- Between my Neapolitan family and my husband's Sicilian family, there is no shortage of emotions.

Although I confess, my husband is preternaturally calm to my less calm.

Our competition's about who makes what dish with more expertise are legendary.

Together, we've broken every family tradition and created a unique and delicious style of our own.

Today, we celebrate our style, so you can celebrate yours.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding provided by Finamill, the flavor of freshly ground spices and dried herbs with refillable swappable pods.

Finamill, where cooking gets creative.

And 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.

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

Additional funding 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 they all be plant-based?

Yeah.

Will they all be delicious?

You bet.

I will have you falling in love with cooking, the kitchen, and wellness.

You know, my family comes from Naples.

My husband's family comes from Sicily.

Our rivalries, although good natured, are legendary in the family.

Don't tell him, but the better cooks are in Naples than Sicily.

But every now and then, I really love to make a dish that he loves.

- Whoa.

- Oh, there you are.

(both laughing) - Hello, my dear.

- Oh, hi.

You brought it.

- Today- - Today.

- We are making- - Scaccia.

- This.

Scaccia, which is a stuffed pizza.

- Yes.

And it is in origin, Sicilian.

- Sicilian.

- Si, si, si.

- They do some things really, really well.

Really well.

All right, my love.

Amore.

- But wait, first.

- Hang on.

Alright, go ahead.

- But first.

- I got a knife in my hand.

- The better cooks?

- The truth hurts.

- Really?

- The truth hurts.

- Really?

- Sorry.

The truth hurts.

- Growing up though.

Growing up.

- Growing up.

- In a Sicilian family.

So my mother was one of- - [Christina] 15.

- [Robert] 15.

- [Christina] My grandmother was one of 17.

Got you.

- What's interesting about my family- - Your family.

- Was we all lived in a city just outside of Boston, and we all lived in the same city, so huge family.

I didn't know you played with anybody but your cousins until I started first grade.

Never went to kindergarten, straight to first grade.

- Because you were so smart.

(both laughing) - Not really.

- Go ahead.

- No, but just growing up in a Sicilian family was just so amazing because it was all about being with family.

- But the truth is- - But every but every minute of day- - The truth is, Mr.

Sicilian.

- Yeah.

- Every Italian descendant will tell you the same thing.

You grew up in a family where you either talked about the meal you were having, the meal you had, or the meal you're about to have.

When they talk today about food noise in people's heads, Italians live with food noise.

And you were always talking about being with family, eating with family, cooking with family.

When I was growing up, when I was growing up, My family all cooked in my mother's kitchen because she was the best cook.

So they all cooked in her kitchen.

My grandmother and her nine sisters.

And watching them, I've told you this before.

Watching them move around the kitchen, they were like a symphony.

There was no fighting, no you're in my way.

They knew how to move around each other.

And it was not a big kitchen, but I fell in love with that rhythm.

And to this day, having worked as a chef, that rhythm in the kitchen is everything and Italians have mastered it.

- One of the things I loved most was- - About being Sicilian?

- Well, coming home from school, and I used to love to just stand by the stove and watch my mother cook.

- Oh, I thought you were going to talk about your afterschool snack.

I thought everybody had- - Everybody in my family cooked.

My father made breakfast.

How do you get a kid to eat breakfast?

So my father would make scrambled eggs for breakfast.

He'd get the blender out, crack the eggs, put some milk, but then he'd get the potato chips out and he'd put a handful of potato chips in the blender.

What kid isn't going to eat scrambled eggs made with potato chips?

- Okay, baby.

That's gross, sorry.

I'm just going to say.

- It was delicious.

- I'm just going to say.

- But yeah, so watching my mother cook, at four years old, I was cooking.

I was cooking and on Sunday, when everybody went to church, somebody had to stay home because on Saturday night, we made the gravy.

- [Christina] That's right.

- And somebody had to stay home to stir the gravy.

- Which some of you may know as tomato sauce.

Please don't email me and tell me there's a difference between sauce and gravy, we know.

But if you're from Boston or Philly or New York or New Jersey, it was Sunday gravy.

So we made gravy.

- And if the doorbell rang, you never answered it because it was somebody you didn't know.

Everybody who knew came up the back steps- - And walked in the door.

- But the back steps led right into the- Kitchen.

- Kitchen.

Of course.

- So that's where everything happened.

- And your backyard if your family was anything like my family from Naples, the whole backyard, there was nowhere to play, it was all garden.

