Scenes from Sunday: Aebleskivers

Loving someone isn't always tidy. It's muddled. Hot, cold and all varying degrees in between. Like powdered sugar all over your face, it's still a beautiful thing. A circumstance to savor. Despite the inclination to do so, you don’t necessarily want to neaten it right away.

I’m especially grateful for my loved ones as I can be a bundle of emotions, and seek assurance more than the typical person. Mama says I have been this way since I was little. On Christmas, I was looking at old family photos with my sister. She had the biggest grin in all of them, holding me close to her side as if declaring to the world, “this is my baby sister.” I smiled often, of course. But in other photos, I wore a serious gaze. To this day my Dad can identify this gaze. He says, “what are you thinking about, Francesca. I see the smoke coming from your head.” While I can try with all my might to change, or lessen my introspective lapses, it makes more sense to own my intricacies and leverage them for the better.

My dear friend Sophie shared these words from Khalil Gibran with me years ago... "Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children."

One to shed a tear with ease, as stories and realities move me readily to waterworks, these words give me solace. And while my family really has no choice but to tolerate my spectrum of feelings, my indecision, and vulnerability, I know their love is voluntary. 

This Sunday, I made something that wasn't neat, but was more than worthwhile, using my new Lodge Aebleskiver pan, a Christmas present I will cherish.  If I had my way there would be doughy goodness, with a hidden surprise of cookie spread in the middle every Sunday. And while love takes patience, these Danish pancakes are best served hot, so dig in immediately. 

Ingredients 

4 eggs, separated
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups flour (Note: the original recipe recommends cake flour) 
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup of butter, melted
Just under 2 cups milk
Amoretti Creamy Speculoos Natural Cookie Spread 
Lodge Cast Iron Aebleskiver pan 

This recipe is slightly adjusted from Lodge Cast Iron's A Skillet Full. 

To prepare 

Separate yolks from the eggs. Beat egg yolks until lemon colored.

Sift together dry ingredients and add to the yolks alternately with the butter and milk.

Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Place a small amount of oil in the wells of Aebleskiver pan and fill 2/3 with batter. Add a small serving, about ½ teaspoon, of cookie spread to each. It will sink into the batter.

Cook over medium heat until the balls begin to bubble. Gently flip using a fork. Traditionally, the aebleskivers are flipped using knitting needles. Turn each over several times to brown on all sides and ensure they are baked through.

Serve hot with powdered sugar. Then call someone who is patient with you despite your flaws, and thank them. 

Broccoli Rabe and Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms

Countless times, I've come home flustered from a hectic day and the question looms, what's for dinner? Before I had a dishwasher, on days I was particularly bereft of ideas the main goal was  reduce cleanup - keep the number of dishes and utensils used to a minimum. Now that I have a dishwasher I can certainly focus less on dish damage, but minimizing cleanup is always a relevant concern. The dishwasher's size serves as a practical constraint too. Living with a Chef there is never, and I mean never, a shortage of dirty dishes. When he cooks, I clean. When I cook, I clean. You get the picture. 

Imagine a meal without utensils at all, where you pick and choose with your fingers, uninhibited, like a child. Enter finger foods. All week we have been dabbling in the realm of finger foods, as holiday gatherings are frequent and energy is starting to wither. Today one of my favorite combinations, broccoli rabe and sausage, finds its temporary home in a mushroom cap. Next week, you'll see it residing alongside some orecchiette.

Ingredients

• 30 or so cremini mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 8 ounces sausage (I've used pork and chicken sausage; any kind will do.)
• 1/2 bunch broccoli rabe
• 3 chopped garlic cloves
• red pepper flakes to taste
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• salt 

This recipe is adapted from Food Network Magazine's November 2014 Issue.

To prepare

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Remove the stems from the mushrooms and set aside. Wipe caps clean with a damp paper towel. Toss caps with olive oil and season with salt. Arrange the mushrooms on a baking sheet. 

Finely chop the mushroom stems and broccoli rabe. Cook eight ounces of sausage, casing removed, in a skillet over medium heat. Break up the meat until no longer pink, about 3 minutes. Add the mushroom stems and broccoli rabe, cooking for 4 minutes or until tender. Add the chopped garlic and season with red pepper flakes. Cook for an additional minute. 

Let cool, then mix with breadcrumbs, parmesan, and chopped parsley. Divide mixture among the caps and bake for 15-17 minutes. 

Let cool for 5 minutes and serve with additional parsley and cheese if desired. 

