Zucchini: What to Do With All Those Extra Summer Zucchini

     Some of my gardening friends may be wondering what the heck they are going to do with all those zucchini they grew this summer.  Many of you are practically swimming in zucchini!  You’ve steamed them,  fried them, made soups, breaded them, and eaten them raw with hummus.  All of which are noble endings for the simple zucchini.   I have also had to get a little creative this summer with the zucchini.  Alas, unlike my mother, I do not have a green thumb, everything dies, including weeds!  However, when I go to the local markets, what is in season?  Zucchini, of course.  So I have been eating them all summer, just like the rest of you.  With a little bit of creativity, zucchini can be delicious and fun.  I made up the following recipe while I was trying to eat up everything in the fridge and cupboards before I went stateside.  It turned out fantastic, and I have since made it many times.  This blog is dedicated to Jenny, Thomas, and my favorite baby in the world, Max.

    

INGREDIENTS:

For four people

4 tablespoon of olive oil

4 tablespoons of pine nuts

4 tablespoons of sultanas or golden raisons

4 cloves of garlic

15 cherry tomatoes

2 medium zucchini

1/2 tablespoon of dried calabrian red pepper

dry white wine

500g of whole grain fusilli

course sea salt

Directions:

Prepare everything in advance.  you will want to cut up the tomatoes and zucchini into small quarter sized pieces, or dice them, whichever you prefer is fine.  First, you are going to start with toasting the pine nuts.  To do this, take a small pan, drizzle a small amount of olive oil in it and put on full heat.  Throw in the pine nuts and flip them every 30 seconds until  they brown.  Put to the side.  In a large deep pan, use the rest of the olive oil and a splash of dry white wine and crush the cloves of garlic and red peppers and sauté with a medium heat.  Add the tomatoes and zucchini and sautè with the garlic.   Add the toasted pine nut and sultanas.  In a large pot, bring water to boil and add salt to taste.  Since I do not use salt in the veggies, I add a bit more in the water.   Add the dry fusilli and cook until al dente.  While the pasta is boiling simmer the veggies on a low heat setting.  I like to use a whole grain pasta for this dish, my favorite is pasta made from farro, or, spelt.  I think it brings out the nutty flavor of the pine nuts.    I use a whole box for four people.   Serve in large pasta bowls.  This pairs well with a dry rosato, or a lovely Vermentino di Gallura.    Enjoy outdoors if possible.

Voilà

 Buon Appetito!!

La Panzanella-Bread and Tomato Salad

It has been over a month since we designed and ordered our kitchen.  A very long and frustrating month it has been.   I have hosted a lovely lunch outside under the Gazebo, had my first swim at Lago di Nemi, and enjoyed amazing strawberries at the Sagra delle Fragole.  At the same time, I have no place to put any of my kitchenware.  We have lived here since the end of April, but I do not yet feel unpacked or settled in.  There is a lot to do.  Most of what I want to do with this house and property are landscaping and gardening projects.  I am looking forward to the enormous potential of this place, the land, and I am forging a friendship with my neighbor down the road.  She is incredibly generous and kind.  I am blessed in this regard.  The apricots and figs are finally ripe which means summer has officially begun in these parts.  How great would this time be if I could make amazing meals for the people I love?   The terrace and the gazebo were the real selling points for the house, besides the enormous size of the kitchen.  I am so anxious to get started, to put my kitchenware away, and get cooking!
     Luckily, I live in the bread basket that is the Castelli Romani.  I have bread from Genzano or Lariano available to me, there are local veggie and fruit stands so I am buying the freshest produce.  Summertime, in this case, means we don't need a lot of prep to make a nourishing and delicious meal.
   I am always amazed by the plates of the region that have their roots in total poverty.  They were born out of the concept of making due with what we have.  Sometimes, these families might have only some stale bread and a few vegetables at hand.  Nowadays, people pay top dollar for these dishes in the priciest trattoria of Rome and beyond.  Panzanella is a great example of this food culture.  Ettore and I debate whether this is a true Laziale dish or if it comes from Campagna. For me it is from Lazio.  Irregardless, is there anything more heavenly than the sweet combination of ripe summer tomatoes and basil?  Panzanella is so simple, so filling, and utterly delicious.  I have made it a few times because all that I need are the following:  A cutting board, a bread knife, ingredients and a bowl.  There is no cooking involved, and it can makes a lovely lunchtime meal.  It is light, fragrant, and cool.
    Thank goodness for dishes like this!  Without them I would be still living on pizza and take-out.

