Torrone (Sicilian Almond Nougat)

The coveted almond. Everywhere you turn today you hear how nutritious and healthy the almond is. If you're gluten free almond flour is the replacement for most of the recipes that use white flour.  

For the Sicilians, we already knew this information long ago. The island of Sicily is covered in almond, olive and lemon trees. Many of our recipes include one of these items. You ate what grew in your region and that's how the recipes developed.

For me the American born Sicilian my memories of visiting Sicily every summer with my parents included daily visits to my Zio's campagna ( my uncles country house).  At his campagna we picked the almond from the tree, cracked it open with a rock on the cement and ate those beautiful milky almonds right from the center....we ate until either we got tired of  cracking them open or until we were going to bust. You can never appreciate the beauty and the taste of that almond until you have had it in that raw state. (Below is a picturewhat the almond fruit looks like growing on the tree)

This is why many Sicilian dessert recipes whether it be cookies, candies or cakes are made with almonds.  In my childhood home the nut bowl (in their respective shells, with the nutcracker of course) always made an appearance at the end of the Sunday or holiday meal, right along side of the fruit.. 

Here I share the recipe for Torrone..a special occasion treat.. You'll need good strong biceps for stirring the last step of this dish!!

2 cups of unsalted roasted almonds

1 cup of white sugar

4 tbsp of water

2 tbsp of white vinegar

About 1 tbsp of orange or lemon zest

• Put all the ingredients together in a pot on the stove at medium flame
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• Use a wooden spoon and slowly mix all the ingredients 
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• Continue stirring the sugar will start to melt. Mix continuously.
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• The sugar will then crystallize again...  Continue to stir.  Do not stop stirring. This is where you need strong biceps.
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• I promise the sugar will melt again and once it is completely melted and the color is Amber remove the pot from the flame and pour the content on a sheet of aluminum foil. The entire cooking process is about 20 minutes.
  
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• With a spatula quickly flatten the hot almonds to form a sheet about 3/4" thick.
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• Let it cool for about 5 minutes and with a chefs knife cut the entire sheet in squares of about 2"  on each side.
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• Be careful to remove the aluminum foil from all the pieces and let them completely cool off.

Variation: you can use half honey, half sugar to make it a little more nutritious.

Enjoy

Buon Appetito!👌

Lucia

Nutella Panini's

"Today is world Nutella Day, celebrate with this easy dessert!!"

Nutella was a staple in my mother's kitchen, it was our "peanut butter". Although back then we had to smuggle it in from Italy when we visited each summer and relish it until we returned to replenish our stash. On the other hand my italian cousins loved peanut butter and we would take several jars of it to them because that was not available there.  When I was a kid we ate Nutella on italian bread, or toast. Today there are many different recipes for using the chocolate hazelnut spread. The following recipe is my family's favorite way.  It is so easy to prepare that my thirteen year old daughter frequently makes it herself for the family.

Ingredients

1/4 cup of Nutella
1 small loaf of poundcake
Fresh strawberries, tops removed and sliced thin
Vanilla ice cream (optional)
Whipped cream (optional)
Pam butter spray

You can use a panini grill, a grill pan, or fry pan.  Whatever you have on hand!!

Directions:

Coat grill with spray, slice pound cake into 1" individual slices. Take and thinly spread some Nutella on one side of the poundcake slice, then layer strawberries, and top with another slice of poundcake. Place in grill until golden and warm in the middle about 2 minutes. Remove and top with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.