Zeppoli and Stroufoli -- Add more flour as needed!

When I moved to Pennsylvania, I made stroufoli and zeppoli on my own for the first time, using my mother’s recipes.  Now, I'm no chemist but the egg/flour ratio that she wrote didn't look right to me. When I called to ask her about it she said, "When you do it, it will come out OK, you'll see." And, of course, she added, "And double the recipe because it never makes enough."

I put 2 dozen eggs and 8 cups of flour (double her original recipe) in a bowl and mixed it up. It looked too soupy to turn onto the counter and knead so I called her again. She said, impatiently, "Just do it, turn it over and you'll see, it will all come together."

So I did as I was told and the soupy flour egg mixture ran over the counter and down the sides. I was using my whole arms to gather it in the middle of the kitchen island while I poured more flour until I could make dough.

I called her back and told her this and she said, "Well, you know I just estimated the amounts. You have to add a little more flour as needed."

Here's a better estimate of the ingredients and please, if it looks like it needs a little more flour, add it before you turn the dough onto the counter!

Always make the Zeppoli dough first because it has to raise.

Ingredients for Zeppoli: 
4 cups flour
3 packages of yeast -- dissolve in 1/2 cup of warm water and let it bubble before adding to the flour
2 Tbs salt
Oil for frying (sunflower oil works best)

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Add more warm water to make a very soft, stretchy, sticky dough. Let it rise about two hours. (While you're waiting for it to rise, make the stroufoli dough and shapes)

Always fry the zeppoli first, because the stroufali dough has eggs in it and ruins the oil.

Heat the oil in a deep saucepan.  Put a little COLD oil in a small bowl so you can dip your fingers in. This will keep the dough from sticking to your fingers. With your hands, pick up a small piece of dough -- about a tablespoon full -- stretch it a little and drop it gently into the hot oil. Turn the zeppoli to brown on both sides.  Put them in a brown paper bag to absorb the extra oil.

Stroufoli: 

Ingredients:

1 dozen eggs
8 cups of flour and ADD MORE AS NEEDED!!!!
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder

Mix all ingredients until smooth and ADD MORE FLOUR as needed to make a soft, smooth dough.
Turn it on to the floured counter top (only when you're sure it's dough, not soup) and knead until smooth.

Let the dough rest about 20 minutes. Then, roll strips between your hands and cut into 1/4 inch nuggets. Make sure they're all the same size in honor of Gram! For pinwheels, roll dough out to a thin circle and cut into inch-wide strips, about 10 inches long. Pinch the dough together every inch and then twirl into a circle. You can also make bows by cutting the long strips into 3-inch pieces and pinching the middle.

Put all of the creations on floured trays. After you finish frying the zeppoli, fry the stroufoli in batches until golden brown.
Put it all in a brown paper bag to absorb the extra oil.

To serve the stroufoli and zeppoli:
 Mix two parts honey with one part water -- so if you empty a jar of honey into a pot, fill the empty jar halfway with water and mix with the honey.  Heat over medium heat and add the stroufoli in batches and boil for a few minutes.  Transfer to a serving dish with a slotted spoon. Decorate with colored sprinkles.


Enjoy! Just a note -- we rarely made Christmas cookies but enjoyed the stroufoli and zeppoli instead.

Me oh my! I love Pie!

I love the little song about pie that Dorothy (Andie MacDowell) sings in the movie, "Michael." 

Pie, pie me oh my! Nothing tastes sweet, wet salty and dry, all at one so well as pie!

Apple! Pumpkin! Minced and wet bottom. I'll come to your place every day if you've got 'em. 

Pie, me o my, I love pie!

The week of Thanksgiving, everyone asks for the pie recipes -- namely apple and pumpkin. The secret is the crust. My mother made a crust so good and rich, you could eat it alone. And it really enhances any pie. 

It inspired me to write a book about pies as part of a project for the US Embassy Vienna  and a subsequent video on making an apple pie. Here's the link if you want to make a pie along with me! 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v= 8qbyUVzIfhs

Anyway, here's the famous crust recipe.  This recipe will make the top and bottom crusts for one pie, or two crusts for open pies. 

Ingredients: 

1 cup (two sticks) butter

2/3 cup white sugar

1 egg yolk

3 cups of all purpose flour

pinch of salt

1/4 cup of ice cold water

Mix butter and sugar. It can be lumpy. Mix in the egg yolk. Add the flour and salt and sprinkle the cold water over it. Knead into a crumbly dough. Press about half of the mixture in the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie pan. Or you can roll out the dough into a 1/8-inch thick circle and place it in the pan. Crimp the edges with your fingers or a fork.  Fill with fruit, top with the rest of the crumbly mixture and bake about 1 hour at 350 degrees F. 

For apple pie: Peel, core and slice 8 to 10 red delicious apples (I use these because they don't require much
more sugar.)  Put the apples in the prepared crust. It should make a pretty high mound of apples -- it sinks when it cooks.  Put dots of butter on the apples. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon. Cover with the remaining pie crust. Just press the crumbly mixture loosely over the apples to cover completely.  Sprinkle the top with cinnamon. 

