Chestnuts Flour and Walnut Bread / Pane alla farina di castagne e noci

How I love the cold season. Vendors at every turn of a corner, the thick smoke coming from the roasting racks. Paper cones filled with roasted chestnuts keep my hands warm. Autumn and winter are my favourite season for their distinctive perfumes and flavours. Chestnuts come in the first place of my cold season food top ten. Sweet and fragrant, once amongst the staple food of our ancestors here in Ticino it has now become quite an expensive ingredient to buy in stores. Definitely not an every day ingredient if not for those who have the chance of being able to go in the woods and pick some. Every now and then I treat myself with a bag of chestnut flour and bake kolache. Lately I have been experimenting a bit and came up for this recipe for a bread I took to a dinner with friends. It’s flavour is intense and lends itself well to accompany a vegetable soup which is so seasonal. Chestnuts, walnuts and polenta are all products which are typical of my region and blend perfectly. This bread is one with a strong personality, it is rich and dense and keeps fresh for several days…a bit like bread did in the old days.

Pao Alentejano

This bread was a nice discovery I made this summer, after meeting Nelson Carvalheiro at the Foodblogger Connect conference in London. On that occasion, during a long chat in front of a pizza at Franco Manca’s, Nelson asked me to be a guest on his blog, with a recipe of Portuguese bread. Needless to say I immediately accepted with enthusiasm. Other commitments and various things came in the way, and we have postponed the project. But now, with the upcoming changes, I decided to post this recipe and another one that will be posted on the blog Friday. Pão Alentejano is a long fermentation bread made with sourdough. It positively struck me for its taste, texture and beautiful crispy crust. Discover with me how to do it at home, it will take some time but it is absolutely worth it!

A nice discovery: About Mornflake Oats and a recipe for Rye and Coarse Oat Loaf / Che bella scoperta! L’Avena Mornflake e una ricetta per il Pane alla segale e avena spezzata

If I say oats, what do you say? Porridge! I assume, as most of us associate this ingredient with the infamous healthy breakfast. One of the most healthy but yet discriminated cereals, it’s one of the few products I have a clear memory of when going back to my childhood days.

Panissimo February: Ticinese bread / Panissimo Febbraio: Pane alla ticinese

Panissimo’s theme for this month was regional breads. As soon as I read Sandra’s post I knew I would be baking pane alla ticinese, one my favourite breads as a kid. Funnily enough my first article for Azione was about this special kind of bread, a thing which brought back to mind many colourful memories about my childhood and the afternoon snack I used to eat with my friends: bread and chocolate.