Ciao Chow Linda

Grapefruit-Avocado Salad

2012-02-09T06:35:00.000-05:00

OK, so the Super Bowl parties and Buffalo wings are history but Valentine's Day and Carnevale are still looming. With those February holidays come a plethora of temptations from cakes and candies to the ubiquitous fried cookies and treats found in Italy at this time of year. I don't know about you, but I find it hard to resist all these goodies. That's why I try to behave myself in the hiatus between all the indulgences.

This salad fits the bill for me for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I know there are more delicious concoctions ahead in the next few weeks that will be hard to resist. So I'm taking the opportunity now to lighten my eating habits in anticipation of the next great eating binges. And trust me, there will be plenty ahead, including a few decadent recipes in the coming weeks right here on Ciao Chow Linda.

Join me for a week in Italy at the end of May and live like an Italian - sightseeing, cooking and eating in a villa located in the Alban Hills near Rome. There's still time to enroll. Go to www.cookinitalywithciaochowlinda.blogspot.com for details.

Pink Grapefruit, Avocado and Pomegranate Salad with Nasturtium Flowers

printable recipe here

Adapted from "Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume" by Silvena Rowe

(The plate in the photo is only 1/2 of this recipe below.)

2 pink grapefruits
2 large avocados
24 leaves fresh purple basil
1 large pomegranate
salt
3 T. white wine vinegar
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 t. prepared mustard
1/2 t. pomegranate molasses (I didn't feel like running to the store, so I used reduced balsamic vinegar instead)
1 t. ground sumac (Williams-Sonoma sells it, but if you can't find it, leave it out.)
6 to 8 fresh nasturtium flowers (It's winter in NJ and fresh nasturtium flowers are impossible to find, so I substituted candied violets and they were great as a sweet, crunchy contrast to the salad and dressing)
purple basil leaves

Peel the grapefruits, then cut into sections. Peel and slice the avocados, and deseed the pomegranate. I found it easiest to do this by cutting the pomegranate in half, then in half again. Hold each quarter of the pomegranate in the palm of your hand, skin side up, over a plate. With your other hand, take a spoon and rap hard against the outer skin of the pomegranate. Most of the seeds will fall down into your hand or on a plate you have placed underneath. Arrange the grapefruit sections, avocado slices and pomegranate seeds on a plate. Mix the dressing: salt, vinegar, oil, mustard, pomegranate molasses and sumac. Pour over the salad and decorate with the purple basil leaves, and edible flowers.

Nutella-filled Cream Puffs

2012-02-05T04:46:00.000-05:00

It's useless. I'm not even going to apologize for posting a decadent dessert after the more waistline-friendly pavlova dessert in my prior entry. Blame it on World Nutella Day - and the creators of the phenomenon - Ms Adventures in Italy and Bleeding Espresso.

Together, they've managed to corral Nutella lovers around the world with recipes, stories, artwork and other adventures involving the chocolate-hazelnut treat.

Today, February 5, is the sixth year of World Nutella Day - an event dedicated to spreading the Nutella joy across the blogosphere. So if you haven't participated as an entrant, at least you can enjoy the hundreds of posts from other Nutella devotees - and try making some of them yourself, like these cream puffs.

I got the best results when I used an ice cream scoop to portion out the batter. I used a piping bag with the first batch and made flatter "disks" that didn't rise as high. They were certainly edible, but didn't reach the heights of the second batch, made using the ice cream scoop.

You can see for yourself the height I got from using the ice cream scoop as a measurer and form for the puffs.

Those were the ones I took to a dinner party a few nights ago. They were also the ones where the chocolate glaze didn't exactly turn out the way I wanted, even if it tasted good.

This cream puff is one of the rejects I kept from the first batch - a little flatter but still delicious - and this time I used a store-bought chocolate syrup from Hershey's as the glaze.

Cream Puff Shells

printable recipe here
makes 8 large cream puffs

1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1/4 t. salt
1 cup flour
4 large eggs

Melt butter and water in a saucepan, add salt and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add flour all at once, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon until it pulls away from the sides of the pan and forms a ball around the spoon.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The mixture should be smooth after each egg is added. Using an ice cream scoop if you have one, drop some of the mixture on a cookie sheet that has been greased, or on a sheet of parchment paper or Silpat. Bake at 15 minutes at 450 degrees, then reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for another half hour. Let cool completely before cutting in half and filling.

Filling:

2 cups whipping cream
1 13-ounce jar Nutella

Beat the whipping cream until soft peaks form. Add the Nutella, by spoonfuls, until all the Nutella is incorporated and the cream is stiff. Fill the cream puff shells and drizzle with a chocolate glaze. I used a store-bought syrup made by Hershey's.

Personal Pavlovas

2012-02-02T08:59:00.001-05:00

She vowed to eat lighter and exercise more as the new year began, but she just had to finish up those leftover Christmas cookies, chocolates and torrone, didn't she? I mean, why waste perfectly good food? But then came January and there was that luncheon, that week out of town, that dinner party, that invitation to an opening reception, and all those good intentions to lose weight somehow never got realized. Moreover, Valentine's Day was looming and shops were laden with more indulgent desserts than magazines have weight-loss ads. What's a gal to do if she wants a little sweetness in her life?

Take a cue from a Russian ballerina and make a pavlova, that's what. If you omit the cream filling and serve only with berries, it's truly low-cal. But even with this filling, made with non-fat yogurt and creme fraiche, a little goes a long way. Or you could use it even more sparingly, plopping a dollop on top of the berries, rather than nestling the fruit on top of the creamy mixture. If calories don't matter, take a different tack and use lemon curd or a custard cream for the filling.

First you've got to make the pavlovas. Whip the egg whites and sugar until they form stiff peaks, then put the mixture into either a pastry bag or a baggie with one end snipped off.

Form eight small "nests" about 3 1/2 inches wide. Use a spoon to shape a hollow in the center.

After baking, they'll turn a little bit beige, but that's ok. They need to be fully cooked and dry on the inside; otherwise, they'll be gummy and sticky to eat. You want to be able to break into them easily with a fork or spoon, and not have to saw your way through with a serrated knife.

OK, now if this is dieting, I'm all for deprivation.

The dessert is named after Anna Pavlova, a famous Russian ballerina from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There seems to be some disagreement whether it was created by a chef in New Zealand or in Australia, with each country claiming ownership. She must have been an exceptional dancer to have an exquisite dessert created in her name.

I've certainly not seen Pavlova dance, but I did see a beautiful ballet in Paris during my visit a couple of months ago - La Source. With costumes by Cristian LaCroix, it ranked as one of the most spectacularly costumed ballets I've ever seen. This photo is only a small sampling of his lavish creations.

The ballet was performed in the Palais Garnier, the place where operas were always heard until the construction of a new opera house in 1989 called Opera Bastille. Sadly, the Opera Bastille is a drab monolith has nothing of the grace and elegance of the Palais Garnier, the opulent beaux-arts gem that was built in the late 19th century.

Palais Garnier

Opera Bastille

If you've ever seen or read "Phantom of the Opera" -- the movie, the musical or the book -- you know it's set at the Paris Opera House - the Palais Garnier. In one scene the grand chandelier falls from the ceiling, wreaking havoc on the audience. The story has its roots in a real event that happened in 1896, after a counterweight from the chandelier fell, killing a member of the audience. Here are a couple of photos of the interior of the Palais Garnier, including a ceiling painted by Marc Chagall above the infamous chandelier. Nowadays, the building is used mainly for ballet performances, but you can also go at different hours just to tour the architectural masterpiece.

Pavlova
Printable recipe here
serves eight

4 large egg whites
1/4 t. cream of tartar
3/4 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. If it goes down to 180 degrees, so much the better.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Beat egg whites with cream of tartar on high speed until soft peaks form. Add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating until stiff peaks form. Using a pastry bag, or a spoon, make circles about 3 1/2 inches in diameter on the parchment paper. Use a spoon to create a small depression in the center.
Bake for two hours then turn the oven off and leave them alone inside the oven - at least two hours. If you have time to leave them in the oven longer, so much the better. They must be completely dry on the interior, or else you could be biting into a chewy, gummy meringue. Carelly remove them from the parchment paper.

Filling

16 ounces Greek-style yogurt, drained (I put the yogurt in a coffee filter and let it sit overnight)

8 ounces creme fraiche

1 cup sugar

1/2 of a vanilla bean

(I preserve vanilla beans in a covered jar filled with sugar. I have found that eventually the vanilla bean will dry out, in which case I chop it up and put it in the blender along with the sugar. The result is a sugar speckled with vanilla bean - great for desserts or for a special cup of coffee.)

Drain the yogurt overnight, then with a wooden spoon, combine with the creme fraiche, sugar and vanilla bean.
Spoon into the meringue shell and top with berries that have been mixed with a little sugar, freshly squeezed lemon and orange juice.

Winter Veggies

2012-01-30T07:52:00.000-05:00

I'll be the first to tell you that I adore spring and all that comes with it - robins, hyacinths, strawberries and so much more. Summer is also a delight since I love to garden, swim and visit the seashore. The Fall is a stunner here too with glorious foliage, pumpkin stands and apple festivals. But winter calls to me as well, even with the cold weather and barren trees in the Northeast U.S. Aside from transportation problems (like being stuck in Chicago during a snowstorm last weekend), winter presents opportunities for skiing, for hunkering down by the fire with a good book, and for cooking soups, stews and vegetables associated with cold weather, like the three I'm presenting in this post.

This broccoli romanesco is one of them. I admit, it's not easy to find where I live, so when I saw it last week at the local health food store, I all but clapped my hands in jubilation. It's something that omnipresent in Italian food markets, but for some reason, it's not as well known here. I hope that's about to change. I've told you about it before when my blog was fairly new, on a post you can find here, featuring pasta and broccoli romanesco. But this time I wanted to cook it whole and drizzle it with olive oil, red pepper flakes, garlic, salt and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese. Nestled into polenta, it made a satisfying vegetarian lunch.

Here's what it looks like inside. Even though its name is broccoli romanesco, the taste is closer to cauliflower than broccoli.

Beets are another one of my favorites - whether cold in a salad - or warm in a sauce with orange segments. Be warned that the orange segments will turn pink once the beet sauce hits them.

See.....I told ya'. But they're kind of pretty that way too.

OK, now here's the morning quiz for you. What's this vegetable? Trick question.

They look like parsnips, right? Well that would have been a good guess, but they're not. They're parsley root - something I had never heard of much less cooked. So naturally I had to try them. The taste is vaguely reminiscent of parsley - but more like a carrot crossed with celery. Apparently, parsley root has lots of salubrious properties. (That means it's good for you.) It's a blood purifier, a diuretic, useful in liver and gall bladder problems and helps prevent flatulence (you can look that up yourself.)

I sliced them up like French fries, tossed them with olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary and roasted them at a high heat.

Maybe I left them in a bit too long on one side, but they were delicious nonetheless. Who says that French fries have to be made just with potatoes?

Printable recipes here

Broccoli Romanesco

Trim the bottom leaves off, then cut a little bit into the core from the bottom, to help it cook more evenly. Place a little water in a saucepan - enough so that it comes up about 1/2 inch. Then place the entire head of the broccoli romanesco into the water. Cover and cook for about five to ten minutes, testing to pierce with a fork. It should not be crunchy, but soft enough to pierce easily. In a separate saucepan, heat 2 T. olive oil with a clove of garlic, a dash of red pepper flakes. Add some salt and pepper, then pour over the head of broccoli romano that you serve over polenta, noodles, or just by itself. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Beets and Orange Sauce

Boil or roast one large beet or two small beets until tender. (To roast, rub with oil and put in a small oven-proof dish at 350 degrees, checking after 45 minutes to see if it's cooked.) Peel the outer skin off the beet (I do this on a dish, not on my cutting board, since it's so hard to get the stain off wood, but easy to clean a plate.) Slice the beet. In a small saucepan, place 1/4 cup orange juice, 1/2 tsp. butter, 2 T. red wine vinegar (or sherry vinegar or white vinegar). Add the sliced beets and heat them together with the liquids. In a small cup, mix 1 t. cornstarch with a 2 T. water. Add to the beets and heat until the sauce thickens. If it's too thick, add more water or some more orange juice. Section one large orange and just before serving, stir them into the warm beets. Warning: If you do this more than a minute or two before serving, the oranges will disintegrate into the sauce.

Parsley Root Fries

Trim the parsley root and peel the outer layer. Slice into matchsticks and place on a cookie sheet. Dribble a little olive oil over them, give them a good shake of salt and pepper, then sprinkle some chopped rosemary over them. Roast at 425 degrees, checking after 5 minutes. Turn them over and roast another 5 minutes, or until browned.

Mushroom Lasagna

2012-01-25T08:15:00.000-05:00

You won't find tomato sauce or ricotta or mozzarella in this lasagna. What you will find are fontina cheese, bechamel, porcini and baby bella mushrooms. Don't get me wrong -- I love the traditional Italian-American classic as much as anyone, but I also love different versions too like butternut squash lasagna or mushroom lasagna.

Start with soaking the dried porcini in water and slicing the baby bellas.

Use fresh thyme if you can get it at the grocery store, or if you've got it growing in your garden. Here in the Northeast, I can usually harvest mine all winter long, even after the recent snowstorm.

Home-made pasta is always the best, but these pasta sheets found in the refrigerated section of the supermarket - made by the Italian company Rana - are a great substitute. Use the boxed lasagna noodles if you have no other choice. The package directions for these noodles say you don't have to boil them, but I soaked them in hot water for five minutes to soften them since there would not be as much liquid with this recipe as there would be with tomato-sauce lasagna.

Spread some bechamel sauce on the bottom of the casserole, then add a sheet of pasta, and mushrooms.

Add some grated fontina cheese next.

Sprinkle some grated parmesan over the fontina.

Then dab some bechamel over that. (It will thicken as you're working with it.)

Repeat a couple of times, ending with a layer of pasta. Spread with bechamel and sprinkle with parmesan.

Bake at 350 degrees, covered, then increase the temperature to 425 degrees and bake another 15 minutes until browned on top.

Let the lasagna rest at least 15 minutes before slicing.

Mushroom Lasagna

printable recipe here

6 portions, depending on appetites

1 large shallot (or two smaller ones)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in water for 1/2 hour, then drained
16 oz. baby bella mushrooms (small portabella mushrooms), sliced
2. T. butter for sauteeing the mushrooms
salt, pepper
a few sprigs of fresh thyme (about 3 T. minced)
1 cup grated fontina cheese
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 package of fresh lasagna sheets (like an 8.8 oz. package of Rana brand), soaked in hot water for about 5 minutes (or use fresh, home-made lasagna if you're ambitious.)

@ 2 cups bechamel sauce

bechamel sauce
4 T. butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk
salt, pepper
a few grindings of fresh nutmeg

Place the olive oil and butter in a pan and add the minced shallot. Let it soften then add the garlic. Cook for a couple of minutes then remove from pan. Place the 2 T. butter into a large pan and add the baby bella mushrooms. Cook on high heat. A lot of water will be released. Keep cooking until the water is evaporated, then lower the heat, and add the porcini mushrooms. Season with salt, pepper and fresh thyme.

Make the bechamel sauce in a separate pot by melting the butter, then adding the flour and letting it cook for a couple of minutes. Whisk in the milk a little at a time, adding more if necessary, or stopping when it's thick enough. It should be no thicker than the consistency of a very loose pudding, since it thickens more when it cools. Add 1/2 cup of the parmesan cheese, which will also thicken it more.

