Ringraziamento

I already spoke a little about Thanksgiving for the benefit of my Italian readers last year. Every time, though, I seem to forget why Thanksgiving is a holiday - the historical event behind it is, in fact, a little odd. Supposedly, it is the day when Native Americans and the Pilgrims got together to celebrate and thank for the harvest before wintertime. Most people I talked to told me that after that the massacre of the Native Americans started.. As usual, it's impossible to disentangle good and bad, and memories slip away. In any case, I don't think many people really think about the original meaning nowadays, and this holiday is transformed into a moment of general thanksgiving for all the good things we have, and for the possibility of getting together with the whole family. In this sense, it is really a great occasion for American families, who are often scattered through this large country.
So here we are in Virginia! It's actually very nice to be here, and who knows when we'll be able to come back. To begin the post, here is a picture of trees wearing fall colors, taken from the front of the house. It's such a beautiful view, and we miss it a bit in California.

The house got bigger since we last came here. You can see on the left the addition that Lucas's dad Jim recently made. To me it's quite amazing, I'd never be able to do anything like this. He still has to do the interior - and I guess, then, figure out what to put in this new part of the house. :)
As it also happens in Italy, family reunions occur around tables loaded with lots of good food. Lucas's mom Debbie is a great cook and here is just a small sample of what she made for us.
This was for the dinner before Thanksgiving - all the children had already arrived, and it was good to be altogether.
There's fried apples, salmon, baked mac and cheese and salad. The salad was my contribution to the dinner (a variation on the theme of my usual cabbage salad) - I was very pleased by the fact that everyone enjoyed it, knowing how hard it is for some of the family members to eat veggies ;) For my Italian readers: fried apples are apples cooked in a pan with butter (ehm, a lot of it :) ), sugar and ground cloves, and mac and cheese is a casserole type of dish where layers of small pasta and cheese and cracker pieces are layered, and then cooked together with a mixture of milk and eggs. Mac stays for 'macaroni' - interestingly enough, it doesn't have anything to do with what Italians call 'maccheroni': the former is a small, elbow-like pasta, whereas the latter is a tubular, hollow and streight type of pasta about 1.5" long. So, mac and cheese doesn't really have anything to do with 'pasta al forno', and if Italians go to the US they shouldn't expect that. It's actually quite good, but it's a different thing.
And here is a sample of our Thankgsving meal!
This is a very subjective view of the meal, because it's what was on my plate - so, the meat part of it is very underrepresented. But it does show the variety of things we had: the two things in the middle are stuffing (on the center left) and turkey (center right). Then, at the right side of the turkey, there's a small amount of mashed potatoes, and going clockwise, cranberry sauce (traditionally eater with the turkey), gratin cauliflower, a bread roll, collard greens, broccoli/yams/peppers "martatouille", and spinach sformato. As you may have guessed, I attended the preparation of the veggie sides. I used all my experimented recipes - you can find the cauliflower recipe here, the spinach here and the martatouille here. The collards were brought by Joanne, Jim's sister (they're a traditional southern side - I had a small explanation in Italian about collards here). In case my non-American readers were wondering: the turkey meat I had on the dish was of course part of a real 20 lb turkey, that Debbie started cooking at 6 in the morning for it to be ready by 1 pm!
Everything was really good, and of course, the dessert side wasn't less important. We had coconut cake and three different pies (chocolate, pumpkin and pecan) that Debbie made. The pies are a very big tradition for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and Debbie always prepares about 5-6 of them. :)
As a side, for our breakfasts and afternoon snacks, Debbie baked a few more things:
The softest and most delicious rolls ever, cinnamon bread, banana muffins, almond cookies, Christmas balls (my favorite, the round spheres, made with mostly eggs and nuts), and sausage balls (in the front, they are made with cheese and sausage). Keep in mind that everything that's shown on this plate was prepared in batches of hundreds, more or less. :)
Debbie also made just 'a few' hot crossed buns:
(Apparently these are supposed to be Eastern buns, but no one seemed to mind their presence for Thanksgiving.. :) - they are small rolls filled with cinnamon and raisin).
She also made a dessert that I really loved:
\It's a pound cake, served on custard and covered with a sort of fudge chocolate cream.
Now... do you understand why I gained a few pounds during this short vacation?!? :)
Unfortunately I don't have many people pictures.
Here is the Thanksgiving meal - and Jason with a small amount of mashed potatoes in front of him
And here is Rowen, one of the two cute cats belonging to Alison, who always join the family reunions!

