"Photo" synthesis: Tunisian pepper and tomato salad, with seasoned beans

So, can anyone figure out where Annalena is going with her typically cute title?   Ah, we're going to look at some pictures as we make this recipe.  And, ragazzi, this is one that Annalena implores you to make, especially if you are a vegan.  And if you are gluten free,  make the substitution she suggests:  you will not regret it.

Everyone speaks of the tomatoes:  they cannot wait until the tomatoes are ripe, and juicy and... DELICIOUS.  And Annalena prays at that church.   But let us not forget a vegetable that often is neglected:  peppers.  Frankly, ragazzi, peppers are one of Annalena's favorite things to eat and to cook.  She probably gets that from her grandmother.  Peppers were a staple of Nana's cooking, and she made them with everything:  pepper and eggs; peppers and veal; stuffed peppers; pepper and beef.  For Nana, it was almost always green ones, probably because red ones cost more, and at that time, ragazzi, those were the colors.   There were no orange, or yellow, or purple ones. We had green, and red, period.

There are people who say they don't like peppers because they can't digest them.  Generally, they speak of green peppers, and raw ones.  Annalena suggests that if you aren't quite sure about  peppers: in other words, if it is a digestion thing, rather than a taste thing, start with cooked, ripe peppers (red ones , yellow ones, and orange ones, all start as green peppers, ragazzi.  This is also true with jalapenos :  green jalapenos will turn red if you let them).   If that works, go to the raw ripe ones, and then maybe try some cooked green ones.   And then, you can try this dish.  It is truly wonderful.  And Annalena has to thank Martha Rose Schulman and the folks at Rancho Gordo, especially Steve Sando, for inspiring this dish, which is a synthesis, of recipes from both of them  (getting it yet, ragazzi?).

Ok, let's start by collecting our ingredients.  You need a pound and a  half of bell peppers, of different colors.  This is probably about three peppers, and you want three different colors anyway.  In the recipe that follows, Annalena used red, yellow and orange.  You also want a pound of tomatoes.  Nice, firm, ripe ones.

Next, we are going to oven top roast them.  And this is how you do it:

Annalena finds it easiest to roast her vegetables right on her stove burner.  It does make a mess, but we deal with that.  Turn the flame up high, and use  your tongs to move the veggies around.  The tomato will take very little time, the peppers, much more.  Many recipes suggest you blacken the peppers entirely.  In Annalena's experience, this results in the pepper burning.  So don't worry about completeness:  if more than say 70% of your peper is blackened, move to the next one.    Put these guys in a bowl, cover it with plastic, and let it cool down. 

While the peppers are roasting, you could get to work on your dressing, or you could wait. You need 3 large garlic cloves, peeled and cut roughly (you can reduce this if you like), a  1/4 teaspoon of caraway seeds, and twice that of coriander seeds.  Put these in a little coffee grinder, and pulse it.  If you don't have one of these, you can use anything else that you use for grinding things, but it's difficult to find something to do this with such a small quantity.  What you CAN do, however, is take the garlic and spices, and mix them with the juice of a lemon,  the same volume of olive oil, and a half cup of chopped fresh parsley.  That will give you the volume  you need to do these in a food processor or blender.  In any event, you want to combine all of these, taste them, and then add salt. 

Annalena wants you to know that this is a salad dressing, and it's wonderful.  So if you don't make this dish, make the dressing anyway.  

Remember those vegetables?  Okay, get back and peel them.  The skin will rub off when you use your fingers, and if it's stubborn, use some water.  Some cooks feel this dilutes the taste of the peppers.  Perhaps, but Annalena will give that up for the convenience.  Get rid of the crowns on the peppers, and cut them into strips.  Put them into a bowl, and get to work on the tomato or tomatoes.  To the extent you can, get the seeds out of the beast.  Then, cut the tomato into strips as well.  Mix those with the peppers, and then pour the dressing over them.   If you wanted to, you could take a rest now, or you could go directly to the couscous, or rice step at the end. 

But if you want a complete meal, now you want three cups of cooked beans.  Annalena used pinto, but use what you got.  Preferably, you've cooked them yourself.  Don't tell Annalena if you didn't.  Put a few tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, and when it's hot, add a small onion, sliced up.  Put the beans in, together with about a quarter teaspoon of saffron,  the same amount of cumin, and a tablespoon of fresh herbs, or more.  Annalena used thyme, but the recipe called for oregano. You make the choice.  Cook these all together over a low flame, until the bean liquid is gone.  Taste, and season. 

Final step - almost.  Make couscous.  Is there anyone who needs to be told how to make couscous?  Ok:  take two cups of water, and bring it to a boil. Add two cups of dry couscous.  Turn off the heat and go away for five minutes.   We won't go into making rice here, but make rice if you don't use couscous. Make four cups. 

Now, we can have some fun.  Remember those marinated vegetables?  Well, drain the juices from them, and mix it into the couscous (this tastes SO good).  put the couscous , or the rice, on a plate, add some veggies, or stir the veggies into the couscous, and mound the beans on top of them.  And, this is what you get:  

Ignore the toasts at the side, but look at what's at the back of the plate. 

Decidedly vegan,  can be gluten free, and just about off the charts with deliciousness. What's not to like?  

Try it.  It sounds ambitious, but it's really not.  Play with fire today.  You'll get a good meal out of it. 

Fear of frying: pasta with fried zucchini, vinegar, capers and mint

Do any of Annalena's ragazzi out there remember an ad campaign called "Wessonality?"  The point of the ad was that if you fried with Wesson oil  "it all came back except one tablespoon."  In other words, when you poured the oil back after you cooked your food,  you were missing one tablespoon.

Now, a few things ragazzi.  First, the ad used chicken as a marker.  Chicken releases fat when it's frying and it also takes fat into the coating. So, there was no way to know what was absorbed. Second, ANY oil, not just Wesson, will behave that way, if you cook properly .

Annalena is making these points because as you read the recipe, you will see it calls for one cup of oil.  Now, don't get all nervous on her.  What follows is a picture of what she poured back, after she finished frying:

Annalena wants you to know that this is a jar that holds nine ounces.  So a cup (8 ounces), would not fill it completely anyway.  But you see the point:  the oil did come back.  Most of it.  Some of it wound up on the paper towels that she used to adsorb the fat, and the final dish, was not greasy.  So, ragazzi, when frying, here's the trick:  make sure your oil is hot enough.  How can you tell if you don't have a thermometer?  Annalena recommends the wooden spoon test:  turn your wooden spoon (or spatula), upside down, and put the end of it in the oil.  If furious - and she means FURIOUS- small bubbles are forming, you're at about 350, which is generally a good temperature for frying.  Less furious bubbling is about 325, which is good for oils like olive oil, which break down faster.  And use enough oil.  Again, this is something that is odd, but true:  if you do not cook with enough oil, your food will absorb it  (eggplant is especially notorious for this).  If you use enough, it won't soak it up.  There are probably reasons for this, but we won't explore them here.

Annalena got this recipe from the website of David Rocco, who in turn got it from a place called Villa Maria, in Ravello Italy.    Annalena thinks that the recipe is Sicilian, and she's calling on her gal pal Melissa (who's restaurant Eolo you should visit), to confirm this.  All the signs are there:  the frying, the zucchini fried to almost feel like meat on your tongue, the capers, the vinegar, the mint.  This, in Annalena's frame of reference, is Sicilian summer cooking.    So here we go.  This is going to make you four servings if you have a standard appetite, or three if you're eating a lot (as Annalena, the Guyman, and Vinnie the doorman from heaven did ).

