Rich Weekday Pasta e Fagioli / All Kinds of Rants

This is an easy, quicker version of the Italian staple, Pasta e Fagiole soup which, for some inexplicable reason, is pronounced "Pasta Fazhool".  Linguists of the world, please do not unite and try to explain to me exactly why this is.  I can actually work some, less-abstruse parts of it out for myself.  I just prefer to hyperbolize.  I would say this is an "x-ingredient recipe" except that the actual number of ingredients is not impressively-sounding low enough although, for the record, neither is the typical "x-ingredient recipe" if you count the actual number of ingredients required.  Let me rant a little here: if the recipe boldly highlights, possibly with full-color pictures, a can of some kind of soup, a jar of ketchup, and a package of ground beef, that does not mean those are the only ingredients if the rest of the (text) part of the recipe goes on to explain that you also need an onion, 4 different kinds of spices, a tub of sour cream, specialty cheesecloth, and a yak.  If an illiterate person combined the "three ingredients" he or she would not get a result like unto the picture.  Also, literate persons are then required to make a trip to a) the regular grocery store for two of the four spices that they don't have and the sour cream (who keeps sour cream besides people with serious nacho fixations?) and b) the specialty grocery for the cheesecloth and yak. 

Anyway, while the number of ingredients in this recipe is not of an Olympic-quality lowness, it is a pretty short list.  And, more importantly, the actual time to make this is about 12-15 minutes.  The end result is a pretty decent pot of Pasta e Fagioli soup that is hearty enough for a big bowlful for dinner or as an accompaniment to other things.  The tomato flavor is considerably rich, so if you want a lighter (or just brothier) soup, put in half the tomato sauce and substitute the missing volume with water.  (Or prepared broth of your choice.)

Rich Weekday Pasta e Fagioli

2 14-oz. cans red kidney beans, drained
1 15-oz. can prepared tomato sauce (your favorite jarred spaghetti sauce might be good here too)
8 oz. pasta
1 clove garlic
2-3 C. boiling water on hand
1 tsp. salt (or less-- I'm happy with the flavor I got but it could be less salty and still be flavorful)
1-2 TB. cooking oil
mint flakes, ground red pepper, and Italian seasoning to taste (I used about 1/2 tsp. each)
plenty of grated Parmesan cheese to serve it with*

Get your hot water ready in a separate pan (or microwave it, or use an electric tea kettle...whatever works for you).  Mince the garlic.  In a medium-small soup pot, heat the oil, then saute the garlic over medium heat just until it starts to release its flavors.  Then, add in the spices and salt (or you can wait to add the salt until the end) and stir them around in the bottom of the pot for a few seconds to allow them all to frizzle and release their flavors.  Then, dump in the cans of beans and tomato sauce.  Bring all that to a rapid simmer, stirring to mix the spices and garlic in thoroughly.  Then, dump in the uncooked macaroni.  Yes, you read me correctly.  No extra water (at this time).  Continue to stir, making sure to frequently scrape the bottom of the pot.  As the pasta starts to cook, it will begin to absorb the excess water from the beans and tomato sauce.  Once the mixture starts getting thick, add in a little water, about 1/2 C.  Continue to stir until all this is absorbed, then repeat the process until the macaroni is fully cooked and the soup is the consistency you like it, about 10-12 minutes.  It's a given that the pasta will absorb the remaining liquid overnight, so be prepared to add a little water in the next time you eat it...or just enjoy it the way it is.)  Serve piping hot with plenty of Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. 

I know I have been remiss in posting the amount a recipe will make, so here, for the first time (I think) is the quantity:

Makes 6-8 side dish portions or 3-4 dinner-sized portions.
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*It is officially the Italian way to put a heap of Parmesan on top of whatever you may be eating, whether it be soup, meat, or dessert.  (Okay, I'm kidding about the dessert.)  But you can leave it off if you have lactose issues, or are having difficulty finding cruelty-free dairy options.  I will confess that this is a frustration of mine as well.  All the Fancy Dancy Grocers I've ever been to have all kinds of specialty liquid dairy and, to some extent, yogurt options.  In the realm of liquid dairy, I am pretty sure if I wanted to find milk from a genetically-modified emu raised in a host family from Honduras where it was given a primary education and attended church with the family once a week, I could.  But when it comes to actual cheese, mysteriously there are no longer any choices.  "But what if I want to know if the cows who were integral in the making of this cheese lived lives similar to a cow's natural inclinations and also not fed gummy worms because grain or hay was too expensive (not making this up)?" I mentally ask the Fancy Dancy Grocers.  "Too bad for you," imply the Fancy Dancy Grocers with their lack of options.
 

