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I love mushrooms just about any way you can cook them but one of my favorite preparations has to be to stuff them. This stuffed mushroom is a little lighter than many of the other versions you will come across as the primary ingredient in the stuffing is creamy ricotta cheese. Now you can add or subtract any number of ingredients in this filling to change the flavor, but this version is the one I make most often. Other ingredients you could include would be olives, capers, or anchovies. You could also replace some of the ricotta cheese with goat cheese. Porcini or portobello mushrooms work really well in this recipe as their meaty flavor is complimented by the light, creamy filling but large cultivated button mushrooms can also be used. Serves 6 by Deborah Mele.

6 Large Mushrooms (See Notes Above)
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
3 Tablespoons Finely Minced Onion
3 Garlic Cloves, Peeled & Minced
3 Tablespoons Fresh Chopped Parsley
1 Red Hot Chile Pepper, Minced (Optional)
3 Oil Packed Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Finely Chopped
1 Cup Full Fat Ricotta Cheese
Salt & Pepper
5 Tablespoons Freshly Grated Pecorino (or Parmesan) Cheese
Olive Oil For Brushing

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Remove the stems of the mushrooms and chop them finely. In a heavy frying pan heat the olive oil and then add the mushrooms and onion. Cook until softened. Add the garlic and chile pepper and cook another minute or two. Allow the mixture to cool and then add the parsley, tomatoes, and ricotta cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

Lightly oil a baking sheet and place mushroom caps cut side up. Brush the caps lightly with olive oil and then spoon the filling in. Sprinkle with the grated cheese and then bake for about 20 to 25 minutes or until the mushrooms are tender when pierced with a knife and the tops are lightly browned. Serve immediately.

If you cannot imagine how mere cornmeal can be turned into a tasty meal, then undoubtedly you have never eaten polenta prepared in an Italian kitchen. Once considered peasant food, polenta is now appearing in even the most elegant restaurants. Earlier in this century, polenta was a staple food eaten out of necessity, sometimes two or three times a day. Some families would dump a big mound of polenta onto a board, and everyone would sit around sharing it. It would be flavored with broth, a little sauce, vegetables or sausages. Polenta is still a staple in many homes in northern Italy today, particularly in the regions of Veneto, Piedmont, and Tuscany, although generally considered "home cooking" and not served for company.

Polenta has had a reputation for lengthy and extremely laborious cooking that originates in its Italian roots. Throughout history polenta was cooked over a wood fire in a central hearth or on a wood stove in a traditional curved bottom copper pot with a long handle called a paiolo. Copper was preferred as it conducts heat evenly, and the curved bottom of the pot exposed a greater portion of the cornmeal to the heat which insured there was no corners for the polenta to get stuck in and allowed for even cooking. The long handle of the pot kept the cook a comfortable distance from both the fire as well as the sputtering cornmeal. Constant stirring with a long-handled paddle, stick, or spoon was necessary to keep the polenta from burning. Today, there are very few of us that still cook over a wood fire, and our heavy bottomed cookware and modern stoves that have burners we can maintain at a constant low heat, allow us to let the polenta simmer away on its own with just occasional stirring to prevent lumps.

Polenta can be creamy, served soft with a scoop of sauce, or firm served as a side dish to grilled or roasted meats, or stirred into soups and stews to thicken and add flavor. Whatever way you choose to eat polenta, the basic principles of preparation remain the same. Although you now can buy instant polenta that can be prepared in under 5 minutes, or even precooked polenta ready to be sliced and fried or grilled, I find the effort it takes to prepare polenta the old fashioned way to be the best.

Basic Polenta Recipe
6 Cups Cold Water
1 Tablespoon Salt
1 Cup Cornmeal
3 Tablespoons Butter
2 Ounces Grated Parmesan Cheese

Bring the water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add the salt and reduce the heat to medium low. As soon as the water begins to simmer, start pouring in the cornmeal in a thin stream, very slowly while stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to prevent lumps. Once all the cornmeal has been added, keep the water at a simmer, and stir frequently. It should take between 25-30 minutes to fully cook the polenta. Once cooked, the polenta should pull away from the sides of the pot easily. Just before it has completely cooked, stir in the butter and the cheese.

Local traditions result from long complex historical developments and strongly influence local habits. Distinctive cultural and social differences remain present throughout Italy, although today mass marketing tends to cause a leveling of long-established values. In a country so diverse, it is impossible to define an “Italian” cooking style, but traditional food still is at the core of the cultural identity of each region, and Italians react with attachment to their own identity when they are confronted with the tendency toward flattening their culture.

Why is Pizza so popular in Naples then you ask? This is so for the same reason that Italy has only one unifying Italian language, yet hundreds of different spoken dialects. Italy is a country of great variety, and cooking is just another aspect of the diversity of Italian culture.This diversity stems largely from peasant heritage and geographical differences. Italy is a peninsula separated from the rest of the continent by the highest chain of mountains in Europe. In addition, a long spine of mountains runs north to south down through this narrow country. These geographic features create a myriad of environments with noticeable variations: fertile valleys, mountains covered with forests, cool foothills, naked rocks, Mediterranean coastlines, and arid plains. A great variety of different climates have also created innumerable unique geographical and historical areas.But geographical fragmentation alone will not explain how the same country produced all of these: the rich, fat, baroque food of Bologna, based on butter, parmigiano, and meat; the light, tasty, spicy cooking of Naples, mainly based on olive oil, mozzarella, and seafood; the cuisine of Rome, rich in produce from the surrounding countryside; and the food of Sicily, full of North African influences.

Many non-Italians identify Italian cooking with a few of its most popular dishes, like pizza and spaghetti. People often express the opinion that Italian cooking is all pretty much alike. However, those who travel through Italy notice differences in eating habits between cities, even those only a few miles apart. Not only does each region have its own style, but each community and each valley has a different way of cooking as well. Every town has a distinctive way of making sausage, special kinds of cheese and wine, and a local type of bread. If you ask people, even in the same area, how to make pasta sauce, they will all have different answers. Variations in the omnipresent pasta are another example of this multiplicity: soft egg noodles in the north, hard-boiled spaghetti in the south, with every conceivable variation in size and shape. Perhaps no other country in the world has a cooking style so finely fragmented into different divisions. More to come in this subject in the next post! - Rita