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grandmother’s recipe – GT Food & Travel
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GT Food & Travel

Tag: grandmother’s recipe

  • Hazelnut & Dried Cherry Biscotti

    Hazelnut & Dried Cherry Biscotti

    With every season and holiday baking rituals arrive. I never thought much about them as a child. With each year that passes by, I cherish these rituals more and more. Easter is quickly approaching. Mom and I make bunny, egg, and lamb shaped chocolates, bunny shaped bread and various versions of ricotta pie and biscotti. The baking marathon starts on Good Friday and ends at the Easter table littered with a plethora of savory and sweet dishes.DSC_0133

    In anticipation of the Easter bake-off, my sweet tooth and fidgety hands are warming up in the kitchen making biscotti. Biscotti means twice cooked as these tasty cookies are cooked in a strips, sliced and then cooked a second time. This easy to make biscotti recipe can be easily adapted to include your favorite nuts, dried fruit and chocolate.

    Ingredients

    • 1 cup sugar
    • 1 stick of butter
    • 3 eggs
    • 3 cups flour
    • 3 tsp baking powder
    • 1/2 tsp vanilla
    • toasted hazelnuts
    • dried cherries

    DSC_0120Combine sugar and butter.  Add well-beaten eggs, flour, baking powder and vanilla.  Mix together. Add as many hazelnuts and dried cherries as you like. I added approximately 1 cup of each. The dough can be quite sticky. If it’s too sticky to work with add a bit of flour to the mixture. DSC_0126

    Form 3 strips approximately 4 inches wide and 10 inches long. Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and slice.  DSC_0130Place under broiler to brown both sides (approximately 5 minutes per side).DSC_0132Remove and voilà! Your home will be full of aromas of roasting hazelnuts and you’ve got home-made biscotti. They are delicious served straight out of the oven or for breakfast dunked in coffee or as an afternoon snack. 

  • Bean-Potato Stew from Ma’s Kitchen

    Bean-Potato Stew from Ma’s Kitchen

    It’s lovely, how I still dream of her. I’m happy to meet Ma in my dreams and celery cut in uniform miniscule squares on a well-worn wooden board and any kitchen knife. Her hands were always manicured but she never wore nail polish. Her nail length was uniform too. Like the cutting board, her hands are worn from a lifetime of cooking, caring and chopping. Her hands tell many stories with each fine line. Ma wears the house coat I like best. It’s white with blue and yellow daisies. The buttons are a lucid shiny celeste. Piles of celery, a rainbow of forest and pastel green and white, lay waiting. The leaves are peppery and flat. She insisted in uniformity in the kitchen that is. Crunch, the knife moves through each stalk, mechanical movements which are uniform too, dice and move to the side.MA

    In December, Mom and I walked into Roberto’s, our neighborhood fruit and vegetable shop, where I happened over to a mound of pink pods speckled with white. Art by nature; they were the last borlotti beans of the season. Mom held open a brown paper bag and I scooped handfuls of pods into it. We grabbed a soil dusted bunch of celery with plenty of leaves. We never stop for an instant to question why Ma cooked with certain ingredients, shopped here or there and bought celery with lots of peppery leaves. It just was.celery

    Into the kitchen we go. I’m less patient and certainly not uniform like Ma when it comes to dicing, mincing and slicing. I like chunky bits of celery. Split, crunch, crack, cut, I’m in her kitchen chopping on her cutting board. There she is. Shuck the beans, peel and dice the potatoes, put them in a dutch oven pan with EVOO and plenty of oregano. Cover with water and simmer until cooked. Serve with crusty bread.beanspotatoes

    Measurements are hard with Ma’s recipes. If the beans are in the shell, use 3 to 4 pounds. If shelled use a pound. Peel and dice 4 medium size potatoes, add as much diced celery as you like, plenty of celery leaves and oregano and extra virgin olive oil.

  • Strawberry Shortcake from Ma’s Kitchen

    Strawberry Shortcake from Ma’s Kitchen

    strawberriesI’ve been eyeing strawberries at the Rome food markets for weeks. Ma (aka my grandmother) loved strawberries, sliced and sprinkled with sugar, over ice cream or in cake fillings. She made whipped cream and fruit filled shortcake for summer parties and birthdays, pineapple for my great grandfather Domenico’s, strawberry for my cousin Jimmy’s. On the 4th of July, she added strawberries and blueberries to layers of whipped cream. Ruby red, purple blue and porcelain white to celebrate Independence Day.wholecake

    On a whim Ma would replace the whipped cream with home made vanilla and chocolate pudding. Simple, comforting and delicious…here’s my version of Ma’s recipe just in time for the 4th of July!