Meanwhile, soak the packaged fresh lasagna noodles in hot water for five minutes. Drain and pat dry.

Assemble the lasagna by spreading a bit of the bechamel on the bottom of the casserole. Place a sheet of pasta over the sauce, then cover with cooked mushrooms, some of the fontina and some of the parmesan. Dab some bechamel over this, then cover with another sheet of pasta. Do this two more times and finish with a layer of pasta. You should have four layers of pasta when you're done. There will be two sheets leftover in the package - use them for another recipe. Then spread the final layer of pasta with bechamel sauce and sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese. Bake at 350 degrees, covered, for 1/2 hour. At the end of 1/2 hour, remove the foil, then increase the temperature to 425 and bake another 15 minutes.

Apple Sharlotka and Apple Muffins

2012-01-22T00:02:00.000-05:00

When you leave for a trip, are you like me -- down to the wire trying to finish it all? Wash clothes and pack suitcase ... check. Water plants ... check. Halt mail and newspaper ... check. Pay bills ... check. Send itinerary to family ... check. Type out instructions for neighbor ... check. Empty out fridge of perishables ... um, okay, but wait, I can't just throw out that cheese, that bulb of fennel, those apples, etc. And they won't be edible when I get back either, so I find myself squeezing in some last minute baking and cooking that adds to my whirlwind of chores. I really hate to waste food, and my friends would much rather have baked offerings rather than raw apples on the precipice of rottendom.

This apple sharlotka from Smitten Kitchen was a great way to get rid of a lot of apples that otherwise would have met their demise in the fridge while I traveled from Princeton, N.J. to warmer climes last week. (Note to self: When returning to snowy New Jersey, stay longer in warm Scottsdale, Arizona if you're likely to be stranded overnight in snowy Chicago.)

The recipe called for six apples, but I used eight, since I wanted to bring them all the way to the top of the pan, as Smitten Kitchen had in her photo.

The batter is supposed to be beaten until very thick, then poured over the apples and baked. I followed the directions, but the batter was so thick, it had trouble oozing its way to the bottom of the pan. I figured it would drizzle down, but even before placing the pan in the oven, there was no way all that batter was going to fit inside. Of course, I had increased the amounts of batter ingredients since I had also increased the number of apples too. I should have known better than to tamper with a new recipe the first time out.

Here's what the pan looked like when it came out of the oven. The top had developed into a lightly browned crunchy disk that was difficult to cut without making a mess. A serrated knife kept the mess to a minimum. But the top was supposed to look more like a lunar landscape, with bumps of apples peeking through, rather than a flat plane of beige.

Before placing the large pan in the oven, I had scooped out some of the apples and mixed them in the bowl with the leftover batter. I poured this leftover batter and apples into two small buttered ramekins. These little beauties turned out much better in texture than the sharlotka in the larger pan, since the batter was distributed much more evenly. (Is this making any sense to you?)

I was also able to flip the small cakes out onto a plate, reverse them, and serve them neatly without any problem, something that Smitten Kitchen suggests with the larger sharlotka. But had I tried this with the larger sharlotka, mine wouldn't have held together since there wasn't enough batter dispersed with the apples to help it retain its shape.

Here's a photo of a slice from the large sharlotka. It's got a good "cake-like" consistency at the edges but not in the center, where it's nearly all apples and no cake. It was good, but not as good as the small sharlotkas, whose apples were mixed in the bowl with the batter.

Have a look for yourself at the interior of the small sharlotkas. The apples and cake are distributed evenly throughout. Next time I make this (and I will because it's a delicious dessert that uses no butter, no milk or cream - i.e. almost dietetic!) I'll make it in the large pan, but will fold the apple slices into the batter.

I still had a couple of hours (and two apples) left before leaving for the airport, so I made these apple muffins at the last minute, using a recipe I found on the blog of my good friend, Stacey Snacks. She made it as a cake, but I've baked them as muffins a few times and they always turn out great.

They were still warm when I wrapped them and left for the airport. The smell kept tempting me throughout the flight, during which no snacks or food was served. I'd like to report that I had strong enough will power to resist, and delivered the box intact to my friend in Scottsdale. I said I'd like to, but alas no... During a wait for a connecting flight in Dallas, the symmetrical box of nine muffins was reduced by one as I gave in to temptation. Sure wish I'd had one with me when I got stuck in Chicago on the way back home.

Apple Sharlotka
From Smitten Kitchen

My changes are in red.

Printable Recipe Here

Butter or nonstick spray, for greasing pan
6 large, tart apples, such as Granny Smiths (I used 8 winesap apples)

3 large eggs (4 eggs)
1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar (1 1/4 cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (1 1/4 tsp)
1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour (1 1/4 cup)
Ground cinnamon, to finish
Powdered sugar, also to finish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper. (I would say forget the parchment paper. It makes it messy when it comes time to slice, since the apples are moist and you don't really need it.) Butter the paper and the sides of the pan. Peel, halve and core your apples, then chop them into medium-sized chunks. (I cut each half into four “strips” then sliced them fairly thinly — about 1/4-inch — in the other direction.) Pile the cut apples directly in the prepared pan. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, using an electric mixer or whisk, beat eggs with sugar until thick and ribbons form on the surface of the beaten eggs. Beat in vanilla, then stir in flour with a spoon until just combined. The batter will be very thick.

Pour over apples in pan, using a spoon or spatula to spread the batter so that it covers all exposed apples. (I had leftover batter and mixed in some remaining apple slices into the batter, then placed in two small ramekins. This technique works better in getting the batter distributed than just pouring it over the apples, as I did with the larger pan. Next time I make this recipe, I will fold the apples into the batter with the large pan rather than placing the apples in the pan and pouring the batter over the apples.) Bake in preheated oven for 55 to 60 minutes, or until a tester comes out free of batter. (The large pan needed about 1 1/4 hours in the oven. The small pans only about 50 minutes.) Cool in pan for 10 minutes on rack, then flip out onto another rack, peel off the parchment paper, and flip it back onto a serving platter. (Good luck with the flipping part. It worked great for the little ones but the large one was just too juicy on the bottom to try without courting disaster.) Dust lightly with ground cinnamon.

Serve warm or cooled, dusted with powdered sugar. Eat it plain, or with a dollop of barely sweetened whipped or sour cream.

Apple Cake (or Muffins)
From Stacey Snacks
My Favorite Easy Apple Cake:

Printable Recipe Here

1 egg
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tbsp whole milk or heavy cream
1 tsp bourbon vanilla (or 1/2 tsp of bourbon + 1/2 tsp vanilla)
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
2 small apples, peeled and diced
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Icing:
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
3 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp cold water

Mix the egg, oil, milk and bourbon vanilla in a bowl and gradually add the rest of the ingredients, adding the apples and nuts last. Mix with a wooden spoon.

In an 8" springform pan, cut a piece of round parchment paper for the bottom of the pan, and butter the sides of the pan. (I used a muffin pan and got 10.)

Spread the batter into the pan and bake 45 minutes at 350F.
While the cake is in the oven, make the icing. Mix with a fork in a bowl until it reaches the consistency you like.

Drizzle the icing with a fork while the cake is still warm. (The icing is delicious but they're also good just with a dusting of powdered sugar.)
Let rest in the pan 20 minutes before removing sides.

This cake is delicious warm out of the oven, and also excellent the next day.

Baked Apples

2012-01-11T07:41:00.000-05:00

Who isn't a bit sated after the excesses of the holidays? Every year I resolve to be healthier in January but my resolve weakens quicker than a snowflake in the morning sun. Yesterday I finished off a bag of caramel corn laced with chocolate chunks and sugar-glazed nuts before 11:30 a.m. There is still torrone in the cupboard; extra-creamy cheeses in the fridge; and Christmas cookies in the freezer. What's a gal to do?

I've given some of the goodies to friends, but they too, are trying to eat healthier as the calendar turns a page. Even away from the house, everywhere I turn, I can't escape the temptations. Food seems to be the common denominator that brings friends and family together, whether it's lunch with friends, espresso and cakes with my Italian chit-chat group or dinner with family. Only those with the the strongest will-power can avoid succumbing to the temptations.

If you want to steer clear of temptations, but still want a little sweetness at the end of your meal, forget about those leftover goodies for a while and try some baked fruit, like this apple. It's gussied up enough to feel special, yet there's little sugar and lots of flavor to satisfy your sweet tooth. The cinnamon stick idea was borrowed from my good friend Stacey of Stacey Snacks, who took it from Stephane at Zen Can Cook. Whenever I make baked apples, I like to add some dried prunes to the stewing liquid. For those of you turning your noses at the idea, give it a try. Once the prunes have cooked in the marsala wine for an hour, the flavor is intensely redolent of marsala and sweet plums.
I could suggest gilding the lily with some super-rich ice cream on the side, but that's only for those of you who have behaved in the last month.
So what will I do with all that ice cream? .....

I wonder if my neighbor's cat Ahso, who visits me occasionally (and stalks my bird-feeder), likes Haagen Daz vanilla?

Baked Apples

printable recipe here

For each apple:
Peel the top 1/3 of the apple and cut into the center from the top, excavating the core and leaving a space for the other ingredients.
Mix a few chopped walnuts and raisins with a tablespoon of brown sugar and a dash of cinnamon. Place a small pat of butter into the apple center, then stuff with the walnut/raisin mixture. Place a cinnamon stick in the center. Place the apple into an oven proof container and strew some prunes around it. Pour 1/2 cup marsala wine over the apple and prunes. Cover loosely with an aluminum foil "tent." Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes to one hour, or until the apple can be easily pierced with a fork. If you remember, go back into the oven and occasionally baste with the wine.

I like to use winesap apples, but other baking apples, including Granny Smith, are good too.

Little Bitty Peppers

2012-01-06T15:04:00.000-05:00

Why is it that we're drawn to all things diminutive? Well, at least I am, whether it's puppies, people or peppers, like these multi-color capsicum cuties I've been enjoying lately.

One of my favorite bloggers, Marie of Proud Italian Cook, posted a piece about them a while back and since then, I've cooked with them a few times. They're really too small to eat as a main course, unless you eat lots of them, but they're delicious and lovely as a side dish.

You might be able to stuff them raw, but I roasted them first for about 15 minutes in a 425 degree oven. Then I cut off the tops and scraped out the seeds.

Beforehand, I made a batch of brown rice (leftover risotto would be great here too), let it cool, then mixed it with salt, pepper, chopped parsley and a heaping amount of grated fontina cheese. I stuffed the peppers, using a demitasse spoon, then baked them again in the oven at 350 degrees, just until the rice was warmed through and the cheese melted - about 15 minutes or so.

Drizzle with a little reduced balsamic vinegar glaze and they're irresistible morsels all by themselves.

Or try topping with a mixture of breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese before baking.

Another way to serve them is to mix them with ricotta and goat cheese, plus a lot of herbs. Again, after stuffing, put them back into the oven to warm up - about 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Drizzle with olive oil and grated herbs and enjoy. It's enough to make Peter's Pipers pass on the porridge.

Little Bitty Stuffed Peppers

printable recipe here

1 package small red and yellow peppers

1 cup brown rice, cooked and cooled

1 cup fontina cheese

1 egg

salt, pepper

1/4 cup minced parsley

On a cookie sheet or baking pan, drizzle the peppers with some olive oil, then roast them at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.

Cook 1 cup of brown rice (or any kind you like) and let it cool.

Mix with 1 egg, 1 cup fontina cheese, salt, pepper and 1/4 cup minced parsley. Stuff the peppers with a demitasse spoon and bake at 350 degrees until heated through and the cheese is melted - about 15 minutes.

Drizzle with a reduced balsamic glaze if desired (Take about 1/2 cup supermarket balsamic vinegar, 2 T. honey and bring to a boil. Cook until thick, then let it cool.)

or:

Mix 1/2 cup goat's cheese with 1 cup ricotta cheese, one egg, salt, pepper and a big handful of minced fresh thyme and minced parsley. Stuff the peppers, then bake at 350 degrees until the filling is hot.

Flea Markets in Paris

2012-01-03T08:34:00.000-05:00

I'm sure like many of you reading this post, anytime I'm in a new city, I'm likely to spend the bulk of my time perusing museums, partaking of restaurants, and patronizing music venues. But I can't resist a good flea market either. So on my recent trip to Paris, I headed to two - one at St. Ouen, at the northern part of the city near the Clignancourt metro station, and one at Vanves, on the southern side near the metro station of the same name.

If flea markets bring to mind the pesky little creatures that sometimes torment dogs and their owners, let it be known that there were no shortage of dogs to be found at either of these two flea markets. I can't guarantee there were no fleas. While their owners tried to peddle everything from chairs to chains, these doggies settled in for the day and made themselves comfortable.

Unlike the flea market at Vanves, where you find lots of mom and pop vendors getting rid of household bric-a-brac, most of the vendors at St. Ouen are professional antiques dealers with bargains few and far between. Still, it's a fun way to spend a few hours on a Saturday, Sunday or Monday and you never know what you might tote home with you from your day of scavenging.

Need a mahogany and marble fireplace or an ornate grandfather's clock? You'll find many here.

You could just as easily take a fancy to a ceramic vase with a scene from mythology.

Or perhaps more utilitarian, but still beautifully made, porcelain dinnerware.

And of course, you'll need some silverware to go with that dinnerware, right? No shortage here.

Looking for lovely lace children's frocks? You'll encounter them in many stalls.

As well as plenty of colorful 18th century frippery.

How about a crown to go with your regalia? You say you want rubies and emeralds? No problem.

There's even something for brides-to-be, or other fashionistas.

If art is your passion, there are plenty of ways to satisfy your urge, like this wooden medieval sculpture of a madonna and child.

You'll also find paintings of all styles, including this Cezanne-inspired one.

You'll need some sustenance to keep plowing through the 17 acres and thousands (yes thousands) of dealers' stalls. There are cafes and bistros scattered here and there amid the vast expanse.

Nothing like a cafe creme and freshly baked croissant to rev you up for the next flea market.

This is the scene at the Vanves flea market, also held on weekends and right off the bat, you can tell it's got a more relaxed feel. There are no permanent stalls, just tables set outside. It's also smaller and easier to navigate in its entirety in just a couple of hours. The vibe is more like what your next-door neighbor might sell at a garage sale, but that's not to say that some real treasures can't be found.

Including this beautiful set of dinnerware.

Or hand-embroidered napkins. Oh, that my name were Linda Lincoln, Mary Thomas, or Beverly Vanderbilt. I'd have swooped them up in a second.

Somewhere in the crowd there's a shoemaker-in-training just waiting to emerge.

Or maybe a blacksmith or carpenter.

There's some lovely artwork to be found too, whether you like prints...

Or original oil paintings.

Hey, this one looks familiar. But I don't think it's an original.

It's a copy of Leonardo Da Vinci's "Lady with an ermine." While it's normally on display in a museum in Krakow, Poland, I had seen it a few days earlier in London at the National Gallery, in a special exhibit of paintings created by Leonardo while he was in Milan.

I found a few trinkets to tuck inside my suitcase, but one of the most enjoyable treats came not from a flea market, but from my metro ride home from Vanves, when I sat across from this petite tresor. There was something about her that made me smile then and still does now. It wasn't just her spiffy red glasses and matching clothes, nor her jaunty cap. It was also her natural charm and enchanting gaze as she chatted away next to her proud grandmother. She reminded me of a more polished version of Pippi Longstocking, without the braids. I hope she has the same effect on you.

