Category Archives: Zitella’s Favorite Recipes

Life Lessons, Zitella's Favorite Recipes

Potatoes, Onions, and Eggs

Lately, I find myself thinking about my grandmother.  She and my grandfather married in September 1929, less than a month before the devastating stock market crash that ushered in the Great Depression.  As newlyweds, and during the early years of their marriage, they made sacrifices and weathered hardships they could not have anticipated on their wedding day.

During the Depression, my grandmother spent her time in the kitchen “stretching” and “making do.”  Fifty years later, when she was living with us, during the most prosperous times she could have ever imagined, my grandmother held steadfast to her belief in “waste not, want not.”  I watched as she smoothed out the wrinkles in a sheet of aluminum foil, so it could be used again and again, until it was tattered beyond repair.  She wrote grocery lists on the back of used envelopes.  And she placed her morning teabag in a whiskey glass, and reused it for her weaker and less flavorful afternoon cup of tea.  Even though we assured her that these measures of conservation were no longer necessary, she couldn’t seem to relax her life-long habits.  Intellectually, I knew why she did these things.  Now I finally understand it.

These days, I keep a small cup next to the bathroom sink, which holds a sliver of soap that, three months ago, I would have thrown away, thinking it was too small to use in the shower.  I freeze any and everything – from blanched spinach to buttermilk – and flour has become as precious as gold.  Each morning, I open the refrigerator and plan my meals according to the shelf-life of the coveted fresh produce I feel lucky to have.  A potato gets cut in half, and the half that isn’t eaten tonight is stored in the refrigerator, preserved in water, for a future meal.

Once considered “Italian peasant food,” Potatoes, Onions, and Eggs is now a popular frittata that appears on the brunch menus of trendy neighborhood eateries.  For me, it’s comfort food – and one of my go-to recipes during this pandemic.  Here’s the recipe for Potatoes, Onions, and Eggs.

Mangia! 

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Zitella's Favorite Recipes

Let’s Talk Turkey

The following is a re-post from November 2016.

Whose idea was it to make turkey the traditional Thanksgiving dish?  Do you think the pilgrims actually served turkey stuffed with cornbread and celery at their feast?  After all, Plymouth is right on the ocean, so they probably ate fish.  Maybe we’re all supposed to be dining on the Thanksgiving Lobster.  I’m just saying…

Okay, so I’m not crazy about turkey.  One or two slices of the bird, and I’m good.  The next day, you open the refrigerator and remember just why they call it foul.

For me, turkey day is all about the sides.  I can’t wait for the mashed potatoes, the green beans with the onions, cranberry sauce made from scratch, and kernel corn slow baked in a ramekin.

sweet-potato-casserole

One of my favorite sides is an easy sweet potato casserole with a hint of vanilla that can be made ahead and reheated in the microwave.  I’m happy to share the recipe with you.

sweet-potato-casserole

Whether you like apple, pumpkin, chocolate, or my personal favorite – lemon meringue – I’ll bet the expression, “life is uncertain, eat dessert first” was coined with pie in mind.  In fact, instead of nicknaming Thanksgiving “turkey day,” I’d opt for “pie day.”  And the next morning while all the shoppers are jockeying for a parking space at the mall so they can get in on the Black Friday sales, I gonna sleep in and eat leftover pie for breakfast.

Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Pie Day!

red poppy

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Zitella's Favorite Recipes

Summer Brunch

In February 2016, in a blog post titled “Let’s Do Brunch!” I suggested that the cure for the frigid temperatures, along with a case of the winter blues, was to host a weekend brunch.  What could be better than a delicious array of warm comfort foods, all displayed on a brightly decorated table?  Besides, you don’t have to get up early; you get to eat bacon; and you have permission to pour some prosecco in your OJ or vodka in your tomato juice even though it’s not quite noon-time.  Brunch remains, in my opinion, a highly underrated meal.

Now it’s August, and the heat is on, so the fare is light and fresh, and the table set in cool, tranquil hues.

Here’s my idea of an easy-peasy summer menu:  a pitcher of iced coffee, a fresh fruit salad of juicy melons and red and blue berries, Greek yogurt, a simple egg frittata made with fresh herbs and garden tomatoes, and one of my all-time faves, lemon-poppy seed muffins.

Decorate your table in rich shades of cobalt and turquoise.  And, if you can, dine al fresco.  Invite a few friends, sit back and relax on your deck or terrace, or around the picnic table in your yard.  A simple meal, lively conversation, and good company is my recipe for a great summer brunch.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

 

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Zitella's Favorite Recipes

A Recipe for the Happy Couple

When I opened the bridal shower invitation, a blue 4 by 6 index card fell out.  What is this? I thought, as I picked it up off the floor.  Then I skimmed the invitation for the who, where, and when.  At the bottom, right under the bridal registry info, was a simple request:

Please use this card to share one of your favorite recipes with the bride.

