This is comfort food for comfort food. Does that make sense? When comfort food was invented this is what they came up with. Better? Who doesn’t have childhood memories of cinnamon toast?  It’s not that complicated, it’s very simple to make,  and it’s a little taste of sugary-apple pie cinnamon-buttery-toasted heaven.

My mother made cinnamon toast for me as a ritual when I didn’t want to go to bed because I was hungry. God forbid I went to bed hungry. At four years old what would you rather do? Go to bed or eat cinnamon toast?

Exactly.

It didn’t take me long to equate bed time with cinnamon toast.  Just smelling cinnamon is known to boost cognitive function and memory. Who knew? Who cared? As far as my mother was concerned after my cinnamon toast I was swept away to dream land. Probably dreaming of more cinnamon toast.

Being the culinary pioneer I was, I learned to make cinnamon toast at a very early age. Who knows, cinnamon toast might have been responsible for me paying attention to my mother’s other cooking classics. I know the next step up from making cinnamon toast was learning how to make French Toast. It all fell into place after that. Such humble beginnings.

Now, there are some who mix softened butter with the cinnamon and sugar and spread that mixture on the bread before toasting. And others that toast the bread that way and then place it under the broiler to carmelize and crisp the top. Both are notable techniques in making delicious cinnamon toast. My mother didn’t do it that way. Here is her technique.

Before you begin, combine 1/8 teaspoon of cinnamon with 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar and mix well.

Take two slices of your favorite bread. Toast it.

Butter the hot toast with plenty of butter. I prefer Kerry Gold Irish Butter. It’s made from grass fed cows and is the best tasting butter I ever had.

Now sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the bread to cover the top evenly. Use about a teaspoon per slice or to taste.

There you have it. Simple and a taste of childhood. If you never had cinnamon toast, now is your chance to give it a try. And if you can’t fall asleep one night, don’t toss and turn, get up and do as I do…make yourself some cinnamon toast. It puts me right to bed.

Sweet dreams!

How am I going to do that? No Pasta, Pizza, bread, sugar, cake or candy. I know, why don’t I just slit my wrist and call it a day. Believe me, that would be much easier. But I don’t know of any other way. I’m beyond exercise. Maybe if I loose 30 or 40 pounds I can think about taking long walks up and down the hills of my neighborhood. But for now, a trip to the mailbox at the end of my driveway gets my cardio up and running. Besides, I heard exercise is over rated. It’s not all that good for you anyway.  Do you know how many joggers just drop dead of heart attacks? I’d rather be eating a bowl of pasta fagioli when the big one comes, not huffing and puffing in pain getting to that last mile. Besides, I jogged for years when I was in my 30′s and 40′s, and took aerobics. I’m sure that prolonged my life for a number of years so I already have some savings in the “bank”. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?

I stopped smoking about three years ago, for the second time. That was easier than dieting. At least I was able to put on a nicotine patch to take the edge off.  I don’t know if there is a patch on the market to get you off of bacon. It doesn’t exist. I’m telling you, quitting smoking is easier than dieting. I just love food too much. Of course I gained more weight when I quit smoking.  Now you have all these fat, non-smokers running around trying to loose weight. It’s vicious. It never ends. I did it once before when I was in my 30′s. I stopped smoking and gained weight. After a few months I went on a diet and exercise program and lost 100 pounds. But that was when I was 30. For some reason, it was much easier then. At 58, it’s just not coming off as easy. You know, if I keep talking like this I might talk myself out of it. I’m actually getting hungry.  Maybe I’ll start next week.

Speaking of food, I love this dish. It’s a great way to make these hens and a great dish to impress your dinner party. It’s simple ingredients bursting with flavor. Give it a try.

Stuffed Cornish Game Hens

Each game hen feeds 1-2 people. If you are making 2 game hens cut the recipe in half.

• 4 Cornish Game Hens
• 1 link of sweet Italian Sausage for each game hen. If you can get Italian sausage made with cheese and parsley it works wonderful with this recipe, I prefer it.
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped sun dried tomatoes (about 3 sun-dried tomato halves per hen)
  
• 4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into quarter wedges.
• 2 cups dry white wine
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 cloves garlic
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 2 tablespoons of butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

Wash and dry the game hens. Remove the casing from the sausage links and combine the sausage meat well with the chopped sun dried tomatoes. Divide the sausage mixture into 4 equal parts and stuff into the body cavity of each hen. Tie the legs together with butcher twine and place in a roasting pan large enough to fit the hens.

