Ringraziamento - storia e cibo

Almost one week has passed since Thanksgiving, but I haven't had time to write about it until now.. and I'm sure my Italian friends will be curious to see how Americans spend Thanksgiving!
So, first, a historical note about why Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving. Since all Americans should know about it, I'll write it in Italian. If you want to check your knowledge about it, though, I found a quiz on it :)

La prima festa del Ringraziamento risale al 1621, e fu festeggiata dai Pellegrini che erano arrivati sul Mayflower dall'Olanda (dove erano fuggiti, originariamente dall'Inghilterra). Il loro primo anno in America era stato molto duro, ma nel 1621 ebbero un abbondante raccolto e decisero di indire una festa di tre giorni per ringraziare per tale ricchezza. Alla festa invitarono anche i nativi 'Indiani' dato che li avevano molto aiutati a sopravvivere al loro primo inverno. Altre celebrazioni del Ringraziamento seguirono, e un giorno del ringraziamento fu inizialmente ufficializzato nel 1777. A questa celebrazione i nativi non furono piu' invitati.. dato che tra le cose per cui si ringraziava, c'era anche la vittoria sui 'pagani nativi'..
La tradizione di mangiare tacchino nel giorno del ringraziamento viene dal fatto che i Pellegrini avrebbero mangiato oche selvatiche e cacciagione, durante la prima festa del 1621, mentre le tradizioni della torta di zucca e varie altre torte non hanno vere origini nel passato culinario.

This year, we spent Thanksgiving with Lucas's parents, and it was a really really nice break. Moreover, Thanksgiving day was also Lucas's mom, so it was the perfect moment to visit! We arrived on Wednesday evening and stayed at their place till Saturday afternoon. For me it was absolutely relaxing. Just eating, cooking, going for a walk, and even some shopping on Saturday! And a few games at Scrabble (Scarabeo).
Here is my Thanksgiving plate:
From the top, going clockwise: cornbread, peperonata alle melanzane and very close, green beans. Then, beets, potatoes and carrots with besciamella, bread roll, country ham, turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing in the center.
If you want to know more about the food and all the other things we've done, read more :)

In the dish above, I made two of the vegetables. The first, peperonata alle melanzane, is a mixture or green peppers, eggplants, and tomato sauce sauteed with garlic and onions, spiced with oregano, sage and black pepper. The second veggie dish (barbabietole, patate e carote con besciamella) is prepared by baking beets, potatoes and carrots (for a long time, beets need at least 1 hour, potatoes and carrots are ok with 45 minutes), cutting them into cubes, and at last grilling them in the oven for a few minutes again with besciamella sauce, salt, a bit of paprika and a little cheddar cheese on top. Besciamella is made by putting 2 tbsp flour, a little sauce and a teaspoon nutmeg in a pan and adding ~ 1.5 cups of milk to it, slowly, so it doesn't clump. Bring to boil, add ~1 tbsp butter, and keep stirring until it thickens.
Lucas's grandmother made her famous cornbread with broccoli, and Debbie (Lucas's mom) made all the rest :) - we woke up many hours after the turkey was first put in the oven.. :)
Here are Lucas's grandparents, who were with us:

Since it was Lucas's mom birthday, I prepared a cake for her, using a recipe taken from 'Gorgeous cakes'. I know she's a chocolate lover, so I thought this super-chocolaty cake would be good:
I will post the recipe in a next post, because it was delicious.

But my cake was like one drop in the bucket of baked goods that Debbie prepared :)
She made 4 chocolate pies, 1 pumpkin pie, 1 coconut pie, and 1 peacan pie. :) :)
I'll show here a piece of the peacan pie:
'Peacans' sono delle noci simili alle nostre noci, ma di forma piu' allungata e piu' piccole e gustose. Questo pie e' praticamente solo fatto con queste noci e sciroppo di glucosio. Io riesco a mangiarne solo una piccola fettina per volta, dato che e' ovviamente molto dolce, ma e' molto buono.. :)
She also baked about 200 mini-muffins:
You can see here the banana-nuts, banana, apple, and apple-nuts muffins (from top, clockwise).. hard to decide what's the best. :)
And also, she baked about 200 sausage balls:
Per i miei amici italiani che si chiedevano cosa fossero: sono davvero chiamate sausage balls, e sono fatte con salsiccia (macinata, stile americano) e biscuik (farina e lievito, praticamente), e passate al forno. I find it interesting that these are supposedly a breakfast food :) - I like them very much, but I can't have them early in the morning :) - I can't have bacon and eggs either, though, so I'm a bad example :)

I decided I'll speak about the non-food related Thanksgiving activities in another post.

Panini dolci e salati

The sweet and savory breads I made for the brunch were really good, and Mariana asked me for the recipe.. so here they are!

Panini dolci con frutta secca (Sweet bread with dried fruit)
I found inspiration for this recipe from cooker.net, as usual. The original recipe in Italian can be found here... grazie, Miciapallina!!. I slightly modified the doses and used figs instead of apricots and walnuts instead of hazelnuts.
Ingredients
1 lb flour (I used whole grain flour)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp yeast
1/2 cup water, warm
1 cups milk
4 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup dried and grated coconut
1/2 cup minced walnuts
1/2 cup minced dried figs
1 egg, beaten
Dissolve the yeast in warm water, add 1 tsp sugar to it, mix, wait until it bubbles. Mix flour, salt and sugar, and add the yeast to it. Mix, and add the milk and the butter, and knead for ~ 10 minutes. The dough should be a bit humid, because you're now going to add all the dry fruits. Knead all the fruits in the dough. If it's too dry add a bit of water, if it's too wet add some flour.
Let the dough rest for ~1 h, then divide it into small balls and let them rest for another 1/2 h - 1 h. 'Paint' the external part of the dough with the egg.
Cook in the oven at 400 F for ~ 30 min. You should put a pot of water in the oven so the dough doesn't dry out while cooking.
Serve with jam, zabaione (a cream made with eggs, milk and wine, I'll make it and write the recipe sometime), or whatever you feel like. I served it with a wonderful Indian grape chutney, sweet and spicy at the same time.

