I love Rome.

I love the chaos, the traffic, the culture, the people, the history and the food.

Ohh, the food.

But the lifestyle is what really grabs me and won't let go.

A powerhouse of a city that manages wealth, history, banking, commerce, tourism.

All the trappings of a major cultural hub.

Life in Rome has a rhythm that just sings to me.

Let's explore the Eternal City today on Christina Cooks, the macroterranean way.

Underwriting for Christina Cook is provided by Suzanne's Specialties, offering a full line of alternative vegan and organic sweeteners and toppings.

Suzanne's specialties, sweetness the way Mother Nature intended.

Jonathan's Spoons, individually handcrafted from cherry wood, each designed with your hand and purpose in mind.

Additional funding is also provided by.

Hi, I'm Christina Pirello and this is Christina Cooks, where each week we take fresh seasonal ingredients and whip them into amazing dishes.

Will it be plant based?

Yeah.

Will it all be delicious?

Absolutely.

You know, I spend a lot of time in Rome.

Tony Bennett famously saying his left his heart in San Francisco... mine's in Rome, where it stays to this day.

Rome is I could never be there as many times.

So I thought I would cook some dishes today as well as go there and see what you think.

So when I was a kid, my grandparents came from outside Naples.

When I was a kid, we had artichokes in our house every Sunday, every single Sunday.

When they were in season, artichokes were on the table.

And every now and then we would have what my grandmother called our American friends over to eat, and they had no idea what to do with the artichokes.

And as an Italian, we would cook them from the south.

We would cook them just by taking the stem off in a pan, poach them with olive oil and salt and a little water.

And then you would peel these tender leaves off.

And each leaf, as you peel it off the bottom of the artichoke has this really sort of tender little spot right here, which is the exact same texture as the heart, which everyone loves the heart of the artichoke.

So we would tell those off, drag them along our teeth or dip them in olive oil and then drag them along our teeth.

But it was like a feast beyond all feasts.

In Rome, they cook them a little bit differently, even though they're an ancient food that's been around since they grew thistles.

Right.

This is the blossom of a thistle.

So what we're going to do is cook these Roman style.

And so what we did was keep the stem, which is the same texture as the heart.

And then you're going to peel off these outer leaves, which I have to, like, turn away when we do this because it's such a waste.

But to cook them Roman style, you need to get rid of these tough outer leaves so that you can cook them the way that we want them to be able to eat the entire leaf, not just the base.

So you want to take away all these outer leaves and it sort of takes on this little scalloped edge at the bottom, which is kind of pretty.

And you just keep going and going and going and you take these off and you'll feel when the leaves start to get more tender.

My grandfather here, he would be like, What are you doing?

Making Roman artichokes.

He'd go, "Oh, you forgot how to cook Naples style."

So now we're down to like the tender part.

These are sadly going to get compost.

Oh.

Oh.

Okay.

Now we're going to take a knife and cut off the top third of the artichoke, leaving us the most tender part.

And in the center is the purple choke.

This is going to go into a saucepan and cut a little bit more of the stem so the lid goes on the pan.

This is going to go into a sauce pan and in the sauce pan is going to go olive oil and water.

A lot of olive oil, probably about a quarter cup.

A lot of olive oil.

But these are meant to poach for 45 minutes to an hour and get really rich and really tender so that you can eat the whole leaf.

So there's that.

Now we're going to take a little bit of salt and now we'll add water to half cover the artichokes.

Now we're going to turn on the heat.

Bring these to a boil.

And these are going to cook covered for about 45 minutes to absolute perfect tenderness.

So after 45 minutes to an hour, your artichokes look really tender.

And what I did midway through was I threw some garlic in here, some minced garlic.

I don't like to put it in at the beginning because it can get a little bitter.

The other thing that the recipe calls for in traditional Roman artichokes is fresh mint leaves in the cooking water.

But I don't like that flavor so much.

You can do it if you want to.

I'm not wild about it, so what we're going to do now is serve these.

They should be really, really, really tender.

