New Years Eve - Happy Birthday Fred

New years eve is coming up tomorrow.  My husband Fred's birthday.  Everyone celebrates his birthday!  I'm making one of his favorite dishes for dinner tonight.  Ravioli Casserole.  I love easy recipes and this one is made with frozen cheese ravioli, enhanced jar tomato sauce, grated romano cheese and meatball filling in between. 
I make my meatball recipe and use it crumbled up between each layer of ravioli.  The ravioli are placed in the casserole dish frozen with tomato sauce, making layers of ravioli, meat, sauce, cheese and ravioli again.  Baked for 35 minutes covered, and an additional 15 minutes uncovered. Serve with some fresh crusty italian bread and you will agree that  these are the best tasting ravioli you will ever have. 

Happy Birthday my sweet and HAPPY NEW YEAR  to everyone!

Holiday Sandwich Butter Cookies

Do you have a favorite butter cookie recipe that only comes out on holidays?  I know I do.  I did something a little different this year.  I put two of them together to make a sandwich cookie with vanilla icing in between.  Very pretty to look at and the icing makes the butter cookie just a little sweeter and delicious.  Try this sometime and you may be looking at butter cookies in a different way.....Merry Christmas, happy eating!

Easy Almond Crescents

Happy Holidays! Did you ever want to have something sweet, light and warm for breakfast?  Having out of town guests for the holidays?  Try these easy Almond Cresents.  Three ingredients:  refrigerated crescent rolls,  1 can almond filling (solo) and powdered sugar frosting.  Almonds as garnish add to the flavor. 
Unroll the crescents,  spread a little of the almond filling on each one,  roll and bake according to package directions.  While they are warm,  drizzle them with powder sugar frosting and sprinkle slivered almonds on top.  Your guests will be amazed and you will have done very little to give them a warm sweet for breakfast.  You don't have to stop at almond,  raspberry or apricot are also delicious.  Happy eating!

Christmas Cannoli

Here is a different twist on the Italian traditional cannoli.   My mom used to make these shells by hand and we would help her take the fried dough off the hot sticks and watch them cool.  Then we would help her take the ricotta cheese, cream, candied fruit and powdered sugar to make the filling.  They were (and still are) delicious.  But,  to try something different,  I bought the shells already made, and made my filing with mascarpone cheese and whipping cream.  Dipped them into red and green jimmies for Christmas and wow,  these are great!

Christmas Cannoli

2 cups heavy cream
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
15 ounces mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
12 store bought cannoli shells
Red and green jimmies for garnish

Pour the cream in mixing bowl. Beat until slightly thick. Add the powdered sugar, vanilla, and mascarpone cheese. Whip the cream mixture until thick and creamy. Fold in the walnuts before filling the cannoli. Take each cannoli shell and fill it with the filling from both sides of the shell. When filled, dip the edges into Christmas red and green sprinkles, arrange on plate, put in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, and serve. Can be refrigerated up to 3 days.
Note:  add a little rum or amaretto to the filling to make this a festive dessert!!
Enjoy....

Been a long time!

Well,  I've finally got my blog back!  It was not working for a few weeks.  I've been very busy baking for Thanksgiving and again for Christmas.  I'll be making cookie trays for Christmas gifts and making tiramisu, bundt cakes and a lot of other things.  I love this time of the year.  Hopefully, I will be able to chat more each day now!