Can you smell it ? breathing in the ocean

Seafood is something I was raised around. My father loved seafood, shellfish in particular and growing up in Milan, in a valley, closed to lakes and sweet water fishes,but far from the seaside and crustaceans, we learned to truly savor those summer at the seaside, where seafood was almost part of our daily diets. We were taught the difference between fresh or frozen seafood, our palates trained toward the right choices, fresh and local. Nothing else would do, nothing else should really do. I remember my father explaining "if you can smell the fish, you should not eat it, it should just smell like the salty clean water, that's how you know it's good!"...And I have to say, the only two times I did not smell my seafood before cooking it I got sick......and bad seafood can really hurt, if you haven't experienced this, please take my word for t!    And shellfish in particular, it holds a lot of bacterias, clams and muscled are bottom feeders, they need to be perfectly fresh, tight when bought, kept cold and washed thoroughly before even being cooked......kind of a pain...but totally worth it!!!!! 

The muscles I got are local to Carlsbad....and they looked amazing....so good I got 3lbs of them. After scrubbing them clean I ran cold water over them while i made my soffritto. 1 onion, thinly sliced, 4 to 5 cloves of minced garlic, 1/2 red bell pepper cut in small dices  and a fennel bulb cut into four pieces. I cook them together in a dutch oven pot with 2tbs of extra virgin olive oil for a few minutes then added 3/4 of a bottle of white wine. I wanted something somewhat sweet to compliment the fennel so I chose a french white table wine that sells at wholefoods for $11.99, Vallee Loire - VOUVRAY -  Chenin Blanc...and it worked perfectly!

I turned the heat off and let everything simmer and combine for 20 minutes before turning the heat back on and adding the muscles and 1/2 cup of chicken stock. 

I cooked the shellfish in the soffritto and wine for about 7 minutes, occasionally stirring but mostly keeping the lid on to steam all of the muscles open. I turned the heat off and added about 3/4 of a stick of butter. I allowed the butter to melt, added the juice of one lemon and freshly chopped flat leaves italian parsley. make sure you SERVE ONLY THE MUSCLES THAT HAVE OPENED,DISCARD THE REST. Enjoy

fresh hairloom tomato caprese pasta salad

Summer, summer ,summer indeed!
This is a perfect dish to cool off with during those hot summer days. I saw this on the cover of " living" magazine and simply had to make it myself. It just looks stunning, nothing is brighter and cheerier than the colors of ripe heirloom tomatoes. And nothing quite sweeter.
For the pasta I chose curly lasagna sheets simply because they look pretty. I boiled in water for 11 minutes according to the direction on the package....(whole foods brand ) then I ran them under cold water in a colander to stop the cooking process.
In the meantime I sliced a colorful assortment of tomatoes and placed them on a serving plate with some organic capers, organic fresh mozzarella disks. Once the pasta felt cool to touch I cut the sheets  into square pieces and put them on the plate with the other ingredients. I sprinkled some salt, a little black pepper, some extra virgin olive oil and of course some freshly sliced basil......
Light, Refreshing...and certainly pretty.

Honeydew and vodka soup...

This is the perfect way to start any Summer Dinner. A nice mixture of  soup and  cocktail, did I mention is super quick and easy? You can impress any guests with the vibrancy of its colors and elegant presentation.....and it won't take you more then 5 minutes to make it!

All you need to do is take one honeydew cut into pieces, 2 TBS of extra fine sugar ,the juice of one lime and 1 shot of vodka. Combine all the ingredients into a blender and pulse until smooth and evenly combined. pour into a soup bowl, garnish with Cantaloupe ,fresh mint and creme fraiche. I suggest serving with prosciutto wrapped grissini.

Quesadillas Italiana

What I love about tortillas is that they are so versatile. They can help turning any dish from just about any cuisine into a virtually mess - free perfect dish. Available in corn, flour, and now so many flavors, they are the perfect tool to turn any old fashion dish into a mobile perfectly hand sized creation.
This is another very simple dish that plays on the contrast of sweet and savory using one of my favorite flavor pairing, Figs and Prosciutto. If fresh figs aren't available you can always substitute for a fig spread although, the playful texture and natural sweetness of figs can't be copied.

A taco size flour tortilla, filled with one slice of prosciutto di parma, one fig( thinly sliced ) , a smear of Caprino cheese, a creamy Italian Goat cheese, and 1 slice of Monterrey Jack cheese  grilled on each side for about 2 minutes or until clear grilling lines are formed. I chose to serve it whole as a main dish, but it could easily be cut into 4 triangles and served as an appetizer.

