Recipes

Broccoli Rabe or Rapini as it is sometimes called is in the broccoli family. The flowerets are smaller than conventional broccoli and the taste tends to be sharper and just a bit bitter. The stems as well as the leaves are all a tender edible part of this vegetable. It’s popular throughout Mediterranean countries and served as a very tasty side dish, as part of a hearty soup, or if you add a bit more olive oil and some spicy Italian sausage as a great sauce for a classic pasta dish.

Orecchiette shaped pasta (Little Ears) is typical of Apulia in the Southern region of Italy. Many of the traditional recipes include bitter type greens, like this recipe with Broccoli Rabe, but Arugula works well too. The greens are often combined with red pepper flakes, spicy sausage or Anchovy fillets. The thin little shells cradle all the flavors added to any sauce. DeCecco is my favorite brand followed closely by Montebello, and both are generally available in better stores.

Braised fennel, and fennel in general is a vegetable that I use on a regular basis. It’s great raw in green salads, tossed with olive oil and slices of oranges, part of seafood stews, or braised as it is in this recipe. This super simple, super fast recipe is good served with just about any grilled chicken, pork or fish dish. In addition, fennel, well very low in calories is a good source of vitamin C, Magnesium and Potassium.

Escarole is a slightly bitter leafy green vegetable. It’s part of the chicory family along with endive, frisée and radicchio. Growing up in an Italian family, leafy green vegetables, especially those of the slightly bitter category were often part of our meal. Escarole can be eaten raw as a salad or, as in this recipe, sautéed with added flavorful enhancements. In Italy one would probably use Pancetta, and it could certainly be used in this recipe. However, I like the slightly smokey taste and the crispy texture that bacon adds. The toasted pine nuts add a nice crunch and a drizzle of a very good extra virgin olive oil at the end is an important finish.

Spinach is such a versatile, healthy, year-round vegetable. It can be steamed, sautéed, put in soups, soufflés, pastas or eaten raw in salads or on sandwiches. This version has it tossed with a warm balsamic dressing that has not only the olive oil, but the added flavor of bacon drippings. The spinach is just slightly wilted, the parsnips and bacon are crunchy, the mushrooms are earthy, the onions add bit of sweetness and the toasted pine nuts are buttery. I think a good rich balsamic (and I really love the Olivier VSOP brand from Napa) adds just the right tartness to the dressing. There is so much going on with this salad that with a slice of a good crusty bread it can easily be the main course.

This is an easy, light dessert that takes advantage of our Winter/Spring citrus season. I love the juicy citrus flavors of the Cara Cara combined with the crunch and floral flavor of the Rose Water meringues and all topped with the slightly tart cream topping. If you make the meringues a day or several days before, you can put this together in just a few minutes. As the seasons progress, you can use other fruits, and other flavors in the meringues. Try berries with cocoa meringues and chocolate shavings on top of the whipped cream, or peaches with almond extract meringues topped with whipped cream and crumbled candied almonds. The preparation time shown for this recipe includes the two hours to bake the meringues.