A Busy Weekend - Calzone

From now on, whenever I cook a pizza I will also throw in a Calzone... It's just a great way to use the pizza dough, but bear in mind it has to be a bit thinner when used to make Calzone, so to give the filling a chance to cook properly.

Now, what I found great about Calzone is that the filling keeps its moist and doesn't "burn" like the topping on a pizza.

The first and most important thing that I learned making pizza dough over the last couple of years is that it has to be quite sticky when you put it to raise. Once raised it becomes a light material in your hands and not too heavy on the digestive system.

The trick is to cover your hands in flour before "handling" it, so that it can be worked with ease.

In a non stick pan I placed some olive oil, some mushrooms, broccoli and ham pieces. When the oil started frying, I threw in some white wine and let that cook for about 10 minutes on low heat.

I placed the filling in the middle of the Calzone and topped with some pieces of Port Salut cheese.

I folded the Calzone on itself and rolled the sides up, so the cheese, melting in the oven, would not leak out of it. I also pressed the borders with a fork.

In the oven he goes at 200 degrees Celsius and out it comes in about 7 minutes.




















The nose you see in the picture on the right is my son's, who suddenly was interested in broccoli and ate half of my Calzone last night :)

For a vegan version, just leave out the cheese and the ham. It tastes just as good.

A Busy Weekend - Cake of the Four Cups

On Thursday night, my son had a bad asthma crisis. My boy, he spent 10 weeks in the heath in Central Italy and just one week of Irish weather (quite dry, for a change) knocked him K.O. and we had to run to the doctor.

The worst has passed, but I had to spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday inside the house, looking at the blue sky from the window. Well, it's always like that, whenever I am forced inside for some reason, there's nice weather.

So, instead of being depressed over my son's poor breathing, as soon as he started feeling better I marched to the kitchen and started cooking. It was a great way to spend the days at home; we have no TV, so I would be watching cartoons I've already watched beside my son, in and out of sleep the whole day... Nah, not my cup of tea!

So, to cheer him up I decided to make him a cake. He's allergic to eggs so I baked one without eggs. He liked it. Very much :)

Ingredients

1 Cup of Plain Flour

1 Cup of Corn or Potato Starch

1 Cup of Sugar

1 Cup of Milk

1 Sachet of Raising Powder for cakes

I added some chocolate pieces that I had lying around in the cupboard. You can actually add anything, raisins or other fruit chunks. The base is so simple I think it would be nice with anything.

Easy. And it actually worked for me as well, which sais a lot, because my cakes usually come out flat :)

Heat your oven at 180 degrees Celsius. Blend together everything :)

While it blends, butter and flour an oven safe dish. Mine is a square of about 25 centimeters and 4 centimeters deep.

 Place the mixture in it and straight into the oven.

Let cook for about 30 minutes. Then try sticking a toothpick in it. If it comes out dry, your cake is done.

I added some coating sugar on top to make it more attractive :)

Nice. No preservatives, no strange colorings, no eggs. Sick child and fussy husband enjoyed it. Give it a try. It's good for breakfast as well!

Lemon Chicken Recipe - Easier than I thought...

No special ingredients, no fuss whatsoever, virtually fat-free... I just love this lemon chicken recipe. I found it on the internet yesterday and wanted to give it a try. However, it called for chicken broth, which I don't have, and yellow food coloring, which I never used and also to fry the chicken... nah, definitely too much!

So, in my version, there is nothing artificial at all, and all the ingredients are in your pantry already. Instead of a take out, why not give this a try?

Ingredients

1 Breast of Chicken for each person eating
Soy Sauce

For the Lemon Sauce:

1/3 of a cup of Sugar
2 tablespoons of Corn or Potato Starch
1 cup of water
3 tablespoons of Lemon Juice
1 teaspoon of Salt
1/2 teaspoon of Turmeric Powder (it will make it nicely yellow!)
Olive Oil
2 sliced of lemon, peeled

First, turn on the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 
Then cut the chicken breasts in cubes and put it in a plate with some soy sauce to marinate.

