Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Banitsa / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Banitsa

It’s been more than six months, but it seems like a century ago. In June we went on a short trip to Sofia, Bulgaria. A strange city, which I feel I still have to visit in order to fully understand (or at least try to understand). Needless to say that in 4 days we ate plenty of local food. I must say that variety is not a hallmark of Bulgarian cuisine and that in our daily trip to the bakery we often opted for a warm banitsa, a bread stuffed with eggs and feta. As is well explained in this Wikipedia page banitsa is generally served with boza. For your own sake I do not recommend trying this drink.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Feta, Tropea Red Onion and Sumac Panzerotti / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Panzerotti alla feta, cipolle di Tropea e Sumac

When I was a little girl right before Christmas it was tradition that I, my older sister and my father would go shopping in Milan on a Saturday. A special event, an opportunity for us to spend some time alone with our Daddy, who was often away from home for business matters. On this same Friday, but twenty-eight years ago, I would be counting the money safely stored in my piggy bank, waiting impatiently for the next morning to come. To my eyes Milan was magical place. I recall the bitter cold which would redden our cheeks and noses. The snow would fall slowly, in fine grains that almost did not leave a trace on the sidewalks. And all those lights, bright lights everywhere.

After long walks in the centre of the city and a due visit to Rinascente and Fiorucci where we would usually find little presents for our mom and friends we would happily end our Christmas pilgrimage at a mythical place: Luini. Luini and its warm to piping hot panzerotti, for which we would patiently wait in line, that same line that in the past years split into three to four separate ones in order to greet as much costumers as possible. Panzerotti must be eaten standing up, preferably leaning against a free portion of one of the walls of the buildings along Via Santa Radegonda 16, not to lose crispness of the dough and lava texture of the filling, which for me will always and only ever be tomato and mozzarella.

MTChallenge: Chestnut Honey and Feta Pizza / MTChallenge: Pizza al miele di castagno e feta

Here comes another month, here another MTChallenge. This time Eleonora and Michael, the two minds behind the blog Burro e Miele, threw their gauntlet not with a recipe but with an ingredient instead, and honey it is. Panic. This exact month is filled with work and new ideas, meetings, recipe testing and I won’t deny that such a great freedom within the challenge scares me a bit. In order not to exhaust myself I decided to keep a low profile, a very low one…but always with the desire to test new recipes and enjoy something different. Feta and honey have been a staple of Sunday brunches for a long time now and I’ve been crumbling feta on almost all of my white pizzas in the past years. It seemed to me like a perfect combination. A sweet and salty pizza, bring it on! The idea of putting honey directly into the dough is a winning one. Chestnut honey has a very distinctive taste and the result is pretty good…I already have been thinking of other recipes and I think I will be experimenting next Autumn. For the umpteenth time I want to thank MTC for being such a source of inspiration.

Living On My Own: Green Beans, Celeriac and Feta Tart / Living On My Own: Torta fagiolini, sedano rapa e feta

Here we go again with the Living On My Own column with it’s easy and fast recipes. This recipe is the closest you can get to an Ikea table (at least the table is one of the few furniture pieces we are all able to assemble on our own, isn’t it?). The main ingredients are simply boiled, blended together and poured into a ready to bake tart dough, easy peasy!

Living on my own: Swiss Chard, Beetroot and Feta Salad / Living on my own: Insalata di coste, barbabietola e feta

I’m back with a fast, healthy and tasty recipe for you single friends! Swiss Chard is a vegetable rich in vitamins, fiber, folic acid and minerals. The higher concentration of vitamins and carotene is in the green outer leaves, but that does not mean that this vegetable can not be consumed entirely. In fact the stem is my favorite part, it’s so crisp and fresh! Beetroot is one of the vegetables I love the most because of its versatility.

Twelve Loaves: Courgette, feta, honey and sesame seeds pull-apart bread / Twelve Loaves: Pane da strappare con zucchine, feta, miele e semi di sesamo

Last month has been quite hectic…attending Food Blogger Connect Conference was quite tiring and it took me a few days to recuperate my energy, then trying to put together the lessons learned at the conference (I am still struggling, I admit, especially geek wise) writing a couple of advertorials and working on other projects. So stressed out I completely forgot about Twelve Loaves. I could have dropped out just for this month but the theme, Summer Fun, immediately triggered something in me. Summer, sun, sea. My memory has taken a leap back in time, an Olympic jump to twenty years ago.

Panissimo and Ethnic Bread: Turkish Pide / Panissimo e i pani etnici: la Pide turca

Panissimo‘s theme for the start of 2014 immediately grabbed my attention: Ethnic breads. I love the cuisine of distant cultures and countries, especially the ones of India and Middle East.