Panini salati con olive e formaggio (Savory bread with olives and cheese)
Also this recipe comes from cooker.net. Thanks Lokum! Her breads look more like doughnuts, like they were originally supposed to be. The dough is exactly the same as I wrote above for the sweet bread, just, there's less sugar (2 tbsp instead of 4) and more salt (1 tbsp instead of 1 tsp). Moreover, there's one egg beaten in the dough, other than the egg used to 'paint' the bread surface.
Once you have the dough ready (obviously do not add the dried fruit to it!!!), let it rest for 1 hour and then spread it into thin, elongated shapes with a rolling pin. I made 4 ovals, about 12" long and 6" wide. Let the dough rest again for another 30 min-1 hour, then divide the ovals in two parts each, along the long side, and put pieces of olives, or cheese, or both, or whatever else you feel like, in the middle of each part. Roll so that you have the stuffing inside a long roll of dough, and then close the two ends of the rolls, so that you make 'doughnuts', or 'u-shaped bread', as you prefer :) . Paint the surface of the breads with egg, and cook at 400 for ~ 1/2 hour (check after 20 min). In the original recipe, it's suggested to sprinkle with sesame seed before baking.. nice idea, I forgot about it :)
They are really good and you can have fun and try different fillings!

Brunch italo-spagnolo

For our series of Italo-Spanish meetings, we recently had a brunch at our place. Trino and I had been speaking about having a brunch for a while, so I thought the moment had come, in the end :)
Having a brunch is really nice. I'm going to explain here what a brunch is for my Italian readers who may not know.
Un brunch e' un misto tra un breakfast, colazione, e un lunch, pranzo. Nei brunch americani, di solito a buffet, si hanno varie scelte di cose dolci e cose salate. Di solito le cose dolci comprendono muffins, pani dolci che assomigliano ai nostri plum-cake, pancakes, waffles (quelle cose gonfiotte e a quadretti che si fanno usando delle presse speciali), mentre le cose salate comprendono uova cucinate in vari modi, bacon, patate, biscuits (panini burrosi e salati). Se e' un brunch particolarmente ricco, si puo' avere anche carne, pesce, insalate varie, pasta, etc.. L'ora del brunch varia tra le 10 e le 2 del pomeriggio, e di solito e' una cosa che si fa la domenica.
One nice thing of the brunch is that there's no hurry at all. People are not tired and they can decide to stay together as long as they want. So we had a really nice time, including a walk around the lake, and lots of interesting discussions about nature, movies, music and life with all of our guests and in particular with Luisa and Jorge, who stayed with us also in the afternoon. It was a very enjoyable day.

At our Italo-Spanish brunch, people were encouraged to bring brunch or breakfast food from their countries. So we had a really nice variety of food, and a lot of it!!!
I'll show here a few pictures.
First 'course': American-style brunch:
We have bacon & eggs prepared by Lucas, and biscuits prepared by Ross. Lucas showed me how to make bacon & eggs: you have to fry the bacon in its own grease and take it out and adsorb the grease on paper towel, then once you're done with the bacon, you should keep only part of the grease released from it and scramble the eggs in it. Greasy, but not TOO bad. :) Ross's clue about how to prepare biscuits is 'Pillsbury' :) :) :) (E' una marca di biscuits surgelati... devo dire, ero delusa quando l'ho scoperto, ma devo ammettere che erano piuttosto buoni).
Tim and Ross, eating their own biscuits :)

'READ MORE' if you want to see the Italian, Mexican and another American part of the brunch!!!

The second course was Italian - made by me :)
In Italy we like to make bread, it's well-known :) - so I decided that sweet bread and some sort of jam and savory bread would be something that we would have for brunch, if it existed. :) So I made a sweet bread with walnuts, coconut and dried figs inside (the one on the right) and a savory ciambella (doughnut) bread, filled with either olives or cheese (I made two types). They were really good so I'll post the recipe in a next post.
The next course was Mexican. We had two wonderful things:
Enchilladas, made by Luisa and Jorge. These are made with a dough similar to the one Luisa tought me for tamales, but there was also spinach in it.. and they were filled with chicken, and with cheese on top.. delicious! A picture of the cooks:
Then, these are the wonderful quesadillas, i.e. fried tortillas with either chorizo or cheese. I loved the cheese ones :).
Here are the cooks :)

Our last course was another American tradition: cheese and vegetable quiche
It was very good, a perfect ending to our brunch :). It was made by Crissy and David, but unfortunately I didn't take a good picture of them :(

So just to conclude here is a final picture of the two hosts :)

Risotto con zucca e ragu'

I bought a butternut squash some time ago, and I though I would do a good use of it if I made some risotto with it. One of my favorite risotto is made with pumpkin and sausage. It's similar to what Marco made with pasta - I have a picture in this post, but she used to make it with rice and mix the sausage with the rice.
I didn't have a sausage handy so I decided I would make it with my ragu sauce that I told you about recently, and that I froze in various aliquots.
So here it is!
Risotto con zucca e ragu' (rice with butternut squash and ragu')
Bake a butternut squash for ~40 min, turning it from time to time. Let the squash cool down, peel it and cut it in big pieces. Saute one onion finely cut, in a bit of olive oil. Add the squash to it and saute for a few minutes. Add 1 cup of ragu sauce. Add 1 cup of rice (I used whole rice) and add 1/2 tbsp salt. Cover with water (about 1" above the level of the rice), cover with a lid and cook for ~40 min or until the rice is soft. Check from time to time in order to make sure there's still enough water, and add if necessary. Taste and adjust with salt. Add black pepper and serve with a generous amount of grated parmesan.
For Susan in Italy from Porcini Chronicles, who recently posted a nice recipe of pasta with pumpkin and was curious about the variation with sausage: if you want to use sausage instead of ragu, and you want to make risotto: cook the sausage in a separate pan, cut it into pieces and add it to the rice about 5-10 min before the rice is done, so it gives some of its flavor to the rice. My mom used to serve it with some of the sausage in pieces into the rice, and half of a whole sausage on top of it. :)

Links e quiz

While I was looking around, I happened on 'Confessions of a Cardamom addict' - wonderful blog, congratulations!
Jasmine put a link to this 'are you a good cook' and I obviously couldn't stop myself from trying it. My outcome turned out to be the same as hers:

You Are an Excellent Cook

You're a top cook, but you weren't born that way. It's taken a lot of practice, a lot of experimenting, and a lot of learning. It's likely that you have what it takes to be a top chef, should you have the desire...

Well, as I say from time to time: who knows, maybe sometime I'll stop being a chemist and I'll open some sort of coffee/refreshments/bookstore/meditation/peace through discussion place :)
And of course, btw, I posted this here because it boosted my self-confidence :) :) :)

In my evening wandering around, I also found this other wonderful blog, Cream Puffs in Venice, which I feel particularly close to because the background of Ivonne is Italian!!