Polenta Gangnam Style

Yes, I just went there.  Ever since I saw the music video which [spoiler alert] features Psy on the toilet [end spoiler], "Gangnam Style" has been my version of "Like a boss".  Which, I guess, was the point.  It's true.  I go around the house at times sounding like a bad impersonation of Kim Jong Il.  Returning to the subject, polenta is my new favorite meat substitute.  In order of likelihood, I will address your violent protests.  "But it doesn't hardly have any protein!"  Please.  When was the last time you chowed down on some plain tofu with salt and pepper for the sheer protein quality?  Thank you.  I would posit that the majority of the protein in a typical low-meat diet comes from: eggs, cheese, and beans.  And, according to some, kale.  But not me.  You will not find me "on the kale trail", as I once heard someone put it.  Ok, that's really the only protest I could think up.  But hear me out: it takes on the flavor of whatever you put it in, much like tofu, while itself having a pleasing texture and taste (especially if you make it with a savory broth), unlike tofu.  It also holds its shape remarkably well, also like tofu.  And, completely unlike tofu, it is both cheap and easy to make in your own kitchen in a short amount of time.  With all that being said, I present to you my tutorial of how to make polenta.  I offer it as a recipe AND tutorial because the recipe I used was somewhat vague and, at the time, I was totally unsure if I was over- or undercooking my polenta.  (I wasn't.  It turned out delicate and firm at the same time, unlike polenta I have had in the past that was dense and grainy.)  So here we go:

Polenta Gangnam Style

1-1/2 C. yellow corn meal (extra style points if it's non-GMO)
5 C. water or broth
1 tsp. salt
1-2 TB. cooking oil
more water

First: put your broth or water on the stove (aka the five cups-worth) and turn the unit on high so it will come to a rapid boil.  Then, whisk together your salt and cornmeal, then two cups of water (aka the "more water").  When the water or broth on the stove comes to a boil, dump all your water/cornmeal mixture into it in one go and whisk it rapidly while it's boiling to eliminate and also prevent any lumps.  Next, turn the heat on the stove down to medium, or even medium low.  You don't want to evaporate the water too fast.  Because that, my friends, is purpose A of the cooking of polenta: evaporating off the excess water.  Purpose B is to denature the corn proteins so that your finished product "sets".  Kind of like jello, which is made from animal proteins.  Geddit?  So, your role, once you've turned the stove Bwn, is to stand in front of your pot wearing your thickest skin or long sleeves and prepare to try not to get splattered by boiling hot proto-polenta while you stir it continuously (stir always in the same direction because that will help you not get splattered as much, especially as the polenta gets closer to being finished) for thirty minutes OR UNTIL DONE. 

Yes, I threw down the "until done" card.  I already broke one rule and mentioned organic chemistry in this post with the protein denaturing, so I might as well go all out.  Organic chemistry and "until done" do kind of go together, maybe because food is made mainly of organic compounds.  Unlike non-organic chemistry, which tend to happen on a predictable and invariable schedule, organic reactions happen as a law unto themselves.  So it is with cooking.  Sometimes "done" might be shorter than thirty minutes, sometimes it might be longer.  You just kind of have to eyeball it. 

So, what does "until done" look like, since eyeballing it is your best bet?  Well, first of all, you will have reduced the volume in your pot to about half what you started with.  But that's not all, because that will happen considerably before your polenta is really done.  But when that happens, it's time to really watch while you're stirring.  So basically, as you stir and stir you will notice that the surface of the polenta will start to become glossy.  Also, you will notice that, as you stir, instead of the bubbles that form popping and splattering, they will rupture and deflate without splashing and with the majority of the bubble remaining intact.  At this point, I leave it up to you.  When you feel that your polenta is nice and thick and creamy, pour it into a greased pan and let it set, which will take around 15-20 minutes.  At this point you'll be able to slice it.  Enjoy!

