02/13/07 Torta alle Mele e Rosmarino

02/13/07 Torta alle Mele e Rosmarino from CookiesFromItaly.com

"Un caloroso saluto ai nostri lettori!" Welcome to another recipe edition from Adriana's Italian Bakery!

This week's Italian recipes:
-Polenta with Scallops and Mushrooms
-Salsa Marinara
-Torta alle Mele e Rosmarino

Try the "Torta alle Mele e Rosmarino" because its quite a delicious combination of two wonderful ingredients; apples and rosemary. Enjoy the complimentary news article report from "Only In Italy.com".

Enjoy the issue!

Yours Truly,
Adriana Ciccarello

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Recipe: Polenta with Scallops and Mushrooms

Polenta with Scallops and Mushrooms

Ingredients:

For the Polenta
1 cup milk, boiled
3/4 cup stone-ground corn meal
A pinch salt
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
2 whole green onions, white and green parts chopped
1 clove roasted garlic, mashed or minced
Extra-virgin olive oil

For the Scallops
4 large sea scallops
Salt

For the Sauce
1/2 cup chicken soup
1/4 cup morels, dry, or any mushroom
1/4 cup porcini mushrooms, dry
1/2 cup fresh crimini mushrooms, thick sliced
1/4 cup Marsala wine
2 tablespoons butter (very cold)

Directions:

To make the polenta: Boil the milk and add the salt.

Slowly stir in the cornmeal and stir for about 8 minutes adding a little more milk if needed to correct the consistency. Then add the tomatoes, scallions and garlic and stir one more minute.

Grease a 9 x 9 inch pan and pour the polenta into it. Spray a spatula with a non-stick vegetable spray and smooth the top. Cover the polenta with plastic wrap and chill it until it is firm and cool (a few hours).

When you are ready to serve, you need to cut the polenta into nice-sized triangles large enough to hold the scallop as a base on the plate and still stick out a little beyond the scallop.

So, cut the polenta into triangles, remove them from the pan, and paint both sides with olive oil. Heat a grill pan to hot and grill each side of the polenta so grill marks show and the polenta has a grilled, charred smoky taste. Place the slices on the plate.

Salt the scallops on the top and place them, salt side down, into a hot dry non-stick pan. Salt the up side. When the scallops are seared then turn once and sear the other side. When done remove from the pan and place atop the polenta.

In the same pan the scallops were seared in, pour the chicken soup, mushrooms and Marsala wine. Cook to freshen the mushrooms and slightly reduce the liquid, then stir in the cold butter as a binding agent that will thicken the sauce as well as enrich it. Spoon the sauce and mushrooms over the scallops and polenta.

Garnish with chopped fresh anything green you have around such as parsley, chervil, chives, green onion tops or even something as strong a flavor as thyme leaves would work and not detract.

That's it!

Recipe: Salsa Marinara

Salsa Marinara
Marinara Sauce

Ingredients:

2 (14.5 ounce) cans stewed tomatoes
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/3 cup finely diced onion
1/2 cup white wine

Directions:

In a food processor place Italian tomatoes, tomato paste, chopped parsley, minced garlic, oregano, salt and pepper. Blend until smooth.

In a large skillet over medium heat saute the finely chopped onion in olive oil for 2-3 minutes. Add the blended tomato sauce and white wine.

Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Servings for 8.

That's it!

Recipe: Torta alle Mele e Rosmarino

Torta alle Mele e Rosmarino
Apple and Rosemary Cake

Ingredients:

4 ounces (100 grams) unsalted butter
12 ounces (350 grams) apples
4 free range eggs
5 ounces (150 grams) superfine sugar
5 ounces (150 grams) plain white or Italian type "00" flour
1 teaspoon (5 ml) baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon (5 ml) finely chopped fresh rosemary
Finely grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
Icing sugar, for dusting

Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 350° F (180° C).

Grease a 9 inch (23 cm) deep round cake tin.

Melt the butter and then set aside to cool. Core, peel and thinly slice the apples.

Put the eggs and sugar in a heatproof bowl, standing over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Whisk for 10-15 minutes until the mixture is thick, pale and leaves a trail when the beaters are lifted out. Remove the bowl from the heat and continue whisking until the mixture is cool.

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Gently fold half the flour and the chopped rosemary into the whisked eggs and sugar.

Slowly trickle the melted butter around the edge of the bowl and gently fold in. (Be sure not to stir the mixture too heavily or it will lose its air.)

Fold in the remaining flour and the lemon zest. Lastly, fold in the apples.

Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin. Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes until a skewer, inserted in the center, comes out clean.

Leave the cake to rest in the tin for about 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool.

Just before serving, sift icing sugar over the top of the cake. Serves 8-12.

That's it!

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Only In Italy!

"Only In Italy" is a daily news column that translates & reports on funny but true news items from legitimate Italian news resources in Italy. Each story is slapped with our wild, often ironic, and sometimes rather opinionated comments. And now, for your reading pleasure:

Court Says No Cheating on Workaholic Spouse

La Repubblica - Rome - November 4 - Workaholic men take heart and neglected women take note. An Italian court has ruled that a wife has no justification to cheat on her husband simply because he is always at the office. That was the essence of sentence number 10,977 issued on Tuesday by the Court of Cassation, Italy's highest court.

Italian newspapers dubbed it the Stakhanov sentence, after the Soviet industrial worker Alexei Stakhanov who received special recognition for exceeding production targets. Although adultery stopped being a crime in traditionally Catholic Italy 30 years ago, the sentence made clear that the courts still considered it morally wrong.

The woman, Annamaria, from the eastern Adriatic city of Ancona, had contested a lower court ruling that said she should be held responsible for the breakdown of her marriage and subsequent separation. Annamaria, whose husband's occupation was not disclosed, said her marriage broke down because her husband was always at work and because her mother-in-law was just too much to take.

Annamaria started an affair with an Italian air force official. Her husband, Giorgio, found a picture of his wife's lover in her handbag and an incriminating letter in her chest of drawers. The Rome high court confirmed the lower court's ruling that Annamaria's adultery could not be justified by the fact that her husband was always at work.

His absence from home did not constitute a violation of his conjugal duties, the court said. The high court also confirmed that Annamaria was not eligible for separation alimony because she, in the court's view, had caused the marriage to collapse.

"Mi dispiace!" All of us here at the news office would like to apologize to all the women in the world on behalf of the Cassation Court judges in Rome who have sent back the 'Women's Movement' 132 years.

Ladies, take the word from us stupid men. I don't know what desperate woman started the legend that we're the best Latin lovers.

-Most of us look like we did the 100-meter dash in a 90-meter gym.
-We drink so much wine that our alcoholic breath becomes birth control.
-Our arses hang like old couches.
-And we love to "poop plenty" about our politics.

"Only In Italy" Subscribe today and you'll discover why the last improvements to Italy were made by Julius Caesar and why it's been downhill ever since! Click Here to Subscribe!

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