Tiramisu

The only country I have ever visited outside of the U.S. has been Italy.  My husband and I were fortunate enough to travel there on our honeymoon, though our trip was a mere week.  Our first days were in Rome; and, what a wonderful place that was to begin married life!  Our hotel was in walking distance of the Coliseum with many wonderful restaurants and cafes woven in between.  On the first evening of our stay, after a sound and sturdy dinner, we happened upon a quaint cafe.  The locals seemed to like the place, which made it all the more appealingly authentic.  We entered, not knowing what to say, what to order - just acting on whim (the thing that all newlyweds possess before a lifetime of committments and obligations weigh them down and make decision-making seem almost impossible). 

The glass counter, which stood as the focal point of the cafe, illuminated a bevvy of beautiful treats.  Some were familiar friends - cheesecakes, iced cakes and the like.  Others were ethnically apparent treats - cannolis, zeppoles and such.  And then there was one item in the case that particularly called to us.  Perhaps because it floated atop its plate like a mystical espresso-laden cloud.  Or perhaps because its placement in the counter assured it the best source of lighting - it looked neither flat nor rigid, still moist but not soggy.  Poetry in motion.  Dicotomy and irony rolled up in between layers of marscapone and lady fingers.  No matter.  The dessert that we wanted was the tiramisu.  And we scarfed it down with gentle delight.

At that moment in time, we would have sworn that it was the best thing we had ever eaten in our lives.  And perhaps it was.  Analyzing it now, however, it's hard to say whether or not the tiramisu we had that night was genuinely the best because it was the finest made or if it was the best because we were still floating on the high of our post-nuptual bliss.  After all, we had just arrived in a wonderful, faraway land that we had only seen in books.  We had been giddy, earlier that day, when our taxi drove past the Coliseum.  We almost jumped in delight when our tour finally lead us to see the great Sistine Chapel.  And when we had our first Italian dessert in a native cafe, we felt higher than the ninth cloud - almost ready to take orbit into another galaxy.

In our time since that blissful journey, I have tried several different recipes for tiramisu - a few were adequate, some were a waste of time, only one was truly great.  With fading memories, my taste buds have since agreed that this tiramisu is just as good as the one from our sentimental voyage.  Perhaps it is because I feel pride in cooking my own dessert.  Or perhaps it is a reflection of the happiness that has overtaken my post-honeymoon life.  No matter the reason.  It is just darn good tiramisu - and, I'm happy to share this ecstasy with others!

Ingredients:

• 3 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 1 cup grandulated sugar
• 3 cups mascarpone cheese (this is an Italian cream cheese)
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 20 – 24 lady fingers
• 1/4 cup cold espresso
• 1/4 cup Kahlua coffee liqueur
• 2 teaspoons cocoa powder

Instructions:

1. Fill a medium saucepan halfway with water and bring it to a boil over medium/high heat, then reduce heat so that the water is simmering. Whisk egg yolks, milk and sugar together in a medium metal bowl, then place the bowl on top of the saucepan (you can also use a double boiler for this step). Stir the mixture often for ten minutes. After the sugar dissolves the mixture should begin to thicken and turn light yellow. Remove it from the heat to cool.
2. Use an electric mixer to combine mascarpone, cream cheese and vanilla in a large bowl. Mix until mostly creamy, but with a few small chunks remaining.
3. Add egg yolk mixture to the cheese mixture and mix just until well-combined.
4. Combine espresso and Kahlua in a small bowl. Pour this mixture onto a dinner plate. One-by-one touch the bottom of each lady finger in the espresso. The lady finger will quickly soak up the espresso/Kahlua mixture, but you don’t want the lady finger soaked — just a dab will do ya. The top half of each lady finger should still be dry. Arrange the soaked lady fingers side-by-side on the bottom of an 8×8-inch serving dish or baking pan.
5. Spoon about half of the cheese mixture over the lady fingers, then add another layer of soaked lady fingers on top of the cheese mixture.
6. Spoon the remaining cheese mixture over the second layer of lady fingers and spread it evenly.
7. Put two teaspoons of cocoa powder in a tight-mesh strainer and gently tap the side of the strainer to add an even dusting of cocoa powder over the top of the dessert.
8. Cover and chill for several hours. To serve, slice the dessert twice across and down creating even portions (the first serving is always the hardest to get out).

(This original recipe came from this site:  http://restaurantrecipesbook.com/olive-garden-tiramisu-recipe/)

Flank Steak with Red Wine Sauce

More times than not, my husband requests that I make a dinner of "meat and potatoes."  And, more often than not, I feel rather blasé about the whole thing.  After all, I have a whole kitchen's worth of interesting gadgets and shelves full of cookbooks - why should I settle for eating the standard fare?!  Easily explained: there is one variation of the old standard that is worth settling for. 

