Lunedi di Pasqua (Easter Monday) - Torta Ricotta senza glutine

Torta Ricotta senza glutine by Crafting in Yoohooville

I often find myself reading Italian heritage recipes online and realizing that they probably do not hold true for my northern Italian family. Foods that are native to Sicily or Rome are not the same as what the Vittoriese would have eaten.

I also did not have the blessing of spending time with Nonni at Easter, so I don't know for sure if they had the same tradition of making Easter pie as Rome or Florence, but I can guess at what they would do.

Easter Monday is a strange holiday to Americans, but in my great-grandparents part of Italy it would have been celebrated with zeal (and still is!). Since they are so close to Austria and Hungary our area of Italy sometimes incorporates customs from there - like the dowsing of holy water in the morning to have your family wake up blessed on Easter Monday.

But amongst the more pleasant traditions of Easter Monday is the making of the Easter Pie, known as a torta ricotta. Here's another of those interesting cases where depending on where you are in Italy, the more changes to the torta occur. Some have lemon, some do not. Some have a top, some do not. Some have lattice work on top, some do not. Even the sweet nature of the torta is changed in Sicily to a savory pie.

Amalfitano Lemons

Sicilian Lemons

 The blessing of living just an hour's train ride from Venice meant to Serravalle, the village my great grandparents were from, had the benefit of expanded trade in foods. So getting a hold of a true Sicilian lemon (less acidic than Meyer lemons, more floral tasting) was not as big of a deal as say, a village up in the mountains far from transit. Truly rich people could also get Amalfitanos, lemons from the Amalfi coast that are sweeter and less acidic than Meyer lemons, but my family was not among that bunch of wealthy residents in town. My family also had the benefit of stone pine trees producing pine nuts (if they didn't have a tree of their own, Serravalle could easily import them from Pisa), and would cure raisins each year with leftover grapes from the wine harvest. I actually do know from interviews with my great-aunt and my dad that Nonni used to make her own wine, so this is not a stretch to believe that she could also produce raisins.  A local mill produced flour of different types, a few chickens to have eggs, and a cow to produce milk and you've got pretty much all the ingredients you need to make a pie.

With having celiac disease, making a torta with the original ingredients is impossible, because of the flour. However, Italians have great respect for those who have to do a diet "senza glutine" (gluten-free), producing pastas and flours galore to serve the needs of the celiac population across the world. So I made this pie gluten-free and feel it honors my ancestors well on this blessed holiday. The crust turned out like a beautiful sugar cookie to the light and lemony ricotta, so I am very pleased with it.

Torta Ricotta e uvetta e pinoli senza glutine by Crafting in Yoohooville

Torta Ricotta e uvetta e pinoli senza glutine (Gluten Free Ricotta Pie with pine nuts and raisins)
-300 grams of King Arthur gluten free flour***
-250 grams of granulated sugar, split into 100 gram and 150 gram portions
-113 grams of softened unsalted butter (note: for Americans, this is 1 stick)
-300 grams of ricotta (If you get fresh, make sure to let it drain for at least 2 hours before using)
-1 lemon (note: a small lemon is ok as you're only going to be grating the peel)
-50 grams of raisins
-25 grams of pine nuts
-5 separated eggs (2 yolks in one container, 3 yolks in another container, and the whites in the last container)
-Cinnamon
-Powdered sugar/icing sugar (optional)
-Nonstick cooking spray

Instructions
-Put the flour, the 100 gram portion of sugar, the butter, and the 2 egg yolks into a bowl and mix. The dough will become a sturdy dough ball that's soft to the touch. If you find it a little too hard, add some cold water to it.
-Cover this bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
-While the dough is chilling, mix the ricotta with the 150 gram portion of sugar, the 3 yolk portion of eggs, and a dash of cinnamon. Add the raisins and pine nuts. You should also add the grated lemon peel here. I like lemon flavoring, so I added the grated peel of an entire lemon, but you can adjust to your taste preferences. A little will brighten the mixture, a lot will give lemon flavor.
-Beat your egg whites firmly to produce peaks. Depending on how well you beat them will produce the height of your pie.
-Add the egg whites to the ricotta mixture gently.
-Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C / Gas setting 6).

