Stuffed cabbage soup

 

 

Stuffed cabbage soup is what you make when you bought the ingredients to make stuffed cabbage only to realise you just don't have the time to go through the whole process (after you have been pushing it off for three days in a row) and your ground meat really needs using up. And guess what? It is just as good (or at least we thought so), very comforting, warming and full of flavor, and can be ready in under an hour, so I knew you would appreciate if I shared.

I used potatoes because I had some that were starting to sprout, but adding raw rice (about a cup for the amount below) would probably be more fitting, since stuffed cabbage is often filled with ground meat and rice. Up to you entirely, but make sure you add more liquid if you do this, as rice generally absorbs more than potatoes while cooking.

Also, I used pimenton de la Vera because that is what I had and I love the smoky flavor it adds, but using spicy Hungarian paprika - or any other sort - is more than ok since this soup is loosely based on Eastern European stuffed cabbage recipes.

The amounts below are just a suggestion, I usually eyeball them depending on how liquid or spicy or meaty I want the soup to be.
 

Potato and porcini mushroom soup

 

 

 

 

There was a time in my life when I woke up every morning to what is considered one of the most breathtaking views in the world. The Dolomites, that unique part of the Italian Alps that turns pink during sunrise and sunset, were so much a part of my everyday life that I barely noticed them outside of my window.

 

I am sure that being a teenager at the time didn't help my indifference to nature, busy as I was whispering with my girlfriends, listening to my Walkman, sometimes doing homework but mostly daydreaming about some guy I had met the day before out on the slopes. In boarding school you rarely stop to smell the roses, to breathe in the fresh mountain air, to look at the silver pine trees or admire the snow sparkling in the sun.

 

Now, however, whenever I get the chance to go to the mountains - any mountains - things are very different. I gasp at the beauty that surrounds me, I rejoice in watching my children run in the tall grass and wild flowers or making snow angels in the winter. I realize those years changed me without me even noticing it. The mountains have stayed within me, in my heart and soul, and few places make me feel so at peace.

 

 

 

 

I already wrote about going back to visit those mountains. Once every few years we visit an old friend. Our kids play together, our husbands talk airplanes (seriously, how many chances are there that your high school bestie will marry a guy who is as obsessed with civil aviation as yours is?) and we reminisce about how silly and boy crazy we were (did I mention the boarding school was not co-ed?) and about the ups and downs of being a teenager. We still giggle and there is still wine, but it is no longer hidden away in a pillowcase inside a shoebox in a suitcase somewhere in the back of our closet.

 

My friend and I also sometimes collaborate. This recipe was part of a project we worked on and I couldn't not share it with you, my friends. It is a recipe from La cucina delle Dolomiti by Dino Dibona and was chosen to allow tourists to easily recreate the flavors of those mountains in their own home.  To make this you simply have to procure a package of dried porcini mushrooms, an ideal ingredient to carry back in your suitcase because they are so lightweight. If, on the other hand, you haven't been skiing in the Dolomites, luckily for you dried porcini are nowadays readily available almost anywhere and although they are pricey, a few go a long way.

 

 

 

 

In this essential and effortless soup the (once) humble ingredients really shine through. In old times people from these valleys used to prepare this kind of meal to fill their bellies and warm their bodies during the freezing months using what was available to them from farming and foraging. Potatoes held well all winter and mushrooms were plentiful in the fall and were then sliced and dried for the colder months.

 

What I loved most about the soup is the incredible flavor these few ingredients can create when combined: its is so much more than the sum of its parts. The texture is wonderful too: the soft, sweet  potato nuggets absorb all that flavor and the mushrooms add a subtle earthiness and chew. Every bite tastes and smells like you are walking through the forest, dark fronds towering over you, your steps softly sinking into the warm, dry mossy carpet.

 

 

Ingredients (4 servings)

600gr/3 medium-sized potatoes
1 liter/4 cups/35 oz. vegetable stock
100gr/3.5 oz. fresh porcini mushrooms or 50gr/1.7oz. dried porcini
50gr butter/about 3tbsp butter (or oil for a vegan recipe)
1 yellow onion

2 garlic cloves

chives, for garnish

 

Peel and thinly slice the potatoes. Peel and finely chop the onion and garlic. Clean and roughly chop the mushrooms if you are using fresh porcini. If you are using dried porcini (like I did), rinse them quickly with cold water and then soak in hot (but not boiling) water for up to an hour. Set aside the liquid when you drain them.

 

Melt the butter in a pot over low heat and add the potatoes, onion and garlic. Sauté for about 3 minutes, mixing constantly.

