LIDIA: Buon giorno.

I'm Lidia Bastianich, and teaching you about Italian food has always been my passion.

It has always been about cooking together and ultimately building your confidence in the kitchen.

So what does that mean?

You got to cook it yourselves.

For me, food is about delicious flavors... Che bellezza!

...comforting memories, and most of all, family.

Tutti a tavola a mangiare!

ANNOUNCER: Funding provided by... ANNOUNCER: At Cento Fine Foods, we're dedicated to preserving the culinary heritage of authentic Italian foods by offering over 100 specialty Italian products for the American kitchen.

Cento -- Trust your family with our family.

ANNOUNCER: Authentic and original -- Amarena Fabbri.

A taste of Italy for brunch with family and friends.

Amarena Fabbri -- the original wild cherries in syrup.

ANNOUNCER: Grana Padano -- authentic, Italian, rich in tradition, yet contemporary.

ANNOUNCER: Locatelli Pecorino Romano cheese from Italy -- handcrafted from 100% sheep's milk.

ANNOUNCER: Olitalia, "From chef to chef."

ANNOUNCER: And by... LIDIA: Harvest time starts late in August in Italy, and it is one of the most important celebrations in the Italian culture.

Risotto takes on a new meaning when using nutty oats paired with sweet butternut squash and sunchokes.

My classical olive oil cake is served with ruby-red poached pears and a drizzle of red wine sirup.

So let's celebrate the colorful flavors of fall.

Prepare the harvest.

Ferragosto in Italy is like a red light went on all over Italy.

Ferragosto, the 15th of August, Italy shuts down.

It's a time to harvest.

Everything is ripe.

The figs are super ripe.

The grapes are ready to be harvested.

A few weeks later, the olives will be harvested.

So all this planning and all this work is ahead.

Everything is at its best.

The Earth really opens its arms.

It says, "Here you go.

This is my gift to you."

When you buy, buy food and products that are sustainable, that will keep our world ongoing green and beautiful for our children and our grandchildren.

Oat risotto.

I love cooking by the season.

Products in the seasons give you the best result, the best flavor and they will have set you in the mood.

So here we are a little bit in an autumn mood.

And I love it.

It's very complex and delicious in flavor.

It's oatmeal risotto.

So, to give it all that big impact, we are going to take some of the porcini mushrooms and reconstitute them.

Porcini bring a lot of flavor to a risotto, to a soup, to whatever you cook, and you reconstitute, or bring it back, in a sense, to life, the porcini and the flavor by adding hot water or stock.

A good basis for a risotto is always a pestata, and us Italians are into our pestata.

So the pestata is onions... ...carrots.

And this is a great pestata if you make soups, if you make any risotto.

And celery and garlic.

Here we are.

Okay, and you want it chopped fairly fine because we have all the chunks of the other vegetables that are going to go in.

So, some olive oil to begin and a nice, sturdy pot.

You know, thick pot.

We've made many risottos together, you and I.

But this is a little different.

It's an oatmeal risotto.

So, the pestata is cooking.

Let's talk a little bit about oats.

These are steel-cut oats.

These are the coarse ones, whereas these are rolled oats.

So this is the one that you make for breakfast.

But for the risotto, we want this that has more texture and that it will retain that texture because risotto is about grain and texture.

One of the vegetables I'm going to add to it is Jerusalem artichoke, or topiambour in Italian.

It's a root of a wild sunflower.

So sometimes when you're driving around and you see those tall, little skinnier and smaller sunflowers, at the bottom, there is the root, which is a sunchoke, just like this.

And I think certainly you want to wash it.

And if you wash it well, you can even use the skin.

And you peel it like a potato.

And I washed this, so I'm going to in between leave a little bit of skin.

It's perfectly fine.

I sometimes like to leave also all the skin on it.

So let's go to the mushrooms.

So, the mushrooms have a reconstituted.

You can see they're soft now.

I'm going to chop them a little bit, and I'm going to use this water as well.

So let's put the water right in.

And always, as you can see here at the end, there is a little sediment because mushrooms grow in dirt.

So whenever you reconstitute it, always leave a little bit of the water with the sediment and discard that.

And I'm going to chop up the mushrooms and get them in there.

Mm.

And let's get back to the topiambour -- the Jerusalem artichokes.

And it stays nice and crunchy when you're cooking it.

It is delicious roasted just like potatoes.

You know, it's sort of late-summer, fall vegetable, and it's, mmm, delicious.

Let me put the tomato paste first.

