THE ITALIAN IN ME

I was brought up in an Italian home eating good food! My Mom was nine years old when she came to America to live. Her father came to America first then had his family make the trip to America. My mom was a great cook and she loved cooking for her family. My mom is one of five siblings, she had two sisters and two brothers. Her mom taught my mom to cook and my mom taught me to cook. Then I taught my two daughters to cook and they are great cooks! I like to cook for my family but cooking just for my self not so much! I learned to cook many different meals, Italian and American. I learned to cook spaghetti and meatballs. I learned to cook pizza and many other Italian dishes. I am a senior now and I can cook all the Italian dishes my mom taught me years ago!

To this day I and my daughters love Italian food. At dinner, we all sat at the table to eat a great meal my mom cooked. When I had my family we all sat at the dinner table to eat a meal I cooked. In Italian families, the parents serve wine with dinner. There is nothing better than having wine with spaghetti and meatballs. My mom would start the spaghetti sauce in the morning and slow cook it all day. It was the best sauce I tasted! Here is the recipe for the spaghetti sauce:

Put in a pot about 6tbls of olive oil. I use the extra virgin olive oil.

Cut up one medium onion, and 2 cloves of garlic. Make sure the oil is heated and add the onion and garlic.

Brown them both until the onion and garlic is slightly brown.

Add one can of 32oz or two 16oz cans of tomatoes,

one small can of tomato paste, and one can of tomato puree.

Add about 2 16oz cans of water.

Add salt and pepper to taste, add a pinch of sugar, add a little paprika, and add a little parsley, oregano, and basil.

To make the Meatballs,

1lb of ground beef, 1/2bl ground pork,

3 eggs, 1sml diced onion, 2cloves garlic diced, and Italian bread crumbs.

Add 2tsp of sauce and mix well, and roll into meatballs.

I have been cooking this recipe for a long time, and everyone loves to eat spaghetti and meatballs. It is one recipe Italians eat a lot, besides pizza. A green salad goes well with this dish and it is served on the side. When I cook pizza I make the dough first, you can use a bread machine for this. I make the sauce with:

1 can 16oz can of tomato sauce I add Italian season, salt and pepper, a pinch of sugar, paprika, and stir it.

On the pizza dough, I put the sauce, add pepperoni, I add chopped onion, bell pepper, etc.

Then put the mozzarella, on top, and bake it in a 350% oven for 25mins.

There you have it, how I cook Spaghetti and Meatballs, and Pizza! Some Italian dishes are more complex to cook than others. Italians also like their desserts. One dessert I cook on New Years' eve is a tradition. When I cook them everyone likes them and they are all gone. My mom cooked them and she stood at the stove for a couple of hours. As soon as she got a batch done they were all gone!

When I was growing up my mom would take me to the next town. She would take us to the small Italian grocery store. They had different foods that were not at the regular grocery store. Some food items they sold that my mom would buy. She loved to cook escargot or snails. Snails, yes Snails, my mom cooked them in spaghetti sauce. They were really good, and I really liked to eat them! There are some Italian dishes that might seem strange to you. To me, they are not because I was brought up with these dishes. There are some I did not like and I still do not like it. One food is liverwurst, my mom would have a sandwich and she would ask me if wanted one. I always said no thank you! The other food she cooked was artichokes, and I hated them! When she cooked them I would vanish, I hated them that much!

My dad would go fishing and he caught eels! He would skin them and my mom would cook the eels. She cooked them in sauce and they were really good. One time my dad and I went fishing and we caught two buckets of Flounders or Flat Fish. Flounders stay at the bottom of the ocean. As soon as we put the lines into the bottom of the water we had a fish. We had so much fun until we had to leave and go home. My dad cleaned the fish and my mom would cook them.

Italians love to cook and no one goes away from the table hungry. They would say Manga Manga meaning eat, eat! If you did not eat they would get upset! There was no shortage of food when there is a get-to-gather or on holidays. Italians like to celebrate when someone has a birthday or another special day. It is what the Italians like to do cook, eat, and be merry!

.