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The redness of these peppers mixed with the colors of the chives and the robiola remind me of the Italian flag. Red, white and green are actually my favorite colors to put together in a dish. They depict freshness of the ingredients and they have the power to convince you to take a bite. Just like these pepper rolls. It's a very easy recipe that I would like to share with you. The only th
I just closed my suitcase and triple-checked the list of things that I should take with me. Almost everything's packed. I never really mentioned until now that I was invited to go to Piemonte (Piedmont) and Liguria at the northwest part of Italy for an Enogastronomic Press Tour sponsored by Borsa Internazionale del Turismo Enogastronomico (BITEG). It's a tour organized by the Piedmont T
Here I am with a breakfast recipe experiment gone yummy. Pancakes are lovely to manipulate with different flavors and blends and when I am bored with my first meal of the day, I tend to browse my cupboards and fridge to look for interesting combinations to put together. Remember the Banana Pistachio Pancakes With Marsala Syrup, the Hazelnut Pancakes with Roasted Figs & Reduced Marsala Sauce,
It was in Chamonix, France where I had my first tartiflette. It was in the middle of summer and the town was full of tourists. Yes, I noticed the beauty of Mont Blanc but when you are walking in the middle of a big crowded town with a large dog taking you for a walk and lunch time is ticking away fast, the only thought I had at that moment was where to eat. After our futile search for a place to
After fruit & vegetable markets, I love fish markets next. I love immersing myself to the different kinds of sea creatures, some with vibrant colors and interesting forms. This goes especially to the tropical fish and shellfish markets. They all exude freshness just like the fruits and vegetables. And, they are healthy food. Read more »
Breakfast, breakfast, what's on the table this morning? If you had been eating too much food lately and would like something light and fresh to start your morning, a plate of fresh fruit with some yogurt would be wonderful. If you also happen to have some shop-bought sponge cakes in the cupboard, just pop them in the oven for a few minutes to make them crunchy. Put them altogether on a plat
An Italian breakfast is sweet. Period. I grew up with salty breakfasts. Period. For that I had a huge problem in coming to terms with my first meal of the day when I moved here. It took me years to appreciate the switching from salty to sweet. And it took me a very long time to say that I am looking forward to breakfast as soon as I open my eyes. Read more »
I have been blogging for more than two years and I can't believe that I haven't shared one of my favorite pasta dishes yet. The other one that shares its glory in my eyes is Gricia or Amatriciana Bianca (White Amatriciana). It's the same as this amatriciana but without the tomatoes. If you click on the link, you will also find out about its history and that amatriciana was actually
My 3-year old daughter came home today from kindergarten, holding a colorful cupcake with hearts wrapped in clear plastic wrapper with a little card saying "Ti voglio bene Mamma." It means I love you Mommy. As she walked through the front door, she was excitedly calling out to me with her little package and she loudly announced that I'm the only one who's supposed to eat it beca
Ham and cheese, and uhhhm, fried. Three words and they will definitely catch any kid's attention. With the warm melted cheese oozing out as you slice the rolls, no one, not even the adults can resist grabbing a bite. It's simple, very good, not really your everyday food but nonetheless something that has the right to have a space on the table and impress adults and children
Our plates were overflowing with artichoke leaves. Some leaves were neatly stacked on one side while the others were left haphazardly all over the plates and spilling on the table. Every single leaf was pulled out from the globe with only the tender part of the leaf eaten. It seemed like a tedious job of taking apart the artichoke leaf after leaf before arriving to the core which is the biggest
Life happens and families grow. But as time flies, it slowly dissipates from our hold. We get old and the clock just keeps on ticking. The kids become adults, the adults grow older and the older ones leave us. Life keeps on continuing and time is our enemy because life, as we all know, is very short. Let me explain why I am speaking about life when there's a breakfast plate to be explained
