Sicilain Cannoli

My husband found cannoli tubes at the Italian store and decided he would make cannoli for Sunday dinner! 

Looking at three different recipes, two from cookbooks, the "Friends of Don Orione Cookbook" and the other from "Good Housekeeping Around the world cookbook" along with a youtube video found that the recipes are very similar. Today, I saw this recipe on Facebook

Sicilian Cannoli 

Pastry

• 1 1/2 to 2 cups 
• 4 T lard
• 1 tsp icing sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp cocoa
• pinch of salt
• 30 ml vinegar 
• 30 ml marsala 
• 1 egg 

Filling

• Creamy Ricotta 
• sugar to taste
• garnish; chocolate chips, pistachio, glazed oranges, maraschino cherries etc

Method

• Sift dry ingredients
• Add the lard
• Mix in beaten egg
• Add vinegar and Marsala gradually to form a soft dough, did need another oz of marsala  for a soft dough
• Wrap and chill for an hour or overnight

The process is very much like making pasta dough.

• For the filling, drain the ricotta overnight
• then add your chosen garnish
• Roll out small pieces using a rolling pan
• Cut out circles using a cookie cutter or a glass
• Wrap the circles around the cannoli tubes
• Seal the ends with beaten egg
• Heat the oil to 325 to 350 degrees F 
•  Cook for about 2 minutes 

Fill the shells just before serving to keep the shells crisp!

Family style serving is the best!  Roasted garden fresh Potato Salad, Beet Rolls simmered in a creamy dill sauce, Bourdin marinated Rib Steak.  For the girls; mozzarella, bing cherry, apple and pork tenderloin Stuffed Buns.  

Bourdin marinated rib steak!

The cannoli were delicious but the ricotta needed to be drained first or whipped cream could have corrected those ends!

The grandkids enjoyed the cannoli.  Yes, finger licking good!

Beet Rolls, Taste of Summer!

Making this recipe always makes me think of life on the farm and the huge garden Mom used to put in yearly.  I had posted a picture of my Mom's huge garden on Instagram and how everything was canned before she had a freezer.  

She froze bags of peas, beans and corn, but still liked to can whole tomatoes and chili sauce which would be very similar to today's Salsa.  The variety of pickles done was amazing from dill pickles, different relishes, bread and butter pickle, mustard beans and ice pickles.  It seems unbelievable that all this was done in a very short time for the winter months.  The remarks were interesting as many wondered why such a big garden.  The harvest from this garden was used all winter.  There was no superstore in those days!

We are now so depended on stores to supply our food source, that my grandchildren as many others are not familiar with the taste of fresh vegetable from a garden.   How many of us have just gone into a garden and eaten pea from the vine, carrots that are wiped on our pants than eaten!  Planting a garden and preserving, canning, pickling the vegetables is a dying art. 

Picking Raspberries in Grandmother's Garden

I always thought this simple recipe was something my mom invented because of abundance of beet leaves and cream from her milking cows.  This recipe seems to be most popular in the prairies. The leaves are also used to make a cabbage roll type holopchi  which certainly would take less time preparing the leaves than preparing cabbage leaves. 

Check out the row of corn, Not sure what the next two rows are, then onion, beets, cucumbers, somewhere would be peas, beans, potatoes, carrots.   

I have blogged on Beet Rolls before.  In this recipe, I am trying to have a complete casserole done in one step, rather than in two steps! 

The dough I used for the beet rolls was my Refrigerator Bread dough which is always so handy to have on hand. 

The leaves had been washed and dried in a lettuce spinner and kept fresh with the stems in water.

A small piece of dough is rolled in the beet leave and placed into a greased baking dish.

Usually I baked the beet rolls until the dough is baked and then make a cream sauce using chopped onions and fresh dill, adding the cooked beet rolls to the sauce and heat until the buns have absorbed the sauce.. In fact the three trays pictured above have been frozen for later use. The only problem is that I don't regular buy heavy cream. 

This was a trail run to see it adding the cream sauce to the rolls and baking the bun longer would have the same result.

The Beet Rolls were baked for 20 minutes at 350 degrees, then chopped shallots and fresh garden dill was added to the buns,   

One cup of heavy cream was also added to the buns

The buns were baked for 10 minutes longer but since the top of the buns had not absorbed the cream, I pressed down the buns with a spatula so that they would also absorb the cream.  The buns were further baked 10 to 15 minutes.

The buns did take longer to cook but did look like buns that had been simmer in cream on the stove top. 

Having had more beet leaves, I did two casseroles that I froze as a complete dish for Thanksgiving!

Certainly the presentation in casserole dish is much more visual and appealing than in a serving bowl! 

These two casseroles were cooled and frozen

Beet Rolls

Garden Fresh vegetables

Every week, a new mission is posted on Instagram by Gastropost Calgary. 

This week, the mission is to show fellow Gastroposters a food or meal that has been an important part of one's own culture, heritage or life’s journey — a dish that has helped one understand where one came from and define who one is.

Since it is summer and I had just returned from Saskatoon farm last week with fresh vegetables from their farm, I immediately thought of Beet Rolls that for me defines summer and farm living.

With fresh dill in the garden, along with fresh beet leaves and fresh heavy cream from the morning cream separator, this beet dish was made every summer by my Mom. Yes, a dish so rich, yet so simple but delicious as a side dish!

Heavy Cream with fresh dill and chives

Beet Rolls, a sign of summer

The theme for this month's challenge for the Canadian Food Experience Project is cherished recipes.  My son who always has had an interest in cooking attributes this to his grandmother and James Barber. James Barber was a frequent guest on CBC's Morning side Radio Show hosted by Peter Gzowski.

My son's memories of his grandmother are most memorable. A kitchen with a dessert or a pie on the counter and a pot of soup on the kitchen stove. In the late summer, jars of perserves of jellies and pickles were lined up on the counter on a tea towel.   The kitchen was the heart of her home, full of love and laugher with people always dropping in to see her. His cherished recipe is my Mom's recipe for Beet Rolls. 

To him the serving of these rich creamy goodness was a sign of summer and a garden full of vegetables for picking.  The combination of cream and dill to him was most delicious and addicting as the sauce was soaked up in the beet rolls. 

Beet Rolls

As a kid growing up, I always thought this was something my mother had invented out of necessity as nothing was every wasted.   I was surprised to find that others did the same recipe.  My Mom baked bread frequently and since she had a big garden, the two ingredients necessary for this recipe were always present.

The secret to this recipe is the sauce which is heavy cream and chopped onions that is brought to a boil and then the temperature quickly reduced and simmered until the onions are cooked.  The beet rolls are added along with fresh dill and heated until warm.

Yes, this is a very rich dish that oozes with flavor and the first the sign of summer!