Festa per il Dr. Lucas :)

Last Sunday we threw a party in honor of Dr. Lucas! (Or Dr. Baby as Vlasta calls him :) ). It was really nice, most of the people we invited came, and we all talked and had fun for a long time. In the end, we remained sitting in a circle we our closest friends, and it was really nice. As always, the end of the parties is the best time :)
This is Dr. Lucas with his balloon :)
People brought some food, and we also made some.
This is an example of the wonderful food that our guests brought:
It was a layer of cream cheese with some very good tomato/spiced sauce on top, and pieces of shrimp. There were also breaded mushrooms, little cakes, and Lucas made some very good beef fajitas.
But.. the new edition of Weekend Cookbook challenge is on Party food, and so I decided that I'm going to partecipate to it for the first time, and I'm going to present the food I prepared for this party! I found out about the Weekend Cookbook challenge by chance, while I was looking at some blog I don't remember. It's a really nice idea and I was looking forward to participate to it. Every month, a theme is issued, and the theme of this month is Party food, as I mentioned.
So, this is the list of food I made:
Focaccia alla ricotta e pesto (Focaccia with pesto and ricotta)
Focaccia al formaggio, pomodori e olive (Focaccia with cheese, tomatoes and olives)
Bigne' alle olive e ricotta salata e bigne' al tonno (Puffs with olives and ricotta salata and puffs with tuna)
And on the sweet side:
Crostata alla ricotta (Ricotta tart)
Bigne' al cioccolato (Chocolate puffs)
Bigne' al mango (Mango puffs)
So if you're curious to see pictures and if you want the recipes, read more!! :)

What are the main characteristics of a good party food? It must be easy to eat, and it must be appetizing, so just the little bit you pick each time must be so good that you will want more of it :)
On the savory side, one of things I like best to make for parties is focaccia.
For people who don't know, focaccia is the 'white' version of pizza. White because it doesn't have tomato sauce, like all pizza usually has. Moreover, focaccia is thicker and softer than pizza. It's better for parties than pizza, because it's easier to eat. It's best when hot but it's good also cold. It usually doesn't have time to get cold, though, because it gets eaten very quickly :)
So this time I made focaccia con ricotta e pesto:
And focaccia con pomodori, formaggio e olive:
I wrote how to make focaccia on another post, but I'll repeat the recipe here, also because I slightly modified the doses and the timing (I'm getting a lot of experience with baking and bread lately).
So, for the dough:
Warm up 1 cup of water until about body temperature, dissolve 2 tsps yeast in it, stir, add 1 tsp sugar, stir and check that bubbles are produced. Leave on a side for ~ 5 min. In a big bowl, pour ~5 cups flour (you can use white, whole or a mixture of the two). Add the water and yeast mixture and mix. Add 2 tbsps olive oil. Then keep adding warm water and work the dough until it's elastic. It usually doesn't take more than a total of 1.5-2 cups of water but it depends on the flour you're using. Add ~1 tbsp salt and knead well the dough in order to incorporate it. Let rest for 1 to 2 hours. I usually spread the dough after this passage, and the pizza came out always good, but if you want a _really_ good focaccia you should be more patient and knead the dough a little bit after this time, and let it rise again for another hour or two. Then, spread the dough, usually you can do it with your hands but if you can't, use a rolling pin. I usually spread it on some foil with a bit of olive oil on it so it doesn't stick. You can add the ingredients you want on this dough, and then you should let the dough rest for at least another 10 min (in the quick version), up to 1 hour (in the long version). Warm up the oven to 400F, and cook for about 20-30 min (it depends on how thick you made it). Serve hot.

For the focaccia con pesto e ricotta, to make the topping, prepare some pesto without cheese: just blend together a bunch of basil, 2 cloves of garlic, and nuts. I used walnuts for this focaccia and it was delicious. In real pesto you should use pinenuts. Add ~2-3 tbsp olive oil and then add ~1/2-1 cup of ricotta. The doses depend on how much pesto/ricotta taste you want and how big is your focaccia surface :)
For the focaccia con pomodori, olive e formaggio.. well, obviously: slice 2 tomatoes, place them on the focaccia, cut some cheese that melts well (e.g. Munster is good, or Colby. I don't like Cheddar because it gives an orange color to the pizza!!. Use 1/2 cup to 1 cup depending on how cheesy you want it), and some olives, and place everything on the focaccia.

Bigne' con olive e ricotta salata and bigne' al tonno
The focaccia was really good, but these puffs are the things I was the most proud of, so if I had to pick only one of the things I made for the Weekend Challenge, I would choose these, and in particular, those with olives and ricotta salata.
To make the dough, I followed the recipe I already posted earlier for bigne'. Just, since I found they were too rich last time, I cut a little bit on the butter (which was already cut compared to the Southern Cooking cookbook I took them from..).
I invented the two stuffings, which I was very happy with.
For bigne' al tonno, I mixed some tuna (2 cans) with yogurt (~1/2 cup, very much approximatively), olive oil (1 tbsp), 1 apple cut into pieces, salt, ~1/2 cup ricotta and fennel seeds.
For bigne' alle olive, I mixed 1/2 cup spicy olives, cut into pieces, salt, 1/2 cup ricotta salata (it's a salty and hard ricotta cheese that I can find at Whole Foods), ~1/2 cup yogurt, and ~1/2 cup cottage cheese. These were really delicious. You can watch a close-up here:
On the dessert side, the crostata for Dr. Lucas was very good.
I didn't take a good picture of it, though, so you can half-see it in this picture where Dr. Lucas is cutting it :)
To make it, you should prepare a sort of crostata dough, like I explained in previous posts. In this case though I put a little less butter since there was going to be ricotta on top, and I added an egg and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder. But you could use the same dough for crostata and it would be good. Spread the dough on the bottom of the baking pan (on a baking sheet), and around the borders (~1" high). Then, mix 2 cups of ricotta with 4 tbsp sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 egg, beat very well, and make a nice smooth cream with it. In the most typical Italian crostata di ricotta there are also raisins in this cream, but I didn't want them because I wanted to add some chocolate on top for the decoration. Spread the ricotta cream on the dough, bake in the oven at 400F for ~20 min or until the crust that you see on the borders is golden brown. Decorate with chocolate on top.

But the best desserts were the bigne'.
Bigne' are a wonderful thing you buy in pastry stores in Italy, and they can be filled with just whipped cream, or with chocolate sauce, or with egg creams. They are wonderful and I was really happy I found out I could make them at home.
Again, the dough was the same as I posted earlier, just I didn't add any salt in this case. I prepared two fillings which I made up and were really delicious.
For the mango filling: blend 1/2 mango with 2 tbsp milk, 4 tbsp sugar (to taste), and ~ 1 cup ricotta. For the chocolate filling: melt two cubes of baker's chocolate with ~1 tbsp milk and 1 tbsp sugar. Let cool down. Beat ~1 cup heavy cream with ~4 tbsp sugar, until firm. Add the chocolate sauce to it and mix together gently. This sauce was so delicious. Eating it inside the bigne' it was a gastric orgasm :)

Ultimi fuochi dell'autunno

Autumn is leaving its place to wintertime, but not all of the leaves are gone. And the ones that are left on the trees are amazing.. It's like the trees want to give us a last gift of beauty before going to sleep for winter, just to remind us who they are and how wonderful they can be and not to lose our hope during wintertime.
So I took a few pictures during another walk around Lake Johnson.

