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This summer I went to the Italian Feast. It is an amazing event of major religious proportions where men place a large plaster statute of Mary on a bier, raise it up onto their shoulders, and carry it proudly down the street through throngs of believers. Mary is wearing a startlingly rich blue robe made of velvet that people kiss and attach money to; others place flowers at her feet.
After the sacred part of the festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel the crowd visits the fair where carnival rides twist and spin filled with shrieking passengers, people buy gimcrack market goods like homemade candles, T-shirts, religious medals, and plaster statuettes of Mary and Jesus and God, and they buy homemade foods, little tastes, for $1.50 to $2.00 each.
The foods are marvelous, tagged with names I never heard of, rich in aroma, and served up by men and women with faces so authentic (with eyelashes that dark one would never need mascara!) that you could, for a moment or two, actually think you were in Italy.
One of my favorite "tastes" was cheese tortellini swimming in a sea of flavored spinach. You could serve it either as a side dish or add more broth and serve it as soup.
Here is my attempt to recreate it. Five people have given me the thumbs up so far. See what you think.
3 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic
2 pkgs frozen spinach, thawed
2 cans chicken broth
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1 pkg Barilla tortellini, cheese and garlic
Place the first 3 items in a large skillet and sauté' until onions are soft yet not browned. Add the broth and bouillon cubes and the spinach. Simmer for 10 minutes. (You can make the recipe up to this point ahead of time.) When ready to serve cook the pasta according to the directions on the package. Gently spoon the cooked and drained pasta into the skillet with the rest of the ingredients. Sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese. (optional)
Serve.
(For soup use 6 cans broth and 6 bouillon cubes.)
