Cranberry Orange Biscotti for Thanksgiving

We always have a tray of biscotti as part of our Thanksgiving desserts. We add a little of our Italian heritage to each course of our dinner. I use an orange lemon biscotti recipe of my grandmothers and add chopped dried cranberries to keep the biscotti in the Thanksgiving tradition.

I picked up a bag of dried cranberries at a market here on Cape Cod where they are grown. They were beautifully moist and added lovely color to the biscotti. Most of the time the dried cranberries are a little hard. Use a good quality brand with supple cranberries.

There are a lot of eggs in this recipe and you will find that the biscotti are not hard even after double baking.

Cranberry Orange Biscotti

Recipe Summary
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes @350º F
Yield: 12 Dozen

Dry Ingredients
10 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 cup walnuts, chopped
2 cups dried cranberries, chopped

Wet Ingredients
12 eggs, beaten
1 lb. melted butter
1 zest and juice of a large lemon
1 zest and juice of a large orange

Frosting
1 cup confectionary sugar
3 1/2 tablespoons milk
2 drops of lemon juice
2 drops of extract (of your choice)
1 tablespoon orange juice
Zest of the orange

DOUGH
Mix the flour with the baking powder. Beat the sugar and eggs and butter together and mix well. Slowly mix in the flour mixture. Fold in the orange and lemon zest and the chopped walnuts. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for one hour.

ASSEMBLY
Form loaves about 1 1/2” x 12”. Place them on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet.

BAKE
Bake in the oven until they turn brown at the bottom approximately 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool on a rack. Slice on the diagonal and return them to the oven, toasting them for 3 minutes on one side. This will harden them but not toast them.

Do not cut them if you are freezing them, but freeze the loaves whole.

FROSTING
Frost when they are cool. Use Orange and lemon zest in the frosting and replace the milk with orange juice.

NOTE: Add 1 1/2 cups dried cranberries and drizzle with melted chocolate for a different variation.

NOTE: When making them for myself, I do not frost them but slice them thinly so that you can see the cranberries on the inside. They are very flavorful without frosting.

FROSTING
Add lemon juice and extract to the confectionary sugar. Slowly add in the milk until all confectionary sugar is mixed in and frosting is smooth. It should not be too thin or it will all drip off the cookies and dry transparent. The frosting should be thick enough so that it sits on the top of the cookie.

APPLYING THE FROSTING
If you are freezing them, do not cut on the diagonal, but freeze the loaves whole.

Put the loaves on wax paper and frost and allow them to dry. Cut them on the diagonal. You can cut them first and then drizzle the frosting over the top letting the frosting drip a little down the side. Of drizzle a little melted chocolate over the top.

NOTE: This recipe will frost approximately 3 dozen cookies.

Squash Ricotta Gnocchi: A First Dish for Thanksgiving

This time of year when we are thinking about holiday menus, looking for something to add a new dimension to my Thanksgiving starts early. I almost always end up making the same thing because tradition is important to me. However the buildup to Thanksgiving has extended the holiday for the entire month of November. I like to make all those homey meals that highlight the autumn.

Whatever your level of cooking expertise, gnocchi are so easy to make that just about anyone including kids can make them. I prefer Ricotta gnocchi because they are lighter then potato gnocchi. Adding squash or pumpkin is perfect for an autumn version. You can just serve them with butter and you have a handmade pasta dish that will satisfy your family or guests. On the other hand, with just a few ingredients such as pine nuts and sage, you can make a condiment that brings out the flavor of the squash and adds that WOW dimension to this dish.

When planning a meal for a large group such as Thanksgiving, Ricotta gnocchi are a good choice because they can be frozen. With all the preparation that is required for a Thanksgiving dinner, this gives you a little head start.

I also serve them as a side dish with turkey, venison, chicken and pork instead of potatoes.

Gnocchi di zucca

Recipe Summary
Prep Time: 40 minutes
Cook Time: 2 minutes
Yield: 6 Servings

Pasta Dough
Dry Ingredients
4 cups flour, sifted
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Pinch of salt

Wet Ingredients
2 lbs. ricotta
2 eggs
1/2 cup squash, mashed (frozen, canned or fresh squash or pumpkin)

Place the ricotta on a board or in a large bowl and add the squash. Add grated cheese and taste to determine if more salt is needed. Over-salt it as the salt is released into the water when cooking. However, you can’t remove salt if you have too much; add a little at a time and taste. Put the eggs in the middle of the ricotta, then begin to mix adding only enough flour as needed to form the dough into a ball.

