"The Wiseguy Cookbook - My Favorite Recipes From My Life As a Goodfella to Cooking on the Run" by Henry Hill - Sunday Gravy with Aunt Milly's Meatballs and Aunt Nina's Caponatina (eggplant) appetizer - Christmas Eve 2016

Date I made this recipe:  December 24, 2016 – Christmas Eve

The Wiseguy Cookbook – My Favorite Recipes From My Life as A Goodfella to Cooking on the Run (Recipes You Can't Refuse – From America's Most Famous Wiseguy) by Henry Hill and Priscilla David; foreword by Nicholas Pileggi

Published by New American Library

ISBN: 0-451-20706-8; © 2002

Recipes:  Aunt Nina's Caponatina (a/k/a Caponata, an eggplant appetizer) – p. 32-33; Sunday Gravy [Meat Sauce] – p. 33-34; Milly's Meatballs [Brooklyn, 1950] – p. 38-39; Basic Tomato Sauce – p. 13-14

In case you didn't know, a "wiseguy" is a person who belongs to the Mafia or is a smartass.  Sometimes they are one in the same thing.

One of my father's frequent sayings was "What are you, a wiseguy?"  I'm pretty sure he meant the later definition seeing as how he often directed it at me or my brother or other younger family members when we were smarting off.  But given that he was 100% Sicilian American, he might have also been talking about a wiseguy as in a member of the Mob.

That's a stretch though – kind of.  Not that dad was in the Mob (perish the thought!) but he was born and raised on the east coast, your unofficial HQ for all things mafioso.  And his aunt, my great-aunt, Antoinette, used to joke all the time that she was the "Godfather's godmother."

So we're sticking with "wiseguy" as in "smartass."

"Henry Hill" though, was a wiseguy as in mobster, and possibly a wiseguy as in smartass, and this cookbook tells about his life on the run (from the law) where the real punishment was lack of access to his favorite Italian foodstuffs.

I have to tell you, that would get to me as well.  I mean, to not have pasta or sauce is a sacrilege.  To be without the other accoutrements such as meatballs or sausage or Italian cookies would render me useless.  And so I feel this man's pain! 

The Wiseguy cookbook is a good read as Henry tells us all about trying to cook while in prison and later, the Witness Protection Program.  His life of crime was chronicled in the book Wiseguy:  Life in a Mafia Family by Nicholas Pileggi (who wrote the cookbook's foreword) and this book became the basis for the movie, Goodfellas.  Actor Ray Liotta played Henry's character.  And so now, of course, I want to watch the movie again just to pull it all together. And to check out the food of course, because there are some great food scenes.

And there are also some great recipes in this book and I say "great" without having tried them all because I can pretty much tell by the ingredients that many of these dishes could have graced my family's table with just a few tweaks here and there.  And of course, my family dishes are the best and if you say otherwise, I may have to take you out and I do not mean to a restaurant, capisce?

Henry divided this book into two sections:  Section One:  Brooklyn and the Mob, and Section Two:  On the Run (in Omaha, Kentucky, Cincinnati, Seattle and Washington State and California – man the guy got around!)  And stories, like the one I'm telling you, accompany the recipes and I swear to you, a lot of them sound like my family stories save for the part about being in the mob and all.

Now there were many, many things I could have made from this book but I was on a mission and that was to find a pasta recipe to serve up on Christmas Eve.  It was tradition in my immediate family to make spaghetti and meatballs before going to Christmas Eve mass and even though my parents are gone, I still carry on the pasta tradition in my house.  In the years where we weren't allowed to eat meat, we skipped the meatballs.  Some years (early on) we even had to fast which was ridiculous.  I mean mass goes long on any given Sunday and ridiculously long on Christmas Eve, and does the Lord really mean for us to pass out from hunger?  No.

This year, I decided to keep things simple and make the recipe for "Sunday Gravy," otherwise known as sauce, and to be clear that means "red sauce."  There is no other kind of sauce if you are southern Italian or Sicilian. "White" is not a sauce, it's a....something else.

Now plenty of east coast Italians refer to their red sauce as "Sunday Gravy" but I don't know why that is.  Maybe it's a translation thing?  And then there's your "macaroni" which is how most Italians referred to the vehicle for the sauce, that morphed overnight into the slightly more snotty "pasta, this the result of the homemade pasta craze of the 90's.  I have only ever made homemade "pasta" in cooking classes.  If boxed pasta was good enough for my family, it was good enough for me.  (Back in the day, we were always "Buitoni" brand people and failing that, Creamette® which was everywhere—still is!)

So "pasta" + "Sunday Gravy"/red sauce was the dish of the day.  Although I'm including the cookbook's recipe for a basic tomato sauce, I made my family's version to which I  added meatballs and Italian sausage.  I decided to give Henry Hill's meatball recipe a try and it was quite good, but I purchased the sausage rather than try my hand at grinding my own meat and adding my own seasoning.  Tis the season to draw the line on a few things in the interest of time.

On a side note, there is another Christmas Eve tradition mostly enjoyed by your east coast Italians called the Feast of the Seven Fishes.  Since we couldn't get our hands on a lot of fish or seafood where I grew up, we never "observed" this feast.  And I don't think my extended family on the east coast did, either.  As you might have surmised, seven separate fish dishes are made and eaten on Christmas Eve.  Given that we are only a two-person household, and I am not that fond of fish, I have never had the urge to make seven fish dishes because I'm picturing leftovers for days and that will simply not do. (And we all know the classic rule, right:  Thou shalt not reheat fish in the microwave, particularly at the office, or there will be consequences.)

And so Sunday Gravy and pasta in four parts:  make the sauce, make the meatballs, make the gravy, boil the pasta – piece of cake.  Well, except there are always little hiccups and this time, the hiccup was otherwise known as a "meatball."

The meatball recipe calls for you to fry the meatballs but I haven't fried a meatball in who knows how long, preferring instead to bake them (or sometimes put them in the sauce to "poach").  And so I decided to bake these and then I thought myself to be some kind of genius for using a mini-cupcake pan for the meatballs as the size was just perfect. Normally, I just put them on a baking sheet and have at it.

So I put the meatball mixture into the pans, turned on the oven, set the timer and almost over-baked them; the word "crunchy" comes to mind.  Well, crap, now what?

So channeling The Grinch, I decided "I must save these meatballs, but how?"

