Crostata Al'Arancia

For me, impatience is a mood.
Sometimes, I hit this beautiful, laid-back, patient mood where I could wait forever and not turn into a cranky ball of unpleasantness.  When that happens, anything I decide to cook is gold.  Recipes are followed to a tee, read with care, and made with love.  But that happens extremely rarely. Because my thoughts toward food are generally "get in mah belly!", the part where I have to wait for physics to happen and things to turn delicious is usually quite difficult for me.

So today, when boredom struck and my mind turned to images of buttery, crunchy-gooey crostata, I obviously did not want to wait the hour the recipe told me to refrigerate the dough before rolling it out and putting it in the pan.  So I didn't, and guess what, it turned out delicious anyway.

I made this with orange marmalade because the boyfriend gave me a ton of oranges from his orchard in Sicily and so after gorging myself on them I turned the rest into copious amounts of jam.  This crostata is the perfect outlet for jam or conserves of any kind, so feel free to mix up the filling however you like.
Adapted from La Cucina in Sette Volumi, Dolci e Gelati

Crostata al'Arancia

300 g flour

1 egg

150 g sugar

175 g butter

1 jar orange marmalade

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, egg, and butter cut into small pieces.  You should probably use your hands to do this, making sure to incorporate the butter into the flour by squeezing it between your fingers.  Once the mixture has formed a dough, wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for about 1 hour.
Butter a pie dish and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Remove the dough from the refrigerator and cut off 1/3 of it, putting that third back in the refrigerator.  Sprinkle flour on the counter and roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1/4 inch, then line your pan with it.  Spread on the orange marmalade.
Take the remaining 1/3 of the dough out of the refrigerator and roll it out as you did for the other dough.  Cut it into thin strips and place them in a lattice on top of the marmalade filling.
Bake for 40 minutes. Enjoy!

Off to Italy!

It's finally summer!

For me, summer doesn't start when school ends, but when I touch down on Italian soil.  Every year of my life I have gone to Catania, Sicily for the summer, and this year I am switching it up and stopping in Pisa for two months before heading down to Sicily.

The secret to good Italian food is simplicity.

It’s all about the quality of the ingredients, because most Italian recipes call for little alteration of the starting material.  These past four days I have been staying at my uncle’s house in Livorno, a city near Pisa, and I have really come to realize the huge difference high quality ingredients have on the flavor of the food.  At his house I ate very simple things: pasta with pesto or tomato sauce, raw scampi marinated in a little lemon juice and fruity olive oil, and boiled green beans with potatoes, all accompanied by the classic salt-less bread unique to Tuscany.  My mom wasn’t fond of the bland bread (being from Sicily she tends to think everything is better in Sicily), but I thought it really allowed the flavors of the food it accompanied to shine, and also highlighted the nutty flavor of the wheat itself in the bread.

He also had the most wonderful balsamic vinegar I have ever had, the kind that comes in a tiny bottle and has been aged for years, leaving it with an almost honey-like consistency and flavor.  Anything you put it on becomes instantly awesome.

Even the pasta itself was the best quality, Garagnano brand, much better than Barilla. 

There's no recipe this time, but you should just find the best ingredients and whip up something delicious!

Frittata di Spaghetti

What foods do you bring to the beach?

It would make sense to bring light things that don't give you a food belly resembling that of a 9-month pregnant woman, right?

If you're in Sicily, that logic won't fly.

Sicilians love their pasta unconditionally, and this nonsense of it having a bloating effect does not faze them in the slightest.  When they make a day trip to the beach (which is usually not very far from home, lets be honest) they bring along a nice, heavy baked pasta dish for a hearty lunch to fuel many more hours under the sun.

This pasta al forno, or a baked pasta dish, can be eaten warm or at room temperature, and it gets better the longer it sits.  There are tons of different types of pasta al forno you can make, but today I am bringing this quiche-like version to you.  It's seriously delicious, made with spaghetti, eggs, cream, vegetables, and cheese, and just as good cold as it is warm.  You can feel free to vary the vegetables you use according to your tastes.  

Frittata di Spaghetti

100 g cooked spaghetti

olive oil

125 g sliced mushrooms

1 red pepper, diced

80 g frozen peas

6 eggs

250 ml heavy cream

parsley

grated parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Butter a round pan of about 23 cm in diameter.

Sautee the mushrooms in about 1 tbsp of olive oil for 2-3 minutes, adding salt to taste.  Remove the mushrooms from the pan and use the same pan to cook the peppers, also adding salt to taste.  When the peppers are almost tender, add the frozen peas and cook until the peas are done.  Add the mushrooms back to the pan and mix all the vegetables together.  Set aside.

In a bowl, beat the eggs with the cream and add salt and pepper to taste, then add the cooled cooked spaghetti, chopped parsley, and about ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese.  Add in the vegetables and mix everything together.  Pour the mixture into the greased pan and sprinkle the top with more parmesan cheese, then bake for 25-30 minutes.  
Serves about 4.

La Sbobba

When you think of what an Italian grandmother cooks, what comes to mind?  Is it a big bowl of meat-heavy pasta covered with copious amounts of various cheeses?  Is it rustic cakes and cookies prepared by her loving wrinkled hands?

I wouldn't blame you for having this idea of grandmotherly cooking, but if you came to dinner at my nonna's house, you would be in for a rude awakening.  Now it could just be that my grandmother is unique and doesn't represent all Italian grandmothers (and that is probably the case) but for dinner she usually makes us boiled greens, usually the ugly outer leaves of the lettuce she pulls from her garden, sauteed with some boiled potatoes and stale bread.  Now that may sound terrible, but it actually is quite delicious and satisfying because the staleness of the bread allows it to soften and absorb all the flavors in the pan but still maintain structural integrity, giving the whole dish a sort of stick-to-your-ribs feel.  This is pretty much the ideal example of rustic, frugal cooking.

My grandmother makes sbobba with any leftover vegetables and odds and ends she has, but in order to qualify as a "sbobba", it needs to include the stale bread.  It seemed fitting to make this, the namesake of the blog, its first post!

You can feel free to put any vegetables you want into this and even any kind of bread.  For example, I have made sbobba from sweet potatoes, greens and stale pita bread before, and once I made one with stale cornbread!
This is a very loose recipe and it is very approximate, so feel free to modify it however you want.

La Sbobba

1 bunch swiss chard (or any other leafy green vegetable)

2 potatoes

stale bread

2 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)

olive oil

salt

Start with the potatoes: Boil the potatoes until they are easily pierced with a fork, drain them and peel them.  Set aside.
If your stale bread is very hard, you may need to soak it in some water or broth before being able to cut it into chunks.  My bread was extremely hard, so I used a small amount of broth to moisten it before adding it to the pan.
If using swiss chard, separate the leafy part from the stems and chop up the stems and leaves.  Heat about 1 tbsp of olive oil in a pan and sautee the stems on medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until they are tender.  Once they are tender, add the chopped leaves and sautee until they wilt.
At this point, chop the boiled potatoes into chunks and add them to the pan with the chard, the chunks of bread, salt to taste and the pepper.
Cook the whole thing until the flavors have melded together, about 4 minutes, depending on how crispy you like your potatoes and bread.

Serves about 4