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From Aunt Tina's Kitchen With Love
From Aunt Tina's Kitchen With Love
From Aunt Tina's Kitchen With Love
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From Aunt Tina's Kitchen With Love

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News Flash: Cooking is not rocket science! I enjoy cooking, so I do it often enough that I’ve picked up a few pointers along the way. Also, after more than 30 years of marriage, I’ve had the time to weed out some “clunker” recipes and concentrate on those that are healthy, easy to make and delicious. This book is the result of 33 years of collecting, compiling, and creating what I consider to be the best recipes for a wide variety of foods, encompassing not only traditional Italian cuisine, but also German, Thai, Chinese, Greek, Jewish and several more. All you’ll need to prepare these recipes is some basic kitchen equipment, the fortitude to soldier on after the occasional spectacular flop, and, of course, food testers...those people daring enough to taste your latest attempt and loving enough to forget your failures. Happy cooking!

LanguageEnglish
PublisherTina Armato
Release dateDec 11, 2011
ISBN9781466096509
From Aunt Tina's Kitchen With Love
Author

Tina Armato

Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised by Italian-American parents in a close-knit Italian and Jewish neighborhood, I grew to appreciate good food early on. And even though my Mom had no real passion for cooking, she dutifully cooked for her family every day, making mostly traditional recipes handed down from her mother. When I was old enough to assist in the kitchen, my main duty was applying breading to chicken cutlets, veal cutlets, pork chops, etc. Boring! But then I ventured into from-a-mix brownies, which were less than a smashing success. Still, I persevered, and eventually mastered a friend's recipe for a sour cream and cream cheese cheesecake that was an instant hit. It became the traditional birthday cake for our family and remains so to this day! Once married, I started serious cooking, sometimes making the traditional foods I grew up with, sometimes trying to recreate the lost traditional (Sicilian) recipes of my husband's family, and sometimes collecting recipes from books, newspapers and magazines (the internet hadn't been invented yet). The cookbooks I own are filled with pencil notations such as “keeper...make with these changes” and “awful...don't make again!” so I could keep track of the worthwhile recipes. These days I search for ideas on the internet, and collect recipes that sound interesting. Then I take what I consider to be the best parts of these recipes, swap out unhealthy ingredients, and massage them into reworked recipes which I then follow. This book is the end result. Enjoy!

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    Book preview

    From Aunt Tina's Kitchen With Love - Tina Armato

    From Aunt Tina's Kitchen With Love

    by Tina Armato

    Published by Tina Armato at Smashwords

    Copyright (c) Tina Ann Armato 2011

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.  This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Table of Contents     

    Cook it and they will come...

    Introduction

    Breakfast

    Appetizers

    Soups

    Pastas

    Meats

    Poultry

    Seafood

    Other Entrees

    Side Dishes

    Miscellaneous

    Breads

    Desserts

    Cookies

    About the Author

    Cook it and they will come...       

    Back to Table of Contents

    Build a reputation as a good cook and people will rarely refuse an invitation to your home. The kitchen has always been the heart of our home, but in the end it's not about the food, but about the people who come to our table to share a meal.

    Visit my blog at:

    http://fromaunttinaskitchen.blogspot.com/

    Introduction     

    Back to Table of Contents

    A word about the name of the book. I first decided to write down all of my favorite recipes as an engagement gift for my niece. It has since become a tradition in our family to give a copy of the recipe book to each of my loved ones as they become engaged. After gifting quite a few of them over the years, my wonderful husband (and most willing food tester), Sal, suggested I offer my collection to a wider audience, so here it is. Many of the dishes are old family recipes, handed down from grandparents through my mother and mother-in-law (neither of whom really enjoyed cooking but did it as was expected of them at the time). Some of them are recipes I saw in cookbooks, on the internet, and cooking shows, then combined various recipes and applied changes to make them healthier and more palatable to my family and myself. The rest of them are inspirations that I arrived at in a moment of desperation when I found myself facing an odd collection of ingredients with a finite shelf life.

    In the Notes & Pointers section of each recipe, you will find helpful tips, warnings about preparation pitfalls to watch for, suggestions for variations, and occasionally something about the history of the dish. I suggest reading through the entire recipe before beginning.