Sprinkle around the hens the chopped garlic and chopped fresh rosemary. Pour the white wine around the hens. Arrange the potatoes around the hens in a single layer. Salt and pepper the hens and potatoes to taste.

Cover the roasting pan with aluminum foil and seal tightly. Place in the preheated oven and cook for 1 hour. Remove the foil and turn the oven up to 400 degrees F. Cook for another 30-40 minutes until browned. Bast the hens and potatoes every 15 minutes.

Remove the hens and potatoes and place on a serving platter and keep warm. Place the butter in the roasting pan with the juices  and cook over medium high heat until the pan juices reduce and gets thick and glossy. Spoon the pan gravy over the hens and potatoes and serve. Taste for salt.

In August and September the house smelled of fresh tomatoes when we would bring in bushels of vine ripened Roma tomatoes for canning. I recall when I did my own canning after moving up to Rockland County, prior to installing central air in my house. I would always comment, “This is the hottest day of the year and I’m here sweating, canning tomatoes”. Now I know why our parents did all their canning in the basement kitchens, it was cooler.  I always jumped in my swimming pool outside to cool off between batches. But I was grateful all year long when I enjoyed that delicious fresh sauce. A small price to pay for that kind of enjoyment.

If you get the bug and decide to try this fresh tomato sauce in the middle of January and can only buy the Roma tomatoes from your local supermarket, don’t worry. Plan a week ahead and leave the store-bought tomatoes to fully ripen on your counter before making the sauce. They will not be as sweet as vine ripened tomatoes but still better than store-bought canned tomatoes. The only other equipment you will need is a food mill to strain the skin and seeds from the tomato pulp. If you don’t have a food mill you can get away with pressing the puree through a strainer. It’s more work, but does the job.

Fresh Tomato Sauce

• 5 pounds ripe Roma (plum) tomatoes
• 1 cup of water
• 2 bay leaves, fresh if possible
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, 2 peeled and  chopped, 2 whole unpeeled
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• leaves from large bunch of fresh basil
• 1 tablespoon salt or to taste
• 1 tablespoon of sugar or to taste (if tomatoes are not in season use the sugar. If you grew them fresh and vine ripened, omit at least half the sugar, if not all).

Place tomatoes and 2 unpeeled, smashed garlic cloves and water in a large pot.  Bring to boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook until the tomatoes split, about 20 minutes. Stir the tomatoes to break them up.

Uncover and mash the tomatoes more, then cover and cook another 20 minutes.

 Remove from the heat and pass the puree through a food mill to separate the skins and seeds from the tomatoes.

In a large clean pot heat up the olive oil, add the onions and saute for 2 minutes until soft. Add the garlic and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Add the tomato puree and basil and cook over medium heat, uncovered, until thickened, 30-35 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the salt and sugar to taste.

You can use the sauce immediately over pasta or place the hot sauce in sterilized jars and store in the refrigerator or freezer until you are ready to use them.

I promise you, this pot roast recipe makes one of the most delicious pot roasts you have ever eaten. It might be a little different from your mom’s, but this dish has a wonderful sweetness from the onions and carrots and tomatoes and the meat is so tender you can cut it with a fork. My mom added peas with the vegetables. That  gave it a nice touch.  The gravy, or juice as I like to call it, is so beefy and delicious you can lap it up with a spoon. Bread dunking is allowed. If you cool this dish and skim off some of the fat, you can eat it like a soup. It’s that good. I like to cut up and shred the meat into bite size pieces and have a bite of everything together in a soup bowl. I sometimes eat it with a spoon so I don’t miss a drop. Some of you might like to eat it the more traditional way over a bed of mashed potatoes. It’s good however you decide to serve it.

I mentioned to my friend that I will be posting a recipe on pot roast. He was glad to hear it.

