Summer is in the air!

What a great summer-style weather we had today!….sunny and warm…I loved it!

We had the first lunch of the year outside, on our terrace!

I made a fast and easy meal…in summer style of course! So no baking or cooking needed….

FRESH SALAD WITH YOGURT-PINK PEPPER DRESSING:

Wash, dry and cut some lettuce, radicchio and rocket salad.

Cut 1/2 Red bell peppers and 1 carrot. Slice both with a potato peeler.

Add some green olives.

PREPARE THE DRESSING

Mix together 2 tbsp of organic no-fat plain Yogurt, 1/2 lemon squizzed, 1 tbsp white vineager, 1 tsp of fresh pink pepper (not dried!)

BRESAOLA, TOMATOES, GOAT CHEESE AND BASIL

Put the slices of bresaola on the plate, and season with half lemon juice and half e.v. olive oil.

In a bowl put the tomato sliced and season with salt and black pepper.

Then put on the bresaola.

Crumble the goat cheese all over the top of the plate, as well as fresh basil (just picked from my balcony!)

ENJOY AND SERVE WITH A COLD BEER

Zucchini, black olives and cream cheese whole wheat pasta

If you’re looking for a vegetarian, quick and easy but yummy pasta recipe…this is right for you!
Do you know why I made it?  because those were the only ingredients I had home!! but I was very lucky since it came out a delicious recipe!

Ingredients for 2:

2 zucchini
10/12 black olives
1 tbsp of diet cream cheese.
1 tsp of olive oil
5 oz (140 gr) whole wheat penne

Procedures:
Bring water to boil. In the meantime chop the zucchini and put in a NO-stick pan with just 1 tsp of Olive oil.
Stir often in order to prevent sticking.
Let it cook for 10 minutes over medium heat.
At this point add 6/7 tbsp of the hot water and add the black olives.
Please note you need flavor olives, from their quality  depends the entire taste of the dish!! better if you choose olive conserved in olive oil.
Ok…Stir for few minutes and turn it off.

Cook the penne and  1 minute before they are ready add them to the pan with the zucchini/olives stuff… now add also the cream cheese, stir and serve

Zucchini, pesto and Goat Cheese QUICHE

If you are on diet stay away from this recipe!
Quiche is an amazing french recipe made by a base of brisee pastry and filled with eggs, double cream and other ingridients of your choise.
It was the first time I home-made brisee pastry and it was quite easy and tasted really good! it requires just 1o minutes of work.
Anyway if you don’t feel like doing it yourself, you can buy it!
BRISEE PASTRY RECIPE
All you need is 2 part of flour, 1 part of butter and water.
All the ingridient MUST be COLD!!!
I’ve put 7 oz (200 gr) of flour and 3.5 oz of butter (100 gr) in a blender and I blended for few seconds.
I’ve put the butter/flour thing on the counter and I added 2.3 oz cold water and a pinch of salt. I mixed and knead very very fast, then I’ve put the dough into a plastic bag and put into the fridge for half hour.
FILLING RECIPE
2 zucchini
1 shallots
2.5 oz Goat cheese
a couple of tsp of fresh pesto
2 organic eggs
6.7 fl oz (200 mg) double cream
Slice the shallots, put into a pan with 2 tsp of olive oil and sautè.
Chop the zucchini and add to the pan over medium heat. Let the zucchini turn into a light brown color and add some brandy, let it evaporates, add 1/2 cup of water and turn heat to low.
Whisk together the eggs, double cream, salt, black pepper, and then add the zucchini.

PREPARE THE QUICHE
Stretch the dough with a rolling pan and put it in a cake pan, poke the bottom of the pie with the tongs of a fork, line pastry with parchment paper fill with baking weights such as dried beans or rice.
Bake first for 15 minutes, remove from oven and let cool a few minutes, spread pesto all over the bottom of the pie.     
Add the filling, crumble the goat cheese all over the top of the cake.
Let it cook for 30/40 minutes.

Cinnamon roll!

We don’t have Cinnabon roll in Italy and that is such a shame!!

Since I love them so much I Tried to make it. There are a lot of recipe on the website, but I choose this one

The only thing I did differently was to put half dose of sugar in the filling, I have to say it was the perfect choise since it’s already really sweet!

They were really good, the dough tasted the same than Cinnabon roll, the frosting was close to the original one, but the filling didn’t convince me….

The real one is more “creamy” inside, it seems like there is some chocolate….but I haven’t find any recipe with chocolate so i tought I was wrong…but next time I’ll melt a piece of chocolate with the butter and I’ll spread it all over the dough before adding the cinnaon/sugar thing.

What do you think?

Farro bread

About a month agò I found out an amazing organic store, you should know how much I love organic food…so I had to go in and buy something!

Between all the stuff I bought, there was a pack of farro flour (spelt) and dried “mother yeast”.

Farro is an ancient grain which as a lot of healt benefit…(check it out on this link!) but the thing that I love most is the taste, even though it has all the nutrients of the whole wheat, it tastes so much better!! So it’s a good compromise between health and flavour.

I added just the 25% of  strong bread flour.

Ingridients

17.6 oz (500 gr) Spelt flour

5.3 oz (150 gr) Strong bread flour

13 fl oz (350 ml) lukewarm water

salt

0.8 oz (25 gr) dry active yeast

0.5 oz (15 gr) dry mother yeast

Procedures

Mix togheter the dry ingridient and then add slowly the water .