 Now start making your Lemon Sauce.
In a small bowl place a cup of water, 1/3 of a cup of Sugar (white or brown, whatever you have at home), two tablespoons of Lemon Juice, one teaspoon of Salt and 1/2 teaspoon of Turmeric Powder. Mix everything well and then dissolve in it the 2 tablespoons of Corn or Potato Starch and add the slices of Lemon.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of Olive Oil in a non stick pan and add the mixture to it, stirring.

Once you have a nice gelatinous consistency, remove from the heat and set aside, possibly covered.

Now that the oven has reached temperature, place the diced chicken in one layer in an oven dish.

Place it in the oven and let it bake nicely. Once ready, place the chicken in a bowl and add the Lemon Sauce to it, tossing well so it coats everything.

And here is what it looks like in the plate with some turmeric rice :)

By the time I took the picture I already ate half of it, my apologies. It was just super yummy ;)

Vegetarian Lasagna - One of the nicest things I've ever cooked

I'm back full blast, I was off to my parents' home in Central Italy for a week and my mother has been a huge inspiration to try new things and just cook more and more. She is the real leit-motiv behind everything, she always experimented with food;she canned tomatoes all her life, made marmalades and jams ever since I can remember, she tried to preserve all kind of fruits and vegetables by all possible means. She grows fruits and vegetables, she uses her own flour to make pasta and bread. She's an awesome woman and despite her back problems, she always did, and still does, everything she can to put together lunch and dinner everyday without going to the shop.

Yesterday during work a friend invited us to go to their place for dinner. I just wanted to try a vegetarian Lasagna recipe I had found on the internet so I told him I would be making it and bring it over so he only had to worry about the second and side dish.

You will excuse the pictures' quality; I put the Lasagna together and cooked it after work within 1 hour. I was under a bit of pressure :D

Ingredients

300 grams of Soft Cheese (Ricotta would be better)
1 and 1/2 jars of Pesto Sauce
1/2 pack of Lasagna Sheets (I let them boil a bit before laying them down... Again, I was in a hurry)
4 regular Mozzarellas
500 grams of Cherry Tomatoes

3 tablespoons of Flour, Olive Oil and 1 litre of Milk for the Besciamella Sauce

Ok, so first thing first, turn on the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 

While the oven heats, wash and split in half the Cherry Tomatoes. Place them with a bit of Olive Oil in a non-stick pan on low heat with a pinch of Salt. Let them cook slowly while you do the other things.

Slice the Mozzarella in small medallions and set aside.

Mix the Soft Cheese with the Pesto Sauce in a bowl. Add a bit of Olive Oil if it seems too thick. Set this aside as well, right next to the Mozzarella.

Place some Olive Oil in a small pot, let it heat on low for a couple of minutes and then add 3 tablespoons of flour, do not stop stirring for any reason! Let the child make a mess with the crayons, the dog bark at the birds and the husband look for fresh socks as long as they please. You are making Besciamella Sauce! There is no interruption allowed. And then, after all, it's only for a few minutes!!!
Slowly add, in the small pot (stirring the whole time) the milk. Keep stirring to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom. The mixture will thicken in no time at all. Add a bit of Salt and grated Nutmeg if you like. It's Your Besciamella and it's important that it responds to Your Taste.
So, once the sauce it's done, so it's not thick nor liquid anymore, take it off the heat and keep stirring for a couple more minutes. Cover and set aside :)

Now, all the fillings are ready, so take your oven dish and put some Besciamella on the bottom. 

Then place a layer of Lasagna Sheets on it and one of Mozzarella, then Lasagna Sheets again and the Pesto-Cheese mixture. Proceed until you have the height you desire and the two fillings have been used up. On the very top place the Tomatoes and cover everything with the Besciamella sauce.

Place the Lasagna in the oven and let cook. The cooking time depends on the sheets used. Last night I was pressed for time, so, before placing the sheets in the dish, I let them boil a bit in salty water so the oven time was reduced to 20 minutes.

If you don't want to add this operation to the process and place the sheets in the dish as they are, the oven time has to be increased at least to 40 minutes.

Here is the Lasagna just out of the oven!

Turmeric Crackers - Love, love, love...

Yesterday I found a recipe for Turmeric Crackers on Facebook... I thought it was genius! We only eat turmeric - this wonder spice - when cooking oriental style rice dishes. It's not enough, because this spice is linked every day to new beneficial effects and, oh, it makes things taste good! Not to mention the interesting color :)
So, last night, after work and a bit of shopping my son and I made these crackers.