I'll tell you how:  you "reconstitute" the meatballs by giving them a broth bath. I used chicken broth as I had that on hand but you could use beef as well.  Lucky for me, I decided to make the meatballs the night before so I put the meatballs and broth in the refrigerator and the next day they were perfect.

So that's the whole Sunday Sauce/Meatball thing and now let's talk about a bonus recipe - Aunt Nina's Caponatina.  To clarify, this is not my Aunt Nina as I don't have an Aunt Nina, and "caponatina" is a diminutive of the word caponata which is an eggplant appetizer that I love.

This recipe promises to come close to the Progresso brand caponata my family grew up eating.  And it was good attempt to be sure, but believe it or not, the canned caponata won the day.

I think it comes down to this:  the eggplant was a bit too crunchy in the homemade version, and the Progresso brand was slightly sweeter and this is necessary to offset the tartness of the red wine vinegar.

In all likelihood, the sweetness is what caused us to inhale this stuff the minute my mom put it out on a tray table, along with other snacks, during Christmas week.  We inhaled this stuff such that mom finally figured out to stock up rather than deal with the proverbial "Is there any more?"  "No?"  "Waaaaaaaaaaa."

During the early years of my childhood, Progresso's caponata was included in a care package my grandma put together during our summertime visits, along with canned tomatoes, boxes of dry pasta and Stella Doro cookies and biscotti.  The trunk of our car always rode ridiculously low to the ground on the way back from New Jersey but it was worth it, save for the times the muffler fell off (almost annually and almost always in Pennsylvania on our way home) in which case, dad had to unpack all those heavy bags to get at a coat hanger to rig up the muffler until we got to a gas station.  I feel like Facebook with its "Like" and "Share" if this ever happened to your family (the muffler falling off, that is). (Every time this happened, my dad, of course, just about went ballistic, but every year thereafter on our road trip back east, he would laugh when my brother and I commented, upon seeing the "Pennsylvania Welcomes You" sign,"It's about time for the muffler to fall off, don't you think?")

So anyway, now that I have this homemade recipe under my belt, I'm going to recommend that you find some way to slow-cook the eggplant so that it's very soft, almost mushy.  This might be as easy as cooking it longer on the stovetop but you're going to have to play with the liquid ratio so it doesn't dry out. And I would probably not peel the eggplant because it seems to me that Progresso didn't although I could be wrong.  I also think you need to add more cooking time to the celery and onions so that they too, become very soft. Finally, instead of regular sugar, substitute brown sugar as I think it brings the flavor closer to that of the canned product.

So that's the word on Henry Hill and his recipes and this cookbook.  Had I the time, I could certainly eat my way through the rest of the book as his recipes are making me both hungry and nostalgic.   My dad always called us to the table with an "A mangia" (Basically, "let's eat") where we inhaled our "spaghets" (dad's term) and our caponata and life was good.

PS—It looks like Progresso no longer makes caponata and damn it all, why not?  And two years ago, Jane Parker, an A&P grocery store brand, discontinued it's fabulous fruitcake.  To quote my mother, "What is this world coming to!"

Sunday Gravy (Meat Sauce) – serves 8-10 generously

6 cups Basic Tomato Sauce (p. 13 or below)

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 hot sausages or 2 hot and 2 mild (about ½ pound)

1 recipe Milly's Meatballs (p. 38 or below)

2 pounds cooked pasta of your choice

Begin preparing Basic Tomato Sauce. While it is simmering, heat the olive oil in a large saucepan.  Poke holes in the sausages with a fork and put in the pan.  Cook on low to medium heat, turning occasionally until lightly brown, about 8-10 minutes.  You don't have to cook them all the way through because they'll cook more in the sauce.  Drain on paper towels.  Cut in half and add to tomato sauce.  While sauce simmers, prepare meatballs.

When meatballs are browned, spoon them carefully into the sauce.  Continue simmering until meatballs are cooked through, about 10-15 minutes.  Adjust seasoning.  Serve family style over pasta in a large bowl.  Have plenty of bread to sop up the sauce.

Basic Tomato Sauce  – Makes 3 cups of sauce (enough sauce for 4-6 people) (Ann's Note:  I made my own family's recipe.  If you don't want to make it, a basic store-bought tomato basil sauce will do)

6-8 cloves garlic, minced or thinly sliced (about 2 tablespoons)

¼ cup olive oil

½ cup chopped brown or white onions or shallots

2 28-ounce cans peeled plum tomatoes with basil, drained, reserving juice

12 large basil leaves, torn in large pieces, or 1 tablespoon dried

¼ cup finely chopped fresh Italian parsley, or 2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon dried parsley

½ teaspoon each salt and pepper

In a large skillet or medium-large wide pot, cook garlic briefly in olive oil over medium-low heat.  Do not brown, or it will get bitter.  If using optional onions, cook them 3-5 minutes in olive oil, then add garlic and cook 1 minute.  Add the juice from the canned tomatoes to stop the garlic cooking.  Crush tomatoes with your hands or chop well no a cutting board and add to the pan.  Add basil, parsley, and ¼ teaspoon each of the salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil, stir thoroughly once, then reduce heat to a low simmer.  As the acid from the tomatoes flows to the top, skim it off every 10-15 minutes.  Sauce is ready in half an hour, but cook up to 1 hour if you want it thicker. Check for seasoning and add the rest of the salt and pepper, if desired.

Milly's Meatballs [Brooklyn, 1950] – serves 6

1 ½ pounds ground beef + ½ pound ground pork – OR – 1 pound ground beef + ¾ pound ground veal + ¼ pound ground pork

2 eggs

1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley

1 tablespoon minced fresh basil

¼ cup chopped white or brown onions or shallots

3 cloves of garlic, chopped fine

¼ cup grated fresh Romano or Parmesan cheese

½ cup dried, seasoned bread crumbs (Ann's Note:  if you only have plain breadcrumbs, add a bit of the following to it to make "seasoned" crumbs – garlic salt, dried parsley, dried basil, dried oregano and/or a bit of Italian seasoning spice mix)

½ teaspoon each salt and pepper (to taste)

2 tablespoons chopped canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, or Basic Tomato Sauce (optional)

3 tablespoons olive oil (or more if needed)

Combine ground meats in a large bowl and mix together well with your hands.  Add in eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition.  Add in all other ingredients except tomatoes or sauce and olive oil, and combine to form a mixture that is soft but still sticks together.  If meatballs are too hard or dry, add chopped tomatoes or sauce.

