Italian Antipasto Salad, Basil Pesto Dipping Sauce, and Italian Cream Sodas

I am a member of the World Market Trendsetter Tribe.  These Italian recipes are sponsored by World Market as part of their Gourmet Getaway Sweepstakes.

Get ready to be hungry!  I've got not one, but three amazing Italian recipes to share with you today!!  I love sitting down together with my family to enjoy a homemade dinner together.  It's an important part of my family's day where we can relax and enjoy one another's company.

Last week I made a trip to World Market (okay, a few trips to World Market) to pick up some gourmet Italian ingredients from their gourmet food and drink section to make my family an Italian dinner- a delicious antipasto salad, some rosemary bread with a basil pesto dipping sauce, and then some Italian cream sodas for dessert... yum!  Here's what I bought for the salad...

La Terrazze Extra Virgin Olive Oil // Domaine de Vignes Aged Red Wine Vinegar // Columbus Italian Dry Salame // Cucina & Amore Grilled Artichoke Hearts // World Market Italian Seasoning 

I also bought a few things from the grocery store: romaine hearts, provolone cheese, black olives, grape tomatoes, garlic cloves, and some fresh basil.  Here are the easy directions to make this delicious salad!

Italian Antipasto Salad

Ingredients:

For the Salad:

• 3 Romaine lettuce hearts, chopped or torn into bite-sized pieces
• 4 oz. Columbus Italian Dry Salame, cut into thin slices
• 4 oz. provolone cheese, cut into thin slices
• 1 can black olives, sliced
• 1 can Cucina & Amore Grilled Artichoke Hearts, sliced
• 1 package grape tomatoes
• Fresh basil, cut into thin strips, to taste

For the Dressing:

• 1/4 cup Terrazze Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1/2 cup Domaine de Vignes Aged Red Wine Vinegar
• Splash of balsamic vinegar
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp. World Market Italian Seasoning

Combine all of the salad ingredients in a large bowl.  I used my Coupe Serving Bowl I fell in love with at World Market and had to have.  Combine all of the dressing ingredients in a small bowl.  Pour salad dressing on the salad, and mix well.  Refrigerate until ready to serve, to allow the flavors to combine.

This salad was great!  Although this salad is meant to be an appetizer, you can always serve it as a main dish if you add more salame and cheese, and serve it with other Italian favorites!  We ate our salad off of the white Coupe Salad Plates, which I love because they are simple and classic, and would look great with any food served on them!

I served this salad to my family with some store-bought rosemary bread, and a quick basil pesto dipping sauce I made- this sauce literally took me less than a minute to make!

All I did was combine some Sacla Italia Pesto Alla Genovese Basil Pesto with some La Terrazze Olive Oil to make the dipping sauce- so easy, and yet so delicious!!  I served the sauce on a white Coupe Salad Plate.  My kids and husband and I loved dipping our bread in this amazing sauce!

Now onto my favorite part- the drinks!  Who doesn't love buying a fruity and creamy Italian Creme Soda?  My family LOVES them, but it can get expensive buying one for all six of us in my family.  Did you know that it's so easy to make your own at home?  You can customize this recipe to suit your own taste, and the flavor possibilities are endless! Plus, you'll save yourself a ton of money making these at home instead of buying them, which is always a bonus!

World Market has a GREAT selection of Torani syrups that you'll use in this recipe.  I picked up four bottles for our Italian creme sodas because it's fun to mix and match and combine flavors to make your own custom drink.  Have fun and get creative!

Italian Creme Sodas

For each soda you will need:

• 1 cup club soda
• 4 Tbsp. Torani syrup (any flavor that you would like)
• 1 Tbsp. half and half
• Ice
• Whip cream 
• Soiree Maraschino Cherries

1.  Fill cup with ice.  Add 4 Tbsp. Torani syrup to the ice, and fill glass with club soda.  Stir.

2.  Slowly pour in the half and half.  This is the best part!  When the half and half combines with the ice and cold soda it makes beautiful creamy swirls that look amazing!  If you are careful and don't move the cup around too much, you can keep the swirls in place when serving these drinks to guests.  Add whip cream and a cherry to the top and serve!

Another great thing about this drink is that it's low calorie!  Club soda has zero calories and you can buy Torani Sugar Free syrup with zero calories- the only calories will come from the half and half (you can buy this fat free, too), and the whip cream and cherry (which you could leave off if you like).  Not too bad for an amazing drink!!

