rosemary roasted rack of lamb with mint pesto

• rack of lamb
• fresh rosemary sprigs
• fresh mint, chopped fine
• fresh basil, chopped fine
• whole garlic cloves
• 1/2 lemon

Combine mint, basil, juice of half the lemon and a swirl of good quality olive oil in a large bowl, set aside. In large skillet over a high flame heat a couple of swirls of olive oil, brown each side of lamb for 2 minutes, transfer to oven safe dish. Cover lamb with fresh rosemary and garlic cloves and bake in oven at 325 degrees for 15 minutes or until cooked to desired doneness. Once cooked, discard rosemary and garlic, spoon pesto over lamb immediately as it comes out of the oven.

The dish: Okay, I lied. Not even a month ago I told you that I only eat lamb once a year, and here we have yet another preparation of it coming out of the red room. I promise that if it had not been Easter, this never would have happened. True to form, mint was in this recipe as well and it played quite nicely off the basil. This was the first time I ever tried cooking a rack of lamb and everyone thought it was great, so that was a relief. One glaring thing wrong with the dish is the absence of those little paper chef hat looking things they put on the lamb at fancy restaurants. If anyone has any idea of where to buy those things (or what they're called for that matter) please let me know. Just do me a favor and wait a while before telling me, because if I had them in my hands the temptation to do another rack of lamb would be too great and I can't bring it upon myself to lie so frequently.

Tuscan chili

• 4 cans cannelini beans, drained and washed


• 1 bag frozen chopped spinach


• 1 jar sun dried tomatoes, drained of oil


• 2 bell peppers, diced (I prefer yellow and orange)


• 3 cloves chopped garlic, or 3 tablespoons prepared garlic


• 3 tablespoons prepared pesto


• 4 links sausage


• 1/2 cup of vegetable stock


• chopped fresh parsley

If using raw sausage, brown meat in skillet and slice. If using cooked sausage, slice meat, then combine all ingredients except half of fresh parsley in crock pot (yeah, I'm that guy), season with dried Italian sounding herbs (look for lots of vowels- I used oregano), and cook on low for 8 hours. Garnish servings with fresh parsley.

The dish: I'm not really sure what makes a chili a chili, although typing this I'm inclined to think the presence of chili peppers does, but whatever. This is a great meal that has a chili-like satisfaction to it. Beans, peppers, meat- other than the Italian twist it's straight up chili. Like the more traditional variety of chili you can notch up the spice on this by adding some hot peppers, you can even find them Italian style if you wish to remain true to the name. If you're reading this and know me, you know the one thing on the planet that I CANNOT STAND is green peppers, which is fine because the yellow and orange ones really give off nice color alongside the green spinach and white beans. I used regular Italian sausage, but you could just as easily use a nice chicken sausage or no meat at all and this dish would satisfy. If you don't already own one I highly recommend picking up a crock pot as there is no way that we'd have a hot dinner half the time if we just didn't walk into it at the end of the day.

Mediterranean Boboli pizza

• 1 Boboli crust
• prepared pesto
• fresh spinach, chopped finely
• pitted kalamata olives, sliced
• 1 jar of artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
• ricotta cheese

Preheat oven to 425. If you have a pizza stone leave in and make sure it gets all hot, otherwise cook it directly on the rack, but if you're wondering why pizza you make at home sucks it's because you don't have one. Meanwhile, spoon dollops of pesto and ricotta randomly on crust and cover with rest of ingredients being generous as most of this stuff is pretty good for you. Cook in hot oven for 10 minutes or until toppings are hot and crust is crispy.

The dish: There is no substitute for real New York style thin crust, so when I make pizza at home I don't even try to replicate it. Boboli makes a pretty good and very easy crust and I try to load it up with all kinds of things I would never ask the dude with the vowel-heavy name behind the counter at the local pizzeria to top one of his slices with. Themes work well, this Mediterranean one is great for loading up on veggies, but you could just as easily be non-virtuous and have a bbq chicken or meats from around the world pie.