    This book assumes the reader owns (or has access to) some basic kitchen equipment. Items I consider necessary include: a food processor, some kind of mixer (I would be lost without my heavy duty stand mixer, but even a hand-held mixer should be sufficient for most of the recipes), a microwave, a good sharp knife and cutting board, whisk, basic saucepans, a frying pan and a few baking pans. Some things that are nice to have but not essential are a microplane, vegetable peeler, parchment paper, non-stick aluminum foil, rolling pin, container blender and/or stick blender, muffin tin, meat pounder, spring form pan, pizza peel, pizza stone or unglazed quarry tiles, waffle iron and assorted serving platters. Wherever possible, I offer ways around missing equipment, for instance, using a sturdy frying pan as a meat pounder. And don't overlook the possibility of borrowing rarely used equipment from a willing family member or neighbor. As long as you promptly return the borrowed item (along with, hopefully, a portion of the food you used it to prepare), you will find most people are willing to share.

    Some odds and ends I may not have mentioned elsewhere: remember to wash leeks well (slice or dice, then swirl them in plenty of water, lifting them out with your hands or a strainer to leave sand behind); always remove pieces of bay leaf before serving (they are indigestible); the ground beef I use is always 97% lean; the ground turkey is always 99% lean turkey breast (if substituting turkey breast for ground beef in a recipe, you may need to add 1 Tbs. olive oil to pan before sautéeing as the turkey breast has almost no fat at all); ricotta and mozzarella are always part skim; milk is always 1% low fat; sour cream is always reduced fat; cream cheese is always Neufchâtel cheese. Wherever possible I like to ensure healthy eating for my family and friends as long as taste is not affected.

    Above all, cooking should be fun and I've always felt, a group activity. The image of one lone cook slaving away in the kitchen while the rest of the group parties is foreign to me. While I usually prepare as much as possible beforehand, when I have a dinner party I always put my guests to work helping out with the serving and last minute chores. They seem to enjoy getting involved, then we all sit down to enjoy the fruits of our combined labors. Mangia!

    Breakfast         

    Back to Table of Contents

    Pancakes or Waffles

    Apple Pancakes

    Buttermilk Waffles or Pancakes

    Whole Wheat Waffles

    Pumpkin Waffles or Pancakes

    Corn Meal Pancakes

    Grandpa Joe's French Toast

    Bran Muffins

    Pumpkin Muffins

    Blueberry Muffins

    Oatmeal Raisin Muffins

    Banana Walnut Chocolate Chip Muffins

    Apple Oat Walnut Muffins

    Apple Muffins

    Blueberry Lemon Bran Muffins

    Cinnamon Petal Biscuits

    Sal's Tea Biscuits

    Pancakes or Waffles

    Serves: 6 to 8

    Oven Temperature: 250° (to keep pancakes or waffles warm)

    Ingredients:

    3-3/4 cups all purpose flour

    1-3/4 tsp. salt

    7-1/2 Tbs. sugar

    4-1/2 tsp. baking powder

    3 cups milk

    7-1/2 Tbs. butter, melted

    3 eggs

    Instructions:

    Blend all the dry ingredients together with flat beater in a mixer bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, butter and eggs. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and beat just until everything is wet. It's OK for there to be some lumps in the batter. Heat a large non-stick frying pan or griddle, add a dab of butter and pour in about 1/4 to 1/2 cup batter (depending on how good you are at flipping pancakes!). Cook over medium heat until bubbles form (but not burst) on the top of the pancake. Flip it over and cook on the other side until lightly browned. Repeat with remaining batter.

    For waffles, reduce the flour to 3-1/3 cups and the butter to 6 tablespoons (use the other 1-1/2 tablespoons to grease the waffle iron well). Bake according to the directions on the waffle iron.

    Notes & Pointers:

    Set the pancakes or waffles on a cookie sheet in a 250° oven to keep them warm while you make the rest.

    Back to Breakfast

    Back to Table of Contents

    Apple Pancakes

    Serves: 4 to 6

    Oven Temperature: 250° (to keep pancakes warm)

    Ingredients:

    2-1/2 cups all purpose flour

    2-1/2 Tbs. packed brown sugar

    5 tsp. baking powder

    1-1/4 tsp. salt

    1-1/4 tsp. cinnamon

    2 eggs

    2 cups milk

    2-1/2 Tbs. melted butter

    3 apples, grated, about 2 cups

    Instructions:

    In a mixer bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon with the flat beater. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and melted butter. On low speed, combine the wet ingredients with the dry just until blended. Stir in the apples. Add a dab of butter to a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat and cook the batter a half cup or so at a time, spreading the batter out to an even thickness. When bubbles form on top of the pancake, but don't break, carefully flip it over and cook the other side. Keep them warm in a 250° oven until they're all cooked.

