spumoni bombe

dessert for M
inspired entirely by this book












based mostly on this recipe

i went with the haagen dazs recipe for two reasons: 1) the better homes & garden recipe calls for food coloring & artificial flavoring, which sounded distinctly unappetizing to me; and 2) i really like their ice cream. i ended up using their chocolate and cherry vanilla flavors, but went with ben & jerry's pistachio pistachio because i couldn't find haagen dazs pistachio anywhere. that was just fine as the pistachio pistachio was very tasty indeed. i did use part of the bh&g recipe for the center section (just raspberries, whipped cream and powdered sugar) and for the piped decor (whipped cream, powdered sugar and raspberry juice instead of food coloring). next time, i'll omit the raspberry layer and either add more cherries to the cherry vanilla layer or not mix in the whipped cream as the flavor was too subtle. we still managed to stuff ourselves silly with spumoni bombe despite these minor flaws.

beehive pasta timbale

dinner for M
inspired by this book

based on this recipe

i've been fascinated by this concept of a pasta-encased dish ever since i received diane seed's the top 100 pasta sauces as a birthday gift back in the 80's and saw the illustration for bucatini alla flamande. after twenty years, i figured it was time to try it. unfortunately, i realized the recipe in the book is a little vague, so i searched online for something similar and was happy to find lex culinaria's beehive pasta timbale. sounds like the same book and recipe inspired her as well. It came out quite nicely, even though i changed the quantities to make a smaller version. i will definitely make it again because it was fun to make, looked cool and it was really delicious!