Cooking with Elena!!
In our group, food and cooking normally are at least a part of the fun times we have together. With the many times we have been to Italy, no one had ever looked into doing a cooking class.
Jamie not only found one, but found one with one of our favorite wineries in Greve, Podere Campriano. I will be honest and say that all of us were not quite sure what to expect or how involved we would be in the cooking process, etc. I am very happy to say the day was more than we expected and everyone had a wonderful time. This experience is definitely one of those that will be reminisced about for years to come.
Calm Before the Storm
We woke up to a beautiful sunny, June day in Greve. After starting the day outside with a cup of coffee, we all piled into Monica's van for a drive over to Elena and Podere Campriano.
Not too bad of a view to wake up to and start the day!
Just at the bottom of those hills is where we will spend the next 4 to 5 hours getting elbow deep in pasta, bread, veggies, and pork... oh! and don't forget the wine!
Cooking class with Elena at Podere Campriano - Let the Fun Begin!
Get Choppin'!
When we first arrived we were welcomed with a glass of wine and were quickly put to work. We started out chopping like made men and women as we needed to get the veggies ready for the ragu.
Kelly does not have the best relationship with knives and cutting things, so we quickly moved her to another task to prevent any pieces of her fingers becoming part of the ragu.
Elena and Valerio - Making Pasta with the Pros
Unlike back in the states, pasta here does not come out of a box. Pasta is always made from scratch. Davin is known for making his own pasta at home, so he was the first to jump on this task.
After Davin got the dough mixed up, Elena and her husband Valerio jump in to show the proper techniques for rolling out the dough.
It takes quite a bit of time to make pasta and quite a bit of arm strength as you are consistently stirring flour and egg. After a while Jamie and Duane also jumped in to lend an arm.
Duane looks a little distracted
by the cheese
Once all the dough is mixed up, it is time to cut some pasta. We were making pappardelle pasta, so the process is to roll out the pasta and then roll it back up so it can be cut. Christal jumped in to help roll.
Duane - The Meat Man
Among our friends we all have our specialties when it comes to the kitchen, Davin does bread and pasta, Tari is all about cheese and Duane is all about the meat! Duane quickly preps and strings up the bone in pork loin. He actually impressed Elena with his skill and she asked for him to teach her how he does it. Ahhh, the pupil becomes the teacher!
What?! This is going in there? Once Duane amazed Elena with his string wrapping technique, his labor of love was going into the wood fire oven that was located outside near the entrance to the kitchen.
Along with our lovely pork roast, the oven also cooked some potatoes and red onions in ashes.... they cam out perfectly!
Its' Getting Hot in Here
Once the chopping and bread and pasta making were wrapping up, the gals headed for the kicthen to whip up some ragu, pate, and grandma's cake for dessert. The guys, of course, had to pop in from time to time "to help"
Christal got the fun job of peeling tomatoes, which is a good thing, since, i think, between Kelly, Tari and her, she was the only one who had done it before. Kelly was grateful as it did not look like a fun job.
Duane and Davin pop into the kitchen to help stir the chicken livers for the pate. They simmered for quite a while with some onion and mosto cotto. Mosto Cotto is cooked must of grapes. It is made only at this winery and is a long time Lapini family recipe from the 1920s. It can be used as drizzle on pecorino, in pate, mashed with the red onions after they come out of the oven and back in Roman times even as a therapeutic remedy.
Since the boys had taken over the kitchen, The ladies used hat time to cool off outside and have some more wine....that kitchen gets hot quickly!
Ragu is coming along nicely. This may be the only time that Kelly actually eats cooked carrots. Duane is providing "assistance" to Tari as she stirs the pate. I think it was quickly after this that the gals went outside to cool off and have more wine.
Time to Make the Cake!
Just like the pasta, dessert was not coming out of a box. We were making nona's cake or grandma's cake. It is a thin custard like cake. Every piece of it was made from scratch and had to be measured out. Luckily there was a scale because Kelly is about as good at measuring as she is at cutting.
One of the hardest parts beside the measuring is getting the dough thin enough for the cake and also making sure the custard does not do that bad thing custard can do when it gets to hot.
Out of the Fire
As the cake was put in the oven, the roast, potatoes, and onions came out. We are getting close to eating time!
That is one mighty fine looking roast! As we continued to cook, the tools piled up. They had an outdoor facet that made cleaning up not to bad of a task.
The bread did not turn out too bad either! Funny thing about Italy is that bread is not made with salt. This was hard for Davin to understand, but Elena explained that due to the cost of salt in historical times most Italians could not afford it so everyone in Tuscany learned to do without. The only place that actually uses salt in their bread is Lucca because they controlled the salt trade. To this day, Italian's still hate Lucca soley because of the price gouging of salt from centuries past.
Not too bad of a view for cooking and eating
No Better Time for Wine!
As we waited for things to wrap up in the oven and for the roast to rest, it was a perfect time to tour Podere Capriano and see their winery.
This was the first trip to Podere for Duane and Tari, so it was great for them to be able to see the winery as well as participate in the cooking.
Buon Appetito! Time to Eat!!
As with any Italian meal you always start with a little of their own salumi and cheese....
....and their wine, of course! These are two of the ones made at Elena's winery
First course after the salumi and cheese is the homemade pappardelle and ragu. Doesn't look too shabby!
There are smiles all around, but it would be hard for Tari not to smile with three wine glasses full of wonderful Chianti in front of her.
Jamie managed to score one of the BIG glasses
On to the main course and of course, dessert! The main course was the pork roast with apricot, grilled red onion with Mosto Cotto, and our fresh bread with home made butter.
After the salumi, ragu, roast. onions, and bread, we were all stuffed! BUT there was still Nona's cake! All of us thought there is no way we could take even a bite of the cake!
Somehow we all managed to not only take a bite but eat the entire piece! Kelly and Tari thought they may not like it as one is not a fan of cake and one is not a fan of custard, but both agreed it was SO good!
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| Taking in the view as we let our food settle |
Quick, easy dinner at Alessandro's La Cantina
By the time we left Elena's, it was late afternoon, so we headed back to our villa to rest and get over our food comas. I think there was at least one nap or two taken. Somehow after all the food we ate earlier in the day and all the comments we made about never eating again, we made our way to a late dinner at Alessandro's Cantina.....not sure what we were all thinking!
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| Tari and Duane were the smart ones they ordered a pizza to share |
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| In any other world, Jamie would never order the "hot dog" pizza..but somehow here it works. It is actually German sausage, but we let him call them hot dogs |
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| Kel's good ol' stand by clams and red sauce. No one does them as good as Alessandro! |
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| Davin took a page out of Kelly's book and had the seafood del mare pasta |
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| Christal kept it "small" with a prosciutto pizza |
As we were eating, Alessandro kept having his wait staff bring us different wines and appetizers.......we didn't want to be rude, so we eat them even though we were still stuffed from Elena's. Finally at the end of the meal Kelly declared, "at this point might as well get some gelato!" so Tari, her, and Davin left to get some before the shop closed down the street expecting to meet Jamie, Duane, and Christal at the villa. At this point, all of us had had plenty of wine and lemoncello...no one really needed more. What we did not count on was Alessandro continuing his wonderful hospitality with desserts and Grappa!
The only problem? He brought out 6 of everything not realizing 3 of us had left. Christal really did not need more alcohol, so that left Jamie and Duane to do 6 glasses of grappa and most of the dessert! Let's just say they got back to the villa a lot later than we expected and man were they NOT happy with us for leaving!
Go to 6/12/17
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