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.

Sweet potato and endive "sformato" with tangy carrot salad

I have a craving for all things orange and citrusy lately... Baby seems to love vitamin C and I find orange foods particularly joyful to the eye too! I love oven cooked vegetables so decided to make a "sformato", a savoury veggie bake. I used sweet potato and endive, which have a very contrasting taste and mozzarella and cheddar, again loving the contrast... mozzarella is delicate while cheddar is salty and quite strong flavoured. As a side I made some grated carrots with an olive oil, lemon juice, teriyaki sauce and toasted sesame seeds dressing.

Ingredients (serves 4)

For the "sformato"
3 medium sized sweet potatoes
3 medium sized endives
2 mozzarella balls
Half a pack of grated cheddar
Extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper as needed
A table spoon of parmesan
A sprinkle of dried sage

For the salad
3 big carrots grated
Two tablespoons of sesame seeds
A lemon
Extra virgin oil as needed
A tablespoon of teriyaki sauce

Rinse and peel the sweet potatoes, cut them in slices of about an inch. Bring some salted water to boil and simmer the potatoes for 5 or 6 minutes until tender. Rinse and divide the endives in 4 parts and cook for 5-10 minutes in a pan with some oil and a pinch of salt and pepper until golden and crunchy.

Pre-heat the oven at 180 degrees, oil a baking tray and start layering your veggies starting with the sweet potatoes, and adding some mozzarella and cheddar between layers. You should have 4 layers in total. Cover your last layer of endive with a sprinkle of parmesan, the dried sage and some black pepper and cook in the oven for 25 minutes.

In the meantime rinse, peel and grate the carrots. Mix the olive oil, lemon juice, teriyaki sauce and the sesame seeds that you have toasted in a pan and add to to the carrots.

Serve with a smile!

Stuffed peppers with quinoa, feta, sweet potato and squash

Happy New Year! I wanted to start the year with something colourful and fresh.
This is easy peasy, cheap and yummy. Think I got a bit carried away with the yoghurt though...
The little guest star in the dish is a Primavera quiche with courgettes, spinach and asparagus.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

For the stuffed peppers
4 small red peppers
1 pack of Red and White quinoa (the microwaveable version from The Merchant is perfect)
1 small shallot
Extra Virgin Oil, salt and pepper as needed
1 sweet potato
Half a medium sized squash
Half a pack of feta cheese
Some Greek Yoghurt

For the quiche
A roll of puff pastry
A bunch of asparagus
A big courgette
450 grams of spinach
1 egg
Two tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese
The other half pack of feta cheese
Extra virgin Oil, salt and pepper as needed

Chop the shallot, put some oil in a pan and cook the shallot until it turns golden. Add the sweet potato and squash that you have cut in small dices, season with salt and pepper and cook adding some water until they become tender but still have a bit of crunch.
In the meantime cook the quinoa for 1 minute in the microwave ( not any more or the pouch will explode! Quinoa can get messy...)
Let it cool. Add the feta cubes and mix in the veggies. You can add some more salt, pepper and extra virgin oil.

 Wash the red peppers, cut off the top (but keep it on the side, you will need it to cover the peppers) and empty the pepper of the seeds and the white bit (does it actually have a name in English?). Stuff the peppers with the quinoa, feta, sweet potato and squash mixture and cover them with their little cap (Cute!).

Heat the oven at 180 degrees, place the stuffed peppers in a baking tray that you have previously oiled so they don't stick to it. Cook for 45 minutes.
You can prepare them in advance and then warm them up and add some Greek Yoghurt before serving.

The quiche is even easier to make... Chop the veggies and place in a pan with some olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and cook until they become tender but remain crunchy, no one likes a soggy vegetable!

Bring some water to boil, add some salt and boil the spinach for 5 or 6 minutes.
Drain the spinach. When they have cooled down squeeze them well until they release all the water and chop. Once the veggies have cooled down mix them in a bowl with the spinach, an egg, some grated parmesan, a pinch of salt and pepper and some crumbled feta. Heat the oven at 180 degrees. Place the roll of puff pastry in a baking tray that you have covered in butter so it doesn't stick (Alternatively you can use some baking paper). Poke the pastry with a fork, this will release the juices of the veggies so the quiche remains nice and dry. Fill the pastry with the mixture and then fold both ends until you form a nice rectangular quiche. Make a cut on both sides of the pastry, it will cook better and look nicer too.
Cook in the oven for 25 minutes and serve with the peppers.

Rotolo farcito di panna e marmellata

Okay we call it Rotolo farcito di panna e marmellata, you call it Swiss Roll. Whatever you decide to call it it's damn good and I decided to make it for the first time. I did it! Big sense of achievement. Especially considering I don't have an electric egg beater so did everything manually. Biceps, biceps. Ouch.

