Date I made this recipe:
August 13, 2017
Best of the Best from
New York Cookbook – Selected Recipes from New York
Published by Quail Ride Press*
ISBN: 1-893062-27-9;
© 2001
Recipe: Italian Sausage-Pepper Pasta – p. 110, from
the Great Taste of Parkminster cookbook
And I'm back! Miss
me?
My husband and I just came back from a grand tour of New York state and also New York City , and I just had to pull out
this cookbook to make something in remembrance of our trip.
Our 18-day adventure was made principally so that Andy could
participate in FANY Ride 2017. FANY
stands for Five Hundred Miles Across New York, and was
a weeklong leisurely bicycle ride/tour that started in Niagara
Falls and ended in Saratoga
Springs . Andy
heard about it a few years back and wanted to give it a whirl. This plan worked for us because we were able
to stay for a bit with my brother and sister-in-law who live outside of Rochester , NY
For the curious, this was the route:
Day 1 – Niagara Falls , NY to Batavia ,
NY
Day 2 – Batavia , NY to Canandaigua ,
NY
Day 3 – Canandaigua , NY to Auburn ,
NY
Day 4 – Auburn , NY to Hamilton , NY (home of Colgate University
Day 5 – Hamilton , NY to Little Falls, NY (except we played hokey and went
to Cooperstown )
Day 6 – Little Falls, NY to Gloversville/Johnstown, NY
Day 7 – Gloversville , NY to Saratoga Springs
(home of Skidmore College
Ta da!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, on days where Andy was riding
his bicycle, I explored nearby towns and points of interest such as "It's A Wonderful Life" Museum
in Seneca Falls, All Things Oz Museum
in Chittenango, NY (where I purchased a new cookbook – The Wonderful Cookbook of Oz – in the museum store), the Syracuse
Zoo and also Syracuse's [university] campus, all of which I recommend.
While in Little Falls, NY, I checked out some fun antique
stores where I acquired three cookbook for my collection (nothing noteworthy,
just ones I didn't have) and I also purchased another new cookbook – Saratoga Grazing Cookbook – at Northshire Bookstore in Saratoga Springs , NY Saratoga Springs is known for their horse
racing (horses "graze," don't you know) and I think we were there on
opening weekend because we hoped to go to the track only to find it packed with
people and I mean "packed!"
Next time.
After we got done with the ride, we stopped in the Lake Huntington , NY area,
to visit Andy's brother who has a weekend home there, and on one of our side
trips, I found this fabulous and unique bookstore, One Grand Books (www.onegrandbooks.com)
in Narrowsburg , NY
The book I purchased was a cookbook (!) called New Orleans Cookbook by Leah Richard,
that was recommended by Marcus Samuelsson who I met when he visited Minneapolis last year. Some of the other "curators" were
actress Kathy Najimy, actress Michelle Dockery, The Daily Show host, Trevor Noah, and CNN reporter, Christiane Amanpour.
The shop is small but I still could have spent a few more hours
there. Or maybe work there, I don't
know!
After that stop, we went on a "cannonball run" to
NYC for three action-packed days before heading out to Ypsilanti ,
MI to see my Aunt Mary, then on to Chicago to see some
friends, then home. We were gone 18 days
and while it was great to be gone, it was also great to be back in our own
home.
No trip to NYC is complete without a stop at my favorite
[used] cookbook bookstore in town – Bonnie
Slotnick Cookbooks – and I also had time to go to Kitchen
Arts & Letters on the Upper East Side . Sadly, I ran out of time to go visit the Strand ("18
miles of books") which was probably a good thing for my blown budget. Let's just say that I consider these road
trips, and particularly the stop in NYC, to be buying trips and buy I did, no
problemo! ( think I scored about 20
books between the two stores.)
And then when we got to Michigan to visit my aunt, she gave me her cookbooks, one of which
was a vintage Hawaiian cookbook/booklet that I saw last year and had it on my
"look for" list – score! The
title is Hawaiian Party Book – How to
Entertain the Hawaiian Way. It's a
booklet rather than a book but I don't care.
Although the book does not contain a copyright date, it sold for a big
whopping dollar back in the day. My
price? Free!
These books are still sitting on my floor just waiting for
me to add them to my "database" which will involve a lot of time and
a bit of work, neither of which I have right now but soon, folks, soon, because
as soon as I add them to my list, they become "eligible" for the
blog!
Meanwhile though, I thought this cookbook – The Best of the Best from New York Cookbook,
a compilation of recipes from 67 New York regional
cookbooks, was a way to get back into the [blogging] game.
I must confess though, that this is not the type of cookbook
I usually purchase. This book is similar
to a church cookbook in that it contains contributions from several sources and
while I have nothing against church cookbooks, if I collected them, I would
have to buy another house because there are a ton of them. The other reason I usually refrain is that
they are often spiral-bound (this one is) and spiral-bound books are boring on
a shelf because you can't read the title.
The whole point of having any type of book collection is so that people
can see easily what you have and spiral-bound books just don't have that
"wow" factor.
That said, I recall at the time that this was the only
cookbook I could find that covered all of New York state rather than focusing just New York City or one of the other
boroughs.
Turns out, I really like this book.