I want this to cook, and then I want the tomato paste a little bit to sort of toast and cook itself.

So we have certainly plenty of tomatoes up north.

But what we do with our tomatoes, because sometimes they're not as sweet as the southern Italian tomatoes because the sun is not as intense up north, we make this [speaking Italian] we call it, which is tomato paste.

So it is time to add the oats.

Just add them like that.

And this is a way of cooking also other grains other than rice.

Just pay attention on how long does the grain itself take to cook, and then you can flavor it and cook it in this fashion.

Bay leaves -- so fresh.

Bay leaves right in there.

And at this point, we'll put the water.

And unlike risotto, you don't have to slowly add water to this.

You can add it all at once because there is no starch.

So in a sense, we are cooking it almost like a soup.

And we are going to bring it down to a nice density just like risotto.

So let's put in the Jerusalem artichokes that we'll cook together.

♪ Here I have some ready.

And, of course, what would fall be without butternut squash?

Butternut squash is creamy.

The Jerusalem artichokes flavorful and a little crunchy.

We'll bring it to boil, and then we'll lower it a little bit and let it simmer.

This will take 20 minutes to half an hour to cook.

And then we'll be ready to serve it with some good cheese.

Benvenuti to my library.

I'm ready for your questions.

Keep on sending them.

So let's see what's in my box.

So, Gina has been cooking up a storm.

She loves to cook and loves to learn from me.

She's a nurse by day, chef on the weekends.

Nice.

I like that.

Let's see what she's up to.

She has a nice picture of gnocchis.

She has a nice picture of focaccia.

They look beautiful, Gina.

On the weekend, you can make a lot of gnocchi and freeze them, so, certainly, this gnocchi with some sauce would be a one-night meal coming home from work.

The focaccia freezes also very well, you know?

You can reheat it in the oven, too.

And with it, a nice salad with some boiled eggs or maybe some tuna, and you have another good meal.

So, Gina, you're on the right track, and it looks beautiful.

Brava.

Congratulations.

The risotto is done.

Let's remove the bay leaves.

You know how many you put in.

Make sure you get that many out.

So, to give it some more flavor... Fontina cheese.

So, let's add this.

And you shred it so it gets a chance to melt.

Just like that.

And you can see that it's already forming fili, which means the threads of cheese, of melting cheese.

So there is fili.

So, some grana on tap.

And, you know, this you do off the fire, and you do it when you're ready to serve.

So here we are.

Mmm-mmm!

Let's bring it to the table just like that.

I think your family will like that very much.

And you just... Look at those fili right here.

Oh.

Mamma mia.

Que delizioso.

What a delight.

♪ Mmm!

Okay.

One portion.

A generous portion, that is.

And... Mmm!

♪ As you can see, you need to get going with this.

Nice and hot at the table.

Some grated cheese on top.

So let's eat while it's hot.

Let me taste this.

♪ Mmm.

The Jerusalem artichokes are crunching under my teeth.

What a great, comfy family meal.

Good glass of wine.

And you don't need anything else.

Some of my favorite time in the kitchen has been teaching my grandchildren to grow into confident cooks.

And these days, even though they're living on their own, that doesn't mean they stop asking for my advice.

"Sharing Recipes."

Stuffed mushrooms.

And here she is.

Hi, Olivia!

OLIVIA: Hello!

How are you?

LIDIA: Okay.

Are you settled in?

You look quite comfortable.

OLIVIA: Yes.

All settled.

Very comfy.

Just wanted to call and catch up and ask you a few questions.

LIDIA: I'm here for you.

You know that.

What would you like to know?

OLIVIA: As you know, after work, we love to sometimes invite our friends over.

If it's nice out, have some drinks on our roof.

And sometimes it's nice to have some food prepared, too.

And I know you told me about the stuffed mushrooms before.

LIDIA: Oh, yeah.

That's a delicious dish.

It's simple.

It's vegetarian.

You can prepare it even before, put it in the oven.

It doesn't take that long to cook.

So, you know, there's many different kinds of mushrooms, but I think ideally for, like, a little cocktail hour or kind of finger food, the smaller the mushroom, the better it is.

So it could be the champignon or the cremini, the little darker ones.

Whichever one you like.

Rinse in and out quickly.

With a paring knife, you remove and chop the stems.

That's part of the stuffing.

You sauté them in a little bit of olive oil.

Salt, pepper, peperoncino, onions.

And when that is cool, you add to it some parsley, breadcrumbs, grated cheese.

So that is the stuffing.

