Grandma's Recipes - Sunday Sauce and Peach Torte

My maternal grandmother was a tiny little spitfire of a woman.  Standing only 4' 8" tall, she had a burst of red hair and cat eye shaped glasses, that were pointy at the outer corners.  In stark contrast, my paternal grandmother was tall and broad through the hips, with a size 10 foot that was wider than the average shoe.  As a child, I remember seeing odd looking wood stretchers sitting in her shoes at night. She told me that she used those to help break in her shoes and make them more flexible and comfortable.  Being gifted with my own size 11 feet, I now understand that she simply did that to make her shoes fit her out sized feet.

In further contrast, my grandmothers were radically different in personality.  My paternal grandmother or "Nan" as we called her (short for nanny) was a gentle soul.  Her skin was always softly perfumed, as if freshly dusted by one of the powder puffs that sat on her dresser.  Always dressed to the nines in a dress, jewelry and a heeled shoe, she carried herself with a grace that belied her modest lifestyle as the wife of a mechanic and mother to five children.  Later in life, I came to learn that she had been pregnant nine times, only five of those pregnancies carried to term.

My maternal grandmother was a trust fund baby.  The daughter of a lawyer, her mother had died in the flu outbreak of 1918 in New York City.  This left my grandmother to be taken care of by a series of aunts and relatives while my great grandfather worked.  When she married my grandfather, it was her trust fund that purchased their house in the tony neighborhood of Garden City, with the reason for moving there, "the Parish" or church that was part of the larger Rockville Center Diocese. She ruled her house with  with equal parts love and authority.  She never felt small to me, as her personality, fiery red hair and generous smile made her seem larger than life.

These two ladies both died early in my life; my grandma when I was four and my nan when I was twelve.  This makes me extraordinarily grateful that my own children (both out of their teens), have my mom in their life.  Sadly, their grandma on their dad's side, passed away in 2012.

My grandmothers were both instrumental in my love for food and cooking, each being an anchor in my early memories of family dinners and contributors to my personal play list of favorite foods.

This Mother's Day, we honor all the moms and grandmothers, past and present that have graced our lives, built our families and stocked our memories with rich, happy nostalgia.  Here are two recipes from a family cookbook that I wrote last year.  The purpose of the book was to hold on to the strong food traditions that are part of my blended family.  These recipes are humble and delicious and are foundational to who I am as a cook and a mother.

With love...

Sunday Sauce with Meatballs and Sausage 

Copyright 2018

Serves 8 to 10

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sausage:

1 ½ pounds sweet Italian sausage, about 6 links (or a mix of hot and sweet)

1 tablespoon olive oil

Sprinkle of salt

Sprinkle of pepper

Sprinkle of Italian seasoning

Meatballs: (makes about 16)

4 slices of white or wheat bread, crusts removed

1/3 cup whole milk

2 pounds ground beef (80/20 is best)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning blend

2/3 cup Pecorino Romano Cheese

2 large cloves garlic, minced finely

3 tablespoons flat leaf Italian Parsley, chopped finely

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

4 tablespoons olive oil

Sauce:

2 tablespoons olive oil

3/4 cup red onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped finely

2 29 ounce cans tomato puree (I use Redpack brand)

1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes (Redpack)

2 teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)

1 teaspoon sugar (*optional, see footnote)

1 dried bay leaf

2 teaspoons Italian seasoning blend

1 sprig of fresh basil (a stalk with approximately 6 – 8 leaves)

3 tablespoons flat leaf Italian parsley, chopped finely

3-4 basil leaves, chopped (these get added at the last 20 minutes of cooking)

Put the Sausages in a pie plate or small roasting pan and drizzle with olive oil, salt, pepper and Italian Seasoning. Put them in the oven for 25-30 minutes to brown while you make and brown the meatballs.  You could cook them on the stove top after browning the balls, but I find that this step saves time and produces a nice result.

In a small bowl, soak the bread in the milk.  Squeeze it with your hands to make a paste.  If there is a lot of excess milk when you squeeze the bread, you can dump it out.  The goal is to just moisten the bread.

Add the beef, eggs, Italian Seasoning, Pecorino Romano, Garlic, Parsley, Salt and Pepper to a large bowl.  Add in the bread and milk mix.  Mix well with your hands, being careful not to overwork the mix.  You want to get it just blended.  Set aside.