Italian Pot Roast

• 3-4 pound well marbled chuck roast (the fat adds so much flavor)
  
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 3 medium large onions, peeled and cut in quarters
• 7-8 medium carrots, scrubbed, unpeeled and cut in large chunks, 
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 cup red wine
• 2 cups of cold water
• 2 beef bullion cubes
• 2-3 sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 2 bay leafs
• 1  8 ounce can of tomato sauce
• One 8 ounce package frozen peas (optional)
• Salt and pepper to taste 

Preheat oven to 275 degrees.

Take the roast out about a half hour before cooking to bring it to room temperature. It will cook quicker at this low oven temperature. A 3 pound roast should cook about 3 1/2 hours at 275 degrees. A 4 – 5  pound roast should cook about 4 hours.

Heat a large dutch oven on medium high heat. Add two tablespoons of oil. Pat the meat dry with paper towels. The meat will brown better if patted dry. Salt and pepper each side liberally.

Brown the meat about 4 minuets on each side. Once the meat is browned remove it and set aside.

Add the carrots and onions to the pot. Salt and pepper them. Let sit untouched for about 3 minutes. Stir them around and let sit another 3 minutes until nicely browned all over. Add the garlic and allow to cook while stirring for about a minuet.

De-glaze the pot with the red wine. Allow the wine to evaporate for about 2 minuets while stirring up any little bits stuck to the bottom of the pot.  Add the  meat back to the pot and arrange the vegetables around it.  Add the 2 cups of water, 2 bullion cubes, rosemary, thyme, tomato sauce and 2 bay leaves. Don’t add the peas until the last half hour of cooking. Bury all the herbs under the vegetables and stir to incorporate everything. Return to a boil. Cover and place in the oven for 3 1/2 hours.

The last half hour add the frozen peas to the pot and stir into the vegetables. Cover and cook the last half hour. Taste for salt.

The meat should be fork tender. It will probably break apart as you lift it from the pot. Slice it or shred it to your liking and serve with the carrots and onions.

Back in the late 70′s I tried out a pancake mix that I happened to see at my neighborhood Shop Rite. It was not like any other pancake mix on the shelves, that is what made it catch my eye. Aunt Jemima, Bisquick and the like all came in boxes. This brand didn’t. It came in a 5 pound flour bag. It was called “Washington Buttermilk Pancake Mix”.  All you did was add egg, milk and oil and it was ready to go. Now, by this time I was making my pancakes from scratch but I wanted to try this mix, and I’m glad I did. It was my pancake mix of choice for many years. It is what my children grew up eating, along with a bottle of Log Cabin syrup, like my mother used to buy when I was a child. We tend to stick to certain products that our parents used when we were growing up. Log Cabin syrup was one of them.

This pancake mix made such great pancakes that when I had gotten a recipe for peach cobbler one year from a friend at work I substituted the dry ingredients for the cobbler with Washington Buttermilk Pancake mix. It was awesome! When I made it for company they always had to leave with the recipe. I sent many searching their grocery shelves for Washington Buttermilk Pancake Mix.

I remember a while back, maybe five or six years ago, I was looking on the grocery shelves for my pancake mix. It wasn’t there. It had come and gone over the years. I would wind up getting something else, but, it was not even close to my Washington Buttermilk Pancake mix. After about 3 or 4 failed attempts to locate this pancake mix I went to customer service and asked them if they were getting any in. They said they have not gotten any stock on the mix in a while. As time went on I would walk up the pancake mix isle and look for my mix, but it wasn’t there.

About a month ago I got to thinking about Washington Buttermilk Pancake Mix and I tried to look it up on the internet. I found the company that made the product and looked at their product list…but Washington Buttermilk Pancake mix was not among their offering. I felt like I had gotten so close to a long-lost friend and when I though I had found him, he wasn’t there. I decided to write the company and ask where I can find their pancake mix. About a week or two later I got the reply. “I am sorry to inform you that we stopped manufacturing the Washington Pancake Mix almost 5 years ago. We did however develop a simple recipe, please see attached. You can find the Indian Head Yellow corn meal in Shoprite. Thank you for using our products. Steve Friesner, Director of Sales & Marketing, Wilkins Rogers Mills. “

My pancake mix was no longer in production, but, they were kind enough to give me a recipe for it. How nice was that??? I immediately put together the ingredients and the following morning made a batch of those pancakes that eluded me for over 5 years, probably longer. It was like getting together with an old friend you have not seen in many years. My son Joseph agreed, these were the pancakes he loved eating growing up. There is nothing worse than loosing something you had while growing up. I’m glad I was able to relive some of the simple moments of making the Sunday morning pancakes my kids, and myself, loved to eat.