You need a pound of zucchini.   Now, when Annalena says zucchini, she means any small summer squash.  She used zephyr, which is yellow and green today.  Use what you've got, but try to get smaller ones.    You also need three tablespoons of capers.  Annalena uses the salted ones from Pantelleria, so she soaked them for half an hour, and changed the water half way through.  Finally, you need mint.  If she could, Annalena would be using the wonderful nepitella from Italy, which is, alas, near to impossible to find here.  In fact, in shopping for fresh mint on Saturday, she ran into the converse problem that her friend Tarek (aka  "TA DA") did:  she could NOT find fresh peppermint or any other mint but spearmint.  The Guyman has issues with spearmint, but he did fine with this.  If you really adverse to mint, remember that basil is in the mint family and make a switch.   You need a good handful of the leaves, and chop them.

Now, we're gonna cook.  Slice your zucchini thin.  While you're doing that, get a cup of olive oil (not the stuff you paid 40 bucks a bottle for), in a wide frying pan.  Start heating it (look above for how to tell when it's hot enough, gang), and get a plate or baking sheet ready with some paper towel, or newspaper (if it's Sunday), to drain the zucchini.  Get your hand as close to the oil as you are comfortable doing, and put in the zucchini. One layer, no doubling up.  (if you drop the vegetables from far up, you will risk splashing yourself and getting burned. Trust Annalena on this).  As the zucchini brown (you'll be able to tell:  the edges change color very apparently), turn them and cook some more. All in all, a layer will not take more than three or four minutes.  As they're done, put them on the paper, and immediately sprinkle salt on them.  This is a restaurant trick:  the salt almost seems to "melt" and hold on the veggies.  You won't need much, because of the capers, but there it is.

Now, when the zucchini are cooked, drain off the oil, and clean the pan.  Put it on one burner, and start a pot of water to boil, big enough to hold a pound (or, half a kilo) of dried pasta.  Long ones.  Annalena used tagliatelle from farro.  Spaghetti, fettucini, trenette, they'll all do here.  Put a couple of tablespoons of fresh olive oil in the pan , while the water is coming to a boil, and then add 3/4 of the zucchini. Drain the capers, and add them.  Pour in 2-3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar  - don't use white, and don't use balsamic, or sherry.  Just good quality red wine vinegar.  Most of it will go off, but some of it will stay, and flavor the zucchini.  Add about 3/4 of the chopped mint.  When this is all done, turn off the heat.

Cook the pasta to the point where it's just a bit more aldente than you would want it, because we're going to finish it in the sauce.  Drain it off, and save about half a cup of the cooking water. You may need it , although Annalena didn't this time.  Turn the heat back on your sauce, and then toss the pasta in it.  Add the water if you think it needs to cook a bit more, and just before you serve it, add back the reserved zucchini and mint.  This is what Annalena got:

You think you could eat that?  Annalena could have eaten the whole pot.  Remarkably, it did not feel like it needed cheese - a VERY odd thing to Annalena's palate, but the Guyman concurred.

You can use that oil, by the way, one more time.  So if you like this dish and you're looking for what to do with the zucchini this time of year (and who isn't)? , well, make it again.  Or cook some eggplant.  Or squash blossoms.  But get to it , ragazzi.  No more fears, no more tears.  Make it today.   Baci...

Two sides for all seasons: ginger carrots and cheesy potatoes

Well, ragazzi, here she is again.

A couple of weeks ago, before things were more challenging than usual, Annalena prepared two side dishes that, as she thought about it, were both of the season , and not.  Thinking about it a little further, she realized that these dishes stand the test of seasonality:  carrots and potatoes are with us always, and while they change, you can always find them at your farmers market.  "New" potatoes and "new" carrots come out in late spring/early summer.  They have a delicate flavor, almost dare you to peel them and skin them, and don't ask for much.  Later in the year, as they grow, they take a bit more work.  You WILL need to peel them, and you will need to spend a bit more time, especially with the carrots.  Yet, they will both reward you amply, as rounding out whatever meal you are making.

Who does not like potatoes?  Annalena suspects there are one or two souls out there who don't like them.  Now, let's separate "I don't like" from "I don't eat."  Potatoes, like all carbs, get a bad name because... they're carbs.  If you choose not to eat them, that is of course your option; however, do not confuse that with not liking them.  You like them.   You know you do.

Carrots sort of  fall into a different place. No one will admit to not liking carrots, but they are, as Annalena has said before, one of the "forgotten" vegetables.  We sort of assume they're there, eat them when they're put in front of us, but think more of  Bugs Bunny than good eating.

Carrots are good eating.  Restauranteurs have discovered this, as you will not from the 9.00 plates of carrots you can get as side orders at many restaurants. They brighten up a plate, and as Annalena found out when she posted the picture that follows, they make people happy.  They make people want to eat them.  And she hopes that they make you feel the same way.

Here come the pics, and then, the recipes:

Both dishes are very easy.  You could make them in the same meal.  In fact, they probably could BE your meal.

So, which one should we start with? How about the carrots?   You'll need a pound of carrots (we'll get to types in a minute), fresh ginger, about two tablespoons of unsalted butter (although the unsalted is not writ in stone), and a pot to cook them in, with some salt.

Really challenging, huh?  Here's what you do.  Get whatever carrots are available and look best, but please, do NOT buy those "baby carrots" that you can find in bags at the supermarket.  Do not be deluded: these are not young carrots.  They are pieces - the junk really - from processing carrots, pressed and shaped into molds to look like small carrots.  Here's the rule ragazzi:  if it looks too perfect, it's not real.  You can get  young carrots at this time of the year.  They have long inedible roots on them.  They have skin.  Usually, they have greens attached. They are NOT fluorescent orange.  That's what you buy.  And if you're doing this later in the year and all there are, are soup carrots (big monsters that you could use to cudgel someone to death), use those.  If you get them with greens attached, remove them immediately and give them to your local rabbit or compost them.  Annalena has been told that you can treat them like parsley.  Let her know if you do.

You want carrots or carrot pieces that are about 1-2 inches long, and about a half inch thick.  Do what you have to do to get there.  If you need to cut and slice, do it.  Now, you probably don't.  And of the skin.  Well, taste one.  Does it taste like it needs to go?  Are you spitting out mud?  If so, scrape em gently.  If not, don't bother.  Just get your finished carrots into about an inch and a half of boiling, salted water.  Some say that as carrots are a root vegetable, you should cover the steaming pot.   Annalena does not agree.  Lower the heat to medium low, and let them cook.  If your pot is too shallow for them to cook in a single layer, move them around every couple of minutes.  They are ready when you can take the end of a knife and barely get it into the center of the bigger one.

Drain them, and if you happen to have soup in mind for later in the week, save that water.    Now, move that pot aside and get out a pan.  For a pound of carrots, melt two tablespoons of butter, and toss in a knob of ginger.  No slicing, just a knob about a half inch long. Swirl it around in the butter, and then add the carrots.  Keep em turning, and when you see the carrots and the butter beginning to brown,  turn off the heat.

Get your grater, get the ginger root (USE FRESH), and just go to town.  Use more than you think you'll need.  Ginger , especially fresh ginger, is a strong ingredient, but Annalena finds that heat drives off the good flavors.  So use a lot.   Incidentally, she also finds that she doesn't need to peel the ginger.  (And, just this week, fresh ginger has come into the market.  This is very perishable, very delicate, and very expensive.  Use it and savor it).

Put these next to your next cut of meat, and smile at how happy  you are for eating something you forgot about and which you enjoy.  And know what?  These are awfully good for you (which is NOT true for most veggies, ragazzi.   Truth be told, you'd be better off eating potatoes than green beans).


And now, let's turn to the potatoes.  Again, let's look at what we've got.  You want potatoes that weigh at least about 3-4 ounces each.  That's 4-5 potatoes to the pound.  You can use bigger, but the size given is ideal.  Now, let's look at the peel.  Take one and rub your fingernail on it.  Does the skin come off?  If the answer is yes,  you don't need to peel them.  If the answer is no, you still don't have to, if you like potato peels.  YOU DO NEED TO WASH THEM THOUGH.  Even the organic ones.  Potatoes produce more  toxins in their peels than any other vegetable: they protect themselves from predators that way.

