Tag Archives: Italian

Crostini

Posted on September 1, 2010 | 1 Comment

Sometimes you just have to say, “Prego,” and go for it.

Between switching jobs, moving, and studying for the bar, Caitlin and I were having a whirlwind summer.  Which is why, perhaps, it was only fitting that we decided to book a trip to Italy and Croatia with only two weeks to plan for it.  But sure enough, a day after the bar exam, and three days after my belongings and I arrived in Cincinnati, we were on a plane headed to Florence.

As I said, sometimes you just have to say, “Prego.”

We arrived in Rome Friday morning, and scrambled Continue reading →

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Posted in Appetizers

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Peach Italian Ice

Posted on August 13, 2009 | 3 Comments

Peach Italian Ice

Angelo Brocato’s Italian Ice Cream Parlor is an unassuming place, sandwiched between an Asian restaurant unsure about its own ethnicity, and a sports bar with saloon doors for an entrance.  On one corner of the street sits a warehouse, with stacks of rolled carpet piled high in all directions;  on the other corner rests Junque Antiques, the building itself looking several birthdays older than its wares.

Peach Ice Collage

Parking for Angelo Brocato’s is limited to an empty gravel-filled lot, or whatever spaces are available at 45-degree angles on the wide sidewalk on the river side of North Carrolton Avenue.  The parlor itself occupies a one-story storefront in the mid-city neighborhood of New Orleans, a safe distance from the reverie of the French Quarter.  Inside, the store displays the black-and-white portrait of its founder, and the wire-rimmed chairs, apothecary jars, and Continue reading →

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Posted in Desserts

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Melon Granita

Posted on July 12, 2009 | 2 Comments

Melon Granita

Granita siciliana, as the name suggests, is a granular, semi-frozen dessert with Sicilian origins.  (Granita means “grained” or “granular” in Italian).  Granita is a simple dessert, usually made from pureed fruit and sugar.  The mixture is then frozen, and periodically scraped to give the dessert its granular texture.  Indeed, breaking up the ice crystals is essential: it gives the dessert its signature crunch, and works to enhance the flavors within the dish.

Granita Collage

The sugar and alcohol in the recipe help prevent the mixture from getting too solid.  Beyond that, it helps to Continue reading →

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Three-Cheese Suppli al Telefono

Posted on April 19, 2009 | 3 Comments

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I wasn’t quite sure what to name this dish.

After making my three-cheese risotto, I ended up with several servings of left-over, cold risotto.  Cold risotto, it turns out, is perfect for making fried risotto balls, alternately known as suppli or arancini.

Suppli is short for “Suppli al Telefono,” which translates as “telephone wires.”  Traditional suppli is fried risotto that has been stuffed with mozzarella cheese.  The idea, of course, is that biting into a good suppli produces a low-hanging mozzarella string, reminiscent of telephone wires.

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Arancini is Italian for “little orange,” because Continue reading →

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Posted in Appetizers

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Three-Cheese Risotto

Posted on April 15, 2009 | 4 Comments

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Having a food blog doesn’t stop me from asking silly food questions.

On a recent trip to the grocery store, I could not find the risotto.  After several minutes of scrounging around the different rice and grain shelves, I decided to solicit help.  As I explained to the store clerk, I was making three-cheese risotto, and all that was left on my list was what the recipe referred to as “risotto rice.”  He kindly pointed me to arborio rice.

three-cheese-risotto-collage

Risotto, I learned, does not refer to an ingredient, but rather to a dish.

The key to risotto Continue reading →

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Posted in Entrees, Sides

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Spaghetti and Meatballs

Posted on March 3, 2009 | 1 Comment

Meatballs and Spaghetti

In August 2002 (back in the early days of blogging), Julie Powell began an interesting project on her blog.  Frustrated with her job, her marriage, and her living arrangements in one of the “outer boroughs,” she vowed to master the art of french cooking.  That is, Powell decided to make every one of the 536 recipes contained in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year’s time.  The project’s simplicity, balanced with its sheer scope, soon captured the interests of her fellow bloggers and several media outlets (and eventually earned her a book and movie deal).

On a much smaller scale, the Barefoot Bloggers make it their goal to blog roughly twenty-four of Ina Garten’s recipes every year – or two every month, which Continue reading →

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Posted in Entrees

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Grilled Garlic Bread

Posted on February 12, 2009 | 3 Comments

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If you were thinking about making my seven-layer spinach lasagna from the other day, grilled garlic bread would make the perfect appetizer. Continue reading →

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Posted in Appetizers

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Seven-Layer Spinach Lasagna

Posted on February 9, 2009 | 1 Comment

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Choosing a recipe is a lot like playing the Kevin Bacon game.

The Kevin Bacon game, or Six-Degrees of Kevin Bacon, centers around the small-world principle, or the idea that any two people are linked by a finite number of connections.  With Kevin Bacon, the goal is to link him to any other actor using no more than six intermediary actors.  For instance, Elvis and Kevin Bacon are separated by only one intermediary – Edward Asner, who appeared with Elvis in Change of Habit, and with Bacon in JFK. At last count, over one million actors can be linked to Bacon in fewer than six steps.

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The principle can be applied to any number of disciplines or phenomena -  from linking baseball players in various decades, to demonstrating the thought process in choosing a recipe. Continue reading →

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Posted in Entrees

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Bruschetta

Posted on November 12, 2008 | Leave a comment

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Bruschetta (broo-SKET-uh), as you might suspect, is an Italian dish.  It does not refer to the topping, however, but to the grilled bread.  The word itself owes its origins to the 13th Century word “brusare,” which referred to the act of passing a flame over the keel of a boat to aid in waterproofing.  A few centuries later, the word evolved to  the Latin word “bruscare,” and came to mean to toast.

All of which is to say that bruschetta Continue reading →

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Posted in Appetizers

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Lemon Italian Ice

Posted on October 18, 2008 | Leave a comment

Lemon Ice

This recipe is quite possibly my all-time favorite. Any time I have friends over for dinner, I make sure this figures into dessert plans. Often times, no dinner is necessary — I just tell guests who happen to be over that they’ve got to try this! And now that they’ve tried my lemon ice, I make sure to always have a pint stockpiled in the freezer – just in case I have an unannounced guest.

Lemon Ice

The real secret here  is to freeze Continue reading →

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Posted in Desserts

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