Did you know that right now World Market is giving away an amazing prize in their Gourmet Getaway Sweepstakes?  You can enter to win a 6 day culinary trip for 2 to Venice, Italy!  Trip includes airfare and accommodations, Cicchetti tour, a hands-on Venetian cooking class, a cheese making demonstration and tasting, and a $1,000 World Market gift card- WOW!  Plus, three first prize winners will receive $500 World Market gift cards.  You can also earn bonus entries for liking World Market on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr for more chances to win!  Check out the video below with Joey Fatone!

World Market has partnered with the Live Well Network and their hit show My Family Recipe Rocks, hosted by Joey Fatone.  My Family Recipe Rocks features amazing hometown cooks across America, and and Joey Fatone and his crew cook up old family recipes, new homegrown dishes, and meeting people behind their great food in their own kitchens.

You can tune in to My Family Recipe Rocks on Sundays at 8:30 p / 7:30 c.  You can check local listings at livewellnetwork.com.

Be sure to enter World Market's Gourmet Getaway Sweepstakes!  How great would that be to win a culinary trip to Italy and a $1,000 World Market gift card?  You can't win if you don't enter!

I hope you give these gourmet Italian recipes a try, and be sure to check out World Market's great gourmet food section, as well as the rest of the store.... I promise you won't leave empty-handed!

For more fall fun, you can print off my fall activities bucket list punch card.

And for a fun family Halloween meal, check out this Spooky Spaghetti with Eyeballs!

To decorate your home this fall, you can see how to make this cinnamon-scented nature wreath,

or this fall wreath made out of paper!

If you liked this project, please follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin', and Instagram.

xo, Laura

Linking up here: Whipperberry, Tidy Mom, 30 Handmade Days, Tatertots and Jello, Ginger Snap Crafts, Snap!

Surf and Turf Dinner Party + Rosemary Potato & Yogurt Dipping Sauce Recipe

One of my favorite things to do during the summertime is to entertain family and friends.  I love to play hostess and put together dinner parties and get togethers.  I have so much fun picking out the perfect dishes and dinnerware, decorations, and food for the party.

Recently I made a delicious surf and turf meal for my family and parents.  I used lots of fresh, natural ingredients, many of them freshly picked from the garden.  I knew I wanted the dinner to have a nautical theme, so I went to World Market and found the perfect dinnerware and entertaining pieces to use!  

I fell in love with so many items from their outdoor entertaining and outdoor dining collections, and found a way to incorporate many of them into my nautical surf and turf meal.  Be sure to check out their fun outdoor entertainment and outdoor dining items to find just the right products for your summer entertaining!

You might already know I have a slight obsession with anchors (and anything nautical, really), so World Market was THE place for me to shop for my dinner!

The anchor and crab Seascape Plates (pictured above) screamed out my name, so I bought a set of 8, as well as three of the matching anchor and crab Seascape Platters.

One of my favorite little nautical details was this Seahorse Spreader.  So cute!  And of course I had to have the matching Seahorse Servers, too, to serve with the Caesar salad.  You might also recognize the Lagoon dinnerware from my Coconut Macadamia Mango Crusted Mahi Mahi recipe.  I used the large Lagoon Platter for serving the garlic bread, and I used the large Lagoon Serving Bowl to serve the Caesar Salad in. I love the light aqua color, and the way that it almost looks like sea glass... beautiful!

Since no party is complete without World Market's delicious Italian Sodas, I picked up five different flavors for our dinner.  So refreshing!  I served them in the Galvanized Party Tub, which was the perfect size to hold all of our drinks.  I also picked up the Black Metal Party Tub Stand, which held the party tub really well so that I didn't have to use up my valuable table space for the drinks.

I've been looking for a few years (literally) now for the perfect drink dispenser for my parties, and I finally found this beautiful glass drink dispenser at World Market for only $19.99!  I bought two, and am absolutely in love with them. They have a few different styles of dispensers there, so be sure to check them out!  The hardest part will be deciding which one to buy!

To add to the nautical theme of my surf and turf dinner party, I included a net onto the table and used it as a runner.  On top of that, I used my DIY American Flag Garland that I made out of burlap and some spray paint. 

I love the color that it added to the table, and it matched perfectly with another favorite World Market find- the American Flag Pillow, perfect for the Fourth of July!  I picked up two of these adorable pillows. 

For our surf and turf dinner, I decided to go with shrimp and lobster tail and top sirloin steak. Yummmm!! We grilled the shrimp and steak, and boiled the lobster tail.

The meat and seafood tasted absolutely perfect! To go with main dishes, my mom and I made some delicious salads.

