Cindy Barbieri - Paleo Italian Cooking: Authentic Italian Gluten-Free Family Recipes

To my husband and children, for encouraging and believing in me as I follow my passion!

CONTENTS

Foreword by Robb Wolf
New York Times Bestselling Author of The Paleo Solution

When I think about Italians and traditions, Cindy Barbieri stands out as a champion of the joyful practice of gathering around the table to eat, laugh and share stories of the day with family and friends. Everyone fortunate enough to enjoy Cindys hospitality leaves with a dish or a gift to take home as a thank-you for spending time with her. She enjoys all aspects of entertaining, but most of all she loves cooking for her guests.

Cindys family is from Italy, and she visits Tuscany every year. Upon returning home to Massachusetts, she recreates Italian dishes inspired by meals enjoyed on picturesque mountaintops overlooking the vineyards of central Italy. Since becoming part of the Paleo community, Cindy has been transforming traditional dishes, along with new inspirations, into authentic Paleo Italian recipes. Her crowd-pleasing Tuscan twist adds something new to the Paleo world, including popular and flavorful one-pot recipes that are suitable for both weeknight family dining and entertaining.

This cookbook will show you how to make restaurant-quality Paleo Italian recipes right in your own kitchen!

Foreword by Bobby Soper
President & CEO, Mohegan Sun

When you spend time with Cindy Barbieri, the word passion comes to mind. Whether its her passion for sharing her culinary creations with the world; or her passion for helping others who are less fortunate via her efforts with Food-share; or her passion for showcasing her talents through her Cindys Table magazine and this cookbook, her energy emanates from everything she does. This energy is contagious and uplifting. We are proud to be associated with such a talented individual who creates smiles on the faces of all her viewers, readers, and people in the community who she has helped.

ABOUT CINDY

Cindys love for food began before she could reach the counter in her Nanas Italian kitchen. Her grandmother Nicolina, who was from Naples, loved to be surrounded by her family. She could always be found in the kitchen stirring a large pot of sauce or making lasagna to feed the neighborhood. Cindy is a lot like her Nana, as she enjoys sharing her love for cooking and preparing her familys favorite meals when all the kids are home visiting.

Every meal has a story of Cindy and Nana in the kitchen together, and Cindys eyes sparkle when these tales are shared with family and friends. Cindys two sisters also love to reminisce about their childhood. Although the sisters sometimes disagree about the way Nana made certain recipes, they always have fun when they get a chance to cook togetherwith, of course, a glass of wine in hand.

Cindys infectious enthusiasm for Italian food pervades all of her recipes, which demonstrate the passion inspired by her Italian heritage and her extensive travels throughout Italy. Her Italian style of cooking is flavorful yet clean, and very approachable. The recipes are not complicated, and many of them can be made in advance, but theyll always be the star of the party!

Cindy and her husband Glenn love to entertain in their large country home in Marlborough, Connecticut. Most of the recipes in this book appear regularly in Cindys kitchenespecially her antipasti, which is always offered to family and friends. Other favorites are the spinach and artichoke rolls and her delicious frittatas. She always serves Italian chopped salad alongside Tuscan favorites such as anchovy pizza or Roman braised eggplant. A pot of sauce or meatball and kale soup will be simmering on the stove on the weekends. On any given night at Cindys, you might be served her chicken scaloppine in a caper sauce or even osso buco; if she feels like seafood, you could have the salmon with lemon, capers and thyme. Cindys desserts are light and easy, but very Italian. This book offers a unique take on the flavors of Tuscany. Cindys hope in sharing these homemade Tuscan Paleo recipes is that you will feel like part of her family and share her love for the taste of Italy.

BUON APPETIT O!

WELCOME TO MY WORLD

I am so happy you are here to share what I love most: cooking for my family and friends while drinking wine in my kitchen! Ive found that inviting new friends home to share one of my homemade Paleo Italian dishes with a glass of wine is a wonderful way to deepen a friendship.

My family is from Naples, Italy, and many of the Paleo Italian recipes in this book are based on my family traditions and the flavors from this area. My husband and I also spend two weeks in Italy every year. We especially love the Tuscan area of central Italy, with its natural cobbled streets, wide-open windows, and friendly folks standing outside ready to welcome you into their restaurants or shops; but there are countless beautiful parts of Italy to be discovered while traveling through the countryside. Ive been lucky enough to have traveled throughout Europe and the U.S., and I have found that I feel most at home in Italy. The importance of food and family in everyday life really resonates with my values.

Having spent a lot of time in my grandmothers kitchen growing up, Im thrilled to have this opportunity to share my extraordinary and easy cooking, which represents my heritage and my love for good, healthy food. In this book, Ive included dishes I serve to my family and friends, many of which represent dishes my grandmother, Nana, made for us. My best childhood memories are of gatherings for birthdays, graduations, weddings, Sunday dinners or simple get-togethersin which every conversation either began or ended with food. Nana had a very easygoing approach to life: always have enough food to feed the entire family and whoever stops by. Being old-fashioned, she also told me that the way to a mans heart is through his stomach. Feed your man, she said, and hell always come home to you. My approach to cooking is very similar to my grandmotherskeep it simple and add lots of flavor using fresh herbs! The quality of the ingredients plays a very important part in any recipe and enhances the beauty of each dish.

I love easy, authentic Italian food that can be prepared in advance without a lot of mess, and which are equally suitable for weeknight dinners or special occasions.

A typical Italian dinner is served family-style, with wine and laughter.

Weekends often involve more of a multicourse extravaganza that may last a few hours. Because Im a bit of a selfish mother, it makes me happy to have my family at the table for a few uninterrupted hours, all of us enjoying delicious food together. In this book, I will show you how much fun cooking at home truly is, and how it offers quality time with the people you love around you. In Italy, families spend hours together eating several small meals and drinking local wine. Theres no need to consume a large plate of food in a single sitting; eating Italian-style means making a meal into more of an event, taking your time, with the food enhancing the special moments you spend together.