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.

MTChallenge: Macarons / Dell’MTChallenge e dei Macarons gemelli diversi: il macaron gnocco e il macaron cesso

I’m quitting. This is the last one, I swear. I have been repeating the same thing for quite a while now. Too much stress, brainstorming, tetris-like scheduling strategies. What about the anxiety, the overwhelming sense of inferiority I feel every time I check out the other contestants’ recipes, every time a picture gets posted onto the group’s facebook page. And then a new month comes along with a new challenge. I can’t help but participate, I can’t resist to the call of the MTChallenge. Even though I felt a shiver down my spine when I read the theme for this month’s challenge. Our dear Ilaria chose one of the most fearsome recipes…the macaron! A few years back I did experiment a bit and produced dragon eggs for a first attempt and got only close to proper macarons with these Luxemburgerli-like sweets (a swiss version of macarons but of a smaller size) on my second attempt. Fear and Loathing in Chiasso. And on top of it all the tap in the kitchen has been out of order for almost a month and I was forced to wash dishes, bowls and kitchen accessories in the bathtub. You can just imagine my state of mind. And what about the firm conviction that both the shells of the macarons had to be flavored, which led me to test and photograph them a second time because the first one I had forgotten to spice up the shells of one of the two recipes I baked for the challenge. The first macarons batch turned out to be perfect (I have pictures to prove it!!!) but I decided not to fill them in order not to waste time and ingredients. And of course the second time around something went wrong with the cardamom macarons. Virtually they came out in the shape of tits. I think the problem lies in the fact that the mix was very thick and maybe I should have work it a little harder in order to break the air bubbles. Or maybe it just needed a little more egg white having added the cardamom powder and poppy seeds. However having no time nor desire to whip up a third batch I decided to participate in any case, with both macarons: the beautiful and the ugly.

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…

Tuscan Crostini with Chicken Livers / Crostini con fegatini di pollo

Chicken livers…so much I have eaten, so much I love them! I discovered this delicacy during my studies at the university of Florence, and I still enjoy them after so many years. There’s nothing more winter and cuddly. The ingredients are simple and poor. Bread is always in the pantry. Appetizer anyone?

A Spring Menu / Un menù di primavera

Spring arrived, at last! After a cold and rainy winter pleasant warm days have finally set in and thinner sweaters have replaced wool jumpers which have been stored in boxes for next year’s cold. To welcome spring I decided to dust off the drawer a small collection of recipes I put together last year, for a project that never came to life. The entire collection has been available for a few hours on the blog, then an opportunity made me decide to take it off in a hurry to see whether it was possible to have the work published. In the end, unfortunately, there was no further development but the recipes and photos are so beautiful that I decided to publish them on the blog this year,. I will post two menus a month, for a total of four, until the end of May. Without further ado I start with the first menu, which is composed by four recipes.

Macro dumplings for MTC Challenge / Canederli macro per l’MTC Challenge

New year, new challenges. It seems only yesterday that Francesca challenged us with a her literary inspired muffin, but it has been two months now. Enough to relax and forget how the MTC Challenge can put my brain and creativity under enormous pressure. Couple this with my macro lifestyle adventure and you can just imagine how difficult it will be for me from now on…but stubborn as I am the goal this year will be to be able to participate to all of MTC’s challenges by inventing all sorts of macro alternatives to the recipes and ingredients we will be given. Honestly these dumplings were a walk in the park if I consider the risk of running into a dessert recipe, or worse a brioche dough rich in eggs, butter and sugar. But challenges are vital in my life and for my blog(s) too and I am ready to face any recipe, even though I fear many tears will be shed being failure and disappointment just around the corner with macro cooking!

MTChallenge: Licorice Lasagna with Chicken Liver and Leeks / MTChallenge: Lasagna alla liquirizia, fegatini di pollo e porri

Another month and yet another MTChallenge. A tough one. Yes, because this month Sabrina, from Les Madeleines Proust blog, challenged us with a traditional Italian recipe. One of those one might think would be fairly easy to make, after all what’s so difficult about rolling some dough? I bet you already guessed what I am talking about: Lasagna! And we’re talking about the real deal. The sheet of pasta, as instructed by Sabrina, had to be rolled by hand. Yeah, rrrright! May it be my proverbial insecurity, my total inexperience, my well known impatience, or the fact that after 30′ resting the dough was slightly sticky but my lasagna certainly will make history. For its thickness.

Garganelli and Ragù alla Mamma / Garganelli del riciclo pasquale e ragù alla mamma

I still remember the day when I virtually met Michela, aka Menta e Rosmarino, on Facebook’s group Panissimo. She had just published a recipe for a very nice bread. As absurd as it sounds I vaguely remember the loaf but remember very well the main colors of the photo, white and red, which I later discovered to be her “signature colors”. A sort of White Stripe of baking my friend, the third missing element who I imagine playing the pans using woden spoons. No time for digression, let’s get on with my story.