Bruschette/Crostini Ideas

2011-12-29T08:42:00.000-05:00

Start with some grilled bread, rub with raw garlic and top with tomatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper and basil. That's what comes to mind when most people think of the word bruschetta. The word bruscare is Roman dialect for the Italian word "abbrustolire" which means "to toast." Bruschette (plural of bruschetta) have become ubiquitous on menus here and in Italy, topped with everything from arugula to zucchini. Crostini, on the other hand, are generally smaller and crunchier like croutons and can also be a perfect base for any number of toppings. The words have almost become interchangeable and it doesn't really matter whether you call these bruschette or crostini. Either way, they're a great vehicle for small bits of an infinite variety of foods. Just don't pronounce it broo-shett-a. Say broo-skett-a, please.

I gave a demonstration a couple of weeks ago on bruschetta making at Tuscan Hills, a store near Princeton, New Jersey that sells beautiful Italian furniture, pottery, linens and other irresistible items. My son Michael also participated, showing the audience how to make limoncello, a recipe he shared with Ciao Chow Linda readers a couple of years ago here.

I started with the basic bruschetta, but since summer is long gone, the only flavorful tomatoes to be found were the tiny grape tomatoes I used below. They make a decent substitute in winter.

But did you know you can make a perfectly respectable tomato bruschetta using canned tomatoes? I once ate this at an Italian restaurant in California and couldn't believe how good it was. So I tried it at home, using a brand of tomatoes that says "fire-roasted"(Muir Glen). I drained all the liquid from them, then mixed the tomatoes with olive oil, minced garlic, salt, pepper and basil.

But let's expand the bruschetta repertoire a bit. This one is made using small cubes of roasted butternut squash, caramelized onions and pine nuts, topped with a sliver of parmesan cheese and balsamic reduction.

This bruschetta uses cannellini beans from a can, that are drained and rinsed, then smashed with a fork, and mixed with garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper and a bit of rosemary.

The sweet creaminess of smooth ricotta cheese is a great foil for the salty crunchiness of baked, crispy prosciutto.

The sweet/savory contrast is also evident here, in one of my favorites: blue cheese and walnuts, topped with a pear slice and drizzled with a balsamic reduction. By the way, I don't use my expensive aged balsamic vinegar here. I pour about 1/2 cup of a supermarket brand into a pot with a couple of tablespoons of honey and let it reduce about 10 minutes until it's syrupy.

The platter below also includes bruschetta with mozzarella and roasted peppers; with fig jam, mozzarella and prosciutto; and with goat cheese and grilled zucchini. If you're planning a party, you could even set up a bruschetta station with grilled bread and lots of toppings and let people assemble whatever they prefer. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

Buon Anno.

Don't Bake These Cookies

2011-12-21T15:27:00.000-05:00

lekvar cookies

Are you a little crazed right now, rushing to finish everything before Christmas eve? You know - decorating the house, shopping for gifts, wrapping presents, planning the feast for Christmas eve or Christmas day, and baking cookies too? Take a deep breath ..... and don't bake these cookies.

sweet taralli cookies

I'm posting these recipes because they're part of my childhood cookie archive and I wanted to make sure I have the recipe written down for the future. But guess what? I'm not making them this year. These photos are from last Christmas. This year, I'm skipping them - not because I don't love them, but because I need to schedule in some time to just relax. I baked dozens of other cookies earlier in the month for a party we held for my dad's 90th birthday and I'm calling it quits on the cookie front.

I want to be in a state to enjoy the holidays with family and friends, not collapse and rejoice that they're over.

I hope you manage to carve out a little time for yourself too amid the hustle and bustle of preparing for the holidays. So bake these cookies or any of your own favorites if you've got extra energy, or the spirit moves you, but if you need a little time to decompress - go get a massage (as I'm doing tomorrow), attend a concert (ditto) or have coffee with neighbors (double-ditto).

Lekvar Cookies

printable recipe here

3 ounces cream cheese

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup flour

1 tsp. vanilla

1 jar lekvar (prune filling) or any other kind of jam you prefer

Mix everything in a mixer and roll into a disk shape. Chill for at least one hour. Roll out 1/8 inch thick. Cut into 2 1/2 inch squares. Fill each square with a small spoonful of lekvar. Starting from a one of the four points of the square, fold over two sides toward the center. Moisten with a little water to help the dough stick together. Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 - 14 minutes. When cool, dust with confectioner's sugar.

Sweet Taralli

printable recipe here

5 1/2 cups flour, plus more for working the dough

1 1/2 T. baking powder

6 large eggs

1 cup sugar

6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 1/2 T. vanilla

Icing

3 cups confectioner's sugar

4 T. water

1 T. freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 t. vanilla extract

multicolor sprinkles for decoration, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 3 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine the flour and baking powder, mixing well. Set aside.

Whisk the eggs in a large bowl, then whisk in the sugar, butter and vanilla extract. Fold in the flour mixture. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead lightly to mix. Separate into four pieces. With each of the four pieces, roll into a log about 16 inches long. Cut off small pieces about one inch long and roll those until they're about six or seven inches long. Bring the two ends together and pinch them to hold in the shape of a circle. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 15 minutes until the taralli and puffed and golden brown on the bottom. They will remain pale on top.

Cool on a baking rack, then combine all the ingredients for the icing in a bowl and spread over the cookies, using sprinkles to decorate.

Baccala Mantecato and Lidia's Holiday Special

2011-12-15T08:16:00.001-05:00

There was always fried baccala on Christmas eve. And fried smelts. And fish as small as minnows that stuck together in clumps when they were fried. When you ate them amid a boisterous family at a table that stretched to include neighbors too, it was like munching on a cluster of crunchy, salty, baby fish - which they were. There were other fried fish too, including eels - slaughtered in the kitchen one year, leaving the porcelain sink and the white curtains bathed in red.

There was pasta too - with squid or with crabs - always in tomato sauce. There was sometimes conch, especially when I was a teenager and my brother in the Navy got leave and brought home the freshly caught seafood. There was a nod to American cuisine too (and the 1960s), usually at the beginning of the meal when my mom placed a fluted glass holding six plump shrimp and cocktail sauce on each plate.

After I married, my mother-in-law introduced me to her stuffed squid recipe, which then also became part of my Christmas eve tradition, even after I scrapped most of the fried fish. Now I include a seafood risotto, which soaks up the tomato sauce from the stuffed squid so beautifully. Some years I've made seafood salad, or octopus and potato salad - always a hit, but a budget buster. But hey, it is Christmas eve, or "La Vigilia" as it's known in Italian.

I can't drop the baccala completely, even if it's no longer dredged in flour and fried in deep fat. Now I'm more likely to use it in codfish cakes, or as an appetizer of baccala mantecato, a dish that is typical of the Veneto region, where it's frequently served with grilled polenta.

salt cod or "baccala"

These are some of the foods that will be on my table for La Vigilia, and I'll bet on a lot of your tables too, if there are Italians in your household. Strangely though, none of my mother's relatives (in Northern Italy) follow this custom. Even in my husband's family in Abruzzo - the south-central part of Italy - the so-called "Feast of the Seven Fishes" or "Feast of the 13 Fishes" is not commonly observed. There might be a pasta with seafood, followed by a whole roasted fish, or maybe a platter of fried fish instead. But not the "abbondanza" of dishes that we here in the states think of as the gluttonous Christmas eve repast. By the way, it's said that the seven fishes represent the seven sacraments in the Catholic religion, while the 13 fishes are symbolic of Jesus and his twelve disciples.

I was reminded that Christmas eve is right around the corner, when I viewed an advance copy of a program that will be airing Tuesday, Dec. 20 on public television stations featuring Lidia Bastianich. It's called "Lidia Celebrates America: Holiday Tables and Traditions." Here's a short clip to give you a preview:

Watch Lidia Celebrates America Extended Preview on PBS. See more from pbs.

The program really struck home with me when Lidia was shopping on Arthur Avenue with Mo Rocca and eels were slithering on the floor, and in her kitchen when she was preparing her Christmas eve feast with Stanley Tucci. "There's no vigilia without baccala and there's no vigilia without eel," Lidia says, as she starts cooking with Tucci in the kitchen that's familiar to viewers of her TV shows. This time, viewers are taken into her dining room too, as the abundant meal is spread out before guests, including Tucci's parents and Lidia's own beloved mother Erminia.

Aside from the Italian Christmas eve dinner, Lidia takes her viewers to San Francisco, inside the home of a Chinese family preparing for the lunar new year; to San Antonio, Texas where many generations of an immigrant family celebrate Christmas with Mexican traditions; and back to New York and the lower East side, where a Passover Seder is prepared at the home of one of the fourth-generation owners of specialty food store Russ & Daughters. Joining them is Ruth Reichl, former Gourmet editor, who prepares her mother's recipe for brisket.

"Everyone is longing for a taste of the past," says Reichl. "That's why holiday meals are so important. Everybody who has sat around the table in the past is joining us."

I admit I'm more sentimental than most - especially in this past year - but the people and traditions that were so lovingly on display in this video made me smile, but also brought tears to my eyes - and not just in the Italian segment. Each of the ethnic groups in the program has at its base a common denominator that goes beyond the ingredients, the markets and the dishes that are prepared. Watch for yourself next Tuesday and see if you don't agree with Stanley Tucci when he says that cooking and sharing these traditions is "... a way of passing on family history, emotions -- it's a way of connecting with somebody. It's a way of expressing love ... and that's the thing for me that makes food so interesting."

Here's a little bit of love coming your way, especially to Kathy of Birdy Chat, who is the winner of the tea from Mariage Freres that I offered as a giveaway. For the rest of you, here's my recipe for baccala mantecato.

Baccala Mantecato
Printable Recipe Here

1 pound salt cod, soaked for at least two days and cut into large pieces *see below
2 garlic cloves
1 medium potato, cut into chunks
3 cups milk
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup light cream
1/2 cup Italian parsley, minced
freshly ground black pepper
additional liquid from the poaching liquid, if needed
optional: 1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Place the milk into a large pot and add the potatoes and garlic pieces. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook until the potatoes are almost cooked, but need a little more time.
Add the codfish pieces and cook for about 10 to 15 minutes, depending on thickness of the cod.
Drain the potatoes, codfish and garlic, reserving the milk.
Place the potatoes, fish, garlic and black pepper into a food processor and add the olive oil and cream, and blend, keeping the machine running until you have a thick "paste." If you need to add more liquid, use the poaching liquid.
Put in the parsley and blend again. If the mixture is too thick, add more of the poaching liquid.
Add the cheese if desired. (To some, combining cheese and fish is tantamount to sacrilegious. Use at your own risk.)

*Note: When you buy salt cod, it's VERY salty and stiff as a board. Place it into a big bowl or pot that will fit into the refrigerator. Start by running cold water over the fish, in a bowl in the sink - for about 10 minutes straight. Then place the fish and the bowl filled with cold water in the refrigerator. At least twice a day, dump out the old water and replace it with fresh, clean water. The fish should reconstitute in less than a day, but it will still be salty. Sometimes I rinse the fish too many days (four or so) and I lose that familiar "salt cod" taste. Each year is different and each year the recipe turns out different.

This recipe will certainly keep overnight in the refrigerator, but it will stiffen up and become hard. It's best eaten when it's at room temperature or slightly warm and easily spreadable. If you don't want to make the grilled polenta (which spritzes oil all over the range!), serve with crackers or bread.

Leek and Potato Soup

2011-12-08T08:46:00.000-05:00

If you're in Paris and your pocketbook allows, I'd be among the first to say treat yourself to an evening of haute cuisine at one of the city's top restaurants. Indulge in dinner at Hotel Meurice's dining room, for instance, and you'll feel like you're among the privileged in 17th century Versailles, complete with rococo decor and waiters who gather at your table to ceremoniously release the silver domes atop your plates in a synchronized flourish. It's an experience that will stay with you forever.

But when you want a simple meal to nourish the soul and stomach, especially at lunchtime, there are a plethora of places to pop in for a quick bite. Paris is loaded with quaint bistros offering traditional fare at a reasonable price. Typical of them is the leek and potato soup I ate at one place in Montmartre. It wasn't quite enough though, so I ordered a platter of bleu cheese accompanied by a small salad and bread.

Savory tartes, or quiches are everywhere, such as this tarte with three cheese I ate at the pavillion in the Luxembourg gardens:

And that was after a little snack of roasted chestnuts at the entrance to the gardens.

By now, you know I've got a sweet tooth that longs to be satisfied, so I gave in every day. This cup of tea and berry-topped mini charlotte was obviously meant for me.

This small oval treat of tender chocolate cake, filled with cream and cherries, topped with a luscious chocolate ganache, just melted in the mouth.

After the overload of desserts, I took a pause from sweets when I got home and made the leek and potato soup instead, using a recipe I adapted from Debby of Foodie Wife. Besides, I don't think I could ever duplicate that chocolate treat. But I have to admit, the leek and potato soup made chez moi was even better than the version I ate in Paris.

Leek and Potato Soup

Printable Recipe

1 T. unsalted butter
2 T. olive oil
2 leeks, thinly sliced and washed free of debris
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic
1 quart chicken stock
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
2 large baking potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
salt, pepper to taste

Put the butter and olive oil into a large, heavy pan and saute the leeks, onion and garlic until translucent. Add the potatoes, white wine, chicken stock, salt and pepper and cook at a low simmer, with the lid askew, for about 1/2 hour, or until the potatoes are fork tender. Remove the stems of the fresh thyme. At this point, I put the mixture into the blender, a small amount at a time. Be careful though, because it can easily splatter all over you and the kitchen. Instead of using the lid in its entirety, I remove the little plug that's in the center of the lid, and cover it with paper towel while the blender is going. It gives the hot liquid a way to release the steam without "blowing" off the lid. Some people like to use a stick blender, but I prefer a counter-top blender - your choice.

Put the soup back in the pot and add the heavy cream and parmesan cheese. Cook another 5 to 10 minutes. Serve with a garnish of caramelized onions and snippets of fresh chives and parmesan cheese toasts.

garnish

2 large onions, sliced and slowly sauteed in 2 T. butter until golden brown

fresh chives

Raspberry Creme Brulee Tarte and a giveaway

2011-12-03T07:35:00.000-05:00

I admit it. The scale doesn't lie. I was naughty in Paris. Let's not talk about the creamy cheeses and wonderful wines I indulged in. We'll go straight to dessert for this post - something I'm not averse to when you're in a city with the plethora of exquisite sweets that Paris offers. I ate pastries, cakes and ice cream at least once a day, sometimes twice a day. All of them were delicious and some of them were divine - including this raspberry creme brulee tarte from Mariage Freres, a place that holds sweet memories for me in more ways than one.

Mariage Freres has several locations in Paris, including its flagship store and restaurant in the Le Marais neighborhood, the one I've visited on past trips. The business started back in the 17th century when King Louis IV and the French East India Company dispatched a man named Nicolas Mariage to Persia to sign a trade agreement, while Nicolas' brother traveled to Madagascar on behalf of the same company. Centuries later, other Mariage descendants opened the first retail establishment in 1984 and the tea is considered by many connoisseurs to be the best in the world. It's where Claridge's of London gets its tea and what Japan Airlines serves to its first class customers.

You know they're serious about their teas when you're handed a more than 100-page booklet of descriptions of the various teas to choose from.

The tins are lined up on a wooden shelf, resembling an old apothecary shop, while the waiters run back and forth to grab their orders from the tea-brewer.

