A few months ago, I received an email from a woman who had lost a recipe of mine for Baked Penne with Italian Sausage and Porcini. It had appeared in The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch newspaper way back in 1991. She explained that the dish held special sentimental value to her since she and her now husband had cooked it together on one of their early dates. After emailing a copy to her, I made a note to try the recipe myself, and finally got around to it this past week.  I loved the flavors of this casserole—sautéed Italian sausage and porcini mushrooms and a quick homemade tomato sauce paired with penne, all topped with sliced fresh mozzarella.

Several decades later, I tweaked this recipe to fit my lifestyle today. The Continue reading →

For the past few weeks, I’ve been revising a recipe for decadent chocolate cupcakes prepared with three different types of chocolate. For these heavenly little treats, cocoa powder and chocolate chips add a double burst of flavor to the cupcake batter, while the luscious glaze is prepared with chopped semisweet chocolate melted with cream and butter. It took several tries to tweak this recipe that I first made over a decade ago, but, being a certified chocoholic, I savored every bite of every batch.

Because my husband and I are empty nesters, still working and staying in Continue reading →

My 18-year old granddaughter, who is taking a gap year from college, texted recently, asking if I could send her recipes for dishes with shrimp and pasta. She is working fulltime, babysitting and tutoring two elementary school kids, and does house and pet sitting on weekends. All of this has suddenly made her very interested in cooking!  Hooray! I pored over my files, and a recipe that caught my eye was Fettuccine with Shrimp and Garlic Butter!  It was published more than three decades ago in my first cookbook, Betty Rosbottom’s Cooking School Cookbook, and remains a favorite of my students. Continue reading →

Last week after teaching one of my fall cooking classes, I noticed some interesting leftovers. I found a bag of dried mixed mushrooms as well as fresh brown mushrooms used to make a chicken ragoût. In the fridge there was a box of puff pastry, as well as heavy cream, butter, and eggs all utilized in a dessert tart. Eyeing these ingredients, I came up with an idea for turning them into a new creation, a savory wild mushroom and leek tart. I could taste the scrumptious tart in my mind as I wrote out my grocery list which included only two items- leeks and Gruyère cheese.

The tart shell prepared with purchased puff pastry was easy to roll out and shape in a tart pan. For the filling I sautéed fresh sliced mushrooms with Continue reading →