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November 18, 2022 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Chestnuts for the Fall

For the first time in years, this Thanksgiving we aren’t going to make our traditional oyster dressing for dinner. Instead, we’re returning to an old American classic dressing made with chestnuts.

Having recently returned from Puglia and seen first-hand the destruction of the thousand-year-old olive trees made me think about America’s own incredible loss of trees, the American chestnut. It once dominated the forests of the east coast. The rot-resistent, strong wood was used for log cabins, telephone poles and railroad ties. At one time the Thanksgiving table was not complete without a dish that included chestnuts! Then at the turn of the 20^th Century, a blight from Asia wiped out the trees completely.

Our grandmother’s valley in Campania, the Irpinia, is famous for chestnuts and many of those you find in the grocery store at this time of year come from there. They’re easy to find already cooked, peeled and vacuum packed from Asia.

Chestnuts can be boiled or roasted and are easiest to peel when hot. I like to throw whole, peeled chestnuts in the pan when the turkey is roasting, then scatter them on the serving platter around the sliced turkey. When roasted, they are perfect at the end of a meal with that extra glass of red wine and some clementines!

Whether boiled or roasted, chestnuts add a richness and meatiness to soups, stuffings and braised dishes and make holiday dishes seem extra special.

Below are two recipes: Chestnut dressing and chestnut soup. Both are perfect for the fall celebration!

Chestnut Dressing

I like dressing instead of stuffing, which is too fussy and complicated with its inherent warnings of food poisoning if not done just right. Who needs that kind of stress on Thanksgiving?!

1 onion, small dice

1 large stalk celery, small dice

½ bulb fresh fennel, small dice

Olive oil

Butter

2-3 cups chestnuts*, rough chop

4 cups bread cubes, unflavored (try Tuscan Pane from Trader Joe’s, cut into cubes)

Homemade turkey stock

2 tbsp parsley, minced

½ teaspoon ground fennel seeds

Sea salt and white pepper

Make your turkey stock. It’s so easy, there’s no excuse! While the turkey is roasting, take the neck and wing tips, cover them with water and add a carrot, celery, small piece of onion and some parsley stems. Simmer an hour, add some salt and voila’!

Sauté the onion, celery and fennel in a pan with enough olive oil and butter to coat everything.

Put the chestnuts, bread, parsley and ground fennel in a large bowl, add the sauteed vegetables and toss, adding enough turkey broth to moisten it. Season with salt and white pepper. Place it in a buttered casserole dish and bake at 375 til browned on top.

*We use the peeled chestnuts found at Costco.

Zuppa di Castagna (Chestnut Soup)

6 oz pancetta, diced

1 small onion, chopped

2 leeks, chopped

1 bulb fresh fennel, chopped

1 garlic clove, minced

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

3 tbsp butter

1 sprig rosemary, chopped

2 cups chestnut meat, chopped

water

salt

2 bay leaves

1 cup cream

Sauté the pancetta in a soup pot with half the olive oil until warmed, add the butter and rest of the olive oil to the pan and sauté the onion, leek, garlic and fennel until soft and translucent. Add the rosemary and sauté for a minute, then the chestnut meat. Stir to coat with the oil and warm through, add enough water to the pan to cover, add the bay leaves, salt to taste and simmer for 30 minutes. Just before serving add the cream. Serve with croutons.

Check out our food and wine tours to Italy here!

July 26, 2021 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Where’d all these zucchini come from?!

It’s summertime and the garden is bursting with a lot of zucchini! We went to a pick-your-own vegetable farm a few weeks ago when I visited Mary in Dallas and had a great time in the hot sun. Lots of families and little kids. And lots of humongous zucchini no one wanted. We picked them, got a discount because of their size, and made some wonderful meals with them! Check out this farm website to find a pick-your-own farm near you!

The only problem with zucchini season is, they are so plentiful that people run out of interesting ways to eat them. Especially the oversized ones, which can have big seeds. Our Italian granny called them “gugoozt”. Not sure about that spelling. Don’t worry, the larger zucchini aren’t tough and they still have great flavor! Below are some wonderful recipes that will help you use your zucchini bounty.

Don’t forget, the zucchini blossom is edible as well – add the torn flowers to any of these dishes for a nice splash of orange.

Zucchini pancakes: grate the zucchini on a box grater or food processor and toss with a couple tablespoons of flour. To 6 cups of grated zucchini, mix in 1 cup chopped scallions, 3 eggs, ½ cup parmigiano, chopped fresh basil and parsley. Right before frying the fritters, add the salt, about 2 teaspoons. If you add it too early, the zucchini gives up liquid and the mixture becomes too wet. Heat a saute pan or griddle on high, oil the pan and drop a spoonful of the mixture to form patties. Fry till browned.

Zucchini pasta sauce: Sauté a little chopped onion and a couple minced garlic cloves in olive oil until softened. Add 3 cups grated zucchini, 2 tbsp chopped parsley and 1 teas salt, cooking until zucchini is soft and wilted. Add ½ cup water and continue to cook thoroughly. Put a little cream in the sauce and bring to a simmer. When your pasta is cooked, add a dollop of pesto or a large handful of chopped basil and stir. Add the cooked pasta with a little pasta water and toss well. Top with parmigiano

Zucchini ripieno, or stuffed: cut the zucchini in half length-wise and scoop out the seeds with a spoon/paring knife. Saute chopped onion and minced garlic until onion is soft. In a bowl, mix the onions with the chopped pulp, fresh bread crumbs, crushed tomatoes, oregano, basil, parsley, and parmigiano. You can mix in Italian sausage or ground beef if you like. Lightly salt and oil the hollowed-out zucchini and stuff them with the mixture. Put them in a baking dish, drizzle well with olive oil and bake till browned. For a Greek twist, use ground lamb and chopped mint.

