Ravioli

This past weekend my sister and I made homemade ravioli. The recipe has been in the family forever. I can remember being a young girl watching my Nona, mother and Zia make these delicious meat filled ravioli. My sister and I had a very important job, we were sent to count the ravioli sheets as the were made.   How many?  they would ask us, and we'd run and count. Dozen or sheets? and we'd run back again and count all over. My sister Marlene still counts by the dozen, while I still count the sheets. It's funny how some things just don't change.
At the time when they made them they would proudly make 200 dozen.  That was a huge amount. Everything was done by hand. They didn't have a Kitchen Aid mixer with pasta attachments to help them make the dough! As Marlene and I got older we were honored to help turn the crank to get the sheets of pasta to the smooth consistency needed so they could be stuffed. Marlene decided that she likes the stuffing part, and I have become the master of cranking out the pasta.
With the help of machinery we are able to make a few hundred dozen in a day rather than a weekend. It's still a tremendous amount of work, exhausting actually, but we love working together. It brings us together, we miss those who are not able to be with us, especially our sister, Michele who lives in California.  We know that while we are working we have the company of two angels, our Nona and our mother. If we get stumped or stuck on something and the answer or solution comes to us, it comes from them. We know how proud they are of us, and it makes us happy to know that they are happy!
They never worked with exact quantities. I don't think they even had a recipe written out until we asked. I remember sitting with a bowl under my mother's hand trying to catch the amounts she was using, and then measuring,  just for a rough idea of how much she was using. We now know that the water needed to make the pasta is approximately 3 - 3 1/2 cups!
When we make the meat ravioli I always try to have equal parts of the meat. If I am cooking 5 pounds of beef, I'll also cook 5 pounds of pork and veal.  However, I will only use about 3 pounds of the sausage meat.  The onions are another story. The more onions, the more sauce. We use about 20 pounds of onions which I hand chop.
I remember them using porcini mushrooms while cooking the meat and there is no mention of the mushrooms on the recipe card.  I make sure that they are added. They give a very delicious flavor to the meat mixture and the sauce.
It's taken us years to interpret the recipe.
Here's what my mother had written down.
For meat stuffing...
Rosolare pork, beef and veal in olive oil and butter until brown, add onions, rosemary and bay leaves.
Saute sausage meat with garlic and spinach.
Seperate meat from the onions.
Chop everything, add parmigiano cheese, salt, pepper and one whole ground nutmeg. Add egg to moisten to hold together. If needed add breadcrumbs.
At least we have one measurement here! LOL! One whole nutmeg!
Pasta
5 lbs flour
2 eggs all
6 egg yolks
little oil, salt, and luke warm water
mix all together

I started making the meat mixture on Thursday. I cut all my meats into chunks and cooked them with the onions and seasoning for about 4 - 5 hours.
On Friday, I seperate the meat from the onions. The meat chunks went into the food grinder and the onions and the sauce were reserved and put into containers. This is the sauce that is used on top of the ravioli.
On Saturday we mixed all of the gound meats together with the spinach, cheese and eggs and seasoning.
The pasta was made and let to rest for 1/2 hour before working it.

After the pasta has been worked through the machine and is the right size and thickness it goes to the table where the stuffers are waiting to work! We will try to recruit any and all!

The trays get stuffed, then trimmed up and put on a tray.

They are then put on a sheet so they dry out a little, and then flipped hours later.

We work until all the meat mixture is gone. Usually there is pasta left over.
This year we made a few with spinach and cheese.

And when the spinach and cheese was gone we made the left over pasta "dough" into tagliatelle.

We've started a little tradition of our own when making these.
 In the past we would order out for food to eat for diner. Who wanted to cook after working hard all day. One year while making these at my mother's house my husband was in shock that we were going to order out for food. He insisted that we put a pot of water on and eat some of the ravioli that we had been making all day.  We were like, what? eat them now? lol  I'm so glad we did!
So now, every time we make them, after we count them and there is an odd number of sheets that can't be divided and packaged up (we like to put 10 dozen into one package)  they go into the pot of waiting hot water. I can't even begin to tell you just how delicious they are!

