Carnevale Pie

Something happened a few years ago. I developed a Scandinavian gene.  After decades of putting out antipasti platters, bruschetta with crostini and variations of a Caprese appetizer, my mind wanders to dark bread, open-faced sandwiches (butter, arugula, a gorgonzola slab and some sour cherry jam is an excellent choice). Maybe the decades of living in Minnesota have changed my genetic make-up and I have more in common with the Christensens and Andersens than I previously thought.

The joke here in Minnesota is, "Antarctica called. They want their weather back." We haven't had a real winter in a few years. It's back.

I also like winter. (My family now does a double-take and wonders who inhabits my body.) I've always been one for cozy winter eves, huddled under a blanket, candles lit, cats purring, books lined up and the requisite glass of wine. Nothing needs to be mowed or weeded. The outside in winter-white - stark and simple.  They call it "gezellig" in Dutch - that warm cozy feeling like a hug. Something I have practiced for decades. It's "hygge" in Danish and I guess it has become a huge thing - but it's attitude is something I've always embraced (or.... hugged?).

Part of hygge is treating yourself. (Ostensibly after you skied down a mountain for eight hours.) Well, I didn't ski down a mountain but even a short outing in the frigid air is cause for baking.

Below is a lemon-ricottta-semolina pie - Il Migliaccio in Italian. It hails from Naples so hardly Scandinavian. But perfect for Carnevale/Mardi Gras, simple enough to make and comforting to eat. The pie tastes light - it is not overwhelmingly sweet and it comforts which is the purpose of eating dessert.

There are many variations. I used the recipe from Manu's Menu and except for a few changes, the recipe's a keeper. You probably have most of the ingredients.

Ingredients
2 cups water
2 cups milk
3-1/2 tablespoons butter
peel of one lemon (I wouldn't bother next time. I'd just double the limoncello.) Or zest a lemon.
1 pinch salt
1-2/3 cups semolina
4 eggs
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
12 ounces ricotta (drained, commercial ricotta works best in this recipe)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon limoncello (says its optional but definitely use it or use fresh lemon juice and I'd add at least another 1/2 tablespoon)
Icing sugar to decorate (NY Times has a raspberry sauce for it which works)

1. Preheat oven to 355 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch springform pan.

2. Put the milk water, butter and lemon peel in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Remove lemon peel (if you zest, leave it in) and slowly add the semolina - constantly stirring. Stir for ten minutes (yeah, the arms got a work out. I wound up just constantly folding and lasted about 7 minutes and declared it good enough). Try not to get any lumps but if you do smooth it out with an immersion blender (I got a few and I blended the entire thing because I like getting batter everywhere - including in my hair). Let it cool for a few minutes.

3. Whisk the eggs with the sugar. Add the ricotta, vanilla and limoncello and whisk well.

4. Slowly add in the semolina mixture and combine well.

5. Pour mixture into prepared pan.

6. Bake for sixty minutes (starting checking around 55 minutes). The pie will be slightly wobbly (like a cheese cake but a toothpick inserted in the middle should come out clean).

7. Cool completely. Sprinkle icing (confectioner's) sugar over it. Serve at room temperature or cold.

If you need another reason to embrace, winter: sunrises.

Chocolate Budino from Cat Cora

I don't know if you can tell - but there's chocolate oozing over the top crumbs. There would have been more chocolate seeping onto the plate if I served these right out of the oven (recommended). But I am expedient. When people are over, I do all ahead of time. Except take pictures. There were impatient people waiting for these delectables. I needed to get all the photos done in the time it takes for everyone at the table to make fun of Claudia and her pictures of food.

So, the photos are not splendifrous - I tried. There's irony here but you will see that in a few minutes.

These chocolate pillows are from Cat Cora. Who is Cat Cora? Never heard of her until this week. It's that not-TV-watching thing that snags me again. (All right! I confess, I watched Downton Abbey. Nobody does soap opera better than the Brits.)

Bundino means "pudding" in Italian - and they are almost like a British steamed plum pudding. Except they're not British and they're not steamed. They are irresistible. I baked small ones in muffin tins (everyone's on a diet for swimsuit season). And everyone ate 2 or 3. Small bites, right? It's always fun to fool yourself.

