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.

MTChallenge June: Horse Meat Hamburger with Eggplant, Beetroot crisps, pepper ketchup in a liquorice bun / MTChallenge Giugno: Hamburger di cavallo con melanzana, barbabietola e ketchup di peperoni in panino alla liquirizia

Here I am a little sleepy and with half closed eyes as I sit here, typing at my computer. What an adventure for this month’s MTChallenge! Diabolical Arianna saparunda.blogspot.ch, who won the contest last month, launched a pretty complex challenge inviting us to cook our own version of the world famous American Hamburger. I can’t deny it, as all the staff of the challenge is very understanding when allergies and special diets ar involved I first contemplated the option of participating with a macrobiotic hamburger. That thought lasted about thirty seconds, then I realized that it had no sense at all, at least from my personl point of view on this dish. Let’s face it hamburgers must be rich, fat and rewarding. It didn’t feel quite right to stick a vegetable burger into a wholemeal bun with a tahini and umeboshi sauce. Hey, hold on a second…now that I came up with this I must admit it does sound quite appealing. Maybe I’ll give it a try soon. But anyway back to my burger. Blame it on the diet restrictions or just my own view on burgers (burger = meat), but I decided to focus on a juicy and tasty version of the American fast food par excellence. And I don’t regret it.

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?

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.

Ravioli with ricotta and zucchini with olive oil, lemon and wild fennel emulsion / Ravioli alla ricotta e zucchine con emulsione di olio evo, limone e finocchietto

It has been was quite a while since I last made pasta from scratch, and it’s just the second time I do some stuffed pasta for the blog. Not having any finely ground semolina (like the wonderful friscello speciale from Maroggia ‘s Mill), which unfortunately was to be found infested by moths on my return from vacation, I opted for normal semolina. Unthinkable, with my back bruised from the accident Copenhagen, going to the Mill to pick up the usual pack of 5 kilos. As a result I liked it. You will not feel much difference from the usual pasta, maybe yes it is a bit unrefined compared to the other version, but I quite like a rustic touch! The filling is very delicate and fresh, especially if you find the time to make ricotta at home as I did. What can I say, I should do it more often! It is worth taking the time to knead, roll out the dough to the thickness that suits you best, and prepare a stuffing from A to Z. What a satisfaction! And you, what are you waiting for? Try out for yourself and let me know what you think about it!

Garlic and Lemon Thyme Ciabattas for Twelve Loaves / Ciabatte all’aglio e al timo limonato per Twelve Loaves

When this month’s Twelve Loaves theme came out I was so happy! Onions, garlic, chives, shallots, leeks and Co. Love them all and the choice is so vasti t was only a matter of flavour pairings. Michela just came by for a few days, bringing with her nice presents and a few little glass jars filled with herbs and spices. One particular herb stole my heart and amazed my tastebuds: lemon thyme. I wanted, at all costs, to use it in a bread. Lemon thyme and garlic, I just knew it would work.

Testaroli with almond sauce / Testaroli con salsa di mandorle

We already tried once before, but I had failed miserably. We have not talked about since, most certainly because both taken by other duties, maybe I was just a little embarrassed by my terrible flop. But in the end we made it.

Comfort food: Buckwheat and Hazelnut flour Pie with Broccoli and Walnut filling / Comfort Food: Crostata salata di grano saraceno e nocciole con ripieno di broccoli e salsa di noci

Last week I started working again, part time, after 10 months unemployment. It feels weird, since the blog was born it became a fulltime job for me and it’s hard to let go, even if a little. Still struggling to make my schedules meet, maybe Panettone weekend wasn’t helpful and scrambled my brain a little, I had the chance to bake some bread only once with a semi-failed experiment that turned out nicely (but in the rush forgot to take notes). This is not good.