Let's see if I can do this and not break them.

You see how they've, like, changed color.

They've spread open.

Now, the other thing you can do at the very end of this cooking, if you want to, is get rid of all your liquid, put a little bit more olive oil and brown the bottom, so they're a little crunchy.

I tend to not do that unless I'm making, you know, Jerusalem artichokes, Jerusalem style artichokes.

A little squeeze of lemon, and you have the most amazing starter dish known as Roman artichokes, which every time I make these, I think, wouldn't it be nice if oh, wait, wouldn't it be nice if we went to Rome and cooked with a great restaurant chef and met up with my girlfriend Elisabetta for a coffee?

Let's go.

(Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) And then, the kitchen is in the back.

Okay.

Yeah.

So Elisabetta, we're here with Walter.

In english, He would be considered a sous.

Yes.

But he does everything.

Well, Nino is not a vegan restaurant.

No.

It's very friendly because I can always eat here with no problems.

But what's interesting is it's a big restaurant.

It is a historic one.

And everything is done fresh.

You guys should really understand that.

There's no frozen peas, no frozen fava.

Every day they come in...Walter comes in.

I hope (speaking Italian) that it will help.

Yeah.

And cleans...not just me..and cleans all of these fresh peas, fresh fava.

These are fresh fava beans for various dishes.

Everything is seasonal.

So when peas are no longer in season, the dish we're going to make, Vignarola, no longer exists.

Can you imagine doing this in a restaurant every day?

Yeah, because you must.

You must maintain your quality, your freshness.

Something amazingly important here.

And I'm just so honored that they let me in the kitchen.

Walter, (Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) What are we making today?

(Speaking Italian) vignarola.

Vignarola.

So this is onions, and in it we're adding fresh fava beans.

(Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) Okay, so this will cook for half an hour to soften the fava.

(Speaking Italian) Okay, before they add more ingredients.

Okay.

(Speaking Italian) Okay, then (Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) So they're going to cook the lettuce in with the other ingredients.

(Speaking Italian) Okay.

(Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) Okay.

So, Go ahead.

(Speaking Italian) Okay.

So the artichokes have been cleaned, right?

And soaked in the lemon water so they don't turn brown so that when they cook them, they don't have an acidic flavor and they have a beautiful color.

These are fresh artichokes that were boiled and so that they're ready.

And these were peas cooked in water.

(Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) So this is 10 minutes cooking fresh peas.

(Speaking Italian) So this was about 15 minutes, fresh artichoke hearts.

Then this is all going to come together to make the dish, the vignarola, which it cooks, all you see the vegetables cooking various times so that when the dish comes together it's fresh and cooked and light and seasonal and this dish will change, vignarola, will change (Speaking Italian) every season (Speaking Italian), every season, they'll have a different vignarola dish.

Now we'll add the lettuce just for (Speaking Italian) for 5 minutes into the fava beans and peas.

So this is just going to cook until it wilts like this.

So now we're we're putting the vignarola together.

We're adding the cooked peas on top of the lettuce, which will help the lettuce to wilt.

(Speaking Italian) And all of the cooked artichoke hearts.

This is finished vignarola.

You can see how the lettuce became almost creamy.

The beans became creamy.

It's created almost a sauce.

This dish tastes like Spring.

It tastes like everything you dream that Spring is is in this dish.

(Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) Okay.

That was small for the salad plate.

So I'm here at restaurant Margutta in Rome and I've asked my friend, Elisabetta Luti to join me, to help to translate, so that I get the story correct.

We're here with the original owner, and it was your idea, Margutta 1979, the first vegetarian restaurant here in Rome.

How did you get the idea and how did you start the restaurant?

(Speaking Italian) The first to start.

The one that created it was her husband who was a yoga teacher because he he thought he understood that to to live well, you have to put together the physical, physical and food.

And so that's why they began.

There was kind of a little clever.

Yes.

For vegetarians, where you had a card to do to be part... to be partner in the thing, to come here like a co-op, almost.

Yes, yes, yes.

Something small.

Small at the beginning.

