La Cucina Italiana: Segundi

Day four of Italian cooking = SEGUNDI, the second course! 
On the menu for today was eggplant parmesan, chicken marsala and meatballs. We were sure to stick to the very traditional and very Italian ways of making these meals; meaning we go light on garlic, don't cook the basil in super early, and focus on fresh ingredients. bellisimo! 


It began with peeling, slicing, and draining the bitter juices out of the eggplant. We then made two separate eggplant parmesan dishes; one where the eggplant slices were covered in flour and an egg wash, and the other was eggplant in flour, egg wash, and bread crumbs (my personal favorite of the two). 

After preparing the eggplant, we popped em on the fryer for a few minutes in order to prepare them for the casserole dish. 

it smelled so good....and so dangerously tempting

We stacked the slices of eggplant similar to how one would prepare a lasagna. There were layers of eggplant followed by a tomato based sauce, slices of mozzarella, and tons of parmesan cheese sprinkled atop! so yum.

There was so much to be done today, that the eggplant parmesan was the main dish I got thoroughly involved in. At the same time, meatballs were being rolled and chicken marsala was being cooked! After all the second course dishes were finished and ready, we feasted in the sunny courtyard. It was a long day, and this was by far the most satisfying meal of the week.

La Cucina Italiana: Primi

Today it was back in the kitchen! 

We began the morning by brewing some espresso, munching on our very own homemade biscottis, and getting some inspiration from clips of both the Godfather and the goodfellas on youtube.

Our morning coffee was essential to the eating of the biscotti's, for they were hard...rock hard. As Isaac said, "they're like biscotti flavored lollipops!!" So in order to soften them up a bit, we simply dunked them in our drinks. Plus, its a delicious combo! 

The plan for today was "Primi"; aka the first course. This consisted of making our very own tortellini and ravioli pastas from scratch, including the filling and the sauces. In order to avoid chaos, we split into groups to make several batches of pasta dough. The process was both simple and complicated. Although pasta dough only consists of eggs and flour, the procedure of actually mixing the two has to be very exact, and screwing it up results in instant death. 

We made two fillings: a ricotta, parmesan and parsley for the tortellini, and a mushroom ricotta one for the ravioli. 

It's all about the fresh ingredients! Next we lined dollops of our filling along our beautifully rolled out pasta dough. Then it turned into an assembly line of encasing each little dollop of filling in an adorable shell of pasta! 

 Next came pulling together the sauces (two of them tomato based, one had garlic and spices, and the other was traditional with carrots and celery; the third was a creamy one), and cooking the pasta! We are so close!

Finally, folks, I present to you....the feasting table. The entire day we decided to play some classic Italian swing music (or something like that...?), and it reaaallyy got me in the holiday spirit (even though its april). As we gathered round the table to serve ourselves to some pasta, I truly felt like we were a family, sharing some thanksgiving dinner! It was a mission accomplished.

and I was satisfied.

La Cucina Italiana: North Beach!

oh, nbd, just chillin with a bunch of food network stars

Ciao! Today, for our weeklong intensive Italian cooking course, we headed down to SF's own North Beach to learn from the masters! We started at Tony's pizzeria, where we learned how to make some quality pizzas from TONY HIMSELF. He was like a walking God...with tattoos all the way up his arm, one could tell that he was in charge. He gave us a little talk about his own life and accomplishments (which there were plenty of), and then we had a little pizza making competition, judged by him! Now, foodies like me get rather starstruck at the prospect of the food network's presence. The walls of Tony's were FULL of photos of him posing with Jay Leno, Rachel Ray, and Guy Fietti!! There was even a medal on the wall presented by the food network itself! As I said, he is A WALKING GOD. 

like a boss

Anyways, back to the food. Upon arrival, he brought us out a bunch of fresh, hot, complimentary pizza. It was simple, with cheese, herbs, a delicious crust and....get this....HONEY drizzled on top. Something I'd never even heard of, but it was incredible. 
After that, we got to learn how to toss some pizza dough! I'm happy to say that I can now create a much better pizza crust than I have in the past. The tossing of the dough was fun, and then it turned into a competition. We split up into groups and got presented with an array of toppings. EVERYTHING, from sausage to pancetta, to mozzarella and mascarpone, to basil, pesto, peppers, mushrooms, and YES, even honey.

