Thanksgiving in Italy

Thanksgiving is in a few days, and here I am, kitchenless, living in a hotel in a foreign country.  I have to say, I've gone back and forth about how we'll celebrate.  Should we go to an Italian restaurant claiming to make classic "American Thanksgiving fare"?  Should I take a cooking class that one of the local cooking schools is hosting to learn a way to "fuse" the Italian idea of Thanksgiving with American Thanksgiving?

Maybe this is me having a moment where I don't want to change my culture.  Thanksgiving is not an Italian holiday.  It's American.  I'm American.  So me, with my crazy American, individualist, marching to the beat of my own drummer mindset, will be celebrating Thanksgiving late this year- when I can cook it, and celebrate it, in a way that makes me and my family feel at home.  Until then, I'll just continue to enjoy Italian culture and their culinary expertise.

The truth is, I'm a thankful person.  I was raised by a small village of people (particulary my parents) who taught me that thankfulness and family are not something you celebrate on single days.  You should celebrate them and appreciate them often. 

I'll never forget our first Thanksgiving with Laela.  I was so exhausted (she was barely three months old), that there was no way this milk machine was going to throw a dinner together.  My parents, my husband, and our baby daughter got ourselves together for a simple Thanksgiving dinner that Abner's (the best bbq you could get in the Northeast until they so sadly closed) gloriously threw together for us.  It was a great Thanksgiving- in my Daddy's words: "We should be spending time together...not hiding in the kitchen."

That's what Thanksgiving is.  It's about your family.  It doesn't matter if you're risking your lives frying a turkey, baking pies, having pizza, or gorging on pizza.  It matters if you're being together.  So this year, be present.  Put down the damn phones.  Turn off the computers.  Spend time together.  I'm not giving advice on how to get everything out of the oven in time, or how to get it all hot simultaneously.  I'm telling you to genuinely be thankful for the gifts you have been given.

Quickie Pepper Soup

Every now and then, I want to make a serving or two of soup without any hassle.  I don't feel like making a big batch and having to store it, or sometimes, I find myself with random leftovers, and see if I can whip up something quick and healthy for lunch, or dinner if I find myself in a subsidized single parenting situation.

Right before we moved, Kyle was away on a business trip.  I found myself in the odd situation of not having anything in the fridge (since we were cleaning the fridge out before our big move abroad).  I foraged through the fridge and came across some chopped peppers from a salad I'd had a day or two before and a frozen cup of pasta sauce, as well as a frozen cup of chicken broth in the freezer. It's amazing what you can come up with when you only have a few paltry leftovers in the fridge and you're sick to death of take-out!

This pepper soup is awesome and literally takes five minutes. 

Quickie Pepper Soup

You'll need:

• 1/2 cup pasta sauce
• 1/2 cup broth (chicken, veggie or beef will do)
• 1/2 red pepper (or a whole one, whatever you have in your fridge!- you can mix other flavored peppers in as well if you want)
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Heat a medium saucepan to medium-high heat.  Drizzle a bit of olive oil (no more than 1tsp) into the pan.
• Roughly chop the pepper.  Toss it in the pan.
• Cook for 1 minute.
• Pour in the broth and pasta sauce.
• Heat the pan to high.  Bring the pan to a boil.
• Lower the heat to medium-high heat.
• Cook for 3 minutes. 
• Blend with a immersion blender or a blender until liquid.
• Serve!

**Since I was the only one eating this, I added a bit of hot sauce and sriracha!  Make it however spicy or mild you like!

Caprese Salad

 

I love caprese salad.  It's one of my oddball comfort foods.  It reminds me of when I was younger, and would try to wow my grandparents with my cooking ability (little did I know how little I didn't know!)  I remember serving it up with some homemade Italian bread, with the caprese salad placed neatly in a bowl and my family devouring it.  It's one of the first things I ever made where I had hope that I could really be good at this cooking thing, so it'll always be a bit special to me, regardless of the fact that it's incredibly easy to make.  I think it goes to show that sometimes the best things in life are the simplest.  

Since we've been living in a hotel for the last few weeks, I've had to find different ways to make healthy, fresh food.  I don't want to live on take-out or go out to dinner all the time.  I have a preschooler.  She needs her sleep, and we all need some time to relax! 

Caprese Salad is literally the most simple, yet fancy seeming dish that you can make.  And all it takes is a tomato, a ball of fresh mozzarella, a few basil leaves, 2 tablespoons of some balsamic vinegar and 2-3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, with a dash of salt and pepper.  It doesn't matter if you cube, slice, or chop your cheese and tomatoes.  It will be perfectly delicious regardless of how you present it.  Does it get more simply, or more lovely than that? 

A Cookie Cutter Kind of Day

 

I have this silly obsession with old school cookie cutters.  You know the ones, the really sharp metal ones that everyone's Grandma used to use? Those sharp as nails cookie cutters are much better than those rinky dink plastic ones, so when you find them, and you like the shape, pick them up! They can make super cute "rainy day" sandwiches, such as these lovely little butterflies!