    Notes & Pointers:

    These pancakes can also be made with pears.

    Back to Breakfast

    Back to Table of Contents

    Buttermilk Waffles or Pancakes

    Serves: 6 to 8

    Oven Temperature: 250° (to keep them warm)

    Ingredients:

    3-1/2 cups all purpose flour

    2 tsp. baking powder

    2 tsp. baking soda

    1 tsp. salt

    1/4 cup granulated sugar

    4 cups buttermilk

    2/3 cup vegetable oil

    4 eggs

    Instructions:

    Blend all the dry ingredients together with flat beater in a mixer bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, oil and eggs. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and beat just until everything is wet. It's OK for there to be some lumps in the batter. To cook waffles, barely cover well greased grids with batter. Cook according to waffle iron directions, usually until steam no longer escapes. For pancakes, heat a large non-stick frying pan or griddle, add a dab of butter and pour in about 1/4 to 1/2 cup batter (depending on how good you are at flipping pancakes!). Cook over low to medium heat until bubbles form (but not burst) on the top of the pancake. Flip it over and cook on the other side until lightly browned. Repeat with remaining batter.

    Notes & Pointers:

    This batter is very thick, so cook over lower heat than regular pancakes and be sure that they're cooked inside...you may want to cut into one or two of them to be sure. If the outside browns before the inside is cooked, lower the heat.

    Back to Breakfast

    Back to Table of Contents

    Whole Wheat Waffles

    Serves: 6 to 8

    Oven Temperature: 250° (to keep them warm)

    Ingredients:

    2 cups whole wheat flour

    2 cups all purpose flour

    2 tsp. salt

    2 Tbs. baking powder

    4 Tbs. granulated sugar

    4 cups milk

    2 sticks butter, melted

    4 eggs

    Instructions:

    Blend all the dry ingredients together with flat beater in a mixer bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, butter and eggs. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and beat just until everything is wet. It's OK for there to be some lumps in the batter. Heat a waffle iron, grease well and add enough batter to barely cover the grids. Bake until lightly browned. Keep waffles warm in low oven. Repeat with remaining batter.

    Notes & Pointers:

    This same batter can also be used for whole wheat pancakes, but reduce butter to one stick.

    Back to Breakfast

    Back to Table of Contents

    Pumpkin Waffles or Pancakes

    Serves: 4 to 6

    Oven Temperature: 250° (to keep them warm)

    Ingredients:

    1 cup canned pumpkin

    6 eggs

    2 cups milk

    4 Tbs. melted butter

    2 cups all purpose flour

    1 tsp. salt

    4 tsp. baking powder

    4 Tbs. sugar

    1/4 tsp. nutmeg

    Instructions:

    In blender combine pumpkin, eggs, milk and butter and set aside. In mixer bowl combine dry ingredients with flat beater until well mixed. Add wet ingredients to dry and beat just until blended. For waffles, bake just enough batter to barely cover well-greased grids in waffle iron according to manufacturer directions, usually until no steam escapes, about 5 minutes each. For pancakes, heat a large non-stick frying pan or griddle, add a dab of butter and pour in about 1/4 to 1/2 cup batter. Cook over medium heat until bubbles form (but not burst) on the top of the pancake. Flip it over and cook on the other side until lightly browned. Keep warm in low oven until all are cooked.

    Notes & Pointers:

    Yams or puréed butternut squash can be substituted for the pumpkin in this recipe.

    Back to Breakfast

    Back to Table of Contents

    Corn Meal Pancakes

    Serves: 4 to 6

    Oven Temperature: 250° (to keep them warm)

    Ingredients:

    2 cups corn meal

    2 tsp. salt

    3 Tbs. sugar

    2 cups boiling water

    2 eggs

    1 cup milk

    4 Tbs. melted butter

    4 tsp. baking powder

    1 cup all purpose flour

    Instructions:

    In the mixer bowl, stir together the corn meal, salt, sugar and boiling water with the flat beater on low speed. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes. Meanwhile beat together the eggs, milk and melted butter in a separate bowl. Stir egg mixture into the corn meal in the mixer bowl, beating at low speed until just combined. In a small bowl, stir together the baking powder and flour. Add to mixer bowl, beating until barely combined. Heat a large non-stick frying pan or griddle, add a dab of butter and pour in about 1/4 to 1/2 cup batter. Cook over medium heat until bubbles form (but not burst) on the top of the pancake. Flip it over and cook on the other side until lightly browned. Keep warm in low oven until all pancakes are cooked. Repeat with remaining batter.

