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We are so happy Cathy is sharing another great recipe from her cookbook "An Italian Tradition - Cooking with Cathy".  This is a classic Italian American Fish Recipe. Baccalà first arrived in southern Italy with the Normans around 999 A.D. and very quickly was absorbed into Italian cuisine. The salt method of preservation meant that people living inland were able to enjoy salt-water fish all year-round. Italians love to serve this dish for holiday time. INGREDIENTS: Dried baccalà (6 pieces)  1 cup of flour 2 teaspoons of salt 2 teaspoons of ground black pepper 1 teaspoon paprika (try Season and Stir's authentic Spanish Paprika under sauces and condiments on our site.) 1 teaspoon garlic powder Oil for frying Lemons DIRECTIONS: 1. Three days prior to cooking the cod, cut it into pieces and soak it in water in the refrigerator, changing the water often (three to four time per day).  This process is necessary or the cod will be too salty to eat. 2. Squeeze all the water out of the cod prior to cooking. 3. In a bowl combine the flour with the salt, pepper, paprika and garlic powder; mix well.  4. Dredge the fish into the flour mixture. 5. Heat the oil in a fry pan on stovetop and fry until golden brown on each side. 6. Drain on paper towels. 7. Transfer to serving platter. Squeeze lemon juice over the fish and serve! This is a great dish to make on Christmas Eve - and if you are looking for a last minute gift for the chef in your life - message Cathy Lentine to see if you can get a copy of this fabulous cookbook.

Jack is a cousin of ours - and quite the cook! He will assist in the kitchen anytime - we had fun with him this summer up North cooking and eating.  Jack studied culinary arts at Johnson and Whales in Providence, Rhode Island!  Throughout his career he has worked with many chefs....even with Wolfgang Puck at the MGM Grand Detroit Casino!  He currently cooks for enjoyment at home with family and friends.  This is his recipe that was from a restaurant called Spaghetti Palace which was in Roseville MI.  Jack's Uncle also named Jack cooked many great dishes there back in the day.  Alfredo di Lelio, an Italian restaurateur, created Fettuccine Alfredo in 1908. After his wife had given birth to their first son that year, she did not have an appetite. To help encourage her to eat, he created a dish of noodles, cheese and butter.  This is Jack's version of Alfredo sauce and it looks amazing! Ingredients:  1 lb. butter 1 cup of all-purpose flour 2 quarts of whipping cream 1 quart of half and half 12 ounces of grated parmesan cheese 1 cup of chopped Italian parsley Directions: Step one Melt butter in sauce pan (check out our cooking pans that are made specifically to evenly distribute heat for a perfect sauce) Once butter is melted slowly add flour mix together with a whisk over medium heat to create what is known as a roux. Cook for a few minutes but do not let it get dark Step two  Add the 2 quarts of whipping cream then the 1 quart of half and half and bring to almost a boil where it starts to bubble up, stirring constantly with your whisk.  Then lower heat and let the sauce simmer to achieve the desired thickness.  Sauce should be creamy and silky.  When it thickens up add your parmesan cheese and parsley and toss.  Mix with fettucine or spaghetti or whatever cut of pasta you love - we have so many great pasta's to pick from!  Or make your own like Jack did!