Ingredients

5 eggs
140 g of white sugar
1 teaspoon of honey
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Icing sugar 
100 g of plain flour
A couple of spoons of whipped cream
Half a jar of Rasberry jam

First we need to make our "biscotto" dough. Separate the eggs yolks and the eggs whites.

In a bowl mix the yolks with the honey, 90 grams of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Beat vigorously until they become light and frothy.

Whisk the whites with the remaining sugar until they become stiff but not too stiff (does it make sense?).
Blend the yolk mix with the whites and add the flour using a strainer.

Mix slowly until you get a lovely dough. Pre-heat the oven to 220 degrees. Pour the dough over a baking tray that you have covered with baking paper (I used foil but things got a bit sticky).

Cook for no more than 6 or 7 minutes until golden. Remove the dough from the tray, sprinkle it with sugar and leave somewhere to cool covered in cling film. Once it has cooled you can fill it with jam and whipped cream( or Nutella or whatever you like!). Now that I got acquainted with my biceps I whipped mine myself...Roll it, cover it in foil and leave in the fridge for about 20 minutes. Dust with icing sugar, cut and serve!

Spaghetti with crab, prawns and pomodorino tomatoes

This is a great idea for a quick dinner with a chic allure that will impress your snobbiest friend!
Easy to make, fresh, very tasty and perhaps a bit aphrodisiac (just saying). Plus everybody knows fish makes you smart.

Ingredients (serves 2-3) 

1 pack of king prawns
2 tins of crab meat chunks (the John West one is good)
1 pack of pomodorino tomatoes
2  garlic heads
A little bit over half a 500 g. pack of spaghetti (I love De Cecco)
2 dried chilies
Extra virgin Oil as needed
Half a glass of dry white wine
Some chopped parsley to garnish
Salt and pepper as needed 

Chop the garlic, add it to a pan  where you have poured some oil and the crushed dry chilies. Let it brown until it starts smelling all garlicky and delicious (sure you got the idea). Add the pomodorino tomatoes that you have rinsed and cut in half, let them cook until they start releasing some juice, add the crab meat and the white wine and let them cook till the crab meat starts turning pink and the texture becomes more creamy. Add the prawns and let them cook for another 5 or 6 minutes. In the meantime bring some salted water to boil and cook the spaghetti until they are perfectly "al dente". Add the spaghetti to the sauce (duh) and serve with some extra virgin oil and some chopped parsley.

Buon giorno!

I love brunch...especially homemade. I had a craving for Eggs Florentine so decided to make some myself. This version is with fried eggs, literally packed with sauteed spinach and finished with a bit of grated parmesan to replace the hollandaise sauce. Served with a side of new potatoes with butter and mint.

Ragù

You got your gnocchi, now it's time to cook the perfect ragù. I actually suggest doing this the other way around as ragù has to cook for at least two hours.

Ingredients:

1 Onion
2 Carrots
2 Celery sticks
1 cube of stock
1 tablespoon of concentrated tomato puree
500 g. of pork mince meat
500 g. of beef mince meat
Olive oil as needed
Salt and Black pepper as needed

You have to start with the "soffritto", the base for many recipes in Italian cuisine. A mix of finely chopped onions, carrots and celery. You can find a ready made version at Waitrose but chopping it yourself from scratch is much much more fun.

Cook the soffritto in a tablespoon or two of extra virgin oil until the onions turn golden.

At this point add the mince meat and let it cook until it loses its pink, raw colour and turns slighlty brown. Season with salt and pepper. Ragù needs to be cooked over slow fire, so take your time. Add a glass of red wine and let the meat simmer until the wine has almost evaporated.

As I mentioned earlier the secret to a good ragù is the meaty texture. I don't use any plum or chopped tomatoes. Instead I dissolve a cube of stock into some boiling water and add a tablespoon of tomato puree. When the red wine has evaporated I add the stock and tomato and let it cook slowly for about an hour, an hour and a half. I then add a glass of milk and let it cook for another half an hour or so. 

 And your ragù is done!

Gnocchi

I was lucky enough to have my friend Morena come over and do the dirty job and be my "sfoglina" for the day. "Le sfogline" are traditional fresh pasta makers from the Emilian region, usually middle aged or elderly women. Morena is young and beautiful but not less talented in the art of fresh pasta making!

She followed her sister's recipe using only flour, potatoes and salt. The recipe usually suggests adding an egg for every kg. of potatoes but the eggless version was actually very soft and not heavy at all. We were very happy with the result!

