O Food Recipe

Remember the O Foods for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month Contest! My O recipe is posted below along with all the information about the contest and the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. If you're a blogger, please participate by reading the instructions below. If you're not a blogger you can still make a donation to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (via http://www.firstgiving.org/) Thank you Sara, Jenn and Michelle!


Orecchiette with Rapini

1 16oz package of orecchiette pasta
1 bunch of rapini
1 cup cherry tomatoes (halved)
3 cloves garlic (thinly sliced)
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper

Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Rinse and dry the rapini, trim the very ends of the stalks. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a sauté pan and sauté the rapini and garlic together. Sauté about 5 minutes. Add the cherry tomatoes to the rapini at the very end of cooking just to warm them. Stir the rapini mixture into the orecchiette and add the remaining olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste. This is even better with warm Italian bread and sliced ricotta salata. The smoky-bitter taste of the rapini, the sweetness of the cherry tomatoes and the salty flavor of the ricotta salata work well together.

O Foods for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month

September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. In honor of Gina DePalma, author of Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen and Executive Pastry Chef of Babbo Ristorante in NYC, who was recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer,

Sara of Ms Adventures in Italy

Jenn of The Leftover Queen and

Michelle of Bleeding Espresso

are asking you to donate to the:

Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (via FirstGiving.org)

and then, out of the goodness of your hearts and to be eligible for the O Foods for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month Contest, please do the following:

1. Post a recipe to your blog using a food that starts or ends with the letter O (e.g., oatmeal, orange, okra, octopus, olive, onion, potato, tomato) and include this entire text box in the post;
OR

2. If you’re not into the recipe thing, simply post this entire text box in a post on your blog to help spread the word about the event and Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month.

AND
3. Then send your post url [along with a photo (100 x 100) if you've made a recipe] to ofoods[at]gmail[dot]com by 11:59 pm (Italy time) on September 30, 2008.
We will post a roundup and announce prize winners on October 3.

Prizes:
1 Recipe Prize for best “O food” concoction: $50 gift certificate to Amazon;
1 Awareness Prize for only publicizing event: Copy of Dolce Italiano cookbook.

From the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund:

Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic cancers in the United States and is the fifth leading cause of cancer death among U.S. women; a woman’s lifetime risk of ovarian cancer is 1 in 67.

The American Cancer Society estimates that 21,650 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the U.S. in 2008 and about 15,520 women will die from the disease.

The symptoms of ovarian cancer are often vague and subtle, making it difficult to diagnose. There is no effective screening test for ovarian cancer but there are tests which can detect ovarian cancer when patients are at high risk or have early symptoms.

In spite of this patients are usually diagnosed in advanced stages and only 45% survive longer than five years.

Only 19% of cases are caught before the cancer has spread beyond the ovary to the pelvic region.

When ovarian cancer is detected and treated early on, the five-year survival rate is greater than 92%.
Please donate to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund and help spread the word!