Maggie's Farm

Italian savory pies range from the humble snack of "pizza" to the mind-boggling Timballo.

There are as many recipes for Pizza Rustica as there are Italian grandmas. They are not just for Easter but the ricotta one is an Easter special. Sometimes they are cooked in a pie pan, sometimes in baking pans.

Here's one version.

Here's another: Pizzagaina. There are many other versions to google. For example, the one pictured on the right with red peppers and spinach.

Here's a recipe for a Sicilian-style Venison Pie. I'd use cut venison, not ground.

A Timballo is a pasta-based pie (as is lasagna) which everything in it: sausage, whole hard-boiled eggs, noodles, lamb meatballs, spinach, peppers, etc.

Here's one:

Here's a simpler Timballo with eggplant:

Pizza Pies are not meals in Italy - they are street food and street snacks same as in NYC.

Here's a Sicilian Tomato Pie recipe from Nonna -  Pizza alla Faccia di Vecchia

Here's what we call a Sicilian Tomato Pizza made with foccaccia. Too much bread for me. This in a shop window in Bergamo - quite far from Sicily:

We ate a lot of tapas in Spain, partly because dinnertime there (9 pm) is a bit late for us. Also, we kept trying to find some really good ones. I concluded that none of them are all that tasty except with wine or beer, and we were not drinking booze. It's bar food. An exception was the tapas at the Madrid Ritz, but those were about 20 euros each instead of the normal 3 euros each.

I think we only did 2 real dinners, on the fancy side. At one, I had bacalao and at the other, suckling pig. Both excellent.

We broke the rule of Foods to Avoid in Spain, partly just because we wanted to see how they did it. We tried paella twice, once as a media ration with tapas and one shared for lunch. The latter was ok with squid, octopus, mussels, etc, but I just don't get the big deal about paella.

I also had to try a gazpacho, as in my pic along with some tapas. This one was creamy and delicious. We did try Salmorejo in Cordoba. Disgusting stuff, we agreed.

Anyway, the fun part of tapas is deciding which ones to try. That plate in the middle was fried eggplant. Not delicious at all - but it should be. Pic is the outdoor cafe at the Parador de Grenada.

It's become like the UK's hamburger, it is so ubiquitous and popular. Was almost proclaimed an official British food by Parliament. Delicious on white rice.

There are many versions. Here's one:

Due to their long history of Arab occupation, Sicilians cook with a lot of mint. A typical side dish for grilled meat is boiled potato with mint. Easier than pie.

Boil up a bunch of potatoes to firm with a few sprigs of mint in the water. If big, then quarter them. If small, leave alone. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, then throw a generous handful of chopped mint +/- parsley on top.  Done.

Speaking of cultural appropriation, mint is middle-eastern/Egyptian, and potatoes are from South America. Go figger.

Our favorite potatoes are roasted potatoes with rosemary. Quarter the taters, cover with olive oil, add s and p, then sprinkle with rosemary (fresh preferably) and roast in oven until the surfaces are brown but the insides creamy. Turn occasionally until browned.

It's the coffee of Greece - Greek coffee. The Frappe is made with Nescafe. Greek Nescafe is preferred, but local is ok.

Depending on where you grew up, you might refer to noodle-shaped pastas as macaroni, noodles, or spaghetti. If more advanced, you might refer to the specific name of the pasta species.

In Soprano Country, they refer to that disgusting red tomato sauce for pasta as "gravy" as in "I'll take some more gravy for my macaroni."

Generally speaking, I am not a big fan of pastas. Peasant food! Packed with Evil Gluten! Well, a small primi of pappardelle with a (fresh) porcini sauce decorated with chopped parsley is very fine so I can make some exceptions.

I will admit to being a food snob when it comes to Italian. Pasta is not a meal unless you plan to run a marathon in a couple of hours. It can be a small primi but there are many sorts of primi. And cappucino is only a breakfast coffee. Italians do not eat meatballs. The best pizzas in the world are in America because we think a pizza is a meal, not the nutrition-free street snack that it is. I could go on and annoy everybody.

Finocchio (Fennel) grows wild all over Sicily. In late summer to fall, it has its yellow blooms by the roadsides. A delicious flavor, raw or cooked.

Orecchiette with Fennel and Tuna

For carving beef or lamb, maybe pork, it's hard to control the thickness or thinness without a pique.

Old-fashioned carving sets used to include one, but usually not long enough and the knives with them were not top-notch.  I like a slightly-serrated meat knife so I can go as thin as I want. The Pique gives good control.

Amazon, of course, has good stainless ones. Once a hot meat has rested a few minutes, use that thing and get exactly the clean slices you want.

I don't really know why you would care, since an apple is just a sugary dessert with minimal food value. However, market apples can be up to one year old. It doesn't matter.

They are stored in a high-tech versions of the olde root cellar, cool and dark until needed.

The stuff from the can tastes and smells like dog food.

Make a few days' worth at a time. Then make large sort-of patties out of it and sautee until crispy on the surface. 

Serve with white toast, plus or minus a sunny side up egg or two on top.  And ketchup.

A diner I like makes it with just the beef and onions, no chopped peppers either, and serves it with home fries on the side. Excellent variation.

Let's just assume you want to raise your own eggs.  Not as a farmer, just for your own use, like a 4-H project or like almost everybody did during the war.

I know two people who do backyard chickens. They keep the gardens weeded and eat all the bugs. A Red-Tail occasionally gets one. They scamper back into the coop at evening feed time, which keeps them safe from owls, fox, coons, and coyotes. That's the real "Free-range." Do you have to quickly teach your hunting dog to leave them alone? You betcha. Shock collar. What about Blacksnakes? Big fat Blacksnakes can't fit through narrow gauge chicken wire.

