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!"