Last year, after having bought my first cookbook by Italy's favorite young food maven, Giada De Laurentiis, I ventured into the new practice of making sauces.  Not the typical Chef Boyardee kind.  Rather, sauces that had wine in them.  And special kinds of vinegar.  And exciting herbs I had never before tasted.  They were wonderful new concoctions, similar to experiments in chemistry and potion-making.  I felt so envigorated and inspired.  Her book was a wonderful expansion to my newly-opened culinary world.

With that said, one of the favorite recipes that we discovered from Giada's book was, incidentally, a "meat and potatoes" kind of meal.  Not just any meat, though - flank steak.  Added with an onion-infused red wine sauce on top.  Then a side of rosemary-seasoned polenta.  And, wow!  I must say, not many meals have made me as speechless!

I have served this to my parents.  My husband.  My three year old.  And everyone - EVERYONE - asks for seconds.  It is simply that good!  So, now we (in our family) know that there is more to Italian food than canned Spaghetti O's.  And there is more to "meat and potatoes" than just a hunk of beef and a starchy side for dinner.

Ingredients:

• 3 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter
• 1/2 onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 Tbsp. minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
• 1/8 cup tomato paste
• 1 1/4 cups red wine
• salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 lb. flank steak or tri-tip steak

Instructions:

1. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and saute until tender, about 5 minutes. Season with salt.
2. Add the garlic and oregano and saute until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
3. Whisk in the wine. Simmer until the sauce reduces by half, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.
4. Remove the skillet from the heat. Strain the sauce into a small bowl, pressing on the solids to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard the solids in the strainer and return the sauce to the saucepan and bring back to a slow simmer.
5. Cut the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter into small 1/2-inch chunks and whisk in the sauce a little at a time. Season the sauce, to taste, with salt and pepper.
6. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle the steak with salt and pepper and drizzle with the 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Cook the steak to desired doneness, about 8 minutes per side for medium-rare (the steak shrinks as it cooks).
7. Remove the skillet from the heat and let the steak rest in the skillet for 10 minutes.
8. Transfer the steaks to a cutting board.  Thinly slice the steaks across the grain. Divide the steak slices among 6 plates. Drizzle the sauce over the steak, drizzle a little more extra-virgin olive oil and serve.

(This original recipe came from "Everyday Italian" by Giada De Laurentiis)

Fresh Homemade Spinach Spaghetti

Italian food (or what most Americans consider to be Italian food) is commonly the sort of "go-to" food that can be easily whipped up, last minute, on a harried work night.  Comprised generally of pasta, a tomato based sauce and some sort of cheese (plus a meat, more times than not), this type of "Italian" food has been something I have cooked even before I could cook.  Easy.  Nothing to it.  Just boil some water, dump in some pasta, let it sit on the stove until it's limp and then drain and eat.  As I said, easy. 

In all of my chronicles of kitchen mishaps, I have never flubbed on this type of meal.  With that said, it has never been the most grand or exciting of meals, either.  Just something to quickly eat when I've had a busy day and feel too tired to make anything else.  Life can be rather hectic, after all.  Sometimes we can forget to slow down - we forget to start at the beginning.  But, most of the time, best intentions aside, we just run out of time.  At least, that's always been my excuse.

In all of the years of my eating pasta, I have always bought it from the store.  Skinner.  Barilla.  De Cecco.  Buitoni.  Even the "off" brands and store brands have done their job.  But never have I ventured into the land of home-made pasta.  And, why not?  I am no stranger to flour and eggs.  I bake some new concoction every week, with eggy hands and floury hair to tell the tale.  So, why has the task of making pasta always seemed so daunting?  Or so unimportant?  Or simply not worth the time?  Possibly because of the lovely brands mentioned above and the ease with which they can be bought.  After all, it's a battle of $1 versus 1 hour.  My husband always likes to pose the question: which is worth more?  Usually I answer the latter: my time.  On this day, however, I stepped aside from my role as musti-tasker, efficiency chief, family organizer and general time warden to enter into the realm of the "old school."  A time before Buitoni in a land without a grocery store - my house, my dough, my pasta.  And, the result was simply gratifying.  Perhaps not the greatest pasta ever made, it still ranked higher than the others in my mind because of my own toils.  And the achievement of doing something (even if it's street value is only $1) still feels pretty good! 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup canned spinach, drained and patted dry
• 2 cups semolina flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 Tbsp. water

Instructions:

1. In a food processor, chop the spinach until finely ground.
2. Add flour, eggs, water and spinach into a mixing bowl.  Beat on medium speed for two minutes.  Continue to knead the dough by hand for two minutes.
3. Roll dough into walnut sized pieces and put aside. 
4. With the pasta-making attachment (KitchenAid), push the balls of dough through the press one at a time, cutting after the desired length of dough has been achieved.  Add flour after each time for easier separation of pasta threads.
5. To cook the pasta immediately, heat a large pot of water on the stove.  Add pasta once the water reaches a boil and allow to cook for 2-5 minutes.