Add the olive oil to a large, heavy bottomed pot and heat on medium until it just starts to shimmer.  Brown the meatballs in the olive oil on all sides, being careful not to over-crowd the pan (you want an inch of space between each ball, so work in batches if needed).  Once the meatballs are browned on all sides, remove them to a plate lined with a paper towel.  Lower the heat to medium low.

Open all your cans of tomatoes and set aside. You want these at the ready, so that you can add them immediately after the garlic sautés. This will prevent you from burning the finely minced garlic.

Add the onion to the olive oil and meatball drippings at the bottom of the sauce pan. Sauté for a few minutes until the onion starts to get translucent.  Add the garlic and sauté for 30 seconds.  You want to release the aroma from the garlic, not brown or (heaven forbid) burn it.  As soon as the garlic smell hits your nostrils, turn up the heat to med-high and immediately dump the first can of puree into the pot.  Cook and scrape the bottom of the pan to pull up the crusted meat bits and incorporate into the sauce.  Lower the heat to medium low and add the other 2 cans of tomato product.

Stir to incorporate and make sure that the sauce is at a very low, ploppy simmer.  Adjust your temperature if needed.  Add the salt, black pepper, red pepper, sugar, bay leaf, Italian Seasoning and stir to combine.  Take the stalk of basil and lay the leaves across your palm. Smack the basil in your palm with your free hand (smack it like it owes you money) and throw it in the pot.  This releases the oils of the basil and gets out any pent up frustrations.  Stir it in.

Add the browned meatballs and sausages to the pot and stir gently to submerge all meat.

Cook covered, on low heat, at a slow, ploppy simmer for 2-4 hours. The more you cook it, the better it gets.  Check it every hour or so and give a gentle stir, making sure that the bottom is not burning.  Taste for seasoning and adjust as needed.

Twenty minutes before you are ready to serve, fish out the basil stalk and add the chopped parsley and remaining fresh chopped basil.   Continue cooking until ready to serve.

Hungarian Peach Torte

Copyright 2018

Serves 6 to 8

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Crust:

1 ¼ cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, cold and cut into cubes

½ teaspoon lemon zest, grated

1 egg yolk (set the white aside for the filling)

Filling:

6 medium peaches, peeled and sliced thinly

1/3 cup sugar

1 egg white, beaten stiff

Sift flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl.  Add butter to bowl.  Using two knives or a pastry blender cut the butter into the dry ingredients.  Add the lemon rind and egg yolk and work in with fingers until the mixture comes together and is dough-like.

Press the dough into the bottom of a buttered 8 or 9” spring form pan. Press it up the sides by an inch to form a lip around the crust. Set aside.

Pizza di Patate Dolci

When my husband set out to build a pizza oven, I was filled with nervous trepidation.  Would I be able to make a pizza worthy of the incredible piece of equipment set before me?  There were a hundred ways for me to screw it up and a narrow (90 seconds to be exact) margin for success.

Even though we did not buy a Forno Bravo oven and opted for the rival Chicago Brick Oven model, I did look to Forno Bravo's website for a Neapolitan pizza dough recipe.  I first tried the recipe with regular AP flour, assuming that the pies would essentially be throwaway. Surprisingly, the results were fantastic.  We sacrificed the first dough ball to the oven because that's what they said to do. That one went in un-topped.  We were pleased when it came out of the oven with the hallmark leopard spotting that is so desired in a wood fired pizza.  At that point we were ready to make some real pizza that we could actually eat.  I decided to make the gold standard for a wood fired oven, Pizza Margherita and since I had some rosemary and garlic roasted potatoes left over, I made a potato, onion and parmesean pie with besciamella sauce.

After our first batch of pizza ended up to actually be edible and not complete garbage, I broke out the big guns.  For the next batch, I used Marino Tipo 0 flour that my husband picked up when he was in Italy for work.  I didn't want to use my "good flour" for my maiden voyage.  The second round resulted in the following three pizzas - Marinara (lovingly styled after the spectacular marinara pie at Da Michele in Naples, but nowhere near as skillfully turned), Sweet Potato with Pancetta, Rosemary and Parmesan, and a Sausage and Pepperoni pie.

