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October 9, 2015 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

…and jumping straight back into summer!

The reason autumn is my 3rd favorite season is that it gives you a little taste of lovely cooler weather, and then snaps you back into the beautiful heat of summertime! Which is exactly what happened here in Louisville this past week. I love that.

I’m confused about the produce cycle in the US. So often when I’m looking for a seasonal vegetable or fruit, none are to be found. There is the constant cycle of everything all the time. Piles of apples and oranges in June when there should be mountains of apricots and cherries. In August, at what should have been the height of its productivity, I was desperate for an eggplant. One large grocery store had none; another smaller market had exactly 3 soft ones at $3.99/lb. I was so disgusted I posted it on Facebook.

Now it’s October and eggplants are two for a dollar. That’s 50 cents a piece. Go figure.

So I bought them and in honor of my 2nd favorite season, Indian Summer, I’m putting eggplant parmigiana on the menu all weekend! It’s a bit labor intensive but is so worth the effort and really the ingredients are simple. Just a matter of putting them all together. The recipe is below.

I would serve it with the last of the rose’ wine. Buon appetito!

Parmigiana di Melanzane (eggplant parmigiana)

4 eggplants, peeled and sliced thin
Peanut oil for frying
Simple tomato sauce (olive oil, whole garlic, tomato puree, salt)
Fresh basil leaves
1-2 lbs whole milk mozzarella, sliced
2 cups pecorino romano, grated

Slice the eggplants thinly, lengthwise and salt them in layers, leaving them for several hours to release their water. Rinse them and pat dry with paper.
Heat the peanut oil until 350 degrees and fry each slice until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Prepare a large baking dish with a drizzle of olive oil and a light coating of tomato sauce. Place a layer of fried eggplant in the pan, pressing down firmly. Add a light coat of tomato sauce, some whole basil leaves and a layer of mozzarella and a sprinkle of cheese. Continue to layer in this way, making sure that you consistently press the eggplant slices firmly into the pan. In this way, once it’s baked you will be able to slice it and it will maintain its shape. Bake at 375 til bubbling. Serve with a salad.

October 7, 2015 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Moving into Autumn

Indian Summer is my favorite time of year. Hot, clear and sunny days remind us of the summer that has passed and gives us one more chance to warm our bones in the sun before winter hits and envelops us in its cold, dry arms.

But it reminds us that cold weather is coming in earnest and holiday fun is soon to be enjoyed! For me, the cooler fall weather brings a most welcome change to the Italian Table with roasted meats, braised dishes and stews, warming soups and hearty pastas.

I love this time of year! The deeply flavored and long-cooked dishes I left behind in the spring when the weather lightened and warmed have been missed, and I welcome them back to my stove!

This season’s vegetables are visible in the farmers markets and stores: winter greens like kale and chard, pumpkins and winter squash, nuts and mushrooms all herald the harvest and the autumn. In Italy the grapes have been pressed into the fermentation tanks and they look to the olive trees to determine when harvest for the oil will begin. Chestnuts are falling in the woods and if the rain has cooperated, mushrooms and truffles are available too. October means deer season, with wild boar hunting not far behind.

In Tuscany, this time of year means we relight the big fireplaces and use them to grill sausages and bruschetta to be served with cannellini beans cooked with rosemary and sage and new olive oil drizzled over all. Hearty braised stews with wild game and wild juniper are paired with rich polenta for a filling and satisfying meal.

Some of my favorite dishes to cook are rich ragus of beef, pork and wild game serve with wide papparadelle, or rich pastas stuffed with mushrooms and cheese or butternut squash and nutmeg and served with a butter sage sauce.

Enjoy this return to the enveloping flavors of the Italian Table!

July 16, 2015 by Gina Stipo 1 Comment

Cold Summer Wines

I love cold rose’ wine in the summer. It’s beautiful to look at, those peach and pink tones swirling around the glass, shining through the drops of condensation.

And when rose’ is made the traditional way, it’s a brilliant business strategy too.

Good quality rose’ wine is never a mix of white wine and red wine but is made with 100% juice from red grapes. Because wine gets it’s color from the skin, rose’ is made by pressing red grapes, like sangiovese in Tuscany or nebbiolo in Piedmont, and leaving the skin in contact with the just-pressed juice for just 8-10 hours.