Here's where you can make another decision. My version pictured is the no top crust version.
-No Top Crust instructions: grease a pie dish with nonstick cooking spray and place on a cookie sheet. Place the dough ball in the middle of the dish and gently pat out out to the sides and upward until you have a nice ridge on the dough above the dish. Pour the mixture into the pie dish. Cook between 35-40 minutes or until the filling shows it is firm.
-Top crust instructions: divide the dough from the refrigerator into two parts. Grease a pie dish with non-stick cooking spray, and place one half of the dough at the bottom of the dish and pat out to the sides and upward until the just above the edge of the dish. Pour the mixture into the dish, and roll out the second ball of dough into a flat layer that can rest on top of your dish. Seal the edges with your preferred method (I like crimping) so that the filling won't leak out of your pie during cooking. Cook for 30-35 minutes until the dough is golden and the pie feels firm.

Last step, cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar or icing sugar if you wish. Makes a pie big enough for 8 good sized slices.

* = For those of you who aren't gluten free, you can use 300 grams of all purpose flour and increase the amount of butter to 150 grams.
**= For those of you that are gluten free, King Arthur's flour I find best for sweet goods as it is fine in nature and performs well as a drier pastry. For those of you that want to make your own flour blends, Gluten Free on a Shoestring has a mock Better Batter (and mock Cup4Cup flour) that would also work amazingly well in this recipe. If you are dairy free as well you can use her recipe as well for pastry flour and it should work just fine. 

Buona Epifana e Befana! with regular and gluten free options

La Befana, courtesy of JD Adams

After my last couple columns talking about Christmas, I had an offline conversation with another Italian gal about a curious custom in Italy to celebrate the Epiphany on January 6, 12 days after Christmas. As she explained, first La Befana was a witch, just giving children sweet coal if they were naughty and toys and treats if they were good. But then it was taken over by the Christians, and so La Befana, the good witch, became a part of Christ's Epiphany story. 

(Sweet coal from Flagranta delicia, a unique Epihany treat for the naughty. Gluten free naturally, here's her recipe.)

As such things go, there became a whole event around the introduction of La Befana to the story. She was supposed to be part of the 3 wise men group. She was too busy doing her housework to go, so she told them she would catch them later with the new infant Christ and steered them in the direction to go. Only they went back another way, and they missed her. D'oh! So she spreads her gifts and sweets around to good children (and sweet coal to the bad), hoping to find the Christ child she missed seeing the first time. What I love about this story is that it embodies what the world thought the Italian woman was like. Hardworking. Bossy in a way only a Nonna could be. Generous to a fault. And spreading around tons and tons of sweets! 

Invariably at this point when I start talking about this people at the table go off about one of three things:

1. "You hate Christians, don't you?" No, I just happen to be honest about my family's religious choice. In fact, I rather think the early church leaders were models of efficiency - why not take advantage of already planned festivities and use them to further the goals of the religion?

2. "Why the heck do we need another holiday?" and 3. "Isn't Christmas enough? I don't understand".Well, actually, there's really a smart reasoning to the pair of holidays...

What the problem is that with recycling holidays and adding local legends into them is that invariably, some parts of the tale get mish moshed around. Where most nativity sets include the three wise men, the actuality was that the three wise men didn't arrive until the twelfth night, where Christ was proclaimed him as the son of God. So you can see where people get confused - there really is two separate holidays, one the birth of Christ and the second his proclamation, called the Epiphany. Whether you choose to celebrate them or not, I think they are actually quite effective as a pair, and here's why: 

(a very close relative to Pinza Veneta, from Wikipedia)

In Italy, as I've mentioned, there's the feast of the seven fishes on Christmas, with lots of Christmas sweets. Nougat. Candied fruits. Pandoro. Panettone. Etc. Etc. Etc. It can quite frankly be overwhelming and there can be oodles of food leftover. In the spirit of La Befana, the efficient cleaning housewitch, Epiphany is the time to reuse those leftovers and make them into something new. Pinza Veneta is a good example of that. Old bread lying around? Extra candied fruit? Ground too much corn meal for polenta? Throw that puppy together and make it a sweet new dessert so the kiddos don't get tired of eating it. You can make it with regular bread and flour and even throw some grappa in there for good measure (here's the recipe, scroll down for the English version) but you can also just as easily make this a gluten free delicacy. Alessia Piva's gluten free version is in Italian but if you can't read in the Italian, it translates very well with Google Translate (surprisingly!). So you see - you can overindulge in baking at Christmas, and have a neat holiday with which one can clean up the larder. And the cool part about Epiphany? People go from house to house, helping you clean up your leftovers! It's like an impromptu progressive dinner, without all the organizational pains.