Heat olive oil in frying pan.  Place a small bowl of water and a plate near meatball mixture.  While oil is heating, roll approximately 3 tablespoons of meatball mixture at a time into walnut-size balls in palm of hand, adding a small amount of water if they don't roll well.  Place each completed ball on the plate.  Continue forming until all meatballs are done (you can place them on top of each other like a tower).  Test the oil temperature – a drop of water should sizzle when it hits the oil.  Fry meatballs in batches, turning until browned on all sides and cooked through.  Drain on paper towels.  Can be served plain, as main dish in any tomato sauce, on an Italian roll with Parmesan, provolone, or mozzarella as a sandwich, or sliced and put on pizza.

Variations:

1. Add ½ cup golden raisins.  This is from Tommy DiSimone's father.  This makes a sweet meatball.  Ann's Note: Sicilian meatballs often contain raisins although nobody in my family does that.
2. Add ¼ cup chopped pine nuts. Toast them lightly if you want, but keep in mind they'll also get cooked when the meatballs do.

Ann's Note:  to fry or not to fry, that is the question.  I used to fry my meatballs and then quit doing that in favor of baking them as it's far less messy.  As I mentioned above, I baked them at either 400 or 425 (I can't recall), for either 20 or 25 minutes (I can't recall that either!).  But since I almost incinerated them, check for doneness after 15 minutes.

Aunt Nina's Caponatina – makes about 3 cups (Ann's Note:  even a half recipe made quite a bit of "caponata")

2 tablespoons salt

2 medium eggplants (about 1 pound each)

½ cup olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped fine (about 1 cup)

3 stalks celery, thinly sliced (about 1 ½ cups)

½ cup dry white wine

2 tablespoons sugar (Ann's Note:  I recommend brown sugar)

2-3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

¾ cup tomato puree

¼ cup chopped pitted black olives

½ cup capers

Fill a large bowl two-thirds full of water, add salt, and stir to dissolve.  Peel and slice eggplant into ½-inch slices.  Place slices in  the bowl and let soak for 1-2 hours (weight them with a pan or plate so they stay in the water).  Drain off the liquid and pat dry with paper towels.  Cut slices into ½-inch thick cubes.

Heat ¼ of the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Fry eggplant 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly, and drain on paper towels.  Cook, stirring occasionally over low to medium heat until soft, approximately 10 minutes.  Add wine and cook until wine has almost evaporated.  Return eggplant to pan.

Dissolve sugar in the red wine vinegar and pour over eggplant.  Add tomato puree, olives, and capers; stir and add salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer over low heat 5 minutes, until well-blended.  Cool to room temperature and serve.

Refrigerated, this will last up to two weeks.  If it's not gobbled up sooner.

Ann's Notes:  The jury is still out on whether or not pre-soaking the eggplant in a salt bath makes any difference in cooking but I was a good solider and followed the directive.  I can't say it made any difference though, as it still took a long time to soften and I did not achieve the nearly-mush texture I wanted (or was used to).  The vegetables (onions and celery) also need more time.  They need to be just on the shy side of "soft."  And as I already mentioned, were I to make this again, I think I would use brown sugar instead of regular as it more closely approximates the Progresso brand I know and love.

"Flavors of Italy - Sicily" and "Made In Sicily" - "deconstructed" Lasagna and Blood Orange Jelly (Jell-O) for Father's Day

Date I made these recipes:  Sunday, June 28, 2015 – a belated Father's Day repast

Flavors of Italy – Sicily by Mariapaola Dettore

Published by: Time Life Books

ISBN:  0-7370-0012-0

Purchased at Arc's Value Village Thrift Stores

Recipe:  Lasagni a Palermitana – Pappardelle Palermo-Style – p. 30

Made in Sicily by Giorgio Locatelli with Sheila Keating

Published by:  Ecco – An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

ISBN:  978-0-06-213037-2

Recipe:  Gelatina di arance sang-sang – Blood Orange Jelly – p. 377

As often happens, Father's Day and other holidays, fall on days when I have something planned that prevents me from making dinner on that exact day.  This year, the first day of summer fell on Father's Day as well making for a double angst moment.  Luckily, cookbooks and their recipes, keep for a long time without spoiling!

This Father's Day, my husband and I spent the afternoon watching bicycle races in the nearby town of Stillwater.  This pro racing series comes to town at this time every year and we often take in several events over the course of the weekend.  But the one in Stillwater, the last day of the North Star Bike Festival (formerly Nature Valley), is very cool because all the bikers – pro women, elite amateurs and pro men (and this year one pro woman raced with the men – woot!), have to ride up this killer hill in Stillwater – Chilkoot Hill (18% grade) 22 times over the course of the course.  Every year we go, we walk up that hill maybe 4 times max, never mind riding up it = whataminuts?

Well that was all very exciting and I could not help but think of my dad that day because one of our family's favorite movies is Breaking Away, about a young man who is obsessed with Italian bike racing and so talks his friends into forming a team – The Cutters – so they can compete against the Italians when a bike race comes to town.  This movie is just so cute and so funny and we just hooted when we watched it.  The best thing about this movie though, is seeing Dave, the leader of the Cutters, and the one who is obsessed with the Italians, pretend to be and speak Italian so he can impress people.  When he rides through the town on his bike and yells "Ciao Papa!" to his dad, played by the late Paul Dooley (Sixteen Candles), my dad really laughed because in our later years, I called my dad Papa or Pop, in the same way my Sicilian-American father addressed his dad, my grandfather, Arcangelo. 

So in memory of Pop and (Grand) Pop, I made some Sicilian dishes from two of my Sicilian cookbooks and took yet another walk down memory lane because as I read through these books, laden with all kinds of fish recipes (Sicily is an island after all), I thought about how much I hate fish and how this pained my dad.  In fact, much about my attitude about Nature and Nature's bounty (my motto: Nature is NOT your friend) pained my dad.  My dad loved nature was a noted wildlife research biologist, specializing in white tailed deer.  Although fishing wasn't exactly his deal, that didn't mean he didn't appreciate fish and seafood; visits to my grandmother in dad's home state of NJ, were not complete without a major raw clam feast.  But me?  Nah.  Most fish is either too bony (go figure) or tastes like fish (go figure, part 2).  I particularly hate smelt which is fun to catch but just inedible if you ask me and you didn't!  I'll eat shrimp and scallops and lobster (kind of boring) or crab but it takes a lot to convince me to go with fish.  My dad would just sigh every single time we ate out and worse, would rail against my delicate (?) palate to these rest of the family thusly:  "Daughter of a wildlife biologist and you hate [insert item here]?  I can't believe it."