The china teapot is delivered table-side inside a silver caddy to keep it at the perfect temperature.

Naturally, there are desserts to accompany the tea, including the raspberry creme brulee tart at the top. I've eaten it there before, but didn't see it on the menu this time. When I asked the waiter about it, he produced it from the kitchen for me, providing me with another trip down memory lane. But truth be told, I did start with a more appropriate lunch - an absolute work of art that turned out to be the most expensive cream cheese and smoked salmon sandwich I'd ever eaten. But then again, I've never eaten bread made with green matcha tea or a smoked salmon sandwich decorated with fish roe and pansies.

Whether you simply have tea or eat lunch at Mariage Freres, be prepared to open your wallet. It's not just a Lipton tea bag plunked into a mug. But the experience at Mariage Freres - from the service to the carefully prepared and presented food - is worth every centime. That's why I'd like you to share in a bit of the experience with me and why I'm giving away a tin of one of Mariage Freres' most popular tea varieties - Marco Polo. If you read French, you can read the description for yourself below. Otherwise, take my word for it that it's a blend of scents of fruits and flowers from China and Tibet, and its extraordinary bouquet is one of the most mythic of all perfumed teas. Just leave a comment in the comment section of this post - and an email address so I can have some way to contact you if you win.

You can also actually order Mariage Freres tea from the company's website (click here) and it will be sent to you from France. Some stores in the U.S. (like Williams Sonoma and Dean and Deluca) also carry a small selection of Mariage Freres tea. And if you're not afraid of facing your scale and want to try to recreate that creme brulee tarte ('tis the season - be brave and forget the calories), here's a recipe that will give you even more of the Mariage Freres experience.

Raspberry Creme Brulee Tarte

Printable Recipe Here

For tarte shell:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
4 T. sugar
1/4 t. salt
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
4- 5 T. ice water

For custard filling:

1/2 vanilla bean
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
2/3 cup whole milk
4 large egg yolks
1 whole large egg
1/4 cup sugar
dash of salt

For the bruleed topping:

1/4 cup sugar plus 2 more tablespoons sugar

1/2 pint fresh raspberries

In a food processor, place the flour, sugar and salt. Give it a whir to blend everything, then add the butter and pulse a few times. Add the ice water until it forms a ball, or nearly forms a ball. You don't want to overwork the dough or it will be tough.

Roll it out on a floured board and place it inside a 12 inch tart pan, overlapping the inside edge to make it twice the thickness. Prick some holes in the bottom and place in the freezer for 20 minutes to a half hour. After you remove it from the freezer, blind-bake the crust at 350 degrees. To blind-bake it, place a piece of aluminum foil or parchment paper inside the crust and weigh it down with pie weights or use beans and rice, as I do. Bake it for about 20 minutes with the weights inside, then remove the weights (carefully) and bake another 10 to 15 minutes until the shell is golden brown.

Let the crust cool. When ready to make the filling, line the inside of the tarte shell with the fresh raspberries. Cook the filling in the following manner: Split the vanilla bean down the middle and place it in a pot with the milk and cream. Cook them together at a simmer for about 10 minutes or until piping hot, then turn off the flame and let the bean sit in the liquid to absorb the flavor more.Whisk the egg yolks and egg with the sugar and salt. Slowly add them to the milk and cream mixture until blended. If you're worried about any particles that may have formed, place the mixture through a sieve after everything is all mixed together.

Carefully pour the mixture into the shell over the raspberries. Place the tarte pan on a cookie sheet and bake in a 300 degree oven for about 25 to 30 minutes or until it's set but still wobbly in the center. It will set more after you remove it from the oven.

Before serving, sprinkle the remaining sugar on top and either use a blow torch or place it under the broiler for a few minutes, making sure to rotate the tarte to get the entire surface exposed to the flame until it's browned and crunchy.

Italian Potato Pancakes

2011-11-29T08:16:00.000-05:00

I'm ten years old and standing by the stove, while mom takes a spoon and drops some of the batter into the hot oil. After a few minutes, the sizzling sound and the intense aroma of fried potato pancakes makes me ever more impatient for mom to pluck the crispy golden treats out of the hot fat and plunk them onto the paper towel-lined plate nearby. I nibble on the crunchy exterior and burn my tongue, but that doesn't stop me from blowing on the fried treat and biting into it again, releasing another gush of steam as I pop the spongy, pillowy interior into my mouth.

They're Italian potato pancakes, they're deliciously addictive, and they're part of my childhood food memories. My mother was from Northern Italy, and arrived in the U.S. as a young war bride with few recipes in her repertoire. As a result, so much of the cooking I grew up with was Southern Italian food, reflective of the Calabrian household my mother married into. These potato pancakes are just one example.

If you've got any leftover mashed potatoes still lying around from Thanksgiving, put them to work in this recipe. Maybe they'll even become part of your family's food memories too.

Italian Potato Pancakes

printable recipe here

1 cup leftover mashed potatoes
1 cup flour
3 t. baking powder
a few sprigs of parsley, minced
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 eggs, slightly beaten
salt, pepper to taste
oil for deep frying

Mix all ingredients (except oil) in a bowl with a wooden spoon. The batter should be stiff, liked mashed potatoes. Heat the oil until very hot, and drop a spoonful of the batter into the oil. Fry until golden brown on both sides, turning once.

Ottolenghi

2011-11-22T13:23:00.000-05:00

If there's one chef in England whose name keeps springing up on food blogs, it's Yoram Ottolenghi. A Jew who was born and raised in Jerusalem to a German mother and an Italian father, his food bears a decidedly middle Eastern influence, and a broader Mediterranean one as well. He moved to London in 1997, ostensibly to study for a doctorate degree, but got sidelined along the way to study at Le Cordon Bleu instead. A business partnership with Sami Tamini, a Palestinian also raised in Jerusalem, led to the opening of four shops in London, one of which I had to check out on my recent visit. My friend Mariana and I went to the Islington location, the only one of the Ottolenghi shops that has an area where diners can actually be seated.

Still, we decided to choose take-out from the bountiful offerings available and transport our booty home to eat in the comfort of Mariana and Carlo's living room -- much easier than keeping four little ones happy in hard plastic chairs in a cramped seating area.

We got something to please all appetites - the children's less adventuresome palates were happy with the tender beef filet and potatoes, while the adults marveled at the range of flavors in the vegetarian dishes - winter slaw, eggplants with turmeric yogurt, cauliflower and lentil salads, and a melange of snow peas, asparagus and water cress -- oh and foccaccia too, plus a delicious selection of desserts I forgot to photograph in the frenzy of eating.

Having flipped through his two cookbooks, Ottolenghi and Plenty, and now eaten his food, it's apparent that Ottolenghi loves to give herbs and spices a starring role, including ones that may be unfamiliar to most Americans, like zatar and sumac. Back at home, I knew I had to try to cook some of the bold and flavorful dishes I had eaten. Italian food is my first love, but I do step out to other cuisines too. I chose to recreate a hybrid version between the eggplant dish I had eaten from the restaurant, and an eggplant recipe in one of his cookbooks. Although I tucked a small jar of that sumac in my suitcase, you won't need any esoteric spices for this recipe, but what you'll still achieve is a new and fresh flavor sensation that's a far cry (at least for me) from the food I've been eating all my life.

Ottolenghi-inspired Eggplant

Printable Recipe Here

2 medium to large eggplants

olive oil to brush on the eggplant

1 small container (6 oz) Greek yogurt

1/2 tsp. turmeric

1/2 tsp. cumin

1/4 tsp. mustard seeds

1/4 tsp. coriander seeds

salt, pepper to taste

toasted pine nuts

pomegranate seeds

cilantro leaves

I peel eggplant "stripes" leaving on some of the skin. Cut into 1/4 inch slices and grill, brushing each slice of eggplant with some olive oil. If you don't have a grill, place the eggplant slices on a cookie sheet that's been greased with olive oil. Brush the top side of the eggplant slices with oil. Roast in a 400 degree oven until cooked through and golden, flipping once.

Let the eggplant slices cool, and arrange on a platter. To make the sauce, grind the seeds in a mortar and pestle - or if you have a small electric coffee grinder, use that. Mix all ingredients together except the last three. Spread the sauce over the eggplant, then sprinkle on pine nuts that you've toasted a little to give some color, and some pomegranate seeds. Top with some cilantro leaves. Serve at room temperature.

Italian Meatloaf In London

2011-11-19T09:03:00.000-05:00

I did it to you again readers. I've been gone for a couple of weeks to London and Paris and left you with a couple of recipes that posted automatically. But I'm back and ready to blog about some of my adventures - food and otherwise. But meat loaf? In London?

Yes, meat loaf in London -- and Italian meat loaf too. Why Italian meatloaf? Well, mortadella has something to do with it. It's a recipe of my dear (and late) friend Alessandra, whose daughter Mariana lives in London. I stayed with Mariana and her family while there. One night she prepared this meatloaf recipe that I recreated at home, a dish that brings back fond memories of a beautiful and loving friend.

If you knew Mariana, you'd wonder how this vibrant wife and mother of four, professor and economist even has time to cook. The night I arrived, she was headed to a meeting at Parliament, then was whisked by car to the BBC where she was being interviewed about the Eurozone problems. Did I want to tag along? Duh, no brainer.

Needless to say, the meatloaf did not appear that night. That night, we made do with hors d'oeuvres and drinks served at the House of Commons. Not too shabby.

For the two weeks I was in Europe, Mariana was interviewed by the BBC several times, as well as by Al Jazeera. To see her in action, talking about Italy's debt problem, check out this video.

The rest of my trip was heavy on the cultural side and London's misty, damp weather gave me little incentive to stay outdoors, even though I detoured to a couple of the city's beautiful parks. But London is a veritable cornucopia of museums, and I was on overload, visiting six of them, starting with a blockbuster exhibit at the National Gallery on Leonardo DaVinci's paintings, the first time so many have been together in one place.

From DaVinci to a dynamite retrospective on Gerhard Richter at the Tate Modern, there were more museums to see than I had days in the city.

But culture takes other forms too, and I partook of them all - ballet and opera at Covent Garden, a concert at St. Martin's in the Field and a thoughtful, insightful play by Arthur Miller (Broken Glass) in London's theater district too.

Stay with me for future posts and recipes from the city on the Thames - and Paris too. But for now, enjoy the meatloaf - Italian style. And a photo of Mariana and Carlo's totally enchanting and adorable children. Ciao Micol, Sophia Leon and Luce!! Baci.. Abbracci....

Alessandra's Meatloaf

for printable recipe, click here

For eight people

2 1/2 pounds ground meat (I used a mixture of beef, pork and veal)
4 large slices of sturdy bread, soaked in milk, crusts trimmed
3 eggs
2 T. chopped parsley
3 T. parmesan cheese
1 lemon (juice of half and peel of the entire lemon)
1/3 pound mortadella, minced or ground (I have a meat grinder but you can chop it finely by hand.)
salt, pepper
1 shot glass of Marsala wine
breadcrumbs to cover the top

Squeeze the milk from the bread, after it's been soaking for a while. Mix the bread with the meat, eggs, parsley, cheese, salt, pepper, lemon and mortadella. Shape into a loaf, and place it into an oiled ovenproof baking dish. Pour a shot glass of marsala over the meatloaf, then cover with bread crumbs. Bake at 350 for one hour to one hour and a half, depending on the size of the pan and thickness of the meatloaf.

How To Brine And Roast A Turkey

2011-11-13T16:35:00.002-05:00

It's almost that time folks. Are you ready to roast that big bird or are you running from the task quicker than you can say turkey trot? To all of you with trepidation in your soul at the thought of tackling this job, fear not -- I have one word to help you achieve success -- and it rhymes with fine. No, it's not wine -- although a glass of chardonnay or pinot noir for the cook never hurts. The word folks is brine. Since the first time I brined a turkey years ago, I have never looked back. It's a fail-proof way to ensure a moist, flavorful turkey, even if you forget to baste it and even if you roast it a little longer than required.

Mix salt, sugar, herbs and spices with water and bring to a boil.

Place a thawed turkey into a 5-gallon container that's been lined with a plastic bag.

Dump the brining mixture over the turkey and add ice cubes (unless you have a refrigerator large enough to contain the large bucket). Let it sit overnight.

Drain the turkey from the brine, pat dry, then rub butter under the skin and place some sage leaves between the skin and breast meat.

Roast the turkey over a bed of celery, carrots and onions and with some whole heads of garlic strewn all around the pan. Baste occasionally.

I leave the carving to my dad, but it's the same way you would carve a chicken. Remove the legs, thighs and wings, then remove each half of the breast in its entirety from the carcass.

Cut the breast in slices and place all the meat on a serving platter surrounded with the whole roasted heads of garlic.

gobble, gobble!

printable recipe here

Turkey Brine
(Makes enough for up to a 24 lb. turkey)

1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 gallon water
2 T. black peppercorns
1 T. allspice berries
1 onion, sliced
1 large bunch sage
6 bay leaves
ice cubes

The day before (or night before) you want to cook the turkey:

Using a 5-gallon bucket, line it with a plastic bag. Put the salt, sugar, onion, herbs and spices in a pot on the range with only two cups of water taken from the one gallon of water called for in the recipe. Bring to a boil and stir everything to blend the flavors. Remove from the heat and add some ice cubes to cool it off, plus about half of the remaining water. Put the thawed turkey in the plastic bag in the bucket and add the water and herb mixture. If the bucket needs more water to cover the turkey, add it now.

Since I can't fit the bucket into my refrigerator, I always place it outdoors on the deck, adding ice cubes to the water to make sure it stays cool. It's never been a problem here in New Jersey in late November, and sometimes it's gotten so cold that the top layer of water has frozen. I don't want to take any risks though, so I always add the ice cubes. Twist the top of the bag and secure it closed. To keep squirrels or birds from pecking into the bag during the night or before it goes into the oven, place a flat baking pan on the top and weigh it down with something heavy. Let it sit overnight and soak.

The next day, drain the turkey from the liquid before roasting. Pat dry, then place your hand between the skin and the breast meat and spread some butter inside with some sage leaves. Alternately, make an herb butter, mixing some softened butter with minced sage, rosemary or other herbs.

Roasting Method

After rubbing butter between the skin and the breast meat, place the turkey in a pan that has a bed of celery sticks, carrots and onion chunks. Take several whole heads of garlic and slice a shallow slice off the top. Spread them in the corners of the pan. If you're not stuffing the turkey, place some onion chunks, fresh herbs (parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme or a combo) and a couple of lemons that have been halved, in the cavity. Rub the outer skin with a stick of butter that's been softened. Roast turkey according to timetable below, basting occasionally. If the breast starts to get overly browned, make a tent with aluminum foil and cover loosely. If wings get overly browned and the rest of the turkey still needs cooking, wrap the wings in aluminum foil. The total roasting time will depend on whether the turkey is stuffed or not.
Here are the roasting times recommended by the USDA. If you're checking with a meat thermometer, the USDA says the turkey is safely cooked once the thickest part of the breast and thigh reach a minimal internal temperature of 165 degrees. Full roasting instructions from the USDA are here.

Timetables for Turkey Roasting
(325 °F oven temperature)

Use the timetables below to determine how long to cook your turkey. These times are approximate. Always use a food thermometer to check the internal temperature of your turkey and stuffing.