Washington Retail Pancake Mix

• 1 cup Washington Self-Rising Flour (you can also use Hecker’s self rising flour if you can’t find Washington)
• 1/2 Cup Indian Head Yellow Corn Meal
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 1/4 cups milk

Blend dry products together in a mixing bowl using a wire whip. Add eggs, milk and oil and mix using wire whip until batter is uniform. Pour onto 400 degree griddle and cook about 1 minute on each side, turning when bubbles form on top. Makes 10-12 delicious pancakes.

Note: Different brands of baking powder may give different batter thicknesses, if needed add more or less milk to get the desired pancake thickness.

Variation: For a buttermilk pancake, substitute 1 1/4 cup + 3 tablespoons buttermilk for the milk. As above, use more or less buttermilk to get the desired pancake thickness.

I tripled this recipe with only the dry ingredients and keep it in a zip lock bag. When I’m ready to make pancakes I use 1 cup of ready-made mix to one cup of milk or buttermilk, 1 tablespoon of oil and one egg.

Peach Cobbler

• 1 cup of ready-made pancake mix
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/2 cup of whole milk
• 1/2 cup of buttermilk
• 3/4 stick of butter
• 1  29 ounce can of sliced yellow cling peaches in heavy syrup

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Place the butter in a 9×13 inch baking pan. Place the pan in the oven until the butter melts.

While the butter is melting, mix together the pancake mix, sugar, milk and buttermilk. Wisk till all the ingredients are combined and the batter is smooth. Drain the heavy syrup from the can of peaches.

Take the hot pan with the melted butter out of the oven and pour the batter directly into the center of the pan. The heat of the pan will start to set the batter along the edges. Place the peaches evenly all around the pan directly on top of the batter.

Cook in the oven for 30 minutes or until the cobbler is golden brown.

Serve warm with plenty of Vanilla ice cream.

A while back while visiting in Calabria, we were all up late drinking wine and talking and just enjoying the company of friends and family. And then I heard someone shout, “Pasta Aglio Olio e Alici”! And in no time the lady of the house was boiling the water for the spaghetti and preparing a simple but delicious dish. It’s something you can make at a moments notice, and usually do.

Every Italian pantry should have spaghetti, olive oil, garlic, anchovies and breadcrumbs. These are the ingredients that make up one of the most satisfying, most tasty macaroni dishes you can eat.

Spaghetti con Aglio Olio e Alici

Serves 4

• 1/4 cup olive oil plus 3 tablespoons
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 4 anchovies fillets
• 1 cup Italian flavored bread crumbs
• 1 pound spaghetti
• grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

Fill a large 6 quart pot with water and bring to a boil. Generously salt the water with a tablespoon of salt. Add the spaghetti.

While the spaghetti is cooking, in a medium frying pan heat over medium flame the 1/4 cup of olive oil. Add two of the anchovy fillets and cook till the anchovies melt into the oil, breaking apart with your spoon. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes just until the garlic starts to brown. Add  2 cups of the salted pasta water to the garlic and oil and reduce the flame to low and simmer.

In a small frying pan over medium heat add the three tablespoons of olive oil. Add the other two anchovy fillets to the pan and cook till the anchovies melt into the oil, breaking them up with your spoon.  Add the cup of Italian flavored bread crumbs and mix well so you absorb all the anchovy flavored oil and toast lightly. Be careful not to burn the bread crumbs, but lightly toast them. Remove from the heat.

Once the pasta is cooked reserve another cup of pasta water and drain the pasta well. Place the pasta back in the large pot and add the garlic and oil mixture over the pasta and mix well. If the pasta is too dry add more of the pasta water.

Plate the pasta into individual bowls, one pound pasta should serve 4 people,  and sprinkle about a quarter cup of the bread crumb mixture over the spaghetti. Serve immediately with plenty of grated cheese.