Disclaimer:  Although I am not fond of anchovies, my grandmother would put them on half a pizza, cut into tiny pieces, and I would eat one slice of it to satisfy her and my dad.  Many recipes in this book called for anchovies and while tempted, I didn't want to buy a can just to have the rest of it sit for...decades?...before I got around to using them.

Anyway, clearly my dad thought that because he was in love with Nature and Nature's bounty, I should be too.  Silly dad.  Also on the list of "Not touching it" was Swiss chard (so bitter and yet so ingrained in the Italian/Sicilian culture); lamb (gah!  That smell!!); tripe (I mean what?! Ew!); any other part of an animal that offended me and my stomach like offal.  Being a farm boy, my dad ate the fruits of that farm and that meant using up all parts of the animal.  Plus, he grew up during the Depression so there you go.  But I didn't and so no need to go down these roads, right?

Still, dad's voice was prominent the day I started perusing these books, making it damned hard to find something both he (in absentia) and I would like.  Page after page, I mouthed "No, no, oh hell no," until finally, I decided on the recipe for basically deconstructed lasagna and the blood orange jelly.  And let me tell you, I think I deserve the "Make Papa happy" merit badges that the Girl Scouts hand out.  Wait...what?  They don't.  Oh.  My bad.

Whatever you want to call the pasta dish, it was delicious.  It's basically pappardelle noodles or other fat noodles with ricotta cheese and a meat sauce.  Easy, peasy.  Shopping though, was a challenge.  I've only found one grocery store in town, Kowalski's, that sells ground veal (a travesty that I likely will never be able to remedy), but they sold it prepackaged in a one pound container and I only needed 5 ounces (1 ½ cups).  And so I substituted the veal for grass fed ground beef and it was fine. 

Then there's the pappardelle noodles and those can be hard to find as well.  Trader Joe's carries them so that worked out, but if you can't find them, I suggest cooking lasagna noodles and cutting/breaking them in half.

Then there's the "salted ricotta cheese" which I know to mean "Ricotta Salata" but if you can't find it, use feta or queso fresco instead.  As it is, while I didn't have any trouble finding it, I sadly found more than I needed in each package and at a price I didn't want to pay.  Same thing with the Pecorino Romano.  You only need a bit of it for the topping and yet everybody sold it in big blocks.  If I had a larger family, we would polish this off easily in one sitting but I don't but Whole Foods once again saved the day.  You should know that you can get your cheese sliced to order at Broder's Cucina Italiana in south Minneapolis where I used to work, but that was out of our way this particular Sunday.

Okay, once I got over those hurdles, I had to shop for the Blood Orange Jelly and you should know folks, that timing is everything as it is now nearing the end of the blood orange season and nobody had them.  Nobody.  Nobody even had frozen blood orange juice –oh wait, someone did and it was something like $13.00.  I don't think so!

Once again, Whole Foods – amazingly – saved the day.  Mr. I Know My Oranges at Whole Foods told us that if we were looking for flavor and a brighter color (not blood orange but oh well), then Valencia oranges would do the trick and he had one bag left of organic Valencia oranges at $5.99 a pop.  I tell you what, I regret that we didn't just stay in Spain when we last visited and for a split second thought it might just be easier to fly there, get the damned oranges (blood oranges as well) and leave!  But no.  But we checked out the juice section and they had a jug of freshly squeezed Valencia orange juice at a decent price so we bought it and used that instead.  Okay then, we're off and running.

So I set out to make this jelly and folks, once again, instructions stymied.  For this recipe, you need two envelopes of gelatin.  The instructions then say "Soak the gelatin in a bowl of cold water and ice for about 10 minutes, then squeeze."  Lacking here is any indication of how much water to use, plus it seemed that they wanted me to use gelatin sheets even though the instruction said "2 envelopes gelatin."  So I used about a cup of water and added ice cubes and what a mess.  There was no way I could "squeeze" the gelatin as it was just too liquidy.  So I tried again, this time using two new envelopes and about a half cup of water and it was better – still not perfect – so I used that.  When it set up, it was still rather springy which is perhaps how it should have been but I wasn't sure.

As to the rum - wow!  This recipe calls for 2 ounces plus two teaspoons and that was a lot of rum.  My first taste after it sat overnight just about knocked me back.  Besides, I was somewhat surprised that this Sicilian recipe called for rum, seeing as how that is not something I suspect many Sicilians or Italians enjoy on a regular basis but what do I know?  We ate it anyway because "When in Rome Palermo..."

So that's my Father's Day story and I'm sticking to it.  By the time I got around to writing this, the 4^th of July is looming.  What can I say, summers are busy!  Enjoy.

Pappardelle Palermo-Style – Serves 4

In a fairly large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, sauté the meat in the oil over a moderate heat, using a fork to break up any lumps.  When the meat is lightly browned, add the tomato paste mixed with the wine.  Cook for 4-5 minutes, then add the tomatoes with salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer of a  low heat for 40 minutes. 

Bring plenty of salted water to a boil and add the pappardelle.  While the pasta is cooking, use a fork to break up the salted ricotta into fairly small, crumbly pieces.  When the pasta is nearly done mix the fresh ricotta with 2 tablespoons of the cooking water in a large heated serving dish.

Drain the pasta and toss with the fresh ricotta and meat sauce.  Sprinkle with the salted ricotta and pecorino cheese and serve.

Blood Orange Jelly (Jell-O) – serves 4-6

2 envelopes (2 scant tablespoons) gelatin (Ann's Note:  you might want to try two sheets of gelatin)

2 2/3 cups blood orange juice (Ann's Note:  we are nearing the end of blood orange season so substitute Valencia oranges instead)

Juice of 2 lemons

1 cup plus 2 teaspoons superfine sugar

3 ounces plus 2 teaspoons rum

Pistachios (to decorate – optional)

Orange slices (to decorate – optional)

Ann's Note:  the author does not tell you how much water to use.  After starting with 1 cup – to no avail – I threw that out and used ½ cup instead and that seemed to work better.