Panzanella-Bread and Tomato Salad

Ingredients:

• 1/2 loaf of crusty, stale, rustic Italian bread, sliced into 2 cm pieces and then cut up messy into bite size pieces(about 10 slices from the loaf)
• 1/2 kilo ripe cherry tomatoes sliced into quarters
• 10-12 sprigs of basil broken into small pieces
• 6 TBSP of Extra Virgin Olive Oil.  I like the fragrant oil from Alatri
• about a 1/2 TBSP of coarse Celtic sea salt
• about three turns of the pepper grinder for pepper

Directions:

• In a Large Salad bowl, put the sliced tomatoes and basil and stir everything together
• Add the olive oil, salt and pepper
• Let this mixture stand without bread for at least an hour.  Room temperature is best, but also in the fridge would be fine.  This will ensure a much more fragrant salad as the tomatoes and basil will have time to marinate in their own juices for a time.  I also add about a TBSP of water.
• After and hour, add the bite size bread pieces, stir everything and let it sit for a few minutes so the breadt absorbs the flavors and juices.  If you need to add a bit of water and more olive oil and stir again.  The bread should be moist, but retain its bounce.

We enjoyed this with a lovely chilled Frascati, although I think it would have been nice with a Rosato

Buon Appetito!!

The Best Bruschetta in the World

The Best Bruschetta in the World

I don’t like to brag, but, I live in a town which is famous throughout Italy for two things. The first is the Infiorata, and the second is the Pane di Genzano. The bread of Genzano is one of the first in Europe to have a name place designation. That means it cannot be duplicated anywhere else, because it can only be made in Genzano, by Genzanese bread makers, using a specific set of ingredients. However, this posting is not a lesson on bread making, but on how to make the most delicious bruschetta with the bread that is available. Genzano’s crusty, fragrant, and enticing bread is perfect for bruschetta. Oh, and by the way, it is pronounced BRU-sKet-tah. NOT brushhhedda.

You only need a few simple ingredients to make it correctly

Ingredients

½ loaf of a very crusty Italian bread

10 diced cherry tomatoes

2-3 chopped fresh basil leaves

1 clove of garlic and a fork

Coarse Sea Salt, crushed

Olive oil

Directions:

1. First, you'll need to start out with a half loaf of good, crusty, Italian bread.

Chop/dice 10 cherry tomatoes and in a small bowl, mix together with fresh basil leaves(about 3, chopped) and some crush coarse sea salt(about a pinch)

Slice the bread into 1.5cm slices, and then slice those in half. Put in your broiler, wood fired oven, stove at high heat(about 180C) until lightly toasted.Take the one clove of garlic, peel in and slice off both ends. Stick one end into a fork, and let the other sliced side lightly brush against each piece of bruschetta
Put them all on a serving plate, drizzle olive oil over them and then sprinkle your sea salt over each piece.On half of the slices you will add the tomato/basil mix, and the other half you will leave with olive and sea salt.

Drink with a lovely glass of local Frascati

I learned this from the most traditional kitchens of Genzano, places like Carceri, Pellicione, Tigellino, and of course La Cucina di Mamma di Ettore

Keeping it simple

I was reading an article in the magazine Bon Appétit from May 2005 which was about Rome, Florence, and Venice. They had a short article about the grandson of Salvatore Ferragamo, the famous shoemaker from Florence. He became of food and wine professional in the family and manages their estate and restaurant in Chianti. One of the questions they asked him was, "After returning to Italy from a trip, what's the first thing you want to eat?" Ferrogamo replied," A good plate of linguine with cherry tomatoes, olive oil, and torn basil leaves. Keep it simple-that's the trick of Italian food. Let the ingredients make the dish."

That is what all the great chefs in Italy say. KEEP IT SIMPLE. Sometimes I find that chefs and cooks gets so overly involved with the process they forget that real people are going to eat their food. I make the following dish about 2-3 times a week, and it is especially great right now with summer's last tomatoes. I find that I crave this dish more than any other when I am not at home. It is also great for those nights after a long day of work when you just want something simple. Now that we are heavily involved with volunteering with dogs, our time is becoming more limited. This dish only take the amount of time one needs to boil water and make al dente pasta! Anyway, in celebration of the Less is More mentality:

Spaghetti all'olio, aglio, e pepperoncini.

Ingredients for two people
Spaghetti
Olive oil
Half cup of Frascati wine, or any Italian white.
10 cherry tomatoes, quartered
3 cloves of pressed garlic
2-3 dried red peppers
water
Sea salt for boiling water.

Heat up olive oil and wine to a low simmer, and throw in garlic, red peppers, and let them simmer for about 1 minute

Then throw in the quartered cherry tomatoes. I used beautiful tomatoes from the hillsides of Vesuvius, which are very sweet and full of volcanic minerals. But I imagine your garden tomatoes would be even better.

Boil water and throw in about a tablespoon of coarse sea salt when water comes to boil. Then add spaghetti and cook for about 7 minutes to make it al dente. Of course remember everyone has their own definition of al dente the roman version is quite hard.

While spaghetti is cooking, simmer the tomatoes at a medium heat.

Drain pasta, put back in pot and add the sauce to the pot and stir. Some people add fresh Italian parsley at the end. Stir everything together, serve in pasta bowls, and ecco!! You have an Italian classic.

I always drink Frascati with this. Producers I recommend are Castel De Paolis and L'Olivella, both of which are vegan and organic

Have fun!!