Nude Is Where It's At

Red, White and Greens: The Italian Way with Vegetables is by Faith Willinger and was published by Harper Collins in 1996. I came across the book shortly thereafter, cooked from it a few times, and gave the cookbook away or took it to a used book place - I don't remember. Regardless, I forgot about the cookbook.

Kind of. A few of the recipes really sang out to me, so I went hunting for a used copy, found one, and happily revisited fond meals. I'll definitely be doing that this week, and also exploring new recipes in this secret-revealing book.

Willinger lives in Italy, and has developed a relationship with many chefs. More importantly, she's developed relationships with vendors at various farmer's markets throughout the country, thus receiving Italian family-style approach to preparing vegetables.

On page 180, Nudies aren't quite a family secret, but they are a bit of a Florentine joke on a dish from the Casterino. Willinger explains that in Casterino they make a dish like the ravioli made by the Flornetines. However, the spinach walnut-sized balls aren't "wearing" pasta and are considered "nude." What a better recipe to make for a blog called Cookbook Fetish?

I've tried to make gnocchi before to horrible results. If I have a hankering for gnocchi, I'm just as likely to head to a restaurant or to the freezer section at my local grocery store. So here we go - keep your fingers crossed.

The Nudies call for wild greens. I found some spinach and figured that would work. Not many wild greens available when the ground is covered with snow.

I put a kettle of water on to boil, and quickly removed some of the larger spinach stems. All of the spinach went into the salted water for a quick 3-5 minute boil, and then into a colander for a rinse under cold water.

Then I got out the cheese cloth and squeezed the spinach as hard as I could. It shrunk in size. I squeezed again, and it shrunk more. I was worried - the recipe calls for 1 1/3 cup spinach. I had maybe 2/3 of a cup.

Spinach

I placed the spinach into a bowl and added the ricotta, grated Parmesan cheese, egg, and nutmeg. I didn't use quite as much as the recipe called for because I had less spinach that was required.

I mixed it up until it resembled a smooth paste. Or a big ball of spinach and stuff.

I placed the mixture into a plastic bag that I had (as the recipe suggests) cut a corner off of. I took a picture.

And then the camera battery died. I put the spinach into the fridge. I thought about cutting veggies for another recipe, but realized I needed a camera to take pictures of that. And the camera was out of commission for at least two hours.

I watched the Jamie Cullum Live at Blenheim video. I'd had it playing while preparing the food and, by the time Cullum tiptoed into the start of the "High & Dry/Singing In The Rain" medley, I was without camera. I wondered when Cullum would ever play anywhere near my tiny town. I saw him from the third row in a small theater in Knoxville, Tennessee years before and was blown away by both Cullum and opening act The Gabe Dixon Band. I was also disappointed Cullum didn't even touch the state of Michigan during the 2010 tour. Hear me Jamie? Stop by Michigan - I'll be there with dancing shoes on.

I watched the snow fall, the cats sleep. I made a sandwich, checked email, and waited. I made No-Bake Chocolate Cookies, ate several, looked at a genealogy question, contemplated my navel. Finally, the camera battery was replenished.

I raced to the kitchen, threw on my apron, and returned to work. I cleaned the counter and laid down flour. I retrieved the spinach dough from the fridge. I put the reserved spinach cooking water on to boil.

I piped out blobs of spinach dough onto the floured surface.

Blobs of Nudies

I covered them with more dough, and gently rolled one at a time between my hands until they were more or less round.

Lined Up Nudies

And into the boiling water they went. Except the water wasn't quite boiling, and it wasn't quite deep enough. Still, I proceeded.

Boilin' Nudies

And in two or three minutes, I removed cooked Nudies with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Slimey Lookin' Nudies

Impatient and hungry as always, I plopped five into a Fiestaware dish, added some leftover marinara sauce, sprinkled on more parmesan, salt, and pepper, and rolled in into the preheated oven.

In 10 minutes or so, I had this lovely dish piping hot and ready to eat.

The Nudies tasted like little spinach un-meatballs, like little melt-in-your-mouth spinach/cheese balls. They could have stayed in the oven a bit longer, but I didn't mind. The pinch of nutmeg sneaks up on you, bearing a subtle undertone to your taste buds.

This is a delightful way to get your dark, leafy green vegetables. Because the spinach was cooked and chopped, there are no long strings of potentially unidentified stuff in your mouth. And that always freaks me out,like orange juice pulp floating around in my mouth - don't get me started. With Nudies, your greens are dressed up, but still naked.

And though prep takes a long time (in my case given camera battery problems - 5 hours) it's well worth it as the oven time is only 15 minutes tops. Combine this with some crusty garlic bread, a small side salad, and a glass of red wine and you're in Italian heaven. Belissimo!