You played in between the plants.

My grandparents had a postage-sized garden and all you did was play in between the plants.

There was no swing sets, there was none of that stuff.

- Oh, we had rhubarb.

- Can I have the chili pepper while you're there, my love?

- My mother would make rhubarb pie, strawberry rhubarb pie.

My mother was also an amazing baker.

- [Christina] Mine too.

- So she was a cake decorator.

You would walk into our house and you would see a bouquet of flowers on the table, but- - [Christina] But it was a cake.

- It was a cake.

- [Christina] Yep.

- I would watch her with her little, making rose petals and making irises.

- And all we wanted as kids was the American food that our friends were eating.

- [Robert] Not me.

(laughs) - So I would go to school with like an eggplant parmigiana sandwich, and my friends had peanut butter and jelly with marshmallow fluff, and I would trade my sandwich for that so that I was more normal.

So it was interesting to grow up in that way and my parents never knew.

Okay, so- - [Robert] Can I talk about the dough?

- Hang on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Go ahead.

- So every week in our house, once a week, I make pizza dough.

And so during the course of the week, we'll have a pizza.

We'll make some muffins, we'll make stuffed pizza.

So there's always pizza dough in the house.

This dough, there are two ways to do the dough.

You can do it as 80% semolina and 20% white flour gives you a crispier crust.

Or if you want a softer crust, a more Neapolitan crust.

This is more Sicilian.

- [Christina] Can I have salt?

- Semolina flour is very popular in the south in Sicily.

So I use Semolina flour, 80%, 20% white.

And then on Neapolitan, you want to reverse that.

Use 80%, 00, 20%.

And then just yeast, water, and salt, and a little bit of olive oil.

- A little bit of olive oil.

The olive oil gives your dough elasticity.

And so for a pizza crust like this, I don't mean to interrupt him, but in a pizza crust like this, what's the most important part of this?

Like not the shape so much, but isn't it that you don't have some part thicker, some part thinner?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- And that's why you're doing it by hand.

Not with a rolling pin.

- Yeah, yeah.

But you could do this with a rolling pin.

Absolutely could do this with a rolling pin.

- So what I'm doing is I'm making the filling, and there's a couple ways you can do this.

The Sicilian way is to take the veggies in big pieces like this, and grill them in a pan and get grill marks.

But to me that doesn't make any sense because they're going to be inside the pizza, so why am I going through the trouble of getting grill marks?

So my family, when they made stuffed pizza, we didn't call it scaccia, we called it stuffed pizza, but you know?

- Yeah.

- Anyway, they used to julienne the veggies like this.

We have eggplant, carrot, and zucchini.

And they would cook them in olive oil and a little hot spice.

The hot spice is optional.

You don't have to use hot spice.

But in my family, my grandfather sat with hot spice next to his plate and he put it on almost everything.

And there was kind of no life, no cooking without it.

I don't know how your family was with hot, but we used a lot of hot spice.

My grandfather grew the chilies.

We would grind them, you know, grind the seeds.

So I put a little in.

Do you want a little more or no?

- Yeah, a little bit more.

- Okay.

- A little bit.

- [Christina] A little salt.

- So I put a little bit of olive oil on the dough, and I'm going to just evenly... The other thing we did in my house is we did not eat dinner.

Being from Boston and my father- - [Christina] Did you go to bed hungry?

- No, no.

My father had worked for a brokerage firm.

So when the market closed at 4:00, he'd be home by 4:30.

And so we had supper.

Not supper, we had supper - Supper.

We had supper.

- And supper is 5:00.

So we had supper at 5:00.

And then we'd watch a little bit of TV, make sure our homework was done.

And then it was, we would go to bed early, get up for our potato chip breakfast.

- Oh yeah.

No.

My dad didn't get home from work till 8:00 at night from his job as a butcher, and you didn't eat dinner in my house until my father was home, so we ate at 8:00 at night, which was actually pretty smart as we got to be teenagers.

And you know, my friends would call, "Hey, you want to go out?"

"No, we haven't even had dinner yet."

So instead of all that, my friends would just come to my house and eat.

So my mother ended up cooking for an army every night between my friends, extended family, relatives.

So you can see the veggies are starting to really tenderize here and bend.

And what you want them to be is not cooked till they're mush.

You want them to saute until they're soft enough to not pierce the dough.

But if you cook them too long at this point, the inside of your scaccia is just mush.