Ok, so your taters are ready.  Cut them into half inch slices.  You can see the form in the picture before.  Put these into cold, salted water, and bring it to the boil.  Again, Annalena does not cover the pot.  You want to cook them the same way you cooked the carrots:  get some resistance from the knife. It will take 5-10 minutes.  Drain them, and let them dry.  Keep this water if you're going to bake bread, because there's something in that water that makes your bread rise so much better than plain water does.

Preheat your oven to 450.  Meanwhile, dump the potatoes onto a baking sheet, and be generous with olive oil and salt, and get your hands in there.  Coat every surface, and don't be cheap with either ingredient.    Then put everything into the oven.  You'll hear some sizzling, and after ten minutes, move them around.  You'll see some browning on the part resting on the sheet.  Try to get as much even browning as you can, but this is a dish that works really well with taties that are not uniform.

While this is happening, grate yourself some parmesan and some pecorino: say a half cup of each (it's not as extravagant as you think).  Mix them together.  When the potatoes are done, dump them in a bowl, just like you see above , and toss them with the cheese, and a few grinds of fresh pepper.  Some of the cheese will melt, some will not, and you will have another dish that will make you hug yourself, and wonder why you didn't make more.

Ragazzi, you can put these in the bank as solid "go to" sides.    We all need them.  You can do it.  Now do it!

soup or sauce, or sauce or soup, part II: pappa al pomodoro

Last time, ragazzi, we took a recipe for a soup, and turned it into a sauce.  This time, we're going the other way, and we turn sauce, to soup.

Although there is a debate as to whether or not this is a soup.  You make it and you decide.

Pappa al pomodoro  is an Italian classic, born out of a situation of abundance, and poverty.  And Annalena shall try to explain what she means by that.

If you are growing your own food, you come to a situation where something is coming in, in such quantities, you may feel rich.  And that is what happens with tomatoes, carini.  But you may have very little else: olive oil, garlic, basil, stale bread.  And that is what you need for this.  

You can leave the bread out if you are making sauce, but for heaven's sake do it the full way one time.  But do know that there are about 3 million recipes for this out there.

Here is what Annalena's looked like when she was done:

Now if that looks like something you wanna eat, let's get started.  You need a large onion - one which will yield about two cups of  chopped onion when you're done, and about six cloves of garlic.  Next, you need a half cup of good quality olive oil, and you need bread.  Annalena deliberately staled some country white bread for this.  Her original recipe called for breadcrumbs.

That is not going to happen.    You also need a big bunch of basil, and most significantly, a food mill.  You might be able to leave out the food mill, but try it.

Ok, here we go.  Chop up the onion, and then peel and chop the garlic.  Keep them separate.  Use the RIPEST tomatoes you can get.  If you go to the farmers market late in the day, you can frequently get exactly the tomatoes you want:  the soft ones that they don't want to take home with them.  You're going to need 2 pounds for this recipe, but if you ask the farmer for a deal on 2 pounds of tomatoes, Annalena shall smite you.  Buy ten and make sauce.  Or make this over and over again.

Cut the cores out of the tomatoes.  And then cut them up roughly.  They get separated as well.  Now, take that bunch of basil and pull the leaves off of the stems.  The stems are more important to this recipe than the leaves, and you wanted to make pesto anyway, didn't you?

Put the half cup of olive oil in a pan or pot at medium heat, and add the onions.  Let them cook for a while, and when the begin to soften, add the garlic, and cook them together for about three minutes.  Pull out about half a cup of the solids.Then add the tomatoes, and the stems from the basil.  Lower your heat and let this all cook together, stirring occasionally for fifteen minutes.  Add salt along the way.  As this cooks you will get tomato sauce with a "tang" of basil to it   You can't however, use the basil stems in  your sauce, so if you're stopping at sauce, pull the stems out.

But if you're making soup, pull out that food mill.  Put the stuff through the coarse one, and push, push PUSH. You'l get about three cups of what will be essentially the purest tomato juice you will ever get.

Now, remember that bread?  Ok, cut the crusts away and toast them later for crumbs.  Use the soft part, and break it into little tiny bits.  If you have kids, or grandkids, they will love doing this.  Annalena thinks.  You want about 2.5 cups of bead bits.  Put the juice back into the pot or pan, and over low heat, stirring all the way, add the bread bits.  Then turn off the heat, and let the thing sit for ten minutes.

You've got pappa al pomodoro.  And you've got good eating, as you participate in a time honored tradition. Garnish the soup with a little bit of basil leaves.  Don't eat this hot.  Eat it at room temperature (the way Annalena likes it), or cold.  But make it, and eat it. You'll be glad you did.

sauce or soup? soup or sauce? Who cares, let's use the tomatoes

Ah, it is that time ragazi.  Yes, it is truly summer when Annalena cannot find enough ways to use the tomatoes fast enough.  As a result, she is "forced" to make and eat many tomato salads.

Life could be worse, huh?

Seriously, Annalena equates summe with tomatoes.  When she cannot get local, field tomatoes anymore, summer is over.  And she mopes. And sulks.  And gets upset that she didn't do more.

So, when tomatoes are rampant, so, too, are the eggplants. And Annalena has a CSA.  For those of you who are familiar with these, you know what that means:  yup, ragazzi, a box filled with eggplant as big as Annalena's not insubstantial forearm.  There is only so much eggplant parmagiana one can eat, and Annalena is still working on the surfeit of eggplant.  What follows, however, is a recipe that uses both. And, let her point out at the start, this is a vegan recipe.  And it can go two ways:  you can make it a sauce (which is what Annalena did), or you can make it into a soup (which is it's original intention).    You have, here, a picture of the beast in sauce form:

 If Annalena does say so herself (and she does), it is delicious.  You will be cutting and peeling and chopping a bit, but this is worth it.  As a sauce, you'll get about six cups.  As a  soup, up to ten.  So, who's with Annalena and ready to make something yummy?  She dedicates this recipe to her cousin in law,  Liz, and to her cugina vera, Kim, who got the one Annalena missed .  Let's go ladies:  roll up your sleeves (if you got em), tell the kids to watch tv, and let's cook.

You're going to need three pounds of plum tomatoes (we do NOT use  heirloom tomatoes when we cook:  they will work, but why do you want to lose the flavor and color?)  Cut them in half, and toss them in a big bowl, with a bunch of carrots that you've cut into small chunks.  Now, add the cloves from two bulbs of garlic.  You can do this two ways:  you can peel them, which will make things easier at the end, or you can leave em whole, which will complicate your life a bit at the end.  What does your schedule say?   

Ok, now toss all of these with a couple teaspoons of salt, and a couple tablespoons of olive oil.  Preheat your oven to 425 and then, dump this all onto a baking sheet.  If you want to make things MUCH easier on  yourself,  put the tomato halves skin side up, and use parchment paper.  You will not regret it. 

Put that one aside, while you do the next one:  you chop up about 2 pounds of eggplant into chunks.  Don't peel it.  You want the chunks about bite size.  Put these in a bowl, together with a cup and a half of cooked chickpeas.  (the original recipe called for canned:  if you must, take a 16 ounce can and drain it.  Annalena made hers.  Now, combine those with two teaspoons of curry powder, or more - especially if you're going the soup route.  Again, line a pan with parchment paper, and lay the stuff out on it, after you've stirred another two tablespoons of olive oil into it. 