I am happy to say that these pizzas were all successful.  And while the more traditional pizzas tasted delicious, the oddball sweet potato pizza was killer. So delicious in fact that I am going to share the recipe in case you want to shake up your pizza routine a little.  There is no way to give exact amounts, so amounts given are somewhat approximated.  Pizza is assembled very much assembled by eye, feel and taste. Here are the ingredients:

WOOD FIRED SWEET POTATO, PANCETTA AND PARMIGIANO PIZZA
1 275 gram ball of your favorite Neapolitan Style pizza dough -  Forno Bravo's is an excellent choice (here)
SWEET POTATO TOPPING
1 Large Sweet Potato
2 Teaspoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 Teaspoon Salt (or to taste)
1/4 Teaspoon of freshly cracked black pepper (or to taste)
ADDITIONAL TOPPINGS
1 Teaspoon of finely chopped fresh rosemary
4 Oz pancetta cubed
1 Tablespoon Grated Pecorino Romano cheese
1/4 cup Shaved Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
A drizzle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil


Roast the sweet potato in a 350 degree preheated oven until it is soft.  Slit open and allow to cool slightly before scraping the insides into a bowl. Mash the potato with a pinch of salt and pepper and  2 teaspoons of olive oil. Taste for seasoning and adjust as necessary.  Set aside in the refrigerator.  The potato topping should be completely cool before topping pizza.

Fry up the pancetta in a small frying pan until rendered and golden.  Drain on paper towels and set aside in the refrigerator.

Stretch the pizza dough and spread a thin layer of the potato mash on the pizza, not so thick as to weigh the pizza down, but not thin enough to see through. Add a light sprinkle of chopped rosemary across the pizza and scatter the pancetta on top.  Add a generous sprinkle of pecorino romano cheese and a drizzle of olive oil.  Top with shaved Parmigiano cheese and fire it up.

Unusual, but really delicious.

Here are some of the others...

Margherita

Roasted Potato, Parmesean and Carmelized Onions over Besciamella 

Sausage and Pepperoni

For our next batch, I am going to order some Caputo 00 flour and see how the dough works out with that.  I have used it in the past with my Pizza Kettle and it turned out pretty good.  

Cheers for beers and pizza!

Full of Beans

December was a whirlwind month for us as we decided to take a trip to London and Italy during the first two weeks of December.  This was a wonderful experience as London, Rome and Sorrento are all towns that take Christmas very seriously, so gorgeous lights and decor ruled the day and the festive feeling was palpable.

This was my husband and my first trip abroad without a large group of family and truth be told, it was incredibly relaxing to not be responsible for the entertainment and sustenance of 18 people.  It was a trip made for relaxing.  Our game plan was basically, find something beautiful sit in the nearest piazza with a view of it and drink wine.   We did this over and over for the entire length of the trip, so objective met.  We came home very relaxed and went back to work the very next day.

Naturally, we were as interested in good food as we were in good wine and beautiful sights, so there were many memorable meals consumed and fabulous local products sampled.  The food alone could provide fodder for a dozen different blog posts, but where to start?  As a means of focusing and finding a place to start, I am going to start at the end...of the trip.

The way that I can tell that I have really enjoyed a dish in a restaurant is if the taste of it makes me want to immediately run home and recreate it.  This happened on the last night of the trip.  On recommendation of Elizabeth Minchilli (whose tour of Testaccio may need at least two posts of its own to capture effectively), we went to an adorable pizza place called Emma.  Emma is tucked away in a side alley just a few steps away from Campo De Fiori and thanks to the amazing streak of 60 degree weather that we had, we were able to comfortably dine outside.

Although they are billed as a pizzeria, Emma is a full service restaurant with salads, pastas, meat dishes, vegetarian options and of course, pizza.  Feeling like something simple and a little lighter, we decided to skip the pizza and order salads and pastas.  I went with the herbed ravioli and my husband got a steaming bowl of pasta fagioli.

When my husband's soup arrived, it was thick and glistening with a flourish of extra virgin olive oil and a snowy shower of grated Pecorino Romano.  It was filled with irregular rags of torn pasta sheets, floating on a creamy river of thick bean puree.  I impulsively jabbed my spoon into his soup and was overwhelmed by the savory depth of flavor that it had. It was so rich and flavorful that I forgot about the plate of steaming hot ravioli that was rapidly cooling in front of me. This was the very first meal that I cooked when I came home.  Here's my version, but first, a beauty shot of it:

That's some food porn, right there.

