Wedding Preview

Over Labor Day weekend, D and I traveled to St. Louis to take care of some of the wedding details. We had a wine tasting, cupcake tasting, and food tasting. Everything was great. Here is a preview of what is to come...

Wine tasting:

Cupcake tasting (kudos to my brother for engineering these fantastic cupcakes!):

Feta, Olive, and Lamb Meatballs

I'm back! The past month and a half has been busier than expected. I've been putting in a lot of hours at work and as the marathon creeps closer and closer, training has picked up intensity and I've found myself with not a whole lot of time for cooking and blogging. Although entries will probably be sparse for the next month or so, don't worry, the blogging will continue!

Also, vegetarians, do not grow weary. I realize that in my absence, Daniele turned this blog into something meat-centric. And my lamb meatballs are not going to help with that! What can I say? When you are running 30-40 miles a week your body needs...protein in a way that garbanzo beans and peanut butter just can't cut it. As someone who has strong vegetarian tendencies myself, don't worry, I'll bring the vegetarian back! (coming up: zucchini fritters and cauliflower curry soup).

I also haven't forgotten about my dear friend, the crockpot. She'll make a comeback, too, especially since we're inching closer to fall which means...time for soup!

Alright, on to the recipe.

Feta, Olive, and Lamb Meatballs (borrowed from allrecipes.com)

• 1 pound ground lamb
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons minced onion
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 1/2 cup chopped green olives
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Preheat your oven's broiler on the normal setting.

Mix together all ingredients in a large bowl. Roll into balls and place 2-3 inches apart on a baking sheet.

Broil 3-5 inches away from the heat for about 10 minutes (or until browned on top). Flip meatballs over and broil for 10 minutes on the other side.

You can see how much Daniele hated this one (as he scrapes every last drop of the meatballs off of the baking sheet and into his mouth).

Involtini

And this is the last of my recipes for now, I'll handle back the blog to Laura after this. But before that happens, here you have another easy and fun meat dish to make.

 

Involtini

• 1lb minute steak (or other very thin beef, or veal) 
• 1/4 lb prosciutto 
• parmesan 
• sage 
• oil 
• salt 
• pepper 
• cooking wine 
• wooden toothpicks

You will need some very thin meat, beef will do, or veal, or even chicken breast, as long as the slices are thin enough. You want to cut it into roughly rectangular strips, say about 5x2 inches (but feel free to adjust to the shape and size of the meat you have).

Lay down the meat and lay on top of it one or two slices of prosciutto and some parmesan cheese which you'll have cut into small slices (I guess shredded could do too, if you only have that). You can make a variation by substituting your favorite kind of cheese.

Roll up the meat and secure it with the toothpicks, paying attention to try to close up the sides, otherwise all the cheese will leak out when you cook them.

If you have fresh sage, you can stick a leaf on each roll.

Heat up some oil in a pan, and put the rolls in, turning them so that they brown for a couple of minutes. Add salt, pepper, dry sage if you didn't have any fresh one (or some other kind of herb, depending on what you have around) and a little bit of cooking wine or water. 

Cover with a lid and cook the Involtini for 10-15 minutes, they will probably be done once you see a little bit of cheese leaking out.

That's it! Serve right away, together with their delicious cooking juice.

Vitello Tonnato

This is another typical summer cold dish, and as you might have guessed from the name (if you know some Italian...), it involves tuna, which makes it the 3rd out of the 4 last recipes. What can I say? I like my tuna in the summer!

 

Vitello Tonnato

 

-1lb veal (I'll get back in a second to discuss which cut to use)

-1 can of tuna

-olive oil

-vegetable oil

-2 eggs

-1Tbs capers

-a couple of anchovies

-lemon juice

-vinegar

-salt

-pepper

-a mix of herbs (I used Italian Seasoning)

 

So, ideally the veal should be a roast cut with few bones (e.g. leg round roast or leg rump roast), because you want to be able to slice it thin after you cooked it. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any of that at our local supermarket, so I used shoulder blade chop, which wasn't a terribly good idea since it ended up being impossible to slice thin and I more or less just cut it into little pieces instead.

 

I guess you could substitute the veal with something else, also because veal appears to be pretty expensive in the US, the taste will be slightly different, but the main taste is given by the Salsa Tonnata anyway...