Pour in the stock, bring to a boil and simmer covered for about 20 minutes.

Add the porcini mushrooms. If you are using dried mushrooms, pour in part of the remaining liquid for extra flavor. 

Raise the heat and cook for another 10  minutes. Garnish with finely chopped chives and serve.

 

 

 

Polpo con patate in umido (octopus and potato stew)



This is the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde... went a famous song in the early Eighties.

 

That is my story these days, the story of my blond-haired, blue-eyed baby who not-so-occasionally morphs into a little monster with tentacles, a spinning head and flying spittle.

 

I get that Terrible Twos sounds much more catching than Terrible Fours, but for me it has always been about the fours. And from what I hear and see around, it is not just me. So to hell with the Terrible Twos, let's get serious and discuss the Frightful Fours.

My daughter had a pretty bad case of them, much worse than my son's, but she had the partial excuse of a baby brother invading her territory at the time.

He, on the other hand, may be a little easier to handle (and I have a feeling this is partly because he is a boy, a more simple gender to deal with in general) but he has no such excuse.

 

Lately the constant "No"s and whining and defiant attitude have been eroding my soul like a slow yet steady trickle of water. I know this phase will pass, I know he is taking his first steps in becoming independent, I know deep, deep down inside he is still my sweet little boy. But let me tell you, he can be a real pain in the a** on the outside these days.

Unfortunately, there is not much you can do except breathe in and breathe out (after you have tried everything from ignoring to reasoning to time outs - because everything just makes it worse) until it passes.

 

So when it takes me 20 minutes to get his shoes on at pre-school because this involves ten minutes of cajoling on my part and crying and screaming on his just to get to him to his locker (the last time it was about me daring to kiss him on his ear when he ran into my arms minutes before), five minutes of him flinging said shoes off every time I get them on his kicking feet and another five of him opening and closing the velcro straps repeatedly because I did it wrong and I am mean... I breathe in and I breathe out.

When he constantly and very publicly refuses to sit near me anywhere, whether on a bus, a plane or in a restaurant, because he wants Daddy and only Daddy - even when it is logistically impossible... I breathe in and I breathe out.

 

Red tape, white soup - Cream of celeriac, potatoes and roasted garlic

You know how they say a little sneeze can start an avalanche?

Well on Monday I sneezed…

My first mistake was waiting till pretty much the last minute to get some important paperwork done. This knowing very well for something like, uhm, ten years that this day was approaching. This even if I had started working on the process well over a month ago.

In my defense I would like to point out a few of things:

1. I am normally a pretty organized person
2. I usually don’t leave things to the last minute
3. The immigration officer on the other end of the phone seemed pretty relaxed about deadlines when I called to enquire
4. How was I supposed to know that as of 1 January 2012 the whole certification procedure between bodies of the Italian Public Administrations was going to change? I mean even the guy in point 3) didn’t know! Ok, I live in Italy, I shoulda known better.

Back to Monday:

(scene)

Blonde female puts papers into an envelope with a satisfied smirk (she has after all just solved problem in the above point 4) and fills out the last page of a stack of forms. She pulls out her passport to copy the number and expiry date and lets out a bloodcurdling scream. (Cut)

Yes, my passport is expiring in 3 weeks, when the abovementioned envelope should have been sitting on a desk at immigration containing a valid copy of said passport.

After this horrible Monday-morning discovery, images of a big red stamp reading "deported" loomed in my mind for the rest of the day. Images of my Italian children crying out "Mamma, Mamma" as I am being dragged handcuffed onto an airplane. My husband declaring eternal love and promising he will find a way of getting me back.

A question arises spontaneously: how the heck did I not remember that my passport was expiring exactly in the timeframe of the process required to renew that slip of paper that allows me to live in this country?

Well, the truth is I have a phobia of all things involving red tape. As a citizen of one country with a parent from another country growing up in yet a third country, my situation is sometimes a little confusing. As a person who often feels like she belongs everywhere and nowhere, bureaucracy can get a little intimidating. I am always waiting for that paragraph 10b, subsection VIII to jump out at me demanding a paper everyone else in the country has that totally screws me over because "I am not an xyz citizen" or "I wasn’t living here at the time sir". My phobia is not at all helped by the fact that I live in a country that is notorious, to say the least, when it comes to bureaucracy.

So let’s just say that despite point 1) and 2) above, this is one of the few cases when I tend to push off a problem, to pretend it does not exist.

Maybe if I don’t think about it, it will go away… (girl rocks back and forth in a dark corner with children’s song playing in the background).