This past Sunday I get a call at about 11am from the emergency service that my 94-year-old mother is subscribed to. “Your mother fell and an ambulance has been dispatched. Your sister Annette and brother Richard have been called and Richard is on his way to your mother now.” That’s a call we all knew we would get, but you are never prepared for something like that. I knew my brother Richard was 10 minutes away from my mom, so I waited a while before I called him to find out how serious it was. About a half hour later I heard the news, and it wasn’t good. “Mom is in the emergency room, she broke her hip, had heart failure and has water in her lungs”, my brother said. It sounded like the end would be near. A broken hip for any elderly person is a death knell. I told my brother I would head to Long Island and see him as soon as I can.

After fighting weekend beach traffic for 2 hours,  I’m about 10 minutes away from the hospital and I called my brother. “Pete, now they are telling me she didn’t break her hip”, my brother said. “She’s still in ICU and they are trying to clear the water from her lungs and treat the pneumonia. At least there is some good news!” I was glad to hear that, and also glad I was about to see her, because I’m sure in her state nothing is more important than being together with family.

I get to my mother’s  room and my sister in law Lillian is there. I greet her and get the run down as to what is happening. They have her hooked up to oxygen with a full face mask and are giving her antibiotics intravenously. She has been on morphine pain killers most of the day so she was drifting in and out of sleep. As I’m sitting at the foot of her bed, with my son Joseph by her side, she begins to open her eyes  and slowly come out of her sleep state. I was holding her hand and called out to her, “Mom!, it’s me Peter! How are you feeling?” She started to open her eyes and was responding to my voice. I saw that her eyes began focusing in on me sitting at the foot of her bed. As her frail, shaky hand moved up to her oxygen face mask she moved it below her chin so she could talk. She spoke what was probably her first words of the day after her accident.

“Oh my God!” my mother exclaimed, “You’re here?!!??!! I must be dying!”

Even what could have been on  my mother’s death-bed, she was able to yield her trusty sword of guilt that she so skillfully honed over the years. “Yea Mom, I thought you were dying, that’s why I’m here!” I said.  She responded with the words I knew she had in her, “I’m not ready to die!”

I’m sure Italian mothers are not the only parents that lead a needy and all-consuming life with their children. There is plenty of guilt to go around in other ethnic groups. But I did  what any good son would do when his mother was in need…be by her side. And I was glad to hear the words, “I’m not ready to die”. I’ll keep her as long as our Good Lord is willing to let us have her.

My mother or grandmother never made Bolognese Sauce. At least they didn’t call it that. My mother made a meat sauce that was similar to Bolognese but not quite the same. Bolognese sauce originated from the town of Bologna, Italy. Bologna is in the north. Quite a way from Sicily.

This Bolognese sauce is intense with flavor. The secret is cooking out most of the moisture in the vegetable and browning the meat to the point of carmelization before adding the tomato sauce.

Ragù Bolognese

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 large onion, finely and evenly diced
• 4 carrots finely and evenly diced
• 3 stalks celery, finely and evenly diced
• 4 cloves garlic, finely diced
• 4 1/2 ounces of diced pancetta
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 pounds of ground meat (blend of veal, pork and beef)
• 1 cup of dry white wine
• 2 cups of whole milk
• 1 28-ounce can whole San Marzano tomatoes, crushed with liquid
• 1 cup of beef stock or broth
• 1 pound of Tagliatelle Nests or any flat and wide macaroni
• Plenty of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

It’s important that the onions, celery and carrots are all finely and evenly diced. That way they cook more uniform, adding a better texture to the sauce. You don’t want large chunks of these veggies sticking out.

Place a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat and melt the butter in the oil. Add the onion, carrot,  celery and garlic with a good pinch of salt and sauté for 5 minutes, stirring often.

Add the diced pancetta and cook for another 10 minutes, until vegetables are softened and pancetta is golden.

Turn the heat up high and add to the vegetables half of the chopped meat. Brown the meat by breaking up the large chunks with your spoon. Once the first half is browned add the remainder of the meat and brown at least 15 minutes over high heat. Stirring occasionally.

