I’m strong to the finish,

…. Cause I eats me spinach.. ~ Popeye

First picked spinach of the season.. yum!

Added into the pot of risotto.. with a little wine, lemon juice & zest.

So good! Limone spinachi risotto… served with baked pork chops and spring asparagus.

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Triple Treat

There’s a lot the world doesn’t get right about fennel or finnocchio as we call it. For starters, did you know that fennel was a triple treat?
Fennel can be a vegetable, herb or a spice depending on how you look at it. Crazy as that tidbit is.. maybe even has you thinking now, doesn’t it? Known for its aromatic and flavorful qualities, it features long stalks and feathery leaves called fronds and produces yellow flowers that give rise to seeds commonly used as a spice. The fennel bulb, similar in texture to celery are often consumed raw in salads, or cooked in soups or stews, or roasted as a side dish or simply sliced and chewed on as a digestive after a big meal. With its distinctive anise-licorice like taste, fennel offers a refreshing, almost slightly sweet flavor to many dishes.

And while fennel bulbs may be the star of the show, the fronds have earned their own rights for best supporting actor. Decorate any fennel pasta, frittata or salads you make with some of those bright green fronds will make a pretty presentation on the table. Two fave uses of the fronts are as a topping for my fennel salad. Yum! 😋 The second would be in my favorite cheese, mushroom and fennel fronds ravioli filling. And though we do consume a lot of pasta’s here. Lest you think we’re only about carbs (moderation being the key) … but you wouldn’t be too far off!! 😀 A side salad of shaved fennel bulb with pink grapefruit slices, red onion or shallots in a red wine vinaigrette is a yummy addition to any meal.. pasta or not. Balance is beautiful thing.

I grow a lot of fennel at the farm. In addition to its flavor I just like the way it looks in the gardens.

Mushroom, cheese & fennel fronds ravioli

Finnocchio, pink grapefruit & fennel fronds salad

Yes indeed, I absolutely love the addition of fennel.. all of its parts in my cooking or just to munch on as I’m cooking.

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While Still Warm

While still warm… top with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream of course! 😋😉😁 Yumma!

Apple picking day

Be sure to steer clear of these, while picking though!

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And That’s A Wrap

Final harvest

Harvested the last (I think LOL) of the tomatoes this morn. Just plain remarkable considering what a wet spring and summer we’ve had here. My pantry is full of sauce, salsa’s and relishes that will hold me over this winter til next spring. This last batch will be roasted and then made into a very delicious roasted tomato soup.. a couple of more B.L.T. sandwiches, and for lunch today a Caprese salad for lunch guests I’m having over before we head out on this spectacular day for some end of the season paddling. 😊

That’s a wrap

Don’t you just wish we could keep them like this throughout the white stuff days?

Quickie.. but yummy caprese salad for lunch. I hope someone bring along a loaf of crusty bread! 🥖

Caprese Salad:

2 large ripe tomatoes, sliced

8 oz fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced

1/4 cup fresh basil leaves

2 TBLS extra-virgin olive oil

1 TBLS balsamic vinegar

Sea salt and ground pepper, to taste

Arrange the sliced tomatoes and mozzarella on a platter.

Sprinkle fresh basil leaves over the top or layer in between

Drizzle the olive oil and balsamic vinegar over the salad.

Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with some good crusty bread… and maybe some vino 🍷 if you’re so inclined.

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Never Enough Reggiano

Sunday was soup day… no walk.. the beginning of a sniffly cold 🤒 It’s been raining for two days, so I didn’t really miss my walk. Instead of my routine Sunday sauce I made a big pot of chicken veggie soup.. brodo.. with plenty of garden veggies, kale and freshly grated Reggiano. I’ll be better in no time.

You can never have enough Reggiano 😋

Parmigiano Reggiano

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Shopping on a Rainy Day

Appropo find on this rainy day 😄

It didn’t take long to decide what they’d be doing on this rainy day here. My company visitors are antique dealers, and we are located smack dab in the middle of Antique Row… shoppe after shop filled to the brim with items of long ago days. Catering to the “tourists” primarily, where you may find highly overpriced items, unique items.. and sometimes, if you are lucky, a real bargain. I stop in every few weeks, as I’m always on the hunt for old vases.. Roseville a fave of mine, so I agreed to tag along with them. I only managed to find a small bud vase which I first spotted a few weeks ago. Remarkably, it was still there!