Bake! Let it sit for a few minutes after you take it out of the oven. 

Enjoy!!!

Look at these two cuties who made the apple pie!

Bruschetta (Tomato Stuff)

Long before it became trendy for restaurants and party hosts to serve Bruschetta, my Mother was making her tomato salad, which we called, the Tomato Stuff.

This is one of those recipes you have to try a few times to make sure you get the ratio of ingredients right, according to your taste. Also, don't try to substitute ingredients. You have to use fresh garlic and basil, RED onion and real olive oil if you want it to come out right.

The recipe was never written down. We all just made it by sight and taste. But Aunt Carm did write her recipe, which she said is the best. I agree.

Bruschetta Recipe:

5 plum tomatoes -- ripe but not soft. You can substitute beefsteak or other red tomatoes. Take out the seeds and mushy stuff.
5 cloves of garlic (give or take)
1/4 of a medium red onion. (Don't use a yellow or white onion.)
1/3 cup of fresh basil leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 to 1/3 cup of good extra virgin olive oil (Don't use corn or canola oil.)

Chop tomatoes, garlic, onion and basil and put in a large bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste and olive oil. Mix gently.  Cut a baguette or Italian bread into thin slices. Serve with the tomato stuff.

The Feel Good Cake

 The Feel Good Cake

 This cake is so delicious, so rich and so comforting, that my mother called it, “The Feel Good Cake.” Whether she made it plain or filled with chocolate-nut streusel, it was impossible to resist. She kept it in one of those cake servers with a glass dish on the bottom and a metal-domed cover that ceremoniously clanged when it was lifted.  It always brought joy to lift it and see one of these beautiful cakes. She baked it when someone was sick, recovering from childbirth, to celebrate an event, or just because she had the ingredients.

We're not sure where the recipe came from but my mother could bake it with her eyes closed. She wrote the recipe in her notebook but never looked at it.

 One year, she baked it in loaf form for all of our teachers for Christmas.  The school's secretary saw the cake and accused my mom of stealing her recipe. My mother was indignant. "I don't use a recipe," she said.

One of the grammar school nuns, upon tasting it, wrote a note, "Thank you for the wonderful fruitcake." My mother was equally insulted by someone calling her best cake a fruitcake.

 Try this recipe and you'll see why...

Ingredients: 

1 stick of butter
1 cup of sour cream
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Filling: 

1 cup chopped walnuts
2 Tbs sugar
2 tsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cinnamon  

Mix butter, sour cream, eggs, vanilla and sugar until smooth and creamy. Add flour, baking powder, and baking soda and beat until smooth.  In a separate bowl, mix the filling ingredients. Grease and flour either a bundt pan or loaf pan. Put half the mixture in the pan. Sprinkle the filling, covering the whole surface, reserving 1 tablespoon of the filling.  Put the rest of the cake batter in the pan. Sprinkle the reserved cocoa mixture on the top. Bake in 350 F oven for 45 minutes. Check with a knife to see if it's done. 

I hope this makes you feel good!!!

PS: I had some extra batter and made muffins too. Notice the cake server. Clang! 

Mom's Incredible Stuffing!

No one makes stuffing like my mother did. Loaded with extras, it's the star of the Thanksgiving dinner. This is one of those recipes that I believe she created and everyone in the family has improvised on, adding favorite ingredients.  And, of course, it's one of those dishes my mother cooked without a measuring cup or spoon. So here are the ingredients and estimates about how much of each you should use. I'm basing it on one bag of stuffing, although, with our family, we usually use two!

Ingredients:
2 bags of Pepperidge Farm stuffing -- either regular or cornbread (or if you're using two bags to cook for a crowd, then use one of each).
1 package of sweet Italian sausage
1 cup of walnuts, coarsely chopped (you can substitute pecans or pine nuts too)
1 cup of raisins or craisins
1 cup of celery
1 one large onion
1 package of white mushrooms
1/2 stick of butter

Boil the sausage until cooked through, about 30 minutes. Take them out of the water and slice them into thin circles. Save the water!
While the sausage is boiling, chop celery, mushrooms and onion into bite-sized pieces and mix in a large bowl with nuts and craisins. Don't cook this!
Boil the sausage water again, adding more to equal about 2 cups. Add the butter and simmer until it melts. Remove from heat and add the stuffing all at once and toss with a fork to wet all of it. It should be mushy, but not watery.
Add all the other ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon. Put in a big glass or ceramic pan and cover with aluminum foil.  About 30 minutes before the turkey is done, put it in the oven to heat it through. The veggies and nuts will give it a crunchy texture and the sausage and craisins/raisins will give it a salty and sweet flavor.

I hope this becomes your family tradition, too!

The Gravy -- A Monfiletto Family Traditional Recipe

My mother and Aunt Ro called it, "The famous, delicious gravy that cooks for 4 hours!"

It would be impossible to manage Monfiletto family recipes before mastering The Gravy.  Yes, it's gravy, not sauce, for our family. I can't tell you how many non-Italians have been confused by this. One friend thought I was referring to some kind of brown meat drippings and pictured a plate of macaroni covered with it. Ugh.