Now, my family lived hundreds of miles away from my Italian grandfather, so I don't know for sure if they ever celebrated this or not (I really need to talk to my aunts and father about that!). But I like to think that my grandfather would totally approve of this holiday, because he was a "waste not, want not" kind of guy. Extra pie filling? Make fruit pancakes the next day. Random mechanical gadget? Weld it to a base and we have a rotating Christmas tree stand. My grandparents' garage was a garden of interesting mechanical and wooden things that my brother and I would sneak into during the summer to find interesting things to play with (and some things that we probably shouldn't have, like Jarts, but we survived, all limbs intact). My sort-of-Irish grandmother loved Christmas and kept it up until mid-January, so they just as easily could have had a nice dinner with the nativity sets and Christmas lights. 

Isn't that a great picture? That's my grandparents from 26 December 1984, in the Lake Orion Review. You can read the full article on page 24 of the edition in iDigOrion, which is like, the best thing ever for Lake Orion researchers! In fact, their Christmas display got even larger after that, with dozens of people visiting and my grandfather starting to put up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving.

Christmas Desserts for Italians (with gluten free options)

  

My family is not one that's big on desserts. For whatever reason, we never extended the Christmas traditions beyond pies, and I think birthday cake was as fancy as it got when I was younger. If you were *really* good, you got the German chocolate cake with real coconut in the frosting for your birthday. My mum made a fruitcake for my English grandfather every year, I just don't think we're a "sweet" driven kind of family - there was always more fruit in the house than anything else, and my mum would do wondrous things with vegetables, so I always wanted those first. 

But that doesn't mean I don't appreciate a good dessert now and then. My husband's ice cream comes first to the list (especially the lemon/vanilla one he did a few years ago). After that, all the desserts I explored with him as we learned about my northern Italian heritage, so I hope you all don't mind indulging me in a roundup of the things I learned about Italian desserts during the holiday season.

When I started dating my husband, we started exploring the Twin Cities and found Cossetta's Restaurant in St. Paul, which became a highlight of some of my most cherished memories of that time period (and some very entertaining ones, too!). Cossetta's introduced me to tiramisu, the first wonderful and remarkably Italian dessert I had ever had, full of rich mascarpone cheese and crunchy ladyfingers. When we walked downstairs into the deli portion of the restaurant, along with the many different kinds of antipasti, pizza doughs, and pastas, we found a new product that I had never seen before, panettone. I bought a small one (I was on a high school's paycheck after all) and tried it at home with my dad. I was hooked! Light, softly flavored sweetness and bits of dried fruit for fun, the panettone was the best version of fruitcake I had ever tasted. When I discovered my celiac disease, well, I had to find a recipe for it that tasted just like I remembered that first time. Nichole from Gluten Free on A Shoestring really delivered (though I changed her fruits to more traditional ones). 

As my husband and I continued to date, got engaged, and eventually married we found other forms of tiramisu that were just as good as Cossetta's, but in different ways. Buca di Beppo's version was delightfully boozy and over the top in flavor. Franchesca's was light and fluffy with a fabulous espresso flavor. I wasn't surprised when Treviso, the province of my grandfather's family in Italy, came out in 2013 and asked for tiramisu to get a Specialità tradizionale garantita status, giving it a heritage dating back to 1970s there. Even in the comments, the ingredients are debated and changed, depending on the family recipe that they were using. So when Udi's Gluten Free winner Bonita came out with a recipe, I didn't hesitate to try it even though it would be different than all of the other tiramisus I remember. Rich and meringue-y, it tastes different than any other version I've had. With my husband no longer drinking, the recipes will morph yet again as we change to a booze-free version of tiramisu. In all honesty, most of the time the booze was not necessary for the dessert - Buca's is really the only one that has done it well. I prefer to think about it as going back to the heritage of the dish, as the story says tiramisu is an after dinner pick-me-up that was invented to help prostitutes get back to work after long Italian meals. 

But when we actually went to Italy for our honeymoon, my world was opened to a whole new set of ideas of what my beloved Italian ancestors would have in their Christmas celebrations. Fresh torrone from the candymaker's stall at the market, stiff and chewy, full of nuts and fruit and all the things that nougat makes better :-) Naturally gluten free, it was one of the first desserts I turned to in order to remember the sweetness of the holiday. Martha Stewart's recipe is pretty decent if you want to try making some of your own, or get some from Cost Plus World Market fresh. It hardens too much if you let it sit too long and then you're liable to crack a tooth on it. 

