Homebaker’s Cookbook: Cavatelli with broccoli and anchovies/ Il Ricettario di Homebaker: Cavatelli con broccoli e acciughe

I wanted to make orecchiette…and I came out with cavatelli! For today’s Homebaker‘s Cookbook recipe I studied a lot, watching several videos and discovering an inspiring woman…Nunzia! The problem is that despite my good manual skills that gesture that might seems so easy to do, dragging a dumpling of dough using the tip of a knife, proved to be very difficult and quite frustrating. So after the first ten orecchiette that believed themselves to be cavatelli, I gave in. But I intend to find a grandmother from Puglia willing to spend several hours with me to teach me all secrets that lay behind the famous pasta. I wonder if this site could be of any help (go and take a look, it is truly wonderful!). Ok, no more chatting…fasten your aprons!

ZZAFF!: Risotto con la Luganega

This month recipe for ZZAFF! is a classic of Ticino cuisine. Luganega or luganighetta is a sausage made with pork, pepper and spices, which is usually grilled in summer and country festivals. I remember when I was a child at the Sassello Fair in Obino, the village where I grew up, they served luganighette rolled on wooden sticks which looked like a snail. This sausage is usually associated with carnival and is appreciated with the classic risotto, a dish formerly reserved for holidays.

Here you can listen the program, every first Sunday of the month:
At 20 pm Rendez-vous on http://www.radiogwen.ch to hear Vostok’s podcasts in Italian!
At 21 Rendez-vous on http://www.radiovostok.ch to hear Gwen’s podcasts in French!

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Vegetarian Seitan Empanadas / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Empanadas vegetariane al seitan

Another day at the Mill, a new recipe for the Cookbook…or rather two new recipes! Today I will be teaching you how to make seitan, a product that has gained more and more visibility in the past years. It takes very little time to make it and the result is excellent. Seitan is a high-protein food of oriental origins that is often used in vegetarian and vegan diets. Being very rich in gluten it is not suitable for celiacs. If cooked with seaweed or flavoured with soy sauce seitan is a complete food, containing 8 amino acids essential to our diet. A very versatile product and a good alternative to meat (it can be flavoured in many different ways), it is worth to include this ingredient in our diets. One kilo flour is enough to obtain 500 g of seitan in just a few minutes of kneading and washing the dough. The rest of the job is done by soaking and boiling the mixture of flour and water.

Buckwheat diamonds in autumnal broth / Pasta di grano saraceno in brodo autunnale

Autumn. If you have been following my blog for a few years there is no need for me to stress on how much I love this season. If I had to pick a few words to describe this season those words would be: orange, leaves, perfumes, chestnuts, woolly jumpers, fireplace, home. A few words which are already eight…oh the nasty habit of dwelling that I have! To these “few words” I would just add another one: buckwheat.

No other kind of grain embodies in itself all the scents, colours and flavours of the most beautiful season of the year. Aromatic, intense, hot, buckwheat is very well suited for a variety of recipes ranging from sweet to savoy with the advantage of being a highly warming food (something I learned during my macrobiotic phase), therefore ideal for these months that are slowly introducing us to the cold winter. There is nothing better than a good hot soup to reconcile yourself with the world after a hard day’s work. Just imagine being in the cozy warmth of your house, holding a steaming bowl while sitting on the couch watching one of your favourite tv series.

The dough can be prepared it in advance and frozen laying the diamond shaped pasta on a cutting board covered with plastic wrap. When the pasta is thoroughly frozen you can store it in box to prevent it from breaking.

Fagioli all’uccelletto / Fagioli all’uccelletto

Today I present you with a Tuscan recipe which I revisited, Fagioli all’uccelletto. A meat dish just for a change, a once in a while diversion from the usual bread baking routine. A nourishing and warming dish. Fagioli all’uccelletto is a traditional Tuscan dish, typical of the Florentine area. According to Pellegrino Artusi the name derives from the herbs and aroma used to cook this dish (especially sage) which where once used to flavour dishes made which had wild birds (uccelletti) as the main ingredient. This dish employs ingredients which are more readily available and serves as a mock version of those recipes. A rustic and rich meal, with plenty of animal and vegetable proteins, which is perfect to warm up the body and lift the spirit during those cold and gloomy winter evenings. I don’t know about you, but the perfume of meaty dishes, the sound of tomato and legumes splattering, mumbling and rumbling in a saucepan always get me in a good mood. It just smells like home…

A Spring Menu nr 4 / Un menù primavera nr 4

This is the last appointment with my spring menus (you can check the first, the second and the third menu by clicking directly on them). Here are the four courses of my forth spring menu:

Kidney Bruschetta on Rocket and Hazelnut Spread
Gnocchi with nettles, butter and mint
Fried Lamb Chops with Mustard and Apple Compote
Frothy Custard with Saffron, Cardamom and Rose Water

A Spring Menu nr 2 / Un menù di primavera nr 2

Here we are with the second appointment with my spring menus. Aren’t you curious to read what’s up for this week? Here are the four courses of the second menu:
Savoury Short Pastry Nests with Cheese Cream, Chicory and Black Olives
Rosemary and Candied Lemon Peel Risotto
Rabbit with Beer, Honey and Herbs Glaze with Roasted Potatoes
Almonds and Orange

Is your mouth watering yet?

Of favourite dishes and comfort food: Pasta ccu li brocculi / Piatto del cuore e comfort food: Pasta ccu li brocculi

Forgotten in a dusty folder in the darkest recesses of my “limbo” folder, yet another recipe part of the project that never came to light of which I wrote about in my previous post. A saviouor to me, being this one a tough moment where I am finding it very hard to have control on both blogs, switching from macro to bread and non-macro recipes, feeling a bit drained and uninspired. This dish became a staple at my parents place in the past few years, and my father cooks it divinely. I worked on the basic recipe from the book Le migliori ricette della cucina regionale Italiana which I used as an inspiration for my sweet rice cakes, too. Sicilian traditional food never disappoints. A light salty note is given by sardines, counterbalanced by a slightly sweet touch confered by raisins and fennel seeds. The texture of blanched cauliflower and pine nuts add an irresistible crunchy touch to a dish which I never get bored with. Savour it bite after bite, chew religiously. The aromas and textures will blend, caressing your taste buds and you will inevitably fall in love. Simple ingredients, minimum time of preparation, the ultimare comfort food…you couldn’t ask for more!

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Trofie with Chestnut and pumpkin sauce / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Trofie alla salsa di castagne e zucca butternut

It has been quite a while since the last time I posted a fresh pasta recipe for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook. My choice fell on a classic of Genoese cuisine, trofie, which are accompanied with two typical ticinese ingredient, pumpkin/butternut squash and chestnuts. There’s nothing more autumnal than this, and considered the cold weather nothing better than a good seasonal dish to warm our hearts and bodies isn’t it?

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Soft butter rolls with rye flour with quick hummus/ Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Panini morbidi al burro e farina di segale con hummus veloce

Another Maroggia’s Mill Friday, with a new bread recipe that will delight your palate. It often happens that, in kitchen as in life, mistakes, accidents and misfortunes can lead to even more fortunate coincidences. This recipe was born just like that, with a failed experiment and some mistakes.