Nuova casa!

I still didn't post any pictures of the new apartment! So, our recent housewarming party* is a good occasion for it. We had about 20 people over, and it was quite amazing to see how much space there was for everybody! I realized I could have invited even more people. :) In fact, we don't have a huge house - it's just a one bedroom apartment, but it has a really nice and big living room, so it doesn't fill crowded even with so much people. It looked like everyone enjoyed the party, and it was nice to have our neighbors over, and find out how nice they are!
To start with the pictures, here is the really nice flower bouquet that Keisuke and Miako gave us at the housewarming party.
* Per i miei lettori italiani: un 'housewarming party' (festa di riscaldamento della casa, letteralmente) e' una specie di 'inaugurazione' di una casa (o appartamento) in cui ci si e' appena trasferiti.. alla festa non succede nulla di particolare, e' solo un'occasione per invitare un po' di amici, fare vedere la nuova casa, e se si vuole, se ne puo' approfittare per diventare amici dei vicini!

Afore mention: most of these pictures were taken by Sonya! Thanks, Sonya :)
So here are Elif and Lucas preparing the food before the party
Sonya helped too - we made three pizzas and two pans of focaccia that were transformed into grilled chicken or grilled veggies sandwiches with tomato sauce and pesto (the 'heavenly sandwiches' :) ), and some frittata and salads.. and we also had some delicious tofu-sushi made by Miako, and curry by Andrea.. a lot of wonderful food - no pictures, sorry :(
And here are Andrea, Romelia and Sonya:
Keisuke and Miako teaching how to read Dostoevskij in Italian to little Keita
And here is little Keita! The cutest boy ever, as Sonya said. :)
The party was also a good occasion to clean up the house, so I was able to take pictures of it afterwards!
Here is the nicest part of the living room, where we decided to put the dining table.
And here is another part of the living room:
(we're not allowed to use the fireplace, though. :) )
And at last, a view of the kitchen:
It's long and narrow, but not too much. In fact, it was possible to work here in four people! I really enjoy the stove, it's old but really well maintained, and I love having fire instead of electric stove and oven. It's a real pleasure to cook with it!
So here it is for now.. Just a little peak in our everyday life (my parents had been asking for these pictures :) ).

Fresh Produce of the Month # 5 - Roundup!

Exciting time again! The roundup of the 'Fresh Produce of the Month' is ready! So for October-November we had 'Brussel Sprouts' as a theme. I was worried no one would answer to this: it's not such a popular vegetable, and one of the reasons I chose it was to challenge people to try to make something with it. I am really happy to say that many great cook-bloggers tried... and here we have a list of their excellent results!


The first entry is by Dhivya at Culinary Bazaar with Stir Fried Brussel Sprouts Chinese StyleDhivya shares with us not only a recipe but also the health benefits that one can have eating Brussel sprouts. And she says: "This recipe from my cookbook is a very simple one which is what I started with when I made my first dish with brussels sprouts.I have modified it a wee bit but its still simple and healthy tasting."


Jai and Bee at Jugalbandi treat us with not only one but three delicious looking Brussel sprout recipes! They have: Brussel Sprouts, Indian style...










Brussel Sprouts, Chinese style...







And Brussel sprouts, 'Our favorite style'. I'd really like to try the two other styles too, but as for their favorite style, Bee and Jai say: "This is a lazy and very tasty way to prepare brussels sprouts.".. with a great reward!




