The Leiter side of life…

Last night we decided to have a totally Italian-themed evening.  Complete with cheese, stuffed veal, cannolis, a nice Barbera and, of course, The Godfather.

The Godfather is one of my all time favorite movies, and while I’m always a sucker for the original I’m pretty sure I like the second one better.  I love the old New York scenes.

That being said the first is the ultimate classic.  I remember my mom encouraging me to read The Godfather by Mario Puzo when I was a freshman in high school.  We were on our family vacation in Florida.  Disney World could not trump the dark, violent underworld of the Italian mafia.  I was enthralled, hardly ever putting the book down.

Puzo sparked my love for the mafia that I have yet to kick.  He made it look so romantic.  The idea of being part of such a loyal group was admirable and intriguing, despite all the violence.

I had the hardest time picking just one scene from the film, so I thought this video montage captured some of the classic lines pretty well.

As for dinner!!! MMM. Stuffed veal with spaghetti!

Dinner was excellent if I do say so myself. I’m still full this morning!  I love new cooking adventures, especially when they turn out to be edible, which is not always the case.

However, I will admit I didn’t quite get the “stuffed” part down.  Wrapping meat in butcher twine not my forte.

Anyway, to make this lovely dish I started out by wilting some spinach with salt, some chopped up scapes from my aunt’s garden and some scallions.  While the spinach was wilting I cut some of the fat off the veal. I then mixed up some ricotta with nutmeg and rosemary.

I then lined the veal with some peeled cloves of garlic, the ricotta mixture and the spinach.  Then came the tricky part.  Now try to imagine me, butcher twine around my neck in my little cooking apron fingers smothered in ricotta trying to tie up these pieces of meat.  This is where the wine drinking began for me.

Anyway, after a messy struggle with the twine, I browned the meat in a little bit of butter and oil.  Also not a very succesful endeavor given the lack of appropriate cooking pans.  Anyway, add a little bit of white wine and a can of diced, peeled tomatoes, let simmer for about 2 hours and viola! Perfect, Italian/mafia-infused evening.