Our apartment complex has many of these trees, we don't know what they are, but they are amazing both in springtime when they have flowers and in fall. Their leaves have all possible colors. It's like a painting. Look at the detail below.

This is another tree in our apartment complex. A yellow spot.

A colorful path around Lake Johnson
Carpet of leaves

And in the end: Canadian geese migrating south!!!
Yeah, it's getting cold up there!

Barchette dolci alla frutta

I took the recipe for this nice dessert from cooker.net. Thanks Dani02!! It's not too difficult, but a bit tricky at the beginning, so I decided I would document this with pictures of the different phases. See below.

Ingredients (I cut on the butter):
2 eggwhites
1/2 cup flour
2.5 tbsp butter
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp powdered sugar
For the cream:
1.5 cups ricotta
2 squares bakers chocolate
1 tbsp milk
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp orange blossom water
To make the boats, beat the eggwhites, add the sugar. In another bowl mix the flour, the powdered sugar and the melted butter. Fold the eggwhite mixture in the flour mixture, gently. Spread this batter in thin round disks on a baking pan, about 2" diameter. Cook at 350 F for 5 minutes. Open the oven and remove the disks, one at a time, and gently 'squish' on top of small coffee cups (if you don't have these, use small glasses):
Hold for a few seconds so the disk takes the shape. Do this with all the disks. I prepared a total of nine disks, some bigger because I didn't have enough small cups. This folding operation must be done quickly otherwise the disks harden and they break instead of folding. I baked the disks in two separate moments so the disks in the oven wouldn't burn while I was folding the others.
Let them cool down on the cup. In the end that's how they should look like:
(you can see how some of them are bigger, those that I folded on the bottom of glasses).
To make the cream, melt the chocolate with the tablespoon of milk and the sugar, under low heat. Add this cream to the ricotta and the sugar, and add the orange blossom water. You can prepare both the cream and the boats the day before the dinner, but spoon the cream on the boats only before the dinner.
Cut pieces of fruit (I'd have liked the strawberries, as suggested in the orginal recipe, but they are not in season now, so I had bananas, oranges and apples) and place them nicely on top of the dessert. Serve with tufts of whipped cream.

Cena con Crissy e David

Lucas and I wanted to have a more intimate dinner with Crissy and David so we could get to know David a little better, and also, so I could let him try a real 'Italian' dinner.
It was a very nice dinner. We enjoyed their company very much and I was very happy that David liked my cuisine :)
So here is the menu:
Farinata
Insalata di verdure e anacardi / Veggy and cashew salad
Tagliatelle con kale, ricotta, gorgo e pomodori / Tagliatelle with kale, ricotta, gorgonzola and tomatoes
Barchette dolci alla frutta / Sweet little boats with fruit
Note: this was not a complete Italian dinner. There wasn't a 'second course', including meat and vegetables, there wasn't a cheese platter, and there wasn't a fruit platter. But I really think that's too much for one dinner so very rarely I make a real complete dinner. I think this was a good amount of food for us :)
Recipes and pictures follow.

Farinata
Farinata is a typical dish from Liguria, which I really like and crave from time to time. It's a very thin 'pizza' made of chickpea flour. The only problem about it is that I can make it well only once in a while :) To make it, you have to mix chickpea flour and water in a ratio that varies a lot depending on who's explaining the recipe to you. I think 1:2 (flour:water) is about right, but that doesn't seem to work all the time (ok, I must admit, my ratio is not always the same :) ). Anyway, that's just it, then you add a bit of salt and you let it rest for a few hours before making the farinata. Place a non-sticking paper in a baking pan and add about 1-2 tbsps olive oil on it, then pour the liquid mixture on it and bake at 400F for ~15-20 minutes, until it solidifies and becomes crispy. Now, the problem is that my oven is not perfectly even, neither in temperature nor as flatness, so I always get one side thinner and that starts burning.. so I have to take out the farinata and slice out that part before it burns, then I put it back in the oven and so on. Although, sometimes it seemed to work better. So I'm not sure what's the trick. Anyway it usually turns out very good, even though you may waste part of it because it gets burnt. It's a really good food, so I'd recommend you to try it!
Serve it sprinkled with black pepper, hot.

Insalata di verdure e anacardi
This salad is made with cabbage, peppers, carrots and tomatoes, simply dressed with olive oil, garlic (finely cut) and balsamic vinegar (and salt obviously), and generously sprinkled with cashew nuts. Very good!
It's not a typical Italian salad but it's something in the same mindset of Italian dishes: simple and good ingredients and a light dressing.

Tagliatelle con kale, ricotta, gorgo e pomodori
This is not a traditional Italian recipe either (especially because Kale doesn't exist in Italy), but it's something that again reminds of Italian pasta dishes. We rarely use meat on the pasta (except in the ragu sauce, for example), whereas in the US a lot of pasta dishes have pieces of chicken, or something similar on top.. Italian pasta is very often with vegetables, cheese and if you want something more fancy, fish.
This was actually my invention, and it turned out really good. To make it, saute one onion with ~1 lb kale, cut, add salt. Let cook for ~15-20 minutes, then add a few pieces of gorgonzola - how much depends on how strong is your gorgonzola - and let it melt. Put it in a blender and blend. Then add ~1 cup of ricotta cheese and blend again. Taste. If the gorgonzola taste is too strong add a bit of honey or some more ricotta, if you like it. In a large pan, sautee slices of 2 ripe and fresh tomatoes in olive oil with 1 clove of garlic, minced, with some salt. After ~ 5 minutes it'll be done. Add the rest of the sauce to it and stir. In the meanwhile cook the tagliatelle (1 lb) in a large amount of hot and salted water, stirring frequently not to make them stick to each other, then drain and add the pasta in the large pan with the sauce and saute for a few minutes before serving, adding a bit of black pepper on top. Delicious. :)

Barchette dolci alla frutta
I took the idea for this recipe from cooker.net. I will explain how to make this dessert in a separate post. It was very good :)

Maccheroni al ragu' con zucchine

I made this really good pasta some days ago and I wanted to share this recipe before going on with more 'dense' posts.

