Welcome back.  Hope you all had a wonderful Easter celebration with your family and friends.

Easter in our family is, like in my last post on Easter in Sicily, one  of celebration starting with church and then it is all about the food.  For us, since our nucleus family is scattered and Mom and Dad are no longer with us, it is a mix of old traditions to honor our family, and new ones.  Jenn, Roberto and I have a strong sense of maintaining long held traditions but we are also all about trying new things for our little family, too. 

As promised this post will provide the recipes from our research and our dinner.

So while part of our menu still looks like that of old, we reinvented some old recipes with a new twist that fits into our whole new pattern of healthy eating and have added some entirely different foods based on the Sicilian heritage research.

The DiPiazza-Campus Easter Menu
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Avocado-Tomato-Anchovy Crostoni*
“Crostoni con Avocado, Alici e Pomodiro”
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Spring Pea Risotto
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Lemon Lamb*
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Easter Bread
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Tiramisu Ice Cream Cake Roll
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Spiced Italian Coffee*

*Avocado, Tomato and Anchovy Crostoni
From The Magazine of La Cucina Italiana
Ingredients:
1 baguette
2 avocados
juice of I lemon  (We used only Meyer lemons from their lemon tree )
2 medium beefsteak tomatoes
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 marinated anchovies, split into 2 filets each
2 tablespoons snipped chives

1.  Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut the bread diagonally into 12 thick slices. Place the slices of bread in a single layer on an 11”x17” baking sheet and bake for 5 minutes, or until browned and crisp.

2.  Peel the avocados, cut them in half and scoop out the stone.  Slice each avocado in half into 6 wedges; arrange on a latter and sprinkle with the lemon juice to bring out the flavor.  This also helps prevent the avocado from turning black. Cut each tomato into 6 wedges and place ona plate, and drizzle with olive oil and season with salt.

3.  Assemble the crostoni by placing a tomato wedge, an avocado wedge and a piece of the anchovy on top of each slice of bread. Garnish with the chives.  Serve immediately while the bread is crisp.
Serves 6.

Spring Pea Risotto – a Leftover Queen Original
Nothing ushers in this season like fresh spring peas. In this dish we decided to pair peas with a risotto to make a nice bed for the lamb.
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 ½ cups rice – mix of Arborio and Brown
1 pint chicken stock
2 tablespoons butter
¼ cup white wine
salt and pepper
Parmesean cheese
lemon slices of ½ lemon
Saute rice kernels in olive oil over medium heat until rice is browned – about 5-7 minutes.  Add peas and mix together and begin adding chicken stock ¼ cup at a time and let the rice soak up the liquid each time before adding more.  When stock is gone add butter and start with the wine, then start adding water , ¼ cup at a time until rice is cooked through.  Season with salt and pepper and serve with a nice grating of Parmesan cheese and lemon slices.
*Lemon Lamb
Often in Italy goat is on the menu at Easter.  But also popular and more readily available, in the states at least, is lamb.  While this dish was shown in The Magazine of la Cucina Italiana  with asparagus made into pancakes, we opted to go with the risotto.
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil.
12 ounces lamb
1 onion, minced
juice and zest of 1 lemon
¼ cup dry white wine
salt and pepper freshly ground

 In a skillet over high heat, warm the olive oil.  Dd the lamb and onion and saute for 5 minutes. Deglaze with lemon juice and wine; season with salt and pepper.  Reduce heat, cover and cook for 30 minutes.  To serve place the pea risotto on a platter and arrange the lamb on top. Garnish with the lemon jest and spoon any cooking juices on top.  Serves 4.

