TONY'S CREAMY COLE SLAW

I had some cabbage left over ...........

Ingredients

• 1 head green cabbage, finely shredded
• 2 large carrots, finely shredded
• 1 jar Marzetti's creamy Ranch Dressing 
• 2 tablespoons grated Spanish onion
• 2 tablespoons sugar, or to taste
• 2 teaspoons celery salt
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• raisins (optional)
• walnuts (optional)
• shredded coconut (optional)
• apples (optional)
• mandarin oranges (optional)

Directions

Combine the shredded cabbage and carrots in a large bowl. Whisk together the ranch dressing, onion, sugar,  celery salt, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl, and then add to the cabbage mixture. Mix well to combine and taste for seasoning; add more salt, pepper, or sugar if desired.
NOTE: DO NOT substitute any other brand of Ranch dressing. Use Marzetti's only. You can find it in
the produce refrigerated section at your grocery store. You'll thank me later. LOL

Sometimes I add raisins and chopped walnuts. Shredded coconut,works too. even mandarin oranges sometimes.

GALUMPI RECIPE

Ingredients

Sweet and Sour Tomato Sauce:

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed
• 1 1/2 quarts crushed tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cabbage Rolls:

• 11/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• Splash dry red wine
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 cups steamed white rice
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 large heads green cabbage, about 3 pounds each

To make the sauce:

Directions

Coat a 3-quart saucepan with the oil and place over medium heat. Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add the vinegar and sugar; simmer, until the sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and remove from the heat.

Place a skillet over medium heat and coat with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Sauté the onion and garlic for about 5 minutes, until soft. Stir in the tomato paste, a splash of wine, parsley, and 1/2 cup of the prepared sweet and sour tomato sauce, mix to incorporate and then take it off the heat. Combine the ground meat in a large mixing bowl. Add the egg, the cooked rice, and the sauteed onion mixture. Toss the filling together with your hands to combine, season with a generous amount of salt and pepper.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Remove the large, damaged outer leaves from the cabbages and set aside. Cut out the cores of the cabbages with a sharp knife and carefully pull off all the rest of the leaves, keeping them whole and as undamaged as possible, (get rid of all the small leaves and use them for coleslaw or whatever.) Blanch the cabbage leaves in the pot of boiling water for 5 minutes, or until pliable. Run the leaves under cool water then lay them out so you can assess just how many blankets you have to wrap up the filling. Next, carefully cut out the center vein from the leaves so they will be easier to roll up. Take the reserved big outer leaves and lay them on the bottom of a casserole pan, let part of the leaves hang out the sides of the pan. This insulation will prevent the cabbage rolls from burning on the bottom when baked. Use all the good looking leaves to make the cabbage rolls. Put about 1/2 cup of the meat filling in the center of the cabbage and starting at what was the stem-end, fold the sides in and roll up the cabbage to enclose the filling. Place the cabbage rolls side by side in rows, seam-side down, in a casserole pan.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Pour the remaining sweet and sour tomato sauce over the cabbage rolls. Fold the hanging leaves over the top to enclose and keep the moisture in. Drizzle the top with the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Bake for 1 hour until the meat is cooked.

GOOD LUCK!

If you want to make stuff cabbage Italian style, use my meatloaf recipe for the ground meat mixture, instead of the ingredientshere. And instead of the sweet and sour gravy listed here, use your favorite Italian gravy recipe. During the last 20 minutes that your casserole is in the oven, take it out and sprinkle romano cheese over the top. I like Romano instead of Parmesan, I think it has a zestier flavor.   

FEINSTEIN'S UPDATE

OK! Many of you have asked what happened in NYC when I appeared at Feinstein's back on November 1. Well, nothing happened. Cause the gig never happened. There was a scheduling conflict which couldn't be fixed so we had to reschedule. SO the gig was NOT cancelled has previously mis-reported, it is rescheduled.