So yeah, yeah, yeah.

(Speaking Italian) In the beginning, it was quite a retreat.

Let's say.

More macrobiotic.

More macrobiotic.

Which is how I began as well.

(Speaking Italian) Beginning of the 80s.

(Speaking Italian) Together, macrobiotic food, the philosophy of yoga and meditation all came together.

Yeah.

People began to understand that vegetarian eating didn't have to be tiny portions, poorly prepared, strict, and not any fun.

And so that's how the restaurant began to grow and grow and grow because they discovered that people discovered that vegetarian food was delicious, as we now.

It's a wonderful story.

And we have been coming here for years.

(Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) (Speaking Italian) You know when I was in Rome with Elisabetta, she reminded me, first of all, not only are artichokes the greatest thing since sliced bread in terms of antioxidants and fiber for your wellness.

But I also forgot that Catherine Domedici married the king of France to take artichokes from Italy to France.

Why, you might ask?

Because it was forbidden for women to eat artichokes during the Renaissance.

Go ahead.

Ask me why?

Because they inspired passion in women and we couldn't have that.

So she took the artichoke, the fork, and a cadre of cooks with her to cook for her in France.

Just a little information.

Now in northern Italy, they use more cheese and more cream.

In southern Italy, where I'm from, we don't use lot of cheese, we don't use a lot of cream, but there's little touches over here or there.

But now that I'm vegan for many, many years, all I hear about is vegan cheeses, vegan cheeses, vegan cheeses.

And they're A too big of a footprint for me with cashews and coconut and whatever.

So I decided to try to make a ricotta style cheese with almonds because my grandmother used to make a great after school snack that I'm going to teach you after I teach you how to make this sort of not really a ricotta.

So we have almonds that we soaked for a couple of hours and we're going to start to puree them just a little bit with a tiny bit of liquid.

Okay.

And you're starting to get the texture of ricotta, which is kind of like coarse.

Now, we're going to add to this a little bit of garlic.

If you're making a savory ricotta, you want to add the garlic.

Okay.

If you're making a sweet ricotta, like for cannoli or for the snack I'm going to make, you probably wouldn't add the garlic.

So garlic.

No garlic.

I'm making a snack, so no.

Into it to get the cheesy flavor, we add a little white miso again to get the cheesy taste that we want.

And you add a little bit less if you're making, again, a sweet ricotta.

And the next thing to go in is lemon juice, which I like to squeeze through my hands.

You can squeeze it through one of the little lemon juice gadgets, but for me, it's just another thing to wash.

So I usually use my fingers.

Okay, so there's our lemon.

Now put the top back on, and now we pulse this just until the miso is sort of spread throughout the ricotta.

And it takes on the texture of ricotta cheese sort of.

I mean, in the end, it's still almonds.

But let's take a look.

Let's take a look.

It's starting to get really...yeah, this is perfect.

Look at this.

This is like this lovely sort of ricotta like texture.

So when I was a kid and I get home from school, my grandmother always baked bread.

Like almost every day she baked bread because we're bread eaters.

We've always been bread eaters.

So she would toast fresh bread, she would take ricotta, pile it high on the bread because, you know, can never have enough.

Then she would take honey.

I'm using a mixture of rice syrup and agave, and then the final touch was a touch of cinnamon.

And we would eat as many pieces of this as my nonna could make.

It was the greatest after school snack ever.

I thought that everybody went home to school, from school with something like this.

I had no idea that they didn't.

So I know we're in Rome, playing around in Rome, but I'm making a Florentine apple cake and I know one's in the north and one's not.

But this cake is an ancient recipe that I found online when I was reading about Renaissance Florence.

So here we go.

We're going to do a little, a few modern things, but here we go.

So I have a cake pan that's oiled.

This is a small cake, it's like a tea cake.

So in order for the cake not to stick, this is just an old pastry chef trick.

You can only use it if you're an old pastry chef.

Anyway.

So you take and you take parchment paper and you fold it up, and then you're going to take the point of the parchment and lay it in the center of your pan and make a crease.