Bread Recipe

Modified from this recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/A-Number-One-Egg-Bread/Detail.aspx
Ingredients:
2 TBS buttermilk
2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
2/3 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45
degrees C)
6 egg yolks
3 eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 egg
1 pinch salt
extra flour for dusting, and as needed during kneading
chocolate chips
confectioner’s sugar
milk
Directions:
Pre-Soak: Place whole wheat and all purpose flour in a large bowl. Mix with yogurt and 2/3 cup of water. Mix and let soak over night.
1.The next day, in a medium bowl, dissolve yeast in 1/8 cup of water. Stir in the yolks, 3 eggs, oil, sugar, and salt. Add about 3 -1/2 cups of flour to make a sticky dough.
2.Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead with remaining flour until smooth and elastic, about 7 minutes. Place in a well oiled bowl, and turn to oil the entire surface of the dough. Cover with a damp cloth. Place in a warm place until double in size, about 1-1/2 hours.
3.Punch down the dough, and divide into 3 pieces. Roll each piece into a rope about 12 inches long. Braid the three strands together, and seal the ends. Place the bread on a greased cookie sheet. Beat the remaining 1 egg with a pinch of salt; brush onto bread. Let the bread rise until doubled, about 45 minutes.
To make Bunny shaped breads, tear off a golf ball sized piece of dough, and roll between hands to make a rope. Then tie in a knot. Even out the 2 long ends, to create ears, and the knots are the face. Place the chocolate chip eyes in place before the rise.
4.Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
5.Bake for 40 minutes, or until golden. Cool on a wire rack. To decorate bunnies, make a simple icing out of confectioners sugar and milk. Paint on ears and nose. You can use red food coloring to make a pink nose.
 ***This recipe can be formed into other shapes as you wish- a braid, rolls, etc.  We like forming them into bunnies.  For small rolls or bunnies, omit the egg wash, decrease the oven temperature to 350 degrees and the baking time to 15 minutes or until the bottoms look brown.

Tiramisu Ice Cream Cake Roll**  (For recipe click here)

*Spiced Italian Coffee

2 ounces chopped milk chocolate – from your Easter egg - in a bowl.  Pour 4 servings hot espresso over, stirring until melted.  Add 1 tablespoon rum, stir well.  Pour in cups and garnish with whipped cream and coca powder.  Serves 4.
Hope you enjoyed our little Easter dinner.  From our home to yours- enjoy!!

                                                          Photo by Gaz-zee-boh

Buona Pasqua!!

Happy Easter, and with this, the season of Spring ( la primavera) arrives in Sicily. Spring is without question my favorite time of the year. Rebirth after the long winter season; everything comes alive. This is true anywhere but nowhere like in Sicilia. Picture the fragrance of lilies mixed with the heady blossoms of lemons and blood oranges, the sparkling, blue waters dotted with tuna fishermen in Tripani, women with their baskets of artichokes in Marsala along with the mounds of sea salt and windmills, the marzipan, the Easter breads, the lamb (l’agnello) dishes that are so succulent, and the signature Cassata cakes. For sure, Sicilians take their foods and holiday feasting seriously. And I will get more into that later. I will be spending Easter this year with Jenn and Roberto’s in St. Augustine and we are all about food and traditional meals. So when we plan our Easter feast , I will share those dishes with you next time.

Being half Sicilian myself, my father was born in Alia, a small hill town to the north of Palermo, I have an interest in all things Sicilian. The architecture, resplendent and as varied as its history, the foods, the people and culture and for now, especially in the Spring, especially at Easter, the traditions.

Photo by beatniksalad

While my Italian-America family traditions are really important to me, I wanted to see what the people in Sicily did to celebrate Easter. Though I could spend hours detailing the whats and wheres of it all, I would like to leave a taste or a snapshot of Easter in Sicily. It is much more than coloring eggs (le uova) and bunny rabbits ( il coniglietto) and pretty dresses for the little girls. Easter is considered as the most important religious time of the year for the Catholics. While it harkens back to pagan celebrations marking the arrival of Spring, the people of Sicily take the religious significance of Easter very seriously. Many religious festivities abound during Holy Week ( la settimana santo) from the crucifiction to the resurection of Christ (la crocifissione – la resurrezione). You would find religious processions threading their way through the towns and villages to the local churches. Holy Thursday and Good Friday will find the townspeople lining the streets eagerly awaiting processions of those carrying statues representing one of the Stations of the Cross and of Mary, Mother of Jesus. You would find costumed recreations of the Jesus’s arrival in Jerusalem, the Last Supper and the Stations of the Cross culminating with the pealing of church bells and services ushering in a day of feasting celebrating with friends and family on Easter Sunday.

I wish you a Happy Easter and Spring.                     La Pace!