Pandoro was next (the name STILL irritates me as the spelling and grammarian in me wants it to be properly "pan d'oro").Warm, sweet, and bread like, the best part of it in Venice was that they cut squares of it to serve with rich vanilla gelato and sprinkled with spicy cinnamon to create a wonderful sweet and spicy dessert. Pandoro being from Verona I was surprised to see it served there, but true to Venetian style, there was a multitude of desserts from many Italian provinces available. Schar's bread mix makes a wonderful base for this for the gluten free crowd, and their recipe is quite easy to make, Of course, you can't stay mad for long in Venice, because they're already feeding you the next amazing thing. The next item on my dessert list is a uniquely silly and Venetian thing, because only they would think to do something like make a rich creme dessert even richer. I've not found this recipe in the gluten free world yet (though when I have some free time it might be one I develop), but its good for non-gf crowds. Crema fritta all Veneta or Crema fritta alla Venezia. Fried cream. Yep - that's right! Thick curdled cream inside a delightful puff of fried dough and breadcrumbs that you serve with little bowls of more cold cream sweetened with sugar. A ridiculously simple recipe to follow (yes, it is in Italian but its easy to translate) that I'm thinking could be done using King Arthur's gluten free baking flour and any number of breadcrumbs (maybe the Schar variety?). 

With a little searching in Venice, however, we found the REALLY cool desserts. Pinza Veneta or Pinsa Veneto (depending on who you ask), is traditionally made for the lighting of the Christmas Bonfires around the Venetian province of Veneto, including Vittorio Veneto, where my grandfather's family was from. While not one of the larger fires in the province (the one above is a beautiful one from Arcade, a little over a half hour from Vittorio Veneto), there is still a small one with plenty of pinza and brule (a hot, spicy mulled wine). The panevin, as the fires are known, started out as a pagan tradition on the winter solstice and then later became known as a way to help the three wise men find their way on a cold winter's night to Bethlehem. Grandma Bruna's recipe for pinza is delightful (note: not MY grandma LOL), and Schar comes to my rescue again with a gluten free recipe for pinza (though I would add some cornmeal to it to make it more authentic to what I remember). 

If you are eating la pinza on a plate instead of standing around the panevin, the BEST thing to have with it is a uniquely northern Italian condiment called mostarda. Mostarda comes in a jar that looks like this: 

but its actually better if you make your own, because then it doesn't look like some off colored mustard. Mostarda is a combination of fruits and mustard essence, and its a sweet and spicy condiment that helps clean out the cupboards while making something tasty. This recipe from Food52 makes a lovely version that's simple and requires little work (though a lot of time is involved, most of it is in non-active tasks...). And its naturally gluten free, so of course you can use it on tons of stuff, not just pinza! Pureed up more, its good with a lot of meat dishes, it can be used in the place of cranberry sauce, and its excellent with cheese and crackers. 

St. Joseph's Day - advice for Sfince di San Giuseppe for gluten free folks and a bit of history

This my friends, is a sfinge (sfince in Italiano). Flickr user Howard Wallfish shows off the colors of it nicely here, with the ricotta, orange peel, and cherry. 

My family was not exceptionally into the Italian feast holidays. I suspect is has to do with the fact that the US was not a friendly place for Italians during the WWII era and many Italian Americans outside the major strongholds like Brooklyn decided it was better to fit in and provide a good life for their children than stick with feasts and other events. 

St. Joseph's day, however, has always been a special thing for me. I always try to wear green for my grandmother on March 17 for St. Patrick and red on March 19 for my grandfather. They were always so close to each other, it only seems fitting that their respective races have their major holidays only two days apart. Even when I was 16 hours away from my extended family, it was my little way of putting a connection back together. 

Most Italian American families have traditions that go back to the Middle Ages. When there were famines in Italy, especially in Southern Italy, the poor families relied on their faith to keep going. St. Joseph is the protector of the Holy Family (for those of you non-Christians out there that's the baby Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and himself). So the people would pray to him to end the famine, and they would celebrate when the famine ended by celebrating and making offerings with fish, with bread, and for dessert, sfingi, using the best of the foods that were preserved for use (waste not, want not). The candied orange peel would traditionally be the last bit of the oranges that were preserved over the winter to prevent scurvy, the cherries, soaked in alcohol to preserve them, and the ricotta, the last of the whey left over from making cheese from sheep, cow, goat, or Italian water buffalo milk.   

