Winter Pies

If you have a freezer you have great fresh food for winter. This is not the kind of freezing one can do in the top of the fridge because it takes up some important room and the fridge freezer doesn’t stay cold enough to keep food very long. If you don’t have a freezer, then you’ll have to drop by some day for pie, I guess.

The first thing you have to do, of course, is get fresh fruit in season. For me right now that’s blackberries, because with the unusual rains we have had this summer, they’re big, juicy and sweet. Paola and I went picking with a couple of teenagers (who went eating) just Thursday, and we each picked about 1 kilo of fresh berries. Paola went home and made jam then ate all of it the next morning! How? I haven’t a clue how anyone could eat almost 3.5 pounds of jam. I did the following. The instructions are generic and apply to all fruit pies, I believe. Our local peaches, both yellow and white, will be ready soon and I’ll do the same thing with some of them. Apples would be next. Maybe I’ll even get enough raspberries to do one. The recipe may vary, but the process won’t.

I washed and then carefully checked the berries. It didn’t take very long, but considering what I found in there, it was an important step. I let them drain for a while in a metal sieve colander.

Into the bowl went 1 kilo or about 4 cups of berries, and then a cup (210 g) of sugar, a pinch of salt, half a teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/4 cup (33 g) of flour went in on top. It all got tossed around until they were coated as you see in the photo above.

I then lined a pie pan very generously with aluminum foil.

In go the dressed up berries and on top about 1-1/2 tablespoons of butter in pieces.

Fold the foil up and over and seal very carefully with double folds. That’s it. Put it in the freezer and the next day you can get your pie pan back. There’s no need, once it’s frozen solid, to sacrifice a container.

When winter gets too heavy for words and August seems only a dream, have some friends over for supper. Make an ordinary recipe for a two crust pie crust and line that same pie pan with the appropriate amount. Unwrap the frozen filling and put it into the crust, then top it just like you would if it were fresh, sealing well and cutting holes in the top for steam. Bake as you would a fresh pie, adding some time for the thawing. How much time varies from fruit to fruit, but the crust should be golden and the filling should be bubbling with juices in the middle of the pie.

American pies are so different to European tarts and crostate that they make a treat that’s both appreciated and a conversation piece. There’s no piece for either of us today, but check back in a few months.

It’s those potatoes again…

“And so we rode home, talking about the life that awaited us in our own nook of Umbria. Although it still wasn’t late, it was completely dark coming up the highway. When I came inside I decided to cook a few red potatoes of Colfiorito just to see what they are like. They are stupendous. The veritable queen of potatoes. I wish I’d bought 20 kilos instead of 10 pounds.”

That was last autumn, and this spring there were a few of those little potatoes remaining, and all with roots springing all over. So I gave them to Olga and told her I was curious whether they could be grown other places or whether they only taste right if grown in Colfiorito.

Today Olga came to my door with potatoes grown from those tiny red ones as well as control potatoes grown from their usual Kennebec seed potatoes.

Are you dying to know what the answer is? No? Well, gee, what kind of foodies are you? I was dying to know, so I washed and boiled some immediately. I put a little butter on, nothing else. And guess what?

The Colfiorito type taste good, like a freshly dug new potato should, but not like the ones grown in Colfiorito! They’re right. If you want this absolutely gourmet treasure, you must buy the real thing. Move it 60 kilometers north and it’s just another potato.

Is this what we’ve been waiting for?

That’s a video camera! Amazing.

This puts the lie to all the reasons I have never owned a video camera. It’s not bulky. It’s not inconvenient to carry. It’s not intrusive. It’s not expensive. It doesn’t have film to buy or maintain.

I’ve never had in mind making feature length films, and I suppose if one does want to, this won’t do. The dancers at a sagra, the calves bounding through a field or wheat swaying in the wind are more my speed and this looks like it would be a companion worthy of a walk anywhere.

Brilliant.

Saturday Night Lively

I rolled out the welcome wagon to friends Saturday night but inside instead of in the garden. This summer has been more humid than ever before and for that reason it’s buggy. I am their movable feast.

The raspberries are ripe in my orto! They are not only ripe, but plentiful, so I reached into the closet of my mind where I keep old memories and pulled out the “Parrot” or “Pappagallo” in Italian. It really takes only a few raspberries per serving, so it’s something to serve in late summer even if you have to pay the godawful price they ask in the shops.

Parrot

For each drink
4-6 raspberries
1/4 teaspoon sugar
Prosecco or Champagne to fill

Mash the raspberries and sugar together, then spoon into the bottom of a flute or a white wine glass, or a jelly glass if necessary. Carefully fill with sparkling wine so that it doesn’t foam up and flood your counter. Don’t ask. Serve cold and foamy to happy drinkers.