Maccheroni al ragu' con zucchine / Maccheroni with ragu and zucchini

To make it, you first need to make a ragu sauce. I'll give you the doses to make a lot of it, so you can freeze it and keep it for when you want to make lasagne or cannelloni. Saute one big onion in olive oil, add 2/3 lb of ground sirloin and 1/2 lb of ground pork. Sautee for a few minutes and then add 2 28 oz. cans of diced tomatoes (just plain tomatoes, nothing added!!). Add salt and about 1 cup of water. Let simmer for ~1.5 hrs, stirring from time to time. The meat will give its flavor to the sauce during this time. You can also cook it for less time, it will be a little bit less 'balanced'. In the end it shouldn't be liquid (no water should be there), but it shouldn't be too thick. So adjust by adding or evaporating the water depending on your case. Taste and adjust with salt.
I took about 1.5 cups of this sauce and added 2 big zucchini, cut very finely, and sauteed the zucchini in the sauce for ~15 min, until tender. This sauce should be enough for 1 lb of maccheroni (cook them al dente!! and add salt to the water where they boil in. And last note: it's MACCHERONI, not macaroni!!!!) :) :) :)

Dolci al cucchiaio / Puddings, creams, mousses and so

Barchette dolci alla frutta / Sweet little boats with fruit

Bigne' al cioccolato e bigne' al mango / Chocolate puffs and mango puffs

Budino con carote e anice stellato / Carrot and star anise pudding

Budino di riso al vino con mandorle e ananas / Wine rice pudding with almonds and pineapple

Budino di riso al vino con cardamomo, in tre vesti diverse / Rice pudding with wine and cardamom, three styles

Bunet

Dolce di ricotta / ricotta dessert

Fantasmini / Ghosts

Macedonia di frutta esotica con crema al limone, panna montata e ventagli / Exotic fruit salad with lemon cream, whipped cream and ventagli

Mele al vino con cannella e noci al miele / Apples with wine and cinnamon and honey roasted walnuts

Mousse di frutta / Fruit mousse

Panna cotta / Cooked cream

Panna cotta con cranberries / Cranberry panna cotta

Pesche ripiene agli amaretti e cacao / Stuffed peaches with amaretti and cocoa

Rava Kesari (dolce di semolino indiano) / Rava Kesari (Semolina Pudding Indian style)

Tiramisu

Tiramisu estivo / Summertime tiramisu

Zabaione

Gelati / Ice creams

Barchette gelato

Gelato alla banana / banana ice cream

Gelato alla fragola / Strawberry ice cream

Gelato al mango / Mango Ice-cream

Gelato al pistacchio / Pistachio ice cream

Gelato alla vaniglia con mirtilli / Vanilla ice-cream decorated with blueberries

Melone bianco e mango con sorbetto di anguria / Honeydew Melon and mango with Watermelon sorbet

Sorbetto ai mirtilli / Blueberry sorbet

Soy noodles with ice-cream/spaghetti di soia con gelato

I biscotti del Dottore

These are the 'Doctor's cookies' - good to provide at Ph.D. defenses - eheheheh :)
I have to explain something to my Italian friends, since we never provide food at
Ph.D. defenses. In Italy a Ph.D. defense lasts 20 minutes+5 min questions and there are usually 5 candidates per session.. Negli Stati Uniti, invece, ogni candidato ha un giorno che decide lui stesso per discutere la tesi. C'e' una commissione con 4 membri, scelti dal candidato (uno dev'essere il relatore). Il candidato presenta la sua tesi per 40-50 minuti, poi c'e' una sessione di domande aperte al pubblico, e poi una parte di domande a porte chiuse, a cui solo la commissione e' ammessa. Quest'ultima puo' dare da pochi minuti a due-tre ore. Data la lunghezza del tutto, di solito il candidato fornisce caffe', bevande e biscotti o simili cibarie..
So obviously I decided I wanted to bake the cookies for Lucas, where else could I have found a best occasion to prove my 'wizard of the kitchen' abilities? One of the recipes that I chose was supposed to be irresistibly good and it was actually said: make these cookies if you want to 'enchant' someone :) - so, sure, I wanted people to be in a good mood :)
So I made
Biscotti morbidi all'arancio e cioccolato (soft cookies with orange and chocolate)

Biscotti allo sherry e marmellata (sherry and jam cookies)

Recipes follow..

Biscotti morbidi all'arancio e cioccolato
I modified a recipe taken from cooker. I'll give you my version, since it ended up a bit far from the original. Unfortunately my doses are very approximative. My school of thought is that if you put together good ingredients and you end up whith a consistency that seems about right, something good will come out. :) :) :) - and I do like to try the dough before I bake it so I can see if it's sweet enough. I know, I'm terrible...Anyway let's try to list the ingredients
4 tbsp butter, melted
1.5 cup flour
4 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
1 tsp baking powder
Mix the flour, the sugar and the yeast. Add the butter and the orange juice. If it's too liquid add flour. If it's too solid add orange juice. The final dough must be nicely elastic, so you can make it thin enough with a rolling pin. Before using the rolling pin, taste the dough. If it's not sweet enough add sugar. If it's not orangy enough add orange juice and flour.
Make it flat and thin (~5/32" - 4 mm in civilized units :) ). Cut it into round shapes with a glass if you don't have anything better like me. Put the cookies on a baking sheet and cook in the oven at 400F for ~12 minutes. Take out when they are golden. In the meanwhile melt 3 squares of baker's chocolate with a bit of milk. Heat until melted, and until the chocolate starts to make little tiny bubbles. At that point it should be of the right consistency. Immerse half of each cooky in the chocolate sauce. The sauce should be thick enough to hold onto the cookies and make a nice thick chocolate layer on them. Place on other baking sheets. NB this is the most time-consuming operation because you have to keep the sauce at the right consistency, which won't happen because it will start solidify before you're done, so you will add some milk, heat it up again, and so on..
I decided I would sprinkle some of the cookies with powdered sugar before the 'chocolating' operation, in case someone liked sweeter cookies.
The orginal recipe suggested to put the cookies in the fridge to let the chocolate solidify. I don't know if I misinterpreted this, but I left them overnight and covered them with some plastic foil not to have them smell like fridge.. so in the end the cookies turned out to be softer than I thought they would have been. They were very good and if you didn't expect them to be harder they were perfect. I just think that next time I won't put them in the fridge at all and I'll leave them cool down in open air.

Biscotti allo sherry e marmellata
I took this recipe from fiordizucca and obviously modified it according to my taste. The main modifications are decrease in butter and addition of sherry. (I also changed the state of the butter for easiness)
Again, here are my approximate ingredients
4 tbsps butter melted
1 and 1/4 cups flour
1 egg
~1/3 cup sugar
~3 tbsp sherry
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Jam (I used blueberry jam, fiordizucca used orange. Choose what you like best!)
Powdered sugar
Mix flour, salt, baking powder, sugar. Add the egg, beaten, the butter and the sherry. The final consistency must be workable with a rolling pin but not elastic. It must break if you pull it.
Spread with rolling pin until thin enough (see other recipe), then cut with the shape you like best. I need to buy some shapes for cookies. I just cut squares out of the dough. Cut a hole with the shape you prefer in half of the cookies you prepared.
Bake at 400F for ~7 min. Check after 5. Remove from the oven when golden.
Spread the jam on the cookies without the hole and stick on top the cookies with the hole. Add powdered sugar for decoration.

