Immortal Peppers

My mom was Italian. Filetese to be exact. What? You do not know what a Filetese is? A Filetese is a person who comes from the great Italian metropolis of Fileto. Or Filetto. I can never remember. Current population: 300 or so families. But when I was growing up in the coal fields of Pennsylvania, and my family described OTHERS as either being Filetese or not Filetese, I believed Filete to be the capital of Italy.

Whatever. The Filetese were, at least, extremely good cooks and my mom and grandmother were among the best of those.

In the 1960's when I was a student at Penn State University, my mom would send me food during finals week. She would put the hot food in a styrofoam ice bucket, wrapped in layers and layers of newspaper and surrounded that with aluminum foil. Then she would take it to the Martz bus company in Scranton in the morning and eight hours later, I would get a call from the bus station in State College telling me my package had arrived. I would then get in a taxi and pick it up and bring it back to Lyons Hall. It was still very warm!

So many of the girls on my floor loved the food, that I would only get a few bites at best. She would make rigatoni in her special sauce with grated romano on top and send it with a side of peppers sauteed in olive oil. These peppers are the most divine things in the world. Sweet, savory, and never - never enough. They are eaten with fresh Italian bread - torn from the loaf, not cut. They are good hot and they are good cold.

Here is an approximation of my mom's recipe.

At least six peppers and if you have time and a big enough saute pan, you can add more.
Slice them lengthwise in about 6 slices to a pepper.
a clove of garlic
olive oil enough to coat the bottom of the pan very well. Do not be stingy.
Heat the garlic in the oil over medium heat. DO NOT BROWN THE GARLIC. If you do you will have to throw out the garlic and the oil and start over. This, my nephew TJ taught me. In fact, TJ should be writing these recipes, not me.

When the oil is hot, add the peppers. Keep adding peppers as they get smaller and start to wilt. Cook them down until they are completely wilted, browned and fragrant with the escaping sugars. Don't be surprised if this takes about an hour. Keep watching it, making sure that the peppers do not burn, but are nice and brown nevertheless.

When done, pour out the peppers and the oil that is left into a serving plate and then eat the whole thing before anyone has a chance to see you. Sop up all oil with the best Italian bread you can find.

Pastafazoole

One of the very best Italian dishes is Pasta e Fagiloe. We always called it Pastafazoole.
This is the world's tastiest and fastest decently nutritious meal. Recipe serves 4 hungry people or 6 New Yorkers.

Ingredients:
A&P Master's Choice Marinara Tomato Sauce. large size.***
1 can of chick peas
1 box of Whole Wheat pasta. (elbows, penne, or any smallish pasta you like)
pot of water - 4 quarts or larger
salt.

Put the pot of water on the stove. Turn on the heat and add some salt to the water. When the water boils, add the pasta. Cook according to package directions.
When done, drain the pasta reserving 1 cup of pasta water. Return the pasta to the pot.
Pour the whole jar of sauce into the pot.
Heat it up for a minute or two to get the flavors immersed in the pasta.
Serve.

For the non vegans in your life, you can add grated Locatelli Romano cheese. Not Parmesan, please.

Eat this with a small salad and it is a wonderful meal. Garlic bread would also be delicious too.


*** (no other will do-if you cannot find it, do another recipe. Why? Because for my money Master's Choice is the best tomato sauce there is that is not made with meat. It has tomatoes, fresh onion, garlic olive oil and spices. That's it - and you can taste the freshness)

Howdy Everyone

I am not the vegan. I am only the mom of the vegan. Just as the Hockey Mom does not play hockey or the Soccer Mom may not play soccer, this vegan mom supports her offspring by trying to cook good food untarnished by over-processed fake food-like ingredients. I will just take the recipes that were naturally vegan to begin with and post them here.

This is a dish my family likes. I learned it from my aunt who learned it from my Lebanese Grandmother (who died before I was born).

Mmmmm'judra (Lentils, rice and onion)

1 cup of lentils washed and picked over
1 cup of brown rice ( If you can, use sweet brown rice but short grain brown rice is good or just
supermarket brown rice will do nicely too.)
6 cups of water
1 big onion sliced lengthwise and paper thin
Olive oil a few tablespoons or enough to cover the bottom of a saute pan.
pinch of cumin
salt

Put the lentils and the rice in a pot with the water, put the lid on. Turn the heat to med high heat til it starts to boil. Then lower the heat. Set your timer to 45 minutes from this point.

In the meantime, slice the onion and add to hot oil in the saute pan. Cook on med. low heat until it is all wilted. When onion is wilted, pour all the oil and the onions into the cooking lentils and rice. Add salt, a pinch of cumin and put the lid back on the pot.

The M'judra will be thick and porridge-like when done. For non-vegans, it can be served with plain whole milk yogurt.

Variations:
We also like to make this with red lentils. Dark green French lentils also are delicious in this dish.