You want the meat to carmelize. Be careful not to burn the meat, but carmelize it so that some of the meat even gets crispy.

Deglaze the pot with the white wine, stirring up the little brown pieces that stick to the bottom of the pot. Before all the wine evaporates and the meat starts sticking to the pot again, add the tomatoes, milk and beef stock.

Stir well and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting you have and simmer half covered for at least 2 1/2 hours. Make sure to stir the sauce from time to time and especially more often at the end of the cooking cycle to keep from burning.

The sauce should be thick and glossy with oil with most of the moisture and liquid evaporated.

Cook your pasta and place back in the pot and mix in a couple of ladles of the sauce.

Serve immediately with additional sauce on top with plenty of grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

The first time I ever ate lobster was when my mother prepared a meal for my brother-in-law Arthur, before he was my brother-in-law.

Back in the day, 1962 or so, one sure way to a man’s heart was through his stomach.  Today, I’m not sure what a woman does to convince a man that she is right for him. For the most part, it’s certainly not cooking. My family firmly believed that if my sister was ever going to get married she would have to convince her suitor that she could do more than just boil water. And my mother did everything in her culinary power to convince Arthur that what he was getting if he married my sister was a prepared woman who knew how to feed her man. Or at least she came from a good blood line of great cooks. My grandmother and aunts also played a role in the sleight of hand.

Arthur would dine with us every Friday night, and the meal was always a seafood delight. I remember when my mother made this dish she made sure that Arthur got the whole lobster. My brother and father and I were usually left with a claw and the legs, which we learned was loaded with wonderful lobster juices that we would suck out….and we filled up on spaghetti. But we didn’t complain. My mother always made sure there were plenty of the cheaper and smaller Rock Lobster tails in the sauce so we could have “lobster tails”. My sister would always tie a dish towel around Arthur’s neck to keep his shirt neat and dry. If boiled lobster wasn’t messy enough, eating lobster cooked in tomato sauce takes on another whole  dimension of splatter.

What made this dish great was the sweetness of the lobster roe and tomalley. They would melt into the sauce, thickening it and adding a briny sweetness of the lobster to every bite of spaghetti. It’s what makes the dish. Don’t discard it when you cut the lobster in half. Let it cook into the sauce.

Lobster Fra Diavalo

You can place the lobsters in the freezer for 30 minutes if you have a problem killing the lobster yourself.

Turn each lobster on its back and, using a large knife, split it lengthwise down the middle starting at the head and cutting towards the tail. Spread open the lobster bodies and tails but do not remove the meat from the shells. Remove the eyes and antennae and scrape out the digestive sac, leave the tomalley and roe in the shell. Remove the tail from the body, leaving the tail meat in the shell. Remove the claws.

With the back of your chef knife, crack the claws and arm joints of the lobster.

Just as soon as we got home my mother would make preparations for Sunday dinner. We always ate around 2pm, so it was somewhere between lunch and dinner. A pot of tomato sauce was bubbling on the stove top and on some Sundays a chicken was roasting in the oven. The aroma of all that goodness just traveled around the house and when the hunger pangs got too great we would sneak in the kitchen and steal a meatball from the pot and eat it on top of a hunk of Italian bread…dipped in the gravy for good measure.

Grandma, who lived above us, was involved in the same process. For some reason, she started a little later than my mother did, which worked out great for me as you will see.  My grandfather, all dressed in his good Italian suit, was sitting at the dining room table reading his Italian newspaper, Il Progresso. My grandmother was busy in the kitchen preparing their Sunday dinner. I had the best seat in the house. I would venture upstairs to see what grandma was cooking and usually got a shot of sweet vermouth from my grandfather. He said it was good for my blood….it was just good period! If grandma was cooking something that I liked (and that was always a 99% sure thing) I would make sure I went back upstairs after I finished my dinner with my family. I always had just enough room left for some of Grandma’s chicken or breaded steak. I never thought of it as having two dinners, it was just an extension of my first dinner.