Monday, May 16, 2011.
Feinstein's at the Regency, THE Nightclub of New York.

Vocalist Joe Girard and I will present  "The Music Of Our Life." We will be singing songs from The American Popular Songbook in our effort to preserve and promote the Legacy of wonderful music left to us by fellow singers, Frank Sinatra, Sinatra's favorite singer, Tony Bennett, and a host of other prominent APS singers. It will be a VERY special night of entertainment. Joe and I have been looking forward to working together and it's finally going to happen on May 16, 2011!

PERFORMANCE UPDATE

I will be joining vocalists Julie Aymes and Joe Girard for a special concert promoting The Legacy Entertainment Group on Saturday, February 26, 2011, at The Laurie Beechman Theatre in NYC.

 I've known Julie from way back in the day when we worked together at Hickory Hill's Sabre Room.  Joe and I met a few months back and became "paisans" immediately. Joe is also host of his own radio show on the widely successful Music Of Your Life Radio Network. I am really looking forward to this concert. The event will be hosted by NY vocalist, Tom D'Angelo. Special thank you to Joe Magnetico for all of the hard work in getting this event off the ground. THANKS, JOE!

I'M BACK!

I must be getting old. I forgot about my blog! A friend of mine, Jeff Conrad, suggested the idea of having a blog a few weeks back, and I remembered, I already have one. LOL

BUT, it was a mess. So Jeff offered to clean the page up, and give it some assemblance of organization. So, here it is,(drum roll) my newly designed web page! THANKS, JEFF!

FALL TV SEASON IS HERE!

Here's What I Think:

BEST MUST SEE SHOWS: THE EVENT (NBC), LONE STAR (FOX), RAISING HOPE (FOX)

BIGGEST SURPRISES (AND THATS A GOOD THING) : HAWAII FIVE-0 (CBS), THE DEFENDERS (CBS)

SOLID PREMIERES... ONLY TIME WILL TELL: DETROIT 187 (ABC), THE WHOLE TRUTH (ABC), OUTLAW (NBC), BLUE BLOODS (CBS).

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENTS: BOARDWALK EMPIRE (HBO), MY GENERATION (ABC)

EL STINKO:  RUNNING WILDE (FOX), !#?* MY DAD SAYS (CBS)

TONYS ITALIAN MEATLOAF

Good morning all! This is actually my Grandma Meatball's* recipe. What was remarkable about the old timers, was they never measured anything. It was always a little of this, a little of that, and it always came out tasting fantastic. So in this recipe, ingredients are listed but exact measurements are not given, except for in a few instances.

TONY'S ITALIAN MEATLOAF

2 LBS GROUND CHUCK
1 cup ITALIAN SEASONED BREAD CRUMBS (Progresso or any other brand. Must be seasoned b.c. not plain)
RED WINE
ROMANO CHEESE
FRESH CHOPPED PARSLEY
GARLIC
SALT
PEPPER
1 EGG
OLIVE OIL


start out with 2lbs ground chuck (NOT ground round, not ground sirloin, use ground chuck). Some of you might like to use 1lb ground chuck and 1 lb ground pork. Its up to you. Personally I like an all beef meatloaf.

wet the 1 cup of bread crumbs with the red wine until bread crumbs are moist. Make sure the entire cup of bread crumbs is wet and no dry areas are left. you might want to dilute the wine with equal measures of water. if your mixture comes out to watery add in a little more bread crumbs until the right consistency is achieved. Mix the bread crumbs in to the meat.

add cheese (I usually use 1/2 cup), 3 TBSP fresh chopped parseley (use fresh not bottled, you'll thank me later) garlic , salt, pepper. Mix all ingredients into meat.  Beat one egg add to meat. Work all ingredients evenly into the meat. Place meat mixture in refrigerator for 3 hours so all flavors are nicely released.

preheat oven to 350.