Put these into the oven, and roast them for 45 minutes or so.  Switch positions about half way through.  Your kitchen is going to smell wonderful:  first the curry, and then the tomatoes, and then the subtle, but unmistakable smell of baking eggplant.  You'll feel very exotic, so if you feel like dancing the Dance of Seven Veils, make sure the kids aren't around. 

Ok, so you've baked the stuff for 45 minutes. NOW, what do you do?  Well, you let those things cool down, first of all.   And when they're cool, peel the skin off of the tomatoes.   You are permitted to marvel at how easily they come off.  If you didn't peel your garlic, squeeze it out of the skin, right onto the tomatoes. 

The tomatoes, the carrrots, and the garlic are going into your food processor, and get it going.  If you want soup, now you start adding water.  This is going to break down your tomatoes even further.  You will want to add cup measures, and probably stop after three.   If you had particularly dry tomatoes, you may need four. 

This is going to cut the salt of the tomatoes, so now taste that liquid, and add more as you need it.  

Now, just dump all that eggplant and chickpeas into the tomato soup.  You may want to add some more curry.  In fact, if Annalena makes this again this year, she will do just that.  

As she says, six cups of sauce, or ten cups of soup.  You know what that means, carini:  it means sharing, or freezing. 

As Annalena said, this is a vegan recipe.  (Did she say that?  She doesn't remember).  If you use it as sauce, and put it on dry pasta, made southern Italian style, you don't have any eggs in it, and you're still vegan.    And that is how Annalena did it.  And if you're watching your gluten, well, go for the gluten free pasta. 

Next one goes the other way:  we're going to turn a sauce into soup, and make an Italian classic.

Saving the bounty: fruit compotes

Every summer, it happens to Annalena, and more than once. All of a sudden, there is more of "X" than she can possibly use.  What "X" is changes from year to year.  This year, it was cherries.  See, the cherry season is short, but when it's here, it's HERE with a vengeance.  This year, the season has been longer and way more, well, "fruitful" than usual.  You add to that the deliveries that Annalena gets from her "cherry of the week" club (yes, she belongs to one:  every week, for about a six week period 4-5 pounds of cherries arrive. Every week), and you have a ton of the guys lying around. 

Fortunately, David Lebovitz (to who's web site Annalena again commends you), came to the rescue.  He, too, has found himself with boatloads of cherries, and without enough time to eat them, or things to do with them.  It was from Mr. Lebovitz that Annalena got the idea for what follows.  David suggested turning "excess" cherries into compotes, and freezing them.  Indeed, that is what Annalena did.  But her overabundance did not stop there:  the boatloads of apricots,  the peaches, the nectarines, and the berries, not only threatened to take over the refrigerator, they had indeed taken over the refrigerator.  So, over the past few days, she has modified the original recipe, and made a cherry compote, one of apricots and berries (rasp and blue), and one of peaches, nectarines, and black currants.  They are pictured below. The one by itself is the peach/nectarine/black currant.  In the picture with two, the one on the left is cherry, and the one on the right is the one based on apricots.  

So let's get to work.  The hardest thing you will do is pit the cherries.  Annalena has a cherry pitter that offers some protection, but you'd best wear clothes that you were planning to  throw out anyway.  Annalena pitted two pounds of sweet, and one pound of sour, cherries.  If you don't have a pitter, you can do just as well, by hitting the guys with a knife and tearing out the pit.  Shape is not relevant here.    And you don't have to do three pounds. 

Put them into a non reactive pot, and add a cup of sugar.  Annalena added this much sugar because of the sour cherries.  The "rule" for doing this is a quarter cup of sugar per pound of fruit.  That "rule" changes depending on how sweet your fruit is, how sweet you like your fruit, and so on.  

For the apricots and berries, Annalena had a pound of apricots, cut into pieces, and a pint of mixed berries.  They went into the pot with a half cup of sugar.  More on this below. 

For the peach/nectarine extravaganza, Annalena did not weigh things, but she had seven stone fruits, and a scant half pint of black currants, off the stem.  (She had needed two tablespoons to make currant vinegar).

To this, she added half a cup of sugar. 

Now, she did NOT make all of these at once, so do not feel compelled to do so, and do not feel compelled to use her mixes.  But once you've got your fruit in the pot,  turn the heat to low, cover it, and let it be for about five minutes.  Then uncover it and stir.  Keep the heat very low, because fruit and sugar foam up, and at some point, it will happen.  You don't want your hands there when it does. Trust Annalena:  these burns are nasty. 

Keep your  eye on the pot, and every two minutes or so, give it a good stir.  The cherries and apricots took about fifteen minutes.  The peach mix, about half an hour.  What you're looking for is soft fruit, and a slightly thickened sauce.

If Annalena were to do it all over again, she would have cut back the sugar in the cherries to 3/4 cup, and upped the apricot sugar to 3/4 cup as well.   The peaches were very ripe, and the result was just fine.  

You can eat these as they are, put them in your yogurt (which is what she and the Guyman are doing), put them on ice cream, simple cake, and so forth. Annalena had visions of using the cherry compote as the filling in the cherry cake she described to you, but backed out at the last minute. 

Keep these in  your fridge for about a week, if they last that long.   Then freeze them.  Or, if you make more than you can eat in a week, freeze what's in excess.  It will taste great in February, when the thought of one more pear or one more apple is making you weep. 

One last thing: if you prefer a smoother texture , when you've cooled these masterpieces, just put them in a blender, for a really smooth texture, or a food processor, for a chunkier one.  

Go to it, bambini.  And let Annalena know of your combinations. 

Sweet and sour, like the season: Sour cherry crumb cake.

1. 

So, ragazzi, what could Annalena mean when she says the season is "sweet and sour?"  Well, everyone loves summer, don't they?  Even when we factor in the awful humidity,  the days when it is TOO hot, the brown outs, the blackouts, we still love it.    But to quote Elinor Wylie (which Annalena does, often):  "summer, much too beautiful to stay."   And indeed.  Already in the way the trees are setting their winged fruits, Annalena can see the beginning of the end.  We have already said goodbye to asparagus, and to southern Jersey strawberries (they come from upstate now, and will be gone, soon), and the plums are coming in.  "And the seasons, they go round and round." 

For those of us who live by the farmers market rhythm, there are certainties, and variations.  This year, for example, we are in a flood of cherries.  WAY more cherries than Annalena remembers ever having.  But they will end.  So, gather them while ye may and gorge on them.  Every sweet red one of them. 

In her experience, Annalena finds that the sweet cherries are good for eating out of hand, and that's about it.  Now, there is nothing wrong with that, but for those of you who are fans of cherries cooked in... something, it's probably sour cherries you ate, and it's sour cherries you should buy.  Annalena loves to eat them fresh, which is a practice that many people find to be yet another aspect of her unsavory side, but what can one do?  She loves them.  

One of her favorite baking publications, King Arthur's "The Baking Sheet" has just published its farewell issue, but in it Annalena has found tons of things to make.  And this is one of them.  It is essentially a sour cherry coffee cake, which has an incredible amount of variation available to you.  Rather than show the whole mass of a cake, she is showing you what was left after she and the Guyman had a  piece each, and then she brought half of it to the Karlin clan for breakfast. 

This is a good one for an informal dinner or brunch, or just for breakfast.  Not too sweet, and really easy.  You will need a cherry pitter if you use them fresh, but you don't have to.  And for those of you who are going to pit them yourself, let's get to work. 

You will need 3 cups of pitted sour cherries.  How much is this by weight?  Annalena knows not.  She just pitted until  she had what she needed, and if you are a sour cherry fan and can get to them, you won't have a problem either.  If you can't get them (this means YOU, Gilda), you can do this by draining cans of them, or by using frozen ones.  You will probably need two pound cans of sour cherries, and probably at least one bag of them, frozen.  If you use frozen, don't thaw them.  If you use canned, drain them really well. 