Cat Cora is best known for her featured role in Iron Chef (someday will watch). She's easy to spot - she's the woman. And she is #48 on Gourmet's Female Game-Changers in Food. Born in Mississippi to a Greek-American family of restaurateurs, Cora got the cooking bug early. She may have gone to college for Exercise Physiology and Biology, but after graduating she headed to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY to pursue her love of food.

(Cat Cora 2010, photo from Wikipedia)

Her accomplishments are varied and considerable. She co-founded Chefs for Humanity "a grassroots coalition of chefs and culinary professionals guided by a mission to quickly be able to raise funds for important emergency and humanitarian aid, nutritional education and hunger-related initiatives throughout the world."

On the flip side of the coin, she had a voice role in a video game Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine.  And if the coin had a third side you'd find that she has partnered with Disney producing videos about helping and teaching families to cook together. In 2010, she created webisodes with the Muppets (specifically a spicy Italian Muppet named Angelo) that centered on the joys and health benefits of cooking as a family.

Yes, she has cookbooks, kitchenware and some lovely recipes. Read more about Cat Cora at her website.

More of a molten cake than a pudding, this is simple (my mantra) and is simply velvet night.

Chocolate Budino (makes 12 Budini or one large Budino) Ingredients
1/2 pound bittersweet chocolate cut into small chunks (I used Sharffen-Berger chunks)
3 large eggs
3 large egg yolks (which gave me an egg white omelette the next day - points for being thrifty & virtuous)
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
12 tablespoons unsalted butter - softened

Preparation
Place a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.

Grease or spray a 9-inch cake pan or muffin tin.

Place the chocolate over the top pan of a double boiler set over gently simmering water. Stir till melted.

In a medium bowl whisk together eggs, eggs yolks, sugar and flour until well -incorporated.

When the chocolate has melted, remove pan from heat and add butter, mixing until all is a deep brown and smooth. Add the egg mixture into the chocolate (I did the opposite) mixing well. Pour into prepared pans. If using muffin tins, fill half-way. (Which I did but next time I would fill them 3/4).

Bake 18-20 minutes if using a cake pan and only 11-12 minutes if using a muffin tin. You will see the edges start to pull away from the pan. Remove from oven and cool for ten minutes. To serve, place a pan over the in or cake pan and turn upside down. Quickly turn it back onto your serving platter. It is best served warm but I got the happy sighs when I served it at room temperature.

I served it with double Devonshire clotted cream and berries.

Remember how I complained over not taking good photos?

After the dinner ended, Kirsten came home stressed from work ("stress" being the predominant gene in this family).

"Chocolate! I need chocolate!" She popped a chocolate-muffin-budino is her mouth and then slathered cream on the last two.

She didn't care how it looked.

And then she covered it with raspberries and it looked better than my rendition that I like to think I did with care.

Go figure.

My "Project" continues to grow. I think it's the spot from the Cat in the Hat. And when chocolate is not readily available, this has been a grand week for looking out my window.

Check out what the other bloggers are doing to honor this week's game-changer Cat Cora and if you want to join in the fun, e-mail Mary at One Perfect Bite. Mary started this delectable journey.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast, Joanne - Eats Well With Others, Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed

Susan - The Spice Garden, Heather - girlichef,

Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney, Jeanette - Healthy Living, 

Mary - One Perfect Bite, Kathleen - Bake Away with Me

Sue - The View from Great Island, Barbara - Movable Feasts

Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds, 

Linda A - There and Back Again, 

Mireya - My Healthy Eating Habits, Veronica - My Catholic Kitchen

Annie - Most Lovely Things, Alyce - More Time at the Table; Amrita- Beetle's Kitchen Escapades
Jill - Saucy Cooks, Sarah - Everything in the Kitchen Sink

Martha - Simple Nourished Living

Ricotta Gelato for Small Bites Sunday

I have a three small bites for you this week but only one is edible. The other two are for your heart and mind.
- a peek into Stolen Figs and Other Adventures in Calabria by Mark Rotella
- a glance at the cookbook My Calabria by Rosetta Costantino with Janet Fletcher
- ricotta gelato (so rich that you need to have it in small bites - you've been warned)

I like my recipes with history and my history with stories so both books filled me with yearning for places still to come.

Political prisoner Carlo Levi (doctor, lawyer, writer, painter anti-fascist) was sent as a prisoner to Basilicata from 1935-1936. He characterized Basilicata and neighboring Calabria as "that other world, hedged in by custom and sorrow." His account as a prisoner in Basilicata (formerly Lucania) is the basis for his book Christ Stopped At Eboli  and was reviewed as "a starkly beautiful account of a place beyond hope and a people abandoned by history." "A kind of grey, El Greco beauty."

