The Joy of Pesto

First off, I would like to introduce you to a wonderful blog that I discovered called“A High School Foodie.” It is run by high school student Russell (as you could probably guess by the name) and has a number of delicious recipes, both indulgent and healthy. Make sure to add it as a favorite!!

For me, Pesto is like water. I must have it. Water has so many benefits and can be used in a number of ways, just like pesto! You can use it as a marinade, a dressing for salad, add a few tablespoons to a sandwich or a side of vegetables, pasta, the list is endless. Pesto can be used however you like it! Spread it on some nice crusty bread for a snack; add a few tablespoons to your pizza for a little zing. Do whatever you want with it!!

Here is a little history about our dear friend, Pesto. Pesto originated in Genoa in the Liguria region of northern Italy. It traditionally consists of crushed garlic, basil and pine nuts mixed with olive oil, Parmigiano Reggiano and Fiore Sardo. My Pesto Genovese it a mostly traditional, except for the fact the I sometimes make it with walnuts instead of pine nuts. There are so many variations of pesto, traditional, tomato, sun dried tomato, spinach, cilantro, arugula. I love pesto and if you have yet to experience, I encourage you to try these recipes with some nice al dente pasta and I dare you not to fall in love with it, the way I have!

Pesto Genovese

3 large cloves of garlic, chopped coarsely
½-3/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1/4 – ½ cup pine nuts or walnuts (to taste, some people like more, some people like

less)

Crushed red pepper
Salt +Pepper
Full head of fresh basil

Warm your garlic very slowly in the olive oil until it gets just slightly golden. DO NOT BROWN. Add crushed red pepper to taste, add nuts to the oil, brown very lightly. Let it all cool. Put your basil leaves and thin stems into the food processor or blender. Add your oil, garlic and nut mix, salt and pepper to taste and process. Some people like a coarse pesto which is more traditional, others like a smoother one. This would traditionally be made in a mortar and pestle and would be coarse, some people enjoy using this traditional method. Either way, it’s delicious.

Tomato Pesto

Fresh tomatoes (any size, cherry, plum, even large, just chopped coarsely) end up with two cups chopped

3 large cloves of garlic, chopped coarsely
½-3/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup pine nuts or walnuts (to taste, some people like more, some people like less)
Crushed red pepper
Salt +Pepper
Full head of fresh basil

Warm your garlic very slowly in the olive oil until it gets just slightly golden. DO NOT BROWN. Add crushed red pepper to taste, add nuts to the oil, brown very lightly. Let it all cool. Put your basil in the blender, chop it a bit. Then add your garlic nut mix, salt and pepper and tomatoes last. Try to keep them a little chunky. This is also makes an amazing bruschetta!!  If you have some fun ways that you enjoy pesto, please comment and let me know how you enjoy it! Buon appetito!!

The Sweets of Italy, Part due

Time for more delicious sweets of Italy!!

Gelato mouse trifles- So, at Roxy bar they had these wonderful little trifles. They were made with a layer of mouse (hazelnut, vanilla or chocolate) and a layer of gelato (hazelnut, vanilla or chocolate.) Obviously this combination was enough to satisfy me. But what made this so incredible what something I have never seen before. They were served in these little plastic cups with a handle. The handle was hollow and filled with….yep, you guessed it, NUTELLA!!! Even more amazing, it was served with a special double sided spoon, one side was like a regular spoon and the other was a narrow spoon made specifically so you could scoop out the nutella. It was amazing.

The mini pastries- We went to this really nice place for lunch right by an Upim (Upim is a big store, kind of like a JCPenney or a Target.) We had a delicious lunch there. When I went inside to use the bathroom I noticed a huge Pastry display. We were stuffed, so we decided to go back for dessert after dinner. Boy, am I glad we did. We shared a nutella tartlet, a pistachio tartlet and a coffee crème puff. I think I’ve said it all.

Nutella with toast- I know this might sound boring. But if you’re used to toast with butter or peanut butter and jelly, this is a nice change of pace. At our hotel in Rome, there was a continental breakfast and every day I had two slices of whole wheat toast spread generously with nutella. It’s weird; I can’t seem to have this breakfast at home. It’s just somehow not the same when I know I’m not in Italy. Good thing I’m going back soon.