Then you take scissors and cut on the inside of that crease, unfold it and you have a circle that fits in the bottom of your pan.

So it's kind of a cool thing.

And you take a little olive oil because your pan is oiled and you oil it again so that the paper does a stick to the bottom of your cake and now your pan is ready.

And I like to do this as opposed to flowering a cake pan because I don't like when there's flour on the side of the cake.

So I do this instead and it seems to work every time, she said.

Hopefully.

All right, now we're going to make the cake.

I don't follow a whole lot of rules when I bake, but let's see how we do.

We're going to take two cups of flour.

This is sprouted whole wheat flour and sprouted whole wheat flour is my preference because it's lighter than whole wheat pastry and it digests in the body more like a vegetable because it's sprouted.

Okay, so that goes in.

We're going to put into this about a half cup of coconut sugar.

Then we'll use about a teaspoon of baking powder.

Okay.

A pinch of salt, some cinnamon to your taste.

Don't get carried away with cinnamon, though, because it can it can taste not so nice.

Now a lot of people whisk when they bake.

I'm not a whisker, I tend to mix.

So I'm going to mix my dry ingredients until they come together.

But if you like to whisk, please whisk.

Have a ball.

Whisk away.

So that's our dry ingredients.

And I'm going to add to this a quarter cup of olive oil.

This is an olive oil based cake.

So, a quarter cup or four tablespoons, however you want to measure it.

That goes in.

About a teaspoon of vanilla.

Then we're going to take egg replacer.

You can use whatever kind you like.

But I want to use about a tablespoon of egg replacer because that's going to give me the equivalent of an egg.

And you mix it with water.

I used about a quarter cup of water.

And mix it right in.

Now the package will tell you that you need to let it sit and do whatever.

I never do any of that and it always turns out just fine.

And add to it another half cup of water.

So two quarter cups to get the texture that I want of a cake batter.

Now, when they baked in ancient Florence and ancient Rome, they didn't have plant milks, they used water.

So we're going totally ancient and using water.

Think of the calories you'll save.

A little more water.

And now to this, we're going to add some diced apple.

I've got sliced and diced.

Sliced apple are to decorate the cake.

Diced apple gets tossed right in.

It's in water with lemon juice, so the apples didn't brown.

Now we're adding some golden raisins, which are very typical in Italian cooking.

About a half cup and about a quarter cup of pine nuts.

Again, you can use walnuts if pine nuts are not in your budget.

But the ancient recipe called for pine nuts.

Once you have a nice smooth batter...don't over mix...this goes right into your cake pan.

Make sure it's even.

Decorate it with some sliced apple.

You want your apples to be thin for this so that the decoration is not going to weigh down the top of the cake.

Just make a little pinwheel, take a little coconut sugar.

And this is going to go into the oven for 45 minutes.

I know that seems long...45 minutes at 350, and then you'll see how nice it is.

So here's our cake cooled and set.

You can see that the apples are nice and cooked and the top is beautiful.

And so we have this lovely teacake.

So what are you waiting for?

Let's get back to the cutting board and I'll see you next time on Christina Cooks, the macroterranean way.

Underwriting for Christina Cooks is provided by Suzanne's Specialties, offering a full line of alternative vegan and organic sweeteners and toppings.

Suzanne's Specialties, sweetness the way Mother Nature intended.

Jonathan's Spoons, individually handcrafted from cherry wood, each designed with your hand and purpose in mind.

Additional funding is also provided by.

You can find today's recipes and learn more by visiting our website at Christina Cooks.com and by following Christina on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The companion cookbook, The Macroterranean Way, Volume Two combines the Mediterranean diet with the ancient wisdom of Chinese medicine, allowing us to understand how food affects us so we can cook deliciously while creating the wellness we want.

To order your copy for $19.95 plus handling, call 800-266-5815.

Add Back to the Cutting Board and Christina's Iconic Glow, a prescription for radiant health and beauty and get all three books for $49.95 plus handling.

Call 800-266-5815.