Let's make the streussel.  This is easy.  You mix a heaping cup of flour, a quarter cup each of white sugar and brown sugar (any type,  a pinch of salt, a half teaspoon of cinnamon, and a little nutmeg. Add a few drops of almond extract too, and then pour in a stick of unsalted butter that you have melted.  

With a spoon, or with your hands (better), mix this together until you get a crumbly mass. Put it aside, wash your hands, and if you haven't pitted the cherries, pit them.  (Save the pits as pie weights, ragazzi, the way Europeans do).  

Let's get our cake together.  First, put 3 cups of flour in a bowl, together with a half teaspoon of all of baking powder, baking soda, and salt (that's half a teaspoon EACH, babes.  NOT a total of half teaspoon).    Also put a cup of sugar in there - the white kind.  (This varies from the recipe.  Annalena made a mistake and it made no difference).    If you are using a stand mixer, you can add a stick of unsalted butter, right out of the fridge to this, and start working it with the paddle.  If you'd rather not work that hard, or you're not using one, get the stick of butter soft, and work it into the flour mixer.  Then add two eggs, one at a time, together with a teaspoon of vanilla. 

To the buttermilk:  a  heaping cup.  No buttermilk?  Use yogurt, and remember that a cup is six ounces so you will want to use two.  No yogurt?  Use whole or 2% milk to which you have added a teaspoon of vinegar and let it  sit for ten minutes.  Stir this into the batter,  in halves, and combine it well as you go.  Then, grease a 9x13 inch pan (metal is fine here), and spread out the cake batter.  Now, festoon that with your pitted sour cherries, and finally, sprinkle the streussel over this.  You can have nerdy fun with the streussel topping by pressing small bits of it together, to make bigger ones.  

Get the beast into a 350 degree oven, and let her rock for 30-45 minutes.  Annalena had a cake ready in 30 or so, but she wanted a darker topping (who doesn't?), so she let it sit for an extra ten. 

Here's the good news:  this is GREAT.  Here is the bad news:  Annalena is trying to find something nutritionally worthwhile about it, and she's coming up blank.   Well, such is life.  It's summer. Go for a long walk and burn some of it off.  But make it.   Make it today.  Really. 

Stealing from chefs: Bill Telepan's pea pancakes, and pea ragout

Well, ragazzi, the Guyman and Annalena are now together for 30 years.  THIRTY YEARS.  Is that not amazing carini?    Annalena wishes she could give you advice on how to do it, if you WANT to do it, but alas, it is like taking apart a butterfly to learn how it flies.  You won't.   So, avoid the advice books, is Annalena's advice, and make it work, if it feels right. 

It has become their celebration to go to the restaurant Telepan for their anniversary.  It is like a trip "abroad" as this restaurant is as far north as Annalena and the  Guyman go for their dinners out.  It is not an inexpensive outing, but the value is very high.  They always have the tastings menu, but it is a controlled tastings menu:  you look at the full , ala carte menu, pick your courses, and you get four of them.  Now, what could be nicer than that?

The Guyman almost inevitably gets the pea pancakes when they are on the menu.  Chef Telepan seems to be a very big fan of peas, and eggs, and they appear in many dishes.  This one may be one of our favorites.  And Chef Telepan is a hero of Annalena's:  see, he has done, what that loudmouth Mr. Oliver could not.  Please read this:  it will make you smile:  http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/wellness-in-the-schools-bill-telepan.

Now, Annalena has never asked Chef Telepan for his recipe for these pancakes.  She has  his book, but she cannot find it.  So, she went internet trolling and found it on:  Martha  Stewart's website.  Oh well, even the devil may quote scripture, as they say.  

The pancakes are a recipe, but what you put on them, is up to you.  Annalena will describe what she did, and then, you can follow her lead, or go your own way, as Fleetwood Mac once told us  (well, they told us we can go our own way.  They did NOT tell us to follow Annalena).

You will need some snap peas, and some  English peas, out of their shell:  a quarter pound of the snaps, and a half cup of the English peas.  Also, you will need 3 tablespoons of whole milk (the original recipe has 2 of milk, and one of cream.  Use it if  you got it), and an egg, plus a pinch of salt.  That's for beginners.  Clean the snap peas by taking the little stem end and any string off of them. 

Get a large pot of salted water to the boil, and add the snap peas.  Cook them for about three minutes.  Get them out and into ice water, while you now cook the peas, for about five minutes.  While they're cooking, get the snap peas out of the water, drain them a bit, and put them in your food processor, together with the milk, and the egg.   Whirl em around to a smooth puree.  After the English peas have cooked, do the same thing to them, and then add them to the food processor as well.  Taste for salt, with the processor off, of course.  Scrape this lovely green puree into a bowl, and add 1/4 cup of all purpose flour, and a half teaspoon of baking powder.  Stir this all together, and get yourself a nice large nonstick pan.  Also, preheat your oven to 400.

The original recipe calls for butter to cook these.  Annalena uses oil, because she is going to put butter in her ragout.  You add two tablespoons of fat to a nonstick pan.  As Annalena has said, use whatever method you need, to make sure the oil is hot:  ripple, smell,  small child (not really), etc. Lower the heat to medium    Put about a quarter cup of batter into the pan, and press it down a bit, to make a pancake.   Make as many in the pan as you can at one time (for Annalena, this is four), and cook them two minutes per side.  When you're done, get them in the oven for four minutes.  

What you get is what is in the photo.  And you can eat these as a little snack, perhaps with some soft cheese, but why not go "whole hog" so to speak, and make a pea ragout?  Chances are, you bought more than a quarter pound of snap peas, and more than half a cup of peas.  Maybe you have some fava beans around?  That's what Annalena did.   After cooking the peas and snap peas the same way she did for the pancakes, she mixed them, together with fava beans (perhaps a cup of snaps, and a half cup of each of the others), in the pan she used to make the pancakes, together with a healthy blob of truffle butter.  This is done OFF the heat, because once the peas are cooked, the residual heat will melt the butter.  Then you put them on the pancakes, and, VOILA, you have three star restaurant food, at home.  You can see the ragout, after the pancakes below 

If  this recipe is scaring you, ragazzo, it shouldn't.  There is nothing hard about this, and you've made much more difficult recipes from this website. 

The veggies are in season, and now's the time. Spread your wings, make some veggie pancakes, and sit down and feel proud of yourself.  You should.

Spicy again: how to make a boneless chicken breast interesting

Ok, ragazzi, today we're going to approach an ingredient we all know and... like.  Chicken breasts.    IF Annalena can make it through (she's listening to Mahler's 2nd symphony and is already a wreck).  

Annalena has countless stories of her friends essentially living on boneless, skinless chicken breasts during periods of their lives when they need to "slim down" or "look lean" etc, etc, etc.

More power to them.   Annalena has given up.  Not with EVERYTHING mind you, but with trying to turn boneless, skinless chicken breasts into something that even approaches a truly tasty meal (she will take any suggestions you have).  So what follows is a recipe for boneless chicken breast WITH THE SKIN.  Annalena thinks that it may very well redeem the skinless varieties as well, but she'd rather not try it.

Look, ragazzi, if you look at things in isolation, you will wind up being someone who eats nothing but kale and distilled water for the rest of your life.    You must balance things:  do not eat a meal of quiche and fried chicken, and try to limit the bacon with the French toast to 8 slices (in fact, try to limit the French toast!).  And again, keep in mind that the idea is NOT a sprint:  if you happen to have a dinner that is absolutely LOADED with no goodnesses, and you can't resist, well, do your best to balance with your other meals during the day. And take a walk. Let's have a show of hands:  how many of you have taken a walk of at least 30 minutes, 3-5 times over the last week?

MM HMMM.  And you wonder why you want boneless, skinless, chicken breasts?  How hard can it be to walk.  Get to it.  And make this dish.

