There’s nothing like the fresh crunchy flavor of fennel bulbs and they’re a perfect ingredient in this fennel, sliced orange and olive salad. I put fennel in just about any kind of salad; use a to slice fennel paper thin for your salad. Fennel tends to turn brown so toss the fennel slices in…
Vegan
Ferretti pasta, a Southern Italian eggless pasta
It’s even colder today than yesterday with lots of freezing rain, so what’s a person to do? I decided to hunker down at home with a roaring fire in my tinello and make some delicious heartwarming ferretti pasta! Ferretti eggless pasta are a short thick pasta similar to bucatini, about 5-10 cm long. How to…
Sautéed Purple Cabbage with Fresh Coriander
Sautéed Purple Cabbage with Fresh Coriander What I love most about this dish is that it’s downright beautiful. Pantone has established that purple, and all its tonalities, are the food color for 2018 and I concur wholeheartedly. There are so many wonderful purple foods from purple cabbage to beets to eggplant and each one is…
Roman Style Stuffed Artichokes
Roman Style Stuffed Artichokes are delicious served with a few slices of lemon and some calamint leaves. All winter long the market is full of globe, or Roman, artichokes. There are so many delicious ways to prepare them, but the best way is Roman style stuffed artichokes, or Carciofi alla Romana. I usually buy artichokes…
Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad with Grated Parmesan Cheese and Toasted Walnuts
Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad with Grated Parmesan Cheese & Toasted Walnuts is a delightful winter salad and a great way to serve this winter vegetable! I’d never thought of using brussels sprouts raw in a salad but it’s one of the easiest and tastiest ways to use them. Brussels sprouts are an odd vegetable. Their…
Oven Roasted Brussels Sprouts
It’s winter vegetable season again and Brussels sprouts are one of my favorites! There are many wonderful ways to prepare them but they all stem around some variety of roasting which gives them their nutty, delicious flavor. Boiling and steaming are a no-no as this brings out a metallic, unpleasant flavor. Stick with some version…
Preserved Lemons
I first tried preserved lemons last spring in San Francisco and loved them immediately. What attracted me to preserved lemons was finally having a new recipe to help me use the dozens upon dozens of lemons our trees produce every year. I love limoncello, who doesn’t, but we make it every year. I’m always racking my brain to come up…
Pappardelle with funghi porcini
Pappardelle with funghi porcini: they lend themselves well to a long, and wider, pasta shape like this. Fettuccine work well too, but also a shorter pasta like rigatoni, penne and my current favorite. Funghi porcini are best fresh but they also freeze well for future use. Pappardelle with funghi porcini (four people): Ingredients: Pasta, 400…
Homemade bread with home-ground flours
Yesterday I had friends for lunch and prepared what has now become my go-to homemade bread. It’s a recipe I’ve been working on for over a year now, adding and subtracting ingredients, and working with different flours and grains. I’ve started grinding my own flours and it really does make a difference. My favorite is…
Curried Eggplant Soup
Every summer my garden reaches the point where it’s so prolific that I can hardly keep up with it. I’m at that point of explosion right now. One of my favorite vegetables is eggplant; it has fabulous texture and flavor. It’s beautiful: from its deep purples to striated violet varieties; and round to thin and…
Ginger Carrot Cake
Carrot cake is a universally loved cake by all. Carrot cake, zucchini bread or other desserts made from vegetables are not typically Italian, but once they taste these sweets they become instant converts. I’m in a ginger phase right now: I’m drinking ginger tisanas, making ginger scones, cookies and cakes. And I’ve always loved Thai…
Merangola Orange Bruschetta
Yesterday Isabella della Ragione’s book, L’Occhio Ammira e Rimane Incantato, was presented in Terni. Isabella Dalla Ragione has spent her career as an agronomist protecting rare fruit tree varietals, many that she and her father located and began to propagate with care. Together they dedicated their time to scouring the Italian countryside searching out these rare…