Ferdzy at Seasonal Ontario Food shares a tasty and great looking Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Onion. She tells us that "I'm describing this as a side dish, and it could be; but we are likely to serve it over rice and call it a meal. " - Indeed, I'd love to have such meal. :)





Ruth at Once Upon a Feast is inspired by the fall and prepares and awesome looking Foglie d'Autunno with Roaster Fall Veggies and Merguez. She has the most appealing pasta I ever saw: "I've bought [it] before and still had visions of these cute leaves of pasta which, like a Fall day here, are multi colored...red ones made with beets, green ones from spinach, yellow ones from turmeric, orange from carrots.." and inspired by it and the delicious veggies that she found at the Farmers' Market, she prepares for us the fabulous dish you see in the picture.


I am also presenting a pasta dish: Pasta con cavoletti di Bruxelles / Brussel sprout pasta - the easiest pasta dish, with tomatoes, onions and brussel sprouts.







.. and a risotto: Risotto ai cavoletti di Bruxelles e curcuma / Brussel sprout and turmeric risotto, which I liked both for the taste and the appearance.






At last, I'm really happy to present my dear friend Elif's dish! She has just started her blog, Elifleaf, and she already has an entry for the Fresh Produce of the Month event.. thank you Elif! She's sharing with us an awesome looking Brussels Sprouts with White Wine-Garlic Sauce. She was inspired by the book "Grub: ideas for an urban organic kitchen", but she added her own twist of slivered almonds to the dish, which I think was a great idea too. She has a final suggestion for this roundup: "[The Brussels sprouts] look so cute on the stalk, and you can even snap off a sprout and eat it fresh.".. That's the simplest recipe!! Thank you, Elif. :)

And.. we do have another entry! It's from Labelga at Leafy Cooking - she has real knowledge of the vegetable protagonist of this month's challenge since.. she lives in Brussels! She present us a very interesting dish: Brussels sprouts with tamarind or "bel Tamarhendi" - and she explains: "My sprouts went Syrian, or the way Claudia Roden describes for Syrian okra in the Book of Jewish food: coated as if in mud, or in a lookalike of barbecue sauce: tamarind paste." An unusual combination which I'd definitely like to try!

Are you inspired? I am :) So, hurry up, the Brussels Sprout season is not over yet! And now.... the announcement of the new Fresh Produce of the Month event! I decided that after a challenging month, we'll go with an easy one. Ladies and gentlemen, before the peak season of this delicious fruit is over... let's make something with APPLES!
Apples are harvested throughout Fall. They started flooding the Berkeley Bowl some weeks ago, and I'm amazed at the variety of types that there are. I'm trying them all little by little. I love them raw, but one can cook all sort of delicious foods with them! So, please, send in your favorite recipe involving apples to this month's event. The rules are simple:
1) Put a post on your blog with a recipe involving apples. If you live somewhere where you cannot find Brussels sprouts, use any other sprouts that are in season. Add a link to this post on my blog and mention that it's an entry for the 'Fresh produce of the month' event. If you like it, feel free to place the logo of the event on your post.
2) Send me an email with a link to your post, your blog homepage and your name. My email address is chemcookitATgmailDOTcom. Specify 'Fresh produce of the month' as subject.
3) If you don't have a blog just send me an email with your recipe and if you have a picture of the food you made, that's even better. I will add it to the round-up as well.
The deadline for this event will be December 22nd... right before Christmas!

Important note: if you send me an entry and I don't reply to your email or leave a comment on your blog, it means that I didn't get it.. in that case, just leave a comment anywhere on the blog and I'll definitely see it!! Thanks and sorry about this in advance.

Looking forward to all your delicious entries! You can find all the roundups of the Fresh Produce of the Month event here.