According to Mark Rotella in his 2004 book Stolen Figs and Other Adventures in Calabria, northern Italians do tend to think of both Calabria and Basilicata as "bereft of culture and economy - a burden on the rest of Italy." Having discovered his cousins in Calabria, Rotella spends months at a time visiting his family and getting to know Calabria from the inside out.

What he discovered was a land rich in rugged coastlines, mountains and forests. A terrain so wild that it only will yield if you have respect for it. Conquered over and over by Greeks, Arabs, the French, the Austrians, the Spanish and of course the Roman Empire itself, Calabria encompassed bits of their cultures and created a cuisine that gives a nod to their conquerors while at the same time celebrates what easily grows in their rugged terrain.

While the book sellers like to recount Rotella's lessons in how to make 'nduja, soppressata and how to steal a fig without committing a crime, Rotella's book is much more than a Tuscan sun travelogue. As Rotella grows to understand Calabria, he recounts bits of history, folklore and tales of humanity from the Calabrese that speak of sorrows mixed with joys. Pain and mirth co-exit side-by-side. Rotella recounts is beauties and its warts. There is generosity and slyness. (He even mentions the "M" word.) And there are figs and chestnuts and pasta and gelato.

He visits Cosena for a few days and eats at the recommended L'Arco Vecchio.

"My first course was an amazing fusilli, corkcrews tighter than even my grandmother had made with Calabrese sausage and tomato sauce.... the main course was pork fillets stuffed with zucchini and smoked scamorza cheese which tastes like a combination of provolone and mozzarella. An orange sauce had been drizzled over the stuffed pork and edible orange rinds garnished the plate. To finish the meal ... a tartufo di Pizzo, a chocolate and hazelnut gelato  molded around a soft, syrupy chocolate fudge, then covered with a crunchy chocolate coating and surrounded by small, tart, fragole di bosco, wild strawberries."

When I closed the last page of Stolen Figs (reading every so slowly as I neared the end knowing my time in Calabria was ending), I picked up My Calabria by Rosetta Costantino with Janet Fletcher and decided to cook. I needed a sweet for a family dinner. While I yearned for Rotella's Tartufo al Modo di Pizzo (ice cream truffle), simplicity won out and the ricotta ice cream would be made.

Gelato di Ricotta Stregata (Makes 1-1/2 quarts)
from My Calabria
(Ricotta Ice Cream with Strega)
(With no eggs but heavy cream this is almost more ice cream than gelato; this does not store for days so serve it the day you make it)

2-1/2 cups (560 grams) homemade ricotta or top-quality ricotta
1 cup (200 grams) sugar
1-1/2 tablespoons Strega Liqueur (I had to do the alternative below - no Strega Liqueur to be found)*
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
1 cup (250 milliliters) heavy cream
2 ounces (60 grams) Candied orange peel - chopped (optional) (How to make candied orange peels can be found here.)

In a food processor, blend the ricotta, sugar, Strega, vanilla and lemon zest until smooth. Scrape down ides of bowl and add the cream.Pulse to combine then scrape down the bowl and pulse again until completely blended.

If using, fold in orange peel. Transfer mixture to an ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer's directions. Freeze until ready to serve.

Strega is an herbal Italian liqueur. If unable to find, make a cannoli-type ice cream with chopped bittersweet ice cream and chopped, toasted pistachios. If doing the cannoli-ice cream, omit the orange peel.

I have yet to find a cookbook from Basilicata! My Calabria with its emphasis on olive oil, spicy peppers, bitter greens, polenta and sheep's cheese has been the closest I could find to my grandmother's cooking. The lure of My Calabria is not just the recipes (once considered "poor cooking" is now lauded - what goes around... ) and the recipes do beckon - but the journey of how the Calabrese through mean circumstances and foraging developed a delicious cuisine that could not have happened anywhere else would draw in any food-lover. The recipes for jarring and canning are a bonus - in true form - they wasted nothing.

So there's a wee bit of irony that from the land of peperoncini and soppressata, I bring you ice cream. But look at it all melted and creamy and yielding in the sun. Imagine it in the hot Calabrese sun...

It's worth the calories.