Crunchy Mixed Grill / Grandmom Throws Her Hands Up

I created this recipe because I had some crisp rice cereal left over from making a bar cookie recipe that involved it, marshmallows, and a filling of room-temperature-stable raw cookie dough.  (In a nutshell, it's egg-free so it won't give you diseases if you eat it.  Not that I've ever gotten diseases from eating regular egged cookie dough.  But I also haven't left it out on my counter, adorning crisp rice marshmallow bars, for 2 days straight.)  Anyway, those things are delicious.  I even tried to find a link to them out of a sense of public service; unfortunately, I came across several different recipes, none of which was the one I originally used.  So, in the spirit of not getting in the middle of things, I'm going to leave it up to you which one of the easily-findable recipes you want to try, rather than wasting my time wracking my brain over who plagiarized who on this concept.  Or maybe it was like when two different people from across the planet win the same Nobel Prize for the same thing.  The idea was just so brilliant that it couldn't not be thought of, by multiple people.

But returning to the subject of my recipe, I like crunchy things.  I also like to maintain a healthy weight without having to become a marathon runner to balance out my eating choices.  So I'm always up for alternatives to my (everybody's) favorite way to make things crunchy, also known as deep-fat frying.

1 large potatoes or 2 small potatoes, coarsely chopped
1 red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1/2 a large eggplant, or 1 small eggplant, coarsely chopped
2-3 roma tomatoes...you get the idea...coarsely chopped
cooking oil
salt
Italian Seasoning (I have developed a serious crush on IS.  It's nummy.)
about 1/3 C. of crisp rice cereal

Heat about 3 TB. cooking oil in a large skillet until sizzling.  In the following order, add in: the potatoes, the eggplant, the bell pepper, and the tomatoes, allowing about 2-3 minutes in between additions for the each addition to cook.  (IE, potatoes take the longest, so they get put in first because they'll be in the pan the longest that way.)  Put a lid on it all, turn the heat on the stove down a little, and let it cook for another 5-6 minutes.  Remove the lid, turn the heat back up, add in the salt and Italian Seasoning, stirring everything together really well.  Add in a bit more oil, and let everything get sizzly.  Just before you're ready to serve this, throw in the crisp rice cereal and toss it into everything, then scrape it all out of the pan and onto a serving dish.

FYI, this is only crunchy straight from the pan.  The next day it will not be crunchy.  But you could always do the Italian Reheat and put however much leftovers of it you planned on eating in a pan and reheating it that way, tossing in a little more fresh crisp rice cereal along the way.
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"OH MY GOD!"  These are words that, when coming from Grandmom, usually herald that I have done something ridiculous.  You would think, being a sweet little old Italian lady, that she would not have it in her to literally throw her hands up in the air and yell "OH MY GOD!"  But you would be wrong. 

Interestingly enough, I can't actually remember specific details of what I was doing each of the times that I've elicited this response from Grandmom, possibly because the combined shock of being interrupted in the middle of doing something that required concentration and of being yelled at by Grandmom wiped it from my memory. 

I have vague impressions, though, that I was typically in the process of either breaking something, grossly misusing it, or wasting it.  I think one time for sure she caught me filling half a Styrofoam refrigerator shipping container with gallons and gallons of water on their carpeted back porch.  What can I say?  It was hot.  I was in elementary school.  I was careful not to sit on the sides of the box because that would wreck my sweet new pool, swimming with ice cubes from the freezer.  In that incident, Grandmom also threw up her hands metaphorically and let me use my Styrofoam-iced-swimming-pool-on-the-porch. 

I actually like summer, for the record.  It's just that summer seems to bring out more of the ingenious side of me than other temperature extremes.  (In winter, there is only one obvious solution: stay inside.)  In the same season, summer, a year or so after the improvised swimming pool incident, Grandom took a picture of me hanging by a homemade (from an aluminum beach chair and excessive amounts of twine) tree swing.  Grandmom took another picture of me from a few years later sitting in the refrigerator with the refrigerator door wide open.  LOLCats, I had you beat by at least a decade.  I think the only one of these incidents that didn't lead to an "OH MY GOD!" was me sitting in the refrigerator.  At least I wasn't potentially breaking anything, even if I was grossly misusing the refrigerator and being the cause of globally warming Grandpop's pitcher of Boost! 