McFlurrys- Yes, McFlurrys, as in a McDonalds McFlurry. Strange, I know. My mother and I went to the famous McDonalds by the Spanish Steps and I couldn’t help but notice that they had hazelnut and pistachio McFlurrys!!!!! I was tempted, so we got one of each and shared!! They were the classic vanilla soft serve ice cream topped with hazelnuts or pistachios. Classic, simple and very, very tasty.

Coffee gelato milkshakes- When we were in Italy, some days were unbearably hot. We noticed a lot of people had gelato for breakfast (my kind of country), so one day we shared a coffee gelato milkshake with our cornettos. Oh my. So delicious and refreshing. We continued this tradition almost every day. You know, to escape the heat. Wink wink.

Do you have a favorite sweet memory of Italy? If so, please comment and let me know!!

The Sweets of Italy, Part Uno

I ate a lot of sweets when I was in Italy this past summer. I mean a lot. I had to have nutella and gelato every day. I had sweets at breakfast, in the afternoon and of course, after dinner while strolling around Rome or Ischia. I got so used to having nutella everyday, that when I got back to America and it wasn’t everywhere you looked, I went through nutella withdrawal. It was pretty intense. Anyway……I thought it would be fun to list a lot of the delicious treats I ate while in Italy. And don’t worry; I’ll be salivating right along with you.

The nutella donut- Yes, you read that right. Nutella. Donut. A beautiful light yeast donut, stuffed and I mean STUFFED with creamy nutella. Sometimes I would eat the outside of the donut first just to save the nutella for last, other times I would take a bite and get a little of each.

The yeast bun with chocolate chips- Okay, not quite sure how to describe this. Almost every morning in Ischia my mother and I went to a place called Roxy Bar. They had some baked goods, gelato, coffee and drinks. One morning we get this delightful yeast breakfast bun, shaped like a cinnamon bun that was made with chocolate chips. It wasn’t sweet, the chocolate was the only sweet thing about it. It was kind of like a twisted bread roll with chocolate. Eaten with a cappuccino was a lovely mix.

Cornetto with nutella and cream- So in Italy, they call them cornettos, not croissants.  They are very similar, but the French version of the croissant tends to be crispy and contains a lot of butter, whereas an Italian cornetto is usually softer. A lot of the time for breakfast my mother and I would get one filled with nutella and one filled with Crema Gillia (custard) and share them both. Delizioso.   

Gelato- I don’t even know where to begin with the gelato. I had so many different flavors, it’s not even funny. The flavors I like are usually nutty or chocolaty. I had Stracciatella (kind of like chocolate chip, except the chocolate is not really in chip form, but in fine bits throughout the gelato. It gets this way by drizzling a thin stream of melted chocolate during the final stages of churning, which hardens on contact and gets broken up as it churns.) I had baci (chocolate and hazelnut), bianco hazelnut (white chocolate and hazelnut. Pistachio. Coconut. Nocciola (hazelnut.) Noce (walnut.) Caramel. White chocolate. Cookie gelato. And my personal favorite, nero fondente. This was without a doubt, the richest, darkest, creamiest, most intense chocolate gelato (or ice cream) I have ever had in my life. It was literally black. Best. Gelato. Ever.  

Do you have a favorite sweet memory of Italy? If so, please comment and let me know!!

Memories of Ischia: The Food, Part Due, Our Pizza Guy

 As silly as it may sound, when we were in Ischia, my mother and I had a pretty set routine for the late hours. After I finished with my evening lessons, we would take a walk, maybe do a little shopping, pick up a pizza from our favorite pizza guy, come back to our nice, spacious room and eat the pizza straight out of the box on our comfy beds while watching DVD’S on the laptop. I know what you’re thinking. You’re in Italy and you stay IN for dinner? First off, we did not do this EVERY night, just most. Second, we were in Italy for a month and sometimes we really craved that feeling of being “home” and doing this kept that feeling alive. Third, no matter where you ate this pizza, it was going to taste amazing, so who cares where we ate it?