Both types of cookies were really amazingly good, so thanks to both Fiordizucca and Missbaggins for the ideas. It was fun to make them, although a bit elaborate for both of them.

Un gran giorno!

So yesterday it was a great day!
First of all: Lucas got his Ph.D.!!!!!!! He was great. You can see him unusually elegantly dressed in the picture below. He did a great presentation and I was actually interested in what he was saying even if I heard that already a few times and I understood probably only a very low percentage of it.. but he was really very clear and presented in this casual but not too casual way that made it interesting to listen to.
His parents and sister came to visit and we celebrated at Sushi-Thai. :)
I gave my small contributions to the defense by providing cookies and coffee. I'll give you the recipe of the cookies in a next post, since they were really good and professional-looking :)
Second thing: at last there were the elections in the US, and now the political situation here is reversed! I'm SOOOO happy :) It's quite amazing, basically the Democrats got all the positions they were hoping for. I guess Bush's funny electoral campaign based on showing up only where he knew he was of no harm didn't give good fruits :) - and his whole politics on war in the last years didn't either.. So, really a good day to celebrate. :)

Biscotti e simili / Cookies and similar

Biscotti allo sherry e marmellata / Sherry and jam cookies

Biscotti morbidi all'arancio e cioccolato / Soft cookies with orange and chocolate

Bugie

Cannoli

Castagnole

Cialde / Ice cream cookies

Crostatine alla marmellata di cranberry / Cranberry jam crostatine

Gialletti / Cornmeal and raisin cookies

Ricciarelli

Ventagli / Fans

Torte e crostate / Cakes and pies

Colomba / Easter dove

Crostata con mandorle coperta di marmellata di pesche fatta in casa e cioccolato / Almond crostata covered with homemade peach jam and chocolate

Crostata di frutta / Fruit crostata

Crostata di ricotta / Ricotta crostata

Crostata tradizionale / Traditional crostata

Pan di Spagna / Bread of Spain

Torta a strati al cioccolato e rum / Chocolate-rum layered cake

Torta bianca al cocco / White coconut cake

Torta di Ananas al contrario / Pineapple Upside down cake

Torta di banane, noccioline e cioccolato con crema di uva Concord / Banana, peanut and chocolate cake with Concord grape cream

Torta di cioccolato e nocciole / Chocolate-hazelunt cake

Torta di fragole e mandorle / Almond-strawberry cake

Torta di mandorle e cioccolato a forma di conchiglia / Almond and chocolate shell-like cake

Torta di mele con zabaione / Apple cake with zabaione cream

Torta di mele e melograno / Apple and pomegranate cake

Torta di nocciole (dal ricettario Piemontese) / Hazelnut cake (Piemontese recipe)

Torta di noci e cranberries al contrario / Walnut cranberries upside down cake

Torta di papaya e cocco / Papaya-coconut cake

Torta di pere / Pear cake

Torta Malaga nera / Black Malaga cake

Torta Milano / Milano cake

Carne / Meat

Arrosto di maiale al vino bianco e spezie / Pork roast with white wine and spices

Coniglio al civet / Rabbit 'al civet'

Curry di agnello e finocchio / Fennel and lamb curry

Faraona alla salvia e limone / Guinea fowl with sage and lemon

Maiale con barbabietole e pere / Pork with beets and pears

Maiale piccante con collard greens / Spicy pork with collard greens

Pess-coj / fish-cabbage

Pollo e patate al forno / Baked chicken and potatoes

Pollo con cavolo cinese, miele e arachidi / Chicken with bok choi, honey and peanuts

Pollo in Pipian Verde / Chicken with pumpkin seed sauce

Pollo Ubriaco / Drunk chicken

Salsiccia di tacchino con peperoni e banane / Turkey sausage with peppers and bananas

Saltimbocca / Jump-in-your-mouth

Zuppe / soups

Minestrina

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

Pozole

Zuppa di cavolfiore verde con yogurt di latte di capra / Green cauliflower soup with goat milk yogurt

Zuppa di ceci / Chickpea soup

Zuppa di cipolle / Onion soup

Zuppa di tofu con contorno di insalata di erbe al vapore / Tofu soup with steamed creasy greens on a side

Zuppa di pasta, seitan e verdure / Seitan, pasta and veggie soup

Zuppa di spaghetti in stile giapponese con mogua / Japanese-style noodle soup with mogua

Salse / sauces

Bagna caoda

Besciamella / white sauce

Maionese / mayonnaise

Pesto

Pipian Verde / Pumpkin seed mole

Ragu' / Ragu' sauce

Salsa di gorgonzola / Gorgonzola sauce

Insalate / Salads

Insalata alla Marta / Marta's style salad

Insalata appetitosa / Savory salad

Insalata caprese / Caprese salad

Insalata capricciosa / Capricciosa salad

Insalata di arance / Orange salad

Insalata di cavolo rosso, peperoni, mango, avocado e mandorle / Red cabbage, peppers, mango, avocado and almonds salad

Insalata di patate dolci / Sweet potato salad Italian style

Insalata di verdure e anacardi / Veggy and cashew salad

Insalata di quinoa e cavolfiori colorati / Quinoa and colored cauliflower salad

Insalata rinfrescante di zucca-spaghetti / Refreshing spaghetti squash salad

Insalata russa / russian salad

Salade de melon vert aux crevettes / Melon salad with shrimp

Cucina internazionale / International Cuisine

Amti di zucca / Pumpkin Amti - from One Hot Stove

Chiles en Nogada / Peppers in a Nut sauce

Curry di ceci / Chickpea curry - From Jugalbandi

Curry di melanzane e patate dolci / Eggplant And Sweet Potatoes Curry From Tasty Palettes

Curry vegetariano multietnico / Multi-ethnic vegetarian curry

Horchata

Imam Bayildi / Turkish stuffed eggplants

Kootu Podi (Vegetables and dal with a special spice mix, recipe from Jugalbandi)

Lahmacun (pizza turca) / Lahmacun (turkish pizza)

Manti ai ceci / Chickpea parcels

Pane indiano Naan/ Naan Indian bread

Pesce kofta / Fish kofta

Plantain chips

Pho vegetariano / Vegetarian Pho

Pollo in Pipian Verde / Chicken with pumpkin seed mole

Pozole

Riso indiano Parsee / Parsee Indian rice

Salsa de nopales / Nopales salsa

Salsina di formaggio e yogurt / Cheese and yogurt dip

Salsina di melograno e noci / Walnut pomegranate dip

Sambar con cipolle / Ulli Sambar from Jugalbandi

Sushi

Tajine di ceci e zucca con cuscus al cocco e chutney al cocco / Chickpea Pumpkin Tajine With Coconut Couscous & Coconut Chutney - from 'What's for Lunch, Honey?'