Pasta Fagioli

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 ounces of pancetta, diced
1/2 medium sized red onion, diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 ribs of celery, diced
2 garlic clove, diced finely
1 sprig of  fresh rosemary (about the size of your longest finger)
1 dried bay leaf
Salt and Pepper (to taste)
Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes
2 15.5 ounce cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed well
32 ounces of chicken broth (canned or homemade)
1/2 of a *1 lb box of lasagna noodles, bashed into small pieces with a rolling pin

Grated pecorino romano and extra virgin olive oil for serving (optional)

*Note: you could also use a 1/2 lb of small pasta like ditalini or elbows and bypass the smashing


Heat the olive oil in a large dutch oven over med heat and add the diced pancetta.  Cook until golden brown, then remove the browned pancetta to a plate lined with paper towels. Set aside.

Lower the heat in the pan to med low and add the carrot, celery and onion.  Add a little salt and pepper to the vegetables to help them sweat in the pan.  Cook until the onions are translucent.  Add the rosemary, red pepper flakes (if using) and diced garlic and saute for about 30 seconds (or until you can smell the garlic).  Turn the heat back to medium and add the white wine.  Scrape up any browned bits of pancetta from the bottom of the pan while cooking the wine down and reducing by about half.

Add the diced tomatoes, drained chickpeas and pancetta to the pan and follow with the chicken broth. Raise the heat and bring to a good boil. Using a slotted spoon, remove about 2 cups the chick peas and set aside.  Once the soup is at a rapid boil, add the pasta and cook to 1 minute under the al dente instructions (ie. if al dente is 12 minutes, cook to 11).

While the pasta is boiling, put the reserved beans in a blender or puree with a stick blender into a smooth paste.  When the pasta reaches its time,  turn off the heat and stir the pureed beans back into the soup.  Cover and set aside for 5-10 minutes before serving (this allows the soup to thicken to a nice consistency).

Taste for seasoning and adjust salt and pepper to taste.  Serve with a sprinkle of romano cheese and a drizzle of olive oil.

A Delicious Sausage Pasta Born out of Confusion

When I invited my in-laws over for dinner, I knew that I would face the challenge of what to make in order to suit all palates.  I don't eat fish, my sister in law doesn't eat beef or anything spicy, my husband hates celery (really, just celery) and my brother in law doesn't express an opinion.  So I began an exhaustive back and forth text chain with my sister in law to determine what foods she and I would enjoy in common (clearly the women are the problem in this particular equation).

What I came up with on the common "yes" list was:
Italian sausage - Yes if not spicy
Cream Sauce - Yes
Nuts - Yes

OK genius, now what?

Here is the recipe that was born of this conundrum:

Fettucine with Sausage and Walnut Cream Sauce

1 Lb Fresh Fettucini (**cooked to the package instructions)
1 Lb Bulk Italian Sweet Sausage
2 Tbs Olive Oil (1 for sauteing sausage, 1 for sauce)
3 Tbs Butter (1 for sauce, 2 for finishing)
1 Medium Shallot (chopped finely)
1 Large Clove of Garlic (unpeeled and smashed)
1/3 cup of Dry White Wine (I used Orvieto Classico)
2 Tablespoons Frangelico Hazlenut Liquer
1 &1/2 Cups Heavy Cream
1/2 Cup Parmesan Cheese
1/2 Cup Finely Chopped Walnuts
Chopped Flat Leaf Parsley (to taste)
Salt
Pepper

In a large saute pan, cook sausage in 1Tbs olive oil over med-high heat, breaking it with a spoon into small pieces as it cooks.  When browned nicely, remove with a slotted spoon to a plate with a few layers of paper towels to drain.

Pour off the sausage grease (leaving the yummy brown sausage bits behind in the pan, of course) and add remaining Tbs of olive oil and 1 Tbs butter. Reduce the heat to medium and  when the butter has melted, add the shallot to the pan.  Cook until the edges start to just brown then drop the smashed garlic clove into the pan.  Saute for a minute or until you can smell the garlic.

Add the white wine and Frangelico and turn the heat up to medium high, scraping any bits of sausage from the bottom of the pan as the wine and liquor reduce. When you have reduced to about a third of the original volume, remove the garlic clove and add the heavy cream.  Continue cooking until the cream starts to thicken a bit, then add the sausage to the pan and throw in about 75% of the walnut pieces, reserving the rest for garnish.  Cook about 2 minutes to heat the nuts and sausage through.
Taste, then *season with salt and pepper.