Then some of the juice is removed and goes to a separate stainless steel tank to ferment for a few months and be bottled as rose’. The remaining juice will go to make a bigger and more aged red wine, like Chianti or Barolo, and the additional skins in the tank from the juice that was removed adds more tannins and color, resulting in a better red wine. In Italy and France this process gives the winery a fresh, young wine to sell while their big reds are still aging in the barrels. All in all a brilliant business model.

My other summertime favorite is cold Lambrusco! Famously imported into America in the 70’s under the Riunite label, lambrusco is the main wine of the Emilia Romagna region, home of some of the best food in all of Italy. Think prosciutto di Parma, parmigiano, balsamic vinegar. Lambrusco is frequently dissed as bad wine or unimportant and the 70’s ad “Riunite on Ice, how Nice”, did nothing to help that image. Lambrusco is inexpensive and not as important as other Italian reds such as Barolo or Chianti Classico or Amarone. But it goes beautifully with food of the region, the bright sharpness and light fizz cutting through the fattiness of local mortadella or prosciutto.

And it has the most brilliant color with a head like purple Coca Cola when you pour it into your glass. Look for one that isn’t dolce, or sweet.

Enjoy the heat of the summer with some cold wine tonight!

April 30, 2015 by Gina Stipo 1 Comment

Pasta Primavera – Spring Peas and Onions

I think we take fresh peas for granted. With sugar snap and snow pea pods in the produce section of any grocery store all year long, it’s easy to do. Seeing peas all year long removes us from the fact that peas are a spring vegetable. What we should be seeing now, in April and May, are piles of fresh English pea pods. But sadly they’re difficult to find. I asked the produce manager at the local Kroger here and he looked at me with a puzzled expression and pointed out the packaged snow pea pods. They’re nice too, but nothing says “spring” like a big crate of English peas.

Unless it’s the spring onions, sweet and juicy, the fresh garlic, with its soft, new skin and light flavor, or new arugula and lettuces! Spring means breaking away from heavy winter greens and going light and easy and fresh.

In Tuscany, fresh peas, in the form of the classic English pea pods which you have to shell, are available only in the spring and only for a short period of time. The arrival of English peas at the corner vegetable store or produce section means spring is in full swing and summer isn’t far away! Once they’re gone, you have to wait a whole year to eat them again.

In Venice, they make a soupy risotto called risi e bisi, which uses both the fresh peas and the little green pods they come in. There is a tough membrane on the inside of the shell, protecting the peas, which is carefully peeled away to free the tender, sweet outer pea pod. The pieces of pod are sautéed with butter and onion, the rice goes in and is cooked with a light vegetable stock made with the inedible parts of the pods. Nothing is thrown away, everything is appreciated and savored. After all, they’re only here for a month in the spring! Then the fresh peas are tossed in towards the end of cooking. Finished with Parmigiano or grana and butter, it’s a delightful spring dish.
We recently made one of my favorite spring pastas in cooking class and I was reminded of how lovely fresh peas and spring onions taste together in a dish. In the US, scallions are available all the time, but in Italy the spring and early summer bring luscious spring onions with a large white bulb and thick green tops. They too are the harbinger of warmer weather. And if I can find some green garlic, I’ll toss slivers of that in with the onions!
I’m looking forward to getting back to Tuscany for our culinary tours in May and June and can’t wait to see what spring vegetables are in the garden! I hope I haven’t missed the peas!
Sugo di Piselli, Pancetta & Cipollini (spring peas, pancetta & new onions)
1 cup diced pancetta
2 spring onions, chopped, or 8 scallions
1 ½ cup fresh peas
Extra virgin olive oil
6 fresh sage leaves, torn in two
Sea salt
Fresh ground black pepper
If you can’t get English peas, get sugar snap peas and slice them 1/4 “ thickness on the diagonal.
Gently sauté the pancetta and onion in olive oil until soft, adding freshly ground black pepper if the pancetta has been cured without it (which is usual in the US). Add the sage leaves and fresh peas and sauté a few minutes, adding salt to taste, until the peas are just cooked through. When the pasta is al dente, toss it with the sauce, adding a little of the pasta water and a generous drizzle of olive oil. Top with grated Parmigiano before serving.

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