I'm not a pink person but when I see pink and pastels together, I feel relaxed. It's true that colors affect our moods and when they are light and soothing to the eyes, they traverse through our bodies and give us tranquility. Exactly what I need when the house quiets down after the initial morning chaos of the kids' preparation for school. A refreshing, healthy and fruity breakfast
If you can see one of our rooms now, you will wonder what happened. The floor is covered with boxes of summer clothes. There are four of us so you can imagine how much they are. Help! Summer temp has arrived and I still haven't switched the seasonal clothes. Just looking at the wool and thick clothes in our closets give me beads of perspiration. I pulled out our summer clothes that almos
When luck strikes and we get some Asian mangoes from the Asian market in Rome, we celebrate in the kitchen. The big part of the very sweet mangoes get eaten as is, like how they should be enjoyed. Then one small part gets the cooking treatment in my pots and pans. I would really rather eat them by scooping the chilled pulp from the sliced fruit that just came from the fridge. It's just lik
I was ready to switch my heavier clothes to lighter ones today when, after waking up to a gray day, I retreated back to heavier layered clothing again. Just the other day, I had to stay in my short-sleeve shirt because it felt like summer just shoved spring out of the way. It was hot. With the heat, scenes of picnics and outdoor eating with the kids played in my mind. It's the time of the y
Orecchiette. For the different varieties of pasta that I have tried, I can only count with my fingers which ones I really like. They are the ones that are compact and catch the sauce perfectly well. One of them is orecchiette, the ear-shaped pasta with a central depression to catch the sauce better. It has a good compact body that compensates the amount of sauce that gets caught in its concave
There was something about the half-finished block of shop-bought brownies, tub of Greek yogurt and fresh strawberries staring back at me whenever I open the fridge. I knew that I was missing the point the first few times I was sneaking looks at them. Those three can actually create a quick and delicious breakfast without putting any effort at all. So here it is, a five-minute sprint breakfast,
Fruit & vegetable markets have an air of healthiness around it. I feel like if you inhale the air while in the midst of all the beautiful greens, reds, yellows & oranges, you yourself will absorb all the vitamins they keep inside them then cancel out the bad food you had been eating. Just a thought. And hope. I'm not a perfect health food eater but I am trying my best to recompense
I wonder why kids are crazy about chicken. Wherever they grow up or however they are exposed to food, chicken will always be number one. And I have two chicken lovers at home, always ready to pounce on them and smothered with its undying partner - ketchup! I myself grew up with fried chicken thighs delightfully covered with, what else? Ketchup! Fortunately, you will never find fried chicken i
It was around this period, years ago, when I swore to the Italian flag to abide by its laws and be a good citizen with my quivering voice, following the lead of the Vice-Mayor of the comune. As we concluded the session, the Vice-Mayor and I exchanged hands and she happily gave me her good wishes. "Auguri signora". I'm Italian. I felt strangely emotional and elated. Read more »
Mention chocolate truffles to me and I will turn to you. Show me some and you will definitely get my full attention. I will always have time to stop and admire the rows of chocolate truffles in display in chocolate shops even when I was a child. Back then, I could barely even reach the height to look at them properly but with my nose pressed against the border of the display rack, and with my
I've seen my husband revive ailing plants and trees in our garden more than once. He nurses them back to good health with a lot of attention and they in turn bounce back to life with more fruit to give. In our garden, I take care of the flowering plants and herbs while he takes care of the trees. Most of our fruit trees are untouchable. Translation? The wife cannot snip off leaves or
I'm back with my breakfast craze. Be it savory or sweet, here I am to enjoy it and when I make a new discovery, you can count on me to share it with you. Like these delicious breakfast polenta for instance. Just watch out because they are hard to resist! Yum!Read more »
Do you have half an hour and want to have a delicious and healthy meal? I'm usually in a rush too and I am always hoping for something quick, easy, healthy and delicious on my table. It's never easy to accomplish all that in one flash and it is my perennial problem. For all these years, the redundant question I pose to my husband is, "What do you want for dinner?" Even if I