Unstuffed
4 to 8 pounds (breast)	1½ to 3¼ hours
8 to 12 pounds	2¾ to 3 hours
12 to 14 pounds	3 to 3¾ hours
14 to 18 pounds	3¾ to 4¼ hours
18 to 20 pounds	4¼ to 4½ hours
20 to 24 pounds	4½ to 5 hours

Stuffed
4 to 6 pounds (breast)	Not usually applicable
6 to 8 pounds (breast)	2½ to 3½ hours
8 to 12 pounds	3 to 3½ hours
12 to 14 pounds	3½ to 4 hours
14 to 18 pounds	4 to 4¼ hours
18 to 20 pounds	4¼ to 4¾ hours
20 to 24 pounds	4¾ to 5¼ hours

A Writing Workshop In Italy

2011-11-07T02:23:00.000-05:00

Need some inspiration to get a kick-start on that memoir, food or travel piece you've been thinking about? Want to learn about traditions of a lesser-traveled region in Italy? Then spend a week in a medieval hilltop village where time moves slower and you can really savor the sights, sounds and flavors of daily life. Come to Santo Stefano di Sessanio, in Abruzzo, a UNESCO world heritage site, and take part in a workshop called "Italy, In Other Words."

I was there as a participant earlier this year and wrote about my experience here and here. Next year, I'm returning, but this time to lend a hand in teaching the cultural portion of the program. Kathryn Abajian, who teaches the writing portion, will return to give her expert guidance once more.

The workshop will take place from May 26 to June 2, 2012 and you can read the full details and register by clicking here. You won't want to miss it. It's a great opportunity to polish your writing with excellent feedback from a great teacher and other writers in a unique setting.

And you'll have time for eating wonderful meals too, like this homemade spaghetti alla chitarra.

Time to meander the nearby fields and think, renew your spirit and recharge yourself.

Time to walk to a castle along ancient paths where shepherds once trekked with their flocks.

Time to visit a local cheesemaker and savor his pecorino cheese.

Time to explore the village and more -- so what are you waiting for?

Don't put off what you've always dreamed of doing. It may be just the opportunity you've been waiting for.

ITALY, IN OTHER WORDS

Lidia's Italy In America

2011-10-30T07:00:00.001-04:00

It's here! The latest cookbook written by everyone's favorite Italian chef is out in bookstores and it's wonderful. Lidia Mattichio Bastianich, along with her daughter Tanya, has done it again. Lidia has criss-crossed the country to talk to and write about Italian-Americans who have left their mark on their communities and cuisine - recipes that include crab cakes from Baltimore to prickly pear granita from California. They may sound like American foods, but as Lidia explains, the recipes have their origins in Italy and pay homage to their homeland in a delicious new way.

Gracious and generous as always, Lidia agreed to an interview to talk about her latest book.

Ciao Chow Linda: Why did you write this particular book? What is there to say about Italian-American cuisine that you haven't already said or written about in prior cookbooks?
Lidia: "I have dedicated my career to transporting the real Italian culture, its history and its products to Americans. I came here as an Italian, but I also feel very American and I wanted to bring the two cultures together. I'm a good conduit. It was all about bringing the real Italy to the real America. I said I want to find out about the Italians in America. How is this Italian culture part of America? Yes, there is Italy in the memories, but this is about America. This book does just that. It traces the immigrants' contributions, the happenings and the flavors that are important to them.
There are still all kinds of hubs of 'Italianissimo' in the U.S., if you will, three or four generations later - neighborhoods where the original immigrants settled, and the roots are still there. Not only did they settle, they brought their cousins, their brothers, and other relatives to places like Napa Valley, for instance. The Swiss Colony was one of the first wine businesses in Napa Valley and it was started by Italians from Northern Italy. One could say the Italians were the great initiators of wine in California.
Vegetables like artichokes and broccoli rape are easily available to Americans now, but it took four generations for this to happen. The California company 'Andy Boy' was founded by Italians who brought seeds of broccoli rape from Italy. The need to have the food they know from home – that quest to have those ingredients, to grow, to manufacture - was strong."

Ciao Chow Linda: "Speaking of broccoli rape, (pronounced RAH-pay) is that the right way to say it, rather than rabe (RAHB)?"
Lidia: "Yes, that is the correct way to spell it and say it. But as cuisine changes, language changes too. It's constantly in evolution."

Ciao Chow Linda: "What is the biggest misconception people have about Italian food?"
Lidia: "I think the most common misconception I see is that when you serve pasta as the big center of a meal with lots of sauce. The pasta is smothered in the sauce – the heaviness of it – that's not really Italian. Italian cuisine delivers a lot of flavor but it's not heavy.

Ciao Chow Linda: How do you feel about the cooking that's presented in Italian-American chain restaurants?
Lidia: They really don't get it. That kind of cooking doesn't represent the Italian cuisine. Nowadays, everybody can really cook true Italian cuisine. The products are there. Chains are doing an injustice to the Italian cuisine. There's a lot of economics and costs involved and many times they use the cheaper products – putting a lot of fat into it and all of that. It doesn't represent Italian cuisine – it's a shame they're missing the boat, because they could really do justice to the Italian food and their customers and still make a profit.

Ciao Chow Linda: What do you eat when you don't feel like cooking? Do you ever get take-out food?
Lidia: It's almost always antipasto foods that deliver a lot of flavor - a slice of prosciutto, a little anchovies, if I'm not very hungry. If I'm more hungry, I'll cook some spaghetti with garlic, oil, and peperoncino.
I do take out, but usually it's from a different culture. I like Asian food - sushi, Korean and Chinese.

Ciao Chow Linda: What's in your refrigerator that people would be surprised to see?
Lidia: Very prominent in front is peanut butter and jelly – and I love it. I'm trying to stay a little off of starches, so I use it on those rice cakes. That's not part of my heritage but it's part of me coming to America and it was an introductory food. But I eat it on rice cakes, not on Wonder Bread.

Ciao Chow Linda: Everyone loves seeing your family and especially your grandchildren and your mother on your tv show. Was your mother your greatest influence in the kitchen and does she ever take over the cooking at home?
Lidia: She was a good cook, but not a great cook. She worked as an elementary school teacher. It was her mother – my grandmom - who influenced me more in the kitchen. There are certain things my mother does cook for me. If I'm traveling you can bet she has some soup waiting for me when I get home. I get organic chickens for her, and split them for her, and separate them. She'll take all the bones and all of that and makes soups – she adds all the veggies. She's still digging carrots out of the garden and celery still in the garden. Most likely when I come back I'll find a little soup. She also loves to make palacinka. She makes the crepes and fills them with jam and the children love that.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother because my mother was at work. She had chickens, ducks, rabbits, and goats, and pigs that we slaughtered It was a seasonal cycle of products. I was exposed to that and I appreciate that. They would send me out to get the bay leaves, to pick basil, to pluck the chickens, to clean the potatoes. All of that is recorded in my mind and that's the reference library for my cooking.

We would dip the chicken in hot water first, then pluck the feathers. Then my grandmother would burn off the little hairs on an open fire. Then she took the chicken and opened it up. I remember the feet – she would chop off the nails because they were dirty, but the rest she kept - even the intestines. I would take the intestines and press everything out of them. Then I would take scissors and cut them open, washing them two or three times in vinegar and water. The liver was used in a frittata as a snack, a merenda. Nothing was wasted. That was ingrained in me when I was very little - a respect for food. From one chicken we had a merenda and then a full meal that was enough for eight to ten people.

I have so many more memories – the slaughter of the pig for example. Butchers went around from one home to another. It would take about two days to slaughter and cure everything and divide it so it would last a long time. Neighbors would all come and everybody would go to each other's house and help. It was like a festivity and we all brought pot luck.

Ciao Chow Linda: Is there one more recipe that you would like to have included in the book that you couldn't?

Lidia: A few of rabbit – I saw it in the stores when I was in Philadelphia, but it's fallen from favor. It yields a lot for the investment, especially in today's time when we want perfectly marbled steak and you have to put in 200 percent value above what we get. It doesn't make sense. We use a lot of resources to feed the animals to produce a special steak. Rabbit doesn't use a lot of resources to get there.

Ciao Chow Linda: Were your children picky eaters? What advice do you have for parents whose kids are picky eaters?

Lidia: With vegetables, we never had a problem because we used so many different vegetables. If they didn't eat broccoli we used swiss chard. Soups are another great way of introducing veggies to children. Diversity of foods in the home is important. It's a progression, like wine, like music – you need to develop this growth but you need to develop it in the home.

Children need to grow in a setting and need to be familiar with a food to eat it. If you cook broccoli at home when you have a newborn, the newborn will be accustomed to the smell, so when he's a year old he will begin to investigate it. Children need to evolve into their smell, sight and ultimately they'll eat it. You can't never have cooked a certain vegetable and go someplace and say 'Now you're going to eat it' to a four -year old. Even a mother when she's carrying a baby or nursing is familiarizing the child with these flavors.

Ciao Chow Linda: Many people see your family on TV and how they are in and out of your home because they live so close. What's it really like to have them in close proximity?

Lidia: Overwhelming. Having a family is work, but there's also a lot of gratification. As a grandmother, I know that the children will be so much more stable, more connected, will know who they are, and have a sense of belonging. They know that there's a part of the world that belongs to them and their family – it's kind of like a tribal effect.

Ciao Chow Linda: It seems like you've done it all - from cookbooks, to restaurants, to cooking shows, to wineries, to a line of food products and cookware. What's left that you haven't tackled?

Lidia: There's been a natural crescendo for me from the stoves into the dining room into the books and into TV. I would like to remain to be a mentor and guide and have the time to give back a lot more of all the information I've accumulated over the years. I'd like to share it with the next generations.

I think they're will be more restaurants, but not with me on the front page - with my children. I'm sure there will be new restaurants on the horizon but they have to be led by son, by Mario (Batali), my daughter, or somebody else.

Del Posto

Ciao Chow Linda: You have a lot of book signings and personal appearances in the next few months. What's it like being on the road so much?

Lidia: You can be as idealistic as you want but unless you have a platform – and here in America – the platform is being economically sound and savvy. Part of my success is doing those things together. If these people who come to see me will follow the recipes, buy the books, come to my restaurants, it is an exchange. I appreciate all of them out there. I want to go out there and touch people. I get energy from that as well.

To see the schedule of Lidia's upcoming appearances and book signings, click here.

To view other Ciao Chow Linda interviews with Lidia as well as a few more of her recipes, click here and here.

Boston Cream Cake
Dolcino di Boston alla Crema Pasticcera

From "Lidia's Italy In America"

printable recipe here

Boston cream cakes do not sound Italian, but this recipe was given to me by Italians. At Scialo Brothers Bakery in Rhode Island, we found trays upon trays of little chocolate- covered spheres. I thought they were some version of a cassata (a Sicilian domelike cake stuffed with ricotta cream—see page 318), but instead they were individual Boston cream pies. The French chef Sanzian, who worked at the Parker House Hotel (now the Omni Parker House) in Boston is credited with having invented the Boston cream pie. Italian or not, these were delicious.

Make the pastry cream: Whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a medium pot. While whisking, pour in the milk. Set the pot over medium- low heat, and heat the mixture to just below boiling. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs in a large bowl. Remove the pot from heat, and pour the milk slowly into the eggs, whisking constantly, to temper the eggs. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan, and stir constantly over medium- low heat until the mixture thickens and just begins to simmer. Immediately scrape the mixture into a clean bowl. Let it cool slightly, then cover the surface of the pastry cream with plastic wrap. Refrigerate several hours or overnight, until chilled and thickened.

Make the cakes: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a twelve-unit cupcake pan with paper liners. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt onto a piece of parchment.

Cream the butter and sugar in a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Crack in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between additions. Stir in the olive oil, vanilla, and zest. Beat on high speed for 2 minutes, to lighten and smooth the batter. Mix in the flour in three additions on low speed, alternating with the orange juice, beginning and ending with the flour. Once everything has been added, beat the batter on high speed for about 20 seconds.

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake liners. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, about 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from pan, and cool completely on a wire rack.

Makes 12

For The Pastry Cream

1⁄2 cup sugar
4 teaspoons cornstarch
Pinch kosher salt
2 cups milk
2 large eggs

For The Cakes

1 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder
1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄8 teaspoon kosher salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3⁄4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon orange zest
3⁄4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

For The Glaze

2⁄3 cup light corn syrup
2 tablespoons dark rum
Pinch kosher salt
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

Make the glaze: Combine the corn syrup, rum, salt, and 2 tablespoons water in a small pot. Bring to a boil, and simmer until slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Put the chopped chocolate in a heat- proof bowl, and pour the syrup over the chocolate. Stir until the glaze is smooth and shiny and all of the chocolate is melted. Let cool until thickened and just warm to the touch.

To assemble the cakes: Remove the cupcake liners from the cakes.
Split the cakes at the base of the cap with a serrated knife.

To finish: Invert one cake, and place the cake cap on a plate, cut side up. Spoon the pastry cream onto the cake top, then top with inverted cake bottom, like an upside-down mushroom. Spoon the hot chocolate glaze onto the base facing you, letting the glaze run down the sides of the cake, spooning on more if necessary. Repeat with the remaining filled cakes.

Excerpted from Lidia's Italy in America by Lidia Bastianich. Copyright © 2011 by Lidia Bastianich. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

,

Apple Tart, Miracle Crust and Mother Nature too

2011-10-25T06:39:00.000-04:00

OK, so it's just another apple tart, you're thinking. Well think again, because this tart dough is nothing short of miraculous. It's made in a jiffy using melted butter - you read that right - no blending rock hard butter, ice water, flour and sugar together as all traditional doughs call for. This tart dough not only is a snap to make, it tastes buttery, flaky and even held up two days later without getting soggy. I owe this marvel to David Lebovitz, who wrote about it on his blog here. I changed the recipe slightly to allow for a larger tart shell, and I melted the butter on top of the stove, rather than in the oven. I may never use another tart recipe again. It's that good and that easy.

Serve it with ice cream for a real treat. Eat it overlooking these almost primordial waterfalls in the Catskills as I did and you'll think you're dreaming. This is the phenomenal view I had for three days last week, when my kids and I gathered to commemorate a very special day.

It was hard to tear ourselves away from the view, enjoyed before dinner on our first evening there with a couple of bottles of wine, some guacamole and salsa.

We had gorgeous views from all our hikes too, including this one at the top of the mountain, overlooking the Hudson Valley.

And when a heart-shaped rock crosses your path, you take it as a sign.

We had fun exploring other towns nearby, including Woodstock and Saugerties.

And there were plenty of other waterfalls to discover on our hikes too, including Kaaterskill Falls, the longest one in the Catskills.

Not to mention brilliant fall foliage.

And wonderful food too, including this duck confit at Tamayo's in the town of Saugerties. Thanks kids.

I can't leave out these luscious macarons that my daughter brought to the feast from the new Laduree store in Manhattan. Merci beaucoup.

In the end, the waterfalls outside our door - Niobe Falls - kept luring us back like Ulysses to the sirens. We were just mesmerized all weekend by their beauty and proximity. It was like having a natural sound machine to lull you.

As hard as it was to leave the waterfall house and the wonderful hospitality of its owners, we softened the blow on the way home by stopping at our favorite New York State winery - Prospero Winery. We squeezed some space out of an already crammed car for some wine and prosecco to take home.

Back home - via Manhattan and Jersey City to drop off the kids at their own places - after a memorable weekend. Time to finish off that last slice of apple tart.

