Potatoes from the Garden

One of my great joys in the vegetable garden this year has been digging potatoes. We planted five barrels of potatoes, including Red Pontiac, La Ratte, Yukon Gold, and Red Norland. I also planted some organic potatoes I got at Whole Foods that sprouted very quickly so I threw them in the ground.

Yesterday, I decided to have a good breakfast, which included potatoes. So out I went to the garden and dug a few beauties, which were quickly diced and into a frying pan not ten minutes after they left the ground. Served with organic apple-smoked bacon and poached brown eggs, they were delicious, crisp on the outside and creamy within—brilliant, as chef Jamie Oliver would say.

Tomato Sauce Marathon

I mentioned in one of my posts last week, that I had three boxes of organic tomatoes, Early Girl, that I purchased at the Great Basin Food Coop. On Friday, I got busy making tomato sauce for freezing. I used recipes in a article by Georgeanne Brennan that were in her article, “From Vine to Freezer - Tomato Sauce for All Year,” which appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle last July. I decide to take on all three recipes, Basic Tomato Sauce, Roasted Roma Sauce, and Roasted Heirloom Tomato Sauce.

I began with the first one, which I cooked last week, with tomatoes from our garden. I sliced about twenty pounds of Early Girls, which filled the sixteen quart stock pot that Vicki gave me for my birthday. They cooked on medium for about two hours, then I ran them through the food mill.

Then I tackled the roasted roma sauce, which used my entire twenty-pound box of romas. They were sliced, then baked with olives, capers, marjoram and anchovies—the secret ingredient. After baking in the oven for about 2 1/2 hours, I pureed the sauce in the food processor, leaving it slightly chunky. The result was a piquant sauce that will make the perfect base for puttanesca sauce.

Roasted heirlooms with the next challenge, Cherokee Black and Brandywine tomatoes, oven roasted with olives, fresh basil, spices, balsamic vinegar, then simmered with white wine. This was also run through the food mill, yielding a dark rich sauce that will be superb with pasta, fish, or roasted vegetables.

I did most of this in one day, the kitchen was roasting, probably 100 degrees and floor was a mess and there seemed to be tomato residue everywhere. Still, the results were fabulous, I've put 60+ twelve-ounce bags of sauce in the freezer.

Ricotta Pancakes

A couple of weeks ago Vicki and I were down for the first football game of the year at Cal and the morning after the game we revisited the Cock-a-Doodle Cafe with our friends Dan and Sandy. We hadn't been there since last year, but the food was still outstanding. Once again, Vicki had the Lemon Ricotta pancakes and loved them so much I decided to try them at home. I used a recipe from Giada De Laurentis and varied it a little bit, adding blue berries and vanilla, rather than lemon zest. The result was two huge yummie pancakes served with a couple of slices of organic apple smoked bacon. Vicki was so anxious to eat it, she took a bite before I could take the picture!

Here's the recipe:

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Ricotta Pancakes


Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time: 30 min Level: Easy
Serves: 4 servings (16 pancakes)

Ingredients:

2 cups water
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup honey
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups pancake and waffle mix (recommended: Krusteaz)
1 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
2/3 cup frozen blueberries
Melted butter

Directions:

Stir 1/3 cup of water and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves, about 5 minutes. Stir in the honey. Set aside and keep the honey syrup warm.

Using a rubber spatula, stir the remaining 1 2/3 cups of water and vanilla in a large bowl. Add the pancake mix and stir just until moistened but still lumpy. Stir in the ricotta into the pancake mixture, then stir gently to incorporate the ricotta but maintain a lumpy batter. Fold in the blueberries.

Heat a griddle over medium heat. Brush with the melted butter. Working in batches, spoon 1/4 cup of batter onto the griddle for each pancake. Cook until golden brown, about 3 minutes per side. Serve with the honey syrup.

Recipe courtesy Giada De Laurentis

Tomato Sauce

We've got lots of tomatoes in the garden now, so on Tuesday it was time to make tomato sauce. I followed a recipe by Georgeanne Brennan that was part of an article she wrote in the SF Chronicle last July. It's a fairly basic recipe that calls for sauteed shallots and herbs along with the tomatoes. She suggests peeling the tomatoes after dunking them in hot water, but since I have a food mill, I just cooked them skin, seeds, and all and after grinding them, the skin and seeds stayed behind and went in the compost.

The sauce turned out great, but the only thing I was bummed about was that it didn't make enough! Eight pounds of tomatoes cooked down to only about nine cups, which I put into six freezer bags.

I was moaning to Vicki about this and told her that I was going to get a hold of Lattin Farms in Fallon and buy a whole boatload of toms. Lo and behold, Vicki called me a few hours later and told me that the Great Basin Food Coop had a post on Facebook that they were selling 25 lb. boxes of tomatoes for $.50 a pound! I hightailed it down there and was soon on my way home with a box of organic roma tomatoes grown at Rick Lattin's farm! Of course, I still wasn't happy with only twenty-five pounds, so dropped by today and bought two more boxes.

