Italian home cooking

Mixed Pasta with Basil Pesto and Tuna
Mixed Pasta with Basil Pesto and Tuna

Mixed Pasta with Basil Pesto and Tuna excerpted from Eat Like a Sardinian: Live to 100 by Francesco Mattana. Photography © Dave Brown 2026.

Eat Like a Sardinian: Live to 100 by Francesco Mattana

“More than just a cookbook – it’s a love letter to Sardinia” – Jamie Oliver

An exciting debut cookbook from a rising star in the world of Italian cooking!

Sardinia captures the true spirit of Mediterranean cooking. Here, you find a way of life filled with simple, fresh, seasonal ingredients, healthy fats and plenty of time spent cooking, eating and spending time with loved ones. Sardinia is, after all, one of only five designated “blue zones” in the world – where people live longer than anywhere else.

In Eat Like a Sardinian, chef Francesco Mattana invites you to discover the rich and varied food culture of the island, bringing together his experiences learning to cook from the women around him and years of teaching at Jamie Oliver’s Cookery School to create authentic, delicious home cooking recipes that everyone can master, with all the tips and tricks needed to get them right every time. Find the perfect small bite for your aperitivo hour, stock up your pantry with preserves, perfect your pasta and bread-making skills, learn how to entertain the Sardinian way with impressive fish, meat and vegetable dishes and finish it all off with a traditional dolci. Who knew healthy living could be so sweet?

Recipes include Francesco’s viral spaghetti al pomodoro, Italian lemon tart, roasted lamb with artichokes and potatoes, bruschetta with figs, and the “live to 100” minestrone.

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Nonna’s Stuffed Aubergines
Nonna’s Stuffed Aubergines

Nonna’s Stuffed Aubergines excerpted from Sicily: Recipes from an Italian island by Enza Genovese and Sandra Mahut. Photography by Sandra Mahut.

Sicily: Recipes from an Italian island by Enza Genovese and Sandra MahutEssential Recipes from a Mediterranean Island

A beautiful collection of delicious Sicilian recipes, complete with stunning photography of the island itself

Discover the flavours of Sicily through this irresistible collection of recipes, each accompanied by specially commissioned photography that captures the island’s sun-soaked charm.

From the bustling streets of Palermo to the colourful markets of Cefalù, Sicily is a feast for the senses. In these pages, Sicilian cook Enza Genovese invites you to travel across her homeland through food—from the first golden bite of an arancino to the sweet crunch of a canola.

You’ll find time-honoured classics alongside new favourites, each recipe crafted to bring the warmth and generosity of Sicilian cooking into your own kitchen.

Chapters include

Antipasti
Arancini, Nonna’s eggplant parmigiana, Sicilian focaccia

Pasta
Casarecce alla Norma, spaghetti with ricotta and pistachios, sardine bucatini

Risotto and Couscous
Artichoke and pea risotto, Trapanese couscous, lobster risotto (more…)

Tomato-Olive Focaccia
Tomato-Olive Focaccia

Tomato-Olive Focaccia excerpted from MILK STREET BACKROADS ITALY by Christopher Kimball and J.M. Hirsch. Copyright © 2025 by CPK Media, LLC. Photograph by Connie Miller.

MILK STREET BACKROADS ITALY by Christopher Kimball and J.M. Hirsch. Copyright © 2025 by CPK Media, LLC.Discover the real techniques, ingredients, and stories behind the Italian dishes you know and love—and the ones you’ve yet to try—with more than 145 delicious recipes that bring simplicity back to Italian cooking, from the James Beard Award-winning team at Milk Street. 

Forget everything you thought you knew about Italian food. In Italy, cooks throw away their garlic, they don’t stir their polenta, and they never labour over pans of risotto. But they do make enormous meatballs that are tender and light, and they occasionally break all the rules when making pasta.

The editors at Milk Street have spent years scouring small eateries, local markets, farms and home kitchens from Lombardy to Calabria and from Sardinia to Sicily in search of fresh takes on classic recipes as well as little-known regional favourites that never crossed the Atlantic.

On our travels we found new ways with pasta, from foolproof cacio e pepe in Rome to Puglia’s olive oil—crisped fettuccine with chickpeas and a lemony pesto from Amalfi, where the pasta itself is enriched with citrus. Plus some surprising tomato sauces, including spaghetti all’assassina from Bari—spicy, charred, and made in one skillet. (more…)

Beer-Braised Beef Short Ribs
Beer-Braised Beef Short Ribs

Beer-Braised Beef Short Ribs, excerpted from Lidia’s a Pot, a Pan, and a Bowl by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali. Copyright © 2021 Tutti a Tavola, LLC. Photography by Armando Rafael. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

Lidia's a Pot, a Pan, and a Bowl: Simple Recipes for Perfect Meals Lidia Bastianich—”doyenne of Italian cooking” (Chicago Times)—makes Italian cooking easy for everyone with this new, beautifully designed, easy-to-use cookbook. Here are more than 100 homey, simple-to-prepare recipes that require fewer steps and fewer ingredients (not to mention fewer dirty pots and pans!), without sacrificing any of their flavour.

These are just a few of the delectable dishes that fill this essential book of recipes:

•  Spinach, Bread, and Ricotta Frittata
•  One-Pan Chicken and Eggplant Parmigiana
•  Roasted Squash and Carrot Salad with Chickpeas and Almonds
•  Penne with Cauliflower and Green Olive Pesto
•  Balsamic Chicken Stir-Fry
•  Skillet Lasagna
•  Braised Calamari with Olives and Peppers
•  Beer-Braised Beef Short Ribs
•  Apple Cranberry Crumble

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Meatballs in Tomato Sauce
Meatballs in Tomato Sauce, Gregg's Italian Family Cookbook, Gregg and Anna Wallace, Photography by James Murphy

Meatballs in Tomato Sauce, Gregg’s Italian Family Cookbook, Gregg and Anna Wallace, Photography by James Murphy

Gregg Wallace has fallen in love with Italian cuisine. Along with his wife Anna, and a little help from her Italian parents, he has created a simple Italian cookbook so we can all enjoy traditional Italian cuisine at home.

For Italians, food is not just about recipes, it’s a way of life. It’s about making time for each other, forgetting work and worries, and enjoying tasty, satisfying meals. Gregg and Anna share the dishes they have explored, laughed and argued about with their family, from vitello tonnato to orecchiette and crespelle to veal chops, bagna cauda and bowls of vongole. Brought to life through stunning photography in the Tuscan countryside and buzzing food markets, you’ll discover traditional recipes, cooked the authentic Italian way.

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Cookbook Review: Rao’s Classics

Rao’s is the legendary, tiny corner restaurant in East Harlem where it’s impossible to book a table: each of the red-checked, cloth-covered four-, six-, and two-tops is reserved for a titan of New York industry, a celebrity, or a major politician. Permanently. Now Frank Pellegrino, the third generation of his family to operate the impossible-to-get-into Rao’s restaurant in East Harlem and founder of Rao’s food products line, goes deep into the history of his family, the restaurant, and America’s love affair with Southern Italian cooking to create Rao’s Classics cookbook.
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