We love carrying on the traditions that were shown to us. My hope is that my children learn from us and one day show their own children the special "magic" that can be created through love of family and honoring traditions. Through this love and magic the family traditions will never be forgotten, nor will the people who started them or the people who kept them alive. ❤❤ 

 Buon Appetito
 xoxoxo
 Lorraine ❤❤ 

Stuffed Artichokes, Nona Style

 I love the fall weather and the foods that get associated with the cooler weather. Meals become a little more hearty, filling us up and are just so satisfying. This is like Italian Soul Food! The flavors hit a spot that you just fall in love with, making your soul smile.
My mother would make these artichokes  all the time. She would serve them as a side dish, which was absolutely crazy. They are a meal! Serve them with a fresh green salad, a loaf of Italian Bread and you're done!
When my son John was in 5th grade they were having a discussion on food. His teacher mentioned that she loved artichokes. Some of the kids in the class didn't even know what an artichoke was. John, proudly raised his hand and told his teacher that I made them stuffed with sausage. Another student raised his hand and said his mother makes them and serves them with Russian dressing! HMPF! With a light in her eyes she turned to John  and said, "I would love to taste those!"  That was the start of lovely parent teacher conference's that would be held in my kitchen.
Joan didn't finish the whole artichoke, however she did ask to bring the rest of it home. I was more that willing to comply!

Would you like to make these? Here's what you will need.
Sweet Italian Sausage
Chop meat
onion - chopped fine
garlic - chopped fine
fresh chopped parsley
egg
salt and pepper to taste
grated Italian cheese ( use what you like)
a small handful of seasoned bread crumbs
water and or chicken stock

Make a mixture with all the above ingredients,  like you were making a meatloaf or a meatball mixture.

Clean your artichokes, I cut the pointy tops off and clean up the outer leaves.  I also cut the bottom of the artichoke to make sure that it will sit up. After I've cleaned up the artichokes I start to gently manipulate the leaves to get them ready to stuff.  I pack them with the meat mixture starting on the inside working my way out. Once they are all stuffed I like to braise them on the top of the stove. I add chicken stock to the pot, covering about an inch of the bottom of the artichoke, a bay leaf and half a lemon. Bring the liquid to a boil, lower the heat, cover and let simmer until the meat is cooked through and the artichokes are tender. I will just pull on an inner leaf and if it comes out easily it's done. I usually cook these for about an hour, checking on them during the cooking process to make sure all the liquid does not steam out. If you need to add more liquid, add a little bit of water.

When they are done they will look something like this!

Spoon some of the sauce that's in the pot over the artichoke and add some fresh chopped parsley to the top and enjoy!

Buon Appetito
xoxoxo
Lorraine

Father's Day BBQ

I'm posting this a little early without pictures, just in case you need or want an easy recipe for BBQ sauce. After all, what would Father's Day be without the grill going with a great BBQ?
Today's Food Crawl is all about the BBQ sauce. I know that there are a ton of them out there. But for some reason, this one is very special.
Growing up, my mother made this all the time. Our neighbors loved it, and it was frequently requested at all picnics and neighborhood events.
I don't know about the rest of you, but my husband loves a BBQ. So while he's on the golf course I am at home lovingly preparing him a BBQ for his Father's Day Dinner.  I have mentioned before that my "boys" love the gooey, goopy, stuff that some people call BBQ sauce.  I am so not into it...however, I just love this BBQ sauce that my mother used to make!  I have to say that my mother used to make the best BBQ sauce, and she used it on her chicken. This sauce is spectacular! I have no idea where she got the recipe, for all I know it could be out of a Betty Crocker cook book, or a magazine!  It's really soooo good. The recipe that follows makes a very small batch. I would suggest that you at least triple this. It stays good refrigerated for at least a week, if not more.  Once you try it, you will want to use it on anything that goes on the grill!
I'm going to slather this all over my chicken and ribs this Sunday. What will you be making?