Now before we get into the advice about gluten free sfinge, a word.

Sfinge is NOT Zeppole. Those of you who don't like ricotta filling can just suck it. Even the bakers admit they only make zeppole for St. Joseph's Day because they have to for pitiful American palates. If you're going to gorge on this many calories, you should go for the real thing. There, now that is out of my system...

The question becomes after that, what do you do if you're gluten free, and like most Italian-Americans, making food for the St. Joseph's Day feast? 

Let's start with these:

Nichole from Gluten Free on a Shoestring has an amazing recipe for creme puffs that would give you the base recipe that you need in order to make the dough for real Sfinge. If you were being 100% traditional, you would want to fry them, but I think they're at least a little healthier if you bake them. 

Then, the next step would be filling. Let's go back to the traditional filling: ricotta, chocolate, sugar, grated or candied orange peel, and crème de cacao (though I think you can do w/o it). There you go! Gluten free Sfingi di San Giuseppe. 

If you want to admire some gorgeous Sfinge di San Giuseppe, you need to check out the blog at Pane, Burro e Marmellata.

Chicken is tasty (Guest post by Luke the Labrador) - Gluten Free Chicken Recipes

Hi all! I've come back to write a post about my favorite food, chicken. Concetta (my owner) says I have to make it gluten free, too. I guess I can do that.

Photo by Richard Elzey.

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side, of course!

Why did the turkey cross the road? The chickens were too busy laying eggs. 

Why did the duck cross the road? It was the chicken's day off. 

ROTFLAO! Silly things, chickens. Yet oh so tasty! So here's a list of my favorite recipes from the last month or so of eating chicken. My humans say they won't eat chicken every night, but I wish they would!

Paleo Pan Fried Chicken - I don't know what Paleo means, but pan frying anything is good. 

Buttermilk Fried Chicken - Light and crispy skin that's lovely to bite into

Hobo Chicken - Whatever hobos are, they have great taste in cooking. Foil packets keep the chicken nice and juicy!

Slow Cooker Chicken - baked slow throughout the day, this is great entertainment to watch for me! 

Cornish Hens - these are like mini chickens, kind of like how I'm a mini dog. 

Chicken with White Beans and Tomatoes - my owner is Italian, so she makes stuff like this a lot. Simple and easy to chow down!

Cumin Chicken with Black Beans - this reminds me of the burrito bowls at Chipotle, my favorite! 

Kung Pao Chicken and Rosemary Chicken - this article has TWO great chicken recipes. I love the Denver Post! 

We love enchiladas in our house - there's an abundance of great, traditional Mexican restaurants where we live. But this recipe is one that makes a high rotation for being tasty. Authentic Chicken Enchiladas. This one does gluten free well, because it has you make a sauce, rather than the storebought sauces which all contain gluten.

My humans watch a lot of Alton Brown, and two of their favorite recipes have chicken in them: Buffalo Wings and Broiled, Butterflied Chicken.

My owner also loves her Martha Stewart although I think she takes FOREVER to explain something. Get to the chicken already! Herb Roasted Chicken with Vegetables is easy and tasty! 

Another Martha Stewart is Spatchcocked Chicken with Tomatoes. Spatchcocking sound funny! He he. "I'm gonna spatchcock you!" LOL

Martha also does some good things with rubs. Crispy Chicken with Rosemary Potatoes and Paprika Rubbed Chicken with Roasted Garlic is also tasty. My humans like smoked paprika, but sometimes they do it with the hot, Hungarian paprika. Then I have to drink a lot of water!

We watch a lot of Cooks Country and America's Test Kitchen in our house so I think I've had every chicken recipe ever from their show (as long as it was gluten free or fixable to be gluten free). Their website isn't super friendly to use though so its harder to link to their recipes. 

My humans also do this thing call Whole30 a couple times a year. I say, eat like a dog, you'll be fine. But it did inspire them to try some new chicken recipes, like Chicken Rolls with Asparagus, Brined Chicken, and Almond Crusted Chicken Breast.

Now I will stare at you as you cook dinner until you give me some! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!