Italian Night!

Who doesn't like lasagna? The tomato sauce and "cheesy" sauce are such well matched to this giant casserole. I also made delicious focaccia bread using our rosemary and thyme herbs. This reminded me one of my most memorable trips in Tuscany, Italy! We did a cooking class in Villa Bordoni and learned how to make focaccia bread.

Homemade lasagna does require some work. First, I had to make the red sauce, then the "Italian sausage", which I use assorted mushrooms and chopped into tiny bits as minced meat substitute. They key ingredient for the "Italian Sausage" is fennel seeds and smoked paprika. Look up for any recipe and just use the seasonings to flavor the mushrooms. The cheese part is almonds, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, nutritional yeast and some non-dairy milk. I also roasted broccoli, pumpkin and bell peppers. My husband, John, made the lasagna sheet. Everything was pre-made/cooked except the lasagna sheets. We assembled everything at the end with the freshly made lasagna sheet, then bake it for an hour. Time and effort are totally worth it!

Focaccia bread, I use fresh rosemary and thyme from our rooftop garden. I cooked the minced garlic and fresh herbs with the olive oil for 10 minutes, so the oil is infused with the flavor. You can refer to this link for the recipe: https://www.inspiredtaste.net/19313/easy-focaccia-bread-recipe-with-herbs/.

Eggplant Caponate is another dish I learned back in Oct 2019 when we were traveling in Sicily. The cooking class was amazing. Chef Paulo and his wife, Ingrid, were so thoughtful and the food was really delicious. It was an all day event. We arrived there at 10:30am, and didn't leave until 5pm. They even took us to tour around the village, and bought all the local ingredients. It is definitely one of the best cooking classes we had ever done. This is Trust me, we had done a lot of them. Highly recommended if you ever go to Sicily! You can contact him through Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liberocontadinogiarratana.