"Hospital" shrimp

No. They are not called 'hospital' shrimp because they are served in hospitals. As good as Swiss hospitals are, they don't serve gourmet food. The reason why we called them 'hospital shrimp' is that my dad saw this recipe on a tv show while he was at the hospital with pneumonia back in December. He saw it, liked it, and told everyone in the family about it, so a few days later, when he was released from the hospital, we decided to make them on Christmas Eve as an appetizer. They pleased the whole family, so they have become a family staple since then. The beauty of this dish is that is very easy to put together, but it looks really great and it's easy to serve at parties as finger food. So, if you are hosting a little Easter get together this might be a good addition to your menu.

"HOSPITAL" SHRIMP

Large shrimp, peeled with tails on

1 packaged pie crust

As many thin pancetta slices as you have shrimp

1 egg

Poppy seeds

Wrap each shrimp with a slice of pancetta. Cut pie crust into half inch strips and wrap each strip around the shrimp over the pancetta.

Beat egg in a bowl with a tablespoon of water and baste shrimp with egg mixture. Sprinkle with poppy seeds. Place directly on the oven grid (if you palce them in a pan the bottoms will be soggy).

Bake at 400F for about 25 minutes. Serve and enjoy!

Spiced almonds

I woke up this morning to find out that the cat, Ernie the terrible, had decided to take a few ornaments down from the Christmas tree and put them on couch. Apparently he thinks that they look much better there because he has been doing this every night since we put up the Christmas tree on Sunday. I also woke up to find out that my broken knee isn't getting any better -in fact it feels like it's getting worse. And since I also feel kinda lonely and bored I decided to do two things: make Christmas presents and moan and complain here on the blog. As The Kitchen Witch pointed out in one of her recent posts "This blogging stuff is kind of cool. I get to bitch to a much wider audience. It's very cathartic."

She's right. And she's a wonderful writer, so if you haven't done so yet, check out her blog.

Now, on with the complaining. I have just listened to a voicemail message that made me want to throw the phone out of the window. This morning I'm in such a grouchy mood I'm screening calls. All of them. So when my not-so-dear boyfriend called, I didn't pick up. Which is good, I guess, since the message alone made me mad enough to consider throwing a $300 iPhone out of the window. He was supposed to come home Monday night, but that quickly became Tuesday. Which is fine. I'm having such a great time sitting here with my broken leg, trying to keep the cat out of the Christmas tree! In the mean time he's in Key West, "working" on a boat and basically being on vacation. He's so busy he can't even bother to call, Sunday or Monday, and when he finally calls on Tuesday is to ask me if it's ok for him to come on Wednesday -today- by noon. Which, of course, is a retorical question, since it's more than clear that he has already made up his mind. Whatever. What threw me over the edge is the message I just listened to. At noon he calls to tell me that he's not even leaving for another couple of hours, which means that maybe -if he leaves on time, if there is no traffic, if he never stops to pee or get gas- he'll be home at 8 p.m.

By then I'll have somehow carted my ass to an oyster party -180 pounds of oysters... can you imagine that?- bring my spiced almonds as a gift. See? There was a connection between the bitching and the recipe!

SPICED ALMONDS
(adapeted from Cooking Light)

1 tablespoon water
1 large egg white
1 pound raw, unblanched almonds
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon Spanish smoked paprika
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon chili powder

Preheat oven to 300°.

Combine 1 tablespoon water and egg white in a large bowl; stir with a whisk until foamy. Add almonds; toss well to coat. Place almonds in a colander, and drain 5 minutes.

Combine almonds, sugar, and next 5 ingredients (through chili powder) in a large bowl; toss to coat. Spread almond mixture in a single layer on a jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 300° for 15 minutes. Stir almond mixture; reduce oven temperature to 275°. Bake an additional 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Remove from oven; cool 5 minutes. Break apart any clusters. Cool completely.