I like this book because it seems pretty comprehensive: recipes from 67 regional books were included
in this "best of the best" edition. (On the other hand, I'm drying to
know which books didn't make the cut and why!)
All 67 books are listed, along with a cover photo, in the back of the
book and it should not surprise you that I have my eye on a few. And if New York is not to your
liking, you can go to the publisher's website and find a state's "best of
the best" that will work for you: Quail Ridge Press – www.quailridge.com (or Amazon or Barnes
& Noble).
Lest you think that only community or church cookbooks made
the cut for this book, note that The
Ellis Island Immigrant Cookbook, a book I own, is included as are two Moosewood cookbooks. The Moosewood
Restaurant is located in Ithaca ,
NY
Other things that I loved about this book were the photos
and bits of trivia placed scattered throughout. And I also liked the wide range
of recipes by region although let me comment that one of the things I love most
about visiting NY state and city is the plethora of Italian restaurants and
food stores. Alas, as much as I like
living here, Minneapolis-St. Paul just does not have the bustling Italian
communities like New York
and other east-coast cities have. This
is why then, I ate Italian food almost the entire time on our trip, no
apologies!
I also noticed that there are a lot of Polish recipes in
this book and in fact, we ate at a fantastic placed called the Polish Nook, in Niagara Falls , NY Manhattan , the sky was the limit for cuisine,
but as our time there was limited, we only ate non-Italian food twice, once at
an Indian buffet, and the other at a French restaurant we like.
At any rate, it should come as no surprise then that I
considered making many a pasta dish for this blog and the one I made was
great. It was simple and easy and tasty
and you can't ask for much more than that.
These recipes were also in the running for a bit:
- Italian Vegetable Soup – p. 58 – from Great Taste of Parkminster
- Tomato-Basil-Onion
Frittata – p. 94 – from Tasting the
- Reuben Lasagna (I know, right?) – p. 106 – from The Cookbook AAUW
- 100%
Vegetarian Lasagna – p. 107 – from Famous
- Pasta
e Fagioli (Pasta and Beans) – p. 111 – Wild Game Cookbook & Other Recipes
- Beverages and Appetizers
- Bread and Breakfast
- Soups
- Salads
- Vegetables
- Pasta, Rice, Etc.
- Meats
- Poultry
- Seafood
- Cakes
- Cookies and Candies
- Pies and Other Desserts
After much hemming and hawing, I still came back to the
"Italian Sausage Pepper Pasta" recipe listed above and folks, I think
this was meant to be because this recipe came from the Great Taste of Parkminster cookbook. Parkminster
is a church and school located in Rochester ,
NY Rochester
and since we had just visited them, this was perfect nay, even cosmic!
Also interesting (and hilarious)? This church is located on Chili Avenue which everybody on the
planet except for people who live in the area pronounce
"Chilly." Not so the good
people of the Rochester
area! If you say "chilly," as
in a dish with meat and sometimes beans, they will correct you with "It's
Chi-lie." (There's also a town in
the area with the same name, pronounced the same way.)
These same people will also have you know that the Jell-O Museum
And so this brings us now to the conclusion of my travelogue
and adventures with cookbooks. Our trip
was great, the towns we saw were beautiful, we had fun times visiting friends
and family, and we ate like kings (!) while we were on the road.
I was very happy with this pasta dish and hope you are as
well. Enjoy!
Italian Sausage Pepper
Pasta – Makes 8-10 servings
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 medium zucchini, sliced
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
6 medium spicy Italian sausage, sliced*
½ cup fresh basil, chopped, or 2 tablespoons dried
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
16 ounces corkscrew pasta ("Fusilli"), cooked and
drained
2 cups shredded mozzarella
½ cup grated Parmesan
2 tomatoes, sliced
*Ann's Note: This
ingredient was interesting because how do we interpret "6 medium spicy
Italian sausage?" Is it 6
medium-sized Italian sausage or 6 medium-spice (i.e. somewhere between mild and
hot) sausage? My whole life, there were
two options only: mild a/k/a
"sweet" or hot a/k/a "spicy," so this confused. Since I always opt to use "sweet"
sausage, I avoided potential disaster but I'd still like to know what they
meant Clarity, folks, I need clarity!
Also, in the
instructions below, you see that you are to sauté the sausage and vegetables
for about 6 minutes or until sausage is browned and then apparently, slice it. ("6 medium spicy Italian sausage,
sliced") Well now, that was fraught
with peril! I thought it probably best
to sauté/brown my sausages separately and did that for well over 5 minutes, but
yet they weren't cooked through so when I tried to slice them, many of those
slices fell apart. Fine then, see if I
care!
I think the better
directive would have been to remove the casings and then brown the sausage as
you would ground beef but that's not what it said and so that is not what I
did!
Directions: Sauté
garlic, zucchini, peppers, sausage, basil, salt and pepper in olive oil about 5
minutes or until sausage is browned.
Drain. Combine with hot cooked
pasta. Place half of pasta mixture in 9
x 13-inch buttered casserole. Cover with
half of combined cheeses. Repeat layers
and top with sliced tomatoes. Brush with
olive oil and bake covered at 400° for
20 minutes. Uncover, bake 20 minutes longer.
Serve immediately.
No comments:
Post a Comment