Preheat oven to 350F.  Lay the pistachios you are going to use for decorating in a single layer on a baking sheet and put into the oven for about 8 minutes.  As long as they are in a single layer, you don't need to turn them.  Keep an eye on them to make sure they don't burn.

Soak the gelatin in a bowl of cold water and ice for about 10 minutes, then squeeze.  (Ann's Note:  good luck with that!  I did not squeeze.)  (The ice helps retain the properties of the gelatin.)  Mix the orange and lemon juice together, then measure ¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon of this and put into a pan with the sugar.  Heat (to 176 degrees F if you have a thermometer) until the sugar dissolves and remove from the heat.  Then add the squeezed gelatin, stirring until it melts, and mix in the rest of the juice and the rum.

Pour into a mold and put into the fridge until set, then turn out onto a plate and garnish with orange slices, if using, and the toasted pistachios.

"Sicilian Cooking" - Sicilian Pasta Timbale - Christmas Eve 2012

Date I made this recipe:  December 24, 2012 (Christmas Eve)

Sicilian Cooking by Carmelo Sammarco

Published by:  ARNONE Editore – Palermo

© 1998

Recipe:  Sicilian Pasta Timbale – p. 76

Well kids, it’s time once again for Ann and Andy’s (Rockin’) Pasta Christmas Eve and this recipe and this cookbook did not disappoint. 

As is tradition in our family, we make a pasta dish for Christmas Eve and although I used to stick with my grandma/Aunt Rose’s recipe for pasta and sauce and meatballs, over the years I’ve tried to branch out.  Naturally, my collection of Italian and Sicilian cookbooks is growing so finding a book isn’t the problem; finding a recipe is a bit more challenging.

Many Italian and Italian-American households prepare a traditional Christmas Eve feast of the seven fishes but finding seafood of any kind in my little hometown was next to impossible and so we didn’t go that route when I was a kid and I don’t go that route now.  But as I was talking with a friend the other day about why the seafood feast became popular - the church often forbid eating meat on Christmas Eve - I wondered out loud what my mother made during those meatless years and horror upon horror, I had a recollection of tuna casserole.

Now, this memory is fuzzy so it may be that I am just making it all up but it wouldn’t surprise me if we did indeed imbibe on that before Midnight Mass.  But as much as I love, and I mean love, tuna casserole (with peas, always with peas), the thought of this being our Christmas Eve meal gave me pause as it was just wrong, wrong I tell you, on so many levels.

Thankfully the church did away with that rule a long time ago (I think--except for Lent – let’s not get crazy out there) but that doesn’t matter to me because regardless, we make something in this household that is Italian (or Sicilian) that involves pasta and often – oh gasp – meat! (That said, Sicily is famous for all its seafood and all my cookbooks contain pages and pages of fish recipes so if you love fish and want seven courses of them for your Christmas Eve dinner, this is the book for you.)

So anyway, I’m flipping through several Italian and Sicilian books when I came to this book and this recipe for timbale and that, as they say, was that.  And unlike a “regular” timbale, like the one featured in the movie, Big Night, that contains a lot of ingredients, this one was fairly simple and on Christmas Eve (and in general), I am all about simple.

If anything, the biggest challenge was finding caciocavallo cheese as the few stores I visited didn’t have it.  But people, thanks to the internet, I discovered that this cheese is similar to provolone and that is a cheese that most grocery stores and specialty shops carry.  After that, the biggest challenge was not eating all the cheese that was supposed to go into the dish; when I was younger, my cousins and I would ask for an extra ball of mozzarella when grandma made pizza, one for us to nibble on and one for the pizza!

Now, running a close second to this dish was the recipe for cannoli, an oh-so-yummy dessert that is popular in Sicily and the world over but I just couldn’t justify serving dessert as a main meal!  When I was a kid though, my grandma used to buy mini cannoli from her local Italian bakery and we set to work polishing them off, one by one.  And you know, because they were mini cannoli, they were far less fattening than the regular-sized ones.  Uh huh – I speak the truth!

Now, in terms of this recipe, my one complaint, and I always have one, is that the sauce probably could have been a little bit thinner but it was hard to ascertain a consistency from this recipe.  I could also have used a bit more sauce to make the center of the timbale more “creamy” but overall, this wasn’t bad.  And after trying to figure out what “minced beef” meant, I finally split the difference and used part ground beef that I browned and part cubed beef from my leftover roast wrapped in Reynolds Wrap that I made the week before.  If there’s a way to use leftovers, I am all over it!

So here we go an easy version of Timbale for your meat-laden Christmas Eve.  Buon Appetito a Tutti! (Happy Eating to All!)

Sicilian Pasta Timbale – serving size not given but I’d say easily 6

For the sauce

1 carrot

1 onion

2 celery stalks

12 oz tomato puree

Water

Olive oil

For the filling

1 carrot

1 onion

2 celery stalks

24 oz “minced beef” (I used half ground beef, half leftover beef roast)

8 oz peas

Dash of white wine

6 oz tomato puree

6 oz fresh caciocavallo cheese (or substitute provolone)

Olive oil and breadcrumbs to coat the pan

1 eggplant (optional)

Salt and pepper

Water

For the pasta

1 pound Anelletti pasta (basically, large ring pasta)

Start your sauce: in a saucepan, sauté the chopped carrot, celery and onion in the oil, and add the tomato puree.  Dilute with water, correct the salt, add a little pepper, then cook about 15 minutes.  (Ann’s Note:  Nah, 15 minutes is way too short a time.  The vegetables will not be done.  Try ½ hour to 45 minutes.)

To make the filling: in a separate saucepan, sauté the other chopped carrot, celery and onion in the oil, add the minced beef and peas and cook until brown.  Add a few dashes of wine and then the 12 ounces of tomato puree.  Dilute with enough water to form a dense filling, add salt and pepper and cook over a moderate heat for about 20 minutes.

If using eggplant, dice it and fry it in a little oil.  Dice the cheese.  Oil a round banking dish and coat with the breadcrumbs.

Boil the pasta in plenty of salted water per directions.  Drain and mix with the sauce and if desired, with grated caciocavallo cheese.  Put half the pasta mixed with the sauce in the baking dish and form a shallow, but slightly hollowed layer; evenly distribute the carrot mixture, the eggplant and the diced cheese.  Cover with the other half of the pasta, and drizzle a little oil over and sprinkle with breadcrumbs.  Bake in a preheated 300F oven for about 15 minutes.  Remove the timbale from the oven, leave to cool a little and then turn out.