Although I have not yet met the bride, the groom is my cousin.  His mom is a very special cousin to me, and his grandmother was a lovely great-aunt.  I thought about holidays I’d spent with them when I was a child, and tried to remember some specific recipes my great-aunt had made.  But the bride would be getting those recipes from her new-mother-in-law.

While I have dozens of favorite recipes, I wanted to give the bride a recipe that the happy couple would surely enjoy.  And I had no idea what they’d like.  So I checked out the bridal registry for clues.

They’d registered for fun stuff: party platters, small plate dishes, a margarita pitcher and glasses, and cappuccino cups.  They were planning on doing a lot of entertaining.

An easy but elegant crowd-pleaser came to mind.  It looks like way more work to prepare than it actually is.  In fact, if you can separate an egg, you’ve got this.  So besides sharing it with the happy couple, I thought I’d share it with you.

Chocolate Mousse Recipe

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Zitella's Favorite Recipes

Buona Pasqua!

The following is a re-post from 2016.

Easter Tulips

Buona Pasqua means Happy Easter in Italian.  Saying it evokes vivid childhood memories of Easters spent at my grandparents’ house.  I remember each and every Easter dress, coat, and hat I wore.  But mostly, I remember the food.

An Italian-American immigrant, my father’s mother was old-school when it came to holiday cooking.  For Easter, she made lamb.  A whole baby lamb.  Maybe it’s a texture thing, but I’ve never cared for it.  Despite the accompanying caramelized roasted vegetables that decorated the large oval meat platter, the lamb looked like a small dog sprawled out on the good bone china.  It was enough to make my little brother cry.  “It’s a puppy!  Don’t make me eat it…”

My reward for suffering through the lamb was the Easter bread, called “cuzzupe.”  My grandmother and her sister each made it differently.  A serrated knife was needed to saw through my grandmother’s cuzzupe, which was intentionally dry and hard, to symbolize unleavened bread, while my Aunt Theresa’s cuzzupe was moist with a subtle vanilla aroma.  Regardless of which sister you asked, getting the recipe for cuzzupe was not an easy thing.  My mother eventually pieced together this much from them:

7 ½ eggs
1 stick butter
1 ¼ tbs vanilla extract
2 ½ tbs sugar
3 ¾ tsp baking powder
Salt
Add flour, a little at a time – enough flour to knead
confectioner’s sugar and egg white for the icing

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?  Why were they so specific about the SEVEN AND A HALF eggs, yet so vague about the quantity of flour?  Did they know just how much flour was needed simply by how the dough felt in their hands?

When I began hosting Easter at my house, I tried making the cuzzupe.  It was a disaster.  Luckily my mother has the patience, and she continues to make it every year, adjusting the recipe here and there.

Me?  I like a sure thing.  So I make the “cassata” or Easter cheesecake.  And I’m happy to share the recipe with you.

Easter Cheesecake recipe

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Zitella's Favorite Recipes

Apple and Cranberry Season

What do you think of when you think about autumn?  The leaves turning brilliant colors?  That it’s time to wear your favorite bulky sweater?  How much fun it is to stroll through the pumpkin patch, searching for that perfectly shaped pumpkin to put on your front steps or by the hearth.

Me, I see red.  Deep, rich red.  The color of apples and cranberries.

Columbus Day Weekend is traditionally the time to go apple picking.  Whether you venture out into the orchard and actually pluck the apples off the trees or visit the local farm stand and choose your favorite varieties from large wooden bins – it’s still apple picking in my book.

One friend of mine makes apple butter, another makes apple sauce.  I prefer apple crisp.  Because the apples are so naturally sweet, I add cranberries for a kick of tartness.  Besides, cranberries are so plentiful here in New England.

Here’s the recipe:  Apple Cranberry Crisp Recipe

 

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Zitella's Favorite Recipes

Breakfast for Dinner

 

We didn’t have a plan when my brother and I decided to meet up for dinner last Friday night.  But after a tough work week, we were ready to ease into the weekend.  So instead of going to a noisy, crowded urban hot-spot, we agreed to just hang out at my place.  Besides, I had chicken parm in the freezer I could pop right into the oven.

My Italian-American sisters can back me up on this: we generally have chicken parm in our freezers.  Or a tray of lasagna at the ready.  And red sauce.  Or Bolognese.  It’s just what we do.  We cook and cook and then put it all in the freezer.