Now I've got two boxes of slicers and one of roma—tomorrow is sauce-making day, big time!

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Basic Tomato Sauce

Makes 1 1/2 quarts

I use mostly Shady Lady for this sauce because that is the variety I have that's most abundant in my garden, but you can use any meaty variety. If you are using Roma- type tomatoes, the cooking time will be less.

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup minced shallots
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 5 to 6 pounds medium to large juicy tomatoes, any variety, cored, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
• 2 bay leaves, fresh if possible
• -- Kosher or sea salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions: In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. When warm, add the shallots and cook until translucent, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute, until softened.

Add the tomatoes, increase the heat to high and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Add the thyme, rosemary and bay leaves. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring from time to time, until the sauce has thickened so much you can almost stand a wooden spoon upright in it, about 1 1/2 hours. You will hear the bubbling as it thickens, indicating it is almost ready.

To finish, reduce the heat to low, and simmer, stirring until the desired thickness. Be careful not to burn the sauce.

Taste, and add salt and pepper as desired. Puree or leave chunky, whichever you prefer. Cool and store up to 5 days in the refrigerator, or freeze.

Per 1/4 cup: 32 calories, 1 g protein, 5 g carbohydrate, 1 g fat (0 g saturated), 0 mg cholesterol, 9 mg sodium, 1 g fiber.

Uses: Use on pizza, polenta, pasta, pan-seared steak or any time tomato sauce is required.

By Georgeanne Brennan, "From Vine to Freezer - Tomatoe Sauce for all Year" San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, July 26, 2009

La Fornaretta

Returning from a recent trip to Sacramanto, Vicki and I decided to stop at Newcastle Produce. It’s located in a complex of old fruit-packing shed in the little town of Newcastle a few miles south of Auburn. We were hungry and getting out of the car we noticed a sign for La Fornaretta, an Italian restaurant offering “Authentic Sicilian.” We settled into a lovely lunch which started with homemade bread and an outstanding salad, which was followed by two steaming plates of pasta. Vicki had Penne with Sugo, a delicious classic Italian tomato sauce. I had what I think is the best spaghetti I’ve ever had, perfectly cooked, with a tangy Puttanseca sauce made with tomatos, olives, capers, and prosciutto—it was divine. Our meal ended with a creamy gelato, a perfect lunch! Besides pasta and salads, the restaurant has a huge pizza menu.

La Fornaretta. 455 Main Street #4. Newcastle, CA. 916-663-1338. La Fornaretta.

MARKET DAY

It’s rainy here in Chianti today, at times it poured, the storm gave a substantial amount of water to the thirsty Tuscan countryside.

Yesterday, we went to the market in San Giovanni Valdarno, a town west of Montevarchi on the Arno River (Valdarno – Valley of the Arno). We’d visited the town on Thursday and were very impressed with its wide main streets, beautiful piazzas, and profusion of shops. [Not to mention the moving Marian shrine in the Basilica and the perfect little gem of a museum]

Piazza Cavour - San Giovanni Valdarno

Market day in Italy is not like the farmer’s markets we have in the U.S., they are much more substantial and provide shopping resources for the townsfolk that enable them fill their larders and closets for at least the entire week. The market in GVD is major league; it fills a large piazza, a parking area, and stalls span the length of several blocks on both sides of the piazza. When we arrived, we hurried past the produce vendors and headed straight for a café on the Piazza Cavour to have a cappuccino and a cornetto to get us started on our day. Refreshed, we began browsing the myriad of stalls lining the streets. There were dozens of stalls selling women’s clothing, shoes, purses, and intimate things, as well as numerous opportunities to purchase fashionable men’s clothing.

A very interesting phenomena in Italy is that both men and women wear t-shirts which are designed with wording in U.S. English. Things like “Cutie Pie” and “Hawaiian Surf Club,” and a multiplicity of other texts can be seen, and I’m wondering if these people have any clue as to what they’re wearing really says.

Porchetta Wagon and Slicing the Roast Pig

Anyway, we made it through the clothing stalls, unscathed, but when we got to the fabric area Vicki found some lace to used for window hangings and also purchased two purple shower curtains for uncertain use. [They are gorgeous, iridescent fuchsia and they will be used in a fabulous way!--V.]Then we rounded a corner off the piazza and found food heaven.

Cutting Parmigiano Reggiano

There were stalls and wagons selling the luscious porchetta, a wide variety of cheeses with a focus on pecorino, parmesan, and mozzarella—prosciutto, salami, salted cod and a whole stand selling tripe. We did some serious damage there, including fixings for a porchetta sandwiches that would be eaten later that day.