I already sound like a broken record whenever I recount memories of my past that always find their way connected to FOOD. I have fond memories of my family, my friends, places and events whenever I think of every single dish that is familiar to me. But the past is meant to be cherished and left behind because we should always move on to what is next. I respect that because I moved on embracing e
When spring arrives, I can't help capturing its beauty and flavors in a colorful dish. Lemon, berries and flowers. What better way is there to express lightness and colors? So, for the second time in a row, I found a wonderful recipe at La Cucina Italiana's March 2013 issue. I have a weakness for lemon and strawberry desserts so as usual, the minute I arrived to the magazine's page
If you know me by now and look through my recipes, I like creating little food packages whenever a bit of creativity grips me. But before I embarked in creating them, I bought some food molds that are fundamental in creating them. So if you are like me who happens to enjoy spending more time than usual in wrapping food on food, get yourself some food molds and stick to the basic round
I am faced with a perennial challenge when I am preparing daily quick lunches because the one I have to feed is extremely picky. My 3-year old daughter is hard to please with the food and I can only count with my fingers what she eats. Bread, pears, salmon (smoked & grilled) and cheese. Did you notice that they're all of the above? She is now discovering that some
While I was browsing the March 2013 issue of La Cucina Italiana, the picture of this recipe jumped out at me. I'm far from being a green sauce lover, which makes me think that my daughter followed my lead about my hidden aversion of green sauces. How she picked up on it, I don't know, because I hide my food aversions from my kids until they have already established their food preferences
This appetizer is a fruit of reminiscing about my younger days in the company of good friends while we sit around a big table, drink beer and talk all night. Since almost everyone had a pack of hotdogs in their refrigerators, a sauteed hotdog appetizer with ketchup and onions and other condiments was the easiest we could come up with. "Other condiments" entails whatever condiment
We all have a potato dish recipe stashed in our memories that we cook without end and we never get tired of. Mine is this one, whether I am just having a plate of prosciutto (which is actually my favorite partner with these potatoes), plain meat dish or fish. It actually goes with everything. If you are not an onion lover, take away the onions and enjoy its tasty combination of flavors
Pasta ca' muddica is the Sicilian of pasta con la mollica which is the Italian of pasta with breadrumbs. Now that we are done with the introductions, let me tell you how simple (as you can guess from the ingredients) and good this pasta is. It's a poor man's dish in Sicily and it comes in different versions per province, per town, per household and per person which I think is like ev
I know I wrote that the next post should be about the little hamlet we went to for Easter. It will be the next one after this. A big flow of work has tied me up all day and kept me away from the computer. While you wait, let me show you this delicious ginger and cognac tea that is sure to relieve any throat discomfort you have or just for the pleasure of having something gingery to dri
Breakfast. It's my favorite meal of the day. Being far from being a morning person, I don't understand why. It's the meal that I tend to skip to gain a few minutes more of sleep. A ringing alarm clock is my worst enemy and the snooze button is my best buddy. And the promise of a sumptuous breakfast is the only thing that can make me stand up from bed without the help of a c
I can be sometimes forgetful about the proximity of important occasions but because of the little projects that my kids take home from school, I am reminded about every single occasion all the time. On their last day of school a couple of days ago, both took home their handmade cards and baskets with chocolate eggs which they ripped open as soon as they were home. So we have all sorts of dove, b
A trattoria is like a restaurant but less formal, with just a simple menu that's usually verbally announced to the patrons because of the absence of a printed one. If ever there are menus, some of them are even handwritten. The menu is usually composed of the classic and local dishes in abundant servings. Prices are low and the service is casual family-style. BUT nowadays, the trattorie in
Serving food in crystal glasses has always appealed to me because you can see what's waiting for you to dig into. When there's a multitude of colors given by the ingredients. It's sometimes a must to serve the food in a glass like this one especially when you have guests over. I love how the colors of the tomatoes, capers, olives and feta mix together in this very simple salad. T