Ann’s Note:  In order to avoid a kitchen disaster, I did not “turn out” the timbale but rather scooped it out of the pan because what am I, nuts?  I can assure you it would not have ended up like the beautiful timbale from the “unveiling” scene in Big Night.  Stuff like that is best left to the (movie) professionals.

"Sicilian Home Cooking" & "Cucina Siciliana de Gangivecchio" - Shepherd's Fusilli and Christmas Salad with Oranges, Olives and Capers

Date I made these recipes: December 24, 2008

Sicilian Home Cooking – Family Recipes from Gangivecchio by Wanda and Giovanna Tornabene with Michele Evans
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
ISBN: 037510399-X © 2001
Recipe: Shepherd’s Fusilli (Fusilli del Pastore) – p. 119

La Cucina Siciliana de Gangivecchio – Recipes from Gangivhecchio’s Sicilian Kitchen by Wanda and Giovanna Tornabene with Michele Evans
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
ISBN: 0679425101 ©1996
Recipe: Christmas Salad with Oranges, Olives, and Capers (Insalata di Natale II) – p. 269

Since this year was the first Christmas without my mom, my husband and I have a very, very low-key Christmas. Some might say it was a non-event since we dispensed with the tree, the decorations and even the holiday music. And I have to tell you folks, it was pretty liberating. Instead of being caught up in the buying and the wrapping and shop-till-you drop mentality, we spent the day holed up in our house with my husband doing some work in his workshop downstairs and with me watching The Hallmark Channel. That’s right, the Hallmark Channel. Got a problem with that?! Don’t worry, earlier in the day I caught the last hour of Holiday Inn and then later in the evening we watched Christmas in Connecticut, starring Barbara Stanwyck. I also addressed my holiday newsletter/pamphlet/small novel to friends who were awaiting its delivery. All in all, it was a fun day.

But despite our desire to lay low over the holiday, there’s one tradition that I couldn’t ignore and that was to make a pasta dish for Christmas Eve dinner.

When I was growing up, we either had spaghetti and meatballs (if the Pope said meat was okay to eat that year) or spaghetti with tomato sauce. Last year, while up at my parents for Christmas, my sister-in-law and I made homemade manicotti shells and meatballs for our repast. This year none of us were able to get together for Christmas but when they all come in next week for New Year’s we will recreate the scene.

But tradition is tradition and so I pulled these two Sicilian cookbooks off the shelf and used one for my pasta dish and the other for a salad. Both dishes were great and right in line with the food of my childhood. The one thing I can’t get over, however, is that both mother and daughter (cookbook authors) are blonde. Blonde Sicilians? Not in my family (unless it comes from a bottle in which case it doesn’t count!)!

My only complaint about this meal is not with the recipes themselves, it’s with my complete inability to find veal in this town. For once, my local market had veal chops, veal scallopini and veal roasts but did they have ground veal? No. I swear if this were the east coast you could find the damned stuff in a convenience store! So please—local grocers, get with the program!!

Shepherd’s Fusilli – Fusilli del Pastore – Serves 6 as a first course or 4 as a main course
1 cup olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 pounds mixed red, yellow and green peppers, cut into thin strips
¼ pound ground veal (we substituted ground round)
¼ pound ground pork
½ cup dry red wine
½ cup tomato paste
1 cup fresh tomato sauce (Salsa di Pomodoro – I used my Aunt Rose’s sauce and that’s a secret to all but family members)
Pinch hot pepper flakes (optional)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 pound fusilli
Freshly grated pecorino cheese

Fresh tomato sauce – makes about 4 cups
5 pounds ripe tomatoes, stem ends removed, coarsely chopped
1 large onion, chopped
½ cup freshly chopped basil leaves, plus 6 whole fresh basil leaves
Salt
½ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon sugar
Freshly ground pepper

To make the tomato sauce (note: I think you can get away with store-bought, just make sure it contains tomatoes and basil and go with a brand that uses sugar rather than corn syrup).

Combine the tomatoes, onion, and basil together in a large pot. Season to taste with salt. Cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes, stirring often.

A few cups at a time, pass the mixture through a food mill. Return the sauce to a clean pot with the olive oil, basil leaves, sugar and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

To make the pasta dish

In a large saucepan, heat the oil, add the onion, and cook over medium heat, stirring often, until it just begins to turn gold. Stir in the peppers and cook over medium heat, stirring often, until the peppers have softened, about 10 minutes.

Stir in the veal, pork and wine. Cook over high heat, stirring often, for 3 minutes. Add the tomato paste, tomato sauce, hot pepper flakes if desired, and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, bring 4 quarts of water to a boil. Add 1 ½ tablespoons of salt. Stir in the fusilli and cook until al dente, stirring often (follow package directions).

Drain the pasta saving 1 cup of the hot pasta water. Return the fusilli to the saucepan and add the sauce. Add a little pasta water if too dry. Toss well and adjust seasoning. Serve with the pecorino.

Christmas Salad with Oranges, Olives, and Capers – serves 8 (I made half the recipe)
2 quarts curly endive or escarole, torn into bite-size pieces
3 celery ribs with leaves, thinly sliced
½ cup green Sicilian olives, pitted and finely chopped (I used Cerignola olives and pitted them myself)
1/3 cup capers, washed and drained
Olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 navel oranges, peeled, with white pith removed, and very thinly sliced
3 lemons, peeled, with white pith removed and very thinly sliced (seeds discarded)
½ cup pomegranate seeds

Immerse the endive or escarole and celery in boiling water for 1 minute. Drain well.

Combine the endive or escarole and the celery with the olives, capers, and a little olive oil. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper to taste.

Oil a 1-quart bowl and spoon the mixture into the bowl. Press the top down gently and let rest for 15 minutes…or not. I skipped this part and instead combined all the ingredients in a bowl. It was much easier, and besides, there was nobody here to impress (assuming it all held together!).

Invert the salad onto a serving dish and place the orange and lemon slices in overlapping, alternating rows over the entire top of the salad, which is now a delicious dome. Sprinkle with rosy-red pomegranate seeds.