Our teams were judged based upon presentation and creativity, as well as the combination of ingredients. Our pizza had a simple marinara sauce with sausage, pancetta, pepperoni, peppers, basil, parmesan....it was delicious! but unfortunately did not win...

the competition was fierce...

ps, we should've won

After spending only an hour (wish we had more time!) cooking pizzas with the master, we got to tour around North Beach like the tourists we really are! 

aka, eat gelato and go to some "landmark" buildings around north beach...

gelato!

pastries!

overall, another successful day! I'll keep the posts coming!

La Cucina Italiana: Antipasti

Today marked the beginning of a week-long journey of Italian cooking, baking and eating! As apart of my school, I get to spend a week learning about this amazing culture through FOOD. My dream!

The course is called "La Cucina Italiana", or, "I won't tell you the meaning of that, because if you can't figure it out you should probably leave now". Each and every day we will be cooking our way through the traditional Italian dinner, with a different course each day. Today, we started with antipasti! The appetizers! We made a heaping pot of minestrone soup, fresh bruschetta, pesto to accompany both, and finally, about 3 pounds of biscotti! 

The day began with a fresh espresso (brewed on none other than a chemistry hot plate), and some real biscotti's from North Beach, along with some italian movie clips.

working hard or hardly working?

We began by preparing the veggies for the minestrone soup, which took around 2 AND A HALF HOURS to cook. Obviously, the time in between was spent prepping our bruschetta, the pesto, and the giant log of homemade biscotti!

getting excited to chop some veggies for the minestrone!

Mrs. Ferrara--the master of italian food

bruschetta...mmm!

The biscotti was a challenging task to take on. The recipe called for only 16 measly biscottis, so naturally, we decided to quadruple the recipe instead. The dough was massive and tough, but we finally managed to wrangle the beast of sticky, almond biscotti goodness onto the cookie sheet. 

Yet, the log was so big that the center didn't even cook through. my favorite thing ever!! so we had to put it back in the oven a couple more times...oh, how I wish we'd just left it completely under baked. A girl can dream...

After waiting so long for the soup to come out, although very delicious, most of us found it to be extremely under-seasoned. Though all it took was some extra salt, pepper, parmesan cheese, and pesto to give it a little kick! The soup was very tasty otherwise, especially when you got the chunks of soft potato...

Overall, a successful first day! I can feel a food baby coming on!

thin mint stuffed cookies!

Everyone has bad days. You know, days where you find yourself listening to Adele on repeat, and generally doing nothing but eating and crying...

Self-pity is a natural feeling, and no one should feel bad about it! Yet there are probably 3 solutions to this situation, and the route you chose to take could very easily determine the type of person you are.

You could either: a), go out and solve whatever is bothering you. b), go onto pandora to create a coldplay station and brainstorm, or c), bake something, and completely avoid the outside world. 

Well obviously I went with choice C. It was one of those nights; where I simply couldn't handle anything anymore, and on top of that I was both incredibly hungry and bored. Thank god for girl scout cookie season, cause I had half of box of frozen thin mints in the freezer! (the other half was obviously eaten already)

So I went with my best instinct and decided to make some thin mint stuffed cookies! I decided to go with the typical chocolate chip cookie recipe, however, we were all out of chocolate chips. Luckily, I had some WHITE chocolate chips in the pantry, and I gotta say...white chocolate and mint=VERY GOOD COMBO.

I was a little nervous because the baking time called for 10 mins, but after that time, the cookies were no where near being finished. That was probably because of their colossal size! I hesitantly left them in for a bit longer (you know under baked cookies are my weakness!), and I gotta say...they came out pretty perfect.   

Imagine biting in to this puppy....the cookie is warm and doughy, the white chocolate chips melt in your mouth. The thin mint itself is soft and warm, but it still maintains most of the satisfying, minty crunch you get as you bite into this multi-textured cookie. I MEAN ITS HEAVEN. I HAD THESE FOR DINNER! Soooo worth it!

So remember this little life lesson: whenever you find yourself sitting through yet another self pity fest, go through the list in your mind. Should I solve this problem? should I sulk? should I rely on Adele or Coldplay to take the pain away?

The answer is NO...get off your butt and bake! Bake away, eat it all, and forget about everyone else, because you know you want to.