Mom's BBQ Sauce
2 Tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons vinegar
1/2 teaspoon tabasco
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon mustard, we used Gulden's  (use whatever you have in the frig)
1/4 cup water
that's the recipe... it says...
 bring it all to a boil! lol
So go ahead, and do it. You won't believe how delicious this sauce is! Yum! Yum! Yum!

Enjoy your day!
Happy Father's Day!

Buon Appetito
xoxoxo
Lorraine

Fritcialing's

Food Crawling with Fritcialing's!
Sound it out!  Fritch -ah- ling! lol and no, it's not a bad word!

When I was growing up my mother would make some dishes that were so simple, sometimes using what was left over from a previous meal. In our house nothing went to waste. It was just her way. She grew up in Italy and was deprived of food. Later on in life she felt the need to make sure we would never be without food, and I have to say that we always had  abbondanza! (plenty)

My mother's parents left Italy, one at a time, to come to America. My grandfather came first, and when he earned enough money he sent for my Grandmother,  Sabina. (we called her Nona Vera.) 

My mother was left in Torino,  Northern Italy with an Aunt and Uncle  along with her two siblings. My mother, Ottavia, was the oldest in her family, and became the matriarch of her little family at the young age of 12.  By the time she was 14 she had become a Partisan, doing what ever she had to do. Sometimes that meant stealing food and other times it meant bombing German trains. She did not have an easy life.

from left to right Frank, Josie and Ottavia 

From what we were told, my mother and her siblings were not always treated fairly by her relatives that they were left with. They were treated as if they were a burden. And I suppose that they were. Food was sparse during the war and the relatives were stuck with three more mouths to feed, probably wondering how they were going to feed themselves. 

My grandparents sent the money to help defray the cost of food for their family, but sometimes the money wasn't spent on food for them.   This is how my mother learned to make something out of nothing.

Today our food crawl is about Fritcialings! 

I know, it's not a word, and if you ask anyone who grew up in my neighborhood, they'll know what a fritcialing is and they'll want one!
The root word is probably frittata.

These were always made with some left over spinach and rice.

I never saw my mother measure anything for these. For that matter, I never saw her measure anything unless she was baking!  I hope my measurements will help you a little. 

Fritcialing's

about 2 cups rice

about 3 cups of cooked spinach

6 eggs

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Vegetable oil for pan frying

In a bowl mix up the spinach and rice . 

Add eggs

mix it all up and add the cheese

Now you can stop at this step  and have a nice vegetarian fritcialing, or you can add some meats to the mixture. My mother added what ever she had on hand, it might have been a piece of chicken, or a piece of steak, nothing went to waste.

I had steak made with mushrooms and onions left over from the other night.  They went into the food processor and I hit pulse a few times.

I used an ice cream scoop to form the patties.

Pan fry the fritcialings for 5 - 6 minutes on each side, on medium heat until they are a nice brown color.

My brother, Mark and a childhood friend, Ed loved eating these with ketchup! I say, no way to that!
I usually have to hide these if I want to serve them with dinner.  I, can be very satisfied with one or two of these and a nice salad.

Buon Appetito
xoxoxo
Lorraine

Chicken Soup and Chimichurri Sauce

If it's Monday in my house it means that we are having soup for dinner.  You can turn a very simple Chicken Soup into something very different by serving it up with a sauce on the side. Tonight that sauce is a Chimichurri Sauce.
When ever I make Chicken soup I use a whole chicken in the pot, covered with water and seasoned with salt and pepper and a bay leaf. I add celery, onion and carrots to the pot and let the chicken gently simmer until the chicken is done.  From this simple stock you can go in many directions just by adding some additional ingredients. Add some ginger, garlic, green onions and some sherry and you have the wonderful beginning of a broth for Wonton Soup. Add some egg yolks and lemon juice and you're absolutely going to love the flavors that develop into an Avgolemono Soup. Feel like something Mexican? Try adding some cilantro, chopped green peppers and scallions to your stock and you're on your way to making a delicious Chicken Tortilla soup. You'll be amazed at all the delicious stocks that you can make.