Remove meat from fridge. Make one tiny size meatball from the mixture and place in small frying pan with a little bit of olive oil. When meatball is fully cooked, cool, and taste. If your mouth explodes with flavor you're good to go! If not, whatever you feel is missing ingredient wise, add more of till meat taste is to your liking.

Lightly oil bottom of casserole dish. Shape meat mixture into loaf, place in casserole dish, rub a little olive oil on top of meatloaf,  cover meatloaf loosely with tin foil, and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Remove tinfoil during last 15 minutes, so the top of meatloaf browns.

Remember cooking should not be an exact science all the time. Sometimes a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, really works! Trust your instincts. ENJOY!


* When I was a child (we're talking from 3 yrs old on) whenever I went to Grandma's house, there was always a pot of meatballs on the stove and she would always call me to the stove for a tasty meatball. So to every one else she was Grandma Mary but to me she was always Grandma Meatballs.

CHICAGO BEARS

I keep forgetting to post this! Seems alot of people thought the Chicago Bears were gonna get their asses handed to therm last Sunday. Well, it looks lke the other team were the ones to get their asses handed to them. LOL

RARE DISNEY ITEMS FOR SALE ON EBAY!

If any of you collect rare Disney memorabilia, visit my ebay page at:

http://shop.ebay.com/timelessclassicsauctioneers/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=200&_sop=3&_rdc=1

SEPTEMBER ROSES! ONE OF MY MANY PASSIONS.

What's on the menu today - music wise and dinner wise!

GOOD MORNING! Alot of things going on today.  I'm scheduling a radio interview with Bruce Owens about my Feinsteins gig on 11/1, will be talking to the people involved about scheduling my February 12, 2011 Valentine's Day WELCOME HOME concert with Carey's 16 piece big band, and working on  the Oct 17 Skokie theatre concert.

But a man's gotta eat, too, so here's what I'm making for dinner  today!

Ingredients:

• 1 pound dried penne
• chicken tenders, cut in halves or quartered depending on your preference 
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh parsley, for garnish
• 2 lemons, juiced or 3 if you want your pasta extra lemon-y
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Romano if you want a more robust cheese flavor
• optional - one package of frozen leafy spinach 

DIRECTIONS:

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water, until al dente. Drain well.

season chicken with salt and pepper. Heat a large grill pan over medium high and add chicken. Grill until golden and completely cooked. Remove to a plate and slice.

Add the garlic and red pepper flakes to a saute pan with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and saute until fragrant.

Add the cooked pasta and turn heat off. Mix all together.Remove pasta to a large bowl.

Add chicken to the warm pasta and season with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle in chopped parsley.

Add the juice of  lemons and mix. Before serving top with cheese of your preference.

ENJOY!

Getting the songs ready for FEINSTEIN's on Monday, November 1, 2010

So this morning, I wake up and look at a stack of music that needs to be looked at. Over 75 tunes that I need to whittle down to 15 to 20 songs for my NYC Feinstein's debut on Monday, November 1, 2010.
After a 2 hour dilemna, I decide my opening song will be very unconventional and usually not considered an opener. But I used it once as an opener long ago, and one of the toughest critics in the U.S. gave my choice a thumb's up, so we shall see.  Joe M, don't ask, I ain't tellin'! LOL.

Picked some other tunes that I am really looking forward to singing, so now I have 40 songs (down from 100) that I have to decide on.

My goal with the Great American Songbook is to push it into the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, and alot of my selections are from these decades. But you just have to include some evergreens. Once again, don't ask, I ain't tellin! If you want to find out come and see me at Feinstein's.
 

Saturday September 18, 2010

Hi everyone!

Welcome to my blog. I've been procrastinating about doing a blog for over a year now. BUT bear with me, 'cuz when it comes to computers ... when they wrote the book "Computers for Dummies," they had me in mind.

Anyway, I will try to post daily to let you know what is going on with my career and my life.

So, what are you waiting for......... come join me!

Best - Mr. Tony A "The Swingin' Balladeer"