Note: never having dealt with a pomegranate before, I was unsure how to get the seeds out. Thank goodness for the internet as they had a simple process in place: cut the top off the pomegranate, then score it all the way around, being careful not to slice all the way through. Place the pomegranate top side down in a bowl of water for 5-10 minutes. This loosens the skin making it easy to take the seeds out without having a mess on your hands. You should know, though, that these seeds stains so be careful with your clothes, cutting boards and cupboards!

"Shrimply Delicious!" & "The Chesapeke Bay Cookbook" & "Little Italy Cookbook" & "Inside America's Test Kitchen" & "Sicilian Feasts" - holiday dinner

Date I made these recipes: December 15, 2007

Shrimply Delicious! by Eva Jean Schulz
Published by: Doubleday and Company, Inc.
© 1966
Recipe: Shrimp and Mango Chutney Canapes – p. 23

The Chesapeake Bay Cookbook by John Shields
Published by: Aris Books – Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.
ISBN: 0-201-51808-2
© 1990
Recipe: Hot Crab Dip – p. 216

Little Italy Cookbook by David Ruggerio
Published by: Artisan
ISBN: 1-885183-54-2
© 1997
Recipe: Cousin Vinny’s Linguine with Scallops – p. 201

Inside America’s Test Kitchen by the Editors of Cook’s Illustrated Magazine
Published by: America’s Test Kitchen
ISBN: 0-936184-71-X
© 2003
Recipe: Garlic-Lemon Green Beans with Roasted Bread Crumbs – p. 109

Sicilian Feats by Giovanna Bellia La Marca
Published by: Hippocrene Books
ISBN: 0-7818-0967-3
© 2003
Recipe: Zabaglione (Egg and Wine Custard) – p. 163


The holidays are upon us and this year, it was my turn to host my “gang’s” annual Christmas dinner. I just finished doing the dishes and putting away my Grandmother’s china and let me tell you, I’m pooped!

For the past 20 some years, my best friends and I have celebrated the holidays by hosting a dinner party on a rotating basis. My merry little band has fluctuated on the numbers over the years what with some members moving away and two of us getting married but we are locked and loaded on a solid five of us and that works out just fine.

This year, though, was a little challenging as most of us have experienced some sort of ill health during the year. The pathetic thing is that we are all approaching our 50th birthdays next year (2008) and so it seems Mother Nature is speeding things up just a tich on the aging process. No matter—despite dietary restrictions and careful avoidance of foods that could otherwise kill us—we managed to make our way through the meal I prepared. Whew! One of my friends who is also a fan of the show, Dinner Impossible, on the Food Network said that this could have been an episode and she’s partially right. (For the record, Dinner Impossible shows how Chef Robert Irvine handles an impossible assignment each week such as “make 50 different appetizers in two hours for a party” or “cook a dinner at the Mall of America using food procured at the mall.” The only problem is that the mall doesn’t have any grocery stores so he had to beg other restaurant chefs for some of their food. Also for the record—Robert never fails. He may cut it close but he makes it every time. You’ve got to love that).

Anyway, although the meal came off without a hitch, I am nothing if not hard on myself and the recipes and so while my friends thought most were great, I was left thinking a few could have been better.

Take, for instance, the recipe for Cousin Vinny’s Linguine with Scallops. The dish was progressing quite nicely until I added the mushrooms. And I didn’t just add some mushrooms, I added a pound of mushrooms as the recipe dictated. Now people, it could be just me, but I thought this was overkill. Moreover, I thought the mushrooms made the sauce too heavy and hearty for the scallops that were added at the end. And so that dish ended up on my “eh” list of things I would serve again. And that’s too bad because the author and I have something in common: to my complete amazement, he notes that his father came from Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily. My grandparents, Vita Costa Verme and Angelo Verme came from the same small town in the early 1900’s. Maybe we have relatives in common, who knows? Still paisano or not, I’m puzzled by the recipe although I think the sauce was quite tasty prior to the time I added the mushrooms.

And then there are the green beans I made. Although the recipe hails from the esteemed America’s Test Kitchen’s kitchen, it lacked the oomph I was looking for. Maybe my husband had a heavy hand in sprinkling the breadcrumbs, who knows?

As to the appetizers, while the crab dip was okay, everyone loved the Shrimp and Mango Canapes. I thought I might have over toasted them just a bit but my friends assured me otherwise.

This brings us to the one dish that I thought was solid and that was the Zabaglione, an Italian custard made with egg yolks, sugar and marsala wine. It’s hard to screw that one up and frankly, the marsala wine made everything better!

As to other futsy details about the recipes, don’t think for one minute that the shrimp and mango chutney canapés served 24 as stated unless they used an eyedropper to put the mixture onto the toasts. I’d plan on the recipe serving 15 tops. The recipe also said “sprinkle with buttered crumbs, and brown on a baking sheet under the broiler.” Well people, this is somewhat vague. What about an estimated time? What about a definition of “brown?” These are the types of things I need to know!

Then there was the lack of direction for the scallop recipe sauce. The recipe said to “lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes, then add mushrooms.” Okay, and then what? It didn’t say how much longer I should cook the sauce. The recipe then jumped to “cook the pasta…” Well, this seemed to be lacking in something.

So here’s what I did. I added the mushrooms and then simmered the sauce for at least 20 more minutes. And then because it was still chunky, I put the whole thing in a food processor to break up the tomatoes and the mushrooms, more so because the tomatoes were huge, unattractive blobs. And why were the tomatoes such huge, unattractive blobs? Because the recipe said to use 2-28 cans peeled plum tomatoes. It didn’t say “crushed tomatoes,” it didn’t say “pureed tomatoes,” it said peeled plum tomatoes. And so I bought peeled plum tomatoes and they were huge and unsightly and reminded me of the “sauce” (I use the term loosely) that my Catholic school used to serve us—chunks of tomatoes on top of spaghetti. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now. So let me repeat an often-used phrase: “The devil is in the details.”

And just so you know, there are two kinds of marsala wine, dry and sweet. This dessert calls for sweet so read the label before buying!

But other than all that, we had a great time! And now that my obligation is done, I get to enjoy the fruits of others’ labor and can focus my attention on the rest of my cookbook collection, at least for another couple of years. We’ll see if I can get through the rest of my cookbook collection by then. Stay tuned!