Fresh Produce of the Month - reminder and short extension

This is a reminder for my dear readers that the deadline for this month's 'Fresh Produce of the month' was .. yesterday! But I'm going to give you a small extension for late entries till tomorrow, as I think I'll post the roundup Sun or Mon night.
The theme is 'Brussel sprouts', and just to excite you with more ideas, I'll present here another dish I recently prepared with this wonderful vegetable:
Risotto con cavoletti di Bruxelles e curcuma / Brussel sprouts and turmeric risotto
Wash and cut ~1/2 lb brussel sprouts into quarters. Sautee 1/2 onion finely cut, in 1 tbsp olive oil. Add the brussel sprouts and keep sauteeing. Add 1.5 cups rice (possibly Arborio) and ~1 tbsp salt. Sautee the rice for a few minutes, then add 3 cups water and 1 tsp turmeric. Cover. After ~5 min see if the water is boiling, and if so, lower the heat and keep cooking covered for 15 more minutes. I usually peak a little bit earlier to make sure the water is not evaporated, although this is sacrilegious in my mother's opinion. When the time has passed, taste the rice and make sure it's done. The water should be all absorbed. If the rice is not done yet, add a little bit hot water and cook covered for a few more minutes. If the rice is done and there's some water left, cook on very high heat to make sure the water evaporates. When everything is done, add some grated parmigiano cheese, mix, and let the rice stand covered in the pan for ~5 min before serving it with some black pepper freshly ground on top.

'Heart of the Matter' event

Michelle, Joanna and Ilva organize a monthly event called 'Heart of the Matter'. The idea is to try to prepare good and healthy food, so that also people with heart problems can enjoy them! This means, of course, no butter, fat, not too much sugar, and not even too much olive oil! Their challenge this month is to use these guidelines to prepare a holiday food - make one up, or modify a traditional one in a healthy way.
This challenge was inspiring to me, and I decided to participate for the first time to this event. I decided I'd make something that in Italy we usually eat on the first of the year: lentils. Eating lentils in this occasion is considered to bring good luck for all the year.. I love lentils, especially the simple way that we usually make them. The problem is that usually, they go together with a super-fatty-way-too-greasy sausage called 'cotechino'. Now, I must say: it is good, and if you have a small piece just in that occasion, it cannot harm you too much, but I decided I'd never make it again in my life when I saw what happened the first and only time I tried. When we were done eating, one of my guests decided that, to help me clean up, she would pour the fat that was left in the pan down the sink. The sink was so badly clogged that after everyone left I had to work with every sort of chemical and mechanical tool to try to unclog it, and it took hours of hard work surrounded by rancid fat smell.
Ok, now that I grossed everyone out, here is my healthy recipe. :) Instead of using cotechino, I mixed lentils with pasta. Pasta and lentils is another typical combination in Italian cuisine. Usually it's a delicious and thick soup where pasta and some lentils are mixed. Here I used as many lentils as pasta, and my 'innovation' was the addition of some lime juice. It gave it a really good twist, and it eliminated the need of adding any cheese at all.

Pasta e lenticchie con un tocco di lime / Lentil and pasta with a touch of lime

Warm up 1.5 tbsp olive oil in a pan and saute half an onion, finely cut. Add 1/2 lb dry lentils, after rinsing them. Stir to coat them with oil and onion pieces, and then add enough water to cover them and have ~1" more above them. Cover, bring to boil and lower the heat. Add ~1/2 tbsp salt and a few bay leaves. Keep simmering, covered, for ~20 minutes. Check once in a while and make sure the water has not completely evaporated, and add more if necessary. Taste to check the salt and the tenderness. When done, eliminate the bay leaves. There should be still some liquid in the pan with the lentils.
In the meanwhile, cook 1/2 lb pasta in boiling water (remember to add some salt to the water). When the pasta is al dente, drain it. Save some water if you want to make the final dish more soupy. Pour the pasta in the lentil pan, mix, and add the juice of half a lime to it. Serve with pepper, if you want, and a wedge of lime. It's super delicious and very healthy!

