Betty Crocker's Italian Cooking: 200 Easy Recipes That Celebrate the Food and Culture of Italy
Author: Betty Crocker Editors
Summertime and the Cooking Is Easy
Italian cooking in summer?
Off-season or unexpectedly perfect timing?
For Barnes & Noble's audience's reading—and dining—pleasure, comes a new cookbook by Antonio Cecconi, expert chef and cooking school maestro, based in America's heartland: Minneapolis MN. Betty Crocker's® Italian Cooking (IDG Books Worldwide, Inc) is an homage to American cooks' curiosity about the origins of Italian regional dishes, new ideas, and classic favorites that have influenced American cooking. Cecconi gives charming historical notes while simplifying "old country" recipes to American tastes and lifestyle preferences.
It is an American characteristic to celebrate the best and brightest of other cultures, and especially other cultures' cooking. American love Italian food so much that Italian cuisine has become mainstream cooking in America.
Italian cuisine has also, Cecconi believes, become too identified with heavy fare. And it is not. A summer's bounty of light Italian recipes is proof. And those recipes carry through to the "Indian summer" of early autumn. There are, of course, recipes for all seasons and all appetites, but it's the whiff of Italy in late summer and still-warm September…a backyard feast that might be replicated under a Tuscany sunset… that offers seasonal charm.
Italian cooking also offers a terrific way to showcase and use wonderful things from the summertime garden. Cecconi the chef is also Cecconi the avid gardener, and he joins millions of Americans who love gardening. Everywhere a ray of light comes through a windowpane, wherever a basil leaf might sprout, there are window box wonders, and herb gardens. Farmer's markets are major draws in the summer, too. Take all this bounty, says Cecconi, and show it to wonderful advantage in colorful, creative Italian cooking.
Red peppers, yellow peppers, orange peppers, green peppers, purple peppers—a painter's palette of color becomes the focal point of wonderful salads, with the essence of crunch. Peperonata, says Cecconi, is a standard summer sweet pepper salad. Pick them, store them - in extra virgin olive oil, he advises - use them creatively, and they will keep for three to four months. Serve an array of veggies in hot or cold pasta dishes.
"It's a wonderful vegetable," says Cecconi, "you can sautй it, eat it raw and, even more important, if you cook it a long time you can't destroy it."
Cecconi recommends grilled vegetables, all smoke-accented succulence: You can grill eggplant instead of meat or along with meat. Stuff it, with rice, ground beef, other veggies. Or make Caponata, cooked eggplant salad, laced with garlic, full of tomatoes, olives…sautйed on high heat…a dash of honey or sugar…a dash of vinegar...a classic Sicilian summer recipe to wow guests from one end of America to the other.
Cecconi is a dedicated herb gardener, but has become too busy to devote a lot of time to vegetable gardening. He regrets this, but adds that in summer, farmers' markets are his favorite place to be. To buy the vegetables he does not grow? Yes, but even more,
Antonio suggests trying Pappa al Pomodoro (chunky tomato soup) page 73, or Ziti Agli Asparagi (pasta with asparagus), page 122, to bring the flavor of Tuscany into your home.
Go to: The Wisdom of Whores or Breach of Peace
Complete Idiot's Guide to Grilling
Author: Don Mauer
Hot off the presses . . . and hot off the grill!
Expert Don Mauer walks barbeque novices through the basic techniques of grilling, from building a fire (for charcoal grills) to getting the heat just right (for gas grills). With tips and 250 recipes, grillers will learn to manage their grill space and heating zones like a pro while surprising family and guests with everything from tasty hamburger basics to fantastic fish and veggies.
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