I think the same level of surprise that causes me not to remember very clearly why I got "OH MY GOD!" yelled in my general direction is the same level of surprise that caused Grandmom to yell "OH MY GOD!" in the first place.  It's a wonder we didn't give each other heart attacks.  But it's a sign of the mutual appreciation we have for each other that I rarely (if ever) did the same thing twice, and that Grandmom took (and treasured) a cute picture of whatever it was nearly every time.

Oven-Roasted Potatoes, Ketchup Variations / Fire, Fire, Fire

Something I learned in the American-Style Chop Suey Incident is that Italian Seasoning makes things better.  Typically I am not a big promoter of spice blends, because personally I like to be able to add what I want to add in the quantities that I want to add them in, rather than have my dish's flavor dictated by Knorr or McKormick.  However, I have added Italian Seasoning to my short list of exceptions.  It's good for making a dish somehow zippier.  Just to be clear, it doesn't make it taste more Italian, at least not in my opinion, but it's still good.  I especially recommend it on roasted potatoes, like in the recipe below, and in sautees and sauces that you want to be indefinably meatier without actually adding any meat.

Oven-Roasted Potatoes

3-4 medium potatoes, washed but not peeled
enough Italian Seasoning to generously sprinkle over the potatoes
salt to taste
oil of your choice

Preheat the oven to 425F.  Chop your potatoes thusly: cut them in fourths longways (ie hold them up on one long side and slice off each end, then slice the remaining middle in half).  You should now have four slabs of potato about the size of a deck of cards each.  (The ends will probably be smaller.)  Take each slab and slice it into 3-4 strips, then turn the cut slab as a whole shortways and cut the strips into 1 to 1-1/2 inch chunks.  Put your chunks in a glass baking dish and drizzle them with the oil.  Then sprinkle on your salt and Italian Seasoning.  Bake them in the oven with a tinfoil lid for about 45 minutes, or until they are tender in the middle.  If you like them crispy on the outside, take the tinfoil off for the last 15 minutes or so.  If you like your potatoes softer but not crispy, leave the tinfoil on the whole time.

Additionally: Interesting Things to Do With Ketchup

Mix 1/4 C. ketchup with: 1/2 tsp. curry powder
                                       : 2-3 TB. honey
                                       : 2-3 TB. soy sauce
                                       : 1 tsp. Korean BBQ sauce 
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An interesting note: oil in the oven can catch on fire.  Surprisingly, so can many other things, especially if the oven is on too hot.  Do not turn on the oven too hot.  "Too hot" is defined as anything besides broiling meat put in on the "broil" setting, or 100 degrees or more higher than the stated cooking temperature.  Do not leave things in the oven too long.  "Too long" is defined as at least 15 minutes after you first smelled something starting to burn and though "Oh, I should go do something about that," and then promptly forgot about it. 

Follow proper procedure for kitchen fires if something in your oven catches fire.  "Proper procedure" is NOT defined as opening the oven door, having flames shoot out, saying "OH DEAR!" and slamming the oven door shut.  I promise none of these happened to me while preparing the Oven-Roasted Potatoes.  But that is as far as I am willing to commit in the promise-making department.

It might also possibly be true that I once told my lab partner that I almost set my last lab partner on fire and then immediately got a beaker vacuum-sealed to my hand.  Both of my lab partners developed a fine sense of hyperalertness.  But they didn't trade lab partners!  Even lab partner number one, who not only almost got set on fire as a general concept, but who almost got his genitals set on fire in specific.  Moral of the story: do not try to light your Bunsen burner unless you are absolutely certain which tap is the gas tap.