Less is More: Homemade Treats

He was sickened over not having enough money to buy his teacher a shiny present like the other students. His father had lost his job and it would be a difficult Christmas. Mama pulled him close and whispered gently,  'my sweet boy, the work of the hands is the work of the heart'. They gathered together in the kitchen and baked tiny loaves of Panettone with care. Once cool, each was packaged with scrap ribbon and baker's twine. 

The Christmas season can be a stressful one, born of our own expectations around gift giving, entertaining, social schedules, and the pressure to create a perfect day. We lament over what to buy, how little we have to spend, who to invite and what to wear. In this frenetic buzz, we lose sight of the true meaning of the season: love, plain and simple.

Spending cold dark evenings with friends and family, baking cookies, wearing silly sweaters and sipping on spiced cider while music plays in the background. The happy chatter of childhood mates who converge on their hometown for but one week a year. Blaring sirens as Santa rounds the corner in the city fire truck waving and bellowing, "Ho Ho Ho". Children praying that they were behaved enough to please Saint Nicholas. 

Instead, tempers flare, money is spent in excess, and feelings are hurt as we forget to focus on compounding joy and worry about the perception of everything being just right. Each year, the moments that mean the most are unplanned and spontaneous, and the gifts are basic and often hand-made. Annie Dillard eloquently stated,

"If you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days."

These words are a welcome dose of perspective this Christmas season. Less is ok, and often superior. The work of the hands is the work of the heart. I remind myself that I can be a success so long as I pour my heart into whatever it is I am doing. This year, I made tiny loaves of Panettone, an Italian Christmas sweet bread. I packaged them with parchment paper, scrap ribbon and baker's twine. Best of all, my effort will be acknowledged before the price tag. 

Lodge Chili and Cornbread

She put on her favorite cozy pajamas and socks the moment she came inside from the snow. The wet layers of clothing she peeled off laying where they fell on the kitchen floor to dry. A fire was crackling on the hearth, lights dim, the Christmas tree bold and beautiful. She dug into a bowl of hot chili in front of the fire, contented and warm. Cornbread followed as a vessel in lieu of a spoon; utensils are overrated. 

 This recipe is adapted ever so slightly from Jim Maturo's award-winning chili in The Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook. We had our first snow that stuck to the pavement yesterday, and this chili served with Corn Sticks (also based on a Lodge recipe for cornbread) was the perfect complement. 

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 pounds beef chuck or sirloin tip roast trimmed and cut into small cubes
• 2 cups beef broth
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 can tomato sauce (15 oz.)
• 1 large onion, diced
• 6 tablespoons chili powder, in 2 servings
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 2 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 can white beans, rinsed and drained, optional
• Toppings!   Tortilla chips, shredded cheddar, sliced jalapeno and/or chopped onion

To prepare 

Heat the butter in a 4 quart cast iron Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the beef and brown on all sides. Add the broths, tomato sauce, onions, 3 tablespoons chili powder, cayenne pepper, and salt. Bring to a boil, then cover and continue to boil about 45 minutes, or until meat is tender. 

Stir in the remaining 3 tablespoons of chili powder, cumin, garlic, and black pepper. Reduce heat to low and cook for an additional 30 minutes. At this point, I added a can of rinsed and drained white beans as I like them but not essential. Add additional broth to adjust texture if desired. 

Serve with generous serving of toppings of your choice. I served mine with cheddar, onions, jalapeños and blue corn tortilla chips.

We also enjoyed corn sticks made in Lodge cast iron pans my mother gave me. She was a cast iron fan well before me it appears. Lodge has a multitude of corn bread recipes in their cookbooks. We used the sour cream cornbread version from A Skillet Full. 

The way Mimi lived

Rosalia D'Ippolito, my great grandmother, came to the United States from Sicily in 1921 at the age of eighteen, all alone. She was the last of twelve siblings in her village of Mussomeli caring for her mother and father. After her parents passed away she made the long journey across the Atlantic to be with her brothers and sisters. She moved in with her oldest brother Joe, never having met him. Twenty six years her senior he left Sicily before she was born to open restaurants in the states. Despite being a stranger to this country, she was optimistic. 

