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Plan Your Italian Garden!
Homegrown is alright with me.
It’s never too early to plan a garden, and these days, with all the info on the Internet and all the mail order catalogs there is plenty to sift through. In just a few weeks it will be time to actually plant. Now is the time to do a little research.
Sure, if you are not in Italy, then you do not have the exact microclimate to grow a particular Italian vegetable or fruit. You do not have Italy’s indigenous soil either. But I am not going to quibble, and I am not going to let the purists stop me from growing my own, and neither should you. What greater joy is there than to walk into the garden with an empty trug and return to the kitchen, the trug brimming with fruits and vegetables grown with one’s own two hands, one’s own sweat and toil.
Don’t miss the thrill of seeing the tiny sprouting plants lift the dark, rich soil. Read the remainder of this entry »
Crema al Forno con Punch Abruzzo
Baked Egg Custard with Punch Abruzzo
Infused with Punch Abruzzo, this silky liaison of milk, cream and eggs is comfort food that speaks Italian. Punch is a liquor from Abruzzo, the homeland of my grandfather, Gaetano “Pop” Crocetti. The flavor of Punch is a remarkable combination of citrus, coffee, chocolate notes and tobacco with a hint of rum and a hearty dose of spice. It’s got character, just like Pop.
Treat the eggs carefully and you will be rewarded with a smooth custard with a soft interior. First “scald” the milk, cream and sugar, a technique that involves heating them just until bubbles appear around the edges of the pan, far below the boil. Next, slowly combine the hot mixture with the eggs to “temper” them, ensuring that the heat of the heat of the oven does not shock and curdle them. Read the remainder of this entry »
Maccheroni alla Chitarra di Farro con Pesto di Cavolo Nero
Guitar Cut Farro Pasta with Black Kale Pesto
I was craving a hearty, but meatless pastasciutta, whole grain and packed with nutrients. The pasta was the easy part. When I want hearty pasta, I go right to the famous maccheroni alla chitarra of Abruzzo. Also known as pasta or spaghetti alla chitarra, the noodles are satisfying and toothsome.
I figured farro would be perfect for the pasta. An heirloom grain (triticum dicoccum), it is also known as emmer, and sometimes erroneously called spelt. Farro has been around for ages, literally. Documented as far back as the dawn of agriculture in Mesopotamia and The Fertile Crescent, the Roman legions conquered the world on their daily ration. Read the remainder of this entry »
Pumpkin Lasagne ai Quattro Formaggi
Pumpkin Lasagna with Four Cheeses
This one needs a Family Tree. So here goes. I have been a fan of Domenica Marchetti for quite some time. Lucky me, I won a copy of her newest book, The Glorious Pasta of Italy from Paula Yoo of Write Like You Mean It. (Great name, Paula. Great site.) I had just begun to give the book some serious reading when David Leite of Leite’s Culinaria included Domenica’s recipe for Pumpkin Lasagne in his Weekly Update. (If you do not already subscribe, sign up for a wealth of information.) And as if I needed any more convincing, Kathy included the recipe in her Food Lover’s Odyssey (another site not to be missed) Top 10 Italian Recipes from Around the Web. See what I mean about the Family Tree?
I had been looking for something different for a first course for Thanksgiving when the Pumpkin Lasagne recipe caught my eye. Lasagna, why not? What surprised me was that the pumpkin puree is in the pasta, not between the layers. By the way – don’t be thrown by lasagne ending with an “e”. The name of this recipe refers to the multiple sheets of pasta known individually as lasagna. The final “a” of Italian feminine nouns changes to “e” in the plural. Mystery solved. Read the remainder of this entry »