The stock is delicious, and my family loves the stock with the vegetables cut up and cooked with a small shaped pasta, such as Ditalini.  The problem I have is getting anyone to eat the plain, boiled chicken. It's funny how history repeats itself. When my mother would make boiled chicken we wouldn't eat it either, until she made this fabulous sauce to accompany the boiled chicken. We didn't know that we were eating Chimichurri Sauce. She just called it a Green Sauce or Salsa Verde!  There are so many sauces that my mom used to make that we now know have culinary names.  I'll be sharing some of these sauces as I go along and who knows, I may even learn the proper culinary names for the sauces, instead of calling them brown sauce and green sauce! Are you along for the crawl?

Chimichurri
One bunch of fresh parsley chopped fine
3 - 4 cloves of fresh garlic, chopped fine
a pinch of oregano
a pinch of salt and pepper
a pinch of red pepper flakes
3 - 4 Tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Chop everything and mix it all together in a bowl adding olive oil.

I took the chicken off the bone, the dark meat went into the soup pot and the white meat was arranged on a platter and topped with the Chimichurri Sauce.

and for those who love Balsamic....
drizzled with some glaze

What can be better than a nourishing cup of soup with a delicious chicken chimichurri?

Buon Appetito
xoxoxo

Lorraine

Pizza Grana

This pie is also know as a wheat pie. It is one of my favorites! It is very similar in taste to an Italian Cheese Cake. You will love this!

Here's what you will need.

Pizza Grana


For the filling
2 pounds of Ricotta cheese
1 pound cooked grain
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs, seperated
1/2 cup of scalded milk
1/4 cup citron chopped
1/4 cup orange peel, cut fine
1 1/2 tsp of Orange water
the rind of 1 lemon and 1 orange

for the crust
2 1/4 cup flour (and more as needed)
3 eggs
4 Tablespoons of milk
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 pound butter

This recipe will make 2 pies.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix all the ingredients together for the filling, except for the egg whites.

Beat the egg whites in a bowl until they are stiff, and fold them into the wheat mixture.

Mix your ingredients for the pie crust. the dough will be very wet and stick to your hands, keep adding flour until the dough does not stick to your hands and can be rolled out.

Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness to fit your pie dish. Add the filling and with the extra dough create strips to make a lattice top.  Weave the strips, I think this helps them from falling into the mixture, but don't quote me on that one...lol.

Bake in the oven for 1 hour at 350 degrees.  They'll jiggle a little when you take them out of the oven but they will have a beautiful golden color to them. Don't over bake them.  Let them cool off before refrigerating them.

I gave up deserts for Lent. I am so ready to dive into this one!

Buon Appetito!
Happy Easter!
xoxoxo
Lorraine

Easter Pies

My sister and I are starting a new tradition. We are making our Easter Pies on Good Friday. The new part of the tradition is that from now on she will be taking the day off! You cannot start baking at 3 pm on Good Friday! You shouldn't start that late in the day on any given day! We made 3 different pies today. 2  different meat pies, one recipe is simply called Easter Pie ( the recipe is out of the newspaper) , and the other is Pizza Gaina, and is also known as Pizza Rustica. Until recently, I thought that this was one of my mothers recipes. I found out during a phone call to my Zia Josie, that this is not something that was a tradition on my mothers side of the family. It became a tradition while we lived on Daniel Drive in Farmingdale, New York.  I don't recall an Easter growing up that we didn't have these two pies on the table Easter Day! Thanks to "Aunt" Margie and "Aunt" Marie,  I now make these recipes and they have become a tradition in my own family.

Pizza Gaina


Filling
1/2 lb of Prosciutto
1/2 pound Genoa Salami
2 pieces of sweet dry sausage
1 pound basket cheese
1 pound ricotta
1 pound mozzarella
1/2 cup grated cheese ( I used Parmigiano)
12 eggs

Dough
4 cups flour
4 eggs
4 T Crisco
1 t baking powder
1/2 cup warm water

Cut up all your meats into chunks and put them into a bowl large enough for all of your filling ingredients.