Roasted Asparagus / Vladimir Lenin in a Can

I'm almost embarrassed to post this recipe, because it's barely a recipe to start with.  But, I guess I should take heart because I've seen recipes for and been subjected to many a dish made with loving hands that essentially involved dumping various premade items (the infamous Cream of Mushroom soup, for example) into a casserole and then baking it until it was all hot and bubbly.  Because, you know, I like my poison hot and bubbly.  Okay, that was a little extreme!  Those dishes are not poisonous unless you have some kind of allergy, but they definitely are not my favorite.  Anyway, returning to the Roasted Asparagus.  It's delicious, but also super-easy.  So easy that when you're savoring every mouthful you think "That was it?"  That, my friends, is the joy of much of Italian cooking-- it relies on the quality and character of the ingredients to shine on their own with little intervention on the cook's part.  Translate: a lot of it is easy to prepare!  Without further ado:

Roasted Asparagus

1-2 bunches of fresh asparagus (I always buy one and wish I had bought two!)
salt to taste
oil of your choice.  I know, this is where I should be touting Extra Virgin Olive Oil at $49.99 per 3 liter can.  But let's be honest: canola oil tastes just fine, and is also cheaper than the aforementioned liquid gold.

Preheat the oven to about 400-425F.  Wash your asparagus and trim off the ends-- I'm not sure what the official rule is for asparagus, but I cut off the white part.  I'm not super-picky, so I don't mind if my asparagus is a little tough, especially if it's later in the season and I'm feeling grateful for having asparagus at all!  Put your asparagus in a single layer (this is important) in as large a dish as you need to accomplish that.  Drizzle it with your oil, and sprinkle it with salt.  Put the dish in the oven and roast it for about 10-12 minutes, or until your asparagus is a little wrinkly-looking and is nice and floppy.  That's the best way I can describe it.  You can make your jokes to yourself about floppy asparagus, but that's how it's supposed to be.  Floppy.  Anyway, at this point take your dish out of the oven and resist the temptation to try and eat the floppy asparagus right away, because it needs to cool or it will burn your mouth.  After about 5 minutes it should be okay.  This is the best way I've ever had asparagus!  If you've done it just right the stems will be tender-al dente and the tops will be ever so slightly crispy.
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My aunt told me about her discovery of asparagus, which was just a few years ago.  The way she cooks it now is very similar, only on the stovetop.  Before then she had avoided it because all she'd ever known was the canned asparagus they had when she was growing up.  If you think properly cooked fresh asparagus is floppy, you should see canned asparagus!  It's like the exhumed embalmed cadaver of asparagus-- the Lenin of asparagus, if you will.  It somehow has retained all of the qualities that could be considered offensive about fresh asparagus and also amplified them, and yet also become in other ways totally unlike fresh asparagus.  In a nutshell, it smells like rotten eggs, tastes like pease porridge in the pot nine days old, and has the texture of newborn poop.  Additionally it is a lurid neon green in some form of travesty against the natural asparagus, much like botox on a ninety-year-old heavy drinker.  In conclusion, please do not ever eat canned asparagus.  Thank goodness for fresh asparagus!  It is so delicious and so easy to prepare!

Okra & Potatoes

Okra & Potatoes

1 large potato, cut into fairly small cubes*
1 lb of fresh okra, sliced fairly thinly into rounds
1/4 C.-ish of cornmeal (not cornmeal mix, just plain yellow, or, as my southern relatives would say "yella" cornmeal)
salt to taste
2-3 TB. oil for frying

Toss the sliced okra in the cornmeal, discarding any extra.  (Or just tossing exactly the right amount.  It's a knack that you acquire after you acquire the deep-seated loathing of throwing food away.  NO THROW AWAY!  MUST NOT WASTE!  Sorry, I'm turning into my Grandmom.)  Heat the oil in a large skillet or fry pan over medium-high heat.  Add in the potatoes and okra all together.  Cook longer than you think you ought to, until the potatoes are cooked through and browning. on the side nearest the pan.  (About 10 minutes.)  During this process, you can push the okra and potatoes around in the pan if you're afraid they'll burn.  It doesn't really do a whole lot, but it makes for peace of mind.  And cooking is supposed to be peaceful and relaxing, right?  When done, salt them in the pan and then remove them from the pan and drain them on paper towels or disposable napkins.

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Ever think, "Wow, I might love/like okra more/hate okra less if it weren't so slimy"?  Well, this recipe is the answer.  Somehow the combination of potatoes and cornmeal causes the okra to be crisp without being sunk into a Fry Daddy covered in fish fry breading.  It's nummy.  (Not that I'm biased or anything.)  Also, feel free to experiment with your okra : potato ratio.  My version is pretty heavy on the potatoes, being slightly more than half potatoes, because, you know, I love potatoes.  But I love okra too, and I've had this dish with way more okra and it was still good.

