Settembrini are delicious cookies made in September when our fig trees are full of sweet and perfectly ripe figs! As usual, I try to follow tradition and use seasonal products in my kitchen, so here is my simple recipe to make these delicious Fig Cookies even tastier and crunchier!
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I learned this recipe from my mother. This Pizza Roll is a specialty she used to make in her restaurant and I wanted to make it at home too.
Start by cooking the vegetables for the filling: in a pan with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and a Garlic Clove, I fry the vegetables and set them aside to cool. I chose chard, but you can use broccoli, friggitelli peppers, escarole, radicchio... You can also add sausage to give more character to the filling!
An afternoon spent with my nephews from the US inspired me to dig up this delicious recipe for the best traditional cookies!
These cookies are a memory from my childhood... Our grandma Maria used to make them, flooding the house with a delicious scent. I loved sprinkling the dough with colored sprinkles!
You know that Aperitivo is one of our favorite meals in Italy! We love to have some savory snacks to enjoy with a good glass of wine or an Aperol Spritz so for today’s recipe I decided to share this super simple, extra quick recipe for some delicious savory cakes!
These are the perfect bite-sized delight to make for an Aperitivo with your friends. They will take so little to make, but your guest will for sure want to know the recipe!
During summer we like to enjoy the good weather and I find myself trying to spend less time in the kitchen and more time outside! This simple Pasta Salad recipe is super easy to make but is still tasty and colorful!
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Summer has officially begun in Italy and I am as always trying new recipes. As you know I love to rediscover the simple ingredients of the Italian culinary tradition and for a special lunch I made Paccheri with Broad Beans and Shrimp. Everyone loved them, and I am sure you will too!
Here is what you need for this recipe...
There are endless recipes to choose from, but today I’m making this one that I particularly love…Chanterelles Mushrooms - Finferli in Italian - and Potatoes!
Chanterelles Mushrooms are called “Jallucc” in the Cercese dialect because their shape resembles the rooster's comb. Not only that: when they grow, they raise the undergrowth leaves and come out just like the roosters that dominate the hen house with their bulk and crest.
Our goal for this summer is to eat more vegetables than ever and try to rediscover plants that we are not used to finding in supermarkets anymore, but used to be super popular for our grandparents.
The Mediterranean Diet is full of options but sometimes we forget how tasty even the most plain vegetables can be when cooked following the right recipe!
For today’s recipe, I am using Chicory - Cicoria in Italian. This tasty plant is often used as a forage crop and can be found as a wild plant in Italy and all over Europe, North America, China, and Australia.
Collecting and cleaning Chicory is not easy if you are not used to it, but the taste is absolutely worth it! Let’s make Gratin Chicory!
For the peasant people of Cercemaggiore, our small village in the mountains of Molise, one of the most popular foods was the 'pizza' made with cornflour. The flour obtained from the yellow/orange grains of the 'agostinelli' corn - so called because it ripens as early as the end of August - once upon a time was the most available ingredient for everyone. And so the women of the house worked with their hands and their imagination to vary the diet while using up their stocks.
Today we can do the same, following their example: here is the simple 'pizza' recipe, seasoned only with salt and perhaps with a few grains of wild fennel. The traditional Pizza was cooked slowly on top of the hearth, covered with a metal or terracotta cup on which hot coals were distributed. Today, just as slowly, we let it cook in the electric oven.
Among the rural traditions of my village, Cercemaggiore, the feast of San Martino on November 11th is of great importance: the sowing, a crucial moment for the survival of the entire rural community, has been completed and therefore there is a desire for celebration in the whole village.
The traditional cuisine of St. Martin's day follows some precise rules. First of all, the previous day we make the “Pizza di San Martino”, a sweet pie enriched with nuts which, out of devotion to the Saint who shared his cloak with the beggars, will be divided into pieces to be distributed to relatives and neighbors. On the day of San Martino, for lunch, it is tradition to make cavatelli with rooster sauce. Finally, the new wine will accompany the meal, which will end with chestnuts roasted on hot coals in their special pan.
Just like today, chestnuts had to be bought because in the countryside of Cercemaggiore there are no chestnut trees; this was the typical purchase made in the form of barter: you brought a bag of “Granoni”- corn - to the shop and you received half a bag of chestnuts in exchange.
Let’s make the Pizza di San Martino together!
