Noah

This little man was born 8 months ago and has completely, utterly and happily taken over my life.

I have been unable to sort out myself, let alone my blog. Motherhood is beautiful but tough work. So many things have changed over the past few months, we moved to a new city, opened a business and so many more things will change and happen in the next few months.

A new house, new projects, a new circle of friends and growing the little fella in the picture, who will soon talk, walk and want more and more of my time and attention.

I have decided to update the topics of this blog to food, fashion and motherhood, which are my main interests at the moment and not necessarily in this order!

Will be posting recipes and talking shit ( sometimes literally with a baby) about the things I love.

Mare!

Everything is so fresh here and so delicious. Like the spaghetti with clams and mussels that Piera cooked the other day. By the way...not sure I should be indulging in all this seafood but baby Noah seems to appreciate it so...no guilt! A little garlic, parsley and good olive oil can do wonders. I love how food is honest and uncomplicated here. We had dinner at a friend's house yesterday. Prosciutto and melon, "bis" di gnocchi (gnocchi served with two different sauces, ragù and pesto) and boiled asparagus with salt, oil and balsamic glaze. Now...how simple is that!!! Let's take the fuss away from food and focus on fresh, simple ingredients! I love how you can revisit tradition with a personal twist. His ragù had no oil in the soffritto and he added capers and taggiasche olives ( a typical quality of this region) to the meat. It was yummy! I'd like to experiment on these little detours from traditional regional recipes...

In cucina con la Piera

Piera is Nico's Mom and Noah's proud grandma to be! She is a lovely lady who loves to talk. She talks to flowers, seagulls and televisions among other things. But most importantly she is an amazing cook. She makes cooking seem so effortless and when you ask her how she manages her answer is simple: "Oh dear, I've been doing this for fifty years!" Men in Italy didn't know how to cook when she was young. Some, like her husband Franco, never learned. I am jealously trying to steal all her secrets... and want to share the extraordinary result of our afternoons in the kitchen. Will post the full recipes once I have masterized them myself! 

I muscoli, (literally muscles but actually mussels!) are a very common fresh produce of this area. They are traditionally prepared "ripieni", stuffed with bread soaked in milk, mortadella, garlic, parsley, egg and a bit of parmesan and cooked in a white wine, garlic, herbs and tomato sauce. 

Cleaning them is tough and not for the squeamish or faint hearted! They come from the sea, not from the frozen department in Waitrose! They need to be rinsed and left on a tray to release their juices that can then be used to add flavour to the sauce. The most important bit is to delicately break their "nerve" so they don't open when they are cooking. 

Of course the " ripieno", the filling is very important and fresh ingredients are the key! And you need a bit of patience to stuff them one by one...

But in the end...it will all be worth it!

Festa!

So many things have changed since I last posted. We have moved back to Italy and there are only a few weeks to go until the baby is born. I am enjoying a few weeks of Sun, food and sleeping bliss before the many sleepless nights to come! Today is mother's day in Italy so we celebrated with some "pasticcini", traditional sweets that are usually eaten on special occasions or bought when invited to someone's house. Loving Italy but have to stop eating. No, seriously. Nico's Mom is an excellent cook and the fact that I eat like a man encourages her to cook even more... Soon I'll be sharing some of the things she has been cooking over the past few days...

Polpettone vegetariano

Back to cooking after such a long time! So many things all happening at once and didn't really fancy cooking much, really... Yesterday I finally felt like experimenting and getting dirty in the kitchen again! I suspect Baby is a bit carnivorous and felt like I needed something wholesome and vegetarian after a string of greasychinese-burger-bacon cravings! I started looking for veggie and nut loaf recipes but decided to trust my culinary instinct, making up my own recipe and taking the risk. This is it!


Polpettone vegetariano (serves 4)

Milk as needed
A glass of fine breadcrumbs
A bag of beluga lentils ( I used the Merchant Gourmet  ready to eat ones)
400 grams of chopped carrots and suede (the ready diced Sainsbury's version can do in case of serious laziness)
2 shallots
Some Grated parmesan
Dried sage and rosemary
One egg
Salt and pepper as needed
Olive Oil as needed
Chopped hazelnuts
Sunflower seeds

Chop the shallots and cook with some extra virgin olive oil in a pan until golden. Add the carrots and suede, dried herbs, salt and pepper and cook for 20 minutes or until tender adding some water if needed.


In the meantime soak the breadcrumbs in a little milk ( THE Secret to all delicious meatballs and loafs), add the lentils, an egg, some parmesan, the vegetables, some hazelnuts and sunflower seeds. Shape this mixture into a loaf, sprinkle with some sunflower seeds and cook at 180 degrees in the oven for about 50 minutes. I served it with mash and an artichoke and white wine sauce which added a little tangy twist. Lesson learned, trust your guts and follow your own recipes!

Crespelle ai funghi e carciofi alla romana

I'm back! Been working and travelling A LOT and also been super tired... Had a day off on Wednesday and rather than spending it on the couch reading Grazia like any sensible pregnant woman would do I decided to do some cooking instead. I discovered three very important things:

1. Cleaning artichokes is a pain in the ass and makes your hands look like a miner's.

2. I can have blue cheese if it's cooked.

3. Shitake mushrooms are beautiful.

Therefore I decided to make carciofi alla romana and crespelle funghi e zola. That's braised artichokes stuffed with garlic, mint and parsley and mushroom filled salty crêpes cooked in the  oven with a blue cheese and béchamel sauce. I used Portobello and shitake mushrooms. Forgive me but I am too lazy to write the actual recipe so here is a little visual diary of my afternoon in the kitchen.

Kale and bacon risotto with cheddar and herbs nest

I'm back after my Parisian break (work not pleasure unfortunately) and after having od'd on steak and mustard thought it was time for a bit of yummy carbs. After my orange cravings I am now obsessed with everything green... therefore the kale which is also really good for you, or so it seems! I bough my veggies from Chapel market and bacon was also from a local farmer so added some extra goodness to the risotto. I topped it off with a cheddar and herbs crunchy nest, very spectacular and sooo easy to make.

Ingredients (serves 3)

2 large glasses of Arborio or Carnaroli rice
Half a large onion
4 bunches of Kale
4 slices of bacon
50 g. of butter
Freshly grated Parmesan as needed
Extra virgin oil as needed
Salt and pepper as needed
Half a pack of grated cheddar
A Spoonful of dried Sage and Rosemary
A vegetable stock pot

Rinse and chop the Kale, chop half of a large onion and cook in a pan with some olive oil until it turns golden.

Add the kale and cook it adding some salt an pepper until it releases some of the water. Add the chopped bacon and cook with the vegetables for a few minutes. Add the rice and some more olive oil and toast it slightly. In the meantime bring some water to boil and pour it in another pan with the vegetable stock pot, stir and leave it to simmer on a slow fire. Pour some stock in the pan with the rice, kale and bacon until the risotto is completely covered and stir continously. In the meantime mix some grated cheddar with the herbs in a bowl.  Pour some oil in a frying pan and grease the pan, absorbing the oil in excess with a paper towel. Cheese is fat enough so you don't need the extra grease, that will weigh your nests down and you want them to be extra crispy! Place some of the cheddar and herbs mixture in a pan and press it with a spoon in the shape of a disc. Cook turning it on both sides until crispy and golden and leave to cool on a paper towel. Risotto cooks in about 18-20 minutes, keep on stirring it adding a bit of stock so it doesn't stick to the pan. The last 5 minutes or so stop adding stock and add the butter and some grated parmesan. This will give it the creamy texture we call "mantecato". Sprinkle the risotto with some more parmesan and serve with the cheddar and herbs nest.