It’s actually a pretty drink in person, but photographed a bit messy. Maybe putting it among my painting gear to catch the western light was a wrong move?

Anyway, the meal was pleasant and remarkable only in that almost all of it was grown right here on this farm. That’s not always possible, but it’s really great when it is.

I didn’t photograph most of it, because how many times can you look at pesto before you get really sick of it? Well, lots of times if you’re me, but…

The drinks came with taralli from Puglia served with guacamole in which only the avocado and green chilis were not grown here. The first course was trofie, the correct shape at last, with pesto, which we all nommed with glee. Eating seasonal can be way more fun than it sounds.

The meat course was pork tenderloin that I marinated in a modified Asian sauce. I then dried the meat off, fried it briefly and then roasted it for an astounding fifteen minutes, whereupon it measured exactly 155° F as ordered. Wow. I summered the marinade to serve with the meat, although I thought it might be tpp strong, but they loved it. Surprises everywhere. With the pork we ate taccole, or Italian flat beans that resemble pole beans, served alla Greca or with minced garlic, olive oil and diced tomato. All of that came from here.

We cleared our palates by eating a salad made of lettuce I grew and dressed with strawberry vinegar that I made in June.

Tina made and presented this incredible Pastiera! It’s richly decorated with mint branches, oregano flowers and a star cookie cutter and looks ready to present to aristocracy. And that would be us, the aristocrats of Città di Castello!

I’ll drink to that.

Gigli al pesto Genovese con fagiolini: Lilies and greenbeans with pesto

I guess by now everyone knows that pasta with pesto in Genoa is served with chunks of boiled potato and stringbeans, yes? And it’s good, even if you don’t have potatoes.

The typical pasta is trofie, but I didn’t have any, so these gigli seemed close enough. Gigli only resemble Calla lilies and not any other kind of lily, but they are pretty until you mess them about with sauce. I toss the greenbeans into the pasta water about three minutes before the pasta should be done. Potatoes take longer, so they are cooked separately or not used.

So I made pesto Genovese using a stickblender. Pretty slick, I think. If anyone is allergic to pinenuts, just don’t use them. It isn’t pinenut sauce, it’s basil sauce.

Stick Blender Pesto Genovese

Basil
2 cloves garlic
2 ounces grated cheeses, ideally half Parmigiano and half Pecorino
1 cup-250 ml extra virgin olive oil
salt to taste
a handful of pinenuts

Wash and dry enough fresh basil to fill a tall container. I think of this as two firmly gripped handsful.
Peel two cloves of garlic. Put the basil into the cntainer and pouncing up and down, mince the basil until it’s in pieces. Add the garlic and do it some more. Add about 1/2 cup-125 ml of extra virgin olive oil and blend continuously to make a paste. Gradually add up to 1/2 cup-125 ml more oil until it’s smooth and creamy.
Add the cheeses and blend. Add the pinenuts and blend until they are minced but still have a bit of texture. Taste and correct for salt.

This is enough for a lot of pasta. It usually takes about 63 ml or 1/4 cup of pesto for a whole dishful (85 grams) of pasta. Keep the leftovers either in the fridge for up to a week, or freeze them. When you want to use any leftover pesto, it’s best to add a little oil to it to loosen it up.

I ate leftover pesto last night smeared on a piece of ciabatta with sliced tomatoes and leftover mozzarella. It was just wonderful. I also stir a spoonful into vegetable soup just before serving it and that’s pretty darned terrific, too.
Tell me all your pesto secrets?

Smoked Salmon Pasta alla Paola Boriosi

This is an extremely fast pasta dish, so best to have all its parts ready to go until just before you wish to serve it. It won’t hold and should be eaten immediately. Toss leftovers because they won’t reheat.

Tagliolini al salmone
For 4 servings
340 g tagliolini dried or enough fresh to serve 4

Extra virgin olive oil
About 1 medium onion, chopped fine
One good-sized zucchine, prepared as below
pinch of cayenne pepper
A couple of branches of parsley, minced very fine
170 g or 6 oz. smoked salmon prepared as below, and off cuts will do fine
Heavy cream to taste

*Start the water to cook the pasta and don’t start cooking the sauce until you have thrown the pasta into the boiling salted water.

Cut smoked salmon sliced into rectancles about 1- ½ ” X ¾” or 4 cm X 2 cm. Cut zucchine slices the long way and then make matching rectangles of the slices.

Heat a tablespoon or so of oil in large frying pan then sautè the onion and the zucchine. Add the hot pepper and the parsley and then add the salmon bits.

When the pasta is almost ready to come off the heat, add about ½ cup or a ladleful of the pasta water into the salmon pan. Add about 4 tablespoons of heavy cream and stir it in. You can use more if you wish so that there’s something liquid left to coat the pasta. Drain the pasta and put it into the frying pan, tossing to coat all of it well. This step will cook it a bit more, so be sure not to overcook it the first go-round.

