Gone with the wind.........

I had decades worth of recipes written on scraps of paper and 3 x 5 cards that I had been gathering since my teens, my Mom's, and Gramma's, wonderful family recipes of all my favorites ... my Mom's Chili Verde, her amazingly easy, flavorful Chop Suey, Granny's Chicken and Dumplings, desserts, salads, and of course, recipes for those marvelous soups and stews that warmed us on the cold blustery days... anyway, I had always intended to put them all into a book, or to at least digitize them so that they could be saved and shared. I loved those scraps of paper and never got around to it. Those grubby bits of paper and card stock, spattered by ingredients, creased and worn, soft from years of being refolded after use, and smelling oh so faintly of spices, felt real to me. tangible and homey. My mothers familiar scrawl, her funny little notes........Pulling out those handwritten treasures was almost a form of therapy, certainly they were a touchstone for me. They lived in a beautiful wooden and metal scrollwork box on a shelf in my dining room.

We found what was left of the box after the fire, we kinda recognized a bit of the metal scrollwork... my son pried it open while we held our breath, hoping that the once lovely box had somehow protected those vulnerable pages......
Once he peeled back the burned layers of what was left, a few charred edges of my treasured "receipts" fluttered out, then they just disintegrated and disappeared on the breeze.

So my mission now is to piece together those recipes, add in more that I find along the way, and get a cookbook published for my Mom. I think she would have loved that.

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Sunday, February 7, 2010

Stracciatella

Stracciatella is a wonderful Italian soup that at first may look complicated, but is actually one of the easiest soups you will ever make, and frankly, once you make it, you can serve it at any dinner with complete confidence. It is delicious, and has a complexity of flavors that will leave your guests wondering where you learned to cook like that.

Ingredients
6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
2 large eggs
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil leaves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 cup lightly packed spinach leaves, chopped or cut into thin strips
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 thinly sliced potato, (optional)
Directions
Bring the broth to a boil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. ( if adding potato, simmer until tender), In a bowl, whisk the eggs, cheese, parsley, and basil to blend. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Stir the broth in a circular motion. Gradually drizzle the egg mixture into the moving broth, stirring gently with a fork to form thin strands of egg, about 1 minute. Stir in the spinach, then season the soup, to taste, with salt and pepper.
Mama Mia! That is a wonderful soup. Warms you all the way down to the soul....

Ladle the soup into bowls and serve.

Serve with chopped parsley and thinly shaved Parmesan cheese to taste.
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