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Welcome back Nonna Rina! |
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Ciao a tutti,
I hope you've all enjoyed my Nutella cookies recipe, but after our quick break I am very much back as promised with the inestimable Nonna Rina. This week she's walking us through her special recipe for homemade ravioli! She would lovingly churn out over 500 ravioli on a daily basis as a former chef, so when it comes to recipe quickness, there's no one faster than her!
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The idea behind making your own ravioli may seem, dare I say, silly. And sure, you could go out to the store and feed your family with some frozen, bland variety found in your grocer's freezer section, but here on Cooking with Nonna, homemade = love. The time it takes to make your own ravioli is negligible when it comes to using their frozen counterparts. It's even FASTER if you have the KitchenAid ravioli maker, but if you had one then you already know just how amazing it is.
And so we've come to the end of our very second season. As I did at the end of the year, I'f like to once again thank everyone involved with the production of Cooking with Nonna. If not for their diligence and dedication, we'd just be talking to ourselves in the kitchen. I'd also like to thank each and every Nonna for coming on our show and sharing their recipes, and most important, their memories. To them I am forever grateful.
Do not fret, dear viewers, for we are not abandoning you. Next week, I'll be back da sola with another Nutella-based dessert to top off any of the hundreds of recipes you can find on the site. So get out of here and start checking them out!
Ciao a tutti!
Rossella
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I Love Nutella! |
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Ciao a tutti,
So here we are, Monday night, and you're all pasted to your computers in eager anticipation of this week's fabulous nonna and her recipe that she's brought along from the farthest reaches of the slender
peninsula we call Italy. I can hear the flames being turned on and the rattling of various pots and pans in the background, really I can. Guess what? You won't need them. Well, not all of them.
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Baking is one of my favorite pastimes. In fact, it's a downright passion. There's nothing more I love than experimenting in the kitchen with desserts, baked goods, and anything else with sugar, flower and vanilla. So this week, I'm going to bring you one of my first and easiest creations, the Nutella Chip Cookie! It's a unique spin on an old favorite, and without a doubt one of the recipes that is made frequently in the Rago dwelling.
While the base is your garden variety chocolate chip cookie, I've decided to mix it up a little and add both white and semi-sweet chocolate chips. The diversity in chocolate flavors will really stand out once we add our Nutella, that hazelnut and milk chocolatey heaven-in-a-jar, makes-everything-better magical something. In addition to the truckload of chocolate chips, we're going to use a whole jar of Nutella (Nutella people, let's talk!) By the time you're ready to put them in the oven your whole kitchen will be overflowing with the most delicious, swirling aromas known to anyone with a functioning nose.
There are, as always, minor modifications you can make. For example, when I needed to study for exams, I'd just throw in some espresso powder (Lavazza people, let's talk!) for an extra boost. The only real problem with these cookies is that I can never seem to make enough...
Over the next few weeks, we'll be trying out more baking oriented recipes, all of which are Nutella based (seeing a pattern?) This won't be replacing Cooking with Nonna, it's simply a chance to introduce a whole new angle on the simple joys of baking. I'm really excited about the opportunity to bring you an entirely new type of cooking experience, and I know you'll become the Nutella addict that lives inside of each and every one of us!
Next week, Nonna Rina will be entertaining us with -- ready? -- Homemade Ravioli! You won't want to miss this, campers!
Tanti Baci,
Rossella
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Welcome Nonna Rina! |
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Ciao a tutti,
Happy 2010, everyone! It's been a whirlwind holiday season, and though I've pretty much pushed my snooze button into oblivion, it's time to get back in the kitchen! I know it's going to take some motivation, so with that in mind, this week's recipe is going to be a show-stopper. It's no surprise that the number one request for recipes from our viewers is also the most popular food with our beloved Nonne - that's right - we are making the very holy grail of
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foodstuffs: Lasagna! There's not a person on this planet who's had lasagna and never wanted to have it again (and if there is, fine, more for me), but for many people it can be a daunting task, especially if they've never seen it made. Luckily Nonna Rina is here from Emiglia-Romana to show us how it's done.