Tart Dough Recipe
fits a large tart pan, about 10 1/2 inches in diameter

Printable recipe here

5 ounces unsalted butter, cut into pieces
5 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour

Melt butter in a saucepan until bubbly. Add all the rest of the ingredients with a wooden spoon until it forms a ball and comes away from the side of the pan. Add more flour if necessary. Pat into a tart pan and fill with apples or other fruit.

Filling:

4 or 5 sliced apples, depending of size - I used Granny Smith

sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon on top

2 T. butter

apricot preserves

Layer apple slices over uncooked dough in tart pan. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon and dab with bits of butter. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 45 minutes, depending on thickness of slices. Remove from oven and heat apricot preserves until warm enough to spread. Brush a thin layer over the apples.

Stuffed Squash and Pumpkin

2011-10-20T07:29:00.000-04:00

While I lament saying goodbye to the juicy tomatoes, sweet corn and other wonderful summer New Jersey produce, a chill in the air offers an opportunity to welcome back enticing fall produce, including winter squashes and pumpkins. Small squashes, like this carnival squash, are not just pretty to look at, but they're delicious too - kind of like an acorn squash that's variegated. For me, squashes and pumpkins provide the perfect receptacle for stuffing, and hopefully you'll try one of these three recipes. This first one can be vegetarian if you use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth - and features a risotto with kale, mushrooms and chunks of squash.

This second one is just a plain old pumpkin - the kind you use for carving jack o'lanterns - only smaller. It's stuffed with acini di pepe, or pastina, an idea I found on Proud Italian Cook, a terrific Italian food blog written by my friend Marie. Pastina is my all-time favorite comfort food and takes me back to my childhood, when my mom served this to me anytime I wasn't feeling up to snuff. This version is kicked up a notch with the addition of the squash and the presentation is a lot different from when I was a child.

This third version features a versatile stuffing that would taste great as a stuffing for chicken or turkey. With sausage, apples and bread as the main ingredients, you could throw this in a casserole, serve it with a salad and your dinner would be complete. Actually any of these stuffings would work equally as well in a bowl rather than in a squash or pumpkin, but you have to agree that they look much more inviting like this. If you're so inclined, just cut the tops off the squash/pumpkins, scoop out the insides, then rub with some olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put the lids back on, and bake at 375 degrees for about an hour or until they're softened a bit, but not so soft that they lose their structure.

For the bread and sausage stuffing, you'll need to bake it again for about 30 minutes, at about 400 degrees. For the pastina and the risotto stuffing, no further cooking is needed. Just slice into it and enjoy.

Stuffed Squash and Pumpkins

Printable Recipe Here

Choose small pumpkins or squash. Cut a circle on the top and extricate the stringy parts and seeds. I find a grapefruit spoon helps a lot here. Oil the interior, sprinkle with salt and pepper, put the lids back on (it helps to steam the interior) and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes to one hour. If you're serving it with the pastina or the risotto, you might want to bake it the full hour (or until tender enough to eat). For the bread/sausage stuffing, you'll be placing it in the oven again, so 45 minutes should suffice.

Bread/Sausage Stuffing

This makes enough to fill 2 to 3 small pumpkins or squash

1/4 cup chopped onion
2 stalks celery, minced
3 T. olive oil
1/2 pound Italian sausage
about 4 cups bread, cubed (use a sturdy Italian bread)
1 apple, chopped into small pieces
minced parsley
salt, pepper
1 egg, beaten

Saute the onion and celery in the olive oil until limp. Take the casing off the sausage and cook with the vegetables until barely cooked through. Drain off some of the fat, but not all. Add the bread, parsley, salt, pepper, and apple and combine. Whisk the egg in a bowl, then add it to the stuffing ingredients and mix through. Place stuffing inside pumpkin and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Keep the lid off to get a nice browning on the top. If it looks like it's getting browned too quickly, lower temperature to 350 degrees.

Pastina Stuffing

squash
pastina or acini di pepe
chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
parmesan cheese
thyme

I don't give quantities for this because you can be free and loose with it, depending on how much squash you want to use, how liquidy you want the pastina, etc.
Roast some squash in the oven by rubbing with olive oil, salt and pepper and baking for about 1/2 hour at 375 degrees. Cut into small pieces. When I roast squash, I usually make enough to have leftovers the next day.
Simmer the pastina in some chicken broth until cooked through, and add the squash pieces to the pastina. Make it to the consistency you like by adding more or less chicken broth. To me, it tastes best and looks best when it's almost like a porridge, and not too liquidy. Sprinkle with a little fresh thyme, grated parmesan cheese and pour into individual pumpkins.

Risotto Stuffing

This makes enough to fill three or four small pumpkins or squash

1 cup arborio rice
3 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
1/4 cup minced onion
1/2 cup dry white wine
8 leaves lacinato kale or any other type of kale
8 mushrooms
1 cup squash or pumpkin, cut into small pieces
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth, hot
about 1 cup cheese (you could use parmesan, cheddar or fontina - any cheese that melts well. I used a cheese called Herdsman, freshly made from Cherry Grove Farms, not far from Princeton in Lawrenceville, N.J.)

Saute the onion in the oil and butter. Add the mushrooms and saute slightly. Add the rice and stir to coat. Pour in the wine and stir some more. Add the kale, cut into small pieces and the squash or pumpkin. Add the hot broth, a ladle-full at a time, and stir after each addition. Keep doing this for about 20 minutes or until the rice is cooked. Add the cheese, but reserve some for the top. Pour into the pumpkin or squash, sprinkle with a bit of the reserved cheese, and serve.

Cook In Italy With Ciao Chow Linda and cookbook winner

2011-10-15T09:59:00.000-04:00

Want to join me for one week in Italy at this beautiful villa next May, when you'll also visit lots of sights in the "Castelli Romani" - as the towns southeast of Rome are known? Here's your chance - not only to see places that are a little off the beaten tourist path, but to live like a real Italian - learning techniques and secrets of Italian cooking - in a real Italian home - from me, Ciao Chow Linda!

You can read all the details by clicking here. The group will be small, so don't wait too long to decide or you may be left out.

Life is short - don't delay something you've always dreamed of doing. You could be spending the day touring a castle, visiting a baroque church, shopping for and cooking fresh zucchini blossoms, and returning home to a view like this:

Hope to see you there!

On a different subject - "Imbottito" was the winner of the cookbook "Cucina Povera" on my last post, but left no email address for me to contact. If you're reading this, "Imbottito" please contact me via email at ciaochowlinda@gmail.com, or I will choose another winner.

Involtini di Maiale and A Giveaway

2011-10-10T08:35:00.000-04:00

I'm becoming obsessed with this cookbook - Cucina Povera. I already posted a recipe for sfratti from it that will now become part of my permanent cookie repertoire. Having read all the first-hand stories in this book about Tuscan people who struggled to make ends meet and used every scrap of food available, whether grown in their gardens or foraged in the wild, I am working my way through the recipes, some of which I grew up eating in my parents' home. I have childhood memories of hunting for wild asparagus and wild greens, of my mother canning tomatoes for the winter, of my parents making soppressata and of course home-made wine. Maybe that's why these recipes and stories are so resonant with me. Because food ~~was~~ - is - sacred and should not be wasted. Because you can make a delicious and nutritious meal out of the simplest ingredients.

If you haven't already purchased this cookbook (or if you have and want to gift one), here's your chance to own a copy. Leave a comment at the bottom of the blog (Not in email) and you'll be entered to win a copy, selected by a random number generator. That's it. You don't have to "like" me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter - everybody gets the same odds. But if you did, I'd be grateful.

But so you don't have to wait to make this recipe, here's the step-by-step. Start with a one-pound pork tenderloin and divide it into eight pieces, then pound each piece flat between parchment paper until it's pretty thin.

Spread the ricotta and spinach mixture on top. I added a sage leaf, not called for in the cookbook recipe.

Roll tightly.

Wrap with a slice of pancetta and secure with a toothpick.

Saute for a few minutes with some wine.

Sit down to a great meal.

Involtini di Maiale

From the cookbook "Cucina Povera" by Pamela Sheldon Johns

Printable Recipe Here

8 ounces spinach, steamed and finely chopped
1/2 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
freshly grated nutmeg
1 pound boneless pork loin, sliced into 8 pieces
8 thin slices pancetta
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup dry white wine

In a medium, bowl, combine the spinach and ricotta and stir to blend. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste. Set aside.
Place a slice of pork between 2 pieces of parchment paper, and roll with a rolling pin until flattened to an even thickness, about 1/8 inch. Repeat to flatten the remaining slices.
Spread a think layer of the spinach mixture on top of a slice of pork, leaving a 1/4 inch border. Roll it and wrap with a slice of pancetta, then fasten with a toothpick. Repeat with the remaining pork, filling and pancetta.
In a large, heavy saute pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat, and sear the rolls for about 2 minutes on each side. Add the wine and stir to scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Simmer briskly for 7 to 8 minutes, turning the rolls once or twice to heat them through. Serve at once.

Fava Bean Puree, Pat and "The Chew"

2011-10-06T08:11:00.000-04:00

No, this isn't hummus. It's what you might call the Italian equivalent though - fava bean puree, made with dried fava beans. I found them in a store in Brooklyn a couple of days ago - more about that later. I'd never have found the store had it not been for Pat, a fellow blogger I've been following for years who writes "Mille Fiori Favoriti" - a wonderful blog primarily about New York City. Pat always informs and entertains her readers, and she never runs out of interesting places to visit and fun things to do. I was lucky enough to be invited on her most recent adventure, as a member of the studio audience on the new TV show on ABC called "The Chew."

I also got to meet Pat's husband Vinny and friend Rosemary (who was taking our picture) and we had a fun time watching the show, with its co-hosts Mario Batali, Michael Symon, Carla Hall, and Daphne Oz.

Following the show, we ate a delicious meal at the Clinton Street Baking Company and Restaurant, where we had a hard time deciding on which of the tempting offerings to order. Everyone was so busy noshing that no one remembered to take photos until it was too late.

Vinny and Pat were terrific hosts, and wanted to show me a bit of Brooklyn, a borough I've visited half a half dozen times or so. We poked in and out of antique and second hand shops along Atlantic Avenue and ended up at a Middle Eastern food emporium called "Sahadi's." The shelves were brimming with everything from peas to pomegranate syrup. I came home with several items, including these dried fava beans.

They were already peeled, so all I needed to do was soak them overnight before cooking. Here's what they looked like the next morning.

I drained the water, put fresh water in the pot and simmered them for about an hour until they got soft. Don't add any salt until they're cooked, or it will take longer to soften the beans.

Drain the water, then use a potato masher to mash the beans. Season with salt and pepper and pour a warm mixture of olive oil, garlic and chopped parsley on top.

It makes a great side dish when you want something other than the typical mashed potatoes. The same recipe also tastes wonderful with cannellini beans too.

I want to send a special thank you to Pat and Vinny for inviting me to "The Chew" and for spending the day with me in Brooklyn and also to their friend Rosemary, who was so nice to chat with too. They made me feel so welcome and at ease. You can read more detail about the day at Pat's blog here.

Pat and Vinny just celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary yesterday so a special "Congratulations" and "Cent'anni" goes out to them.

Fava Bean Puree

printable recipe here

1 pound dried fava beans

salt, pepper to taste

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 cloves garlic

a handful of parsley, minced

Soak fava beans overnight in water. Drain the water the following day, then place fresh water in the pot, covering the fava beans by one inch. Cook over heat for about an hour, skimming any "foam" from the surface. Warning, if you're not careful, the foam spills over to your stove and makes a mess. After the beans are soft, drain them and place them back in the pot. Mash with a potato masher. They should not be soupy. If they are too liquidy, turn on the flame and cook for a while until some of the water evaporates. Season with salt and pepper. In another small saucepan, heat the olive oil, add the garlic, minced and cook for a minute. Then add the parsley, stir for a second or two, and pour over the mashed fava beans. This recipe works equally well with cannellini beans

Ricotta and Swiss Chard Gnocchi

2011-10-01T07:38:00.000-04:00

My dad never used to cook. He didn't need to - my mom was well known for her prowess in the kitchen. But when she died in 1986, cooking became a necessity for my dad - he isn't one for take-out food. Even though he's been remarried for 20 years, his culinary skills have grown along with his passion for cooking. On a recent visit, he prepared these gnocchi with a red pepper sauce and I was enchanted - they're light enough to practically melt in your mouth and they're a good way to use up some of the remaining swiss chard in my garden. The red pepper sauce is delicious and a little unexpected too.

Don't like red pepper sauce? They're also divine with a simple melted butter and sage sauce. They're easy to make too. All you do is mix a few ingredients in a bowl and shape into ovals. These are sometimes called "gnudi" - the Italian word meaning "naked" since they're like a ravioli filling without the dough.

Warning - I used swiss chard that had red stems and the gnocchi took on a pinkish shade. Upon cooking, they turn a little greyish - not the most attractive food color.

But it doesn't matter because they're as light as a cloud and the red pepper sauce adds a beautiful color to the dish. Besides, you can cover it all with a sprinkle with parmesan - something I forgot to do it for the photos.

Ricotta and Swiss Chard Gnocchi or "gnudi"

printable recipe here

1 pound ricotta
1/2 cup flour, or more if needed
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 large egg
a bunch of swiss chard leaves (about a dozen large leaves, or more if they're small - you could also use spinach)
1/4 tsp. salt, pepper to taste
a grating of fresh nutmeg

Drain the ricotta overnight to get rid of excess water. Cook the swiss chard leaves in boiling water, drain and let cool. Squeeze out excess water and chop finely. Mix the ricotta, swiss chard and remaining ingredients in a bowl. Add more flour if necessary, but the least amount of flour you add, the lighter the gnocchi will be. Dust your hands with flour and roll into oblong shapes. Cook in a pot with ample water, salted until the gnocchi rise to the surface. Drain.

Serve with melted butter and sage, sprinkled with parmesan cheese, or with red pepper sauce - recipe below.

Red Pepper Sauce
1 shallot
1 garlic clove, minced
2 T. olive oil
8 oz. roasted red peppers - preferably homemade
1/3 c. white wine
1/3 c. chicken broth
salt, pepper to taste

Cook the shallot and garlic clove in the olive oil. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for five minutes, then put in a blender and puree until smooth. Pour back into saucepan to heat and serve with the gnocchi.

Sfratti

2011-09-26T07:19:00.000-04:00

When I received a copy of Cucina Povera, a new cookbook by Pamela Sheldon Johns, I couldn't stop turning the pages. Not because it has glossy pages with slick copy - it doesn't. I was drawn to it because of the rustic, matte feel of the paper, the jagged, deckle edges of each page and most of all, the beautiful photos, recipes and stories of the people whose very lives and traditions are outlined in this book.

For these people, cucina povera (peasant cooking) was a necessity. And even though most of us can afford to indulge in small culinary luxuries nowadays, that doesn't mean we shouldn't respect the bounty that's available or waste food either. Eating what's in season, making simple dishes from the freshest ingredients, and preserving foods for the lean days of winter are lessons we can all benefit from in order to live healthier lives and preserve resources.

Cucina Povera contains delicious recipes - from soups to pastas, meats and vegetables to desserts like this cookie called "sfratti," plural of the word "sfratto," which means eviction. These cookies are one of the old recipes from Pitigliano, a Tuscan town that once housed a large Jewish population. Sadly, many of the Jews were forced to flee during World War II, following Mussolini's racial laws. This recipe is a traditional Rosh Hashanah treat from Pitigliano's Jewish heritage.

Sfratti may be considered "cucina povera" but there's no feeling of deprivation once you've tried these. Here's a visual guide on how to make them, followed by the recipe.