Shrimp and Mango Chutney Canapes – serves 24 (not really. Try fifteen)
1 cup finely chopped, cooked shrimp
¼ cup heavy cream or mayonnaise (I used cream but I’m thinking mayo probably would have been better)
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
Dash of Tabasco sauce
Mango chutney
24 bread rounds (i.e. cocktail bread)
Buttered bread crumbs
1 hard cooked egg yolk, mashed

Blend together shrimp and cream or mayonnaise. Stir in melted butter, Parmesan cheese and Tabasco. Season to taste with mango chutney. Spread mixture on bread rounds. Sprinkle with buttered crumbs, and brown on baking sheet under broiler. Remove from the heat and top with egg yolk.

By the way, the recipe doesn’t say how to make buttered crumbs but the green bean recipe did and so all you need to do is melt some butter, add your crumbs and stir for 3-5 minutes.

Hot Crab Dip – serves 10 to 12 (and so I made half the recipe for 5 of us)
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons heavy cream
2 tablespoons grated onion (and if anyone knows how to do this without making a mess, please post a comment!)
1 teaspoon prepared horseradish
1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
4 ounces sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley or chives
1 pound backfin or special crabmeat, picked over for shells (Note: I used canned crabmeat as it was cheaper and more readily available here in the Midwest at this time of year).
Crackers or French bread slices for accompaniment

Preheat oven to 350.

In a bowl, blend the cream cheese and cream until smooth. Mix in the onion, horseradish, Old Bay, cheese, and parsley. Gently fold in the crabmeat. Pour into a buttered 1 ½-quart casserole. Cover and bake 20 to 25 minutes. Serve hot.

Cousin Vinny’s Linguine with Scallops – serves 6 to 8 as first course or main dish
6 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 shallots, minced
5 fresh basil leaves, chopped
½ teaspoons chopped fresh Italian parsley
½ teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
2 28-ounce cans peeled plum tomatoes
½ cup dry white wine
1 pound white mushrooms, washed and sliced
1 pound linguine
2 pounds bay scallops
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and shallots and sauté for 3 minutes, until golden brown. Add the basil, pepper flakes, parsley, thyme, tomatoes, and wine. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes, then add mushrooms.

Cook the pasta al dente according to the instructions on the package.

Heat the remaining 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet over high heat. Add the scallops and quickly sauté for 1 minute. Add the lemon juice and pepper. Add the scallops to the sauce, spoon immediately over the linguine, and serve.

Garlic-Lemon Green Beans with Toasted Bread Crumbs – serves 8
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 slices high-quality sandwich bread, ground fine in a food processor (or, lacking two slices of bread just hanging around waiting to be ground, use canned bread crumbs!)
Salt and ground pepper
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
6 medium cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves
1 ½ pounds green beans, stem ends trimmed
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon juice from 1 lemon

For the breadcrumbs:
Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat; when melted, add the bread crumbs and cook, stirring frequently, until golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl, stir in ¼ teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, and the Parmesan; set aside.

For the green beans:
Wipe out the skillet. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons butter, garlic and ¼ teaspoon salt; cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the garlic is golden, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in the flour, pepper flakes, and thyme, then toss in the green beans. Add the broth and increase the heat to medium-high; cover and cook until the beans are partly tender but still crisp at the center, about 4 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice; adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. Transfer to a serving dish, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and serve.

Zabaglione (Egg and Wine Custard) – makes 4 to 6 servings (although note, they are rather small but rich servings)
4 egg yolks
½ cup sugar
½ cup marsala wine

Place the egg yolks and the sugar in a metal or glass bowl that will fit over a pan of simmering water. Beat the egg yolks until thick. Add the marsala wine, and whisk over the simmering water until the custard falls in a ribbon when the whisk is lifted. Remove from the simmering water, and place in a bowl with ice. Continue to whisk until cold, and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Note: I feel as though you can read the line “place in a bowl with ice” two ways. The first is to literally place the mixture into a bowl filled with ice, letting the hot mixture melt the ice cubes. This seemed messy. The second way, and the way I did it, is to place the bowl containing the mixture over a second bowl containing ice and some ice water. To my mind, this was the way to go but you decide.

Happy Holidays!

"Cucina Siciliana" - Spaghetti with peas, pancetta & mint

Date I made the recipe: August 6, 2006

Cucina Siciliana – by Clarissa Hyman
Published by Interlink Books
ISBN: 1-56656-433-6
© 2002

Recipe: Spaghetti with peas, pancetta & mint – p. 130

Of all the Italian and Sicilians cook books I have in my collection, don’t ask me why I started with a book written by (and I may be wrong about this) a non-Sicilian, but the pasta dish that I cooked touched on my need for a light, summer, pasta. When I want heavy-duty winter comfort food, I go for my family recipes but we’re months away from winter time…well, this being Minnesota, land of 2 seasons – “summer” (a term I use loosely for any time period where the temperature is not sub-zero) and winter (the remaining portion of the year) - you never know. What I do know is that most of my friends have an ice scrapper laying around the car floor year round just in case.

This recipe was pretty easy and straightforward. The only thing I would do differently is to cook the peas and pancetta separately instead of cooking them together as directed. The instructions said to cook them together until the pancetta became crispy but what resulted was crispy peas and crispy pancetta. For fans of crispy peas, follow the recipe but for those who love mushy peas (with mashed potatoes – yum), follow your instincts.

Note: This recipe serves 2

Spaghetti with peas, pancetta & mint
½ lb. spaghetti
1 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled
¾ c. peas, defrosted if frozen
2 oz, pancetta, cubed
4 T chopped fresh mint
4 T grated pecorino or parmesan cheese, or mollica (toasted breadcrumbs).

Bring large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the spaghetti according to the package instructions.

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the whole garlic cloves and remove when toasty-brown on both sides. Ann’s notes: My aunt Rose gave me a valuable piece of advice years ago that I stick to – don’t burn the garlic. If you do, it will make your sauce bitter. Because this recipe calls for you to remove the garlic cloves when brown (which I think is a great way to flavor the food without leaving the whole thing in the dish), you’ll likely avoid that problem but keep an eye on the cloves anyway.

Add the pancetta, fry for a few minutes and then add the peas (or, as noted above, wait to add the peas until the last minute). Add black pepper (or peperoncino) and fry gently for several minutes until the pasta is ready.

Once the pasta is done and your pancetta is crispy, mix them together with the mint and then add the cheese.

Eat and enjoy!