We start from the very beginning (where else?) with the sauce. Nonna Rina's Lasagna calls for a blend of beef, pork, and sweet sausage (out of the casing) in the sauce, which makes for a delicious medley of flavor. The sauce ingredient that truly stamps this as Nonna Rina is the inclusion of butter in the sauce. Until now, I'd have never thought of adding anything like butter, but let me tell you - it makes all the difference in the world. Between the meat and the butter the entire mixture is salted to perfection. If you're uneasy about buttering your meat, keep in mind that only the absolute finest steakhouses in the world include butter with their cuts of meat, and who are we to argue with them?
While your sauce is cooking, we can start on those long and fat noodles. They can be tricky after they're done cooking, so here's Nonna Rina's tip: before you put the Lasagna in the hot water, add a little bit of olive oil. Then once they are cooked replace the hot water with cold water. This will keep them from becoming starchy and sticky before you start laying them.
With so much going on at once, it's easy to forget ingredients. In our case, I left the ricotta in the fridge instead of letting it warm to room temperature for spreadability. No, we used cold ricotta. Nonna Rina, wealth of information that she is, has a special technique to spread that rebellious ricotta, so keep an eye out for it during the episode.
I'm so excited that we finally were able to give you the absolute BEST lasagna recipe I've ever tasted. It was a long search, but such an intricate dish requires only the finest in instruction, and I'm happy to say that Nonna Rina was just that! Thank you, Nonna Rina, for sharing your recipe with us. And thank you, loyal viewers, for tuning in. I have a feeling 2010 is going to be one for the record books!
Ciao a tutti!
Rossella
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Happy New Year! |
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Ciao a tutti,
Oh. My. God. I don't know about you out there, but I am still in a state of recovery both mentally and gastronomically. The holidays are indeed, the most wonderful time of the year, if only for the fact my scale is somewhere in the city dump and anyone who mentions caloric content is bound and gagged with tinsel! With Christmas behind us it's time to focus on New Year's Eve/Day, and with
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what we're cooking up this week you'll hardly remember the food coma from the week prior.
My Nonna Romana and I will be whipping up my absolute favorite food-based anything: Frittelle! (Fried, filled pockets of dough). Frittelle are a staple of any Italian New Year's celebration (those who are extra lucky also get them on Christmas Eve), and are a homemade take on a modern convenience: the Hot Pocket.
But Frittelle are much more than any off-the-rack Hot Pocket. They're warm and golden and filled with anything your heart desires to put in them, as long as it's mozzarella and tomato. Joking aside, the little New Year's delights can be filled with anything, the most traditional being mozzarella, tomato and capers, (my personal favorite, tastes just like a pizza!) and scallions, olives, and tomato (sensing a pattern?) The two produce very aromatic and distinct flavors. The capers really add that salty special something that makes the tomato and mozzarella really stand out. Some people add anchovies to make it especially flavorful. The scallion and olive frittelle are always a sleeper favorite -- one minute everyone says they don't like the combo, the next they're all putting scallions in their cereal.
Nothing gets me more in the mood to cook than the holidays, and there's nothing like the holidays to get you in the mood for gatherings of family and friends. That's the Cooking with Nonna ethos at its core. And, as we come to both the end of 2009 and our second season, I'd like to thank everyone who makes this show possible. Without our magnificent crew the show most certainly could not go on; my family, for giving me this truly wonderful opportunity to share with the world some of the finest in authentic Italian cuisine; my loyal viewers for watching and for all the new ones who will be watching and learning along with me.
Most importantly, I would like to sincerely thank each and every Nonna for appearing on our show. For just about all of them it is their first time in front of a camera, and if I may be so bold, each one brought their own immense charm to the show, so much so that they are truly their own. I cannot truly express how overcome with gratitude I am for having them, but I sure have tried. Have a wonderful New Year's celebration!
Buon Anno a tutti!
Rossella
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