In general, people don’t think of winter as a time for fruit based desserts, but one of my personal favorites in the dessert category happens to be pears poached in red wine.  An extremely simple recipe, a little on the long side for cooking time but 90% of that time is pot watching time, so this is a great recipe for good multi-taskers and perfect when you go to the grocery store and see mounds of bosc pears begging to jump into shopping cart.  It is important that the pears are not underripe and are really fresh.  If you try this out of season with imported pears they have a flavor that is quite “green,” somehow, and it just isn’t the same.

INGREDIENTS

Bosc pears, 1 per person

Medium bodied red wine, Chianti and Rhone style wines like Syrah are best

Vanilla beans (about 1/2 bean per pear)

granulated sugar (about 1/2 cup or possibly a little more with a drier wine)

1 cinnamon stick

1 tbsp cloves (star anise as a substitute works as well)

1 sprig mint

either vanilla ice cream or whipped cream to garnish

DIRECTIONS

Peel all the skin from the pears leaving the stem and making the bottom of the pears flat so the can sit in the pot.  Add the pears to a pan deep enough that they can be entirely covered.  Fill the pan with enough wine to cover the pears and add the vanilla beans, split and emptied, the cinnamon, cloves and sugar cover and boil for 20-30 minutes depending on the size of the pears.  When the pears are finished they should be tender all the way through, when you stick a cocktail stick through, the resistance should be about the same as a fully cooked baked potato.

Set the pears aside when they are done and reduce the sauce.  Taste for sweetness.  This should take anywhere from 15-30 minutes depending on the pan.  When the sauce is the thickness of syrup and clings to a spoon it is finished.

Pool the sauce on plates, then add the pears with a little mint sprig next to the stem and a dollop of ice cream or whipped cream.

I will say right off the bat, I stole this recipe from a 72 year old Italian.  Do I feel guilty, maybe a touch, but I am taking no credit for the divineness of this dish and fully acknowledge that there is not a snowballs chance in Dante’s inferno that I could have married these flavors and had them work.  This is one of those dishes that surprises you so much you don’t even speak, just mmmmmmmmm, and keep eating.

INGREDIENTS

(Working from memory here)

1   Whole chicken, cut into his appropriate pieces marinated in white wine and sage

Olive oil

Chicken stock

White wine

1 red onion

1/3 cup each kalamata and green olives

1/3 cup pinenuts

1/4 golden raisins soaked overnight in white wine

3 cloves of garlic

salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Cover the bottom of your largest skillet with oil and chop your onion and add both the onion and your garlic to the olive oil and begin warming the olive oil.  Add your pieces of chicken and keep the sage leaves with the chicken. Add about 1/2 cup of chicken stock and cook for about 15-20 minutes over a medium flame.  Add more chicken stock and a good pour of white wine.  When the chicken is a nice golden color flip all the pieces over, add a little more chicken stock and white wine and cover the pan cooking for another 15 minutes or so. Now add your raisins, pinenuts and olives and cook for about 10 minutes.  Serve, and remember, I may be a criminal, but my crime benefits humanity.

Making pasta from scratch is not something most Americans typically do.  But it’s actually not high on the difficulty scale and the reward is a great payoff.  I was told by a wise and well traveled Italian that there are three things that go into making good pasta, the eggs, the weather and the hands that knead the pasta.  After tasting the pasta that his wife makes, I am in complete agreement.

Typical of many of the best Italian foods, pasta has a short list of ingredients where freshness is key.  Here you need only flour, eggs and salt.  A little more specifically the quality and type of the flour is important, luckily DeCecco imports their semolina flour into the US.  If you can’t find that use the highest quality bread flour available.  Fresh eggs, medium sized, because the yolks are larger in comparison to the whites, and generous sprinkly of salt.

Make a mound of flour on a pre-floured wooden cutting board.  You want it to look like a volcano with eggs for lava. You want a ratio of about 1 cup of flour to 1 egg per person.  Sprinkle a healthy pinch of salt over the top and knead the dough until it is elastic and resilient. Add little sprinkles of flour as you are kneading whenever you feel any stickiness. It should take about 15 minutes.  Roll the dough out thoroughly, again with regular sprinkles of flour to make sure that the dough sticks to neither your rolling pin or the cutting board.  You want to get the dough to the thinness of a dime and this should  take about 20-25 minutes.

