central Library, and came up with this recipe.

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Polpette Casce e Ovo

Perhaps a meatless Monday meal?

Recently I’ve said that the French can make a great tasting dinner from anything, but Italians can make a great tasting dinner from nothing. With today’s recipe, that seems to be true. From the title, you can probably guess that it’s an Italian dish, and, as you’ll see, it’s made from practically nothing. Or at least from just a few staples, and perhaps something that you might otherwise toss into the trash. Well, not you, fellow scratcher; we’re sure, though, that there’s someone out there who throws away food items that might be a bit past their prime. With some creativity, those throw-away bits could make your next great meal.

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Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Bites

chocolate raspberry cheesecake bites
chocolate raspberry cheesecake bites
Four dozen cheesecakes in less than 45 minutes!

We buy cream cheese when it’s on sale, but, then we have to use it. That’s harder than it seems, as we don’t spread cream cheese on bagels or anything like that. We tend to prefer the harder cheeses for eating. So, after a while, we look in the dairy drawer in the refrigerator, see the block of cream cheese, and figure we need to use it somehow, and then make something up. This time, we made small cheesecake bites. Mainly because this is the easiest thing ever to make.

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Ricotta Gnocchi

ricotta gnocchi
ricotta gnocchi
We had our ricotta gnocchi with peas and dill pesto.

Do you like gnocchi, but don’t want to go to all the trouble of baking potatoes, ricing them, and then making gnocchi? Do you wish you could just mix a few ingredients together and have done with it? Would you like to have delicious gnocchi available for quick and easy dinners? Well, this is the recipe for you. Plus it makes enough that you can turn a few minutes of work into multiple meals.

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Shaping Strascinati

strascinati and pesto
strascinati and pesto
Perfect for pesto!

When we made the Broccoli Strascinati the other day, we had no idea what strascinati meant, so we figured that we’d simply search for it and find out. Well, it turns out that strascinati is related to the Italian word for dragged. Hmm. Who knew? But, it also turns out that strascinati refers to a particular shape of pasta, and it’s one that scratchers can make by hand. Naturally, we’ll show you how so that you can add it to your ever growing list of pasta shapes.

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Broccoli Strascinati

broccoli strascinati
broccoli strascinati
Wow! This is tasty!

Looking for the best way to cook broccoli? We think we may have found it; after you scratch up a batch, feel free to thank us. This recipe is so good it might even convince broccoli haters to have a few bites. Now, we aren’t broccoli haters. We happen to love broccoli. We’ll eat the florets raw, we like cream of broccoli soup, we like steamed broccoli on baked potatoes — basically, we’ll eat broccoli regardless of how it’s prepared, but this recipe has them all beat.

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Gruyere and Rosemary Scones

gruyere and rosemarty scones
gruyere and rosemarty scones
Savory scones for a treat!

We wanted a little something to bring down to a short meeting the other day. Something that we could bake up quickly in the morning and get it out the door. Something a bit breakfast-like, but more savory than sweet. We figured scones would be fine, especially since we have a flexible recipe that allows you to make and shape the scones ahead of time and just bake them when you need them. That way, if you want, you can have fresh, hot scones every day for a week.

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