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12/28/2016 05:00 AMThis past year, we ran a series of recipes contributed by our readers, many of them connected to family stories, as our memories of food are so often intimately connected with the people we love.
Raphaella Maselli of Madison was one of our contributors this year. She was born and raised in the Fair Haven section of New Haven. She had many fond recollections of her extended Italian family, particularly of her paternal grandfather.
“He arrived in New Haven in 1891 at age 19 with little money. He taught himself English, then taught English to others at a school near Wooster Square,” she says. “After working for a few years at Candee Rubber company and Sargent Company, he became wealthy by establishing many businesses: grocery and package stores, insurance, real estate, and steamship ticket selling agencies, a bank, a limousine service, and finally a funeral home. It is a source of pride to his descendants that when his bank failed, he repaid each of his depositors in full. As a result of his integrity, although he did earn a fair living, he never again achieved his former wealth.”
Maselli says she learned many things from her parents, and grandparents, but that she never learned to love to cook, like her mom. Still, she takes pride in developing healthy variations on recipes that have been handed down in her family for generations.
Broccoli and Pasta
Her initial contribution was an eggplant parm recipe that calls for baking, rather than frying the eggplant. She also gave us another recipe for Broccoli and Pasta.
Rae Maselli’s Broccoli and Pasta
1.
Cook the pasta as directed on the package.
2.
Within five minutes of its cooking (to taste), add as much broccoli as desired.
3.
Cook the pasta and broccoli five minutes longer.
4.
Drain the pasta and broccoli and place them in a large bowl.
5.
Add a can of black olives.
6.
Add olive oil, garlic powder, black pepper to taste. Red pepper is optional. Actually any suitable flavoring or spice may be used. Other vegetables may used, such as pumpkin, summer or winter squash, kale, spinach, peas, etc. Please take into consideration the length of time needed to cook the vegetables to judge when to put them into the cooking pasta. I use both fresh or frozen vegetables.
Lazy Man’s Lasagna
Michel Vejar, also of Madison, is a stay-at-home mom and food writer who created the food blog, The Traveling Epicure. She has contributed recipes for eggplant balls (www.zip06.com/living/20161013/sharing-recipes-and-the-love-of-cooking-with-much-laughter), and for Lazy Man’s Lasagna.
Michel Vejar’s World’s Best Lazy Man’s Lasagna
Ingredients:
1 lb. rigatoni pasta, ziti, rigatoni, or your favorite pasta
Vejar’s 20 minute tomato-basil pasta sauce recipe or a favorite or store bought brand
2 lbs ground meat or 3 cups after browning of: ground beef, turkey, veal, pork, meatloaf mix, or sweet fennel sausage
(Liuzzi makes my favorite sweet and spicy Italian fennel sausage)
1/3 cup red wine for deglazing the pan
1 lb. whole milk ricotta
2 cups shredded mozzarella—2 cups to mix into the lazy-man’s lasagna plus an additional 1 cup to sprinkle on top if you are going to put the pasta into a baking dish to bake later
Grated Parmesan
Fresh basil
Directions:
Brown the ground meat in a sauce pan on medium high heat
Drain the meat to remove excess oil in a small strainer over a bowl
Put the meat back into the pan on medium high heat add ⅓ cup of red wine to de-glaze the sauce pan scrapping up the little brown bits stuck the bottom of the pan
Keep the browned meat on warm
Heat tomato-basil sauce through—you want it hot enough to melt the mozzarella
Cook the pasta in salted water until al dente (Having a pinch of firmness to it so it’s not overly cooked)
Drain the pasta and put it back into the same pan
Immediately add 2 cups of hot tomato-basil sauce, 1 lb. of ricotta, 2 cups of mozzarella, 3 cups of browned meat and begin to stir
Add another 1 to 1 ½ cups of tomato-basil sauce
Mix ingredients until combined and pour out into a serving platter
Sprinkle with Parmesan and julienne fresh basil...mangia mangia!
Baked Apple Goodness
Claudio Grazioso, a native New Englander, recently moved back to Guilford from California, and wrote about her struggle to get her children to eat apples for a snack. She ultimately had success with some oven baked applesauce, which filled the house with the scent of warm baked apples and lured her children to the table.
Baked Apple Goodness
1)
Peel some apples. Six, eight, 10—however many you think you can fit in a ceramic or glass roasting dish. Then slice up the apples.
2)
Spread them in your baking dish of choice. Sprinkle with cinnamon and ground ginger. Then, because our family loves ginger (and it’s great against colds and flus), I grabbed some fresh ginger, peeled it, chopped it and tossed that in too.
3)
Put it all in the oven. I set my oven to 350 degrees, and when my house was filled with the scent of warm, baking, apples, I dashed into the kitchen and poked at the apples with a fork. You want not just fork tender, but fork soft: A good standard is prick an apple, and if a little golden brown baked apple oozes out, it’s done. Let it cool a bit and then put all of the apples and ginger into a blender. Puree to whatever consistency you like. I love applesauce that is lump-free and velvety smooth, so I let the mixer go for awhile.
When my kids came home, as soon as they opened the door, they noticed the warm, cinnamon smell. I gave them each a bowl of about three or four pureed, spiced, luscious apples. They devoured them, then asked for more. And I realized I had found a super easy, healthy, winter treat. You can even make a huge batch and leave it in the fridge for them—trust me, it will disappear.
If you have any recipes that you’d like to share with our readers, write to me at p.mcnerney@shorepublishing.com or Pem McNerney, Shore Publishing, 724 Boston Post Road, Madison, CT 06443.