Stuffed Focaccia Bread with Sausage and Onions

You're going to love this recipe.  This stuffed focaccia is so delicious and such a crowd pleaser. It begins with my old standby focaccia recipe, the one I've made for 15 years, from Carol Field.  I make this bread so much that I don't even need the recipe anymore.  I take the dough, divide it in half and put one piece in a spring form (cheesecake) pan. I make up a stuffing of turkey sausage and plenty of onions and fill the pan and then lay the rest of the dough on top. I make mine spicy with the addition of a habanero chili, but you can certainly leave that out. You can really stuff it with anything you like - swap out the meat for lots of vegetables, like roasted peppers or mushrooms, if you want a vegetarian version. 

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Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Hazelnuts

I just have to show you the Valentine's gift that my husband gave me.  He knows I'm a big Trekkie.  Did you get flowers or jewelry for Valentine's?  I got a pizza cutter.  And I loved it.  When I was a kid, my brothers and I had a model of the Starship Enterprise hanging above our T.V. set by a piece of fishing line.  Bless my little Italian mother - she never made us take it down, although it must have looked so dumb to guests.  I thought about hanging my new pizza cutter from my pot rack in my kitchen, just to bring back old times.   Maybe not.

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Chocolate Gelato

We make ice cream at home quite a lot and I've posted several ice cream recipes in the past.  But I get asked enough about how to make gelato that I thought it was time for a post.

The big question for people is what is the difference between American ice cream and Italian gelato? When people taste gelato, they comment on the intensity of flavor and the different texture it has.  Gelato is very dense and this is because there is not the amount of air whipped into it like American ice cream.  Ice cream has a lot of air whipped into it and it makes for a lighter texture. Ice cream is also made from cream and sometimes eggs and has quite a bit of butterfat.  Gelato has much less butterfat and is made from milk. 

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