Duck eggs are bigger and tastier and ducks are less prone to disease and other problems.

A great project to do with kids, who should be responsible for it all. Does growing your own anything make sense in terms of time and cost? Of course not. It's for fun.

Raising Ducks or Chickens?

Backyard Chickens and Ducks

Raising Ducks: A Primer on Duck Housing, Diet and Health

Raising Ducks: how to integrate Ducks into your Urban Farm or Backyard

 Pic is caponata

Sicilian Pistachio Sauce for fish, roast meat, vegetables, or crostini

Cheese That Can't Stand Alone: 10 Uses for Ricotta Salata

Parsley and Mint Tabouli  - you can throw some steamed zucchini in that, and you can skip the parsley

Parsley Pesto - you can use either walnuts or pignolis. Good for fish, crostini, panini.

A more complex Sicilian Pesto

Caponata. It's an all-purpose thing.

Classic Sicilian antipasto: grilled vegetables, done this way. Has to have sliced eggplant, but anything else: halved potato, halved artichoke, leek, peppers - you name it. Best grilled on wood.

It's news to me. Beans of all sorts must be thoroughly-cooked to destroy toxic lectins.

This seems to apply mainly to real beans, shelly beans, and not string beans. Raw Lima Beans are toxic also from a different toxin.

Heat wave in the Northeast due to global warming. We never used to have heat waves. Spent two hours in and out of a pool. Water was too warm, not too refreshing. Needed some giant ice floes in it, hold the Polar Bear. The good part was that Mrs. BD ordered me a tuna melt on white toast with lots of jalapeno slices in the cheese. Chips on the side. A perfect lunch.

Can you eat a sandwich without potato chips on the side? I can not and will not. Impossible. Our place fries their own daily. A bit thick and just slightly burnt. Fried in beef lard, I think. Delicious. A loud, hearty crunch. Easy to make at home with a mandoline.

How anybody can drive up Route 91 through Vermont without stopping at Curtis' place (just west off the Putney exit (Exit 4), next to Ron's gas station) for some authentic Mississippi barbecue is beyond me. Curtis is a Mississippi-born and bred barbecuemaster, but he spends spring to fall in Putney, VT (of all places), cooking over hardwood smoke all day long, with his pet pig and dog following him around the smoky pit. Now he sells his own Curtis' Root Beer and Barbecue Sauce too - but only at his place.

He is a busy old codger, but he will chat with you if you have anything worth saying to him. It had better be interesting, though. You do not see many places like this in New England. I'd be willing to claim that it's the best southern barbecue in Vermont.

Do you know where these typical American garden plants originated in their wild forms before being genetically-engineered over millennia by clever humans into the international things we know and grow today? 

Cucumber
Eggplant
Potato
Tomato
Onion
Zucchini (and all other squash and gourds)
Beans and Peas
Lettuce
Spinach
Strawberry
Radish
Peppers
Chard (including Swiss Chard) - chard is in the beet family - the beet was first grown for its greens, not the root
Corn (maize)
Asperagus
Rhubarb

Answers below the fold

It's a Prohibition-era summer cocktail from the 21 Club.

Everybody likes a Southside. It's another one of those drinks you can make by the pitcher for friends. Minty.

Simple, juicy, and crunchy on the surface: Sauteed Parmesan Chicken Breast

Slice the chicken breasts horizontally in half for thinner filets.  Season with s&p, and dip filets in egg, mayo, or sour cream. Then cover with a mix of plain bread crumbs and grated parmesan and sautee in a mix of butter and olive oil until toasty brown.

Amazing the way it stays juicy and tender. It is obviously served with mashed taters, or preferably garlic mashed taters.

A repost -

Fried Squash Blossoms are a wonderful summertime traditional Italian treat. I harvested this platterful of them last night and we fried 'em up. When served hot, and lightly browned and salted, they leave French Fries in the dust.

On summer squash like Zucchini and Yellow Squash, the blossoms on the long stalks are the males, and thus expendable. However, I use both because there's always too much squash anyway. In fact, the blossoms are tastier than the squash. (I am fond of yellow summer squash steamed with salt, pepper, and butter, not so fond of zucchini except in soup.)

Almost forgot to mention that squash blossoms prevent arthritis, dementia, laziness, neurasthenia, depression, obesity, heart disease, and cancer - and most other sorts of death and disease. Guaranteed. For a few minutes, anyway.

This site explains how simple this is, using Marcella's method. Do not wash them at all because they need to be dry - just check them for bugs inside but a few tiny bugs just adds a little protein to the mix. Brown them lightly, drain, and eat sizzling hot. Photo below from Marcella's site -

Making a batch this weekend, from the garden. Simple to make a Crumble.

I prefer a crumble with vanilla ice cream to a pie.

Re rhubarb, I can munch the raw stalks. Refreshing. My daughter's boy-toy does too, which is just one of many reasons he is a good fellow. 

Delicious summer side dish for meat on the barbie, but it can function as a full meal for me if served on top of some Boston Lettuce:

A pile of cooked white rice (Basmati is best). Or couscous instead.

Cool rice to cool or room temp. Then add:

roughly chopped - peeled and seeded - cucumber
roughly chopped tomatoes
roughly chopped (halved) Greek olives
lots of chopped fresh Italian parsley
not too much chopped fresh oregano
chopped red onion
lots of crumbled feta cheese

(you can add some chopped red, green, and/or yellow bell peppers too if you want.)

Salt and pepper, fresh-squeezed lemon juice to taste, then toss with your best olive oil. Serve cool or room temp.