We are so excited to share this Seafood Salad recipe given to us by our Godchild Lydia who is quite the cook!  She makes a delicious dish of pasta - as we can attest!   She learned from the best - and this recipe is very special to Lydia and her family - as it was a tradition created with their Nana Lydia especially at Christmas time.  I am sure this recipe is treasured along with the memories of making it with their Nana who is no longer here.... although I am sure she is guiding Lydia from above with her cooking instructions.  This recipe is a tradition in many households for Christmas Eve dinner - and now Lydia is sharing their family recipe with us - for anyone that feels ambitious this holiday season!  It is a recipe that in our opinion should be made with family to create beautiful memories and keep family traditions strong.  TIPS: Read entire recipe before you start. If using frozen seafood- make sure it is completely defrosted before you start. Allowing the seafood to sit out for about 30 minutes prior to cooking is a good idea so the flesh is not shocked by boiling water.  Ingredients:  1 pkg imitation crab chunks or three crab legs, steamed and chopped 1 pkg imitation lobster chunks or three lobster tails, steamed and chopped 2 cuttlefish 4 lbs. of Calamari - tubes and tentacles, cleaned 4 lbs. of Shrimp Salt and Pepper   Vidalia Onion Bay Leaves - 6-8 Fresh flat Italian Parsley - a handful One lemon cut in half  Few stalks of celery Green onions - 6 bunches chopped fine - but only use white parts Dressing - see all ingredients below (Season and Stir carries Galician Octopus and Atlantic lobster under sauces and condiments if you want to try your hand at a smaller version of this recipe!)   Instructions: Sauté the lobster and crab in a cast iron skillet with a little bit of olive oil, garlic (pressed), salt and pepper.  Sauté for a few minutes, only until warm and fragrant.  Set aside in a large mixing bowl.    Fill a large stockpot with water.  Add a quartered onion (Vidalia), 6-8 bay leaves, handful of fresh flat leaf parsley, a lemon (cut in half) and a few celery stalks.  YOU WILL BOIL ALL THE FISH IN THIS POT.    2 cuttlefish- defrosted and room temperature. When water comes to a boil- add cuttlefish and bring back to a boil.  Allow to boil until tender- you should be able to put a fork in and it should slide out easily.  Depending in size of the fish, this should take anywhere from 15-20 minutes. Cut a piece off and taste it- if it’s tender, it’s done.  If not, leave it for a few more minutes.  Remove (DO NOT DRAIN POT- keep it boiling for the next fish) and cut into 1-inch pieces.  Add to mixing bowl.   4 lbs. calamari (tubes and tentacles) cleaned. When the water is boiling again, add the calamari (tubes and tentacles should be cooked separately as they cook at different times) and bring to a boil.  Allow to boil for 5-10 minutes- until tender.  Again- taste it to be sure.  Remove and cut into rings (leave tentacles whole unless they are large).  Add to mixing bowl.   **** As you cook fish you should add more lemon and parsley to the boiling water, so the flavor is consistent*********   4 lbs. shrimp (shell on, pink shrimp from Argentina are the best).  Add shrimp to the boiling water.  Allow to boil until cooked.  They do not take very long.  Remove from water- remove shells and cut into 1-inch pieces.  Add to mixing bowl.  You can use peeled and deveined shrimp, but Nana always said that the flavor is better with the shell!   2 stalks celery- washed.  Use a vegetable peeler or knife to cut the outside away so that you have the tender stalk left.  Chop into pieces (not too small).  Add to mixing bowl.   6 bunches green onions- washed.  Chop finely.  Only use the white parts-not the green.  Add to mixing bowl.      Dressing- should be made a day ahead- the flavor is better this way.     Dressing Ingredients: Lemon juice (Sicilian in the glass jar from Costco, or several fresh lemons, juiced) Good Sicilian olive oil (Castelvatrano or Partana)     Garlic- three bulbs peeled and crushed Dry oregano Flat parsley (chopped) Salt and pepper Pour dressing on Fish salad and mix well.    Enjoy!  Make sure you send us your fish salad pics if you make this - and comment below on your family's Christmas Eve Traditions as we love to hear from all the fabulous cooks out there!  