Oh, and then life got in the way with birthdays and Christmas and family visiting and then the deadline was suddenly upon me. I always leave extra time for last minute problems or emergencies. But no, when it involved something as important as this, yours truly decided not to count the days and to live in lala land instead.

Idiot!

And that is how the avalanche started and got worse and worse.

The rest of my day was spent on the phone, on the Internet, mumbling and cursing, with a tear or two in between.

Did you know, conveniently, that immigration calling hours are in the morning and Consulate calling hours are in the afternoon? And that I work in an open plan office space? And that the lines are constantly busy and when the line is free you are endlessly transferred to another extention where you have to explain your whole life story again? I am sure my colleagues enjoyed that. And the pigeons on the terrace, where I eventually moved after a few dirty looks.

And did you know you have to make an appointment to even get in to the Consulate? And that the US passport photo format differs from the European size? And that only one out of ten photographers will print in that size? And that this is the era of digital photography so finding a photo lab (what where they even called when they existed???) is practically impossible? And that when you find one their computer has broken down? And when you find another one, they are closing early? And that I had to print out three pages in English from the Consulate's website for the Italian photographer to study before clicking away?

Well, as much as you like a good story, I will admit that at the end of all this I found a place right next to home where a lovely lady studied hard and knew exactly what she was doing (25 to 35mm from chin to top of head, no smiling, white backdrop, no headgear, no strange accessories etcetera, etcetera, etcetera).

And then after searching for the entrance for quite a while and leaving any electronic devices at the office and asking the bar tender next door if he could watch my bike helmet while I disappeared into Fort Knox because it could turn into a weapon of mass destruction if inappropriately used, and getting undressed and storing my lip gloss in a miniature locker and showing my passport and answering questions and being escorted from the elevator I actually got everything done at the Consulate in the matter of minutes with the assistance of very kind and helpful personnel, both inside and out.

And it seems, after searching on line for hours, like the deadline for my permit renewal is actually not as close as I initially read so the man in point 3) had every reason to be relaxed.

So fingers crossed, but it seems that things are looking up.

After a week like this, a nice bowl of warm and comforting soup is all I ask for.

If you have been reading my blog for a while you know about my revelation. This time I changed the ingredients around a bit, getting the creaminess from potatoes instead of flour and a nice little additional boost from the garlic.

It hit the spot!

Summer tunaloaf

Yesterday I really felt the passing of time, like sand slipping through my fingers, unstoppable. You probably think it is because I am turning *beep* in a couple of weeks. Or because every muscle in my body is killing me after running that extra mile yesterday morning. But that is not it, although come to think of it I feel even older now. That darn sand is slipping way too quickly!

The reason is simple. Yesterday my first child started school. Her career really began when she was barely one and after years of daycare, kindergarden, preschool, summer school - you name it, she went - she is quite the little trooper. But yesterday was the big day, first grade.

I had packed some Kleenex into my bag along with my camera because I have become more weepy than a weeping willow these days but ended up not using it. That however does not mean it was not an emotional day: it actually turned out to be more so than I expected, at a much deeper level. It made me re-examine my life, where I am, where I am coming from and where I am headed. It made me realize that although I feel like a girl at heart, younger generations perceive me as a lady.

Lady, you have a child in school.

I tried not to think about it too much over the summer and only really focused a little last week when I went to buy a backpack and pencil box. By Sunday I was feeling a little nervous and doing my best to hide it, going on and on to my daughter about how big she is, how she will soon be reading and writing, what an exciting time she had ahead of her. When I tucked her in I told her it was ok to feel a little scared, that each and every child would be nervous the next morning. I also told her to remember that to them she was a scary stranger just like they were to her and she giggled and said "Mommy, that's impossible, I am a very sweet girl!". She had been pretty nonchalant about the whole thing for weeks and I wondered how much she was acting excited for our sake and how much she really understood what was happening. I mean, until you've been to school you really don't know what you are getting yourself into, right?

So yesterday she woke up, we took some pictures and set off.


That is when the throbbing began, deep inside my chest. All I could see when I looked at her was a huge, bouncing backpack and little blonde locks sticking out from the top. She was excited and her excitement grew as she found her old friends from last year and they assembled in a squealing group hug. All nervousness was forgotten on her side and I barely saw her for the next 10 minutes. Then a teacher came out and told us to assemble in the courtyard to form the classes. I felt butterflies in my stomach and a cold, little hand slip into mine. In a second I experienced all her anxiety, fear and expectation, I could almost feel her heart thumping in her little ribcage, like a frightened little bird's. I just wanted to protect her, to fold her into my arms and hold her tight. But when it was her turn, she walked right over to her new teachers and classmates without glancing back and up the big stairway they went. By the time us parents followed and reached her classroom she was sitting in the front row with a girl she didn't know instead of choosing an old friend. That's my girl. When we left she was smiling and whispering and comparing pencil cases and I knew she would be fine.