In our case, this is a traditional tomato gravy with three kinds of meat. We serve it over spaghetti, raviolis and macaroni in all its forms. We use it to make lasagna, too.

Since it needs to cook about four hours, you might as well make a big pot of it and freeze the leftovers in smaller containers for future meals. My mother used to make it on Thursdays and save half of it for part of our Sunday dinner -- you know, the first course, the pasta. NB: Gravy tastes even better the second time it's cooked.

Ingredients

Gravy
8 large cans crushed tomatoes (Puree in a blender if you want a smooth gravy)
8 cans tomato paste
8 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed
1 Tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 Tablespoons Italian seasoning
1 Bay leaf (remove before serving so no one chokes)
Olive oil
Italian sausage, about 12 links
Meatballs
Breast of veal, cut into pieces (optional)

Meatballs: 
3 pounds of chopped beef (or beef and pork mixed)
1 cup of Italian seasoned breadcrumbs, softened in milk
1 sausage, squeezed out of its case
3 eggs
3 teaspoons garlic powder
3 teaspoons parmesan cheese
3 teaspoons parsley
salt and pepper

How to:
Put 8 cans of crushed or pureed tomatoes in a large pot.  Add six garlic cloves, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning.  Drizzle olive oil over the top.
Bring to simmering over medium heat and then lower to low heat.  Stir occasionally. My mother threw in a carrot or whole potato because she said it absorbed the tomatoes' acidity. (Remove before serving so no one gets a potato instead of a meatball by mistake!)

Meanwhile, make the meatballs by mixing all meatball ingredients with hands until soft and completely combined. Roll into balls with hands. Bake on aluminum foil-lined baking sheet at 350 F until brown, about 15 minutes.  Cook the sausage and the veal, if using, in the oven with the meatballs, until cooked through, about 30 minutes.

Back to the gravy:
In a big frying pan, put enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan, add the rest of the garlic and start to simmer.  Add all of the tomato paste and stir to combine, bring to simmer and remove from heat. Stir into big pot of tomato sauce.  When meatballs, sausage and veal are browned, add to gravy and simmer for at least 2 more hours, preferably 4. You can add a little of the meat drippings for extra flavor.

Note: You can add or substitute beef short ribs for the meat. Brown first in oven or frying pan and then add to gravy. Simmer 4 hours. We picked up this version during a trip to Naples and Dennis perfected it.

Note 2: This is the real gravy, despite what anyone else in the family says. I learned to make this with both my mother and my grandmother and I'm probably the sister who cooked with both of them more than anyone else.

"It might choke Artie but it ain't gonna choke Stymie!" (The Little Rascals, June 1932)

Artichokes!

I remember watching this episode of The Little Rascals and feeling sorry for Stymie because he didn't know how to eat an artichoke.

Here's a clip: Stymie and Artie

Call me weird but when I was little and my Mom asked me what special food I wanted on my birthday, I always said, "Artichokes!" Most kids back then didn't even know what one was, let alone mastered eating one. But we all loved them. My poor mother had to find an artichoke in September, well after the end of the season.  Sometimes she did.

Spring is artichoke season. In Italy, the city street markets are filled with many different types than we see in the U.S. The fields are bursting with them.  And restaurants are serving them up.

Here is the basic way my mother made the big, round ones that are common in America:

First, cut off the stem and make sure the bottom is flat so it will sit in the pot.  Then cut off the top to get rid of the pinchy leaves.  Next, with kitchen shears, trim the pinchy top off all of the remaining leaves.  Rinse the arties and pull the leaves open slightly.  You can stuff them with Italian seasoned breadcrumbs or leave them naked.

In a large pot, put enough olive oil to cover the bottom. For four arties, add about 5 cloves of chopped garlic.  Place the arties in the pot. Drizzle olive oil over them.  Put enough water in the pot to go halfway up the artichokes.  Add about a teaspoon of salt to the water. Cover, bring to a boil and then lower the heat to let them simmer for about an hour.  You'll know they're done when you can pull a leaf off easily.

My mother also stuffed them with meat -- use the same recipe as you would for meatballs. Stuff it in between the leaves, add about a tablespoon of tomato sauce and sprinkle parmesan cheese on top of each one and then cook as directed above.

Here's a little something I learned about traveling through Europe -- fried artichokes.  We first tasted them in the Jewish area in Rome in 2004 and my youngest said it was just like eating potato chips. Dennis and I tried a few times to do this with the big round artichokes like the one above, but found you have to cut off a lot of leaves and waste a lot of the artichoke to make it edible, even after frying.

Then we took a trip to Barcelona, Spain, and had fried artichokes at a tapas restaurant.  They used the smaller artichokes with softer leaves and sliced them very thin. I tried this and it worked. 

Don't wash the arties before frying unless you plan to leave them to dry upside down overnight. Cut off the tops, then cut the hard outer leaves away on a diagonal, leaving the bottom of the outer leaves and the inner leaves that are soft enough to eat.  Next, slice them very thin from top to bottom. Dredge the slices in flour and shake off excess.  Fry them in a pot of oil until they turn golden and crunchy. Drain on a paper towel. Sprinkle with salt and enjoy.

Stymie and Artie