After you've madethe filling, spread it out on the rolled-out dough.

Roll the dough over the filling.

Continue rolling until you have something that looks like a large cigar. The shape is meant to evoke the batons that officials used to bang on the doors of Jews to evict them.

Brush with beaten egg yolk and bake.

Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar.

Betcha' can't eat just one.

Sfratti
From Pamela Sheldon Johns' "Cucina Povera"
Printable Recipe Here

Pastry

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
pinch of slat
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2/3 cup sweet white wine

Filling

1 cup honey
4 cups walnuts, chopped
2 tsps. grated orange zest
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1 egg yolk, beaten

For the pastry: In a large bowl, combine, the flour, sugar and salt. Stir with a whisk to blend. Stir in the olive oil and wine to make a smooth dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
For the filling: In a medium saucepan, heat the honey over medium heat. Add the walnuts, orange zest, cinnamon and cloves, and cook, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes, or until thickened. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.
Divide the chilled dough into 8 pieces. On a lightly floured work surface, roll a piece of dough into a 4 x 10-inch rectangle. Spoon 1/2 cup of the filling along the center of the length of the dough and roll it up. Place on the prepared baking sheet, seam side down. Repeat with the remaining pastry and filling. Brush the pastry with the egg yolk, and bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
Transfer the pastries from the pan to a wire rack to cool completely. To serve, cut each pastry into 1-inch thick slices and dust with confectioner's sugar. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks.

Makes about 6 dozen slices

Ribollita and Vegetable Soup

2011-09-20T10:25:00.000-04:00

I don't know about you, but my vegetable garden is looking pretty raggedy in these last days of summer. That is, except for the swiss chard and Tuscan kale. They're the champions of the garden - still going strong and perfect for vegetable soup and ribollita. For the record, the photo above isn't vegetable soup - it's ribollita, an Italian word that means re-boiled. The first time I ordered ribollita in Italy, I was surprised to be served something that was more of a thick, vegetable stew than a liquidy soup. But that's what it's meant to be. In an attempt to use every morsel and not waste anything, thrifty Italians took leftover bread and added it to the previous day's vegetable soup to make something even more hearty. It's a classic recipe from the region of Tuscany, whose landscapes never fail to enchant.

It's also one of the easiest and best ways to use up some of those delicious and nutritious fall vegetables you might still have in your garden. Here are the basic ingredients for my soup, whether it's vegetable soup or ribollita. You can use your imagination and add other ingredients if you like. If you've got a leftover parmigiano reggiano rind, throw that in. I always have a few that I've saved in the freezer.

Once the pot has simmered for a while, add the beans and it should look like this - a hearty and soul-warming soup to ward off the chill from a brisk fall day. Leftovers freeze well too, so don't worry about making too much.

Here it is served as a brothy vegetable soup.

And here it is as ribollita, after adding some bread and reheating. Traditional ribollita is much thicker than this, and you can practically have a spoon standing on end inside a deep bowl of it, but this was prepared immediately following the vegetable soup. If you let the bread soak overnight and reheat the next day, it attains the thicker consistency.

Vegetable Soup/Ribollita
Printable recipe here

This isn't like making a cake where you have to be exact in the quantities, so feel free to change or add/subtract whatever ingredients and quantities you prefer.

1 large onion, minced
6 cloves garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
3 carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
swiss chard, about 20 leaves chopped and stalks sliced
Tuscan kale, lacinato kale, dinosaur kale (same thing) - about 16 -20 leaves, chopped up
1/2 savoy cabbage, chopped up
2 small zucchini, chopped
8-10 plum tomatoes, peeled and chopped (canned is fine and you can add more if you like a stronger tomato flavor)
2 14-ounce cannellini beans
1 parmesan cheese rind
16 cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
salt, pepper
fresh or dried thyme and basil as you like

a hearty, stale bread for ribollita
olive oil to drizzle on top

Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil until limp. Add all the rest of the ingredients except the beans and simmer for about a half hour. Add the beans and cook another half hour. Serve immediately as vegetable soup with some parmesan sprinkled on top. Or layer some soup and bread in a bowl or pot and let it sit overnight in the refrigerator. Reheat the next day and you've got ribollita. Serve with parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.

Cookiepedia

2011-09-16T07:04:00.000-04:00

Do you really need another chocolate chip cookie recipe? Don't answer that until you've tried this recipe. These cookies spread out and are flat, rather than sit in a cake-y lump on the cookie sheet. They're crunchy along the edges, yet soft and chewy in the middle. Hot out of the oven with the chocolate softly melting in your mouth, they're irresistible. They may become my standard chocolate-chip cookie. The only thing I'd do different in the future is add some walnuts.

They're included in a new cookbook called "The Cookiepedia" that was sent to me recently. The book includes a diverse array of cookies, but I immediately was drawn to the Italian biscuits recipe since it reminded me of Serpette - a cookie I eat whenever I'm in the Castelli Romani, a series of towns southeast of Rome. Serpette always have a crunchy, sugary top, so I brushed some egg white and sprinkled some sugar on the top before baking - something that wasn't in Cookiepedia's recipe. It added just the right amount of sweetness to a cookie that's not very sweet, but is addictively delicious. My go-to cookie is always my friend Lilli's biscotti, but these are also destined to be a classic in my cookie repertoire now. Add a glass of vin santo or a cup of espresso and you can't get much better.

From the Cookbook "Cookiepedia" by Stacy Adimando
Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes between 16 and two dozen cookies

printable recipe here

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 c. sugar
1/2 c. light brown sugar
1 large egg
3/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup (about 8 oz. bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks

Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a big bowl and stir. Set the bowl aside.
Cream the butter and sugars for several minutes, until they look light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix until just combined. Add the flour mixture right into the butter mixture. Mix on low speed until they're incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Go down the line dropping tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto parchment-paper-lined cookie sheets. Leave about 2 inches between them so they have plenty of room to spread. Bake for 10 minutes in a 350 degree oven, rotating the sheets halfway through baking.

Italian Biscuits

makes from 16 to 2 dozen cookies

printable recipe here

4 T. unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups plus 2 T. all-purpose flour
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 t. vanilla extract

Melt the butter and set aside to cool slightly. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl and set it aside.
With a mixer, beat the eggs on medium speed for a minute. Add the sugar in a slow, steady stream, continuing to mix on medium until they're combined. Reduce the speed to low and slowly add the cooled butter and vanilla.
Add the flour mixture and mix on low speed just until the dough comes together.
Scoop out tablespoon-sized balls of dough and roll them between your fingers into ropes about 5 inches long. Gently form the ropes into S shapes. Place the cookies on sheets about 2 inches from one another. Let them sit for 15 minutes before baking. (Optional - brush with a little egg white and sprinkle sugar on top.)
Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until golden brown.

Risotto con Persico (perch)

2011-09-12T08:18:00.000-04:00

Some of my favorite recipe ideas - like this one - come from eating in restaurants. Like me, you've no doubt made risotto countless times, but have you ever tried it with perch - while overlooking the lake where it was swimming just a few hours earlier? Me either, but while I was in Italy this summer, I spent a few days on Lago Maggiore, one of the beautiful lakes in Northern Italy.

On my last night there, I had the best meal of my entire trip at a restaurant called Verbano - on the small island of Isola Pescatore, located on Lago Maggiore. It's one of several islands on the lake and is oozing with charm. You can walk all its streets in just fifteen minutes but I could spend a lifetime looking at the views. All around you are the foothills of the Alps, and you can see Monte Rosa in the distance - Europe's second highest mountain.

From my table, I looked directly onto another island - Isola Bella - and the beautiful Borromeo palace, built in the 1600s.

The baroque palace is filled with precious artwork, tapestries and furniture, but the gardens surrounding it rival the building in their grandiose splendor.

In the photo below, Isola Bella and its gardens are in the foreground. The island in the distance at left is Isola Pescatore, where I enjoyed the risotto con persico and other great dishes.

As long as we're here on Lago Maggiore, let me show you another enchanting wonder along the lake - the hermitage of Santa Caterina. Legend has it that a wealthy merchant shipwrecked on these rocks in the 12th century and prayed to Saint Catherine to guide him to safety. In return, he promised to live a hermit's life, which he did, holed up in a cave here for 35 years. The existing structures, which include a monastery and a church, were built starting in the 13th century.

As you approach by boat, you can see the building clinging to the sheer cliffs of the island. You have to wonder how they achieved this engineering feat so many centuries ago.

One thing that you won't find to be a feat is making this risotto I ate for my first course at Verbano. I was able to find perch at my local fish store, but if you can't find it, you can use lots of other types of fish to achieve similar results. Flounder, sole, tilapia would all work just fine.

Start by cutting up the raw fish into small pieces, but save one nice size piece to place on top.

Poach that one small piece for a few minutes in fish broth. Cover it to keep it warm. You'll use the fish broth to cook the risotto too. I make my own anytime I cook shrimp and save it in the freezer for later use. Just take some shrimp shells, plus some onion, black peppercorns, garlic and parsley and simmer it in a pot of water. Strain it, then cool it before putting it in the freezer.

Start cooking the risotto as you do any other risotto, slowly adding a bit of broth at intervals.

In the last five minutes, add the small pieces of fish and more broth. Keep stirring until the fish is opaque and the risotto is cooked. Add minced parsley and a pat of butter at the last minute.

Garnish with the small piece of fish that you poached separately and a little cherry tomato.

The rest of the meal was equally as good if not better - including the main course of striped bass and a dreamy lemon dessert - a liqueur-soaked lemon cake resting on a pool of lemon sauce, all accompanied by a cup of lemon mousse and decorated with a lemon leaf, whipped cream and fresh currants.

On my way to the ladies' room, some of the chefs were catching a smoke outside and I asked for the cake recipe, which they graciously gave me. At a certain point, I'll post it here, but not until I've experimented in my home kitchen and whittled down the recipe from the gargantuan portion written by the chef. In the meantime, try the risotto.

Risotto Con Persico (perch)

printable recipe here

for two servings

3 T. olive oil

2 T. butter

1/4 cup minced shallot

1/4 cup white wine

1 cup arborio rice

3-4 cups simmering fish broth (use a mixture of water and clam juice if you don't have or can't find fish broth in your store)

1/2 pound perch, cut into small pieces (cut off two larger-sized pieces to use on top as decoration)

salt, pepper

minced parsley

1 pat of butter

Melt the butter with the olive oil and saute the shallot until wilted. Add the rice and stir until coated, then add the white wine. Slowly add the broth, a ladle or two at a time, stirring all the while until the rice absorbs each ladleful. It should take about 20 minutes to finish cooking the risotto. During the last five minutes, add the parsley and pieces of fish and cook through until they're opaque. Add a pat of butter and stir into the risotto. Serve in bowls with a small piece of fish and a cherry tomato on top for decoration.

72 Hours In Chicago

2011-09-09T07:36:00.000-04:00

I was in Chicago once - eons ago when dinosaurs walked the earth I think. Come to think of it, the only thing I remember about that visit when I was six years old - other than my aunt's wedding - was the Field Museum, where today you really can see dinosaurs that move.

This time around I had people to meet and things to see that didn't include triceratops and T-Rex. A lot of my three-day trip with my friend Lilli involved exploring Chicago's food scene, and you can read about that here. This post will take you along for the non-food part (yes I do more than just eat), starting with a relaxing boat trip highlighting the architectural wonders of the windy city. It was a great introduction to Chicago's diverse architecture and a good way to get a sense of where things were.

Later on the trip, we explored on foot some of what we had seen on the water, including the Chicago Tribune building, a neo-Gothic building with lots of beautiful tracery near the front entrance.

Embedded near the base the building are myriad stones, bricks and artifacts that were collected from all over the world. I felt right at home when I saw the piece of stone from Princeton University.

You can't help noticing the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower). It's the highest building in North America, and stands 1,450 feet high.

You get a great view of the city from the top. On a really clear day, you can see across Lake Michigan to Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.

A couple of years ago, these glass balcony boxes were added to the building, allowing visitors to step out and look 1,343 feet below to the street. Yours truly had to go for it, and honestly, it's not as scary as it might seem.

But if you'd rather stay at ground level, there's plenty to see and do. Take the time to head to the beach - right in the city. Except for the lack of waves, you might think you're at the ocean rather than Lake Michigan.

Walk the magnificent mile along Michigan Ave. and you'll find not just trendy shops, but sidewalks brimming with beautiful plantings, and even small fountains in some cases.

One thing I definitely didn't think I'd see in downtown Chicago was this crenellated building that looks like it belongs in Disneyworld. Turns out it was built as a water tower in 1869 but now serves as one of the city's official visitor's centers.

You'll find public sculpture along the sidewalks too, including these - the top left is by Picasso, the large one at right is by Jean Dubuffet, and the Marilyn sculpture (temporary until Spring) at lower left is by New Jersey's own Seward Johnson.

But the one that really captured my attention was "Cloud Gate" - more affectionally known as "the bean," created by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor.

It's located in Millennium Park, a really fun place to spend some time. It's where Frank Gehry's Pritzker Pavilion also is located, and you even might be able to hear a concert while you're there, as we did.

One of my favorite things about the city has to be the Crown Fountain, also located in Millennium Park. It's an interactive sculpture that uses light-emitting diodes on its glass-bricked towers to feature the constantly changing faces of local residents. Water spurts out of the mouth periodically, entertaining all the children playing there and the people watching, including me. Click on the video and see if it doesn't make you smile too.

Here's a nighttime view of the fountain, but it's never the same twice.

While we're on the subject of fountains, you've got to visit Buckingham Fountain too - a beautiful pink marble fountain that's one of the largest in the world.

When we walked into the Chicago Cultural Center, which has a glass dome designed by Louis Tiffany (the largest in the world) we thought we'd entered a concert hall. A talented pianist named Clara Min was rehearsing for a performance that we were sorry we would have to miss. The interior of the building was stunning, with glittering mosaics everywhere.

My very favorite place in Chicago has got to be the Art Institute. I spent three hours there one afternoon, but was wishing for at least three more. It's got a fantastic collection, and is the major reason I definitely want to come back to Chicago.

Here's only a smattering of the art I saw - clockwise from top left - Renoir, Seurat, Sorolla, Monet, Pisarro and Degas.

It was hard to tear myself away from the impressionists, but there was so much more to see - just a few more examples to entice - clockwise from left - Singer Sargeant, Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Magritte and Severini.

Next time I go back, I'll plan a whole day. And it will be during the season for the Chicago Lyric Opera and the Symphonic Orchestra too. Riccardo Muti, save a seat for me.

The winner of the Blue Willow tea set giveaway - chosen with a random number generator - is Barbara of Dish N'That. Congratulations. It'll be on its way to you tomorrow.

Chicago Chow-Down

2011-09-06T08:43:00.000-04:00

Chicago deep-dish pizza - if ever a city was linked to a dish, it's this one. I would have been remiss in not ordering it on a trip to the windy city a couple of weeks ago. Wonderful, yes, and every bit as filling as I remembered it too. Sorry Chicago, I like your pizza, but Neapolitan style-pizza is still my favorite. The Chicago culinary experience is about so much more than pizza though. From the casual pizza joint Pizano's (where the above pizza was sampled) to the ultra-elegant restaurant Spiaggia, and Greek and Mexican cuisine in between, I sampled lots of good food with my good friend Lilli during our three-day visit.

