It’s been a while since my last entry (thankfully I’ve been pretty busy.) Over Christmas I had the pleasure of recollecting how much I love and miss mom’s pasta e fagioli or pasta and beans.

This dish was a peasant’s dish that satisfied nutritional needs at an affordable price. For me it’s a staple of Italian cuisine.

Here’s mom’s recipe:

1/4 onion
4 carrots (cut in chunks)
4 stalks celery (cut in chunks)
1/2 bag pinto beans
1/2 bag lentils
1/2 bag green split peas

Soak beans overnight. Next day, place beans in pot with new water. Cover beans about three inches above bean level with water. Add 2 carrots in chunks and 2 stalks celery in chunks and onion. Start cooking over medium flame. In a blender cream the remaining carrots and celery with enough water to cover them in blender. Add this mixture to beans and salt to taste. Let cook about an hour or until the beans are tender.

When ready to use, put about 2 cups of the mixture in a pot and add a little extra water. Bring to boil and put your pasta in . Add olive oil to your serving and grated cheese if you like.

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Materials

• Medium size frynig pan
• Medium size baking/lasagna pan
• Liquid measuring cup
• Fork
• Zester

Saute ingredients

• Chicken Breast (10 breasts)
• 1/4 cup Olive Oil
• Garlic
• Red Pepper (Optional)
• Lemon Zest (Or lemon for cheaters)
• Fresh Mushrooms
• Black Olives

Instructions
Tenderize your chicken breasts. Place aside.

In a large frying pan pour olive oil. Place finely chopped garlic in pan. Squeeze 1/2 a lemon in the pan. (If you want to do this right, grate lemon zest instead.) Optional: include red pepper flakes to your liking. Start flame on 3 or 4 (light heat). Cook until you smell the heavy garlic aroma (about 1 min). If garlic browns you’ve over cooked.

Place 5 breasts in the pan. Saute for about 1 min each side (chicken turns white). Place sauted breasts in medium size baking/lasagna pan when complete. Place aside and start again with second set of chicken breast.

With juice that’s left, saute mushrooms until they are soft to the fork. Pour all leftover juice and mushrooms on top of the sauted chicken in the lasagna pan.

Preheat oven to 350.

Marsala gravy ingredients

• 1 Can of chicken broth
• 1/4 Cup soy sauce
• 1/2 Cup marsala cooking wine
• 2 to 3 lemons squeezed
• 4 Tbls flower

Instructions
Place these ingredients in a liquid measuring cup except the thickening agent (the flower).
Place your flower in a separate bowl. Pour a small amount of liquid in the bowl and mix to a fine consistency. Once the thickening agent has no lumps, pour it back into the liquid measuring cup. Mix thoroughly.

Combine gravy and chicken
Pour the gravy in the lasagna pan on top of the sauted chicken. Pour evenly to cover all of the breasts. (This gravy will thicken when it bakes in the oven.)
Place black olives on the chicken. Whole or chopped.

Place in oven. Chicken is complete when gravy is bubbling. Roughly 40 min.

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Ingredients:

2 Handfuls sun dried tomatoes

2 White onions

1/2 Can black olives

10 small capers or 5 large ones

Oregano

Salt

Pepper

1 Handful basil

Olive oil (extra virgin, first press)

Preparation:

Chop the sun dried tomatoes much smaller (get the pieces to the size of your thumbnail) Place them in a mixing bowl. Place a pinch of oregano in the mix (Mom uses pinches and punches rather than scientific units of measurement. Cup your hand with palm facing the sky as if asking for change. A pinch will look like dime in circumference and 1/2 an inch in height in your palm. A punch is about a fifty cent piece in circumference and an inch high.) Chop the basil and place in the bowl. Put the half can of olives into the mix (I used the pre-sliced olives. If they are uncut, chop the olives prior to putting them in the mix) Place olives in the mix. Add a punch of salt. Break the capers apart with your fingers and place them in the mix. 3 Mississippi pour your oil over the tomatoes and oregano in the bowl. To add kick, you can optionally put a little black pepper or red pepper.

Cut onions in half and then long ways so that thy look like smiles rather than little squares. Place them in large frying pan (one that can accommodate all of the ingredients mentioned above). 4 Mississippi the oil over the sliced onions.

Cooking:

Fry the onions on high until they lose strength but don’t let them brown too much. Keep mixing the onions so that they don’t stick. At the point you determine they are weak, drop the mixing bowl of sun dried tomato ingredients into the frying pan with the onions. Continuously mix this. Don’t fry this entire mix for more than a minute. Remove pan from burner and place a lid on top of the pan.

