Meatless Tomato Sauce and Mushroom Sauce

Once more I found myself turning to Maria Luisa Taglienti’s The Italian Cookbook. Some of the recipes I find off-putting due to the inclusion of ingredients I can’t be bothered to buy, but other recipes can be knocked up with the array of foods already in my kitchen.  These are two of those.

Green Bean Salad

Today’s recipe is just a simple green bean side salad, from the Italian cookbook used for this recipe. I made spaghetti and meatballs last night, and although I used the cookbook as a jumping off point for the meatballs, I veered off-recipe so can’t really blog them here without breaking our rule of following recipes religiously, regardless of whether we think we know how to make the recipes better. They were very very very good meatballs though. I decided that the stodge of this meal needed to be countered with a nice salad.

Green Bean Salad or Fagiolini all’agro
2lb fresh green beans cut into 2-inch lengths
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon wine vinegar
1 large clove garlic
salt and pepper
dash of crushed red pepper

Pork Chops Modena Style with Broccoli Roman Style

Two recipes in one today, both from The Italian Cookbook by Maria Luisa Taglienti, published by Spring Books in 1953. It’s a comprehensive guide to Italian recipes from all regions of that country, and for all parts of the meal. The introduction defensively explains how fine cooking is associated with French culture when it actually originates in Italy, and goes on to point out that Catherine de’ Medici introduced a number of Italian culinary techniques and utensils, including the fork, to other cultures, so there.  Halfway through the book there are line drawings illustrating different types of pasta, these pictures are adorably quaint, some of the them simply being squares or rectangles with ‘LASAGNE‘ or ‘EGG BARLEY’ as a caption.

There’s loads of recipes in it that I want to try out, and some I might hold back on such as Brussels Sprouts Parmigiana…ummh. Tonight though I just needed a simple dinner.