*How to Make Small Potato Cubes:
1)  Wash but do not peel the potato.  (It's not really necessary, as most of the potato cubes will be from the interior of the potato anyway and therefore naturally will be skin-free.  Plus the skin on the pieces that do have it will be relatively small and also make those pieces prone to extra-crispiness.) 

2)  Slice your potato longways into 4-5 slices.  How I do this is hold the potato awkward-side up.  That's the best way I can describe it.  The side that the potato wants to roll down onto to lay flat.  That's the side you want pointing up.  Now make slices that are about 1/2-inch (1 cm) thick.

3)  Cut each slice into strips about 1/2-inch thick. (Like thick-cut french fries.)

4)  Cut each strip into cubes 1/2-inch square.  The easy way to do this is to keep all the strips together after you slice each section from step 2, turn them as a unit like you would a deck of cards (aka still keeping the slippery little boogers all together) and then slice them into cubes end-on.  I'm obviously not a perfectionist.  Who cares if you have a few triangular pieces that are not exactly the same size or shape as the others?  They'll all fry up pretty much the same.

Sweet Pumpkin Kugel

2/3 C. canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling, just plain pumpkin!!)
1/4 C. granulated sugar
2 eggs
8 oz. egg noodles
8 oz. sour cream
1/4 C. (1/2 of a standard stick) of butter

Boil and drain the egg noodles according to package directions.  (I left mine a little al dente figuring their time in the oven would further cook them and prevent any soggy noodles.)  Melt the butter in a microwave safe bowl.  Beat in butter, the sour cream (to cool it down), then the pumpkin, and finally the eggs.  Combine the pumpkin-sour cream mixture with the cooked noodles.  Pour all into a buttered 6x6 deep casserole.  (Why do I have one of these?  My Great-grandmother on my mom's side was getting ready to move to assisted living a couple of years ago, and, having lived by herself all those years, had plenty of small cooking dishes that she didn't need anymore.  So she passed some of them on to me.)  Bake it, covered, at 350 for about an hour.  Serves approximately 4-6.
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And there you have it!  It's slightly sweet, has a vegetable in it, and is rich and satisfying.  I would upload a picture but honestly I tore into it straight out of the oven.

Butteriest Butter / Great-grandmom Pulls her Tricks

You know that butter you get in a seafood restaurant to dip your crab legs or lobster in?  That butter that is somehow the epitome of butter, and of the concept of butteriness?  Well, today I discovered how to make it.  No, it's not just melted butter.  And no, it's definitely not vegetarian.  But it's great on anything!

1 stick of butter
1 clove of garlic, minced
3 anchovy filets, drained and patted dry (I didn't pat mine, but I guess you could)

Melt the butter in a small saucepan.  Once it's all melted and also stopped foaming for the most part (only a few seconds after it finishes melting), toss in the minced garlic and let it sizzle for a few seconds.  Then, remove the butter from the heat and throw in the anchovy filets.  Mash them up as much as you can, prefereably with a wooden spoon.
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That's it.  I served it over cooked cauliflower today and I couldn't get enough of it.  Not that I dislike cauliflower to begin with.  I am an adult and buy my own groceries, so I don't have to eat cauliflower if I didn't like it.  Which I do, and I did.  But that was some of the most badass cauliflower I've ever eaten.  This sauce was also poured over hot cooked spaghetti or linguine by Great-grandmom Canduci, and while I can't recall ever having it, my mom liked it so much that, despite not even liking anchovies, she still remembers that pasta and how delicious it was.  The secret is that you can't taste the anchovies, at least not in the traditional sense.  They are definitely the "secret ingredient", but the end product is not fishy or even oily.  Just buttery.  So deliciously buttery!

Grand-grandmom Canduci was a card.  I got reminded of some good stories about her when I was putting up the broccoli rabe post, and decided I would share them.