We finally made our way back to the produce stalls, which sell a huge variety of fruits and vegetables, all fresh, and almost all from Italy. This time of the year there are only cool weather vegetables available in Tuscany—we’ve seen many family gardens that are just getting started and most have only lettuce and other similar greens.

Produce Stall

For this reason, most of the produce in the markets comes from southern Italy and Sicily, not exactly local, but all the same, fresh and organic. Just looking at the fruits and vegetables at the stalls one can see that they aren’t the perfect, highly washed items like we see at Whole Foods. Potatoes look like they were just dug, apples have that “just off the tree” look, and there are little strawberries that look just picked. We stocked up on cherries, luscious melons, apples, pears, and oranges and headed back to the car carrying heavy sacks.

Porchetta Sandwich with
Melon and Cherries

SANSEPULCRO

On Wednesday, we drove to Sansepulcro to view some frescoes painted be Piero Della Francesca (1416-1492). He was born in this town and the town is devoted to his memory. At the Museo Civico we wanted to see the Resurrection, an indescribably beautiful fresco that Aldous Huxley called the best painting in the world.

Sansepulcro is a sprawling town, home to the Buitoni pasta factory now sadly owned by Nestle, but has a medieval centro with narrow streets and many nice shops. Vicki had found a review of a restaurant called Taverna Tuscany so we stopped there for lunch. It is a typical Italian trattoria with three tables outside on the street and more seating within. There were no printed menus, just a board outside listing what was being offered that day. We both started with Panzanella, the wonderful Tuscan salad made with bread, tomatoes, onions, cucumber and an olive oil and vinegar dressing.

Panzanella

It was marvelous and will be even better in the summer when the very ripe and delicious local tomatoes are available. For the primo, Vicki had Salsiccia con Fagioli, Tuscan beans with sausages, and Bob had Pappardelle pasta with ragu. Both of these dishes were divine, and we marveled how good this simple food can be.

Fagioli con Salsiccia

The beans in Vicki’s dish were canellini were cooked just right and a perfect match for the two little grilled sausages, which were extremely flavorful.

Pappardella con Ragu

My wide flat pappardelle noodles were rolled thinner than those we see in the U.S. and they were napped in an excellent ragu. Once again, another great Italian meal.

We were the only foreigners in the restaurant and it was interesting watching the Italians enjoy their lunch. The gentleman and two ladies at the table across from us started with pasta that was brought to the table in a large bowl, then served into smaller ones. After that came a huge steak, a bistecca fiorentina, which must have been two inches thick. The gentleman was given a mean looking knife and he proceeded to cut the meat into smaller portions for the group. It looked like it was cooked perfectly, seared on the outside and rare within, the traditional way this dish is prepared on the grill.

Bistecca a la Fiorentina

When Vicki returned from the restroom she told me to check out the kitchen in the back, which I did, and saw a small waist-high fireplace with a wood fire and a grate to grill meat. The chef was at work and next to him was a huge haunch of Chianina beef from which the bistecca is cut. Our lunch was 39 euro, which included a 4 euro coperta (cover charge).

After lunch, we walked over to the city museum to see the Pieros and as happened last time, we were alone in the large room with the fresco of the Resurrection at the end. Just us and one of the greatest pieces of renaissance art. It was, of course, just as stunning as when we first saw it in 2002.

"The Resurrection" by Piero Della Francesco

The Museo Civico is a very nice little museum in a town that is very proud of its native son, Piero Della Francesca. Its other famous native is Luca di Pacioli 1446-1517), a Franciscan monk who is famous as a mathematician and called the “Father of Accounting. There is a lovely statue of him near the Museo Civico.

Luca di Pacioli

Sansepulcro is part of what is called the Piero Della Francisca Trail, which begins with his stunning series frescos Legend of the True Cross in the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo, goes to Monterchi, where the museum holds the Madonna del Parto—the Pregnant Madonna—and ends in Urbino where the Palazzo Ducale has his famous painting, The Flagellation (of Christ). Though not on the PDF Trail, there is also another famous work of Piero, the Polyptych of Sant' Antonio"in the Palazzo dei Priori in nearby Perugia, which we saw during our stay in Umbria in 2006.

Madonna del Parto

Yesterday, Vicki and I decided to backtrack a bit from Sansepulcro and we visited the charming little hill town of Monterchi to see the Madonna del Parto. Completed in six days by PDF in 1460, the fresco was originally done in a church in Monterchi, but after the building was damaged by an earthquake in the late eighteenth century, it was detached and is now housed in the Museo della Madonna del Parto Monterchi, where it is the only work on display.