At Season and Stir we love men that cook and we LOVE recipes with a great history and a secret ingredient!  Peter has kept this recipe alive - and the family still enjoys it immensely.  While awaiting some recipes from some fabulous cooks to feature on our blog - today we are going to feature a recipe that was given to Peter's father Domenic by a chef named Nick Mosca - from the Elmwood Plantation Restaurant in New Orleans. On the original menu it was called Shrimp Mosca (with a secret ingredient) Mosca helped his family start the restaurant Mosca's, a local and still-running institution. He came to the Elmwood Planation in 1962, where he created a style that married the flavors of Italy with the elegance of New Orleans' finest Creole cooking. In 1978, another fire ravaged the Elmwood Planation and finally closed the restaurant.  However the family still owns a restaurant nearby called Mosca's that still serves this fabulous dish.  (There is peanut butter in this so sadly those with allergies - stay far away from) Ingredients: 2 pounds of shrimp in shell (we prefer wild caught)  6 whole cloves of garlic peeled 1 teaspoon of Rosemary 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper 1 pinch of salt 1/4 cup olive oil 1 stick of salted butter 1/4 cup of lemon juice 1/4 cup dry white wine - pinot grigio works well 1 large tablespoon of peanut butter 2 to 3 bay leaves Directions:  Start by washing and draining your shrimp well with shells still intact.  Sauté the shrimp in a beautiful stovetop to oven pan (like the ones we feature on season and stir) in the olive oil, garlic, black pepper, cayenne pepper, salt, rosemary and bay leaves.  When shells on shrimp turn a nice pink color - shut the heat and set aside.   In a separate small pan - like our Season and stir petite French butter copper pan (perfect heat conductor for cooking sauces) melt the stick of butter with the lemon juice, white wine and the peanut butter until melted. If the flavor of the wine is too strong we add a little more lemon juice.  Once melted - stir to combine and then shut heat and pour the sauce over the shrimp in your oven proof baking skillet.  Stir to make sure shrimp is coated in the sauce.  Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes until heated through.  Serve with a warm crust of bread!  You will love this recipe and you can't distinguish the peanut butter - but know there is something special that gives the shrimp its flavor.   

Another Queen in the kitchen has graced us with a recipe! Peter's mom Josephine has always been a great cook and a phenomenal baker. One of the desserts she truly was gifted at was the chocolate soufflé!  She had a commercial oven at her home in Rochester - and they always came out perfect. For those history lovers of recipes - the soufflé was perfected in the mid-1800s by Marie-Antoine Carême who, in cooking for the newly rich in Paris, was aided by updated ovens that were heated by air drafts rather than coal When Peter was young he was in Chicago with his father and they went to the Whitehall Hotel which opened in 1974 as a small, European-style boutique hotel reminiscent of England's luxurious and charming accommodations.  The chef there made a marvelous chocolate soufflé and Peter's father Domenic loved it so much - he wanted his wife to learn to make one - and she did! Ingredients: 1 cup of confectioners sugar sifted 6 egg yolks 7 egg whites pinch of salt butter - 2 tablespoons plus extra for coating pan 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar 3/4 cups of gourmet chocolate - use semi sweet or bittersweet - do not use chocolate chips - as the flavor and texture will not be good.  Confectioner Sugar  Directions: Grease a 6 inch souffle dish generously with butter and coat the inside with sugar and shake out the excess.   Combine 2 tablespoons of cold water and the chocolate chips in the tops of a double boiler over hot water until melted. Then stir with a wire whisk until blended.  Cut two tablespoons of butter into small pieces and add to the chocolate a little at a time beating until the butter is melted and blended.   Cool slightly. Place the egg yolks in a large mixer bowl  and beat with an electric mixer until lemon colored.  Add the confectioners sugar gradually and beat until thick. Add the pinch of salt and blend. Then add a 1/4 of the chocolate mixture and mix with a wire whisk until blended.   Add the remaining chocolate mixture and beat until well blended again.  In a separate bowl beat the egg whites and cream of tartar with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form.  Fold 1/4 of the beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture, blending well.   Fold in the remaining egg whites until well mixed. Spoon in the prepared souffle dish and smooth the top.   Bake in a 400 degree oven for 35 minutes or until set.  Dust with Confectioners sugar and serve immediately! Here are a couple of tips that help if you are making it for the first time.... Chill the batter as the oven preheats.  As you preheat the oven, place the batter in the refrigerator. This quick 5-10 minute chill slightly thickens the batter and helps the soufflés rise a bit taller. After refrigerating, spoon into your souffle dish. You could also cover and chill the batter up to 2 days in advance. Reduce oven temperature: Preheat the oven to a hot 400°F. Then immediately after you place the soufflés inside, reduce the temperature down to 375°F (191°C). Why? The initial hot burst of air will help the batter rise up, while the slightly lower heat will help evenly cook the centers.