Ingredients

600 grams of Plain Flour
140 ml of Olive Oil
100 ml of Water
100 ml of White Wine
4 spoons of Turmeric
4 good pinches of Salt
2 pinches of Paprika

Mix everything together and you'll get something that looks like this:

Keep kneading for a few minutes until it looks like this:

Cut out a small piece and work it with your rolling pin:

Keep working until you obtain a nice thin sheet of this goodness-filled dough:

Cut as you please once on the baking paper:

Place in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 15 minutes. Take them out:

With the ingredients above you'll get two of these boxes:

Total working time? About 30 minutes! They are virtually fat-free, totally yeast-free and absolutely good for you! Enjoy!!!

Gnocchi - Picture Tutorial

I make gnocchi quite often, mainly for three very good reasons: they are super cheap to make; they are ready in no time; they only require two ingredients that I always have in the house.


Plain Flour
Potatoes


Now, the measurements here are quite difficult. Let's say that for 4 adults eating you will need 1 kilo of potatoes. The amount of flour I could really not tell, because you have to keep adding it to the mix until it feels right. The amount of flour mostly depends on the type of potatoes being used. So far, any potato has worked fine for me.


Now, here is the procedure step by step:


Boil the potatoes until cooked, just as you would do if making mash potatoes. If they are quite big, cut them in cubes before boiling.
Once ready, drain and place 2 cups of flour on your clean worktop. Don't worry, it won't stay that clean for too long :)
Place the potatoes on top of the flour:

Mash them with a fork:

This is what you have now:

Start folding in the flour, your hands will get stickier and stickier:

Keep kneading the mix until it becomes a ball like this. Also keep adding flour as needed.

Keep working and adding flour:

Add the flour until you can actually press with your fingers into the mix and this does not stick to them anymore:

Now that you have the mix ready, cut a piece from it and roll it into a long sausage, the thickness should be a bit more than your own finger.

Start cutting pieces out of it with a plain knife, and throw them in a tray with flour in it:

Make sure that you have all sides of each gnocco covered in flour so they don't stick to each other:

Have ready a tray where to cover them in flour and another tray where to settle them:

And this is the final result:

Now, gnocchi are easy to cook. Boil a big pot of water with salt, if you wish, and just toss them in. Turn them gently once or twice just to ensure they don't stick to each other. Once they start surfacing, they are ready to drain and dress with your favorite sauce.


A very simple option is to add butter on top of them and some sage in leaves or powder. They are magnificent this way.


Another option is to prepare a very simple tomato sauce, just basil and garlic and use that one. Make sure the sauce is quite liquid by adding water to it while it's cooking: gnocchi tend to absorb a lot of sauce.


Try it out, once done never forgotten, like the bicycle story. And it's not a lot of work at all.


If you want to make more than necessary, or if it just happens that you make more than necessary, they can be frozen. Place them well separate from each other on a tray, cover with a plastic bag and in the freezer. Once frozen, they can be "reunited" without any problem and kept for a good while.

Spezzatino - Leftovers at their best :)

The pride I took in cooking this simple hearty dish is immense. The biggest satisfaction came from the fact that while it was cooking, my kitchen smelled like my mother's. I could close my eyes for a second and just be tele-transported over next to her, while the wooden stove is on, by the table my parents built together one spring from marble and iron. Fantastic. 
I never had the nerve to cook this before because I just love my mother's Spezzatino, it's one of the things she cooks often during the winter and I was afraid I would be hugely disappointed. I didn't want to spoil that taste.
But being November here in Ireland most of the time, I found no more arguments against it. I just had to try and hope for the best.
So, the principle of the Spezzatino is simple: you throw in the tall pot anything you have at hand.
My mother's Spezzatino is quite simple:


Potatoes
Courgettes
Stewing Beef pieces
Carrots
A stalk of Celery
One Onion
A clove of Garlic
Tomato Sauce
Salt
Olive Oil


Everything is washed/peeled/chopped (except the celery) and placed in the tall pot with a bit of olive oil. Salt is added, then tomato sauce and then enough water to reach almost the top of the pot, let's say you leave the top 5 centimeters.
It has to slowly boil and cook, the meat will release its full flavor that way. You will need to taste it before it's ready for the salt.
Once the soup evaporated enough, I decided it was time to eat. The time of great truth!
I was tempted to add one of my yummy vegetable stock cubes, but then I decided against it, I wanted the Spezzatino just like Mamma's.
And indeed it was!!! Oh joy, I could not believe it, I was so happy I ate two plates... So, so proud to accomplish such unmistakable taste!