At the end of your little upper body workout slice, or slice and stuff and cook.  For the sliced pastas allow 4-7 minutes for cooking, less for thinner and more for wide noodles like lasagna.  For ravioli or tortillini; which can be filled with virtually anything, allow 5-10 minutes.  Fresh pasta begs for a simple fresh sauce and just a sprinkly of parmesan and cracked pepper.

I am a huge fan of trying to eat as much as possible in the “fresh, local and in season” way. Italians favor in season as well, although the ubiqitious tomato is found everywhere and at every time.  Indulging in out of season berries or other fruits and vegetables occasionally is a luxury to savor.  But the fruits and vegetable that have logged more frequent flyer miles than most travelers in a season aren’t at their peak in terms of flavor or nutrition.  So what to do in winter?  How about a thick stew style soup that uses all those seasonal vegetables, plus some of those “not so in season but how can you live without them” tomatoes?

INGREDIENTS

3 cups cooked or canned chickpeas

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

3 medium celery stalks, chopped

3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped

1 large red onion, peeled and chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 bunches Swiss chard, cleaned (at least 3 times)

1/2 head Napa or Savoy cabbage(sliced into strips)

1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley

2 fresh rosemary sprigs, (leave on stem)

2 cups canned tomatoes (I like Pomi) in most cases canned are better than fresh in winter

6 cups vegetable or chicken stock

1 baguette (day old is actually best for this)

salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS

Over a low flame saute your celery, carrots, onions and garlic for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the tougher portions of the swiss chard to this mixture leaving the leafy portions to add later. Add your herbs and tomatoes and saute for another 15 minutes. Add your swiss chard, cabbage and half of your chickpeas with enough stock to cover all your ingredients and simmer for another 15-20 minutes. Puree the other half of your chickpeas with the rest of your soup stock and then add this and about 3/4 of your baguette to the mix.  Add salt and pepper to taste and pluck out the sprigs of rosemary.

The prep time and cook time combined on this soup are a good 1 1/2 hours but only need careful watching for the sauteing of the veggies (especially for the garlic) so this is a great rainy Sunday soup.  Two hints–1)add the bread slowly, you can always add a little more 2)a little winter squash can be a tasty addition when added at the same time as the tomatoes.

So I find a lasagne recipe. I try it. I like it. I really like it.  I feel brave. I ask my Italian mamma neighbor to try it. (Note: I said I felt brave) SHE like it. WOO HOO!!  So, you say? If you have spent some time in an Italian kitchen you may be familiar with the regard for the cooking skills of the typical American.  To get a “molto buono” from a sincere face does more than warm the cockles of your heart–it’s like finding the lost city of Atlantis.

Lasagne in Tuscany is not the same as most American style lasagne.  The layers of cheese that are so typical of the American version are replaced with layers of bechamel sauce and sprinklings of parmesan cheese.  There is also a higher ratio of pasta per layer of lasagna.  I found this recipe in another little corner of another little site here. www.tuscany.net/recipes/lasagne. I did some slight modifications and interpretations, boiled lean=ground beef which I added to and left out the chicken hearts. I also added a little cheese to melt on top the last 15 minutes of cooking.

One thing I did not think about before because of having a science background and being familiar with all things metric is that others may find fabulous recipes on many of these small sites and think that they sound amazing and want to try them. But.  They are all in the metric system and your measuring devices are not.  So a little chart to make it easier.

28.5 grams=1 ounce

100 grams=a bit less than 1/4 lb (0.22)

125grams=a bit more than 1/4 lb (0.27)

1 liter=a very little more than 1 quart

100 ml=a little less than 1/2 cup (0.42)

If you are good with decimals than link to this site www.convert-me.com, the only drawback is it only converts in decimals so remember that 0.33 is 1/3 cup and 0.67 is 2/3 cup and keep the pc away from the fluids in the kitchen, bechamel sauce is murder to get out from between the keys.