As I continued along row after row of collectibles, I spotted a carton half unpacked under one of the tables. It was time to rummage. You know sometimes when you find yourself fond of something, even if you’ve never seen it before? Or sometimes it’s just a person met on a particular occasion.. ( kindred souls who finally meet?) Perhaps. Or sometimes it’s an object that suits our taste just perfectly, which for some reason strikes you profoundly… maybe even a food, never tasted before, that unexpectedly recalls to your memory something familiar.. that you’ve eaten before? But, where and when? Well, this is what happened to me in that antique shop that rainy day.

It didn’t take me long to dive into that carton, to find wrapped in old yellow newsprint some small, dainty immaculate broth bowls. Well, I found myself already pretty fond of these blue and white bowls as I carefully unwrapped each one of these lovely pieces. They brought back a memory of my grandmother.. of very fond memories. Perhaps because I could not help think of all the things that had passed through the hands of my Nonni for me that had special meaning. Or perhaps I was imagining these graceful bowls with their little handles pressed in her gentle aged hands, in the gesture of blowing with her old closed eyes on a bowl of broth. ( the memory of another time? ) Maybe.. I do not know. But one thing was certain.. they were coming home with me!

My fabulous find! 💕

My brother laughed when I tried to explain why I was drawn to my newfound bowls, shaking his head. ( not a sentimental bone in his body) LOL! All that mattered to me was that they meant something to me. So once we finished our shopping spree, we hit the market on the way home for a few groceries. Now it’s really pouring out there.. and as we got soaked unloading the car of all our purchases. I was chilly, so the men lit a fire and I headed to the kitchen to make a pot of warming soup. Why not christen my new bowls with a delicious pot of homemade soup.. even better, Nonni’s summer soup, utilizing much of what she had growing in her garden. Fitting, I thought to myself. A loaf of just baked crusty bread and of course, a nice bottle of vino. Nonni would be smiling down on us for this meal.

My Nonni’s Summer Soup

Summer Soup

4 cups veggie broth

4 small tender fresh picked zucchini or any summer squash you have growing in your garden

1 egg

1 TBLS grated Romano cheese

2 sprigs fresh marjoram

4 oz. Angel hair pasta

4 – 6 medium shrimp, minced small

Extra virgin olive oil

Ground pepper

Boil the vegetable broth ( I prefer preparing the broth by boiling in lightly salted water: 1 carrot, 1 celery stalk and 1 medium onion, chopped)

Rinse and slice zucchini into 1/2 inch pieces

Beat the egg in a small bowl.. add the grated cheese and the marjoram.. about 30 leaves, finely minced.

When the broth begins to boil, pour the diced zucchini in, and cook for 5 – minutes.

As soon as the zucchini becomes tender, but still a bit solid, add the angel hair and shrimp. Cook 5 minutes.. giving it a stir.

Immediately following, add the broth and beaten egg mixture. Again, stir well, and turn off the heat.

Before serving the soup piping hot, garnish each bowl with a drizzle of olive oil, a few grinds of pepper, some grated cheese and a couple of more sprigs of chopped marjoram. To be enjoyed and eaten around the table with family or close friends, reminiscing over days gone by.

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I Stole a Few Leeks

LOL! Well harvested early would be a better way of putting it I suppose. With this wet weather we are seeing, I may as well spend the afternoon cooking. On the menu today will be leek with sausage and fennel fronds cheese ravioli. So.. clearly I needed to grab a few of these young leeks if I am to follow my recipe! 😉😋

Young leeks.. a key ingredient for making my fave ravioli’s 😋

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In A Pickle

From eighty-eight to forty-four degrees overnight! Crazy crazy weather we are seeing here. Compounded with flooding thunderstorms.. I guess that meant I was to be trapped indoors, but it gave me the chance to do some cooking and catching up.

Before the storms moved in I harvested some chive blossoms to make my seasonal chive blossom vinegar. Though it kills me to cut them off.. the resulting vinegar is just so delicious and simple to prepare. Incorporated into your greens salad dressings, potato salads… I even like to splash a bit onto my swordfish when grilling.

Chive blossoms

Chive blossom vinegar, beautifully colored after infusing.

Then I pulled a basket of the first of the red onions.. ‘Red Florence‘ known for their deep red color and long storeage ability, though my second sowing will be reserved for winter storeage here, as this time of year we use them up as quickly as they are pulled.

Red Florence onions.. just gorgeous

As soon as I pulled this basketful I knew how they would be used.. pickled onions for my friend, Ed. He just loves them on everything! His wife says.. ‘ he’d add them to his morning cereal’ if she’d let him 😂 Aside from the delicious flavor, Ed swears since he began eating them he no longer suffers from nightly leg cramping. Who am I to argue this?