You might also like: Goat Cheese Ice Cream

Simply Sublime

This February 14th Day (known in some circles as "Single Awareness Day"), we'll be celebrating the orange. I have nothing against chocolate - in fact I am sitting in my kitchen in sweet bliss munching on Bissinger's Dark Chocolate Wine Grapes which counts as one of my fruits for the day.

But this Sicilian Orange Tart - sparkles - in aroma and taste. It brightens the kitchen - it lightens winter.

True - it emerges from the oven a wee bit homely. Lightly browned - asking for a dusting of confectioner's sugar. Chocolate shavings wouldn't hurt.

As winters go - we are a balmy 27 degrees F which is most welcome after two days of 1 degree F.

The only snow is in the back of the yard waiting for longer days of sun.

It's coming. But if the days are not long enough, this dessert brings the sun into the kitchen long after our nurturing star has left.

The Sicilian Orange Tart is from Giuliano Hazan's Every Night Italian. He promises "a refreshing and aromatic dessert that leaves a clean taste in your mouth. It has received rave reviews whenever I have made it."

The orange tart lives up to its press. My February-Minnesota kitchen was an orange grove for a few hours. My daughter was shocked that I was going to let it sit in the fridge over night - telling me I shouldn't tease her with baking aromas.

And it was easy - I am a non-baker who likes to estimate and add pinches and fistfuls of stuff - and not rely on things such as measuring spoons. But I followed the recipe and dotted my i's and crossed my t's and was rewarded with a smooth, sublime tart that gave me the warm Sicilian sun.

Sicilian Orange Tart (Crostada all'arancia)

Crust:

Grated zest of 2 oranges

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter cut into 12 pieces

3 extra-large egg yolks (I used large)

Pinch of salt

1 tablespoon ice water or more if needed (I needed 3)

Filling:*

2 extra-large eggs (I used large)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (the juice from the zested oranges is usually sufficient)

You will need an 11-inch tart pan with a removable bottom.

*If you can look past the sugar, this is breakfast. Orange juice and eggs. Check off another fruit for me and protein.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. For the crust: Zest your oranges. Make the crust by placing the flour, sugar, butter, egg yolks, orange zest and salt in the food processor. Process it until it is well mixed. Add the ice water and process again until a dough is formed. If the mixture is dry add a little more water - 1 teaspoon at a time. (I did need 3 teaspoons - not surprisingly as the kitchen is dry these days and the furnace was working away!)

3. Remove dough from processor (carefully!) and place it on the removable bottom of the tart pan. (Note: Next time I will spray the tart pan a bit.)  Using a rolling pin, roll dough until the dough is 1/4 inch thick - allowing the dough to extend over the edges. Carefully slide the removable bottom off the edge and lift it into the tart pan. Press the dough against the sides of the pan and trim any overhang.

4. Cover the dough with aluminum foil and weight it down with rice or dried beans (or pie weights!). Bake for ten minutes. Remove foil and weights and bake for another ten minutes.

5. While crust is baking, juice your oranges. Put eggs and sugar in the bowl of a mixer and beat at high speed until pale, yellow ribbons form - 2-3 minutes. Reduce speed to low and pour in your orange juice beating for 30 seconds to 1 minute.

6. Pour mixture into baked crust and place tart in oven. Bake until the filling is set and the top is browned - about 40 minutes. Allow the tart to completely cool before serving. Hazan advises putting it into the fridge - and I let if chill there over night. (Love make-ahead-desserts even if my daughter doesn't.)

And if your heart is set on chocolate for Single Awareness ... make that Valentine's Day, remember that President's Day is a good day for a tart... and Carnevale... and Leap-Year-Day... and you really don't need an excuse to make a tart. Everything should be celebrated, right? Surprise someone and make it "just because." But - do make it.

Strawberry tiramisu is amore

Happy Valentine's Day! I am in the midst, adrift, hither and yon and home again. Concocting herb-roasted ribeye roast, olive salad, asparagus Italiano, eating chocolates, writing articles, eating chocolates, gaining weight, eating chocolates and wondering how the bananas on the table would be covered in dark in chocolate (answer: pretty good). In between slicing and saucing and eating chocolates, I talk to myself in various fairy tale characters for my Brothers Grimm play. I am silly.

I didn't want to let Valentine's Day fly away in my giddiness without sharing with you the simplest of strawberry tiramisu recipes - one devised by my mother years before there was a tiramisu dessert.