Classic Sunday Italian Roast Chicken

• 1  6-7 pound whole roaster chicken
• 1 lemon, cut in half
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 5-6 fresh basil leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 3 large onions, peeled and quartered
• 2 carrots, peeled and cut into rounds
• 2 stalks celery, cut in half
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2 1/2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cut into eights
• 1 cup water
• salt and pepper
• olive oil

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

To prepare the chicken, rinse in cold water and remove the packaging from inside the cavity. Place the chicken in a large pot filled with cold water and 1/4 cup kosher salt  in the water. Allow to soak for at least 1 hour.

Remove the chicken from the pot and rinse under cold water. Dry the chicken inside and out with paper towels. Salt and pepper generously the inside and outside of the chicken.

Inside the cavity of the chicken place both halfs of the lemon, thyme, Rosemary, Basil and 1/2 teaspoon of oregano along with the garlic, one half onion, 1 carrot and 1 stalk of celery. Tie the legs together with butchers twin. Coat the chicken on all sides with olive oil.

Place the chicken, breast side down,  on a rack in a large roasting pan.  Place the rest of the vegetables around the chicken, except the potatoes. Drizzle the vegetables with olive oil, salt and pepper and 1/2 teaspoon of oregano.  Add a cup of water to the pan.

Roast the chicken for 20 minutes breast side down. Turn the chicken breast side up. Add the potatoes to the pan around the chicken and roast for additional 2 hours.  Stir the vegetables from time to time during the last hour and baste the chicken with the pan juices every 15 minutes.  Add more water to the pan if it gets too dry. The chicken is done when the thickest part of the breast registers 165 degrees. Or stick a knife into the thigh and the juice should run clear.

Making the gravy

Remove the chicken and place it covered in foil on your cutting board. Remove all the vegetables and potatoes and place on your serving platter. Pour off all of the drippings through a strainer into a medium sauce pan. Allow the dripping to rest for 5 minutes and skim off as much of the fat that’s floating on the surface as you want. Mix 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with a 1/4 cup cold water. Place the sauce pan with the drippings on a medium high flame and bring to a boil. Add the cornstarch mixture while stirring and simmer until thickened. Taste for salt and pepper. If you need to make more gravy add a can of low sodium chicken broth to the drippings and add an additional tablespoon of cornstarch.

This is a very tasty stew. The lamb is tender and flavorful. The potatoes help soak up the flavors, but nothing works quite like dunking your Italian bread into the stew’s gravy.

My family always made lamb in so many different ways, and I grew up enjoying it every way they made it.  Broiled lamb chops, lamb stuffed pies, roast leg of lamb and this lamb stew. Only type of lamb I never really latched onto was capozzelli, lamb’s head. My parents and grandparents loved it. When my grandmother would open up her over to show me the “prize” they were having for dinner…..I passed. I might try it today, if I only knew how to prepare it. I might have to research this one because I never stuck around to watch my grandmother cook this dish. But I would sit at the table, and in a macabre way, watch my grandfather devour it. In the old country, nothing is wasted from the animal. You ate it all.

No lamb head in this stew. Just succulent meat and wonderful vegetables and flavors.

Lamb Stew

• 2 pounds of cubed lamb
• flour for dredging
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 2 onions
• 2 cups of sliced carrots
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 quart of chicken stock or broth
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 2 cups crushed tomatoes
• 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, stripped from stem and chopped
• 3 sprigs of fresh thyme, left whole.
• 1 bay leaf
• 3-4 medium peeled potatoes, cut into quarters
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons corn starch mixed with 1/4 cup cold water

Salt and pepper the cubed lamb. Place the flour in a flat plate and dredge the lamb cubes in the flour. Heat a dutch oven on medium high heat and add the olive oil.

When the oil is hot brown the dredged lamb cubes on all sides till brown.  Remove the lamb from the pot and set aside.

Add the butter to the pot. Then add the onions, carrots and garlic. Cook till the onions become translucent. Add the red wine and cook down for a few minutes.

 Then add the chicken stock and crushed tomatoes. Add the rosemary and fresh thyme along with the bay leaf. Bring the pot to a boil and add the lamb with all its juices to the pot. Place the heat on low and simmer  partially covered for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Add the potatoes and cook another 25 minutes uncovered until potatoes are tender. Taste for salt and pepper.

If you want to thicken the sauce more add the cornstarch mixture a little at a time till you get the desired thickness of the sauce.