Cook your spaghetti al dente*. When finished and strained, mix all of the sun-dried tomatoes with the spaghetti. You can serve this dish how or cold.

* According to Ask Yahoo (http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20011004.html) Al dente is a fancy term for pasta that’s fully cooked, but not overly soft. The phrase is Italian for “to the tooth,” which comes from testing the pasta’s consistency with your teeth.

How does one cook pasta “just right”? According to the National Pasta Association:

Boil 4 to 6 quarts of water for one pound of dry pasta.

Stir in the pasta and return the water to a boil.

Stir the pasta occasionally during cooking.

Follow the package directions for cooking times.

Nibble the pasta to see if it’s done. Here we return to our old friend “al dente” — firm to the bite, yet cooked through.

Drain pasta immediately (otherwise it’ll keep cooking itself). You’re done. You’re just right. You’re al dente.

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Ingredients:

5 Large Tomatoes (Can substitute with 2 cans of tomatoes)

First Press Olive Oil (Look Close on the container and it will say what press)

Fresh Basil Leaves (Can substitute with the spice rack kind but shouldn’t)

3 Cloves Garlic

1/4 – 1/2 Full red onion ( the amount depends on the size of the onion. Goal is to have more onion than garlic.)

Salt

Black Pepper

The Recipe Directions

Get yourself a healthy looking saucepan with handle. Use your judgment (The pan has to hold all of the ingredients comfortably, so you should smack yourself with a tack hammer if you pull out the small breakfast egg-flipping pan for this recipe). Like mom, I don’t use teaspoons, tablespoons, or any of that measuring garbage. I learned with Mississippi’s (seconds) and pinches. 2 Mississippi the oil into the pan.

Chop your garlic and onion and place those in the oiled pan (Mom was fairly consistent with her chopping. The finished chop should be no larger than your fingernail. If you want a different consistency, chop to your preference but the tack hammer will apply for straying from her recipe.) Simmer at medium and occasionally mix with the wooden spoon (or it can stick). Keep this up until the contents in the pan browns on the edges.

If you are going the authentic way, take the cleaned tomatoes in hand (yes you have to clean all of your ingredients silly) and rip them up right into a bowl. Yes. Like a Neanderthal, rip the tomatoes to shreds and throw it into a bowl.

Drop 3 or for full basil leaves in the mix as well. Make a cup with your hand (like you are panhandling and asking for cash with palm up) pour a little pinch of salt into your hand. (about a dime in circumference and 1/2 an inch in height) throw that into the mix. Go with half a pinch of black pepper for good measure. DERIVATIONS: The aunt Francis approach is half a pinch of salt no pepper. The Filippo Calabro approach changes black for red pepper. “itsa good for da hearta.”

Then drop the whole bowl into the saucepan with the browned ingredients. This bowl should be ready right when the onions and garlic are browned. If not, you will burn the onions and garlic.

You will have already opened the cans of tomato (if you took the lame way out instead of the authentic way). If you when this direction, pour the cans into the saucepan. WATCH OUT. If you whip that stuff in there too quickly you will burn yourself. Then refer to the previous paragraph.

Put a lid on the pan and cook at medium. If you don’t have a lid for this pan SHAME ON YOU. Then grab any lid that can somewhat be placed over the pan. Tilt the lid on the saucepan so air can escape from one end (I have yet to see a lid with hole that actually lets a good amount of steam out). Occasionally lift the lid and mix the sauce with a wooden spoon (once again you don’t want this too burn and stick to the pan). The whole place will stink up in a way that will make Emeril jealous. The tomatoes will start to break up into more of a watery liquid. This is good! Start to taste your sauce. (This is where wood spoons are great. Metal spoons burn the poop out of your lips when you are tasting. Not wood!) If it needs more salt, apply another pinch. Pepper? 1/2 a pinch. Moms stuff was never too spicy. You’ll know when its done because the tomatoes start separating easily from their skins and the sauce is primarily liquid. Whola! You are done!

DERIVATION: Michelle doesn’t fry the onions with the garlic in the beginning. She puts them in about a quarter of the way into cooking the tomatoes. This really changes the taste to a raw spicy one! (I was very close to breaking out the tack hammer, but mom not only approved this derivation, she said it’s a much healthier approach. Michelle was lucky this time!)

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