Roasted summer vegetables: Combine a mixture of cubed zucchini, summer squash, red/orange bell peppers and onion and lay out in a single layer on a large sheet pan. If the zucchini is really huge, cut it lengthwise and scoop out the big seeds, then cube the remainder. Place the veggies in a hot oven, 425-450, until well roasted. Put them in a large bowl, drizzle a generous amount of great olive oil and toss with sea salt and minced fresh herbs,. I like a combination of parsley, tarragon, thyme and basil. TIP: heat the empty, clean pan in the oven til it’s hot, wipe a scant amount of oil on the pan. Let it cool before cooking the veg. This keeps them from sticking and makes clean up easier too!

Here’s a great old photo of my mom in her vegetable garden picking a googutz!

She was brilliant with vegetables and some of these recipes are hers. Grazie Mamma! Ti voglio tanto bene

May 20, 2020 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

May Blossoms and Edible Flowers

Edible flowers are both beautiful and functional. So many flowers are edible, from nasturtiums, pansies, and violets, to perennial herbs like rosemary, sage and chive. The effort you make to plant and cultivate them will reward you both in the garden and on the plate.

The burst of color from edible flowers to garnish a dish is common, especially in the Italian alpine regions of Friuli and Alto Adige. The pop of color you get from violets or nasturtiums sprinkled in a salad or served on a cheese board is a joyful alpine expression! A little further south, acacia and elder flowers are a springtime treat in the regions of Veneto and Lombardia. The acacia (aka black locust) trees are in bloom now in Italy and the US and line the roadways with their full white boughs. And everyone who has been to Italy knows that fried zucchini flowers are a summer staple. Plant zucchini now for flowers all summer long.

We have really been enjoying the chive flowers this spring, sprinkled on soup or in salads. The slight oniony bite gives an unexpected lift to so many dishes. Plant chives now and you will have flowers next spring. Rosemary flowers are delicious sprinkled on sautéed mushrooms that top a grilled steak. Sage flowers are wonderful fried and served as aperitivo with a cold glass of prosecco or white wine.

The blossoms of herbs carry the perfume and flavor of the herb, but with more subtlety. Sprinkle the flowers on anything you would normally flavor the dish with, just before serving. Be sure to only eat flowers that have not been treated with chemicals though. Buon Appetito!

August 24, 2019 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Late summer’s goodness – tomatoes!

Late summer is in full swing, which in today’s world means the kids are already back in school just when the tomatoes are beautiful, plump, dark red and full of flavor, perfect for an al fresco lunch. There is nothing like a home-grown tomato, red and ripe, sliced and sprinkled with salt and olive oil, a little basil and some good bread to sop up the juices. Maybe add a ball of mozzarella or burrata. Tomatoes are easy to grow, if you can protect them from marauding rodents, but if you don’t grow your own, great tomatoes are just down the road at your local farmers market.

I wonder how many kids would be happy to see a ripe tomato in their lunch box, ready for snacking?!

The tomato is a member of the nightshade family, which also includes peppers, eggplants and potatoes, as well as tobacco, belladonna and mandrake. Originating in Central and South America, where it is a perennial, the Spanish are credited with distributing it around the world: to Asia through the Philippines and to Europe through Spain and Spanish colonies in southern Italy. The tomato is so closely linked with Italian cuisine that many people are surprised to learn that it has only been used in Naples and the Italian south since the mid-17^th Century, and in central and northern Italy since the late 18^th or early 19^th Century. In Campania, where tomatoes proliferate, the tomato was first mentioned in a cookbook of Spanish-influenced recipes printed in Naples in 1692.

In the US we have tried and true varieties, but heirloom tomatoes have made a big comeback, so called because they were old varieties, grown by past generations, that fell out of favor when everyone left their gardens and started shopping at the supermarkets. In Italy the old varieties were never lost and, even though more people shop at a supermarket than tend a garden, the traditional varieties, all wrinkled and nubbley and thick-skinned, have continued their strong presence in both garden and kitchen. Some of the best and sweetest tomatoes are grown in Campania and Sicily on the volcanic soils of Vesuvius and Etna.

On our recent trip to Tuscany for the July Palio, we were treated to a simple pasta course of spaghetti with a fresh tomato sauce that blew our socks off! Fresh cherry tomatoes were simmered with onion, garlic and olive oil, until they broke down into a sweet, oily goodness, then tossed with spaghetti and fresh basil. We’ve recreated the sauce since coming back and it is a delicious addition to summer recipes.

There are so many tomatoes available on the market now, whether you’re shopping at the farmers market, growing your own or swinging by the grocery store. Some tomatoes are sweet, like little date tomatoes, and some have more pulp and less juice, like the Roma. Some tomatoes get even sweeter when they’re heated and those are the ones you want for this sauce! To determine which are best, get a variety of cherry and grape tomatoes, cut one of each in half and pop them on a baking sheet into a hot oven. Once they’re heated through, take them out and taste each one. You’ll want to use the ones that turn the sweetest in the heat!

Have fun and buon appetito!