My family enjoys the pickled onions as a topper on sandwiches, or an addition to antipasti.. I like them sautéed and added to chicken cutlets. Over the holiday we did a lot of veggie grilling, so I tried them on the grilled asparagus.. scrumptious! 😋

Pickled onions for Ed 💕

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Nana’s Stew

The key to Nana’s stew.. a slow cooked lobster stock

Having the family together for Mother’s Day was so much fun. The weather.. just gorgeous. My beach bums were loving it even if the water temps are still in the low 40’s here.. brrr! They managed to dip their toes up to the ankles before a quick turn-about. LOL

We, are a family of seafood lovers here, and when the gang gets together the menu is varied but usually includes some kind of fresh caught fish or shellfish. It being ‘my’ weekend, the girls evicted me from the kitchen.. which was fine with me, as I got to play more with my grandboys. 🥰 but getting them to decide on what they would be serving another story.

Finally, it was decided… grilled swordfish, Ma’s crabby crab cakes, various salads, stuffed mushrooms, hamburgers for the boys and Nana’s lobster stew. Nana’s stew was my Moms go-to dish. It was her Moms fave stew and handed down for years to all the cooks in our family.

Last summer, for her birthday the recipe torch was handed down to our youngest daughter for her birthday. I think it’s spent time in all of our homes at one time or another, their great grandmas hand stitched sampler of the recipe. It’s so easy to prepare, presents well.. and simple fare but always delicious. Over the years I’ve doctored up the original version with the addition of a splash of cream and sherry to the stock, but other than that, it remains the same. If it works, no need to fix it.

Nana’s hand stitched sampler

Nana’s famous lobster stew.. yum!

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Rainy Garden Harvest

First spinach

Coming on strong

First harvest.. spinach! Another that flourishes in the rain. Sown last October under hoops.. are always a welcomed sight for this farmers eyes. With an hour of respite from the downpours, I scrambled to pick, pick, pick. I just love this potassium rich veggie. It will go into many of my soups and stews, or salads, or stuffed into chicken breasts in a lemon and wine sauce.. and trays of spinach pie!

Making spinach pie

Many Friday nights my Dad would meet up with his brothers and eat at my Nonna’s house with his brothers and just visit. Like most Italian Mama’s this was a highlight in her week to have her sons just to herself and feeding them food she knew they all enjoyed. Her menu always changed, but the bottles of homemade vino were the first thing put on the table with a half dozen jelly glasses. Not much was fancy in my grandmothers kitchen, but the food always plentiful, comforting and just perfect. Sometimes Nonna would make them spinach pies, calzones or stromboli and some extra for him to bring home to us. And there were times Mom and I never got any because Dad had finished them off while driving home. Yes, they were that good and Dad simply loved them. This is such an easy recipe to prepare, with minimal ingredients and so yummy. 😋

Spinach pie

Individual spinach pie pockets

Last weekend marked the passing of my Dad, so in his memory I decided to make a tray of spinach pie that I knew he enjoyed so much. Typically I make individual pies, just like my Nonna’s but this time I made one sheet of them to cut into squares to serve. Making them this way saves me a bit of time and though I really enjoy the individual pockets of spinach pies this is a close second in my book. Squared or pocket I know Dad would enjoy coming home to this dish. We miss you Dad, xox.

Spinach Pie

fresh pizza dough
2 lbs fresh spring spinach, washed
10 mushrooms, chopped
3 garlic cloves, mashed
1/2 bunch scallions chopped
2 TBLS pine nuts * optional
fresh oregano, basil & thyme to taste
grated pecorino cheese
1 can black olives, each cut in half
extra virgin olive oil
splash of white wine
sea salt & ground pepper

Sauté in olive oil the garlic, scallions,pine nuts, herbs and mushrooms for just a few minutes. Toss in washed fresh spinach leaves and a few oz of dry white wine. Cover & cook for 5 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese and add the olives, salt, & ground pepper. Give it another couple of stirs and allow to cool uncovered. Transfer the spinach mixture to a colander and allow to drain excess liquid.

Roll out pizza dough adding just enough flour so that it won’t stick to rolling pin. Divide the dough in half and press evenly into baking dish with one section of dough to fill the dish and up half the side of dish. Add spinach filling and spread evenly over the dough. Top with second sheet of dough wrapping edges under to seal crust. Brush top with a bit of olive oil. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the crust is lightly golden. Remove from oven–allow to cool and slice.

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