Cut up your basket cheese, and mozzarella into chunks and mix with the ricotta cheese. Add the grated cheese and 12 eggs. Mix all together until it is well mixed.

Set this aside and start on your dough.  Mix all the ingredients together and knead. It will be a firm
dough, not sticky.

 Roll out the dough to fit in a large baking pan. It's not an easy dough to work with so keep rolling. Once you have the dough rolled out to the desired size place into your baking pan.

add the meat and cheese filling

usually the recipe calls for encasing the mixture into the dough, but I didn't have enough dough so I didn't do that! I just folded the ends of the dough towards the middle of the pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, turn down heat to 350 degrees and bake for an additional hour.

Let the pie cool and then slice into small pieces, and enjoy. This can be served warm, or at room temp. It is very rich and very tasty.
Buon Appetito!
I'll be posting our sweet pie tomorrow!
Come back and see me soon!
Ciao!
xoxoxo
Lorraine

Happy St. Patrick's Day

So today is St. Patrick's Day. A day when everyone is Irish. I come from a mostly Italian background, I'm only 1/4 Irish on my father's side.  My mother embraced the St. Patrick's holiday. She loved corn beef and would make more than we could possibly eat just so that she could have left overs the next day.  She made the most wonderful Corn Beef.  Sometimes she would just throw the carrots,  cabbage and potatoes into the huge pot that held the corn beef, but on special occasions she would make the most wonderful cabbage, sauteed with bacon or pancetta, onion, garlic and the boiled potatoes. Talk about yum! When I have a little extra time I love to make this dish. Today our food crawl is all about the cabbage with a twist.  I even have a recipe for a delicious Soda Bread that I'll share with you.
This cabbage recipe is from  Lanterna, a restaurant that my family used to love to eat in Astoria, New York. The owners were Yugoslavian/Italian. Their food combinations were just incredible.  Everything was fabulous! Sadly, the restaurant is not there anymore. But I can remember my last meal there almost 20 years ago, that's how good it was! Here's my homage to Lanterna and my mother...

I start off by cutting the cabbage into quarters, taking the core out and then just slicing the cabbage. There is no wrong way, just slice it, long pieces, short pieces it really doesn't matter.  I put these in a bowl and set them aside. In my frying pan I start cooking 3 slices of bacon(if you have pancetta, use it!) which I have cut into little pieces and let the fat render, once that starts going I add one chopped onion and a few cloves of smashed and sliced garlic, you don't want the onions or garlic to brown, just let them sweat and add the cabbage and season with salt and pepper to taste. When the cabbage wilts and it's tender, it's done.  Add some of the boiled red potatoes ( i cut them in 1/4's) to the cabbage and give it a little time to cook with the cabbage.  The flavors will marry and will get a little creamy or thick from the starch in the potato.

Unfortunately, I burnt my soda bread. I was on the phone with the vet, no good news and I forgot the breads were baking. We're still going to eat it, I'm just not showing it to you!  And I am having a tough time with the picture placement on these posts..growing pains...please stick with me.

Irish Soda Bread (Recipe from the Journal News)

3 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons softened sweet butter

2 tablespoons of caraway seeds

1 cup raisins

2 eggs, divided....one for the dough and one for brushing the breads

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of buttermilk 

a pinch or two of sugar to dust the breads

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter two 9 or 10 inch pie dishes or cake pans. In a mixing bowl combine first 5 ingredients just until combined and starts to get crumbly. Add caraway seeds and raisins. Add one egg and slightly beat with the buttermilk adding to the flour mixture. Mix until all ingredients are moistened and just combined. Turn out dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Divide the dough in half, shape into rounds and place in buttered baking pans. cut an X on top to score each bread. Brush tops with beaten egg and sprinkle with a few pinches of sugar.

Bake 15 minutes at 400 degrees. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for another 15- 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Do not over bake. It will be moist and delicious!

before going into the oven...

I hope you had a fabulous St. Patrick's Day! 

Here's a little Irish Blessing for you!

For each petal on the shamrock.
This brings a wish your way
Good health, good luck, and happiness
For today and every day.

xoxoxo
Lorraine