Tamales

Tequila Sunrise

Tortillas di mais / Corn tortillas

Pesce / Fish

Kofta di pesce / Fish kofta

Pesce al forno con barbabietole e kale/ Baked mackarel with beets and kale

Pesce azzurro con capperi e pomodorini / bluefish with capers and little tomatoes

Pizze, focacce e torte salate / Pizzas, focaccias, and savory tarts

Calzoni

Farinata

Focaccia con cipolle rosse e formaggio / Red onion and cheese focaccia

Focaccia con patate dolci e brie / Sweet potato and brie focaccia

Focaccia bianca e con cipolle

Focaccia con pesto e ricotta / Ricotta and pesto focaccia

Focaccia con pomodori, formaggio e olive / Tomato, cheese and olive focaccia

Focaccia con zucca / Squash focaccia

Torta con asparagi e formaggio di capra / Asparagus and goat cheese tart

Torta con fagiolini, gorgonzola e cheddar / Green bean, gorgonzola and cheddar cheese tart

Torta di cuori di carciofi e pomodori / Artichoke and tomato tart

Torta di porri e zucca / Leek and Butternut squash tart

Torta Pasqualina / Easter savory cake

Lahmacun (pizza turca) / Lahmacun (turkish pizza)

Pizza con acciughe e capperi / Anchovie and caper pizza

Pasta

Farfalle con pesto, gamberetti e pomodori / Bowties with pesto, shrimp and tomatoes

Frittata di pasta / Pasta omelette

Insalata di pasta tiepida con verdure e ananas alla griglia / Warm pasta salad with grilled vegetables and pineapple

Linguine con pesto di peperoni e pesce / Linguine with pepper pesto and fish

Maccheroni al ragu' con zucchine / Maccheroni with ragu' and zucchini

'Pad Thai' con tacchino e kale / 'Pad Thai' with turkey and kale

Pasta con melanzane 'al funghetto' / Pasta with eggplant 'mushroom-style'

Pasta alla Norma / Eggplant traditional pasta

Pasta ai broccoli 'alla Piemontese' / Pasta with broccoli 'Piemontese style'

Pasta ai 'broccoli' alla siciliana / Pasta with 'broccoli' sicilan style

Pasta con cavoletti di Bruxelles / Brussel sprout pasta

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

Spaghettini di riso con cavolo cappuccio, rafano, aggiughe e yogurt / Rice spaghetti with kale, white radish, anchovies and yogurt

Spaghetti di riso piccanti con zucchine, kale e noci / Spicy rice noodles with zucchini, kale and walnuts

Spaghetti integrali con gorgo e noci pecans / Whole weat spaghetti with gorgonzola and pecans

Tagliatelle al ragu vegetariano / Tagliatelle with vegeterian ragu

Tagliatelle con kale, ricotta, gorgo e pomodori / Tagliatelle with kale, ricotta, gorgonzola and tomatoes

Tagliatelle fatte in casa ai funghi porcini / Homemade tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms

Tagliatelle fatte in casa con zucchini e zafferano / Homemade tagliatelle with zucchini and sapphron

Tajarin

Trecce dell'orto con il sugo della nonna / Trecce dell'orto with grandma's sauce

Trofie fatte in casa al pesto ligure / Homemade trofie with Ligurian pesto

Verdure, frutta e tofu con spaghettini giapponesi somen / Veggies, fruits and tofu with somen noodles

Ziti con pomodoro e pesto di ricotta / Ziti with tomato sauce and ricotta pesto

Cous cous e riso / Cous cous and rice

Cous cous veloce e colorato / Colorful and quick cous cous

Riso indiano Parsee / Parsee Indian rice

Risotto con asparagi / Rice with asparagus

Risotto con cavoletti di Bruxelles e curcuma / Brussel sprout and turmeric risotto

Risotto con cavolo e brie / cabbage and brie rice

Risotto con formaggi e noci/ Cheese and pecan rice

Risotto con le fragole / Rice with strawberries

Risotto con zucca / Squash risotto

Risotto con zucca e ragu'/Butternut squash and ragu sauce rice

Tipi di pane / Breads

Bagels

Bigne' salati / Savory Puffs

Biova / Italian white bread

Biova notturna / overnight biova

Cake aux tomates confites / Cake with sun-dried tomatoes

Ciabatta/focaccia con olive nere / Ciabatta/focaccia with black olives

Crescia / Egg and cheese fluffy easter bread

Fiore di farina di riso integrale e avena / Flower with whole rice and oat flour

Naan (pane indiano / Indian bread)

Pane al formaggio / Cheese bread

Pane con formaggio tipo jocca e aneto / Cottage cheese and dill bread rolls

Pane con la pasta della pizza / Pizza dough bread

Pane con zucchini / Bread with zucchini

Pane di farina di ceci e farina integrale / Garbanzo bean and whole wheat flour bread

Pane di farina integrale stile americano / Whole weat bread American style

Pane di farina di mais / Cornflour bread

Pane di farina di polenta / Cornmeal bread

Pane di banane / banana bread

Pane di mais con semini di sesamo / Corn flour bread with sesame seeds

Pane integrale alle noci / Whole wheat bread with walnuts

Pane integrale con orzo e segale / Whole wheat bread with oat and rye

Pane di mais della nonna di Lucas / Lucas's grandma's cornbread

Panini dolci con frutta secca / Sweet bread with dried fruit

Panini integrali al latte / homemade italian milk bread

Panini salati con olive e formaggio / Savory bread with cheese and olives

Pita

Tortillas

Nota Bene

You will see a few posts that don't make too much sense. I'm trying to make indexes of the recipes with titles that specifically refer to them so it's easier to find them. So forgive me, I don't have a better way to make these indexes for now. But you will also see on the sidebar some indexes that will link to those posts, so you can click on them and look for the recipes you always wanted to know how to make but were too scared to ask for..... eheheh :)
Just one thing: some of the posts have more than one recipe per post. So you have to scroll down until you find the recipe you were looking for. This shouldn't be too hard, I hope.. I may put some anchors in the posts in the future so you don't have to to this anymore.