So to combat that, we're going to let these sit now.

They're done.

And we're going to take instead a red onion, we're going to take half of it, and we're going to cut that red onion into very thin half moons.

- [Robert] So I just have my tomato sauce and now some whole basil leaves.

- Now, if red onions are too sharp for you or you don't want to use them, you know, leave them out.

It doesn't matter.

But for us, when we made this pizza at our house growing up, they were essential because there was a little bit of bite in them, but red onions are sweet, so you're just going to kind of break them apart.

They're raw.

If you want the red onions, but they're too sharp for you, just saute them in with your veg, it's okay.

It's pizza.

We're not splitting the atom.

- And we always had pizza dough at home.

Always.

- Always.

- Our best story is we had a guest over staying with us for a weekend.

- Oh yeah.

(laughs) - And he said, you know what'd be nice?

- [Christina] He was from Tennessee.

- He was from Tennessee.

Said, "You know what would be really nice?"

- Some more basil.

- "Pizza tonight."

So I got up- - [Christina] He goes, "Oh, okay."

- I got up and I went into the kitchen, started pulling stuff out, flour and yeast and water.

And he said to Christina, "What's your husband doing?"

- What are you doing?

We're having pizza.

- You want pizza.

We're making pizza.

We don't get take out pizza.

- And he's like- - We make it.

- He's like, "Wait, what?"

- May I have the salt, please?

- Yeah, sure.

He's like, "Wait, what?"

I'm like, "Yeah."

Not too much though, because there's some in the veg, huh?

- [Robert] Yeah.

- Okay.

So you want to put a good amount of basil here, because Robert was a little skimpy.

Because this is going to give you that lovely herby flavor.

Oh, you're putting it there too?

- A little bit of hot.

Why not?

A little bit of hot.

- Mamma mia.

Okay.

So then you're going to take your cooked veg.

- Do you want to use a tong?

- No.

- No?

- Well, do you?

- Yes.

- Well, you do it then.

- Sure.

- Go ahead.

And you're going to spread these veg.

You have to make, okay.

- [Robert] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- You have to spread the veg around so that they are somewhat covering it.

I'm going to dump them on here.

Okay.

Get your veg in.

- [Robert] Perfect.

- Okay.

And once they're spread around, can I roll it?

- Please.

(Christina laughs) - Can I roll it?

Can I roll it?

He doesn't let me do much when it comes to pizza in our house.

- Okay.

I'll switch places with you for a second.

- Now you're going to make sure your veg, even though they're hot, my fingers are made of asbestos, I think.

Now you're going to use your parchment and you're going to roll the scaccia over the veg.

And when you get the second roll in, you're going to pull the sides in.

But not all the way.

You're going to continue to do this as you roll it.

And then when you get to the end, make sure that it's sitting on the seam, okay?

Then you take, you take a brush, take a little olive oil.

This is going to give your scaccia some shine.

And you just liberally oil the crust.

You ready?

- [Robert] She does well.

- I had a good teacher.

- Considering it's a Sicilian dish.

- Ah.

Naples and Sicily's not that far apart.

- [Robert] I got to say- - But if you talk to any restaurant owner in Italy, they'll tell you Naples are the best chefs.

Go ahead.

- Not true.

Can I say?

Can I say something to the men?

- Go ahead.

- Please cook.

Guys, cook.

This is such- - I'm finishing this with a little salt.

- This is such a pleasure to make pizza dough.

I make all the bread and dough, and Christina does all the pastries- - I do.

Yeah.

- In the house.

You got to cook.

- Got to cook.

- You know, the biggest frustration we have in the world that we live in today is too much takeout, not enough cooking at home.

- Well, you know, I'll tell you what the challenge, I'll tell you what the challenge is for people, because I talk to people a lot, is that we don't live around extended family like we used to anymore.

We don't.

We just, you know, we all moved away.

We all went and got better jobs somewhere, traveled outside the cities or away from our families for whatever reason.

- [Robert] I moved 350 miles.

- I was just going to say.

- I moved 350 miles away.

- I love your family, Robert, but you know what I'm saying?

- To this day, my family is still about the family.

- Yeah, the family.

Anyway, this is going to go into the oven.

It's going to sound low.

This goes in at 350 for 25 minutes because all that rolled dough has to bake.

- And it turns into- - That.

Nice switch.

- This beautiful scaccia.

- So this is a scaccia.