Gardening: see "How to Get a Free Trip to the Grocery Store"

Great-grandmom was a wiley and resourceful old fox and, according to her children, a wiley and resourceful young fox too.  Great-grandmom's method of getting stuff done around the house that she needed to delegate or just didn't want to do herself was to rope the unsuspecting bystander (read: family member) in with a statement something along the lines of "Hey, can you come help me with this?"  Who's to turn down a sweet old Italian lady?  HAH!  Inevitably you would look up from pulling weeds or whatever it was you were "helping her" with and she would be gone!  She even did this to me with the crab grass in her front walk, and she died when I was about 8 years old so I know I must have been a fairly small child at the time.  Wiley indeed!  To pull her tricks even with a little child!  I remember the deep sense of irritation I felt. 

This is also the method Great-grandmom used when, in her later years, she needed a ride to the grocery store.  "Can you give me ride?  Is on the way!" she would ask innocently.  "Of course!" was the only allowable answer-- remember, this is the woman who smacked her own adult sons with the wooden spoon she was cooking with for failing to compliment her cooking.  (FYI: the answer is always "Oh, it is so delicious," to an Italian woman.  Otherwise: smacking.)  So, the driver in question would load up Great-grandmom and drive over the the Acme ("Ack-em-mah") and she would then turn to them and say, innocently, "Oh, can you help me carry groceries?  Is only a few things.  Short trip."  So, the driver would get out of the car (remember, at this point she or he has been promised that it will be "short trip" that is "on the way", meaning the driver still has other business to attend to) and become more and more incredulous as Great-grandmom worked her way through the entire grocery and at least one full cartload.  It's obvious that her victims (read: family members) were truly fooled only a few times.  But what are you going to say to Great-grandmom?  No?  No.  In fact, you beat her at her own game, if you could, by claiming to have a strict appointment that you were running late for, or almost out of gas.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

Pickled Green Tomatoes

As many green tomatoes as you want!
plenty of salt, olive oil, fresh peppermint and leaves, sliced garlic cloves, and hot peppers

Slice the green tomatoes.  Salt them well and let them sit at least 12 hours.  Rinse them and, in prepared jars, layer the tomatoes with the fresh herbs and sliced garlic, and fill the remaining space with olive oil.  Stuff whole hot peppers down the side of the jar or wherever you can find space.*  Put the lids on the jar and can as appropriate.  Serve on slices of Italian bread.**

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It's Lent, and Lent reminds me that springtime is just around the corner, and the fresh bright taste of pickles is just what I need to suit my mood.  Technically, pickles tend to be more of a fall-winter thing, I know-- it's what you do when you're sick of eating whatever your garden is producing fresh and what you eat when the trees and garden are bare.  Maybe that's why I think of pickles in the springtime, then-- it's the freshest thing around until the first peas and baby carrots come up.  Great-grandmom Canduci made plenty of pickles in her day, as well as Great-grandpop Canduci, who is still known for his homemade smoked sausage.  Apparently the girls of the family got out of the sausage making and procuring festivities.  So while my Grandmom and her sisters were at home making pickles, my Great-uncles were off learning the ins and outs of hog-slaughtering!

*If you're new to canning, I will warn you now: spicy things get spicier the longer they sit.  I guess the flavors have a longer amount of time to come out of the food.  But the point is: don't put too many hot peppers in your tomatoes, because however hot the resulting combination is today, it will literally double, triple, and quadruple its hotness over the space of a few weeks and months.

**Drool.  If there's anything better than good Italian cooking, it's good Italian cooking served alongside a good, fresh, crusty-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside Italian bread.  It should scrub your gums a little (and hold up to a dip in the soup) but be flavorful enough to take unsalted butter in liberal amounts without a processed bread aftertaste.  In Riverside, you can buy this bread at the supermarket and pay about $2 for it.  New Jersey shoppers laugh in the face of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods for the most part, which peddle things we can get or make on our own under the guise of "gourmet" or "exotic" items.  It is a sad state of things when a good loaf of bread is exotic and saleable at exotic prices. 