I think Paola is ready to go international with this great pasta, so I’m sending it off to Amy at Very Culinary, who is this week’s host for Presto Pasta Nights.

Hoisin Zucchine

This is making a silk purse from a sow’s ear. It’s not that I don’t like zucchine, tomatoes, spring onions and garlic, it’s that by the middle of August there have been a lot of them, of all of them. It’s like your distant cousin came to stay over a weekend and never left.

I came home late from a morning of errands and I was starving. These ingredients were what there was. The dish was delicious!

Hoisin Zucchine

lunch for one or side dish for two

2 zucchine, sliced into thin vertical slices if possible
2 plum tomatoes cut into chunks
1 spring onion cut into spears
2 cloves garlic, sliced
salt
oil for frying
1 heaping or 2 level tablespoons of Hoisin sauce

Cut all the vegetables ahead of time. Heat about 1 tablespoon of seed oil in a wok or very large frying pan. Toss in the garlic and onion, stirring to coat them with oil, and then the zucchine pieces. Stir fry until the zucchine starts to warm and cook. It begins to have a translucency to my eye. Salt slightly, then stir in the Hoisin sauce. Turn off the heat and eat with chopsticks.

5:45 AM, August

The low lying fields of humidity suggest the morning fogs that we will see in October.

Dinner out

The very last day of our very hottest heat wave, Paola, my friend, neighbor and walking partner, gave a dinner on her terrace. While we were eating the heat broke and went away, and was replaced with fresh breezes that felt frigid to our acclimated bodies. Here is how we ate, or most of it.

That is just the antipasto. WE wew expected to eat this and then eat an entire Italian meal as well! Everything is homemade or hopme grown, too. On that plate is a wedge of homegrown melon and a slice of prosciutto crudo; three crostini of which one is homemade patè, one a spread made of zucchine, and one a smooth tomato conserve; a fresh fig, and a pice of cheese made on the mountain behind us by one of our neighbors.

This is our first course, or primo. The taglerini are homemade and like silk in the mouth. The “sauce” is smoked salmon and zucchine, which recipe I will get from Paola and publish here later on. She is only last night returned from a driving vacation in Holland. This pasta was just delicious. Check back in a couple of days for the recipe. You won’t regret it.

There was a meat course of steak and pork cooked over a fire in an ancient villa that they own, but I had eaten too much and only ate the green beans and tomatoes that were served with them. And I’m sorry, but I forgot to photograph them, but it was too dark, anyway. Excuses. I blame it on my GPS.

Here, however, is a flash photo of the company.

You see Marcello’s back, then Amelia and last Paola. The other guests are invisible. It’s hard to say if any more nights will be warm enough to dine out, although last night I dined in a tiny piazza in the middle of the city with friends. It’s as always about 6 degrees warmer in town than it is out here in Barzotti.

Salad for August

Today is not hot enough to make me want a big salad for lunch. It’s perfectly possible that it won’t get that hot until next summer, but there are never any guarantees in Umbria. This salad was made when Shelly and Larry came to lunch some days ago. It wasn’t hot that day, either, but we thought it would be.

The salad underneath is seasonal greens with various delicious things arranged in patterns on top. There are mild onion bits, marinated artichoke hearts, dry-cured black olives, salted green olives, chunks of ripe tomato, chunks of avocado and slices of cucumber. In the center at the top are flash-steamed scallops from the Isle of Man. This is not an ideal way to cook them, but I was curious. Arranged in a ring are two different kinds of shrimps, peeled and cooked. Mazzancolle is one type and I cannot tell you why they are different. Gamberoni, or “big shrimp”, are the others. It’s very much an arranged salad, meant to look as good as it tastes.

The shrimps are prepared with a lime sauce before being arranged on the salad.

Lime Sauce

finely grated lime peel from 1/2 lime
juice from 1/2 lime
finely minced parsley
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
salt to taste
Mix those things together and toss the shrimps in it as soon as they come off the heat. Leave to marinate not more than 10 minutes.

The salad dressing I served is Strawberry Vinaigrette, which has a strong and intriguing scent, but doesn’t alter the taste very much. It’s good, but more interesting than good.

Strawberry Vinaigrette

Make strawberry vinegar at least 2 weeks ahead. Fill a jar with clean whole strawberries then cover them with cider vinegar. Leave them to marinate the whole 2 weeks and then strain off the beautiful red vinegar and cork it until you need it.

1 tablespoon of strawberry vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
1 heaped teaspoon prepared mustard
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil.

Shake it up, baby, and take a sniff. I have to try this with honey one day for fruit salad dressing.

I made homemade rolls to go with this and I thought they were warm and yummy. I don’t know why we don’t eat like this more often in Italy.