Antipasti / Appetizers

Antipasto caldo autunnale / Fall warm appetizer

Asparagi olio e limone / Olive oil and lemon asparagus

Bigne' alle olive e ricotta salata e bigne' al tonno/Olive and ricotta salata puffs and tuna puffs

Bigne' salati / Savory puffs

Bruschette con verdure e tofu grigliati e salsa al mango e tomatillo / Bruschette with grilled veggies and tofu and mango and tomatillo salsa

Cake aux tomates confites/cake with sun-dried tomatoes

Cannelloni d'aubergines aux cepes at au chevre frais / Eggplant cannelloni with mushrooms and goat cheese

Crackers con formaggio,verdure e noci un po' inusuali / Unusual cheese, veggie and nuts crackers

Crostini con le fave / Crostini with pureed fava beans

Fagottini al formaggio con miele e noci / Cheese fagottini with honey and walnuts

Fiore saporito / Tasty flower

Frittata di pasta / Pasta omelette

Gonfiotti al formaggio / Fluffy cheesy appetizer

Insalata caprese/Caprese salad

Insalata di zucca-spaghetti nella zucca / Spaghetti squash salad in the squash

Insalata russa / Russian salad

Melanzane con mozzarella / Eggplants with mozzarella

Polpettine di fagioli di soia / Edamame patties

Quesadillas con papaya e brie / Papaya and brie quesadillas

Rotolo di tonno / Tuna Roll

Salade de melon vert aux crevettes / Melon salad with shrimp

Salsina di formaggio e yogurt / Cheese and yogurt dip

Salsina di melograno e noci / Walnut pomegranate dip

Spiedini di frutta e formaggio / Cheese and fruit skewers

Tacchino tonnato / tuned turkey

Tomini e acciughe al verde / Cheese and anchovies with parseley and oil

Torta salata con zucchine / Savory cake with zucchini

Tortine con asparagi e feta / Asparagus and feta cheese tartelettes

Juan Melendez

Sunday I went to a meeting that was organized by the (catholic) Church I usually go to. They invited Juan Melendez to speak. This person has been on death row for 18 years (yes, 18 years) waiting to be executed for a crime he didn't commit. After that time he was released because his innocency was recognized, proved by the finding of a tape and some transcriptions of the confession of the real killer. One of the most stunning parts of this story was that his public defensor that had been appointed for his first trial knew about those tapes.. But Juan at the time didn't even speak English and couldn't say much to defend himself. When he was released, as a compensation, he received $100 and a pair of pants and a T-shirt. This was what the State of Florida found sufficient to say sorry for 18 years of life.
His story is extremely moving. He lived for all that time in a cell that was just big enough to lay down, in company of mice and roaches. People condemned to death do not deserve many comforts. They do not deserve health care either, which he let us understand by describing to us how they let one of his friends die on the yard, where they were playing basketball, for a stroke, without even trying to do anything for him. They can provide you with tools to kill yourself, if you want, though. He told us about how he was going to do that, and he stopped himself and decided he still wanted to live, especially after dreaming about all the most beautiful things he used to like.. he took that dream as a sign that there was still hope for him.
He told us that the reasons he actually stayed alive and didn't give up were his trust and hope in God, the letters of his mothers and friends, and the friendship with his inmates. These people, supposedly the worst people on earth, condemned to die for the most horrible crimes, taught him how to read and write and how to speak in English. They became more than brothers to him. Some of them have already been executed. Some of them didn't have his luck to be able to prove their innocence - yeah, some of the executed ones were innocent.
More than 1000 people have been killed in the USA since the Seventies. More than 100 people were freed after being on the death row for a number of years, because their innocence was recognized. Now, of that 1000 and more people, how many more were innocent, who were killed? How many were too poor, or didn't know English well enough, or were mentally sick, or were born with the wrong skin color and couldn't defend themself?
I think the USA is the only so-called 'civil' country that has and uses the death penalty. There are so many flaws in this system that I cannot even imagine how can people support it. It doesn't serve any purpose and it has been proved to be wrong in at least 10% of the cases. That's enough to say stop. Juan Melendez is going around the USA and the world to promote the abolition of death penalty. If you're interested in his actions and petitions, visit his website. It's worth the time.

Bigne' o Puffs

Today I had planned on having people at home for a brunch. But of course, I am still a little sick and now poor Lucas is getting sick too.. I really hope he doesn't get too sick, since in two days he has to defend his Ph.D.!!
Anyway, I decided that it didn't matter if no one was coming, I was feeling well enough to try at least one of the recipes that I wanted to make... and it was a good idea, because the 'puffs' came out really good and Lucas and I divoured them all for dinner :)


I took the recipe for this 'puffs' from the Southern Cooking Cookbook that my old and dear friend Seunghee gave me when I left Flordida, as a memory of her and of my time over there. It was a nice present and it's actually a wonderful cookbook. The cookbook said that these puffs were very easy to make, and so I trusted it and tried.
To make them, you have to bring to boil 1 cup of milk and 5 tbsp butter (I put less, ~3.5 tbsp), with a dash of salt. Then add 1 cup of flour altogether and stir quickly until it detaches from the borders of the pan. Then remove from the stove and add 4 eggs, one at a time, incorporating completely each of them. Preheat the oven at 400F, spoon balls of dough about the size of a walnut on a baking sheet covered with anti-sticking paper, cook for 10 min at 400F and then decrease the heat and cook at 350 for another 20-25 min. Cool down avoiding air drafts. I actually turned off the heat after only 20 min, and then cracked the oven open by inserting one of those gloves that you use to take out the food from the oven, and let the puffs cool down in there.
They came out really well! I'd say about 80% were perfect and 20% were a bit flat or with still some dough inside. But most of them were round and empty inside!!

The recipe had a really nice idea for the filling (chicken salad with grapes and peaches), but considering I didn't have chicken or grapes or peaches I decided I would make up something else and leave that for the next time.. :)
So I filled some with a cream made of tuna, yogurt, cream cheese and a little gorgonzola, some with melted munster cheese and milk, some with ricotta and indian spices, and some with apples, blueberry jam and sour cream. All the fillings were warm. The first one I showed on the top of this post was stuffed with the indian style ricotta, and I will show here one of the last ones we made according to Lucas's wonderful idea: filled with honey bought today from the farmers' market!
So, in conclusion, I have to say this dough is actually really easy to make. It literally takes 10 min to prepare it, 5 min to spoon it and 30 min to bake it. It reminds me a little bit of the Italian bigne' that we usually fill with whipped cream (that's why I wanted to try to make some sweet ones), although it's a bit richer than ours. I think next time I'll try the Italian sweet version of the dough and I'll make also this to compare. This will be when I have the real brunch at our place :) - I'm looking forward to it!!!