Museo della Madonna del Parto Monterchi

PODERE LA ROTA

After our drive from Rome with a stop along the way in Orvieto, we were so excited as we drove down the road to Podere La Rota. Everything looked much the same, though very green and lush now. Ally and Bob, hosts extraordinaire, were there to meet us, as was their wonderful Maremma sheep dog, Livia. We soon collapsed into chairs on the terrace with the best view in Italy and enjoyed the two wonderful platters of food in the fridge, which was our dinner that evening, prosciutto, cheese, rocket, tomatoes, and pickled olives and cipollini. We were truly back in Paradise!

The Chianti hills from the terrace at
Podere La Rota

Our welcome platters of cheeses,
meats, and antipasti

ITALY - 2009

Italia Redux!

Many hours after leaving San Francisco, we finally got our first view of our beloved country when the Isle of Corsica appeared below us and soon we were flying above the coast, before turning inland for the descent to the Fiumicino. After an interminable wait for our luggage, we boarded the train that takes you to the Roma Termini, the city’s main train station. It was a hot, steamy Italian day, and our railcar was like an oven---I worried that Vicki was going to pass out. After an overpriced cab ride, we arrived at our little B&B in the Campo Marzio district, near the river. We barely fit into the tiny lift with our two bags, but we were soon greeted by our charming hostess, and shown to our small but comfortable room, which Vicki had found on the internet for 100 euro a night, a real bargain for Rome, with its high-priced hotels.

A lack of sleep on the flight meant a little nap before we ventured out, excitedly heading for our favorite bar on the Via dell’Orso, the street we stayed on last October. We were soon happily planted at a small table next to a heavenly smelling star jasmine, enjoying a Negroni, our favorite Italian cocktail.


Drinks and snacks at Papa's Bar, Roma

From there we walked over to view the always interesting scene at the Piazza Navona, where tourists gather at the Bernini fountains and wander through many displays of artwork offered for sale. We continued our walk towards the Campo d’Fiore, by way of the lovely Via Giulia, where one can peek through the gates at the beautiful gardens of the Villa Farnese. The campo was the usual evening mob scene and as we entered, we saw a new restaurant, a mozzarella bar

A tasting of mozzarella and Tuscan salami

called Obika, which offered “tastings” of different buffalo mozzarellas paired with various other accompaniments such as meats and vegetables. We chose an excellent full flavored cheese along with the Tuscan salami to go with our cocktails. We had a lovely couple of hours there and chatted with an interesting Italian couple, Elisabetta and Matteo, who enjoyed speaking English with us.

On our way back to the hotel we found ourselves hungry again so we stopped at a little restaurant called Ristorante Clemente on the Piazza Maddalena where we each had a nice bowl of pasta. After we had a gelato from San Crispino, banana and strawberry. Everyone else out walking was eating gelato too.

On our only full day in Rome we didn’t rise too early, but by nine we were headed back to the Campo d’Fiore where the market was already in full swing.


Ahh. A cappucino at Campo de Fiori

We sat in Vicki’s favorite bar/café and had a couple of cappuccinos before exploring the market. For anyone interested in food, or Italian culture for that matter, this market has marvelous displays of fish, meat, and the freshest of vegetables, much of it local, and almost all of it from Italy. There are also booths selling the usual t-shirts, hats, belts and other apparel, and at the west end, a huge offering of freshly cut flowers and plants.

Produce at the Campo de Fiori market

We left the campo and walked across the Tiber river to the Villa Farnesina, built by Antonio Chigi in the early sixteenth-century, now a museum and part of the Italian National Academy of Sciences. The villa is seldom visited by tourists despite having incredible frescoes painted by Rafaello and his studio. As long as we were over the river in Trastevere, we decided to go to our favorite pizza bakery. Located on a narrow little street, Al Forno is a pretty nondescript place that sells lots of freshly baked loaves of bread. We go there, however, for the pizza al taglio —pizza-by-the-piece. There are usually four or five sheets of pizza sitting behind a glass display counter; the toppings vary from day to day. You tell them what you want and how much and they cut you a slice and place it on a paper plate. A can of soda and you’re all set to take it away or sit on a stool at a narrow counter that runs all along the side of the restaurant. Today, we had tonno and carciofi—tuna and artichoke, and a margherita with the traditional cheese and pomodoro sauce.

Pizza at Forno Renella

After our pizza we walked back to our room for a nap and a break from the heat. Early evening found us back at a table at the little bar on the Via del’Orso. We planned to have cocktails and then go find a trattoria we’d read about in the NY Times, but we got pretty settled in, watching the world walk by, from tourists to locals, and even a religious procession. We spent a long time talking to Jakob and Petra, a charming couple from Holland who were visiting Rome for a few days. It was very enlightening to learn that wooden shoes are now longer part of Dutch apparel and modern engineering has supplanted the need for a finger in the dike.