I made a Caesar salad, and my mom went out to the garden and picked fresh tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, and dill to make a tomato basil salad and a cucumber onion salad.  The salads tasted so fresh since the ingredients came straight from the garden!

One of my favorite side dishes I created for this meal were the Rosemary Potatoes with a Creamy Caper and Dill Dipping Sauce.  I love that I can smother my potatoes in a tangy, creamy dipping sauce without feeling guilty, since this sauce is made with a Greek yogurt base (instead of heavy mayonnaise) and various herbs and spices.  No guilt at all!

The many different flavors in the sauce all fuse into one, and are amazing with the potatoes, but could also easily be used as a sauce for the shrimp, lobster, or steak.  Here's the recipe so you can try making your own!

Rosemary Potatoes with a Creamy Caper & Dill Dipping Sauce:

For the potatoes:

• Red potatoes
• Olive oil
• Fresh rosemary, chopped 
• Sea salt
• Pepper
• Diced onions (optional)

For the dipping sauce:

• 1 cup plain Greek yogurt (I used Fage)
• 1 Tbsp. capers, chopped (I used canned)
• 1/4 tsp. white pepper
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 Tbsp. fresh dill, chopped
• 1/8 cup fresh lemon juice
• 2-3 Tbsp. red onion, chopped
• Sea salt, to taste

Mix up the dipping sauce first so that the flavors can meld together while the potatoes are cooking. 

If you aren't familiar with capers, they are a small round edible flower bud used in pickling and flavoring fish, seafood, salads, etc.  I bought a small jar of capers, as well as my white pepper, at World Market.  Their white pepper tastes great and is very strong, and is the perfect color to blend right into the creamy caper and dill yogurt dipping sauce.

Add all of the ingredients to the Greek yogurt, and stir well to mix in all of the ingredients thoroughly. Place in the fridge until ready to serve.

Now on to the potatoes!  Wash and slice each potato to about a 1/4" thickness.  Place in baking pan and drizzle with 1/4 cup olive oil.  Add the chopped rosemary, sea salt, pepper, and diced onions (if using), and stir to mix.  Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.  Halfway through cooking, carefully add another 1/4 cup of olive oil to the potatoes. 

After 20 minutes, pull out a potato slice with a fork, and test for doneness.  If the potato is cooked, then you may either:

1. Remove the potatoes from the oven (and keep warm until ready to serve)  or 

2. Place them in a grilling basket for about 10 minutes away from direct heat on your grill.  This will allow the potatoes to have a slightly smoky, grilled flavor.  If you do the grilling option, make sure that the potatoes are away from direct heat, and be sure to check them regularly!  We also added a few large sprigs of rosemary and some large slices of red onion for extra flavor and color. 

To serve the dipping sauce, I used these lovely large natural baking shells that I bought from World Market.  They come all clean and ready for food to be placed, or even baked, inside of them.  The shells were the perfect size for individual portions of the sauce, and fit in perfectly with my nautical theme!

Good food, a loving family, great weather, and World Market!! The perfect combination for an amazing summer dinner party!

Oh, and a few books and someone to read them to you is crucial, too.  Just ask my daughter ;)

I hope you enjoyed all the fun details of our delicious summer dinner!  If you are doing any entertaining this summer, be sure to visit World Market (in store or on-line) and see all of the amazing entertaining items they sell.  

Cost Plus World Market has partnered up with Southwest Airlines to offer four Great Summer Getaways!  Enter for a chance to win a trip for 4 anywhere Southwest Airlines flies!

There are 4 weekly Grand Prize Packages that include airfare for 4 on Southwest Airlines, hotel accommodations, AND a $500 World Market Gift Card!  You can also earn bonus entries for liking their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr brand pages for more chances to win.

Be sure to enter the sweepstakes here!  And good luck!!  Wouldn't that be so cool if one of my readers won?  Fingers crossed for you!

Are you doing any entertaining this summer?  Any fun vacations planned?  I'd love to hear about it!

If you haven't already, I'd love for you to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin', and Instagram.

xo, Laura

I am a member of the World Market Trendsetter Tribe, and I was compensated for this post.  All opinions are 100% my own.

Linking Up Here:  Sugar Bee Crafts, Lolly Jane, SNAP!, Lil' Luna, Ginger Snap Crafts, Somewhat Simple, The 36th Avenue, House of Hepworths

Grilled Rosemary Pita Bread

My husband makes the most amazing pita bread.  Last week I experimented a little bit with the recipe and turned the regular pita bread that we usually bake in the oven into a rosemary pita bread that we cooked on the grill.