Talk about a young girl that can really cook! Annarita is our cousin from Italy - she lives in the area Aggie's Mom was from - the Acerra, Italy region.  We first met her when she was about 10 years old and we went to Acerra and had a family reunion on a rooftop!  This was her with all the cousin's children - when we met her.... My family in Chicago was so blessed when her and her boyfriend Arturo visited this summer and stayed with Aggie's Mom.  Everyone was treated to her cooking - and truly enjoyed her recipes - of which she has many.  Here is her recipes for Bread and Pizza Dough accordingly. Bread Dough Ingredients  2.2 pounds of flour - 1/2 a 0 type of flour (Zero flour refers to the grade of flour and how fine it is ground.)  and 1/2  type 1 flour 2.5 cups of water 6 teaspoons of salt 1 tablespoon of dry yeast We will be featuring some great zero type flours in December when the arrive and we are so excited! Directions:   Use a Stand mixer with a dough hook. Mix for one minute half the flour with about 10 ounces of the water. Cover it with a cloth and wait one hour.  Then add the rest of the flour and the yeast and the remaining water, but slowly, a little bit at a time. Put the stand mixer to 1 speed for 10 minutes of kneading and then a higher speed for 8 minutes. Then add the salt and mix for 2 more minutes.  The dough has to rest about a half hour covered by a cloth. After that put the dough on a work surface with a little bit of semolina flour and wet your hands a little bit to shape the dough.  You should be folding the dough in half - see video on our Instagram and Facebook posts of this recipe. Wait about a half hour and do this about 6 times waiting a half hour from the previous session.  This is truly a labor of love. At the end you need to shape the dough and place in a bread bowl or basket - we have those on Season and Stir! Put a little semolina flour over the top.  Cover with a cloth and wait about an hour.  Then place in the refrigerator overnight.  The next day cook it in a Dutch oven that has been prewarmed for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.  Take the bread from the refrigerator and place on parchment paper to make some cuts with your bread scorer - we have a great bread scoring kit on the seasonandstir.com that you can use to make really artistic cuts in your dough.  Take the Dutch oven out of the prewarmed oven and place the bread in the Dutch oven and cook it for 30 minutes covered and the last 30 minutes uncovered - so a total of an hour oven time.  This is the ingredients for the pizza flour: 1 pound 2 ounces of 0 flour - Zero flour refers to the grade of flour and how fine it is ground.  1 3/4 cup of water 2 teaspoons of salt 4 teaspoons of oil 1 teaspoon of brewer's yeast We hope Annarita will share more recipes from that region of Italy soon!

Season and Stir features three products from this fabulous Chef and hope to add more to our online collection - as our customers familiarize their kitchens with these new taste sensations!

