Canning craziness / the most productive birthday ever

 
 
 
 

My lovely mother will be one year older tomorrow, but we decided to celebrate early with a weekend jam packed with canning experiments!! (see what I did there? hehehe)

Growing up Italian, I became (spoiled) accustomed to fresh tomato sauce at an early age. Growing up in the North East poses a few issues seeing as the average grocery store tomato selection leaves a lot to be desired. My family solves this problem every August by bottling up all the summer goodies we can, so that we have enough for the whole year.

We have not once run out.
That's a lot of tomatoes.
Seriously, it takes forever.

This year was different! We decided to forego the never ending back ache that is washing bushel after bushel of tomatoes in kiddie pools for something new. I mean, we still did two bushels of tomatoes, we're not totally throwing away tradition - but we decided to keep it small this year so that we could attempt some brand new totally exciting recipes!


Added to the roster this year was the following:

Roasted garlic and onion salsa
Mango Peach and Jalapeno salsa
Dill Pickles
Pickled Cherry Peppers
Pickled Carrot Spears
Pickled Asparagus
Jalapenos packed in olive oil
Peach Jalapeno Jam
Tomato Basil Jelly*

*this last one bombed - the jelly failed to gel so we were left with sugary tomato juice in a jar. Not sure what to do with that...

We only made a couple jars of each so I'm sure we'll have run out in just a few months, but I'm glad we bucked tradition a bit and learned some new things. I cannot wait for the carrot spears to be fully pickled. I plan on throwing a brunch for their unveiling so I have a good excuse to make bloody Mary's by the pitcher!



Definitely not a bad way to spend a day in Jersey :-)

OCTOPUS!!!!!

Boom

For my dad's birthday my mom really wanted to make a dinner he would love, and hopefully remember :-)

So she scoured through her Italian cookbooks to find a great recipe for insalata di polpo - octopus salad. 

She settled on a recipe from Jamie's Italy, and sent me to Popular fish market in Newark's Ironbound district to retrieve the octopus.

Preparing the salad was much easier than we thought (well, all but the cleaning of the octopus). First we sauteed a bit of garlic, crushed red pepper, and lemon peel in extra virgin olive oil in a large deep skillet. We added a generous cup of dry white wine and once it boiled, added the octopus and reduced to simmer for 15 minutes. We threw in some mussels at the end of the steaming process as well. The rest of the recipe is even simpler - just chop up some veggies! 

For one 3 pound octopus we diced one head of fennel (fronds reserved for garnish), 3 medium carrots and 3 celery stalks. The salad got a quick toss with an herb infused white vinegar and some chopped fresh parsley and was set aside to marinate. Once the octopus was cool enough we had to begin cleaning it, as in removing all the suckers and the purple rubbery outer layer. This was the hard part and luckily my mom tackled it!! Once tossed all together, we added a bit of the steaming liquid and seasoned it a bit more to taste with sea salt. 

My mother chose another Jamie recipe for the pasta dish with - you guessed it - more seafood. Crushed chili flakes added a nice kick to the sun-dried tomato pesto that we thinned out a bit with some of the pasta water.

Fresh arugula and some grated pecorino romano cheese tossed in at the very end added a nice touch and some color contrast. 

For the main course I made stuffed pork tenderloins. After butterflying the tenderloins I started with a layer of prosciutto and added a mixture of chopped spinach, parsley, garlic, and grated pecorino romano cheese. With the help of my mom, we tied them up nicely and browned the pork in a skillet before tossing it on the grill. A makeshift brush of rosemary and sage did double duty by adding extra flavor while applying an olive oil/salt + pepper mixture before grilling. 

- Here's a look at all my February birthday boys -

Dad on the left, Poppy on the right, and Uncle Michael in the back

My Nonna's Birthday Cake

This weekend was a blur because I spent it back and forth on NJ Transit. I was severely overdue for things like a hair cut and my yearly physical and a dentist appointment, so I figured I would just schedule them all at once to get them over with. Hence the trains. 

I took a half day on Friday and met my mother in Summit, NJ where we had a quick lunch and then went strait to my first appointment. When I visit my parents I like to also visit all my old haunts as well, but my all time favorite has to be Time to Eat Diner at the Somerville Circle. I had a hefty brunch there with my grandparents in between the dentist and the salon. Soooooo gooooood!!! :-)

The only meals I didn't eat on the go this weekend happened to be dinner. Friday night my mother and I tried out a Thai style sauce similar to Pad See Ew with chicken, mushrooms and peppers. Dad approved - and he doesn't like Thai - so I'll call that a success. 

Saturday was sort of an impromptu early birthday dinner for my Nonna. We had her and my grandfather over for dinner and my uncle and his girlfriend joined us. My mother made a simple chunky tomato sauce with penne and Chicken Marsala for dinner but the real conversation starter of the night was my tiramisu. 

I've been making tiramisu for a few years now. I've worked hard to perfect my recipe. I'm proud of my recipe. What did my Nonna think of my recipe?!     

Wrong.

She saw me putting the finishing touches on it as she arrived and had a list of reasons ready to tell me why it wouldn't come out right. I probably didn't beat the eggs properly, and did I use the right cheese? Just the fact that I didn't prepare it a day ahead was apparently a no no. 

Well. We served it as her birthday cake - what was I to do, it's the only thing we had prepared - and what do you know!? She actually liked it. She was impressed and actually told me that maybe she had been wrong to judge so quickly. 

I can appreciate that she has decades of experience on my few years preparing Italian food, but it was still nice to hear that she liked what I had made her. :-)