A Sweet February

 Ready to play along? This blog post will be short and "sweet" I promise :-) This is the sunroom in our house, the room I blog in. Lots of windows and skylights, perfect for a romantic, locally sourced dinner from the farmers and food artisans of the Oneida County Public Market. 

 We decided to show how much we care by cooking with our own two hands for our anniversary. We picked up our "Farm Gate to Dinner Plate" meal ingredients from our public market. They chose the menu and gave us the ingredients.

 I love how they did the bread. You just pull apart the sections. No slicing necessary!  

 The table is set, I froze the bread and will warm it up on Wednesday. They also gave us some wonderful cookies for dessert but I had already made the heart sugar cookies so I froze them. Joe's picking up a small bouquet of roses for the center of the table. This table is small and space is of a premium. 

 The menu is below. I can't wait for this dinner to happen. LOL

I appreciate you stopping by!

xoxo

Debbie

I Cannoli Be Happy With You

My Valentine is known for a few signature food items amongst family, friends and students. Whenever there is a large crowd, he makes cannolis so it was fitting that I give him a cannoli for our anniversary. The cannoli filling is already made, and comes in large pastry bags so all he has to do is pipe the filling into the shells. The photo below is from Xavier's baptism. 

Sharing some history about cannoli - With the Arab introduction of sugar into Sicily in the 9th century, the cooking style of this three sided island changed forever. Ricotta had long been an essential part of the Sicilian cuisine as well as pine nuts and currants. Resourceful Sicilians added the neutral sweetness of sugar to these sample foods, wrapped them in a fried but delicate pastry "tube" and hence the birth of cannoli.

Originally enjoyed by Sicilians only at Carnival time, word spread quickly of their goodness. The wonderful legacy of this Sicilian invention now enjoys worldwide popularity.

There are many, many recipes for cannoli. Some sweet, some not so sweet. For the filling, the traditional ingredients are ricotta cheese, confectioner's sugar, ground cinnamon, finely chopped candied orange or lemon, and finely chopped chocolate. I usually omit the candied citrus and the chocolate. You can top ends of filled cannoli with your choice of decorations if you like. I have used chopped pistachio nuts. If you prefer, you can use Mascarpone instead of ricotta for the filling. When I serve cannoli to children, I use colored sprinkles on the ends. 

I am fortunate enough to live near Italian specialty stores and they stock the shells and filling. I do have the forms, and they work very well but I am usually short on time. Some prefer to use a pasta maker so the cannoli dough is the correct thickness.

I've used Sicilian style hand rolled cannoli shells, and they are excellent. When we were in New York City recently, I sampled cannoli, and these hand rolled shells taste very similar.

For a recent dinner party, I dipped the tips of the cannoli into melted dark chocolate and piped the filling. 

Thank you for your visit! I am joining Rattlebridge Farm for Foodie Friday.

Debbie

Happy Valentine's Day

I don't even remember where I got this picture, but Happy Valentine's Day all!!

xo

Debbie