The strawberries are coming out and their redness are just too inviting to resist. Normally, I would wait a little longer to buy them until I see that they are not the imported ones anymore because they don't taste of anything. But as I saw one tag after the other, they are all saying one thing. They are grown right here! I really prefer the smaller ones from one area here called Terracin
When I see a van selling panini (sandwiches) that is parked within my access, smell the odors of salsicce (sausages) grilling and lunchtime is almost around, I have to stride over and get a sandwich myself amongst the men who usually fill up the place. There, you are sure to bite into a super panino with salsiccia and broccoli rabe or whatever trimmings you want them to put. All I can
Small, medium or large fish? I love all and I think the smaller the fish is, the tastier it is. But let me show you how to enjoy its bigger counterpart. I skewered three kinds of common large fish which are salmon, tuna and swordfish in-between wedges of oranges, bay leaves, fennel and cherry tomatoes. It was a wonderland of beautiful odors while I was grilling and you can imagin
I have a weakness for Asian stir-fry noodles. It's probably one of the very few dishes where I didn't mind the vegetable content when I was young. You see, my whole childhood was a game of dodging my veggies. Being an adult now, I actually cannot eat stir-fry noodles without any vegetables. And when you add shelled shrimps, I would willingly grab a seat and enjoy a bowl of
Lunch at home is usually simple and has a leaning towards rice-based dishes more than pasta. That's because my daughter and I are more partial to it and lunch is usually mom and daughter time. Rice for her should always be white sprinkled with a lot of parmigiano reggiano (parmesan) and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil but I try to introduce other ingredients other than her perennial co
I can't go without shrimp for long. Everytime I try to work on a recipe, there it is, in my mind, ready to be scrutinized to be combined with other ingredients. Flexibility is its number one trait which is why I like it. Whether it is grilled, submerged in sauce, fried, baked, raw or marinated, it never disappoints me. My all-time favorite is grilling them without putting anythin
When I buy fish, I like them whole and fresh because all the flavors ooze out and blend with the cooking. A filleted fish is good but a whole fish is a totally different thing. It entails more work to debone the cooked fish especially with two small kids to feed but I don't make that impede me because seeing them pick their forks and eat compensates for the work. Nothing can be more nu
Something meaty and mushroomy had been occupying my mind. You know, that kind of savory meat dish filled with button mushrooms with brown sauce. Buonissimo! When I was growing up, I remember being so fond of savory meat dishes with button mushrooms flavored with soy sauce with a tinge of calamondin lemons. For a picky kid I was, it was one meal that wins me all the time. Read more »
Cooking pasta dishes is an endless creation of different combinations of ingredients and a continued exploration of flavors and blends. Most of all, it's fun to open your refrigerator and cupboards and imagine what kind of dish you can create with the ingredients that you pull out. Mediterranean always works out for me because I always have fresh tomatoes, bottles of capers and o
I love food that shout at me to get my attention. Yes, the good tasty ones that creates an independent curve on my lips. The kind that reminds me what the real beauty of cooking is. It's when you create something that gives a contented smile to the one eating it. And I just saw that smile on the lips of my husband. This recipe will definitely be filed in the recipes to keep and to be r
I depend on two companions in my kitchen whenever I cook. The iPod or the TV. The past weeks, I had turned off the music in the house almost completely and I just stayed glued to the 24-hour local news channel. Without a prime minister and a pope the past weeks, I was practically a living specimen of a news addict. I knew every single news by heart and I was my husband's personal anchorwom
I like thick, textured soups especially when there are grains in them. And you guessed it, barley ranks high in my list. A plain vegetable minestrone is welcoming, healthy and good but it's not something that I would be very excited to have. Of course, that's my opinion. But if you add grains like emmer, rice or barley, then I will skip high towards the kitchen table. Read more »
