Escarole is a favorite green in many Italian families.  Some of the more popular ways to prepare escarole are in soup, with beans, and as a simple salad.   The escarole in our garden has been ready for a few weeks now and we have been enjoying it to the fullest!  One of my favorite ways to prepare escarole is cooked with bread.

Here’s what you need:

• Fresh escarole
• Extra virgin olive oil
• garlic
• day old bread or stuffing bread
• salt and pepper

Here’s what you need to do:

Add a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to a pot with some chopped garlic and let it simmer for a few minutes.  Wash your escarole and chop it into pieces, then add it to your pot making sure the escarole is still wet as the water will help steam the escarole.  Cover and stir occasionally until your escarole becomes tender, then add your bread or stuffing bread, salt and pepper (crushed red pepper if you like) and let it simmer for several minutes until the bread becomes soft.  Simple and delicious!  Drizzle a little fresh olive oil on top if you like. It makes a great side dish or main course with some fresh bread.

If you haven’t entered to win the $50 Venetian Mask gift certificate, you still have time (see post below.)  I have extended the deadline until tomorrow at 5pm EST.  Here’s what you need to do to win:

• You need to leave a comment on the Venetian Masks post
• And either retweet the post (upper right corner of the post) or mention the giveaway with a link on your blog or facebook page.

One of my all time favorite Italian songs… Ornella Vanoni singing l’appuntamento.  Classy, romantic and beautiful.  We played it during our cocktail hour at our wedding… you don’t need to understand Italian to appreciate this wonderful song.

If you grew up Italian, you probably have a relative that forages for wild plants and mushrooms.  I was lucky enough to tag along with my father, uncles and nonno when I was a kid to learn from them and to this day, heading into the woods has remained one of my favorite pastimes.  So yesterday I headed out to a favorite spot of mine in search for some wild edible plants.

My targets were 2: asparagus and morel mushrooms.  I know where to find the first but the second has managed to eluded me once again (stupid Morels!)

The Asparagus are ready! As you can tell from the photo, these asparagus at one time were farmed. They are much different than the ones we found in Calabria.

read how we came across this wonderful field of asparagus last year.

When we got the asparagus home, we cooked them up and wrapped them in prosciutto!  (of course we did… it makes them more Italian.)

The morels are still a mystery… but I will find them someday.  Here are a few other wild things I came across.

Wild Onions (I think they are officially wild garlic… but they look and smell a lot more like onions to me)

Wild Onions were everywhere!

Wild Mustard Greens … little late when they’ve flowered.

Wild Carrot

Wild Strawberries will be ready soon!

Orpine – The leaves are great raw or in salads.

It’s true: Italians like foraging for wild things.

]]> http://italyville.com/2010/05/stuff-italians-like-wild-edibles/feed/ 12 http://italyville.com/2010/04/cooking-with-sopressata-spaghetti-alla-carbonara/ http://italyville.com/2010/04/cooking-with-sopressata-spaghetti-alla-carbonara/#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 16:39:01 +0000 Joe http://italyville.com/?p=1489 Do you ever have those days where you think: What are we going to cook for dinner?  You need to go grocery shopping, you didn’t take anything out of the freezer and you really don’t want to make anything that takes too much effort.  Spaghetti alla Carbonara is the perfect dish for such an occasion!

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Do you ever have those days where you think: What are we going to cook for dinner?  You need to go grocery shopping, you didn’t take anything out of the freezer and you really don’t want to make anything that takes too much effort.  Spaghetti alla Carbonara is the perfect dish for such an occasion!

I haven’t made Spaghetti alla Carbonara in a long time but a few weeks ago I was visiting Chef Chuck and noticed the great new videos on his blog.  I watched him cook a Carbonara and told myself I had to make it again soon, so last night – I did.  It’s a great tasting, easy to cook recipe that the whole family will love!

Here’s what you need (serves 2):

• 1/2 pound of spaghetti (I like Spaghetti #12 because it’s a bit thicker)
• 1 onion
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• diced sopressata, bacon or pancetta
• 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup of grated parmigiano or romano cheese
• salt and pepper

Here’s what you need to do:

• Add 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to a large saucepan and simmer your onions, garlic and sopressata for 10-15 minutes over low heat until your onions are caramelized.
• Beat your egg and grated parmigiano cheese together in a bowl and set it aside.
• Cook your spaghetti separately and then add it to the saucepan with your onions, garlic and sopressata.
• Pour the egg and parmigiano over your spaghetti and mix it all together. The hot spaghetti will cook the egg as you mix it all together.  If it’s too thick you can add a splash of pasta water (the water you cooked the past in.)
• Add salt and pepper to taste… remember that the sopressata (bacon or pancetta) is already pretty salty, so you probably won’t need to add much salt.

Pretty simple right?  Make sure to visit Chef Chuck and see him cook it on video.