You must let it cool before you cut it.

You must, it'll fall apart.

Okay, here we go.

- Go.

Si.

(Christina speaks Italian) - Now you cut it.

It should feel tender.

And what you have is that.

- [Robert] Wow.

- [Christina] Come on, right?

- [Robert] Wow.

- [Christina] Look at that.

- [Robert] That's beautiful.

- [Christina] Shall we taste it?

- [Robert] We shall.

- Look at this.

Come on.

Look at all the veg.

Want to taste a bite?

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- Here we go.

Here we go.

You know me, I cut hearty slices.

Here we go.

Here you go, my love.

- Thank you.

- The dough should be tender inside.

Oh, it's yummy.

Come on.

The basil, the tomato.

It makes you fall in love.

Oh wait, speaking of love.

- It's off to Florence.

- The city of love.

- The city of love.

- To?

- To make a wonderful dessert.

- With a Sicilian chef.

The dessert's called Mangiabianco.

Let's go.

- Let's go.

(upbeat music) So I'm here in Florence at the Chef Factory Cooking Academy with chef and owner Francesco Arancio.

- Hi.

- Ciao.

Nice to meet you.

- Ciao.

Nice to meet you again too.

- Nice to have you.

So one of the things I wanted to talk to you about because you are Sicilian, my husband's Sicilian, my family's from Naples.

In the South, we are obsessed with dessert.

- Yeah.

- Obsessed.

There's no meal that doesn't have a dessert.

- A dessert.

- There's a very funny story in Robert's family of as many desserts as there are people at the table, right?

It's amazing.

But in America, I don't know about Italy, but in America, like we really demonize dessert.

No, no, no, no.

But if you're deprived, I say, you go crazy.

- [Francesco] Yeah, yeah.

- So I think if you eat a little dessert, a small dessert, then you can have it more often.

- [Francesco] Absolutely.

- So talk to me about how you, this is a traditional Sicilian dessert.

- Yes, yes.

- What's it called?

- Biancomangiare.

So white eating.

- White eating.

- Yeah.

- How beautiful.

So we are going to make this.

I was under the impression it was made from cream.

That's not true.

- No, that's not true.

That's panna cotta.

That's something else.

- Panna cotta.

Si.

- So the Biancomangiare is a dessert made basically on almond milk.

- Okay.

- Flour.

In this case, we'll use starch.

- Right.

- Sugar if you want, while the almond milk, so almonds- - Are sweet.

- Are sweet by themself, are not the bitter one, okay?

And some vanilla or bean or a vanilla sugar, you can use it, and orange zest.

- Okay.

- Topping.

- So you don't have to add sugar to this, but could you use, let's say, coconut sugar or- - Absolutely, brown sugar.

It will change a little bit of color.

But I mean, it's fine.

- If somebody wants a lower glycemic index.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

You can do it and you can use a substitute like Stevia sugar, replace it.

Remember one third of the amount of the recipe with Stevia sugar's three times more.

- Right.

- So- - And if someone has an allergy to nuts, we can use oat milk or soy milk or- - [Francesco] Absolutely, yes.

Or rice milk.

- Right, okay.

So we have almond milk cooking.

- Yeah.

- So this dessert was naturally vegan.

Yeah?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Amazing.

So we have almond milk that we're warming and I'm going to add- - A little bit of orange zest, huh?

- Okay.

- To taste natural.

- And so you zest the orange like this, and you try not to get too far into the white, into the pith, which is bitter.

And this is really just to, oh mamma mia, it smells so good.

It's just to add that little bit of heavenly citrus, almost like perfuma.

- Yes.

- More than having zest in your pudding.

- Yeah.

Just a little essence.

- Smells so good.

Okay.

Okay.

- Perfect.

Now we can stir it in.

And this time- - Just whisk?

- Yeah.

We can pour as well the sugar, what do you think?

- I agree.

I agree.

It's such a small amount.

- So very important, desserts, normally you don't make a lunch with them or a dinner with them or a breakfast with them.

- Well.

(laughs) - So desserts.

Then after, you demonize.

- Exactly, yes.

Then after, you demonize.

- So desserts has to be like about 60 grams each.

Then okay, if you are there on a table, an amazing tiramisu or something else, or I don't know, beautiful biscuits, you can eat something more.

But the portion normally is 60 grams.

- I always say about three bites.

- [Francesco] Yes.

- About three bites- - It has to- - You really enjoy it.