Polenta, gorgonzola and speck bites

Polenta is in my blood. My mother's family hails from the region of Veneto, where polenta is an everyday staple. She was born and raised in Milano, but when she was little she often visited her cousins, aunts and uncles at their farm in the country, where fruit was freshly picked from the trees and an old aunt was roasting chicken on the spit or making polenta. Making real polenta, you see, is no easy task. You have to stir the thing for more than an hour, without interruptions. Imagine that? Stirring a thick, heavy mass for more than one hour with a wooden stick? Neither can I. Nor my mom, for that matter. She always bought instant polenta, which is lovely and takes 5 minutes to cook and virtually no stirring. And of course I've learned from her because if you think that I can stand there and stir a couldron of bubbly yellow stuff for more than an hour, you're sadly mistaken. I might be a witch from time to time, but not that kind of patient witch.

Instant polenta, as I was saying is perfectly ok and most people will not taste the difference. Some will say they do, but they are bluffing. So buy the instant stuff and make polenta as much as you can. Now that is colder out (at least in places that have normal climates, here in Florida I'm still waiting for some kind of relief from the humidity) it's the perfect dish: comforting, filling and, incredibly enough, low in fat. And if you have leftovers you can make this little appetizer bites, which are delicious.

POLENTA BITES
One package of instant polenta
A slab of creamy gorgonzola
A package of speck (smoked prosciutto, available at Costco)

Make polenta according to directions, then pour it into a large pyrex coated with cooking spray and pat it down. Let it cool completly.

Once the polenta is cool, cut it into bite sized squares and place them on a cookie sheet coated with cooking spray. Broil for a minute, so the polenta squares get a little bit of a crust.

Top each square with a little gorgonzola and a piece of speck.

Gorgonzola and pear baskets

Gorgonzola and pears. A match made in heaven. If you have never tried it, do so immediately -you'll be hooked for life. It sounds like a strange combo, but the tangy and sharp gorgonzola shines when paired up with sweet pears. In Italian we even have a proverb that says "Al villan non far sapere come e' buono il formaggio con le pere", which means don't tell the farmer how good pears and cheese are together. I'm not sure why -perhaps the farmer would eat all the pears and there wouldn't be any left for us?- but then again most proverbs are silly to say the least.

Back to the dish in question... I made this on Saturday for my mom's Halloween party and it was quite the hit. The original idea was to use those little frozen pastry shells, but after seeing how expensive they are (something like $6 for a box of 12 or 15) I decided to experiment with wonton skins. I had used them recently to make ravioli and discovered that they are delicious and cheap, so I thought, why not try and make little baskets out of them? They turned out perfect -pretty to look at and crunchy- so I added one more thing one can do with wonton skins to my ever-growing list. Who would have thought?

GORGONZOLA & PEAR BASKETS

36 square wonton skins
8 ounces ricotta
8 ounces creamy gorgonzola
Salt to taste
3 pears
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 whole cloves
1/2 cup brandy

To make the baskets you'll need a mini-muffin pan. Spray it with cooking spay and gently stuff a wonton skin in each hole. Bake in three batches for 7 minutes in a 350F preheated oven. Remove from muffin pan and place on a tray to cool.

Mix the two cheeses in a bowl using an immersion blender and season with salt to taste. Set aside.

Cut pears into 36 bite-sized pieces, place in a skillet, sprinkle with brown sugar and douse with brandy. Add the cloves and simmer for about ten minutes, until caramelized.

Assemble the baskets just before serving, spooning a little cheese mixture in each and topping with a piece of pear.

Spinach and prosciutto roll-ups

Last month my parents threw a Forth of July party and each guest had to bring a dish, so that my mother wouldn't spend the whole party slaving in the kitchen. Her Swiss friend Thesi brought these roll-ups and they were such a hit we all asked her for the recipe. This is my adaptation: instead of using bacon bits I prefer to use deli sliced prosciutto and -if available- fresh spinach in lieu of the frozen ones. What I like best about these appetizers is that they are easy to make for a crowd and can be frozen until ready to use. Talk about simple!

SPINACH AND PROSCIUTTO ROLL-UPS

10 oz. frozen or fresh chopped spinach well drained
1 cup of mayonnaise
8 oz. sour cream
1 bunch green onions chopped
1 oz. envelope Ranch style dressing mix or seasoning blend to taste
3 prosciutto slices, finely chopped
8 flour tortillas

Stir together first 6 ingredients, then spread evenly on tortillas.
Rollup jellyroll fashion, pressing edges to seal. Wrap in plastic wrap.
Chill 4 to 6 hours, cut into slices. Can be wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen until ready to use.