 

 

Laela told me that it was a "gloomy doomy day" because it's dark, cold, and rainy, so I busted out one of the old school cookie cutters I brought with me from the US.  (Yes, my favorite cookie cutters were a priority for me.  I've been here two weeks an they've already been useful!  Hah!)

 

We made "sandwich treats", which are sandwiches filled with peanut butter and honey.  Other times we'll use pumpkin butter with a sprinkle of "fancy cinnamon" (Laela's very into Fancy Nancy, can you tell?) or peanut butter with Nutella.  It depends on what kind of day we're having.

 

These are very easy to make.  Make the sandwich of your choosing.  Place the cookie cutter over the sandwich.  When you are inside the crust, push down, and you'll have a lovely shaped sandwich!

 

 

 

Tip:  Did you know you can clean metal cookie cutters to a pearly shine with some Dawn and vinegar?  The solution is just 1 drop of Dawn added to 1/2 cup water mixed with a 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar. It also saves scorched pans. No joke.  To save a scorched pan, soak the pan in the solution for a few hours.  Then, hit it with a tad more Dawn and a scrubbie, and you should be good to go!

My Last Meal in America

Holy exhaustion Batman.  You don't know tired until you move to a foreign country.  A little over two weeks ago, my family and I moved to Florence, Italy for my husband's job.  Thankfully, my husband and I visited over the summer, so I was reasonably prepared for what we would need, and what things we should bring from the States (thankfully I remembered taco seasonings and Old Bay!)

I think people really don't realize that Italians eat pasta every single day.  It's nothing like pasta in the States, it's lighter, more flavorful, and in all ways just better, so trust me, I plan on taking plenty of cooking classes to share my experiences and recipes!  I want to learn not only authentic Italian cooking (which varies by region), but other European cuisines as well.  Italian food is amazing.  Everything is always fresh and homemade.  In Italy, if something isn't homemade, they'll tell you. 

And trust me, Italian food is kind of like dating.  You can weed out the phony "tourist trap" food versus the amazing Italian food very very quickly.  (For example, if you see a huge mound of gelato, slowly back away.  You are being bamboozled.  Go to a small gelateria where there aren't any/many tourists and allow yourself to be completely blown away.)

The thing is, as much as I love Italian food, I had a hankering for a cheeseburger the other day, and me, yes, Little Miss "I only eat healthy food" dragged my husband to Hard Rock Cafe for a huge bbq burger.  I have to say, it was awesome- until I was in a food coma and literally couldn't move for ten minutes. 

After my honkin' "American cheeseburger", I got to thinking...in the whirlwind of packing up and moving to Italy, what was my last homemade American meal?

Shrimp and Grits!!

 

How befitting, I moved to the South a Philly girl, and left the US with grits in my belly.

Here's the easiest recipe for grits you'll ever find.  This is not quite as amazing as my best friend Alexis' shrimp and grits recipe, but she's promised to share that with you all another time.  This recipe is simple and no holds barred delicious.  Give it a go!

Cara's Shrimp and Grits
serves 4

You'll need:

For the Shrimp:

• (1) 1lb bag of shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1/2 Green Bell Pepper
• 1/2 Yellow Pepper
• 1/2 Red Bell Pepper
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 Cup corn (I used frozen sweet corn, but you can use fresh if you want)
• 3 Tb Old Bay (You can add more if you like.  I tend to go heavy on the Old Bay)
• **1lb Andouille Sausage, sliced (I didn't have any on hand, but you should definitely try it with the sausage!

Heat a medium sized skillet to medium heat.  Chop, slice the peppers (or if you want, just buy a bag of frozen chopped/sliced peppers) and toss them in the preheated pan with 1/2 the butter, sliced andouille and Old Bay.  Cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Stir in the corn.  Cook for 1 minute.  Add the remaining butter and the shrimp.  Cook until the shrimp go from clear to white/pink and begin to curl (2-3 minutes).  Stir occasionally.  If it seems like the butter is reducing quickly, lower the heat a bit and add a bit more butter, a splash of fish or chicken stock, or a splash of white cooking wine  Don't overcook them!  Add more Old Bay to taste.

For the Grits:

• 1 1/2 Cups water
• 1 1/2 Cups milk
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup white or yellow quick grits (NOT INSTANT) 
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 Tb butter
• 1/2 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (optional)

1. In a small pot, bring water, milk, and salt to a boil.
2. Slowly stir grits into boiling mixture.
3. Stir continuously and thoroughly until grits are well mixed.
4. Let the pot return to a boil, cover pot with a lid, lower the temperature, and cook for approximately 30 minutes stirring frequently.
5. Add more water if necessary.
6. Grits are done when they have the consistency of stiff cream of wheat.
7. Stir in butter.
8. Serve with additional butter on top. (Optional- I didn't do this since the grits were being topped with the shrimp, veggies and Old Bay butter sauce.)

Serve grits topped with shrimp and veggies!  Enjoy!