Forio, Ischia

So, how did this routine start? Well, on our second night in Ischia (The first night we went out with a group) we were not quite sure what to do for dinner. Were we going to go to same place we went the night before, look for another place, maybe venture to another part of the island? We weren’t really up for anything that big. As we were wandering around trying to make up our minds, we passed a teeny tiny pizzeria. Il Pizzicotto Pizzeria. It was very narrow with just two little booths on one side, a narrow counter for just a few people to sit on the other side and the main counter in the back to order. On one side of the wall was a huge menu, I think they had over 25 pizza specialties. Even though it was small, it felt very inviting and we instantly felt at home. We scanned the menu, unable to pick from so many of the tempting, mouthwatering pizzas. But, after much deliberation, we landed on the Sorriso.

The “Sorriso” was a traditional pie with gravy (some of us Italians call it gravy instead of sauce) and mozzarella, but…..it also had dollops of fresh, creamy ricotta. And if that wasn’t enough, the crust was also stuffed with more fresh ricotta. The combination of the homemade gravy and moist mozzarella with the creaminess of the ricotta, the chewy crust and the smoky taste from the wood burning oven was indescribable. Best pizza ever. While we did try other varieties (my other favorite was the eggplant parmigiano pie) most nights, we just had to get the Sorriso. We would go in, scan the menu, go over a few other options, but I think we both knew we were always going to get the Sorriso.

What made this experience so memorable for us was the fact that even though we were only in Ischia for a little over two weeks, we became regulars at Il Pizzicotto Pizzaeria. It was a very nice feeling. There were moments when we missed home and having a little place where the owners remembered us and knew we would come back every night was a special feeling. I would have loved to have known the names of the two people that were always in there. There was a sweet older woman who helped us a few times and of course, the pizza man himself. Every time we came in, he was so nice and polite. He would take our order and then go straight to making our pie. We even saw him in town a few times and he would always say hello to us. I miss the taste of the pizza in Ischia. It was like no other pizza I have ever had. But I am quite certain I’ll get to try it again someday.

Memories of Ischia: The Food, Part Uno: Lunch on the terrace

Last summer, I spent a month in Italy. Two of those weeks were spent on the stunning island of Ischia, where I was studying Opera. When most people want to spend some time on a resort island in Italy, they often go the Amalfi Coast or nearby Capri, not even knowing of Ischia. Ischia looked to me as I imagine the Garden of Eden to have looked. My sole purpose of being in Ischia was to study, but of course, a girls got to eat. So one of the many perks of being on the island was the amazing, fresh food.

Lunch:

During the week, I would wake up, have a light breakfast, take a walk, go to lessons from 9-12, go back to the room for a swim, lunch on the terrace, take a quick nap, swim again, take a walk, shop and go back for more lessons from 6-9 and then have dinner, followed by another late evening stroll. It was heavenly.

One of my favorite things about our room was that we had a terrace overlooking the hotel’s pool, lounge area, palm trees and to the right, you had a stunning view of the mountains. Where better to enjoy lunch?  We would eat in our bathing suits with our sunglasses on, overlooking all the beauty that Ischia had to offer. It was sort of a picnic style lunch, but this was no standard picnic.

Most mornings before class my mother and I would take a walk to the local supermarket and shop for that day’s lunch, we wanted everything to be nice and fresh. We would get an assortment of meat, cheese, nuts, bread, tomatoes, beans, etc. This was a typical lunch for us in Ischia. Other days we went to the local cheese shop and got a mix of all the lovely cheese they had to offer for the day.

Come lunch time, we would open the terrace doors and set our table. Cheese on one plate, meat on another, a bowl of nuts, a tray of bread and a bowl of fresh tomatoes and beans and a small cup for pesto.

We would take from the mix and make our own plates. Fresh mozzarella on one side. When you cut into it, it was like butter. A small piece of smoked scamorza, which is similar to mozzarella, but dry. A slice of fresh ricotta, which we would eat spread on the tarillis. I have to admit, I became somewhat obsessed with these particular tarallis while in Italy. I have had them in New York, but never like this. Tarallis are a classic Italian snack food; they are a cracker similar in texture to a breadstick. They can be sweet or savory. These particular ones were savory, made with olive oil and almonds.

My mom would make a salad of cannellini beans, tomatoes, olive oil and herbs. The tomatoes we ate while in Ischia, were honestly the best tomatoes I have ever had in my life. So plump and juicy, they have spoiled me for anything else. There were all of these lovely little gourmet shops around Ischia that sold pasta, oils, cookies and these wonderful little packets of seasonings, which we used for the salad. We would put a little drizzle of pesto over all of the food. The fresh pistachios added a nice crunch to all of the creamy cheeses. And a small slice of Parma cotto rounded out the meal

Sitting out in the blazing sun (don’t worry, we always wore sunscreen), overlooking the view and eating the freshest, most delicious food was truly something I will not soon forget.