Oh, did I mention that the Sopressata is ready?? We won first prize AGAIN! Do you want to try it? I’m giving one away so this is what you have to do to participate.  Comment on this post by Friday at 5pm EST and retweet this post by clicking on the retweet button in the upper right hand corner (you’re not on twitter?!!? Get it together! you’ll need to sing-up now won’t you?)  I’ll choose a winner at random… for US participants only (sorry but sending meats internationally isn’t easy or cheap!)

PS – Chuck gets a sopressata for the inspiration. Thanks Chef!

When my parents were growing up in Calabria, they didn’t have much and when it came to cooking, nothing went to waste… especially since they grew up in large families (mom is one of 8 and dad is one of 6.)  Many of the foods and recipes that they made came with them to the US and became a part of our meals.  The cycle in my family goes a little something like this:

• Young child:  put food in front of them – if they like how it tastes, they eat it, if they don’t, they won’t
• Teenager: tell them what you’re making – if they like the sound of it, they’ll eat it, if they don’t they won’t
• Adult: if it tastes good, who cares what it’s called or what it sounds like or what it is.  IT TASTES GOOD.

Gizzards are one of those foods and in this economy, a great way to save a buck.

What you’ll need:

• Gizzards
• olive oil
• 1/2 onion – chopped
• 1 clove of garlic – diced
• red wine
• salt & pepper

What to do:

Gizzards are very tough, so start by boiling the gizzards for 1 hour.  Once you’ve boiled them, add a splash of olive oil in a sauce pan or frying pan with your onion and garlic.  Let them simmer for a few minutes and then add the gizzards and enough water to almost cover the gizzards.  Then add a splash of red wine and your seasonings… I used salt, pepper and adobo (which is an all-spice.)  Bring to a simmer, cover and reduce the heat to low for about 15 minutes.  Then uncover your gizzards and let the water reduce for another 10-15 minutes.  Cut up a nice loaf of bread and pour yourself a glass of red wine… enjoy and buon appetito!

The last of the fresh black olives from California were still available this week, so we bought a few cases to cure for the holidays.  These are colossal  Sevillano Olives from Penna (some are almost prune size) and a little banged up, so I’m making them 2 ways.  I’ll put the better olives under a simple brine (sott’acqua) and the olives that are more bruised we’ll dry out (al forno.)

We cured some green olives earlier this year that are ready and they came out great!

What you’ll need:

• a five gallon bucket
• knife
• salt
• crushed red pepper
• fennel seed
• 5-10 whole cloves of garlic
• water

Rinse your olives and then make 3-4 vertical cuts in each olive to quicken the cure process.  Place all the cut olives in a 5 gallon bucket and fill your bucket a little over half way with water. Add almost a full 26oz container of salt, handful of fennel seed (optional as I know fennel is one of those hate it or love it spices) a sprinkle of crushed red pepper and your garlic cloves.  Now you need to weigh the olives down so that they stay submerged in the brine.  We cut another 5 gallon bucket in half and drill holes in the bottom then insert in into the olive bucket and it works well.  You can also use a plate or something of similar size to weight the olives down.  Let them sit for 2-3 weeks and give them a try to see how they’re coming along.  They are usually perfect after about 3-4 weeks but keep them submerged until serving.

I’ll post again on the dried black olives. Enjoy and buon appetito!

It’s sometimes difficult to keep on top of your Italian language skills when you’re away from Italy, your family and others that speak Italian.  I find that listening to music and reading are a big help… especially if you enjoy it.  Here’s a song from Alex Britti called “Piove” that I like.  Hope you enjoy it as well.

So I managed to wipe out my entire hard drive last week… to add insult to injury, I have a back-up drive but never got around to hooking it up.  All my photos (that I didn’t upload to snapfish) including some of the “fantastic photos” I had yet to post (sorry) and much much more.  I also had several emails from readers that I hadn’t replied to, so my apologies to you if you wrote to me and I didn’t reply.  Damn you hard drive!  But life goes on.

After roasting my hard drive, we roasted and jarred some red peppers.  Here’s the link from last years post on how we roast our peppers. It’s a simple process that is time consuming but  well worth the effort!

From my inbox:

*Joe C. from New Jersey has a couple fig trees that have produced a whole lot of figs (lucky Joe!) and he’s looking for a fig jam recipe.  I don’t have one but maybe someone can help Joe out.

*Michele D. asks for the family sopressata recipe…. let’s not get crazy Miche.  How many times do I have to tell you… there are no recipes.

*The Debate continues… I’m talking about THE DEBATE – Sauce vs. Gravy.  Todd thinks Gravy is cRaZy and Stacy grew up using Gravy in Boston.

* “How to be a Good Italian Daughter” by Antoinette LaVecchia is playing in New York City.