Cut off a piece of dough and make tube shaped rolls about 1/2’ thick and as long as you want. Cut them about 1/2” long. At this point, press each gnocchi over the back of a fork pressing your thumb in the middle as you roll it down the folk. This will form the grooves down the gnocchi. This step is optional. You can cut 1/2” pieces and eliminate rolling them over a folk.

Note: Ricotta and squash might vary in liquid content. You add a additional flour if necessary. Also keep some flour for dusting you surface when rolling out the gnocchi.

Salsa di pignoli e salvia
Sage And Pine Nut Sauce

Recipe Sumary
Prep Time: 3 minutes
Cook Time: 6-7 minutes
Yield: 4 Servings

Ingredients
12 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
6 tablespoons of butter
1/2 cup pine nuts
Several leaves of fresh sage
Salt to taste

In a deep pan, boil salted water and cook the Gnocchi, it will take a few minutes to cook, so keep testing them until done.

While the water is heating up, prepare the sauce.

In a saucepan, melt the butter and the oil. Cut the sage leaves lengthwise and place them in the saucepan along with the pine nuts. Sauté them watching the pine nuts very carefully as they will brown very quickly. Remove them from the stove as soon as they start to turn golden brown and allow them to finish browning in the hot butter. If the sauce needs more liquid, add a little boiling water from the pasta.

Drain the gnocchi and toss them in the sauce and then enjoy.

Spaghetti Alle Vongole, Red or White

During the summers on Cape Cod we went clamming twice a week. This was a ritual and at that time the beach in front of our house was a minefield of clams. There were three of us; my brother Mike, my cousin Mary Lou and myself. It took us no time to collect a large bucket of beautiful little necks. We enjoyed clamming so much that we just hated it when we had filled our quota. We dug with our hands and left big holes in the sand. As the tide came in we watched the waves rolling up the beach washing away our path of holes.

We had huge trays of clams on the half shell and the rest we use to make Spaghetti alle Vongole. To us it was not a specialty dish, just one of the pasta dishes our family always prepared and loved.

As I spend some time revisiting Cape Cod, the first thing I did was to go to the fishmonger where I bought fresh little necks. I couldn’t wait to make this dish for my husband who isn’t fond of pasta with fish. He would never even try it so I always made it just for myself. This time however I got him to join me and he was immediately convinced that he had missed something special all these years.

By the way, this has to be one of the easiest pasta dishes you can make, that is, if you can get fresh clams. Do not use canned clams, as they really don’t come close to the flavor you want to achieve.

Spaghetti Alle Vongole
Spaghetti with Clams

Recipe Summary
Prep Time: 10
Cook Time: 20
Yield: 4 Servings

Ingredients
3 lbs fresh clams (little necks preferably)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, whole
1 fresh pepperoncino (chili pepper or sprinkle a few pepper flakes, optional)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup clam liquid (more if needed)
2 tablespoons Italian parsley, chopped
1 lemon
1 lb. spaghetti

Let the clams sit in cold water for at least one half hour to allow the sand to come out. Scrub the shells with a brush. Clams that are opened are not fresh and must be discarded. Cook the clams in about 1 cup of water allowing the clams to steam open. Remove them from the water and discard any clams that do not open. Reduce the water by boiling it for about 2-3 minutes to condense the flavor of the clam liquid. Strain the liquid to make sure there is no remaining sand and put it aside.
Remove the clams from the shells leaving about 5 per person in the shells for garnish. Chop the remaining clams and set them aside. This step is optional, as in Italy they never remove them from the shell.

Sauté the garlic and pepperoncino over medium heat. Add the wine and clam liquid into the pan. If you need more liquid, add more clam juice. Cook the sauce for several minutes and add the clams back into the sauce at the end.

Boil a large pot of salted water and cook the spaghetti until al dente. Put the cooked spaghetti into the sauce and toss the spaghetti with the sauce until it has absorbed some of the flavorful liquid. If you choose to not add the pepper flakes, serve a dish of red pepper flakes on the side. Sprinkle the chopped parsley and squeeze fresh lemon over the top.

Note: For a red sauce, add about 1 1/2 lbs. of tomatoes, skinned, seeded and cubed or cheery tomatoes cut in half or quarters. Add the tomatoes with the wine and clam liquid. Fresh tomatoes need only a few minutes to cook if you want them to remain whole. Do not use tomato sauce as this is a very different sauce and the flavor of the clams will be lost in the heavy flavor of the tomato sauce.