Originally, this recipe called for chicken breast on the bone. Annalena did not have them (although she loves them).  So, looking at the original recipe, she made the only modification she needed to, which was to lower the amount of time the thing cooks in the oven.  

This is not a dish for the timid of spices;  however, the cooked spice crust loses some of its "venom" as compared to the raw component.  Go for it, and have something cooling with it:  like plain boiled corn and... kale.  In the plate below. 

First, let's get our spice mix together.  You need Spanish paprika.  This is the GOOD stuff: you may see it as pimenton, and it comes in various degrees of heat:  picante means you have some really spicy stuff.  Dolce means it's less hot and almost, well, sweet, like it says.  So, use your judgement.  And your knowledge of your heat quotient, because we're going to add some more heat too.  (Incidentally, these Spanish paprikas are roasted.  That's why you need the SPANISH  one).  For every two, boneless, or bone in, chicken breasts, you need a full tablespoon of the paprika.  Mix this with another teaspoon of ground cumin, and one of mustard (use yellow), and one of fennel.  Now, it is hard to find ground fennel, so put everything together, if you have any whole seeds, and put it in a spice grinder.  Annalena uses an old coffee bean grinder.  Add  a teaspoon of black pepper to this.  Also, a healthy teaspoon of salt. 

Dry off your chicken breasts.  Now rub that dry stuff all over the skin of your chicken.  You've got plenty.  As you rub it, you'll be releasing fragrant oils, and you will LOVE yourself for making this.  

Try to let this sit for an hour or too if you can, but if you can't, it ain't no big deal.   When you're ready to cook, coat a pan just large enough to contain all of your chicken with vegetable oil, and turn the heat to medium. Also, turn on your oven high: 425.  

The recipe, as many do, call for you to wait until the oil ripples. Annalena has never seen this, but she can "smell" the oil when it's ready.  You'll get something like a popcorn smell from the movies (from the days when popcorn was REAL and they made it there.  If you're too young for that... look for the ripple).

Put the spice end of the chicken into the oil, and fry away for  6 minutes or so. DON'T. TOUCH.  THE.  CHICKEN.  Does that need clarification?  DON'T..... TOUCH.... THE.... CHICKEN....  

After six minutes, you may in fact touch the chicken.  You MUST.  Get your tongs, flip it over, and then move your pan into the oven, for about another six minutes.    Then, protect your hands, take the chicken out of the pan, and drain off the fat, while the chicken cools.  You want it to cool for five minutes. 

Just like with the cauliflower we made a little while ago, ragazzi, this is going to fill your home with the most wonderful of smells that  you can imagine, and everyone is going to love you. 

And it's so easy.  Make some rice while you're waiting, or corn, or couscous, and make a vegetable.  And you'll have people (including yourself), asking you to make these again.  And you will.  And you WON'T.. TOUCH.. THE .. CHICKEN...

Next time, carini, Annalena goes back to one of her favorite games, which is ripping off recipes from famous chefs:  we're going to make pea pancakes, with pea ragout. 

Challenging assumptions: polenta cake with vegetables

Ragazzi, today we are going to make "a dish for all seasons,"  and we're going to challenge, and break some rules.  

Below, you will see the end product of Annalena's riffing on some recipes:  it is a polenta cake, inspired by her friend and the Empress of the Edge, Margery (Margery sharpens Annalena's knives).  She made a polenta cake and, as  Annalena posted on Margery's picture, she began thinking  "hmmmm."  Now, at the same time, Annalena was musing about one of her favorite dishes in the world:  vignarola.  Vignarola, for those of you who have never had it, is a dish which, Annalena is told, you will not find outside of Rome (although she found it in a restaurant near Rockefeller Center).  It is a thick puree of artichokes, fava beans, and peas:  sort of a "welcome spring" and tonic for all of us who need a break after the travails of winter (and we had our travails this year, did we not?).  So, Annalena began putting things together for this.  She pulled out her polenta and found... all she had was the "old fashioned" kind, which takes 45 minutes to cook. 

Well, saying "45 minutes to cook," is sort of like not finishing a sentence. The tradition of polenta cooking is that someone has to stand there, stirring constantly, for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring an always thickening, bubbling hot, pot of corn grits .  Indeed, Annalena wishes she had a film of her Italian teacher, who is also an actor, mimicking his mother doing just that. 

Well, Annalena needs to have a chat with Mrs. Jacopo, because this is not necessary.  Indeed, some years ago, Annalena found that one myth of polenta making was just that:  a myth.  We are taught that, to make polenta properly, you have to bring the water or stock you are using to a rapid boil, and slowly pour the grain into the liquid, whisking all the time.  Annalena wishes she could remember who liberated her from this rather unseemly gesture (it sort of looked like an individual sex practice to her):  her friend put ALL the polenta into cold water at once, and then began whisking to the point of boiling.  It works, amici.  Trust Annalena on this one. As God is her witness, she will never eat lumpy polenta again. 

Now, onto the 45 minute thing. Well, yes, old fashioned polenta does take 45 minutes to cook; however, there is no need to stir constantly if you keep the heat low, and also stir occasionally.  As we progress through this recipe, you will see this. 

Annalena's recipe calls for the favas, the peas, and artichoke hearts.  The latter are not local:  growing artichokes in NY is akin to looking for love in all the wrong places.   So Annalena had a half pound of frozen ones.  The peas and favas, however, were.  And when these things are not here, make this any way you like.  It is really good.  

Let's start by getting the hard stuff out of the way:  the favas.  You can read about how to prepare them, but let Annalena tell you: every single Italian woman who was cooked her share of fava beans, every prep cook, ANYONE who has done more than a few pounds of these, needs sainthood.    First, you peel very fat pods.  Then you get the beans into hot water, and blanch them for a couple of minutes.  Then, you peel them after you dump them in ice water.  For all of this, you get about 2/3-3/4 cup of beans for every pound of favas you buy.  Alternatively, you can peel the pods, freeze the beans, and thaw them.  That works too. Annalena learned that from Paula Wolfert, the expert on Moroccan cooking, who has done her time with favas.  

Ok, so you want about 3/4-1 cup of peeled favas, and then the same quantity of peas, cooked for about five minutes.  Keep them aside, and also have your half pound of thawed, or frozen, artichoke hearts. 

Let's make polenta.  Put a cup of dry polenta into four cups of water,  vegetable stock,  chicken stock, or a mix, and then start stirring at medium heat.  This is by "feel" ragazzi, and at some point, you will "feel" and "see" the polenta go from granular, and heavy, into a cloudy suspension.  At that point, the grains have absorbed enough liquid so that you don't have to stir them constantly.  Lower the heat to a mere flicker, and keep your whisk handy.  Do other things in the kitchen (like peel your favas),  and keep busy, because you will return to the polenta every five minutes or so, and stir it for thirty seconds. 

For Annalena's version , now grate about a cup's worth of parmesan cheese, and also slice about half a pound of fontina cheese, very  thinly.  You can use a pecorino, and you can use mozzarella (in fact, there were left over boccocini in Annalena's dish, you just can't see them), or provolone, or anything you like.    

Are you still stirring that polenta?  Good. After about twenty minutes, Annalena suggests that you cover the pot in between stirrings.  The reason for  this is to keep the liquid from evaporating too quickly, which will, in turn, lead to your polenta burning.  Now, burnt polenta is not as serious as Paris burning, but this IS dinner, carini.  Also - and Annalena is serious about this - catching a bubble of boiling polenta on your skin is not a fun thing.  Trust Annalena on that. 

So, after you have had your peas and favas prepared, and your cheese grated and sliced, now what?  Well, get a bread loaf pan (the one below is 8x4.  You can use 9x5.  You could even use an 8x8 or a 9x9 metal pan.  Annalena fears for your safety with glass ones).  Grease it well.  