This is what it looks like in the plate. The soup is not too thick nor too thin, just the way I like it. But mind your tongue, the vegetables are quite hot!!!
On top I enjoy a bit of chilly powder. My father would cover it in grated Parmigiano cheese. 
And of course, make sure you have bread at hand, you will WANT to clean the plate with it!
Awesome!

Leftovers - My favourites!

Whenever I get to use that last slice of ham or those poor piece of courgette that just did not find its way in any other dish before they become rotten, I'm a happy person!
I hate to see waste; especially food wasted, it breaks my hearth. 
My husband just this morning was "giving out" to me because he says I dread the worst to happen. Well, I admit it, I do! That's why saving and avoid wasting (money, food, water, heat) are so important to me.
We live a very fulfilling life, nothing is ever missing from our table (unless we forget to buy it!) or our lives. Our son's Christmas is full of presents and his clothes always clean, and despite my habit of saving here and there, he is the happiest child I know. That's important.
I also remember well from my childhood, and generally from the part of my life spent under my parent's roof, how much tastier some foods were the next day.
Now, on Saturday I was on my own for lunch, husband busy playing soccer (or so he says...) and I desperately craved pasta!!! With no actual will power to make a proper sauce, I opened the fridge and found the 


Ingredients:


3 mushrooms
1/2 onion
3 slices of Salami
4 Cherry Tomatoes


Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper
Pasta


I put the water on for the pasta, with some rock salt as usual. In a non stick pot with a bit of olive oil, I placed the tomatoes split in half, the sliced mushrooms and onion and the salami cut in little pieces. I threw a bit of salt on them as well and put a cover on.
By the time the water was boiling and it was time for the pasta to go in, the topping was almost ready.
The cooked pasta was then drained and mixed, on medium heat in the non stick pot, with the topping, and here is the result:

Very, very enjoyable indeed! By leaving the salami out, it's a completely vegan dish.

Vegetable Stock Cubes!!!

I need to confess: I'm a huge fan of vegetable stock. This means that, twice a week during the whole Winter when my husband is out playing soccer, Yuri (my son) and myself, will have a simple warm pasta soup, cooked with just vegetable stock and topped with grated parmesan cheese. That's it! I love it, it reminds me of the long evenings my mother and I spent at home while my father worked the late shift in the car factory.
Yesterday I read an article about MSG, monosodium glutamate. It sounds like a poison. And chances are, it's not healthy. IKEA removed it from its foods sometime last year, and they are always ahead in these things, so well, I am going to remove it too. I am pregnant at present, and I don't want to feed myself and, now, my two children anything unhealthy.


MSG is present in many vegetable stock cubes so I decided to make my own cubes with salt and vegetables. And no weird stuff in it. The procedure is super simple and, as usual, the thing cooks itself giving me the time to make my son a pencil case and a holdall for school at the sewing machine.


Ingredients for 56 cubes:
1 Courgette
1 White Onion
3 Carrots
10 Cherry Tomatoes
A small bunch of Parsley
2 small sticks of Rosemary
2 stalks of Celery
500 grams of Rock Salt

Some of the ingredients, peeled and washed

Peel, wash and chop up the whole lot and throw it in a non stick pot.

Cover them with all the salt and place the lid on.

Let cook on low-medium heat for 90 minutes.

The salt will extract all the water from the vegetables, so there is no need to add any water. Once you like the look of the whole thing (it doesn't really look nice now, does it?) blend it all.

Once cooled, place all of the paste in the ice cube trays and freeze them.

I got exactly 56 cubes plus 1 which I left in the fridge to try tonight :)
Once the cubes are frozen, I'll place them all in freezer bags so they don't take up too much space.
And here's what I was doing in the meantime:

We're almost ready for the long winter that will soon be here. School gear an'all!