Add your **cooked pasta to the pan of sauce and toss to coat.  Throw in the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, some chopped flat leaf parsley and a handful of Parmesan, again, reserving some of the parsley and cheese for garnish.

Taste for seasoning, adjust if necessary and garnish with remaining cheese, parsley and nuts.

*I season on the conservative side at this step as the pasta and its residual water and the Parmesan will add more salt to the dish when you incorporate it.

**I under cook the pasta by 1 minute as it will cook in the sauce.  I don't strain the pasta, but remove it from the water with tongs, allowing a little of the cooking water to come with it.


This is an original recipe and  is protected under copyright laws.  Please cook and enjoy, but don't publish as your own.

The Bandwagon Can Bite Me ( A love story and a recipe. Well, a recipe anyway.)

Kale.

Photo Credit - Health.com

WTF?

At some point, this tough, green lawn ornamentation became America's "it" food.  With me being naturally averse to things that look like landscaping of the plant kind or a lack of pre-bathing suit landscaping of the human kind, this curly cruciferous bundle of old lace and chlorophyll has never found it's way on to my plate. Until very recently, that is.

I have to be honest,  I have purposely avoided Kale at all costs because it's a bandwagon food.  Any food that gets too much hype or that my sister-in-law attributes the high quality of her "movements" to is an immediate NO for me.  I have managed to live a great many years without this "super food" and quite happily, I might add.  Then we went on vacation and I got sideswiped by my husband's order of a kale salad at dinner one night.

Me: Kale salad?  What the *#ck?
Him:  I wanna try it.
Me: It's the substance that Ariel says makes her crap like a show pony.
Him:  Exactly.
Me: You can finish this vacation alone. Waiter!  Another vodka and soda please.
Him:  I want to see what it's all about.
Me:  OK, but you have to sleep in the car tonight.

When our entree salads arrived, I looked down at my bowl of chopped Cobb Salad and realized, I am eating a similar bowl of rabbit food (this was after the chili cheese tater tots as an appetizer, of course).  What's the real difference, other than the fact that his is much greener and looks much more like it was shaved from someone's nether regions?  Let's put mind over matter and try it.

I tentatively stuck a fork into his salad and retrieved a dark green tumble of vegetation.  It looked angry, frizzy and menacing.  My expectation was that it would be as bitter as my 8th grade math teacher and about as enjoyable.  Mr Toscano be damned! It was actually somewhat more tolerable than hearing him prattle on about right angles. My assessment on the spot was that it was not as bitter as I expected and it was nicely dressed (that helped) but chewing through it was somewhere south of a burlap bag in terms of tenderness. It needed a lot of jaw work, but not totally terrible.

My husband, a friend to all vegetables except celery, loved it of course and proclaimed that he will be eating more kale salads going forward.  "Oh goody"  I thought, this gives me more quiet time and less access to the bathroom.  If he is going to eat this, I need to find a way to make it more palatable, so that I can hold my short-order, "everyone eats something different" cooking to a minimum.

So here's what I did to make the topiary tolerable:

Red Cabbage and Kale Slaw w/Sweet Red Onion Vinaigrette
1/2 medium head of red cabbage, shredded, washed and spun dry
1 medium Bunch of kale, stemmed and shredded, washed and spun dry
1/4 of a small red onion, sliced thinly

Vinaigrette:
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 of a small red onion roughly chopped
1 tbs sugar
1 tbs honey
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Pulse ingredients for dressing in a mini chop or food processor until emulsified.

Pour all vinaigrette over veggies and let sit in fridge for 1 hour to overnight.  Toss and redistribute dressing before serving.

Afterword:
In  closing, I fear that there is little to be concerned with in terms of theft of this recipe, because...kale.  However, it and all other poorly constructed and unpolished writing on this site are, of course, copyrighted.

At the end of the day, kale still has a taste and texture akin to zoysia grass but the dressing is quite tasty and you'll probably crap like a show pony. For some (like the guy that gave me a ring all those years ago and my sister-in-law), that's really all that matters.

Pictures of the festively shredded confetti of plant matter below.

Just so that you don't think I've gone all nuts and granola on ya, I served the kale salad with twice baked, french onion soup stuffed baked potatoes and a big, hairy steak.