Pasta with roasted green paprikas and capers

Whoever or better every Italian or actually Southern person living in cold lands (like Belgium for me) knows that there are some ingredients that simply aren't tasty there. One of them is surely paprikas or bell pepper.

For me they are normally nice and colorful (even orange) but pretty bland in taste. Now, I mentioned sometime ago that we take a surprise veggie box every week with biological and seasonal stuff from local farmers. Last time there were green paprikas ....

And when I heard, I was a bit annoyed of getting such a useless thing ... until I did not see them. Long, small, thin. They smelled right. They seemed the real thing ... I took a bite at one raw. It was the real thing. So, here they went into the oven for a traditional oven baked recipe (excluding olives since Elke does not like them). I used quite some sicilian capers (great ones from my friend Minouche, see here). And used in this pasta dish (probably italians might horrify at what I did).

Not great looking, but really tasty. Even our little Matteo loved it. We had to show him the empty plates and pots to make him stop asking for it!

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

Orecchiette e Rape

Probably the shortest and simplest recipe I ever posted .... but yet, as I grew up in Puglia, this one needed to be posted. And yes almost everybody knows about this dish ..... but outside of Italy almost everybody uses broccoli. Well, if you can't find anything else, broccoli is ok .... However, I feel it impossible for not finding at least once any sort of turnip greens. Most of the times they get thrown away even. Nevertheless, I admit it is difficult to get a veggie shop to keep them .... and, in fact, this is the first time I managed in 12 years of living abroad!

How? As I said in an earlier post, we receive a surprise veggie pack every week (not this one sigh). Last time we got some weird leaves looking like giant rucola, but tasting funny when raw .... it took me a while to understand they were rape. And I probably was the only one (among the people getting them) have a clue of how to use them. That's because here they throw them away and eat the roots only.

This was an honestly deliciouslunch for us. The only bad thing is that I did not have enough rape (yes the photo is ok .... because I removed some pasta).

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

Fondant frozen-strawberries mattonella

What is the issue with a busy week? Oh, you ask what is a busy week? Well .... work, pregnancy (5 weeks to go) and looking for a new house in a city not near-by .... enough??? So what is the effect of a busy week? A busy week-end cooking. And this is the case for us now ... we have been are are still cooking a lot for an overall of two new desserts and two new pasta dishes which will appear soon on these pages.

But the first one needs to be this dessert Elke made yesterday and we tried today, since it is strawberry season and this mattonella (italian name for something in between a semifreddo and an ice-cream) is simply perfect as is mixes chocolate with frozen strawberries (frozen fruit is something typical of Amalfi and, thus, a simbol of our wedding). It is easy ... it requires really dark chocolate and it needs being served in thin slices, since the fruit gets frozen.

Should I add more? Is the photo not enough to attract your taste-buds? Well, in this case join me now in eating a bit of it .... if you manage to get here in time ;-)

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

Banana muffin bread

Since the weather is getting better and a few long week-ends are coming (like next week thursday and friday are national holidays), we start our season of spending sometime on the belgian coast. It is not like being at the beach in Italy, but it is still relaxing and far from the everyday things.

Therefore, here I am . Posting quickly a new recipe while I wait for the program "My Restaurant" Belgian edition .... which is fun!! Gosh, it makes me feel like too many people try to open a restaurant without having a clue!!

The bread you see posted here is based on a cake I have already shared. Here the low sugar quantity is balanced by the banana and the chocolate mix. The result is something which is not only ice to taste ... but it fills the house with a wonderful banana aroma. As the one before ... also this one did not last much

;-)

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

Risotto with black salsify and gorgonzola cheese

It was bound to happen ... today is y last empty workless day as tomorrow I (and I need to add here finally) start my new job! Quite a change as I have left a company where I was for about 8 years in order to do something which merges my experience and my latest done MBA with my enthusiasm for innovation. Sure I am thrilled ... but also sort of worried. I guess it is normal. But this is only change number one (new house, new town, first baby on the way ;-))

Anyway, here is yet a winter dish! Yes winter as here in Belgium is still bloody winter (but getting better). If you do not fancy salsify try to replace it with some asparagus, potatoes and/or artichokes ... since this is their taste. Sure is if you use salsify you get the right balance (and less things to buy).This dish can also be made vegetarian very easily by using a vegetable stock instead of the chicken stock. Just use a very neutral one.

Ciao and I wish everybody a nice week ... if not as exciting as mine (and yes I start on April's fool!).

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

Pears and Chocolate cheesecake

Now that the snow is gone and rain has replaced it, I kind of miss all that white around. Bah! Such is life sometimes. I guess we appreciate things more once their are gone. Jut like for this cheesecake ... I wish we still has a bit left to eat in these gray days.

I believe it was about two weeks ago, when I saw Sciopina posting about her wanting to do a Pastiera (traditional Easter cheesecake from Napoli) but ending up making a pear and chocolate tart. I really wanted to do it ... but I am no so great fun of cakes with pastry on top. 

And so this cheesecake came to be. It is a fairly lighter cheesecake in the sense that it has less calories, much less eggs and  it tastes less fatty. We enjoyed a lot the way the bitter chocolate (with caramelized bean chips in it) goes with the light ricotta cheesecake, the (still) crunchy pear pieces and the spicy cookies. Much better than the other recipe I posted sometime ago. Sure that one is different, but we both preferred this one (despite I still used a very dark chocolate Elke does not fancy too much).

For the italians (or who else can find it), consider using the 85% chocolate Venchi here since it is dry and has a bit the taste cocoa beans (I did not use it since I had little left and wanted no to use it up).

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

Clementine mousse

Well, for once I made a recipe from a fellow food blogger .... but again I decided to change it in order to make it simpler for me to make it!!!Plus I really want to play more with my foaming canister! So here it is a clementine mousse which original recipe (in italian) can be found here blogged by Lenny and that I proposed in a version for the canister. I suspect with the canister the result is much much lighter (as usual)

In any case, thanks Lenny! Nice Christmas recipe.

PS: the italian version is almost a copy & paste of the original with the canister changes only.

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)

Risotto with roasted Potimarron

Today I was supposed to be at the University ... still few weeks to go and finally it will be over. But instead I am here home with a huge headache and feeling tired after the emotionally intense week at work. So I post a recipe to forget my headache!
Pumpkin is something I discovered after I left Italy ... I think I have already talked about it in an earlier post. Well, last year I discovered potimarron ... or actually it was this year. I wonder how many have bought a strange looking squash (family name for pumpkin, courgette, etc) looking like a big orange pear and thinking it was a pumpkin. I did .... and I cooked normally. Delicious but super heavy! Hu!
Well, this year I discovered it is actually the potimarron .... since then I realized I needed to chang the way we cook it. The result is spectacular. This squash is thick and packed with taste. Like the name suggests kind of pumpkin (poti) and chestnut (marron). This recipe for risotto is for me simply the best way I have found to prepare it with potimarron where the oven roasting is not optional, but is needed to reduce the pulpiness of the squash while brigngin out its aromatic taste .... add the pecorino di Fossa and a nicely aged Chateauneuf-de-Pape... and here it is, the (erroneously) pumpkin risotto Elke consider the best she ever had!
What a compliment from my sweet wife!!! I hope you will enjoy it as well.

PS: Can be also frozen ... once defrosted it will still be packed with flavor :-)

(Leggi la ricetta --- Read the recipe)