Why I love Italy in the Fall....

I just spent the weekend in Tuscany with Ettore and his mom, and it was fantastic!  I was able to attend the White Truffle Festival in Volterra, which I am soon going to write a blog on.  Unfortunately my house was robbed last week, and my computer stolen, so I don't have a proper computer with WORD, so it may bit awhile until I can write about anything with substance.  In  any case I felt compelled to leave you, my readers, with a few photos of what I bought at the market today, and also some photos of the black and white truffles I bought.  I love Italy in the fall because mother nature is really showing off her gifts.  As a vegan it is my favorite time of year, there are chestnuts to gather and roast, truffles, pumpkins and all sorts of lovely veggies available.  I usually go down the road to buy my produce.  I buy it from a local convent of nuns and friars who have dedicated themselves to cultivating organic produce that is in season and in harmony with the land.  It is less than a kilometer away from my house and they also sell whole grain pasta.  Right now they are swimming in pumpkins, so I decided to ease their burden, and plan to make some pumpkin soup this week.  Enjoy the photos!

 Black and White Truffles, the Food of the Goddess

 If I could only smell one thing for the rest of my life, I'd be happy with the aroma of a white truffle!

Lovely veggies from the organic market down the road.  I'm thinking pumpkin soup, pumpkin risotto, roasted veggies, and I am going to can melanzane sott'aceto this year

Happy Harvest Everyone!!

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

Arance condite

I am working on a more complicated polenta dish that I made the other night, but I was super excited to post about one of my favorite things to eat in the winter. Arance condite. Bread with oranges. I first heard about this combination a few years ago at Ettore's mother's house. I am always asking about Genzano classics. The food of Latium is a poor kitchen, meaning, it evolved from the kitchens of the poor, so they had to be quite inventive. Oranges are quite plentiful in Italy during the winter, and bread, of course, is what puts Genzano on the map. It turns out this is not a Genzanese classic there are different versions of this dish. All you need is some rustic and crusty Italian bread and some blood oranges, and olive oil.. Depending on your taste, you need sugar, or salt, or salt and pepper. Here I am posting about oranges with salt and pepper. This can be served as an antipasto.

INGREDIENTS for Four

4 slices of rustic bread cut in half, making eight pieces.

4 small blood oranges, or 2 large

bottle of olive oil

crushed coarse sea salt

pepper

Bottle of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo

Directions

Slice the bread into four slices and cut each in half, making 8 pieces. Peel oranges with a knife, and then slice 1/2 cm. slices. Put the oranges on the bread slices, drizzle with olive oil, pinch of salt on eat piece of bread, and then pinch of pepper. That's it!!

I highly recommend drinking a nice Montepulciano d'Abruzzo with this. I discovered this by accident, but this combination of flavors works really well with this wine. A great marriage of food and wine is always good. The oranges with the pepper emphasize the dryness and fruit forward quality of the wine. I suggest taking a bit of the bread with oranges, and then taking a sip of the wine with the food still in your mouth. Strange that a wine that is tannic and best served with sausages and cheese ends up being gorgeous with this combination!! Have fun and Buon Appetito!