Spicy Potatoes

1/2-1 potato per person
olive oil for cooking and drizzling
1/4th of an onion per person
salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper

Wash the potatoes.  DO NOT PEEL THEM OR CHOP THEM.  Put them in a large pot and cover them with water.  Bring the water to a boil and cook the potatoes until they are soft all the way through when you stick a knife in them.  Remove them from the boiling water and let them cool.  Gently peel the skins off the potatoes.  Then, slice them into quarters and, holding two quarters together, slice them into thin pieces.  Peel the onion and chop it longways so it makes thin strips.  Put the onion and potatoes together in a large bowl.  Drizzle them liberally with olive oil, tossing them once or twice and redrizzling to ensure all are coated.  Salt and pepper the onions and potatoes to taste.  Let them sit about 30 minutes, checking them 2 or 3 times during the 30 minutes to see if the oil is being absorbed.  Toss and add more oil if necessary.  The potatoes and onions should be shiny but not wet with oil.  In small batches transfer the onion and potato mixture to a large skillet and fry over medium heat until the potatoes are onions are crispy, flipping once to make sure both sides get done.  Sprinkle them while they're in the pan with cayenne pepper to taste.  Drain on paper towels. 
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Take that, French Fries!  These are just as unhealthy and full of delicious grease and oil as the fast food item, but homemade, free of unnatural ingredients (depending on your perspective on cayenne pepper) and deliciously fresh because, like pancakes, you kind of make them and eat them as you go.  I am probably the only American in the country who will happily admit to a semi-addiction to grease.  The cause is even more banal than "it just tastes good".  I have been reducing my meat intake due to a lack of interest (in the product and in the additives that go in it) and the unintended consequence has been a craving for FAT.  Wish me success in avoiding morbid obesity.

Fried Eggplant

1 large eggplant, cut into rounds or strips 1/2 inch thick
1 C. milk
1 C. flour
1 TB. oil
1 tsp. onion salt
1 egg
some grated parmesan cheese (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
oil for frying
1 C. Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs* (optional)

Mix together the flour, onion salt, salt and pepper in a pie plate.  In a separate pie plate, mix together the egg, milk, and 1 TB. oil.  If you opt for the breadcrumbs, put them in their own pie plate.  Heat the oil for frying in a skillet over medium heat.  The oil is hot enough when a drop of water in the pan sizzles.  Made a row of the pie plates on the counter leading up to the skillet in the following order: flour, egg mixture, breadcrumbs.  Put the eggplant plate before the flour.  Take a fork and pick up a piece of eggplant.  Dip the eggplant in the flour on both sides.  Then dunk it in the egg mixture.  Then dunk it either back in the flour mixture (if you're not using breadcrumbs) or in the breadcrumbs.  Do this to enough eggplant pieces to make a single layer with some wiggle room in the skillet.  Fry until golden and crispy on both sides.  Drain on a plate lined with paper towels.  Repeat until all eggplant is fried.  If you so choose, sprinkle the fried eggplant with parmesan cheese.
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This recipe is for fried eggplant, but you can fry a lot of vegetables this way and come out with a tasty main dish, side dish, or sandwich filling.  Yes, leftover fried eggplant in a good roll with maybe some ketchup is a delicious lunch, in my opinion at least.  Basically, all summer squashes work well, and one time I accidentally fried cucumber this way and it was good too.  (Hey, cucumbers and zucchini look a lot alike.)
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Italian breadcrumbs is a product that you can buy in the store under the same name, but you could also make them pretty easily.  All you'd need is: stale bread, dried parsley, dried oregano, salt, and pepper.  And the will to smash the bread up in a plastic bag with a rolling pin.  Shazam, homemade breadcrumbs!

Hot German Potato Salad

6 lb. potatoes
12 slices of bacon, fried and crumbled and the drippings saved
1 med. onion, chopped
1/4 C. flour
1/4 C. sugar
3-4 tsp. salt
1-1/2 C. water
dash of pepper
2/3 C. vinegar

Peel potatoes and boil, whole, for 30-35 minutes.  Drain and let cool, slice and set aside.  In a deep pan, cook onion in the bacon drippings until tender.  Stir in the flour, sugar, salt, and pepper.  Cook over a low heat, stirring, until bubbly.  Remove from heat.  Stir in water and vinegar.  Return to stove and heat until boiling, stirring constantly; allow to boil 1minute.  Carefully stir bacon and sliced potatoes into onion sauce until potatoes are well coated.  Serves 10-12.