40$ alla settimana

The title of my post is the same as Cady's blog: '$40 a week', where she posts about how to plan meals so that you can eat good food throughout a week and spend less or equal than $40 a person. Cady is hosting the 'Weekend Cookbook Challenge' this month, and she invites us to try the same experiment.
To be honest, at the beginning I didn't think I would participate to the event. I really don't like meal planning. What I usually do is: I go to the grocery store and buy the most inviting vegetables and fruits I see, and then pasta, rice, and canned goods which are running low in our cabinet, and tofu, eggs, milk, yogurt (and sometimes meat) which we'll need for the week. Then, during the week, Lucas and I alternate and make up a dinner which will have enough leftovers also for lunch, and that's it. I plan meals only if I know I'm going to have guests over, then I buy the ingredients I know I'll want to use for that special meal.
But, in the end, almost every week we spend $80 or less (for the two of us and sometimes this includes some guests), so we're always within that '$40 a week' that Cady is inviting us to try. So I decided I'll do a sort of flash-back post: instead of writing about the plan, and then go grocery shopping and cooking for a week, I'll tell you what we bought last weekend and how we ended up using this week. Hopefully Cady will accept this 'reverse' post!

So here is what we bought at Berkeley Bowl last Sunday, and their price in US$:
pinto beans 1.75
long grain rice 1.32
roasted sunflower seed 1.07
sugar 1.07
organic rolled oats .24
short grain rice 1.46
soy sauce 3.19
organic sweet potatoes 2.13
bakers chocolate 3.25
candles 1.35
flour 1.76
portobella mushrooms 4.60
cucumbers 0.79
chinese eggplants 0.99
yellow corn 1.18
mandarines 1.17
red bell peppers 1.39
avocado 0.99
tofu 2.50
long choy sum 0.80
zucchini 2.21
parseley 0.39
wine grapes 1.59
apples 1.22
fettuccine de cecco 1.89
eggs 2.19
cereal 'heritage' 3.75
-----------------------------------------
total (- 3 bag bonus, + tax) 46.13

Interesting bill: the most expensive item were the mushrooms (still below $5, they were on sale), as one may expect. Then, the cereal box. I really don't like the fact that they charge so much for morning cereals, as I already expressed in a few posts. So, while in the past I was baking bread and having it with jam for breakfast, I recently decided to make my own cereals. I'll start the experiment next week with the sunflowers seeds and rolled oats I bought, plus sliced almonds, which I'm going to mix with a little cocoa powder.
To this bill, you have to add the stuff we bought in the shop close to our place ('Derby store'), not to have to carry it by foot from the Berkeley Bowl (it's a 20 min walk, which is fine if you don't have also milk and heavy stuff):
1 gallon milk 2.99
sparkling wine 7.99
chips 2.99
------------------------------
total 13.97
So, real total is $60.10. About $30 per person per week.

Here is what we ate during the week:

Monday
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lunch: leftover from Sunday dinner (wild rice+beans+homini).
dinner: actually went out for dinner. But, after dinner we gave desserts and drinks to 6 people, with the chocolate cake that I described in this post, made with ingredients bought from the previous list + butter and some rum that I already had. The wine was the one mentioned above, bought at 'Derby store'.

Tuesday
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lunch: still leftovers from Sunday (there was a lot of the rice and bean soup)
dinner: Lucas made a delicious pasta with whole wheat tagliatelle (we had a packet open at home) plus some of the peppers and zucchini we bought and some onions we already had at home. Too bad I didn't take a picture of it, it was the most delicious pasta I had in a while. We grated some of the parmigiano cheese that my mom gave us from Italy and that was a meal.

Wednesday
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lunch: leftovers from Tue dinner
dinner: I made a Tofu/eggplant/long choy stir fry with rice. I'll give the recipe for this below.