Keep  cooking the polenta.  You'll see decided changes in it, and after about forty minutes, a mass will start pulling away from the sides of the pan.  You are there.  BRAVO.  Now, add some salt, some pepper, some nutmeg, and your grated parmesan and stir this together.  Pour about a third of it into the prepared pan, and add the fava beans.  Stir them around and then flatten out the layer.  Now add the second third, and on top of that, place your sliced cheese and the artichokes.  Finally, the last third of polenta, and the peas.  Swirl those in.  Cover all of this with plastic or paper, and let it cool. When it's cool, refrigerate it overnight. 

While it is still cold, run a knife around the sides of the loaf, and gently turn it upside down on a plate.  You'll hear a mild "whoosh, and out will come your loaf.  Just like below.  if it's a little messy, fix it by pushing things back.  It isn't that hard, and it will look fine. 

If you serve this cold, or at room temperature, everything will cohere nicely.  If you warm it, the cheese will melt, and your structure will be somewhat lost, but it will still be good.  Annalena has eaten it both ways and she finds it more than good. 

So, all my polenta eaters out there, break some rules, and cook polenta the dellacucina way.  And let Annalena know how it goes.  

Signora Jacopo,  buon auguri. 

From the Mideast, to New Jersey, to Florida, and back to Annalena: spicy roasted yogurt crusted cauliflower

Well, ragazzi, Annalena wishes to wish you all a Happy Independence day.  She and the Guyman are celebrating 30 years together this weekend.  As the song goes  "What a long, strange trip it's been."  And it has been.  And it has been wonderful too.  Thinking about it over the week past has kept Annalena's mindstuff occupied.  That and Italian homework, and other things, so she has simply kept her store of recipes - and recipes she has - for a time like now.

We are working today, in high summer, with a vegetable that you think of as an autumnal or winter vegetable:  cauliflower.    And some of you may be wondering "where is Annalena getting cauliflower in July.  Isn't that a vegetable that grows in the cold weather."  Well, carini, yes it does, and it also grows in warm weather.  So does broccoli. And so do many other vegetables we do in fact associate with the cold weather.   What Annalena thinks happens, is that because in the winter months, these are the ONLY vegetables available and we make the association.  And since there are so many other veggies available in the summer, there will ALWAYS be time to get to these.

Well, Annalena wants to say:  by all means,  eat those other veggies, but try kale, cauliflower, broccoli,  cabbage, and those other "sturdy" friends of winter during the summer.  They have a completely different taste:  much more delicate and much more sweet.  You'll have an eye opener.

This recipe came to Annalena from her friend Ophir - also known as the Late Ophir - and his wife Vanessa.  Worry not, ragazzi, Ophir has not left us - not in the sense of leaving this earth (or perhaps it does, as Annalena will explain).  Ophir is never on time. EVER.  Even when you give him a time that is a half hour before everyone else, he is still an hour late.  ALWAYS.  Vanessa, have you broken him of this?  And in terms of leaving the earth, well, he and Vanessa left Brooklyn for Florida, so make of that what you will.

In any event, this recipe was posted on their website:  fitnessfixes.com, to which Annalena commends you.  As you all know, she does not post recipes she hasn't tried,  and she hasn't tried the other recipes there.  This one, however, is a winner.  It's unusual, it's tasty, it's vegetarian, so go to it.  Try it.     Annalena took the recipe and, as she does, modified it. She will explain how she did so.

Let her say up front though, that this is a VERY spicy recipe, which may not be to everyone's taste.  So if you are  born to be mild, cut back some of the spices.  Try it the first way, though.

And here we go.  Set your oven to 400 degrees, and then inspect  your cauliflower.  The original recipe calls for one head, but Annalena suggests you get two smaller ones, weighing a total of about a pound and a half to two pounds, total.  You  have to get a weight, because cauliflower can be huge .  Annalena used the golden ones, but any variety of cauliflower will work.  Smaller ones are better, however, because even with the long bake time,  you will not completely cook the beasts.

You will need 1.5 cups of non fat plain yogurt.  Now, before you begin wondering "what do I do with the other half of a container of yogurt?"  read the container.  Yogurt comes in  6 ounce containers now, ragazzi.  Yes, like coffee, they have shrunk the containers.  Some are actually 5.3 ounces.  Annalena notices these things. So, in terms of this recipe, use two containers of non fat yogurt.  Dump them into a bowl and then grate the peel of a lemon into the yogurt, and add the juice from that lemon.  Now add two tablespoons of chili power, a tablespoon of ground cumin, a teaspoon of curry, two teaspoons of salt, and a teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper.  Keep in mind that chili powders, and curries, come in different degrees of heat.  If you are used to using them, you will know what you like.  (Annalena used a mild curry, and a stronger chili powder).  If you are REALLY squeamish about the spices, cut them back.  The yogurt is key here.   (and DON'T substitute soy yogurt, kids, please).  Mix this all up.  Taste it.   The original recipe called for a Tablespoon of garlic powder as well.   Annalena does not allow garlic powder in her house, and the recipe did not seem to suffer  for losing it.

Good, huh? Now you have a dip for when you have a party with your health nuts who want vegetables and nothing fattening.

Now, get those cauliflowers.  Even them off on the bottom, by cutting away leaves, and whatever unevenness you find on the stems.  You want them to stand up on their own, after you spread about a tablespoon of vegetable oil on some kind of baking sheet, or pie pans or something.

Wash your  hands, and get busy.  Put the veggies on the sheet, and then slop the yogurt mixture all over them.  It won't drip that bad, and be generous.   You may have a little left, but use as much of it as you can.

Get it in the oven.  The smells that come out will be marvelous, and interesting.  Annalena could have sworn she was baking pizza for the first fifteen minutes, or cooking sausage, and then she got the aroma of enchiladas.  And then, the smell of the yogurt caramelizing came out (yes, caramelizing, ragazzi.  Remember:  any time  you see something brown, be it a vegetable, meat, etc, what is happening is sugar is becoming caramel.  This is called - seriously - the Browning reaction Annalena does not make this stuff up.  If you want to sound really fancy, you can call it the Maillard reaction as well  Louis -Camille Maillard discovered it.  And isn't that a great name. Someone name your son Louis - Camille).

At thirty minutes, stick a knife into the center of your veggies to see if they are tender enough for you.  If so, stop things.  If not, cook them for ten minutes further.  Don't go beyond this.

Let the things cool, and then slice them into wedges.  Chances are, the stems most close to the center, will not be soft enough to eat.  The "mouthfeel" of this dish, however, together with the spices, will give you more than enough to chew on (so to speak).

Annalena made these with stuffed eight ball squash.  She has posted recipes about stuffed veggies before, but if you want it, let her know, and it shall be done.

Next time around, ragazzi, we will either continue our spice run and look at a chicken recipe, or we will visit a case of "when worlds collide," as Annalena combines a photo posted by her friend Margery, with an old fashioned Roman (as compared to Italian ) recipe, for a soup called vignarola.

Ciao for now . xoxoxoxoxooxox

Accessories are important: rhubarb baked with maple syrup

Ah, ragazzi, the last spring/early summer fruit fest continues.  This time, the fruit that is really a vegetable (rhubarb), makes one of its periodic appearances here.   In the role of the co-star who steals the show.

Readers of this blog know of Annalena's fondness for the big red and green stems of rhubarb.  She's even ventured to try the leaves, but recommends that you not do that, especially if you are prone to things like kidney stones, gout, and so forth.  The oxalic acid in the leaves has been said to be toxic.  Truth to be told, it will give you a whopper of a belly ache, but Annalena didn't die, and she has seen animals in zoos, eating the leaves as if they were plain old salad.  But in any event, if you have leaves on your stalks, Annalena suggests that you get rid of them as well as you can.

