Lisa's Italian Christmas Baskets (and the recipe for the real Sicilian Fig Newton!)

Lisa's making one of her signature Christmas gifts now - baskets with goodies for friends and loved ones! And...Lisa's also been making Cucidata, the Sicilian Fig Newton. Read on for recipes and more!

Hello Sunday Dinner Lovers! It’s only 5 days until Natale (Christmas!). As part of the final touches for the festivities, I’m putting together my Italian Christmas baskets. In the 1990s I started my business doing this - putting together baskets with vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, pastas, pâté, and more for Americans who were craving authentic Italian products. Today, I just put together baskets for my close friends and family with extensive home made goodies. Here’s what the baskets looked like a few days ago as I started to assemble! I’ll be sharing a video of how I put together my basket soon on my YouTube channel so you can see the completed basket!

This year I’m putting caponata, a goat cheese and red and green pesto pâté, roasted peppers, my Classic Red Sauce, Garofalo pasta, a mini panettone, and Christmas cookies (cucidata, pine nut cookies, snowballs, handkerchief cookies, and my chocolate thumbprint with maraschino cherries) into my baskets.

The tomato sauce, the caponata, the roasted peppers! And….here are the goat cheese and red and green pesto pâtés!

And… below are just some of the cookies! And here are some of the recipes!