And the results were delicious!

The dough puffs up so well on the grill and gives the bread a little smoky flavor, as well as leaving behind those great telltale grill marks.

AND on a hot summer day you won't even have to turn the oven on to get fresh, tasty bread.  Can't beat that!  If you're not a rosemary fan (I'm sorry), then you can always leave it out to make a plain pita.

We ate our rosemary grilled pita bread with grilled chicken tenders tucked inside, and it was amazing!  Next time I'll have to make some tzatziki sauce to finish it off... yum!

The original recipe comes from our Williams-Sonoma Bread cook book, but I've adapted it slightly.  And if you don't have the Williams-Sonoma cook books, they're really really good!  We own the whole series and use them all the time.

Grilled Rosemary Pita Bread

• 1 Tbsp. active dry yeast
• Pinch of sugar
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 1/2-4 cups flour
• a few sprigs of rosemary, chopped (as course or as fine as you would like)

1.  Sprinkle the yeast and sugar over 1/2 cup of the warm water.  Stir to dissolve.  Let sit for about 10 minutes, until foamy.

2.  In a mixer (I used my Kitchen Aid), use the paddle attachment to combine the remaining 1 cup of water, oil, salt, and 1 cup of the flour.  Beat for 1 minute on medium speed, then stir in the yeast mixture.  Beat in the rest of the flour and the chopped rosemary, 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.  

Switch to the dough hook.  Mix on low speed for about 3 minutes until the dough is stiff and sticky, adding 1 Tbsp. of flour at a time if the dough sticks.  Place the dough into a deep oiled bowl, and turn it in the oil to coat it.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 1-1 1/2 hours.

3.  Once the dough has doubled, turn the grill onto medium-low heat.  Divide the dough on a lightly floured board into half, and then divide each half into 5 equal pieces.  Roll each piece into a ball.  Let the dough balls rest for 10 minutes.  You can roll out each ball, or form the rounds by hand.  I prefer by hand.  Each ball should be rolled into an approximately 6 inch round.

4.  Place the rounds on the grill, and cover the lid.  Check the bread frequently, as it will only take a couple minutes per side to puff up and cook.  Flip the bread over and grill the other side, and then remove from the grill when the bread is puffy and looks completely baked.  Stack the finished pitas on a plate and cover with a dish towel to keep warm while you grill the rest of the pitas.  

Serve warm.  Makes 10 pitas.  You can easily double the recipe to make 20, which is what we did for our family of 6.

You can eat the pita plain, dipped in olive oil, or with your choice of meat or chicken.  We ate ours with grilled chicken, but this would also taste great with beef or gyro meat.

Enjoy!!

And while the grill is still hot, you could also try making some easy grilled corn, or my coconut macadamia mango crusted mahi mahi.  These chocolate no-bake cookies, chocolate cake, or Special K bars would also make a great dessert!

xo, Laura

If you liked this idea, please follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin', and Instagram.

Linking Up Here: Lolly Jane, Lil Luna, Ginger Snap Crafts, Someday Crafts, A to Zebra Celebrations, SNAP!, House of Hepworths, 36th Avenue, Whipperberry, Tidy Mom, See Vanessa Craft, Tatertots & Jello, Six Sisters Stuff, I Heart Naptime, Craft-O-Maniac, Skip to My Lou, Sugar Bee Crafts, Somewhat Simple

Easy Grilled Corn

Why does everything taste better when it's cooked on a grill?  Corn on the cob is no exception to this rule, and this recipe for easy grilled corn is so delicious!

Grilling corn on the grill gives it a delicious smoky flavor, and tastes so much better than boiling!  Yes, there are a couple extra steps, but they're not hard, and the amazing flavor of the grilled corn makes it totally worth the easy extra steps.

Ingredients:

• Corn 
• Butter
• Salt & pepper

(At this point, you'll want to remove the silk from the corn)

Peel back those layers when the husks are cool enough to touch, and enjoy!

The taste of grilled corn is so delicious!!  If your corn gets little pieces of black ash on it because the layer of husks may not have been thick enough, then simply rinse off the corn and add more butter and salt.  

I hope you enjoy your corn as much as we did!

This corn would taste delicious with my coconut macadamia mango crusted mahi mahi, and these Special K bars or chocolate no-bake cookies would be perfect for dessert!

If you liked this project, please follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin', and Instagram.

xo, Laura

Linking Up Here: House of Hepworths, 36th Avenue