Buon Appetito!

P.S. If any of you have been to Ischia, I would love to hear from you or if you have a particular memory of a certain meal or food when you’ve traveled, let me know! Grazie!

Easter Pie: Part due

Ciao. Let me start by saying Buona Pasqua or Happy Easter. As soon as I had the idea for this blog, I knew I was going to post my Grandma Nettie’s Easter Pie. Pizza Rustica. Pizzaghena. Every family has their own name for it and their own special recipe. But no matter what goes into it, everybody feels theirs is the best. You know what, they’re right. Because more goes into this pie then just the ingredients.  For this post, I have my mother, Elvira, helping me out.

My mother has wonderful memories of her family baking the pies going back to when she was a small child. Days of preparation; shopping, cooking, chopping, baking, dozens and dozens of pies were made. My mother tells me how her mother and her grandmother before that would make the dough, roll out the pies and someone else would fill, a top crust would go on and into the oven they’d go. They had a large old stove and could fit as many as six or seven pies, at once, depending on the size. Small, large and even tiny ones that they would make for each child individually. The tins came in all sizes came from so many places, old bakeries that had the names stamped on the bottom. These were old, even when my mother was a child.

They’d start early on Holy Saturday morning and relatives would start filtering in around twelve, because everyone knew you weren’t allowed to eat any meat before you heard the noon church bells.   

A clean sheet was laid out over the bed, the windows opened, so as the pies came out of the oven, they could be laid out to cool, but not before each pie got an egg wash so it would be nice and shiny.


This is a picture of my grandma Nettie, myself and my brother

And then, the bells would toll; someone would go grab one of the largest pies and make the first cut. My mother told me that somehow everyone always felt that that first bite, from that first pie, that you waited a whole year for, was always the best.

By three or four in the afternoon, the baking was finished, the kitchen cleaned, the relatives on their way home, each with a pie of their own. My grandmother would wrap the cooled pies and put a little slip of paper with a nice designating who the pie was going to go to. She’d bring them to friends, neighbors and hand them out at work (she was a sewing machine operator.) But always, a good amount of pies would stay in her refrigerator and a few in the freezer to be enjoyed later on. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2007/04/08/the-miracle-of-my-mother-s-easter-pies.html)

By the time my mother was eight, she’d be helping. Maybe a little chopping, maybe a little filling and usually my mother was the one to brush the egg wash on the finished pies to give them a lovely sheen.

After time it was just my mother and her mother making the pies. But the same pattern of the relatives, the bells and the first bite would continue. By the time my brother and I came along, my grandmother felt it was too much work for my mother to have to come over with small children, so my grandma made the pies by herself.  

I999 was the last time my grandma made pies. My mother never wanted to bake the pies herself, even though I asked her many times. But this time she did. We made them together. The pies came out great. My grandma would be proud.

Easter Meat Pie

2 pounds of ricotta cheese
¾ pounds of hot sausage
¾ of a pound of smoked pork shoulder
8 eggs
¾ cup of grated parmesan or romano (we used a mix)
1 pound mozzarella (used fresh, chopped into little cubes)
Fresh Parsley, chopped
Freshly ground pepper
Salt

Boil sausage and pork shoulder for at least 3 hours, you want the meat of the pork to fall apart. Cool and chop coarsely. This can be done a day or two ahead. Empty ricotta into a large bowl, break it up. Add your eggs one at a time and blend. Add parmesan, mozzarella, chopped parsley, salt, pepper (these three ingredients are quanto basta.) Blend thoroughly. Fill your pie crust, top with another crust and bake slowly, 350-400 degress, depending on your oven, until a knife in the center comes out clean. It can be 45 minutes; it can be an hour and a half. Beat an egg; brush it over the top crust to give your pie a nice finish. Let it cool. These can be eaten warm or room temperature, they make a great picnic lunch. (This is one of those family recipes with no actually direction, just a lifetime of doing and remembering.)

