I want to share a simple appetizer recipe with you that my friend Rudy calls his Famous Italian Hot Pepper Cream Sauce. I enjoyed this recipe when I traveled this Summer to New Jersey to break bread, enjoy wine, share old memories and create new ones with close friends and family. How can you go wrong with a spicy, cheesy, cream sauce that you dunk crusty Italian bread into? Well, you can’t.

My good friends Rudy and Sherife are lifelong friends who I don’t get to see that often. But when I do, it’s like we saw each other yesterday. You know, the type of low-maintenance friends that are just happy to see you without ever saying, “You never call!”

We all grew up in a small town called Ridgefield. It’s a cute little town right near the George Washington Bridge on the Jersey side of the Hudson River.  Like me, Rudy is Italian and comes from a long line of amazing cooks. Sherife is Turkish. She was born in Turkey but moved to the states at a very young age.  Her family cooks amazing Turkish food.

When we were kids, I loved to eat the dishes Sherife’s mom would make, like homemade Baklava, along with spinach or meat rolled in phylo dough called Borek.  Sherife and her sister Shehnaz have been two of my bestest bestest friends ever since. (Watch for some Turkish recipes this fall when their mom gets back from Turkey and I can get the recipes from her.)

With that sort of family history, you can imagine the culinary juices flowing in Rudy and Sherife’s kitchen. They both cook spectacular food, including fresh, simple, Mediterranean dishes very similar to how I cook most of the time.

On the night we arrived at their house, Rudy was just getting in from the New York City. He stopped in the Bronx for some bread and cheese so we could try his “Famous Italian Hot Pepper Cream Sauce”.

It’s a simple sauce but the hot peppers, combined with the creamy cheesy sauce and the crusty bread, is so good it will bring tears to your eyes – literally. I could have eaten a whole loaf of bread on my own.

Pair this with a nice red wine, add some conversation and laughter and you won’t need anything else.

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 6 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 8-10 hot Italian peppers, washed stems cut off (you can take seeds out or leave the peppers whole)
• 1 pint heavy cream
• 1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
• Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
• 1 large loaf of crust Italian or French bread

Directions:

In a medium size sauce pan over medium high heat, add the olive oil and sauté garlic until it’s light brown but not burned. Add peppers and sauté peppers about 5-10 minutes, or until they start to soften.

Add the butter, then the heavy cream. When the heavy cream starts to boil, lower the heat to a simmer, add cheese, salt and pepper to taste, and simmer for about another 10 more minutes or until sauce thickens slightly.

Pour into a serving bowl and serve with sliced crusty bread on the side for dipping.

This sauce is so versatile it is also great over pasta, rice, chicken, beef or fish. Feel free to get creative and serve it up any way you like.

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