Bourbon bratwurst

Bourbon and sausages, the two giants of good ol' American culinary culture. Both staples in the everyday Americana, so to speak. It only seemed fair they'd crash at one point....and so here they did creating the perfect balance of rich sweetness brightened by a delicate kick of cayenne and smoothed by a touch of amber agave.
I chose to brown the sausages in a pan with a TBS of extra virgin olive oil to create a nice crispy texture on the outside of the meat, and then slow cooked the sausages to maintain the softness inside the casing.
 I diced a half of a large sweet onion and tossed it in a sauce pan with a little olive oil and 3 cloves of minced garlic. I moved them around for about a minute or two, not long enough for them to brown, then added my sausages to the pan as well with 1 cup of bourbon and 2 cups of chicken stock.
I left the heat on MD for about 30 minutes with the lid on. Then I added 2 TBS of Amber Agave and 1 1/2 minced fresh cayenne pepper to contrast the sweetness of the agave and the Bourbon and I cooked the sausages for another 30 minutes.
Then I thinly sliced the remaining half of the onion and sauteed it for a few minutes until tender and golden. I set those aside. I took about two strained scoops of the sauce from the pan and cooked them down with 1tbs of unsalted butter and 1/2 tsp of flour to thicken the juices to a creamy sauce consistency. I plated the sausages, placed the onions on top of them and poured my creamy bourbon sauce, I finished the plate by drizzling a little agave and sprinkling some freshly chopped parsley on top to create a little touch of color to the plate.....and had a few shots with dinner....like I said, whiskey and sausages go very well together :)

Crudite...all'Italiana

We've all heard the saying "everything tastes better with bacon"....and well, who can argue?
the salty crunch of a little bite of bacon is great....however i find the delicate combination of saltiness and sweetness that prosciutto brings to a dish even more interesting and its soft textures makes prosciutto more adatable to a broader scale of recipes.
So like a true Italian would say, "Everything tastes better with prosciutto"...or better "Tutto e' megliore con un po' di prosciutto!"....

PROSCIUTTO WRAPPED CRUDITE

for this appetizer you can use a wide variety of seasonal veggies. I chose baby lettuces, orange and yellow bel peppers (thinly sliced) ,carots (thinly sliced), cantaloupe (thinly sliced and removed from skin) and fennel bulb ( also thinly sliced and cleaned from the greens).

the idea is to keep each wraps to a bite size appetizer that will look preety and will not be too messy. For the fennel and the bell peppers i suggest wrapping no more than 3 slices with a slice of prosciutto and for the baby lettuces a little olive oil and lemon helps adding extra flavor to the wrap.

Once all the wraps have been made and placed on a serving dish i sqeezed a little bit of lemon and drizled some home made basil olive oil. Some freshly ground black pepper also adds to the presentation.

prosciutto wrapped figs

It's kinda funny to think I had sworn that I would never eat figs again!...hahahaha

I am the youngest of three, and as such my duty growing up was to climb on top of barns and chicken coops with the help of old wiggly ladders, and of course the loud direction of my fathers trombone-like voice, to pick just the right (as you probably guessed) figs, and apricots too.

The hard work wasn't what scared me, it was, well, the combination of my acute fear of heights and the fact that I am allergic to bees, bees tend to hover around fruit trees. And if this wasn't bad enough there was my mother's compulsive need to make jams, not for our family, but for an entire army even though we were a simple family of 5!

I remember the restaurant size steel pot, steaming up the kitchen during the already hot summer days, the sound of the simple sugar bubbling and popping, the smell of the fruit slowly taking over the humid air...quite a beautiful painted memory indeed!

I also remember asking my mom for strawberry jam, which happens to be my favorite, and I recall her answering " yes, just after we finish the apricot (or fig) jams I made". That usually didn't seem to bad, until I opened the cabinet and saw what to a child seemed like a million jars of the same homemade jam.  Though excessive they were nothing, I meam NOTHING, like Smucker's!!!! NOTHING LIKE IT AT ALL!

But now, 30 years have passed and what I wouldn't give to re-live those moments, what I wouldn't pay for my senses to experience  once again all of those overbaring sensations.  

And the figs, my grandfather's figs....my shaky knees climbing up rung by rung with my eyes shut tight worried I was going to fall....all of these memories come back every single time I cook with figs. They hold such a dear place in my heart....on pizzas, in salad or wrapped in prosciutto and grilled for a few minutes as in this appetizer. Such a nice balance of sweet and savory in each bite, an amazing combination of textures  that add such intrigue to a dish so simple... the mysteries, so to speak, behind every simple family.

red white and...greek

So I'm sure you guessed I made this for the 4th...the red white and blue all American theme should have given it away, but I do make this though out the summer. Mostly because I have a 5 year old daughter who loves to help me cook and well, while she's not old enough to turn on a burner she can most certainly mix a few ingredients.

It is a win- win situation, she has a blast putting on her play pretend chef 's outfit and i get to do less work and enjoy a great fruit salad.

All I had to do was cut the jicama in small pieces and halve the strawberries. she washed them ans mixed in the blueberries. Her favorite part was to scoop out 3 tbs of jogurt,( I chose my favourite Greek jogurt, rich and creamy ) 1 tbs of honey and 1 tbs of sugar and mix them well together...:( with her hands...