When I picked her up a few hours later I took her out for a special lunch, just the two of us and we both enjoyed the luxury of a week day together. By the evening we were all tired, emotionally drained and in need of a comforting meal. Comfort food in our repertoire is usually hearty food - not really fitting for the last throes of summer. Until now.

Here is a recipe for a summer meatloaf made with pantry staples from a friend and colleague, something most kids will enjoy too. My son had two huge slices, but then again I did watch him down 4 hotdogs (minus the buns) at a BBQ this summer. It is simple but took a little more effort/time than I had imagined to assemble. The thing I hadn't taken into account was the cooling process, which takes longer than you would expect. So give yourself plenty of time to make it. It is a great meal to prepare a day ahead, to bring as a potluck or picnic dish or as an office meal and it gets better as the days pass.

When it has cooled completely, slice and drizzle with some olive oil, a little lemon juice and lots of freshly ground black pepper. I was in a rush and we like grainy texture in our home so I kept it quite rustic, but you can easily process the ingredients to get a smoother texture. There are endless variations: you could add in some mustard or throw in some green beans (keeping them whole) for a Niçoise effect. Let me know what you did with yours.

T.G. I. F. gratin

Thank God It's Friday. It has been a long, busy week at work and I really am thankful for the week end stretching in front of me: I am looking forward to little feet pattering into our room in the morning, small warm bodies trampling piling on top of us, breakfast together and two whole days to spend with my family.

My Friday recipe is fish-based.

Wait, all this talk of being thankful to God and fish on Friday...no, we are not strict Catholics, we are not churchgoers at all really. Our family is a mix of religions and cultures, not as common here as it is in other places. My family tree includes German protestants, Polish Catholics and New York Jews (of German descent). My husband's family is Sicilian Catholic and I too was brought up in Catholic Italy. So there is a reason why my parents and my husband&I decided to let our children choose their creed growing up. We do teach our children about God and values that are important to us but we try to do it with a broader scope, encompassing things we agree with in many religions. We want our children to grow up respecting and knowing more about other possibilities. I know many may disagree strongly and I realize broaching the subject of religion on  a food blog is perhaps inappropriate. I apologize if I am offending anyone in any way. The reason I am writing about this is because I believe strongly that food and the pleasure of sitting at a table with family and friends is something all cultures and thus all religions share and as a consequence I firmly believe that eating together and feeling the same enjoyment really is a way for people of different beliefs to grow closer and understand each other better. Isn't it true that we are what we eat, in all senses, and that teaching others the recipes we grew up eating is a way of teaching them to understand where we come from, our history and our heritage?

Elba part 7 - Sicilian salad and a stomach pump please

I need a break. This is a food orgy; all we seem to be doing these days is eating and drinking. Plus my morning runs and afternoon laps have come to a screeching halt since my 13 month-old not only has decided to start waking up early in the morning but also that he cannot live a minute without his father or me in a two-foot radius. And did I mention that he is also trying to abolish his afternoon nap?

As a consequence I am rising like a loaf of bread in a hot oven. I need to go back home and get back into shape. I also need some healthy, light food. So pass me a salad and a stomach pump please if you will.

About love affairs, Asian-style chicken salad and guilt-free potato chips

Dear F,

I don't know how to tell you this, but I have fallen in love. It happened by accident, we met in a little old store on my way home from the office. I saw him and looked the other way, feigned interest for something on display. I promise you, I tried to leave and not turn back. But I couldn't help it, I could not control my urges. I turned and he was still there. Sleek and sharp looking...I couldn't resist...I left the store with him. We hit it off immediately. I did things with him I had never dreamed of doing before, I suddenly became adventurous, I wanted to try more. I couldn't help myself. Forgive me F, I have fallen for Kyocera, my new Japanese love.

Mediterranean octopus salad

In my quest of making things that are refreshing in this heat and inspired by the many jokes about Paul the Octopus after Germany was kicked out of the World Cup last week I came across another recipe from my mother in law: a Mediterranean octopus salad that is usually served warm but that can also be served chilled. It is delicious, so don't let the idea of octopus put you off. If cooked well, it is extremely tender and it is very subtle in taste.