    Notes & Pointers:

    This batter makes thin, delicate corn cakes.

    Back to Breakfast

    Back to Table of Contents

    Grandpa Joe's French Toast

    Serves: 4 to 6

    Oven Temperature: 250° (to keep them warm)

    Ingredients:

    1/4 cup all purpose flour

    5/8 cup milk

    1 egg

    1/2 tsp. cinnamon

    6 slices white bread

    Crisco (for frying)

    Instructions:

    Blend together the flour, milk, egg, cinnamon in a blender. Pour batter into a large dish or small baking pan. Dip bread quickly into the batter, turning it over to coat the second side. Fry in 1/2 inch hot Crisco over medium-high heat until brown. Serve with maple syrup or fruit compote (any kind of fruit you like cooked with a bit of water and sugar to taste until the fruit is tender and the syrup has thickened).

    Notes & Pointers:

    This French Toast recipe is unusual because it uses flour in the batter. That makes it unusually crispy and delicious. For an incredible Banana Stuffed French Toast, use New England style frankfurter rolls (the kind that's split down the top). Carefully open them up, then put slices of banana in the center, close the roll and press them to seal them. Dip them in the batter and fry in Crisco as usual. After frying coat them with cinnamon sugar. Keep warm in low oven while you make the rest. Serve with maple syrup as usual.

    Back to Breakfast

    Back to Table of Contents

    Bran Muffins

    Serves: makes 24 regular size or 12 Texas size muffins

    Oven Temperature: 325°

    Ingredients:

    2 cups whole wheat flour

    1-1/2 cups all bran (or 6 oz. Raisin bran)

    1 cup oatmeal, ground in the blender

    2 Tbs. sugar

    1/4 tsp. salt

    1-1/2 tsp. baking soda

    2-1/2 cups milk

    2 eggs

    1/2 cup molasses

    3 Tbs. oil

    1/2 cup walnuts

    1/2 cup raisins

    Instructions:

    Combine whole wheat flour, bran, oatmeal, sugar, salt and baking soda in mixer bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, molasses and oil. Add to dry ingredients, beating with flat beater until just combined. Stir in walnuts and raisins.

    Let batter stand while greasing 24 regular or 12 Texas size muffin tins. Use a large ice cream scoop to fill cups. Bake at 325° for 25 minutes. Watch for burning.

    Notes & Pointers:

    This is also good with 1/2 to 3/4 cup puréed pumpkin or two peeled, cored and diced apples added with the liquid ingredients. Just reduce milk to 2 cups to allow for the additional moisture.

    Back to Breakfast

    Back to Table of Contents

    Pumpkin Muffins

    Serves: makes 12 regular size or 6 Texas size muffins

    Oven Temperature: 400°

    Ingredients:

    1-1/2 cups all purpose flour

    1/2 cup sugar

    2 tsp. baking powder

    3/4 tsp. salt

    1/2 tsp. cinnamon

    1/2 tsp. nutmeg

    1/2 stick butter

    1 egg

    1/2 cup pumpkin

    3/4 cup milk

    1/2 cup light raisins

    1/4 cup sugar mixed with 1 tsp. cinnamon

    Instructions:

    Grease 12 small or 6 Texas size muffin tins. In mixer bowl stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg with flat beater. Cut butter into small pieces and add to mixer, beating until mixture is crumbly. In blender, combine the egg, pumpkin and milk, then stir into dry ingredients with flat beater just until moistened. Batter should be moist; if it seems too dry, add an additional 1/4 cup milk. Stir in the raisins. Using a large ice cream scoop place batter into muffin tins. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon mixture over tops. Bake at 400° for 18 to 20 minutes.

    Notes & Pointers:

    Be sure to mix the wet ingredients with the dry just until blended. Do not overbeat or muffins

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