by Jen Nails
Polenta
* 5 cups water
* dash salt
* 1 cup cornmeal
1. Add salt to water in a large pot and bring to a boil.
2. Pour in cornmeal.
3. Keep stirring and stirring and take off heat once it’s creamy paste and not too hard.
4. Serve with pasta sauce and meat or with vegetables.
Blasting NASA Cupcakes
* 1 package chocolate cake mix
* 1 container chocolate frosting
1. Bake cupcakes according to recipe on box.
2. Eat or cut hole out of bottom of each one.
3. Fill hole with frosting.
4. Try and smush cakey cupcake around gooey frosting.
5. Then freeze. Enjoy them while orbiting galaxy!
Yam-Pecan Pie
Crust:
* ice-cold water
* 1 cup flour
* ½ teaspoon baking soda
* ¼ teaspoon salt
* ⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon shortening
1. Put cup of water in freezer.
2. Then combine flour, baking soda, and salt.
3. Now add shortening (be ready to use lots of paper towels when you’re washing up, because water won’t cut it).
4. When mixture’s kind of still powdery but a little sticky, get cup of water out of freezer and put in 3 tablespoons from it. Ice-ice-cold is best.
5. Now stir. It should start to resemble dough.
6. Knead for a while into ball.
7. Put it on top of sheet of waxed paper. Then put another piece of waxed paper on top of that.
8. Roll it out as flat as you can get it without it ripping.
9. Peel off from waxed paper and press into pie tin.
10. With fork, poke light holes around middle and sides.
11. Pull off excess dough around rim of tin and save it in fridge or freezer. Put crust in fridge as well to wait for filling to be done.
Pie Filling:
* 1 cup mashed-up yams (about 2 medium-sized ones or 1 giant, enormous one)
* ⅓ cup brown sugar
* ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
* ¾ teaspoon ginger
* ¾ cup boiling hot milk
* dash salt
* 2 beaten eggs
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Add yams to brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, hot milk, salt, and eggs.
3. Stir this up good, let it cool, and then pour into crust.
4. Bake for 20 minutes.
5. While that’s in oven, get started on crumble topping.
6. After pie cooks for 20 minutes, take it out and sprinkle crumble topping on top and then cook for another 25 minutes.
7. Put giant blob of whipped cream on top and be prepared to pass out from joy.
Crumble Topping:
* half stick soft butter or margarine
* ½ cup brown sugar
* ¾ cup chopped pecans
* whipped cream
Put butter, brown sugar, and pecans together and stir them around until they’re combined.
Pie-Crust Cinnamon Rolls:
1. Take leftover pie-crust dough, or you could use something like leftover lemon bar crust dough, and pull off little balls of it.
2. Roll them out into these little snakelike strips.
3. Sprinkle them with cinnamon and sugar.
4. Roll them up like snails and put them on cookie sheet or pie tin.
5. Pop them in oven at 400 degrees for about 6–8 minutes, or until bottoms are light brown. (Your kitchen will smell like the food court at the mall.)
Pizza Frittas
* 4–5 tablespoons cooking oil
* pizza dough
* powdered sugar
1. Fill pan with cooking oil and turn on stove to medium heat. (If you have a deep fryer, use that. We don’t. A regular old frying pan is good, too.)
2. Grab off hunks of pizza dough and make them into doughnut shapes.
3. Put them on the sizzling oil.
4. Cook on both sides until light brown. (Watch for flying grease.)
5. Put on plate and dab off extra grease with paper towel.
6. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. You just made Italian doughnuts!
Cream Puffs
* 1 cup water
* stick butter or margarine
* ⅛ teaspoon salt
* 1 cup flour
* 4 eggs
* whipped cream
1. Boil water, butter, and salt.
2. Then add flour and stir real good. It’ll turn into this sticky ball after a little while.
3. Take it off the burner and let it cool.
4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees right about now.
5. Add eggs to mixture, stirring each one in.
6. Scoop 12 blops onto greased cookie sheet and bake for 30–35 minutes.
7. When they are lightly browned but not crispy—they should stay soft—take them out and let them cool.
8. Slice them in half parallel to the table and load them up with whipped cream filling, like sandwiches. Some people use ice cream, or you could actually put anything you want in there, like chicken salad if you’re going that route, or Nutella. Anyway, we always do whipped cream, and we always end up squirting some into our mouths straight from the can.
Smoothies
* 1 cup fresh or frozen fruit (I used strawberries)
* splashes of milk or apple juice
* 6-ounce thing of yogurt (I always use vanilla, but you can use plain or Greek or with fruit or whatever kind you like best)
* crushed ice
1. Put everything in blender.
2. Turn on Puree for as long as it takes for it to look like a milk shake.
3. Turn off blender and pour in more milk or juice if you need to and then blend again.
4. Serve in fancy smoothie cups.
Jeannie Beannie’s Lemon Bars
* ½ stick butter
* 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
* ½ cup flour
* 1 egg
* ½ cup sugar
* 2 tablespoons lemon juice
* 1 tablespoon flour
* ⅛ teaspoon baking powder
* extra powdered sugar (for sprinkling)
Lemon bar crust:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. In small mixing bowl, cream butter and powdered sugar and then gradually beat in flour.
