At first glance, “How To Use a Meat Cleaver: Secrets and Recipes From a Mob Family’s Kitchen” looks like your average Italian reality-show cookbook. (Ms. Giudice, I’m thinking of you.) Renee Graziano, star of VH1’s “Mob Wives” and her sisters — Jennifer, an exec producer on the show, and Lana, a restaurateur — offer family recipes for cabonara and cacciatore. But sprinkled among the recipes are some amusing helpful hints.
“It’s an unfortunate truth of the lifestyle that the men mostly go to jail,” Renee writes. “But they still never want to miss Sunday dinner.” She goes on to detail the best way to sneak meatballs into prison for a loved one doing time: Get a bag of of potato chips from the vending machine, go outside, empty the chips, go back inside, stuff the bag with meatballs and hand it off to your prisoners. But, Graziano cautions “This only works when sneaking balls into a federal camp.”
Elsewhere, she recalls visiting her father when he was doing time in Minnesota. He was in a low-security facility and could roam around the area. Her mother would leave boxes of food for him to find in the nearby woods. Of course, the boxes didn’t contain prepackaged food but rather big homemade meals like pot roast. “This doesn’t sound too Italian, does it?” Renee admits. But when you’re in prison, you’re not too picky. She shares the recipe for the pot roast below.
Beef Pot Roast with Potatoes and Carrots
1 (4- to 5-pound) chuck beef roast
Salt and pepper, to taste
3 tablespoons olive oil
8 whole carrots, unpeeled and cut in half
4 red bliss potatoes, each cut into 8 pieces
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
1 cup red wine (optional)
3 cups beef stock
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Sprinkle roast with salt and pepper. In a large baking pan, add the olive oil and place the vegetables around the meat. Place the rosemary on top of the meat and add the wine, if using, and beef stock to the bottom of the pan. Bake in the oven for 1 ½ hours. Check to make sure the meat is cooked all the way through by cutting into the roast; it should be just a little pink. If it’s not cooked through, bake for another 20 minutes.
Serves 4 to 6