Italy

Capital City - Rome
Currency - Euro
Population - 60,418,711 (April 2010 estimate)
National Language - Italian
Religion - More than 90% of the Italian people consider themselves Christian - of that group 88 percent are Roman Catholics and the remaining 2% are various other Protestant denominations.  Atheists now make up 5% of the population (though, even the majority of Christians polled admitted they were not actively religious).  Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Sikhs and Hindus make up the remaining 5%.
Type of Government - Unitary Parliamentary Republic
Leaders - Giorgio Napolitano (President); Silvio Berlusconi (Prime Minister)
Country's Motto - "Per l`onore d`Italia" - Translates to mean "For the honor of Italy."

Geographical Highlights - The Italian Republic is a country in southern Europe.  It is made up of the entire Italian peninsula as well as Sicily, Sardinia, and many other smaller islands.  Italy also engulfs two countries within its borders, including the small nations of San Marino and Vatican City.  It is bordered by France, Austria, Slovenia and Switzerland to the north, the Adriatic Sea to the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west.  The landscape is varied, ranging from the cold northern Alpine region to the warmer Mediterranean region of the south.  Additionally, Italy has three active volcanoes: Etna, Stromboli and Vesuvius.

History - Archealogical excavations have found that people have been living in Italy for over 200,000 years.  Between the 17th and 11th centuries B.C., the Mycenaean Greeks established contact with the early Italian people; and, by the 8th and 7th centuries B.C., they established colonies along Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula.  The rise of ancient Rome began around the 8th century B.C. and began to decline by the 4th century A.D.  After ruling a large part of Europe, the Roman Empire formally disbanded and created sub-sections of the Eastern and Western Empires.  In between the time of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, Italy, as was true for all of Europe, lived in a period called the "Dark Ages."  The Black Death pandemic killed about 1/3 of the population.

Having given birth to some of the most respected and beloved artists (Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, Botticelli, Raphael, Perugino, Titian) and writers (Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Dante), it could be contended that the birthplace of all modern art and literature came from Italy.  The Renaissance was just the beginning of the illumination of such talent.

Italy's more modern history was more notably tainted by foreign rule.  However, 1814 brought about a reunification of the Italian peninsula.  During WWI, Italy remained neutral; though they would not remain as such during the Second World War.  Fascist Mussolini created an alignment with Franco and Hitler for the three nations to become known as the "Axis Powers."  Following WWII, Italy became a republic once again and have remained as such since that time.

Landmarks -

•The Coliseum - The most symbolic location within Rome, the Coliseum was the arena for Gladiators to show their strength.  Even though in ruins, it is still a most impressive architectural giant.
•The Leaning Tower of Pisa - This famous tower in Pisa begins its odd slope by the time it reaches the third floor in height.  Attempts to straighten the building have been thwarted due to fear of complete annihilation.
•St. Peter's Basilica - One of the most famous churches in the world, St. Peter's Basilica is a Roman landmark known to house the tomb of St. Peter beneath its altar.  Michaelangelo's "Pieta" is also on display near the entrance.

•Ponte Vecchio Bridge - Spanning the Arno River in Florence, the Ponte Vecchio Bridge is Europe's oldest stone, open-spandrel, segmented arch bridge - originally built in 1345.  It is said that the word bankruptcy originated here when a merchant had his table ("banco") broken ("rotto") by soldiers after being unable to pay.  Another interesting tidbit about the bridge - it was the only Florentine bridge spared by the Nazi's during WWII. 

•Appian Way - A stone paved road completed in 312 B.C. was the route that connected Rome to the ancient cities of Brindisi and Apulia.  It is an amazing feat of ancient engineering.

•Rialto Bridge - This iconic medieval bridge spans the Grand Canal in Venice, housing shops along its corridors.  For more than 1,000 years, it has been the commercial center of the city.

•Trevi Fountain - The lore behind this Roman fountain claims that if you throw in a penny you will be guaranteed a return to the city. 

Interesting Trivia -

•The word ‘ghetto’ comes from the Ghetto area of Venice, where all the city’s Jews were forced to live in the 16th century.

•Ancient poet Homer thought that the Campo Flegrei in the Campania region, near Naples, was the entrance to Hades.

•Over two-thirds of the city of Siena’s population was wiped out when the plague struck in 1348. It was the worst hit of all the towns in Tuscany.

•The cathedral in Genoa still contains an unexploded bomb. It was dropped on the city by the British during the first world war, and no-one has ever got around to removing it.

•In Italy, Mickey Mouse is known as "Topolino" and Santa Claus is called Babbo Natale.

•Napoleon had conquered Italy by the time he was 26 years old.

•The Bank of America was originally called the Bank of Italy.

•Cantaloupes are named after the gardens of Cantaloupe, Italy where this melon is believed to have first been grown.