- Perfectly finish your lunch or your dinner, but not fill you up.

- Not leave you feeling- - Yes, absolutely.

So here- - Okay, so while this is warming, I'm whisking it, but not putting a ton of bubbles.

I'm not getting a workout here.

It's just to sort of incorporate the zest throughout, and Francesco.

- Perfect.

Now.

- [Christina] He takes more almond milk.

- [Francesco] So here.

- How much more?

- This is one third of that amount.

- Okay.

- Okay?

Remember that.

The amount of the liquids here of the almond milk is about 500, so we have 150 here and the rest is in here.

- Okay.

So 500 grams total.

- It's just to dissolve the starch and everything.

- And you're using corn starch.

- Corn starch in this case.

- With vanilla in it?

- With vanilla in it.

- So you could use- - Remember, if you want, yes.

- Arrowroot, yes, as well?

- Absolutely.

And as well, rice starch or just all-purpose flour.

- So we're using corn starch to make this also gluten-free.

- Yeah.

Now the whisk, please, my chef.

(Francesco speaks Italian) - I know you are enjoying.

- I am.

(both laughing) I'm stirring away.

- And I whish it in very nicely.

- And so all that's happening here is the starch is dissolving, so there's no bumps and lumps in your dessert because that's not so elegant.

- Remember if the milk is a little bit cold, you need a bit more time or you can like leave it in room temperature, yeah.

(Francesco speaks Italian) - And now we add it, all of it, and we start mixing it again.

- And now, we whisk.

And now we're going to whisk it until it thickens.

And when it thickens, it's so elegant and beautiful and silky.

And let's be real.

This could not get easier to make.

If it was any easier to make, it would make itself.

If you don't have the time to stand here and do this for five minutes, you need to rethink your day.

(Francesco laughs) Because trust me, dessert is worth a tiny bit of effort.

And you can already feel the thickening under the whisk.

- Yeah, look at this.

- It's really beautiful.

- Beautiful.

- It's starting to make sort of like these swirls in the milk.

(Francesco speaks Italian) - Amazing.

- Okay, chef.

- Thank you so much.

- So then you simply, you can spoon it, or you can dramatically, as Sicilians would.

(both laughing) Nothing like a little drama.

- Yeah.

So here.

- It smells heavenly.

- Like almond, right?

- Almond and orange, and that touch of vanilla.

When I was a kid, I used to want to put vanilla behind my ears and walk around smelling like a bakery.

(both laughing) - My grandma with the orange zest or the lemon zest, you know, you remember?

- Yeah.

- It was just to use it like a perfume with oil- - Yeah, amazing.

- After the shower.

- And we take a little chocolate sauce.

- [Francesco] Just dark melted chocolate.

- Yep.

Just drizzle.

- With almond milk.

- With almond milk.

A lovely little ganache on the top.

You can put as much or as little as you like.

But I really love chocolate.

(Francesco speaks Italian) - I would stuff it like with chocolate, not full.

Arigato.

(Christina laughs) - And now the best part of making dessert, the tasting.

Mamma mia.

So simple, so creamy, so elegant.

Chef, (speaks Italian).

- You're welcome.

Thank you.

- And there you have it.

Biancomangiare, wow.

(Christina speaks Italian) (upbeat music) Just you know, think about this.

I remember my Asian teacher saying, one of the reasons we don't communicate well, we can't hear each other, is that we don't eat together, so the quality of our blood is not compatible.

Energetically speaking.

Now, before you roll your eyes, this thinking is steeped in ancient wisdom, on philosophers observing how food, nature, and other factors affected how we move through life.

They say that in Japan, indirect communication is polite.

It's a style of eating.

If one has ramen, all have ramen.

And it creates an environment of harmony and reduces conflict.

In Chinese medicine, we would say that similar energy's being created, thereby smoothing communications.

I come from an Italian family where yelling was the norm, but not out of conflict.

It was yelling out of passion.

Each meal ended with kisses and hugs and shared love regardless of what was discussed at the table.

Eating together is sharing love.

And in the end, love is all there is.

So think about that, and I'll see you next time on "Christina Cooks."

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding provided by Finamill, the flavor of freshly ground spices and dried herbs with refillable swappable pods.

Finamill, where cooking gets creative.

And 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.

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

Additional funding provided by.

You can find today's recipes and learn more by visiting our website at christinacooks.com, and by following Christina on social media.