    Ingredients for cake

    • 6 eggs
    • 1 cup sugar
    • 1 cup flour
    • 2 teaspoons baking powder
    • 2 teaspoons vanilla

    Ingredients for filling

    • 2 – 3 cups strawberries
    • 1 cup heavy cream
    • confectioners’ sugar or granulated sugar to taste

    Preheat the oven to 350° F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans. Line the pans with wax paper, butter the paper and dust the pans with flour, knocking out any excess flour. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. In a large bowl beat the egg whites until they form peaks. In a separate bowl with the mixer on low speed combine the egg yolks, sugar, flour, baking powder and vanilla. Fold the egg whites into the batter. Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a spatula. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. I don’t have 2-9 inch round cake pans. My 13-inch springform did the trick. cakeoutofovenWhile the cake is cooling slice 1 to 2 cups of strawberries and put aside. In a mixing bowl beat 1 cup heavy cream until soft peaks form. Add confectioners’ sugar or granulated sugar to taste and beat until soft peaks return. Fold sliced strawberries into the whipped cream. If you used one pan like me you’ll need to slice the cake into two layers and top the first layer with the strawberry-whipped cream mixture. cakelayerPlace the second layer on top and garnish with whipped cream and whole or sliced strawberries. Slice and enjoy!cakeslice

     

  • Recipes from my Grandmother’s Kitchen

    Recipes from my Grandmother’s Kitchen

    Can a book of recipes capture a lifetime? My grandmother Louise, known as Ma to her family and friends, kept her recipes in a leather bound book. She hand wrote each one. She added recipe clippings from magazines which she’d take and make her own. During my last visit to Boston, I read each page, overcome by delicious memories of food, family and laughter – Sunday lunches under the grapevine with my cousins, Christmas Eve dinner for 40+ guests and beach BBQs are just a few. Her kitchen was a magical place where simple fresh ingredients were melded into my favorite dishes.CookbookWhen I moved to Italy seven years ago my mom gave me a book of Ma’s signature recipes. My mom hand wrote each entry. It is the most thoughtful gift that I’ve ever received. I add more family recipes to the book each season as well as my own. It is a tribute to my Italian heritage intertwined with American ingredients and Ma’s love of cooking.

    IMG_3834Ma passed away more than 15 years ago. Cooking brings her into my kitchen. The smell of bubbling tomato sauce and freshly torn basil fill the air and I smile at my reverse journey from the U.S. to Italy, taking Italian-American recipes handed down from generation to generation and making them my own testing, tasting and retesting with authentic Italian ingredients. I am lucky.

    I’ve shared her pasta and beans, biscotti and date nut bread recipes here and I look forward to sharing more memories with you from my kitchen.

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    biscottiSlice

    DSC_3582

     

  • Date Nut Bread

    Date Nut Bread

    With winter upon us, I find myself thinking of the holidays, missing my family and spending time in my kitchen keeping warm, baking and cooking. I leafed through a handwritten book of family recipes and the one for date nut bread caught my eye. Another one of my grandmother’s, the same woman who taught me how to make pasta and beans.

    I hope you enjoy this sweet bread as much as I do.

    DSC_3582Ingredients

    • 1 cup hot coffee or espresso
    • 1 cup chopped dates
    • 1 cup chopped walnuts
    • 1 cup sugar
    • 1.5 cups flour
    • 3 tablespoons butter
    • 2 eggs
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla
    • 1 teaspoon baking soda
    • pinch of salt

    Heat the oven to 300° F. Chop the dates and walnuts. Set aside.

    DSC_3566Combine the sugar, butter, eggs, flour, salt, vanilla and walnuts in a large bowl. Mix until the batter is smooth. In a small bowl add the chopped dates and baking soda to the hot coffee or espresso. In three parts, add the coffee mixture to the batter. Mix well. DSC_3571Pour batter into a greased and floured loaf-panDSC_3579Bake at 300° F for 1 to 1.5 hours.

    DSC_3581Serve warm or at room temperature for breakfast or a snack.

  • Simply Satisfying Biscotti

    Simply Satisfying Biscotti

    When winter strikes, I find myself spending more time baking. A few years ago my Mom gave me a leather bound book with my grandmother Louise’s signature recipes. She hand-wrote each one. It is the most thoughtful gift I’ve ever received. I keep adding more of my grandmother’s recipes to it, testing them and retesting them.

    I recently made a version of her anise biscotti.  In Italy, the term biscotti refers to a twice-baked cookie.  I adapted the recipe using butter instead of margarine and orange essence instead of anise oil.

    Ingredients
    1 cup sugar
    1/2 cup butter
    3 eggs
    3 cups flour
    3 tsp baking powder
    1/2 tsp orange essence
     

    Combine sugar and butter.  Add eggs well-beaten, flour, baking powder and essence.  Mix together and form 3 strips approximately 6 inches wide and 10 inches long.  Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.  Remove from oven, slice and place under broiler to brown both sides.  

    They are tasty hot out of the oven or dunk them in coffee for breakfast or a snack!


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