But this stuffing is great for any vegetables.

The bacon, we put on a sheet pan.

And you just drizzle it with oil.

I like to sprinkle some grated cheese on top of it, so that gives the finished product that crunch.

And you put it in a hot oven.

It will take 20 minutes, half an hour, and it is done.

And you can see how this could be also a nice supper with some proteins.

It could be...ricotta.

It could be regular prosciutto.

It could be cheese.

And you have yourself a great dinner.

So enjoy.

Have a good time making these mushrooms.

Send me pictures.

I want to see the results.

Okay?

OLIVIA: Okay.

Love you.

Goodbye.

LIDIA: Ciao, ciao.

Oh, isn't that wonderful?

Connecting, sharing.

And you really feel that they're taking it in, they're absorbing it, and it's gonna be part of their life, their repertoire.

Flavors of Nonna.

Olive oil cake with red-wine poached pears.

Everybody loves dessert, and this is such a simple, straightforward, really typical Italian dessert.

Olive oil cake.

But, you know, I always like to add something, so we're gonna do some poached pears in wine.

So let's put the wine in first.

And wine, you know, you always ask me -- Cooking wine, cooking wine.

First of all, don't buy cooking wine.

Use the wine that you like to drink, then you have left over, maybe wines that are not very expensive but are good.

And this is what we're gonna cook the pears in.

I'm gonna put some sugar.

Cinnamon sticks.

Cloves.

And these are all interesting spices, the allspice.

In Italy, especially the Venetian cuisine, we use a lot of these spices.

So let me put on the heat here.

And I have some pears that have been already cleaned and cored.

Don't get an overripe pear because it will fall apart in the cooking process.

So, the one element that I want to add to this is ginger.

And, so, this is ginger that has been candied, so you have to be careful how much sugar you put once you use the syrup.

But it brings also a little spiciness.

And I put it right in there, just like that.

And I kind of like the pieces.

When I serve it, I'll give each one a piece of ginger, and they get a bite of the ginger.

Okay.

Another element, of course -- certainly there is enough in Italy -- is orange.

I love to work with orange, the rind as well as the juice.

I'm gonna pull it out, so I want to make long pieces just like that.

And stay away from the pith.

It's just the yellow part that we're looking for here.

Because the pith is what makes it bitter.

So, a potato peeler does the trick.

And squeeze the juice right in here.

♪ Mmm!

♪ So here it is.

It's gonna cook away.

for about a half an hour.

Simmer away.

I'm just gonna clean up, and we're gonna make the cake.

So, Gloria's having a tough time with making this olive oil cake.

Her cake seems to sink in the middle once it's cooled.

And is wondering if she did something wrong, or is this how it's supposed to look after cooking?

So, Gloria, let's just sum up some of the reasons that might bring you to this falling cake.

Did you preheat the oven?

Is your baking soda maybe old and it's not giving it the raising power that it should?

Do you sift your flour?

Very important.

Sift the flour.

Aerate it.

It raises much better.

So these are some of the possibility.

And, you know, practice.

Keep on practicing.

Simple olive oil cake.

It is that simple, and it is very Italian, and made with olive oil, not butter.

So let's get some olive oil.

About 1/2 cup will be enough.

♪ And the sugar.

And let's whisk that.

Now, you could use a mixer or whatever, but, you know, simple like this.

If you don't have all the equipment, you can still make great food the old-fashioned way, if you will.

That's what my grandmother did.

So here we are.

Let's do the rind of one lemon.

Let's just grate it right in there.

Just the yellow part.

And now we'll begin with the eggs.

Two whole eggs.

And one egg yolk.

Now really mix because I want the sugar to melt a little bit.

Let's put the milk in.

Limoncello.

A little bit of vanilla.

Okay.

Flour.

I always like to sift my flour before I use it for anything because it aerates it, and it makes the cake lighter.

Baking powder.

Some salt.

Okay.

These are all the dry ingredients.

And let's incorporate them all completely.

Nice and smooth and flowing batter.

So, here I have a baking pan.

I do line it a little bit.

Brush it just with oil.

Then a little bit of flour.

And then I like to cut a piece of parchment paper right on the bottom just to make sure that the cake comes out nice and easy, and it peels off the cake very easily once it is baked.

So let's get the -- the mixture in.

♪ And 350-degree oven for 30 minutes.

It should pop up a little bit higher maybe in the middle, but it'll be nice, moist, and delicious.

Here is a question about bacon.

Helen asks, "Do I have to grease and flour the cake pan if I am using parchment paper to line it?"

