Mascarpone Meatballs & Farmer's Market Pasta

These mascarpone meatballs are so tender and flavorful they just melt in your mouth. Fragrant with herbs and just a hint of spice they pair beautifully with a variety of sauces for pasta or just sop them up with a crusty loaf of bread for a quick and filling lunch.I love them paired with fresh vegetables and a roasted pepper sauce - my Farmer's Market Pasta.

Like many people I have beautiful memories of my Mom making tomato sauce and meatballs. It was an all day affair that mostly involved shooing me out of the kitchen. This was probably wise since when Mom wasn't looking I would take one of her worn wooden spoons and scoop out a meatball to eat. So hot I would almost burn my tongue, but so worth it for the way they fell apart when bitten into, sauce dripping from the wooden spoon.

Orange Cranberry Walnut Bread

I have had a lifelong love affair with fruit breads ever since tasting my Grammie's luscious banana bread as a child and helping my Mom make fruit breads as gifts every Christmas. This orange cranberry walnut bread is a fabulous breakfast or snack bread. The orange scent permeates the sweet, crisp exterior while the inside remains tender and moist with bursts of tart, fresh cranberries and rich toasted walnuts; It is so flavorful that adding butter or cream cheese to a slice really is gilding the lily.

Lessons in Love and Lobster Stock

I grew up with a Mom who makes the best chicken soup in the world. This chicken soup chases away the winter chill and cures colds. It provokes a happy dance when I find a container tucked away in the freezer and whatever else I might have had planned for dinner goes out the window. A couple of winters ago I caught a nasty cold and was just miserable. With bleary eyes and a Cathy Moriarty voice, ensconced in a tissue empire on the couch, I begged my husband to call my Mom and ask her for the recipe for her soup. He rolled his eyes but he dutifully called her and he tried to re-create it, but he ended up doing things just a bit too much his own way. A few days later when I was feeling better, I phoned Mom and said, "well, he really loves me to go to all that trouble; but between you and me, Mom, it just wasn't the same." With hot buttered toast made with fresh bread from Parziale's,  I'm pretty sure this soup could inspire world peace. You just cannot be mad when you have a mouthful of that rich, golden broth. It's all because Mom makes her own chicken stock.

Mom & Grammie; 1970s