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.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Pumpkin, Pears and Walnut Ravioli in Vegetable Broth / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Tortelli di zucca, pere e noci in brodo vegetale

I haven’t posted a fresh pasta recipe for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook in a while http://www.mulinomaroggia.ch and the opportunity now comes along with the new packaging for pasta and pizza flour which has been available in stores since November. Alessandro gave me some samples and I decided to try out a tortelli recipe, since I’ve never had the chance to make them myself. I highly recommend you to try making them on a Sunday afternoon, preferably with some family members who can help you out and with whom you can spend some good times with. Making the dough is a long process and requires some patience but the result repays with a fresh product which is also easily customizable.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Walnut and Black Pepper Sablés Biscuits / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Sablés salati alle noci e pepe nero

And we’re back with a new recipe for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook. Usually I try to juggle between sweet and savoury, cakes, bread, biscuits and pasta. So far so good. But what hasn’t been posted yet is a recipe for savoury biscuits. So why not surprise your friends with these crumbly, buttery, delicious squares flavoured with walnuts and black pepper? I was even considering to switch to savoury biscuits for this Christmas presents, instead of the same well known traditional cookies and biscuits. After all during Winter holidays cocktails and parties are held almost non-stop, so why not contribute with some good homemade snacks to go along with the bubbles? The basic ingredients apart from the walnuts and black pepper can be mixed up with any flavouring, such as grated cheese, herbs, fennel seeds, spices. Use your imagination!

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Walnuts, Aniseed Caramel and Pear Tarts/ Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Tartellette alle noci, caramello all’anice e pera

Autumn has set in and I realised it has been a while since I last posted a good sweet recipe for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook. What better occasion than a bag full of walnuts coming straight from my dad’s garden? The process of nut cracking is long and boring, but there is absolutely no comparison with store bought nuts and the whole process can be done on a cold night in front of a good movie, as I actually did. My sister suggested trying out a Tuorta da Nusch (a walnut and caramel tart typical of Engadina region in Switzerland) which is one of my – many I admit – favourite dessert tarts, but I wanted to do something different.

MTC Challenge February: Savoury strudel with Butternut squash, creamed Cassava, Bacon and Walnuts with Roquefort cheese Béchamel / MTC Challenge Febbraio: Strudel salato alla zucca butternut, crema di manioca, pancetta e noci con besciamella al Roquefort

MTC Challenge this month is being held at the home of Mari, aka Lasagna Pazza, who has challenged us with strudel. Now I will bother you once more by saying how much I love these challenges, every month living the anxiety and joy of a new culinary discoveries (a proper strudel made with homemade dough, not a plastic store bought version), breaking my head against the wall thinking about flavour pairing and seeking the right ingredients. Improving my skills. And I can not but be grateful.

MTC Challenge’s Chestnuts: Chestnut flour Ravioli, stuffed with walnuts and bread, topped with melted cheese / Le Castagne dell’MTC Challenge: Ravioli alla farina di castagne ripieni di noci e pane, con fonduta di formaggella ticinese

And here I am, out of breath, red faced and perpetually late. Kind of funny, because this is not my usual self. Indeed, more than often I am the one standing at the meeting point staring nervously at the clock ten minutes in advance (In fact I was almost one hour in advance at the Migros contest!). But with the blog things work differently and last minute posts are the rule.

October’s Panissimo: Farina bona, potatoes and walnuts yeasted bread rolls / Panissimo di Ottobre: Panini di farina bona, patate e noci

When reading this month’s theme for Panissimo challenge, ancient/special flours, there was no doubt, farina bona would be one of the ingredients I would use. Farina bona is a very special cornflour, finely ground and toasted, with a earthy deep perfume reminiscent of roasted hazelnuts, butterscotch and freshly popped corn. Used for centuries in Val Osernone, in the italian part of Switzerland, this flour went gradually lost until recent times when, probably following the latest trends in reviving regional/traditional ingredients and recipes, it has had a strong comeback on our tables.

Poppy seed snails for Serena / Delle chioccioline ai semi di papavero per Serena

What I love the most about having a blog and a Facebook page is having inputs from fellow bloggers, followers and friends. Sometimes I wish I’d dedicate more time of my time to studying from books, but 90% of the time I end up following another blog’s inspiration, or responding to special requests from friends and family. This time around Serena (who works here, how cool is she?), an old friend from Padoa Art School, asked me whether I had a good recipe for a german pastry she loves.