Thursday
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lunch: leftovers from Wed dinner
dinner: leftovers from Wed dinner (there was a lot of the stir-fry too) plus a cucumber salad and some cheese and crackers we still had in the fridge from Italy

Friday
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lunch: provided for both Lucas and Marta at two different meetings
dinner: tagliatelle ai funghi / mushroom tagliatelle (see recipe here). We had our friend Sonya over, too.

Saturday
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lunch: tagliatelle leftovers
dinner: we were invited at Yusra's. I brought a dessert made with apples, pomegranade (left from last week grocery) and amaretti (we had it at home) - I'll probably post the recipe in a future post

Sunday
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lunch: a few more tagliatelle leftovers (could have made a frittata but I was lazy), plus some of the delicious rice that Yusra let me bring back.
dinner: guacamole and chips as appetizer (made with ingredients from lists above), and pinto beans, mashed sweet potatoes, corn on the cob (see lists above) and a tiny piece of chicken we still had in the freezer (a thigh), cooked with the rest of the peppers that Lucas didn't use on Tuesday. This will be enough also for tomorrow lunch and we'll have some more cooked beans to make something else.

All the breakfasts involved milk, cereals and apples or grapes. Snacks included the mandarins and some oranges we still had in the fridge from last week.

So, basically, we still have some zucchini, parseley, a lot of rice and pinto beans, and a lot of eggs and chocolate, which will go for some of next week meals, and should balance out the fact that we used some pasta, onions, cream and butter bought in some past weeks.
Also, as you can see, some of our meals were given by either our work or friends, and one was bought at a restaurant. But on the other hand, we also had people over and brought stuff at dinners. So, all balanced, I think we still are within the $40 a week required. This happens almost all weeks for us (some weeks we spend less, like in the present case, some weeks more because we also buy olive oil, or vinegar, or some other staples). I'd say the most important things that factor in this 'achievement' are:
- buy a lot of fruit and vegetables that are in season
- keep an eye on things on sale
- eat what we prepare most of the time
- not buy a lot of meat, or pay attention to the type of meat you buy
These things altogether are not only good for your wallet, but for your health as well. Also, cooking is for me a lot of fun, and having people over and going to other friends for dinner is an essential part of our life.

Ok, so in order to give a recipe specific for this event, here is the dish I made on Wed dinner.

Tofu con melanzane cinesi e long choy in fiore / Tofu with chinese eggplant and blooming long choy
This is one of our standard week-night-stir-fry. This week, the ingredients were Asian-inspired, simply because the Chinese eggplant and the Long choy looked really good at the Berkeley Bowl. Here is how they look like, in case you don't know what they are:
Chinese Eggplant









Long Choy - I must admit, I bought it because the one they had was blooming and so pretty! So we had also some yellow flowers in our stir-fry :)








To make the dish, heat ~2 tbsp olive oil in a large pan. Cut 1 lb of tofu in small pieces and fry in the oil for a few minutes on high heat. In the meanwhile, cut the Chinese eggplant in small pieces, and add to the tofu. Cook on high heat for ~ five minutes, then add ~1 tbsp soy sauce, and ~1 tbsp vinegar. Cover and cook for another 10 minutes. In the meanwhile, cut the long choy. Add the pieces to the pan, some salt, cook for another few minutes without lid, then add 2 tbsp light sour cream (and if you're lucky, you can use an onion-flavored version such as the one Lucas made as a dip some time before this dinner), let it melt and coat the veggies and tofu, adjust salt and pepper, and serve over hot steamed/boiled rice. Simple, quick and very good!

Fresh Produce of the Month - Roundups

Current event: N.17 Peas








Deadline: June 30th


N.16 Rhubarb










N.15 Fennel

















N.14 Citrus fruits










N.13 Cabbage









N.12 Pears









N.11 Eggplants









N.10 Strawberries









N.9 Asparagus














N.8 - Oranges













N.7 - Squash









N.6 - Apples









N.5 - Brussel sprouts









N.4 - Grapes










N.3 - Tomatoes










N.2 - Apricots









N.1 - Lemons