3. Press into bottom of ungreased 9 x 9 x 2 pan.
4. Bake for about 8 minutes, or until edges are lightly browned.
Filling:
1. Beat egg, sugar, lemon juice, flour, and baking powder.
2. Mix until frothy and then pour over warm crust.
3. Bake at 375 degrees for 12 minutes, or until lightly browned.
4. Sprinkle top with powdered sugar.
Anytime Fancy Layer Cake
Chocolate Layer:
* ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
* 2 cups flour
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1½ teaspoons baking powder
* ¼ teaspoon salt
* ¾ cup butter or margarine (softened)
* 2 cups sugar
* 3 eggs
* 1⅓ cups milk
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Put all dry ingredients together and mix.
3. Put wet ingredients in separate bowl, except for milk.
4. Add wet and dry ingredients together gradually. Just a little bit of wet to dry, then blend for a while. Then a little bit, then blend. More. Blend.
5. When it’s all together except milk, add milk gradually.
6. Bake for 35–40 minutes in one big 9 x 11-inch pan or in two smaller 8-inch-square or round pans (for a double layer).
Vanilla Layer:
* 2½ cups flour
* 2½ teaspoons baking powder
* ½ teaspoon salt
* ¾ cup soft butter or margarine
* 1¾ cups sugar
* 3 eggs
* 2 teaspoons vanilla
* 1¼ cups milk
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. In a big bowl, beat butter on high until it’s like thick pudding.
4. Gradually add sugar to butter until it’s all mixed together.
5. Add eggs and beat more after each one.
6. Beat in vanilla.
7. Add in a little of the flour mixture, then beat.
8. Add in a little of the milk, then beat.
9. Keep alternating like that until every ingredient is in.
10. Bake at 375 degrees in a 9 x 11-inch pan for 20–25 minutes, or in two 8-inch square or round pans for 30–35 minutes.
Carrot Layer:
* 2 cups carrot strings (about two whole carrots’ worth—peel your carrots first, then shred them using a grater or the peeler)
* 2 eggs
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 1 cup cooking oil
* 2 tablespoons vanilla
* 2½ cups flour
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* ½ teaspoon cinnamon
* ¼ teaspoon salt
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat carrot peelings with eggs, sugar, brown sugar, cooking oil, and vanilla. Set aside.
3. In another bowl, dump in flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt and stir.
4. Mix wet with dry ingredients.
5. Pour into a 9 x 11-inch pan or two 8-inch square or round pans and bake 30 minutes.
Grandma Sandolini’s S’s and O’s
* 1 cup pretty warm water
* 2½ teaspoons active dry yeast
* 3 cups flour
* ½ teaspoon salt
* 5 tablespoons cold butter or margarine
* ⅔ cup sugar for rolling cookies
* 1 container white frosting
* red food coloring
1. In small bowl, pour water over yeast and stir until it dissolves yeast. Cover and set aside.
2. Put together flour and salt, then add butter and blend until everything is mixed but still powdery.
3. Add yeast mixture and stir everything together.
4. Put dough into greased bowl, then turn it over so other side gets greased, too.
5. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and wait an hour. When you look at it again, it should have doubled in size!
6. After dough rises, press it down again and put it in fridge for about an hour.
7. Put long sheets waxed paper out on table. Sprinkle some sugar down on waxed paper so dough doesn’t stick.
8. Get dough out of fridge and press it down on paper.
9. Cut square of dough into about 7 strips. Cut each strip into 6 pieces (so 42 pieces total).
10. Roll each piece on sugary waxed paper under palms of your hands.
11. Preheat oven to 325 degrees right about now.
12. Make S shapes with some of them and O shapes with other ones.
13. Put them on ungreased cookie sheet. Let them puff up a little bit before you bake them.
14. Bake about 15 minutes. Turn them over, bake another 10 minutes.
15. Let cool.
16. Then use frosting to glaze half the cookies with white frosting and half with pink frosting. For pink frosting—put half the white frosting in separate bowl, add a few drops of red food coloring, and stir. My grandma frosted all the S’s with pink and all the O’s with white, but you can mix them up.
Sesame Nut Candy
* 1 cup toasted sesame seeds (you can buy them at the store already toasted)
* 1 cup roasted unsalted peanuts (same thing)
* ½ cup sugar
* ¼ cup rice syrup
* ¼ teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon water
* 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
* ½ cup freeze-dried blueberries
1. Put sesame seeds and peanuts in bowl together.
2. Then put sugar, syrup, salt, and water in pot over low heat.
3. Stir a little while it’s getting hot so it doesn’t stick to sides.
4. Start stirring when it starts to boil and then don’t let it boil too long. Keep stirring, and when it starts to form sugary strands, take it off heat and add sesame seeds and peanuts.
5. Put big clump of stuff on cutting board that you put vegetable oil onto beforehand.
6. Smash down clump until it’s kind of flat.
7. Pour on blueberries and roll over whole thing with rolling pin. It’s going to start getting hard, so you kind of have to do it fast or ask someone to help smush it down really good.