Not really.

In a sheet-pan case, parchment paper will take care of it.

If you're baking the cake in a cake pan, butter and flour the sides.

And the bottom, your parchment paper.

The parchment will release it from the bottom, and the butter and the flour will release it from the sides, although you will need the help maybe of a knife or something to run around to make sure that it's released.

Because, you know, the sugars and the fats in the cake do stick to -- to the pan.

I hope that helps, makes it easier for you, Helen.

Now it's time to serve the cake.

I have all the ingredients.

Simple and delicious.

So, here I have some whipped cream.

And just -- I add a little yogurt to it.

So, this way, the cream has a little tartness to it.

And when you cook the pears, if you let them -- even if you cook them the day before, you let them steep in the sauce, then they really get nice and colorful.

And then what I do towards the end, I pull them out and put them like this.

And if the sauce is not viscous enough, if it's not dense, I reduce the sauce, as well.

Let's put some of the sauce here, and some of it, I will keep to dress the individual platters.

So let me just put a little bit here.

Mmm-mmm-mmm!

And whenever you're pouring any sauce, you always put it in the middle, and it'll find its way into place.

So here we are.

And this is how the cake looks.

It's nice.

It's soft.

It's light.

Nice portion.

Just like that.

And a little portion for Lidia.

♪ This is my little corner here.

Let's see.

Where would I... And I think half a pear is certainly enough.

So, you see, I'm following myself with the plate, so I don't dirty my tablecloth here.

Shall we put it on top?

What do you think?

Then I, of course -- A little piece of ginger.

One.

Two.

And a little piece for Lidia.

Mm-hmm.

And Lidia likes her ginger.

Let's do the sauce.

And don't oversauce it.

Just a little bit.

The sauce will spread around.

A little bit for Lidia.

Mmm!

And let's see.

Just a little bit of the whipped cream here.

And I have here some nice mint from my garden.

Let's see.

Put this mint, I think, just like this here.

So we're ready to enjoy a piece of cake.

♪ Mmm!

Delizioso.

So, there's plenty here.

So, what do I usually say?

Tutti a tavola a mangiare e bere.

And, of course, I'm gonna finish this with this spumante from Lago di Garda.

Beautiful lake.

One of the largest lakes in Italy.

With delicious spumante.

And I'm inviting you.

Let's go visit Lago di Garda.

Salute.

Cooking in the seasons is something that I grew up with that was natural for me.

And coming to America, things were a little different.

I found everything I wanted at any time I wanted.

Strawberries in December.

It's convenient.

But is it the best way of eating, the best way of cooking?

No.

The best way is in rhythm with nature.

And the best way is also to eat locally.

And each season gives you their gifts.

They're different.

So cook in the seasons.

It will really give you the best results.

And then carry on the flavor of seasons with those candied, dry, or canned products that you find around.

You can extend that season.

But the best is to cook fresh in the season while it lasts.

And just as there's food for every season, Grandma has a song for every occasion.

♪ ERMINIA: [ Singing in Italian ] ♪ Canta che ti passa ♪ ♪ Canta che ti passa ♪ ♪ Canta che ti passa ♪ [ Singing in Italian ] ♪ ANNOUNCER: The food from this series makes Italian cooking easy for everyone and showcases simple-to-prepare recipes that require fewer steps, fewer ingredients, and less cleanup, without sacrificing flavor.

The recipes can be found in Lidia's latest cookbook "Lidia's a Pot, a Pan, and a Bowl," available for $29.95.

To purchase this cookbook and any of her additional products, call 1-800-PLAY-PBS or visit shop.pbs.org/lidia.

ANNOUNCER: To learn more about Lidia, access to videos, and to get recipes, tips, techniques and much more, visit us online at lidiasitaly.com.

Follow Lidia on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram @lidiabastianich.

♪ ♪ ♪ ANNOUNCER: Funding provided by... ANNOUNCER: At Cento Fine Foods, we're dedicated to preserving the culinary heritage of authentic Italian foods by offering over 100 specialty Italian products for the American kitchen.

Cento -- Trust your family with our family.

ANNOUNCER: Grana Padano -- authentic, Italian, rich in tradition yet contemporary.

And by...

Authentic Italian cured meats.

Paolo Rovagnati, the true Italian tradition.

Closed captioning provided by San Benedetto.

"Lidia's Kitchen" studio provided by Clarke, New England's official Sub-Zero and Wolf showroom and test kitchen.

♪ ♪ ♪