{Guest Blog} Cheers to Italia!

Thank you to Alyssa Ross, Editor-in-Chief of An Easy Spread for today’s post.

I often enjoy a good dry, Italian red wine, such as the Di Majo Norante Sangiovese 2008. It's tart and full of fruity flavors, making it a great accompaniment with pasta, pizza, parmigana, or sausage. In fact, this reasonably priced wine (I bought a bottle for 9$ at Total Wine) scored a whopping 90pts in The Wine Advocate.

But when I'm craving a sweeter, more luxurious Italian drink, I treat myself to a glass of Limoncello or Prosecco. Limoncello is a sweet lemon liquor, which is mainly produced in various areas of Southern Italy. Traditionally, it is served as a chilled after dinner drink to aid digestion. Trust me, after a big bowl of pasta bolognese this is just the thing you need. Cold, sweet, and smooth. You can purchase a bottle from your local ABC store, or you can be adventurous like Chloe and make it yourself. 

Prosecco is another one of my favorites. It's a dry, sparkling Italian wine. My mouth always puckers with that first delicious sip. At 10-13$ a bottle, this is often used as a cheaper alternative to Champagne. It's also popularly known as one of the main ingredients in a Bellini Cocktail: Prosecco, peach puree, and a splash of Raspberry juice. I often make my Bellinis in the blender with frozen peaches to substitute for the peach puree. You can find different varieties of Prosecco at Total Wine or your local wine shop.

Be sure to check out An Easy Spread, especially if you are in the D.C. area and are looking for local recommendations. My favorite section, of course, is the Food Poetry.

Food Gifts

If you love to cook, why not make edible gifts for friends?

This holiday season (which happily lasted deep into January!), my husband and I made limoncello, salarom and chocolates for our friends. With some labels from Staples, we were able to dress them up a little, too. In an effort to be green, we used recycled bottles that we collected the last few months.

Limoncello is an Italian lemon-flavored vodka. We actually made two batches. The first one, with a recipe from Giada de Laurentiis, had entirely too much water and tasted terrible. I salvaged it by boiling it down and making a lemon syrup for cakes, teas, etc. The second batch called for less water and less sugar. Limoncello should be served cold and after dinner.

When you make limoncello, you inevitably have batches of lemon left since the recipe only calls for the rinds (sans pith.) I squeezed the lemons and saved the lemon juice. I froze some in small batches and made lemon pasta and lemon muffins with the rest.

Bolognese salarom is an Italian salt mixed with dried rosemary and garlic. I didn’t follow a particular recipe, but instead looked at the jar I had and mixed the ingredients until it looked right. This salt is great for an olive oil dipping plate, meats or really anywhere else you use salt.

To make the chocolates, I crushed candy canes and flavored the lollypops. The ducks were decorated with yellow colored sugar. It was very easy to melt and mold the chocolates. Wilton has an easy guide on their website. I purchased the lollypop sticks, plastic covers and decorating tools at Michael’s.