Skinny Italian: Eat It and Enjoy It (20 page)
Read Skinny Italian: Eat It and Enjoy It Online
Authors: Teresa Giudice,Heather Maclean
Tags: #food.cookbooks
No matter what day of the week it is, special occasion or not, there is a ritual to the Italian dinner. Dinner usually takes around two hours and wine or mineral water is served throughout the meal. The dishes served in order are:
•
Aperitivo
(before-dinner drink)
•
L’antipasto
(bread, cheese, or veggie appetizers, served during the
aperitivo
)
•
La Prima Piatta
(a small pasta dish)
•
La Seconda Piatta
(the main meat course served with a vegetable or salad)
•
Il Dolce e Caffè
(dessert and coffee)
The Hostess with the Most-est
Part of planning a great meal is being a great hostess, and that starts with the guest list. You don’t have to invite everybody in your neighborhood over at one time. Make sure you invite people who all get along
(or you might find yourself with a flipped table or two).
As the hostess, make sure you mingle and talk to everyone. It’s your job to make everyone feel comfortable and relaxed.
An Italian dinner is a time for laughing.
Bad topics:
politics, money, tell-all books written by your guest’s ex-husband.
Good topics:
fashion, children, friends, the old days, sex.
It seems like a lot of food, but remember, the portions are smaller and we take our time eating it.
Today, most Italians reserve Sunday for their traditional dinner, and have a shortened version for other days. We often also skip the pasta course (it’s usually more of a lunch meal), or the pasta is incorporated into the main dish. I’m going to teach you how to master each stage of the Italian dinner so you can make every meal a feast. If you’re not entertaining a big crowd, even if you’re eating alone, I still want to encourage you to savor each bite, eat slowly, and enjoy the divine process.
Delicious Drinks
Since the Roman times, Italians have begun their eating rituals with a mini cocktail hour. The idea of a before-dinner drink is not only to help your guests relax and unwind from a long day, but also to help open up your digestive system and get your stomach ready for eating. (Don’t believe me? The Italian word
aperitivo
comes from the Latin
aperire
, which means “to open up.”)
This is not a time to get trashed, or to see how many beers you can chug. You don’t want to ruin your appetite, you want to enhance it. For this part of your meal, you want everyone walking around, sipping their drinks and sampling the appetizers. Make sure you’ve got on some good music, and your party will come to life!
Good drinks to have on hand are Campari, Prosecco, vodka, vermouth, sodas, and fruit juices (we love to mix alcohol with fruit juices!). While beer is considered tacky, wine is OK,
and sparkling wine like Spumante is even better.
MAKES 6 DRINKS
My favorite, favorite drink is the Bellini: a mix of sparkling Italian wine and peaches. (I’ve been told I get funnier with each Bellini, but who doesn’t?)
This is the way they make it in Venice: with fresh white peaches and ripe raspberries. If fresh white peaches aren’t in season, you can use regular or thawed frozen peaches, but I’ve even seen white peach puree online—well worth sticking in your freezer!
2 ripe white peaches, peeled, pitted, and coarsely chopped
¼ cup fresh or thawed frozen raspberries
(frozen can be used, but should be thawed first)
One 750-ml bottle Italian sparking wine, such as Prosecco or Spumante, chilled
1.
Puree the peaches in a blender. You should have ½ cup of peach puree. Pour into a small bowl. Rinse out the blender.
2.
Puree the raspberries in the blender. Strain the raspberries through a wire sieve to remove the seeds. You should have at least 2 tablespoons of raspberry puree. Pour into a small bowl. If you have the time, cover each bowl of puree and refrigerate them so they are really chilled.
3.
For each serving, spoon a heaping tablespoon of peach puree into the bottom of a Champagne flute. Top with about 1 teaspoon of the raspberry puree. Slowly fill the glass with the sparkling wine. To keep the foaming at a minimum, fill the glass halfway, let the fizzing subside, then finish with a second pour. Serve immediately.
T
eresa’s
T • I • P
The easiest way to peel fresh peaches? Drop them into a saucepan of boiling water, and cook for 30 seconds. Using a slotted spoon, transfer them to a bowl of ice water. Let stand a minute or so, then drain and peel.
MAKES 6 BEVERAGES
You might not always have fresh peaches on hand, so here’s a recipe for Lazy Bellinis (the kind they’ll probably give you in a bar).
¾ cup peach schnapps, chilled
One 750-ml bottle sparkling Italian wine,
such as Prosecco or Spumante, chilled
For each serving, pour 2 tablespoons of schnapps into a Champagne flute. Slowly fill the glass with the sparkling wine, letting the foaming subside before adding more sparkling wine. Serve immediately.
“Skinny” Cocktails
Everyone would love to be able to enjoy their favorite hard alcoholic cocktail with fewer calories. Sadly, there are only two ways to do this.
1 • Compromise on the quality of the nonalcoholic extras; like use a “diet” orange drink instead of orange juice. But that’s full of chemicals rather than just fruit.
2 • Lie about it • I’m sort of kidding, but it really doesn’t matter what you do. You can’t magically erase calories in alcohol, no matter what you call your cocktail. A margarita is a margarita is a margarita.
MAKES 48 2-OUNCE SERVINGS
Another classic Italian drink is limoncello, a lemon-flavored alcohol. Of course, you can buy bottled limoncello, but it’s so much more fun to make it from scratch. You do need a full thirty to sixty days for curing, but it’s well worth it!
16 lemons
Two 750-ml bottles 100-proof vodka
4 cups sugar
1.
Wash the lemons thoroughly. Using a vegetable peeler, remove the yellow zest of the lemons in strips. Do not dig into the white pith underneath the zest, as it is very bitter. (You’re done with the lemons now, so save them for something that uses lots of lemon juice.)
2.
Transfer 1 bottle of vodka to a large, 1-gallon glass jar with a lid (such as a glass cookie jar, available inexpensively at housewares stores). Add the lemon zest, cover, and store in a cool, dark place for 15 to 30 days.
3.
After this initial steeping period, bring 5 cups water and the sugar to a boil in a medium saucepan over high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Boil, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Cool completely.
4.
Pour the syrup into the jar. Add the remaining bottle of vodka. Cover again and let stand in a cool, dark place for 15 to 30 days more.
5.
Strain the limoncello through a wire sieve to remove the zest. Pour the limoncello into attractive glass bottles. Store in the freezer until you are ready to use.
MAKES 1 DRINK
Next to a Bellini, a mimosa is my favorite drink (naturally, we make ours with Italian sparkling wine instead of Champagne). But sometimes you’re out with a friend who doesn’t like to drink a lot of alcohol (or can’t for medical reasons or something), but she still wants to have fun. Drinking bottled water or Diet Coke when everyone else has something fizzy and fruity is not fun.
Of course, you can buy San Pellegrino Limonatas at the grocery store, but those have a lemony taste, and when you’re in a bar, anyone can mix up the Dina Virgin for you!
¼ cup fresh orange juice, strained to remove pulp
½ cup sparkling water, preferably San Pellegrino
Pour orange juice into a Champagne flute. Fill up the glass with San Pellegrino.
Dina
Dina is one of my best friends. I’ve known her for fifteen years; I actually met her when she was pregnant with Lexie. She loves to hang out at lounges with me and Jacqueline, but she’s not a big drinker. I created this virgin mimosa for her, so she could get just as crazy as we do with our Champagne glasses and bubbles. (Only she’s funny because she’s naturally funny, not because she’s had one too many!)