Ingredients:

1 kg of potatoes ( Morena kept her potatoes in a dark place for three weeks allowing them to age gracefully which apparently adds flavour to the gnocchi).
Salt, as needed.
Flour, as needed.

Boil the potatoes until they are very soft. Peel the potatoes and keep them on the side to cool until they are warm. Boiling hot potatoes are a no no. Once they have cooled off a bit you can start mashing them with a a fork or a potato masher. Add some salt.

Now you can start adding the flour and working your way until you have a ball of potato dough. We kind of followed our instinct and added flour as we went along. Sounds like witchcraft more than cooking, not very precise but effective.

Take a piece of dough and start rolling it with your hands, you can add flour if things get a bit sticky.
The result should be a long " potato dough sausage". Repeat until you have rolled the entire ball into these lovely wormlike dough creatures.

Now all you have to do is cut them into little squares and your gnocchi are done! I mean, how easy is that? And you will feel so PROUD!"

Gnocchi al ragù

This is one of my favourite dishes ever. Ragù or bolognese sauce is a hymn to slow cooking and using fresh, simple ingredients. You will find a lot of recipes, all claiming to be more authentic ot traditional than the other. I say find one you like and stick to it, although it has to have quite a meaty texture rather than be drowned in tomato sauce. Gnocchi are absolutely cheap and versatile, actually very easy to make and and can be frozen.
Gnocchi al ragù are definitely a dish that even the least expert cook can masterize with a lot of patience and a little love!

Crostata di lamponi

In Italy we would say brutta ma buona, literally ugly but tasty. I have been thinking of something to bake all week. I wanted to try something new that I had never cooked before and decided to give crostata a go. According to Wikipedia Crostata is: "an Italian baked dessert tart, and a form of pie. It is traditionally prepared by folding the edges of the dough over the top of the jam/marmalade filling, creating a more "rough" look, rather than a uniform, circular shape". See! It wasn't meant to be that uniform or circular after all! It's quite straighforward and easy to make and the result is absolutely yummy.
I filled mine with Rasberry jam and followed the recipe below.

Ingredients:
100 g. of sugar
300 g. of plain flour
2 eggs
90 g. of butter
Jam as needed
1 teaspoon of dried yeast

Create a fountain with the flour, position the eggs, sugar, flakes of butter and yeast in the middle of the fountain and work the ingredients with your hands until you have a ball of dough. Cover the dough in clingy film and put in the fridge to cool for at least thirty minutes. In the meantime grease a round cake mould in butter and cover with a pinch of flour. Roll the dough with a rolling pin until you create a base that is aproximately 4mm high. Keep some dough on the side as you will need it to create the typical "grid" that characterizes this cake. Place the base in the cake mould working the edges until you have a small crust. Cover it in jam (I used rasberry but any jam will do), leaving some room at the edges. Now roll the dough that you kept on the side, cut it in strips and place it on the jam creating a diagonal grid. Heat the oven at 180 degrees and cook for 40 minutes or until golden brown.

Dishoom

I might as well be the worst food blogger ever. Had dinner at the Shoreditch Dishoom yesterday and was so hungry I forgot to take a single picture of anything I ate. Dishoom is in Boundary Street, right opposite The Albion. It is inspired by traditional Bombay cafés, mostly opened  in the late 19th and early 20th century by immigrants from Persia. It offers a modern, non-greasy take on Indian food in a cool but not pretentious decor and has an impressive list of mainly gin based cocktails. The lights are dimmed and warm and the bar stands out as soon as you walk in. Downstairs you can see the chefs in action, making naan breads from scratch. We drank Bombay pimms, think pimms with a spicy twist, and a Virgin chaijito, a non alcoholic version of a Mojito with hints of cardamom and corandier.We shared a few appetizers including the calamari which were tender but didn't excite me and the paneer, a fresh cheese common in South Asian cuisine, which was very tasty without the rubbery consistency of halloumi. As a main course I ordered the chiken tikka, it was marinated in vinegar instead of yoghurt, which gave it a tangy twist without being heavy and was just the right level of spiciness. The dessert was very interesting, a pineapple and black pepper crumble topped with oats and seeds and a delicious cinnamon ice cream. I'm usually not a big fan of Indian food but was very happy with the meal and impressed with the service which was quick and professional.
Absolutely recommended but if you expect your usual Friday curry you will be disappointed.

Starting a Food blog

It's Saturday morning and I am walking around the living room with my phone and a vase of flowers. I move the flowers from one point of the living room to the other and I start taking pictures. I disappear into the kitchen and return with a couple of props to add to my composition. I am elated, snapping away. My boyfriend looks at me and asks: "What the hell are you doing?". I reply: "I'm starting a food blog". He rolls his eyes at me. Welcome to raguandroses.