It is fascinating to Annalena that we know, by heart, many of the different apple varieties. You can probably name ten or so without any trouble.  BUT... move to something like peaches, or strawberries... or rhubarb, and try to give different names.  Can't huh?  Well, for rhubarb, neither can Annalena.  Yet, when you see the stalks, you will notice, immediately, that there are differences in color, and in thickness, etc, which will tell you, as a careful shopper, that all rhubarb is not the same.  There is early rhubarb, late rhubarb, and in fact, Annalena learned recently that the stuff will grow all the way through mid fall.  The reason we don't see much of it after about the end of June is two fold. First, there are so many other fruits available that people lose their interest in a plant that takes some love.  Not many of us can eat rhubarb raw, and out of hand, the way we eat cherries, or plums, and so forth.  Hence, many farmers simply compost it.  Add to that the fact that while rhubarb grows in the heat, it doesn't LIKE the heat.  So, ragazzi, the stalks are tough and stringy, sort of like Annalena (well, tough anyway). Ultimately, if you're cooking it (which you are, if it's rhubarb), all it means is a little extra time, but you do have to work through peeling back some of the toughness.

Well, here is a recipe, also out of the Red Jacket book Annalena  has spoken of, that is easy and gives you something fun to work with.  This is so good, that even though it is spoken of, in the recipe, as an addition to a salad, Annalena wants you to move beyond the salad they give (watercress and goat cheese), and do other things with this.  You will want to.  And you'll have time.  Because....

Here's what you do.  You get your oven preheated to 450.  While that is happening, clean up a half pound of rhubarb.  When you've done so, slice it into segments about a half inch long.  You're looking for little "logs" ragazzi.  Have the stalk parallel to your body, and then make vertical cuts.  Put this in a bowl, with three tablespoons of maple syrup, and just a teaspoon of olive oil.  Toss it all together, and then dump it on a baking sheet.  Even it out into one layer, and put it in the oven, for about 7 minutes.

You're done.  Really, you are.  You now take this out of the oven and let it cool.  Completely.  If you touch the rhubarb now, in addition to burning yourself, you will cause it to fall into puree.  You don't want that.  At completely cool, it will retain it's shape, albeit in a softer form.  Pick it up carefully, and put it in a container to refrigerate it.

When Annalena tasted this as soon as it cooled, she thought of maple syrup baked sweet potatoes.  In her salad last night, however, it was reminiscent of sour cherries and Cape Gooseberries.  So, how do you like that?  The salad, by the way, was lettuce, treviso (a chicory), and a yogurt and honey viniagrette.  The dairy and sweetness seemed to really help accent the flavor profile of the rhubarb.  But Annalena feels she could eat this on its own.  Or mix it with strawberries.  Or perhaps puree it with strawberries into sorbet.  or... or... or....  And that's for you to fill in, ragazzi.  This will take you less than half an hour to make.  So make it, and make some magic.

Play with your fruit: olive oil strawberry jam cake

Ragazzi, the assiduous readers amongst you may be thinking  ANOTHER olive oil cake?  Well, yes.  See, Annalena is fascinated by the use of olive oil in baking.  Ultimately, it is something that makes sense.  You have all read about "buttery" olive oils, and in homes where butter is not much in use (like much of Southern Italy), the fat you use to make your baked goods, will be the fat you have. Before any of us were glints in our parents' eyes, and before our parents were glints in their parents' eyes, etc, that fat was lard.  Butter was not that common and it was expensive.  Now, you can get your butter at the store around the corner. Not so elsewhere. So, Annalena uses it to get in touch with her inner "something." 

Also, she got a new cookbook.  One of her favorite farms, Red Jacket Orchards, which only grows fruit (with the exception of rhubarb, which is a vegetable), has come out with a book called "Fruitful."  It is a beautiful book, and a labor of love.  Also - and Annalena warns those of you who may get the book  - there are errors in it, which can catch up even someone as experienced as Annalena - as she will explain later in this recipe.  Nonetheless, the book is so full of, well, "love," that you have to try it.  There are not many books that feature only fruit, and only fruit that the source of the book grows, so it is a treasure. 

This recipe will actually teach you how to make something that is good to have around:  jam.  Now, not jars and jars and jars of jam that you seal in boiled water, burning yourself, cursing, and swearing you'll never do it again.  No, ragazzi, but if you find yourself awash in fruit (as Annalena is these days), being able to make a jar or two of refrigerator jam, is not a bad thing.

Lets start by doing that.  You need a pound of strawberries (and read back to Annalena's most recent blog on strawberries to see about a "pound" of these berries).  Hull them, half them, and put them in a heavy duty pot with a cup plus of sugar (this is a judgement call: you will need at least a cup, probably a cup and a quarter and this year, given the rain, perhaps as much as a cup and a half) .  Squeeze half a lemon into this.  Then turn the heat to low, and keep your eye on the thing, for about twenty minutes.  Stir every few minutes.  If you see the thing beginning to bubble over, take it off the heat for a minute, then lower the heat, and continue to cook.  The berries will darken, the volume will drop, and in that 20 minutes:   you have about 1.5-2 cups of jam.  Chill it, and cap it in jars in the fridge, and use it up over the next couple of weeks, if it lasts that long.

Now, we move to the cake.  And here, ragazzi, Annalena shall be telling you how the recipe lets you down, for this is supposed to be a swirl cake.  Look below.  That is not a swirl, is it?  No, it is not.  It will still taste good, but if you want a swirl, Annalena shall tell you how to get it. 

You will need 2 large eggs, and an egg yolk.  Put them in a bowl with 3/4  cup of sugar, and the grated peel of a lemon.  Get the whisk attachment, and get to work, for five minutes. 

Now, when you see a recipe that calls upon you to whip egg yolks in the way you would whip whites, you are in the realm of chiffon cakes, and genoises.  These cakes will never rise much, and they will stale.  So keep that in mind.  

While this is working, mix a quarter of a cup of milk with the juice of half of that lemon, and a half cup of extra virgin olive oil.  You're making cake, so don't use that really peppery Tuscan oil that burns the back of your throat.  Use something that you feel is light and almost, well, buttery.  Once that is mixed,  in a separate bowl, combine 1.25 cups of all purpose flour, 3/4 teaspoon of baking powder, the same quantity of salt, and put it aside.  

Finally, melt 3/4 stick of unsalted butter (Lots of 3/4 in this one, huh?). 

Get your pan.  The recipe called for a springform, but Annalena thinks that if you're willing to serve it from the pan, any 8 inch pan will do.    Grease it.  Use the paper from the butter. 

By now, your egg and sugar mixture will have billowed into large, light yellow clouds.  Gently, pour the olive oil mixture in, and let it get incorporated.    Now the melted butter.    

Off the mixer, fold in the flour, in 2-3 portions.  Don't be guilty of overkill, but do make sure everything is incorporated evenly.  Then move it all to your pan. 

Ok, here's where we have the bad instructions, carini. The recipe calls for you to bake this cake for twenty minutes, then remove it from the oven.  At that point,  you spoon half a cup of  that jam you made over the thing and swirl it through.  When Annalena did this, the cake was already completely firm, and she was breaking the structure.  Hence, she suggests you do it at ten minutes (doing it immediately is not a good idea, as you need to let the cake take on SOME structure, or you will get a jam clafouti.  Not a bad thing, but not what you want). 

If you do wind up in a situation as Annalena did, just glom your jam on top of the cake, and put it back in the oven for 20 minutes.  And when it comes out, there  you are.  Perhaps not as pretty as a swirled cake, but it sure is gonna taste good.    And it's something different to serve to yourself and your friends.  And you'll have to because, as Annalena says, this will stale up pretty quickly. 

Look for more of these fruit based recipes, ragazzi.  Annalena is fascinated with this book.