John Ricci emigrated to Pittson, Pennsylvania to work in the mines when he was only thirteen years old. After working tirelessly for a few years in dangerous conditions, he moved to Passaic, NJ in search of safer opportunities. He began working for Forstmann Mills, a producer of fabric and materials for jackets and peacoats. At seventeen years old he lied about his age and joined the Army to fight when World War I broke out.  When he returned from the war, John and Rosalia met as they were living in the same tenement house, and two of their siblings happened to be married. It was a small world back then. Mimi's dear Uncle Joe who became a father figure to both of them welcomed my great grandpa into his family and gave his blessing for John to marry my Mimi. 

Together they had a son, born a sturdy fourteen pounds, who tragically passed away shortly after his birth. Fortunately they became pregnant again and Mimi gave birth to my grandma, Rose Marie. She was the center of Mimi's universe. Nana tells me that the adoration was mutual, and each day was special as she beheld the world with wonderment, embracing its abundant gifts. She instilled that outlook in everyone she met, her smile infectious. 

Nana gave me Mimi's marble pastry board and I broke it in making anginetti, Italian Christmas cookies.  

Mimi awoke every morning and put the radio on immediately. She loved music and it played the entire day. Her favorites were the Italian stations and WNEW. The voice of host William B. Williams echoed through the house.

Her longevity, in my opinion, had little to do with what she ate and everything to do with how she ate, surrounded by the people she loved, everything having been prepared with her two humble hands. The pantry was stocked every morning with fresh produce: eggplant, escarole, chicory, tomatoes, swiss chard, artichokes, lentils, and cardune. Assorted fruits and lean proteins too. Good olive oil was required and everything was homemade. Fig cakes, sfingi (pastries), bread, and pasta. She would knead the dough, let it rise, roll it out and cut accordingly. She stretched a bar across two chairs to make a sort of drying rack, where the cut pasta would set. At Christmas there was struffoli, which she assembled in the shape of a tree using cone shaped glass. I'll attempt to make it this year with my Nana.  Mimi used every morsel of food in her kitchen so as not to waste anything, the aroma of garlic or lemons never far.

While learning to drive, Mimi backed up into a pole. She decided driving was unnecessary from that day forward and never drove again; she walked everywhere. She held a job briefly as well. For three days she worked on the conveyor belt at Shilton's, a perfume and powder company. Because she was left-handed, she was assembling the items backwards and was reprimanded. That too was the end of work. She made a home instead.  

Mimi lived for her family and adored her daughter. My Nana performed in the Christmas show in elementary school and Mimi, bursting with pride, invited everyone she knew to see and support her darling daughter. She took Nana on outings near and far. They would board the 74 bus together to Newark, NJ and shop on Broad Street. They also frequented Paterson and Passaic which were at the time epicenters of industry.

On one occasion, Mimi read in the newspaper that the fleet was docked at the Navy Yard. With her daughter in tow, she hopped a train to New York and asked a policeman for directions to see the fleet. Mimi and Nana boarded the USS Enterprise, a massive battle ship, for an afternoon to remember. She had great courage for a woman small in stature. 

She diligently upheld a beauty routine. She moisturized her face and body with olive oil based cream every evening before putting on silk pajamas, always matching. She dressed elegantly each day and wore blush, bright lipstick and perfume. She loved nail polish, especially reds and pinks. Accessories were a critical part of her wardrobe. Consistently worn were gloves, hats, pretty shoes, and costume jewelry. Mimi decided she wanted to purchase a fur coat. Although she had no middle name, she had the initials RLR embroidered into the collar. Rosa Lia Ricci. She reasoned that everyone had a middle name, so why not she?

Mimi spoiled her grandchildren, and thankfully for me, her great grandchildren. My sister and I were very fortunate to have had the blessing of great grandparents. While aging cannot be easy, as your body changes more quickly than your mind, aging is also a great privilege not everyone receives. Mimi was one of the lucky ones. 

She was gracious and generous. A devout patriot, she diligently recited the Pledge of Allegiance with her delicate hand in a salute over her eyebrow, almost daily. Mimi said that the United States gave her life, and filled her mind and heart with possibilities. She learned English within the first year of her arrival because she desperately wanted to belong.  

Into her nineties she still had all her teeth, and never developed any cavities. There were no signs of medical problems or declining health although she reportedly had high blood pressure.  One afternoon I entered my Nana's house to find Mimi in the kitchen, her mouth and face covered in chocolate cake. She told me the cat was hungry, and they split a piece. 

She lived until the ripe old age of 98, after a fall limited her mobility. Every day was a miracle in the making because Mimi chose to make it so, celebrating the simple, nourishing her body and loving others deeply. i try every day to live the way Mimi lived.