 

So, get your meat, cook it like a roast, like heat some oil in a pan and put the meat in it, cover with a lid, and add salt, pepper and herbs. Cook it on low until it's done, if it gets too dry you can add a little bit of water or cooking wine.

 

While the veal is cooking, you should prepare the Salsa Tonnata, which is kind of like a tuna mayo. So, in a food processor or blender blend two egg yolks (I actually used a whole egg and an egg yolk, the extra egg white makes the sauce a little lighter), then slowly add olive oil and vegetable oil until it gets almost to the consistency of a mayo (it's ok if it is a little more liquid than that). Then add the can of tuna (you might as well not drain the oil) the capers and the anchovies and mix everything. Once it's all mixed, add a splash of lemon juice and a couple of drops of vinegar to it (I actually didn't have any lemon juice at home and it tasted fine anyway). Salt to taste too.

 

At this point the veal should almost be done, once that's the case let it cool down then slice it as thin as you can. Put the veal slices on a serving plate and cover them with the Salsa Tonnata, if you want you can garnish it with some more capers.

 

Let it sit in the fridge for an hour, then serve and enjoy!

 

 

Straccetti con la Rucola

We continue with another italian dish, although this is not necessarily a summer one. It's very easy to make and of course very tasty.

Straccetti con la Rucola

-1lb of beef steak, as thin as possible (the one we used was called minute steak)

-3oz rucola (arugula)

-balsamic vinegar

-olive oil

-salt

-pepper

First of all, you should cut the steak (which needs to be very thin) into small strips (this is where the name comes from: "straccetti" literally means "little rags").

Heat up a little bit of olive oil and some balsamic vinegar in a pan and when it's hot, dump the strips of steak in.

It should not take long to cook, only a couple of minutes, while it cooks you can add some salt and pepper.

Once it's cooked, add the arugula and let it cook for another minute until it wilts. The arugula will shrink a lot, so you can probably use much more than 3oz, depending on your tastes.

Voilà, it's done!

You can serve it with a little more fresh arugula on top and maybe another splash of balsamic vinegar.

Insalata di Riso (Rice Salad)

This is a very easy summer dish, quick to make and perfect to bring to potlucks and picnices. You can use whatever vegetables you have lying around your fridge.

This is what we used, it made approximately 4 servings:

-1 cup of rice
-corn
-peas
-green beans
-asparagus
-1 can of tuna
-2 hard boiled eggs
-cheese (we had smoked gouda, but any semi-0hard cheese will do)
-olive oil
-salt
-pepper

It seems silly to give a detailed description of the recipe: boil the rice and then cool it down with cold water, cook the veggies, cut everything in small pieces (the veggies, the eggs, the cheese) and mix it together with a good quantity of olive oil.

We like to serve it mixed with some mayo, but that's optional. 

Polpettone di Tonno (Tuna Loaf)

Hi people, since Laura has been busy in the past weeks, I offered to help with the blog posts (and not just with the cooking.) So, I guess I will write the next couple of entries.

Going home to Italy in July inspired me to try my hand at some of my favorite summer dishes. Since summer in Chicago is as hot as it is in Cento, I figured some cold recipes were appropriate.

Polpettone di Tonno (Tuna Loaf)

-4 cans of tuna (the usual 5 oz ones)
-8 tbs breadcrumbs
-8 tbs grated paresan
-2 eggs
-salt
-pepper

The recipe also asks for 7-8 tbs of oil, but since the canned tuna we had was already in oil, I decided to just use some of it, so I didn't completely drain the cans when I opened them.

Also, the tuna should be chunk light, or otherwise you will need to chop it into small pieces.

Once this is done (you have the tuna in sufficiently small pieces and you have enough oil) put everything together in a bowl and mix it well. At the same time, yous hould start boiling water in a pot large enough to hold the tuna loaf (and there should be enough water to cover the loaf).

Once mixed, lay the mixture on a foil sheet and make it into a loaf shape, then wrap it completely with teh foil so that it holds the shape.

When the water boils, drop the loaf in the boiling water and cook for 20 minutes.

then, let it cool down before unwrapping the foil and serving. If you have time, keeping it in the fridge a couple of hours will make it stick together more and therefore it will be less likely to crumble when you cut it.

We served it with a side of salad, I also like to garnish it with mayo.