She wanted pretty cups to make it "seem like a party" and what's prettier than a martini cup?

Lighten up your day with the perfect summer salads

TERYAKY CHICKEN SALAD

It's summer, the temperatures are rising and the yearning to fire up the grill is ever so powerful.

This is when we leave behind the hot cozy soups, the over - filling steamed rice for the refreshing taste of salad...but not just any salad. One whose taste will leave you wanting more, a salad that will make you forget about those old teryaki bowls, at least until next winter.

I chose to grill chicken thigh filets,those pieces already come cleaned off the bone which allos the meat to cook faster and skin free, well which just cuts a whole lot of calories I don't want to have during bikini season. To shave off even more calories chose thinly sliced breast pieces, I went with dark meat because it usually stays more moist.
I placed my chicken pieces in a mixin bowl and poured enough teriaky sauce to cover each piece nicely and I added about an inch of freshly grated ginger then  I let them marinate in the refrigerator for about an hour. I fired up the grill a little bit before putting the meat to allow the temperatures to reach a medium.
I placed the chicken on the grill and cooked it for about 30 minutes turning each piece often in order to not burn the teryaki sauce and giving it a bitter taste. Once done I allowed the meat to cool down in order to not wilt the greens of the salad. While that was happening, I prepared my greens, some thinly sliced napa cabbage, some green onions and some ginger/soy snap peas. Those were easy as well, i mixed up some fresly grated ginger, one minced garlic clove and 2 tbs of soy sauce and I coated a couple of hanfulls of snap peas. After mixing well i put all the mixture in a grilling basket and cook for about 6 to 7 minutes, just until they were softer but still nice and crispy. I then put themin an ice bath to stop the cooking process.
I cudes a nice avocado and added that to my salad bowl with the sliced chicken filets once cool to touch. For dressing I smimply mixed, salt and pepper to taste, 2 tbs of red wine vinegar, 1 tbs of extravergin olive oil and about atsp of teryaky sauce to make the dressing a little sweater but still very light and refreshing.
to this day this is one of my favourite salads!

watermelon cocktail

Nothing screams "summer" as much as a nice, cold and juicy watermelon!
I bought one of those small sedless watermelons and put it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours as soon as I got home. Once chilled I cut it in a half and balled it and put it in a mixing bowl with about 2 shots of vodka, a little lemon juice, some of the watermelon juice and about 10 leaves of basil from my garden......Seved in a nice glass it makes the pefect summer cocktail!

What does your childhood smell like?

On my morning drive to work I heard this news caster talk about the importance of smell. He was explaining how "smell" is the strongest of our senses and the most commonly used  in reference to memories. He was trying to show how some of our culinary preferences are not solely based on our sense of "taste"but somehow triggered by "smell" awakening certain dear memories....and YES! I can see that!

I was at work, walking toward the back room as I passed the mushroom display and there they were, these huge perfect meaty Porcini mushrooms. I suddenly had the urge to run my hands through the basket and the smell they left on my hands just instantly brought me back to those rainy days in Italy. The smell of the rain evaporating from the browning reddish leaves on the floor, the mud accumulated from the fertile rainy season....a wide eyed 6 year old following her dad...exploring the woods, listening to wild stories. And the earthy steam coming up from my mom's stove every Sunday morning before church when she would start slow cooking her Rabbit stew and the porcini risotto which are to this day my favourite dishes ever.....And even as strong is the recollection of the warmth that would built up in the kitchen after a few hours.

So here it is, my mom's risotto....

The most complicated part of this dish is the cleaning of the porcini, which is quite time consuming, but definitely rewarding. Just like those saturday evening after a long day in the woods, I sat at the table with a bowl of cold water and soaked the halved porcini for a bit. Once all slippery, I took a spoon and cleaned out the porous part underneath the cap. here i rinsed them under cold water and sliced them into pieces of the desired sized for cooking. This is the tricky part....at times once the mushrooms are sliced you can find little dark spots or holes. If so, break the part where the hole is to see if a worm is still inside.......and rinse it out if so. I guess the meatiness of porcini is quite mouth watering to them as well! :). I cook the mushroom separately in dry white wine for about an hour with the lid on before I start the rice.



Take a sauce pan and glissen 1/2 a yellow onion,diced, 3 cloves of garlic, minced, and about 2 handfulls of Arborio rice per person. This takes about 2 minutes, do not allow the garlic or the onions to brown because that will add a bitter taste to the risotto. add about 1 cup of chicken stock and 1 1/2 cups of dry white wine and the cooked porcini mushrooms.

 Trn the heat down a bit and cover the pan with a lid. Cook down, stirring every 4 minutes or so, do not allow all the fluids to evaporate. Taste the rice to make sure it's ready before turning the burner off. You might have to add another cup of stock, always make sure that when the rise is cooked it is still moist. Add a little bit of saffron and parmigiano reggiano to taste.