How can it already be November?  But it is and we know it is the month of Thanksgiving Celebrations. In honor of our hosting Thanksgiving this year we wanted to share our traditional Thanksgiving Turkey stuffing recipe.  This recipe was handed down to Aggie's mother Julia by her mother in law - Laura.  As a matter of fact we think Aggie's grandmother was telling Julia to get in the kitchen and learn the Turkey stuffing recipe in the photo below! Peter liked it so much it became the stuffing we have cooked for over 40 years.  This is the amount of stuffing to cook for a 20 pound turkey - as we like to stuff the Turkey and then have an extra bowl of stuffing to warm in the oven.  If you have extra that is great - as it is delicious the next day with some cranberry sauce. Turkey Stuffing Ingredients:   4  pounds of ground veal 3 pounds of mushrooms peeled and chopped (use the stems too) Large handful each of both dark and yellow raisins Pine Nuts - (this is optional for those with nut allergies) however if you do add them -we toast ours Bunch of celery with the leaves - chopped (may chop in food processor) 1 large apple - peeled and chopped 12 - 14 chestnuts - cooked - if they are small you can use a few extra. In the original recipe we boiled them however you can use the already cooked. (Season and Stir has the Matiz organic chestnuts from Spain that are cooked, peeled and ready to eat) Although we are waiting on delivery any day of our second order! 4  large carrots Rice - about two cups Large onion chopped Chicken Broth Salt and Pepper to taste Paprika and flour for top of Turkey Whiskey or Brandy Butter - softened Olive Oil Directions:  In a large pan brown the chopped onion in a mix of Olive Oil and Butter. (We have some fabulous oils on the site right now) Add the veal, then when browned - add the chopped celery with the leaves and also a chopped apple.    Remove from the heat and add in the raisins - both light and dark and the toasted pine nuts.  You can toast the pine nuts in a pan on top of the stove or in the oven - just watch closely so they do not burn.  Add in chopped chestnuts - do not chop too much you want to see the pieces of chestnut in the filling.  In a separate pan cook the two cups of Rice in a mixture of chicken broth and water with the chopped carrots.  When cooked and all liquid is absorbed, shut heat and set aside. In a sauté pan - brown your chopped mushrooms in butter.  When cooked let cool slightly and then mix everything together - the veal mixture with the rice mixture and the mushrooms.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  We also add a nice handful of grated Parmesan cheese.  You can make this a day ahead and when ready to stuff the turkey - rub the inside well with salt and pepper and butter.  Add your turkey stuffing.  Then sprinkle turkey generously with flour and paprika.  We love to cook our Turkeys in the Nesco cookers - but its great in the oven too.  We also love to add chicken broth, whiskey or brandy,  and a little butter to the bottom of the pan when cooking the turkey.  You will use this juice to make a gravy afterwards.  *For the extra pan of stuffing you bake in the oven - dot the top of it with pats of butter prior to baking.   *We have also added in chopped Italian Parsley for additional flavor Please comment - on what Turkey stuffing your family traditionally eats every year - and send us a recipe!      

We do not think we need to introduce this cook!  She had her very own cooking show AND her own cookbook.  We are delighted she shared this fabulous recipe with us.  Peter's family has known Cathy and her family since they were children - and Cathy was so helpful to Aggie when she left her big family in Chicago and moved to a new city.  She always called and invited Aggie and the kids over for lunches and or dinners - as she was (and still is) always entertaining!  She has hosted beautiful parties in her homes here in Michigan and in Naples Florida.  She is always cooking for her four children and their beautiful families.  In Italy Braciola are called involtini, you can probably find a version of this recipe for each region but the most traditional braciola recipe hails from Campania.  In Sicily they are sometimes called bruciuluni. Here is Cathy's recipe for Braciola - which is a Rolled Italian Meat.  Ingredients: 1 cup of Italian Breadcrumbs Olive Oil 4 pieces of chip steak 8 pieces of hard salami 8 pieces of Provolone Cheese 4 hard boiled eggs, quartered length-wise 1 large onion, sliced String Toothpicks Directions:   In a large small bowl, mix together breadcrumbs and enough olive oil until mixture crumbles Lay meat out on a baking sheet. Sprinkle one chip steak with a quarter of the breadcrumb mixture. Lay two pieces of salami and cheese on top of breadcrumb leaving enough room on either end to fold over. Place 1/4 of egg and onion on top of cheese. Fold the ends over to seal and toll up jelly roll style. Secure with kitchen string or with toothpicks Repeat with remaining chip steaks. *These meat rolls can be broiled or sauteed to lightly brown. Add them to your Italian sauce while cooking. Prior to serving remove string or toothpicks and slice horizontally for a tasty treat. Top with a spoon of your Italian sauce. Streamline your health journey with a doctor support service. Submit your food receipts effortlessly for personalized guidance. Access expert advice seamlessly for a holistic approach to your well-being. Serves 8 The best braciola Cathy says is made with a very lean cutlet of beef tenderized with a meat pounder.  Please see Season and Stir's selection of cutting boards to pound meat - and our circular meat tenderizer tool for help with this recipe!