8. Cut it into squares—it’ll be hard, so you might need help using a big knife (I did).
one hundred spaghetti strings
* ⅓ cup onion
* 3–4 cloves garlic
* few capfuls olive oil
* 3 egg whites
* 1 pound ground beef
* 7–8 pieces of bread left out overnight
* pepper
* 1–2 tablespoons salt for meatballs, sauce, dough, and boiling water
* garlic powder
* splash milk
* 6 sweet and/or spicy sausages
* 4 cans (8-ounce) tomato sauce
* 4 cans (6-ounce) tomato paste
* parsley, oregano, and basil
* 7 cups flour
* 4 eggs
* a little extra water, in case dough is stubborn
* 10 quarts water for the pasta
* Parmesan cheese
Meatballs and Sauce:
1. Dice onion, pound garlic. Peel off any leftover skin. Put it all in big cooking pot on stove along with some olive oil. Turn on stove to medium heat and let onions and garlic cook slowly. While they’re cooking, start meatballs.
2. Separate whites from yolks (save yolks in fridge for something else, maybe an omelet or some kind of eggy sauce).
3. Crinkle hard bread into bread crumbs.
4. Squish ground beef around in big mixing bowl.
5. Shake in ½ tsp salt, pepper, garlic powder, and bread crumbs.
6. Pour in milk and egg whites.
7. Clump everything into ball.
8. Roll chunks into small balls. Set balls aside.
9. Breathe in flavor of onions and garlic on stove.
10. Peel off casing of sausages.
11. Break sausage meat on top of onions and garlic. Let brown.
12. Pour in sauce and paste. Then fill each empty can with water and pour that in, too.
13. Sprinkle in parsley, oregano, basil, and ¼ tsp salt.
14. Turn stove to high heat. Boil for 20 minutes.
15. Drop in meatballs.
16. Simmer sauce on low for however many hours you can. Stir occasionally.
Spaghetti:
1. Combine flour, eggs, and 1 tsp salt.
2. Stir dough mixture with wooden spoon. It’ll be a little stubborn at first, probably.
3. Fold dough every which way.
4. Press dough into table with your muscles!
5. Knead dough like crazy.
6. Cleesh dough under bowl for 30 minutes.
7. Slice off chunk. Sprinkle with flour.
8. Roll out into thin piece.
9. Cut into long strips.
10. Feed each strip into pasta machine.
11. Fill a giant pot ¾ full of water and set it on to boil. Add dash salt.
12. Put in pasta when water’s boiling. Cook for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.
13. After pouring into collander and rinsing, serve.
14. Drench with sauce.
15. Sprinkle with cheese.
16. Devour.
Sincerely,
Steffany Falcon Sandolini
One Hundred Thank-Yous
Anyone who writes, or creates anything from scratch, knows about the time invested in putting a project together (for me—years). There were so many details and circumstan
ces that had to come together in order to make this book cleesh.
First, there were my writing groups and “third eye” friends: Julie Stainer, Marcia Lerner, Cathleen Davitt Bell, Shannon Rigney Keane, Jennifer Ostrega Gold, March Schrader, Wendy Herlich, Sasha Domnitz, Mike Gold, and my family—I am beyond grateful for your time spent reading this book when it was scraps in a Word document. Thank you all for your love and encouragement.
There was also research. One of my best friends in the world, Heidi Verhaal Levine, hosted me in Greensboro, and up to the minute before this book went to print she was promptly responding to texts about bus routes and street names. The folks at Betsy’s Support Site for Traumatic Brain Injury Recovery and Rehabilitation answered all my questions and continue to provide a wealth of information and links to additional resources for those affected by traumatic brain injuries. Connie Gold educated me on Korean cooking. My amazing Auntie Anna and my mom and dad reminded me of so many of our family’s old recipes. And my dear cousin Mary Beth Salardino shared with me her feelings about growing up. Thank you all for letting me in on these details and personal experiences.
Then there was Jocelyn Davies, who I met on a bus when I asked if the aisle seat next to her was free. I didn’t know she was an editor. Thank you, Jocelyn, for being easy to talk to and open, from that very first second. Thank you for seeing the potential in this book and for guiding me through the process of making it better. There was Elizabeth Harding, who turned the mysterious world of publishing into something very straightforward and transparent. Thank you for your humor, steadiness, and cupcakes.
And there, always, was my sister, Nancy West, and all my dear friends who continue to make me laugh until I’m crying, who listen, who tell me the truth, and who prop me up when I desperately need propping.
And there, always, were my mom and dad, Frank and June Nails. Since I was a child, I have watched you struggle through recipes and life in order to put together something amazing. I continue to observe your every move, hang on your every word, and learn by your example. I haven’t yet found the words to best express my infinite gratitude and love for you both.
And not always, but since 2007 and then 2012, there have been Zac and Simon, the two key ingredients that made me for the first time understand the power of tradition, that showed me how important it is to know who you are and where you came from. I love you, my dear sons.