Our crust was made differently than any traditional pie crust and it’s a recipe that remains in our family. But you can use any hearty crust to put your filling in. You can even bake this crust less, if you eat a gluten free diet or you can even fill an omelet or add more eggs and bake into a frittata.

Easter Pie: Part Uno

Ciao everyone. As I promised from the beginning, I will be sharing my Grandma Nettie’s Easter Pie recipe within the next few days. In the meantime, I would like to share with you an article that my loving mother, Elvira, wrote for Newsweek, all about the memory of my grandma and the Easter pies. Here is the original link: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2007/04/08/the-miracle-of-my-mother-s-easter-pies.html

The Miracle of My Mother's Easter Pies

In early spring, my mother would make an announcement from her kitchen in Brooklyn. "I'm making the Easter pies," she would say. "Going to be busy, so nobody bother me."

The pie was an Italian specialty known as pizza rustica. Her mother had once made the same pies from a recipe her family brought to America from a small town near Naples, Italy. My mother had watched her mother prepare the pies for Holy Saturday, slicing the smoked ham and hot sausage into bits, filling the dish with fresh ricotta and Romano cheese, brushing the beaten egg wash onto the crust to give it a glaze.

By the time I came along, my mother and grandmother were making the pies together, so I never got a chance to taste one of my grandmother's original creations. I don't know if my mother followed her recipe exactly, or added her own touches. I do know that everyone in the family agreed that my mother's pies were the best they'd ever tasted, hands down.

My mother made 15 or 20 pies every April for more than 40 years. She would stand in our kitchen pressing the dough with her mother's 50-year-old rolling pin, her cheek smudged with flour, her hair in disarray. The resulting pies resembled two-inch-thick omelets—stuffed with cheese and flecked with meat, topped by a heavy, flaky, dimpled crust baked golden brown.

She wrapped the pies in foil and labeled them for their recipients. (The size of the pie you got was a measure of her affection for you.) The doorbell would start ringing at noon—Uncle Nick from Bethpage, Aunt Carmella and cousin Barbara from around the corner—all eager for a pie still warm from the oven. I was an only child, but each spring our house filled with family as relatives came from Long Island, Queens and Brooklyn to collect this family dividend.

Then, when she was 78, my mother went in for open-heart surgery. She suffered complications, and on a sweltering day in late June almost eight years ago, she died. My husband and I drove from the cemetery to her apartment and started the routine of going through her belongings. We emptied her drawers, cabinets and shelves, deciding what to keep, give away and throw out. We left behind her furniture, her clothes, and her pots and pans for the building's superintendent to discard or donate to charity. There wasn't much else. She had lived on next to nothing her whole life, so we weren't expecting hidden fortunes.

How mistaken we were. We opened the freezer and looked in, and there they were. My mother's pies. She had saved a few, including one for herself, labeled nettie. My husband and I looked at each other in surprise, saying nothing. Then we took out the pies from the icy mist and put each in a plastic bag.

In moments, we left her apartment for the last time and walked out into the hot, still afternoon for the drive home, holding the residue of my mother's life. That Sunday night, gathered with our 15-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter at our dining-room table, I brought in one of the pies, now steaming hot and emitting a savory aroma. I sliced a wedge for each of us, and we ate, scraping our plates for crumbs.

I'd eaten my mother's pies every spring my whole life, and they always tasted good. But now, flavored with grief, the pie somehow tasted better than it ever had. With each bite I recalled with fresh clarity everything Nettie had meant to me over the years, had meant to all of us. How she had raised me without a husband around, all the while toiling as a seamstress, and especially how she had lavished love and attention on her adoring grandchildren.

I'd never in my life felt so grateful to anyone. Through the pies she had expressed her love for family and friends, nourishing body and soul. Eating the pie that night felt almost sacramental, as if I could taste her very spirit.

Afterward, I waved our family into the kitchen. I opened the door to our freezer and pointed toward the back. And there it was: one last slice of one of Nettie's pies. The one labeled Nettie. "This one we're saving," I said.

And so we have. The slice has stayed back there, wrapped in foil, for almost eight years now, untouched, unseen, but never forgotten. Other families leave insurance policies behind, or furniture, or jewelry. But Nettie left us her pie. That's her legacy, her heirloom. We celebrate the holidays to remind ourselves that the past deserves a future. We'll never starve for my mother's memory as long as that single slice is in there. It will feed our hearts all year round.