Knead the dough until smooth.

Put the dough in a bowl and cover.

Place a pan of hot water in the bottom of the oven and put the bowl with the dough on the rack in the middle od the oven.

Let it rise until doubled.

Sprinkle some flou on a clean surface and knead the dough again for a couple of minutes.

Divide the dough in two, strech it out and roll it up.

Sprinkle some flour on the rolled dough and place on a parchment paper, cover and place again in the oven.

Let it rise for a couple of hours. It has triple!!!!

Take it off the oven, and turn it on at 390 F°  for 30/40 minutes

Enjoy!

CASATIELLO…the king of Easter!

Ok, if you follow my blog you should know my mom came to tuscany to visit me.

My father and brother didn’t come and they had to cook for themeselves….this never happens!

Among all the gastronomic tradition of Easter, casatiello is my favourite…it is so fat that it’s better if you don’t have blood test for days after you’ve eaten it!!

But it soooo delicious and anyway it’s a “sacrifice” that you do once in a year!

But let’s go back to my father and brother…. they could not even think of an Easter with no casatiello!!! and they decided to make it themselves….my mom was sure they were kidding…but they were absolutely serious!!

and…..THEY MADE IT!!!!!

if they could make it, anyone can!….so I’m gonna post the recipe for you…believe me it’s the best thing ever!

INGRIDIENTS:

500 gr – 17 oz  all purpose flour

150 gr – 5 oz butter

100 ml – 3.3 fl oz e.v. olive oil

1 active dry yeast

warmluke water

salt

black pepper

1 egg red

FILLING INGRIEDIENTS

100 gr/3.5 oz salame napoletano (maybe you can try to sobstitute with pepperoni, but I won’t garantuee the result!)

3.5 oz smoked bacon

3.5 oz ham

3.5 oz swiss cheese

3.5 oz romano cheese

2 boiled eggs

PROCEDURES:

Keep the butter at room temperature.

1) Put the butter, oil, salt, yeast, black pepper (be generous if you like it) in the middle of the flour and start to mix…add water slowly ….I don’t know the exact amount because it depends on the humidity so just be sure to add it slowly until you need it!

2) Knead the dough until it’s smooth and let it rest for 20 minutes.

3) In the mean time chop all the filling ingridients

4) Strech out the dough with a rolling pan and shape it as a rectangle.

5) Now put the ingridient once at time, I mean one “strip” of pepperoni, then one of swiss cheese, one of bacon, one of ham and then sprinkle the boiled egg all over.

You have to cover the whole surface with those ingridients.

6) Ok, Now roll the dough.

Now in front of you , there should be a roll. isn’t it?!….I hope so

7) Now “Close”  the roll in order to have a circular shaped bread.

8) Put it into a buttered  pan with a hole in the middle and let it rest into a warm place covered with a blanket.

It has to double. So it needs to rest for 2 or 3 hours.

9) When it’s ready brush the surface with the red egg.

10) Put in the oven at 175C°/347 F° (the fan must be off) and let it cook for 1 hour or more.

The picture does’t give any justice to this amazing dish.

just try to don’t eat the whole thing….or you’ll get sick!

PASTIERA NAPOLETANA (Easter cake)

My mom came to visit me here in Tuscany… she cannot get rid of traditions and since is easter time she HAD to make a typical easter cake very famous in Italy but typical of Naples, in the south.
This cake is not easy or fast to make, but people really love it….like it is the best thing in the world!! i have to be honest, i’m not a big fan….but maybe I’m the only one.  My mom was very jelous of this recipe since it came from a long family tradition…but I convinced her to share with you!

Since the procedures isn’t easy I’ll make a big effort in translating it from italian to english… so please forgive my mistake!!

INGREDIENTS:

THE FILLING:

500 gr of canned cooked wheat

500 gr ricotta cheese

400 gr sugar

12 eggs
20 gr butter
orange flour water or millefiori

vanilla

cinnamon

candied orange  chopped

THE PASTRY:
2 eggs
400 gr all purpose flour
150 butter
100 sugar
1 pinch of salt

I know some ingridient may be hard to find…sorry about that!

PROCEDURES:

PREPARE THE FILLING

1) Put a pan over medium heat with 1 cup  of water, the canned cooked wheat  and 20 gr of butter.
Let it cook until the water is completely absorbed, then add some cinnamon powder.

2) In a bowl mix togheter the ricotta cheese and 12 eggs white. Mix well until creamy. (do NOT whip egg whites till stiff)

3) Into another pan make the cream: Put the eggs yolk togheter with sugar and wisk until creamy…now add the milk and 1 tablspoon of flour, mix well.
Put the pan over medium heat and mix until it becomes less fluid

When all those three steps are ready and the ingridient cold, put everything togheter and add the vanilla, candied orange, flawor extract.

PREPARE THE PASTRY

Mix togheter the ingridient and knead until smooth

Let it rest in the fridge for a couple of hour

Once the pastry is ready  strecth it out with a rolling pan…it must be very thin.

Put it into a deep cake pan (buttered) and add the filling.

Cover with strips of pastry

Cook at 180° until gold (about 1 hour)
Once is cooked wait until is completely cold.
Cover with icing sugar if you like it