Dinner at Spiaggia was high on my list, ever since touring Acetaia San Giacomo (I wrote about the place here), where Andrea Bezzecchi makes his divinely delicious aged balsamic vinegar in Italy's Emilia Romagna region. Andrea sells the precious liquid to Spiaggia, in addition to New York's Le Bernardin and other high end restaurants as well. The elegant Italian restaurant was also one of the the Obama's favorite spots for date nights when they lived in Chicago.

Spiaggia's beautifully inlaid marble floor wowed me immediately as we entered the restaurant lobby, and the view from our table, overlooking Lake Michigan, was lovely as well.

Overall, the food was very good, and there were some real winners among the dishes we sampled, including the best dish of the night - my primo piatto - a raviolo filled with crescenza cheese and braised goat meat in a fragrant sauce surrounded by mushrooms (bottom left photo)

But some of the dishes were less than top notch, which is not what you expect when paying the kind of prices charged here. For example, a primo piatto of three tortelli d'erbette (top left photo) filled with swiss chard and ricotta was bland and under seasoned. This dish is a specialty of the region in Italy where my relatives live and I've eaten it many times there. This version fell short. For $28, you'd think the chef could have added more than three measly drops of Andrea's balsamic vinegar to liven up the flavor.

My main course of halibut (top row middle photo) was overcooked and hard around the edges, inexcusable when the cost is $54 for the portion.

On the plus side, the waitress let me taste a couple of wines before I found one I wanted to order, and the free refills of San Pellegrino all night long were an uncommonly pleasant surprise. We also loved our antipasto selection. My friend Lilli and I couldn't help ordering the same thing - wood roasted artichokes with mozzarella di bufala, date puree, and zucchini (center bottom row - $26 each). The basil-flecked bread and homemade bread sticks were noteworthy too, as were the complimentary chocolates and candied orange slices offered when we finished.

Lunch at Pizano's was more humble Italian food, including the above mentioned deep-dish Chicago-style pizza.

Preceded by a platter of perfectly prepared fried calamari.

We were craving something light for the following night's dinner when we headed to Greektown and a restaurant called Santorini, that just oozed rustic charm. Nothing special about the grilled fish-in fact it was overcooked - but the platter of rapini and the grilled octopus were just what the doctor ordered following the heavy pizza and fried calamari lunch.

A visit to one of Rick Bayliss' restaurants was on my must-do list and we were lucky to get into Frontera Grill. After our lunch there, we both wished we could transport the place back East.

Our favorite item - not just that meal but perhaps on the entire trip - was a trio of ceviche dishes with different fish, each one presented in a martini glass - some with mangoes, some with grapefruit, some with avocados and other fresh and flavorful ingredients.
But my favorite meal out was noteworthy not for the food, but for the company. That was the night we ate at Quartino's - a casual Italian restaurant that offers typical large portions of Italian-American food.

The food was just average, but the company - well that was exceptional. Joining Lilli and me were a blogger friend I've been wanting to meet for a long time - Marie of Proud Italian Cook (second from left). She brought along her friend Mary Alice and the four of us had a wonderful evening getting to know each other in person, after years of emailing. Now if only she could find her way to the East coast so we could show her what New York food is all about! We're waiting for you Marie.

Our eating adventure continued en route home. Lilli and I spotted a Rick Bayless outpost called "Tortas Fronteras" within Chicago's O'Hare Airport. It was the perfect place to pick up a sandwich for the plane ride back to New Jersey - a griddle-baked sandwich filled with chicken, avocado, arugula, chihuahua cheese and cilantro cream - all served with a dipping salsa. With airlines cutting out meals on short flights, this was a welcome lunch - and better than any airplane food I'd eaten in the past anyway. Rick Bayless, won't you please move to New York?

If you still haven't entered to win the Blue Willow china tea set I offered as a giveaway on my last post, it's still not too late. I'll be choosing a winner soon, so click here to leave a message on the blog post no later than Thursday, midnight Eastern time.

Upside Down Hurricane Irene Peach Cake and a Giveaway

2011-08-31T12:45:00.000-04:00

Let me start by saying that I feel extremely lucky to have survived Hurricane Irene with only the loss of power for two days, flooding in the basement and a crushed fence due to a felled tree branch. It was nothing major compared to the loss of life of a member of our First Aid Squad here in Princeton and the suffering still going on in other parts of New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, Vermont and other states.

Here's a photo of our street, after a huge tree fell across some power lines:

Even with the power out, I was still able to eat well since I have a gas range and a gas grill outdoors. When life throws you a curve ball you've got to make the best of it - an object lesson I have learned too many times in the last year. That's why I took the occasion to experiment and bake a cake on the barbecue grill. I figured it worked years ago when I baked a blueberry cake over an open camp fire - so why wouldn't it work on a grill, where I had more control over the temperature?

I settled on a Peach Cake recipe from The Silver Palate cookbook as a start, but adjusted it, since I was planning to bake it upside-down style in a cast iron skillet. I doubled the cake ingredients and of course, added butter and brown sugar for the upside-down part.

Since there was no electricity, there was no electric mixer, but I pulled out this relic I had picked up at a garage sale years ago. There's a reason these things were invented - they really work. It creamed the butter and sugar no problem. I enlisted my neighbor Sherry, who was looking for something to do amid the power outtage, and put her to work beating the ingredients. It blended everything beautifully. The only problem was that in our chit-chat, I got distracted and added baking soda instead of baking powder.

Yikes -- would it rise? Would it taste ok? Only one way to find out. I preheated my new grill, which has a temperature gauge on the outside, to 350 degrees. I turned the burners on only one side, and placed the cast iron skillet on the other. Then I closed the lid and waited. After 20 minutes, I took a peek and it had risen just fine.

I flipped it over onto a plate, and cut a slice. The verdict? Well, I had to enlist some helpers to let me know what they thought.

That's where the neighbors come in. An impromptu tea party was called for - so whoever was around gathered on my deck for cake and tea.

Everyone declared the cake delicious, but maybe they were just being nice. I detected a baking soda flavor. But that won't stop me from making this cake again - next time I'll follow the recipe to the letter.

Now for the giveaway. Since having a tea party can be a fun event, I'm giving away this tea set, which I had been planning to use as a giveaway for quite a while, but never got around to. This brand-new tea service has been sitting on my basement floor, but when I removed things ahead of the hurricane, I rediscovered it. And one of you readers can own it. Just leave a comment at the end of my blog - not in my email please. You don't need to have your own blog to leave a comment. Just leave your email address so I can contact you if you win.

Upside Down Hurricane Irene Peach Cake

printable recipe here

for the cake batter:

8 T. butter

1/2 cup sugar + 2 T.

2 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 t. baking powder

1 t. salt

1/4 t. ground cinnamon

a few gratings of nutmeg

For the top part (when flipped)

4 T. butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup milk

5 or 6 ripe peaches, peeled and sliced

In a 10-inch cast iron skillet, melt the butter and brown sugar. Arrange the peach slices over the sugar and butter.

For the cake batter, beat the butter and sugar until light. Beat in the eggs. Sift dry ingredients together. Beat half of dry ingredients into creamed mixture and beat in half of milk. Repeat, beating well. Batter will be thick.

Pour into the pan over the peach/brown sugar/butter mixture. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. If you want to try to bake on the outdoor grill, and you have a temperature gauge on the grill, bring it to 350 degrees, turning on only half the burners. Place the cast iron skillet on the other half of the grill and close lid. Check after 20 minutes and continue baking until toothpick in center comes out clean. Serve warm if possible.

Lidia's Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes

2011-08-29T10:21:00.000-04:00

This is a delayed blog post due to Hurricane Irene, which has left me and most of Princeton without power. I'm likely to be without power for a while yet (basement waters are receding thankfully), but I've latched onto wifi here at Princeton University, which had power even during the hurricane. (I guess a $14 billion endowment helps buy extra generators - or maybe a private power plant.) I wanted to post this recipe and get on board with other bloggers who posted last week in tribute to Lidia Bastianich, one of the "50 Women Game Changers In Food." Read below for details.

I love my family, don't get me wrong -- but in my next life, I want to come back as the daughter of Lidia Bastianich - or maybe daughter-in-law. Or even the dog. I'll bet the family canine eats as well as the humans in that household. Aside from her recipes, which are all winners, there's something about Lidia that just makes you feel at home. I love watching her show, not only for the great food she creates,and the gorgeous Italian locales, but also for the warm family atmosphere that exudes in her home kitchen. She genuinely loves what she's doing, she loves her family (Oh those adorable grandchildren, and that charming mother of hers!) and she loves her viewers. Having met her, her son, daughter and her mom on several occasions, I can tell you she is just as wonderful in person as she is on television.

I've interviewed her in the past, and you can find those posts here and here. They'll give you a little more insight into the woman from Istria who turned her creative cooking talents into an empire - restaurants in New York, Kansas City and Pittsburgh, award-winning television shows and numerous cookbooks, with a new one - Lidia's Italy in America - coming out this fall.

Oh, and let's not forget her line of cooking products and kitchenware, and that she opened the Italian food emporium Eataly, along with Mario Batali and her son Joe.

I've eaten at all her New York City restaurants, starting from when she and her son Joe ran Frico Bar, at Ninth Ave. and 43rd Street. When it closed in 1999, I mourned the loss of Frico Bar, where you could always find the eponymous Friulian dish made with montasio cheese. But when Esca opened in the same spot, (owned by Lidia, her son and Mario Batali), I fell in love again with the seafood menu there too. From the casual Becco with its trio of pastas, to the more formal Felidia, to the uber elegant and delectable Del Posto, Lidia's restaurants are among my favorite anywhere in the world.

A fellow blogger, Mary of "One Perfect Bite" started a series called "50 Women Game Changers in Food," highlighting women who have been influential in the food industry. I haven't been participating, but when I saw that my favorite chef was featured this week, there was no holding me back. The only problem was deciding which of her recipes to make.

I went to the garden for inspiration yesterday and picked a slew of plum tomatoes ahead of Hurricane Irene, which is expected to hit us in Central Jersey tonight. While Lidia's recipe calls for baking the tomatoes in the oven, I roasted mine on the grill, using a disposable aluminum pan. The longer and slower they cook, the more concentrated the flavor, and the bread crumb topping does indeed get crispy even on the grill. Keep it at a low temperature, or you're likely to burn the bottoms of the tomatoes. The tomatoes alone make a delicious side dish, but added to the pasta, you've got a great meal. Just add a green salad.

Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes
Recipe from Lidia's Italy serves 6 printable recipe here
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs -- coarsely crushed
2 tablespoons capers -- drained and chopped
2 tablespoons fresh basil -- chopped
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon peperoncino flakes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 1/3 cups grated Pecorino Romano (or parmigiano)
10 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, or more as needed
1 1/2 pounds ripe plum tomatoes
2 plump garlic cloves -- sliced
1 pound long fusilli -- fusilli lunghi (or other pasta)

Set a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 375º

Put the bread crumbs in a medium-sized bowl and mix the chopped capers, 1 tablespoon of chopped basil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, the red pepper flakes, oregano and 1/3 cup grated cheese. Drizzle 4 tablespoons of olive oil over the crumbs tossing to moisten and mix thoroughly

Rinse and dry the tomatoes and slice them in half lengthwise. Oil the baking sheet lightly with a bit of the olive oil, working over the bowl of bread crumbs, cover the cut side of each tomato half with a layer of crumb mixture. Compress the crumbs lightly so they stay on and set the tomato crumbs up on the baking sheet. Separate tomatoes as much as possible on the sheet, so all sides are exposed to the heat, drizzle with more olive oil and place in oven.

Pour 4 tablespoons olive oil in small bowl, drop in garlic slice and let steep--you'll use the infused oil for dressing the pasta.

Roast the tomatoes for 30 minutes until the crumbs are nicely browned and the halves are slightly shriveled. Remove sheet from the oven and let tomatoes cool for 15 minutes or so, then slice each one lengthwise, making two narrow wedges, or 3 or 4 if tomatoes are very large.

Meanwhile cook the pasta in 6 quarts of salted water until al dente. Heat a pasta serving bowl with a cup or so of boiling pasta water and drain. Lift pasta out with tongs, when cooked to your liking, and place in warm bowl.

Immediately scatter with garlic-infused oil and garlic slices and toss well, top with tomato wedges and serve with additional chopped basil and grated cheese.

The following bloggers are also paying tribute to Lidia Bastianich, so stop by and pay them a visit too.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Kathleen -Bake Away with Me
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Barbara - Movable Feasts
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Amy - Beloved Green
Jeanette - Healthy Living

Pisarei E Faso

2011-08-25T09:29:00.000-04:00

Nearly every region of Italy has its own version of pasta and beans and pisarei e faso is the specialty of the area around Piacenza, where most of my relatives live. For people who don't know where Piacenza is, it's a city of about 100,000 people that's south of Milan, but north of Florence. I've been eating pisarei e faso for decades on my visits there, but this was the first time I actually made the dish. With the help of my cousin Lucia, I learned how to make it on my recent trip. With the help of my son Michael, who took this two-minute video, you can see how it's done too.

Click on the small triangle at the lower left of the video. A little pop-up box that enables you to share the video keeps sprouting up, but if you click on the small "x" at the top of the pop-up box, it goes away.

Here's how you make the pisarei - you need just bread crumbs, flour and water.

Mix them together by hand and you'll start to get a crumbly, sandy mixture.

Keep adding more water until a dough starts to form.

Then start to stretch and knead the dough.

It will look like this when it's ready.

Break off a small chunk and roll it out with your hands.

Then snip off a small piece the size of a small marble, and roll it on the board, squeezing with your thumb to form a small gnoccho, or gnocchetto.

It's time consuming to make a big bunch, so get a friend or family member involved -- it goes faster and it's more fun.

My son put down his camera and helped my cousin Lucia with the pisarei too.

Make the sauce before you start making the pisarei, so you can be ready to eat as soon as you've boiled the pisarei. Drain the pasta directly into the saucepan.

The final step was a sprinkling of grana padano cheese, from caseificio Santa Vittoria, which we had toured earlier in the day.

Pisarei e Faso

Serves four

printable recipe here

for the pisarei:
3/4 cup fine bread crumbs
1 1/2 cup flour
1 T. oil
about 1/4 cup boiling water
about 1/4 cup cold water

Add the boiling water to the bread crumbs and mix until it's the consistency of sand. Wait until the mixture has come to room temperature, then add the flour, oil and cold water. Knead it for several minutes until it forms a dough. Then break off a small chunk and roll it with the palms of your hand into a narrow roll. Break off small bits of dough and using your thumb, press each bit down onto a wooden board and roll away from the body, until you get a small gnoccho. It should look somewhat like a little bean.

Sauce:

a small piece of lard or pancetta, cut into bits (about 1/4 cup)
3 T. olive oil
about 2 cups of canned tomatoes
about two cups of cooked borlotti beans, or dried beans that have been soaked
1 stalk of celery, finely minced
1 t. sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup water
a bit of parsley

Saute the lard or pancetta in the olive oil, and add the tomatoes. Let it come to a simmer then add the beans, the celery, sugar salt, water and parsley. My cousin doesn't saute the celery with the olive oil because she says it becomes bitter that way. Add it when you add the tomatoes. Cook for about 20 minutes to a half hour.

When the sauce is ready, bring a large pot of water to boil. Cook the pisarei in the boiling water until tender then drain directly into the sauce. The sauce should be very loose. Add more water until reaching the right consistency.

Serve with grated grana padano cheese.

https://sites.google.com/site/ciaochowlindaprintablerecipes/pisarei-e-faso