My sister and I have summer birthdays and our cakes were always made with ladyfingers - a Grand Manier Cake, a Charlotte Russe cake and a Strawberry Shortcake.

Ingredients:

ladyfingers (12-18 depending if you are doing one big bowl or individuals)

one cup whipping cream

1 T sugar

1 t vanilla

4 oz mascarpone, room temperature

*2-4 T Kirsch (Cherry brandy) optional

1 cup seedless strawberry jam

1-1/2 quarts fresh strawberries, washed and hulled

Preparation:

Lay your ladyfingers in a decorative bowl. You can also use a highball glass and break a ladyfinger in half and lay it in the glass creating individual tiramisu parfaits. Add your sugar and vanilla to your cream and whip until soft peaks hold their shape. Fold or whip in your mascarpone.

Meanwhile, warm your strawberry jam (makes it easier to spread) and add your Kirsch if using. Simmer for a few minutes. Cool a tiny bit.

Brush 1/2 the jam over the ladyfingers. Add a layer of half the cream mixture. Layer another layer of ladyfingers ans repeat - the rest of the jam layer and then the cream. Top all with the strawberries. Let sit four hours or overnight. Serve.

Red and white, purity and love, heart and soul, winter-bright sweetness for you. And to close, a lovely ditty about love from friends to friends.

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie

That's amore.

When an eel bites your hand and that's not what you planned

That's a moray.

When our habits are strange and our customs deranged

That's our mores.

When your horse munches straw and the bales total four

That's some more hay.

When Othello's poor wife, she gets stabbed with a knife

That's a Moor, eh?

When a Japanese knight used a sword in a fight

That's Sa...mur...ai.

As a theatre geek, I did wince a bit knowing Othello's wife was not stabbed by a knife but the charm of the poem got to me - yep - an arrow through the heart. Hope everyone has a day filled with winter bright love and a little giddiness.

Panforte Recipe and a Mouse

Don't you just love looking at ingredients. They are welcoming - just waiting to be used. And then the miracle of chemistry begins. My father was always bemused about my choices in life. He is retired but was a chemist. Daughter #1 (that would be me) did not seem to have a science or math gene in her body. But if you think about it - I did. It just mutated. For cooking is chemistry. Where the theatre gene came from - is a mystery for the ages.

Meanwhile I cook. And bake more than I used to - or it's the season. Lately I've been craving panforte. Not the $25.99/per pound panforte found in the specialty shops. They are too sweet, too cloying for me. I want dense, rich decadent chocolate - without tons of honey. I do want the sweetener! But I really want the chocolate ... and hazelnuts.

So I made some. Except for warming the honey, it all comes together in one bowl.

`

Panforte Recipe

1/2 cup flour

2 T cocoa powder

1 t cinnamon

1 t nutmeg

1/4 t ground cloves

a bit of pepper

1 cup chopped (or whole) almonds

1 cup chopped hazelnuts

1-1/2 cups dried cherries

1-1/2 cups chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli semi-sweet; altho' tempted to use bittersweet)

1-2 T orange zest

1 T almond extract

1 T Marsala wine

1/2 cup (little less actually) honey

Panforte Preparation

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Coat a nine-inch brownie pan with cooking spray. Mix your cocoa with the flour. Add the spices and mix, then the nuts and then the zest and dried fruit. Add the chocolate chips and coat with mixture. Warm the honey in a sauce pan till almost boiling. Add your extract and wine and mix thoroughly. Pour warmed honey over prepared mixture and stir quickly to cover all. Spoon, scrape, pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes.

Panforte is done when edges pull away from pan and become a bit "cake-y."

Dense and rich, a little bit goes a long way.

And it went down well with a glass of wine.

Meanwhile, I am spending my eves with this mouse. His name is Stuart Little and I have an assortment of 17 young performers and five adult actors. It's - busy, high-energy, filled with giant ping-pong balls, huge combs, a gargantuan engagement ring and chock full of Stuart's adventures. I've been having a few adventures of my own with them!

`

Lovely bloggers have presented me with two awards which I shall happily display - after we open on Friday! Missing costume pieces, parents schedule for kid-wrangling, pot-luck for after the matinee and before the evening performance, publicity, shifts, photo call and oh yeah - the directing part have consumed me. And then there's this cookie-a-day I've been baking over at the Examiner. Which I know makes me certifiable for something...