But my brother had chicken for lunch so he wasn’t too enthusiastic when I mentioned the chicken parm.

“Well…I have a carton of buttermilk, a pound of bacon, and a dozen eggs in the fridge.  Wanna have breakfast for dinner?” I suggested.

“Yeah!” he eagerly agreed.

For us, pancakes are comfort food and we both needed a dose the other night.

Within minutes, bacon was sizzling, flour was being sifted, and eggs were getting whisked.

My buttermilk pancake recipe comes from some long-forgotten, old-school cookbook.  I re-named the recipe the “best ever buttermilk pancakes” and if you make a batch, I think you’ll agree.

Best Ever Buttermilk Pancakes

 

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Zitella's Favorite Recipes

Let’s Talk Turkey

Whose idea was it to make turkey the traditional Thanksgiving dish?  Do you think the pilgrims actually served turkey stuffed with cornbread and celery at their feast?  After all, Plymouth is right on the ocean, so they probably ate fish.  Maybe we’re all supposed to be dining on the Thanksgiving Lobster.  I’m just saying…

Okay, so I’m not crazy about turkey.  One or two slices of the bird, and I’m good.  The next day, you open the refrigerator and remember just why they call it foul.

For me, turkey day is all about the sides.  I can’t wait for the mashed potatoes, the green beans with the onions, cranberry sauce made from scratch, and kernel corn slow baked in a ramekin.

sweet-potato-casserole

One of my favorite sides is an easy sweet potato casserole with a hint of vanilla that can be made ahead and reheated in the microwave.  I’m happy to share the recipe with you.

sweet-potato-casserole

Whether you like apple, pumpkin, chocolate, or my personal favorite – lemon meringue – I’ll bet the expression, “life is uncertain, eat dessert first” was coined with pie in mind.  In fact, instead of nicknaming Thanksgiving “turkey day,” I’d opt for “pie day.”  And the next morning while all the shoppers are jockeying for a parking space at the mall so they can get in on the Black Friday sales, I gonna sleep in and eat leftover pie for breakfast.

red poppy

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Zitella's Favorite Recipes

Soup’s On

stock-pot

The weather has finally shifted and the dry, crisp autumn air means it’s time to dig out my stock pot.  Nothing’s better than putting up a pot of soup on a Saturday morning.  You can enjoy it over the weekend and still have some left over for the work week.  I have several “go to” soup recipes that are easy, healthful, and freeze well.  One was given to me by a friend; another I found in a magazine.  But my spinach soup recipe comes from the first cookbook I ever bought, The Regional Italian Kitchen by Nika Hazelton.

I’d just gotten my first place on my own.  The apartment was a studio with a galley kitchen smaller than the average bathroom. There was barely enough room for my dishes, let alone for a cookbook, so it got wedged between two college texts on a book shelf in the main room.

That was a long time ago.  Now la cucina has a dedicated bookcase for my ever-growing collection of cookbooks.  Yet The Regional Italian Kitchen remains one of my most frequently used cookbooks, just as the spinach soup remains one of my all-time favorite recipes.  This flavorful soup can stand alone, or you can add a small chewy pasta like orzo or ditalini.

spinach-soup-1
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Zitella's Favorite Recipes

Cook Out Calamity

BBQ“I’ll gain ten pounds over the 4th of July weekend,” my friend lamented.  “Everyone thinks the five weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve are the toughest time of the year to maintain your weight – but it’s the fifteen weekends between Memorial Day and Labor Day that’ll get you.  I’m in the middle of one long cook out calamity!”

She made me hungry as she described what she’d eaten at the backyard party she’d most recently attended.

“From the minute I got there, I was like a Hoover vacuum cleaner,” she confessed.  “A hot dog – three, four bites tops, and it was gone.  Ribs dripping with sugary barbecue sauce.  Fried chicken cooked to crispy perfection.  The potato salad and the macaroni salad – carbs swimming in mayonnaise.  And don’t get me started on the desserts…”

When I weighed all this (no pun intended) against Turkey Day (which is really only one meal), a few holiday parties where you stand with a flute of champagne in one hand as you nibble on tiny hors d’oeuvres, and a tin of homemade Christmas cookies it takes you a good two weeks to polish off, I’ll admit, she had a point.

Still, this wasn’t a calamity.

There was an easy solution to her dilemma.  I offered her a simple, healthy, delish summer salad that looks pretty and transports well.  The perfect dish to bring to a cook out.

Cold Veggie Salad

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