Hi, it’s time of peas, sweet and tender, typical of these months.
In Italy we are used to cook them in a lot of ways. For example they are the main ingredients of many soups.
Do you know risi & bisi? in other words rice and peas?

Rice and peas

You can’t imagine how many times we have seen this photo of ours on other sites!!!

Here’s the original recipe!

Ingredients / It serves 4

1, 0 kg (2.2 lb) fresh peas in the pods
200 g (7 oz) rice
1 carrot, peeled and cut into 3-4 pieces
2 onions
1 garlic clove
1 celery stalk
Fresh parsley, finely chopped
Butter
Grated Parmesan
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt

To shell, pinch off the ends and pull the string down on the inside of the pod and pop the peas out. Put the peas apart.
Wash the pods and put in a large pan together  with one onion, the carrot and celery. Cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Season to taste with salt, lower the heat and keep on cooking for about an hour.
Let the stock cool and strain. Put apart.
Fry lightly the second onion and garlic (chopped finely) in olive oil and butter. Add the peas, let them flavor for few minutes, cover with the stock and cook for about 15 minutes.
Then add the rice, stir, season to taste with salt and cover with hot stock. Let all cook on medium heat, stirring now and then, adding other stock when necessary. Cook according to the time written on the rice package.
Add the parsley and  a bit of butter  a minute before switching off the gas.
Serve at once. Accompany with grated Parmesan in a little bowl. So everyone will be able to sprinkle on his dish if he wants.
In another version bacon is used together with garlic and onions.

We prefer our version without butter and grated Parmesan, a real vegan recipe. It tastes fantastic! It’s low fat and calorie recipe.
Read step-by-step instructions for our pea-and-rice  soup.

Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta

Hi, we want to share with you a new recipe we have created today.

We have great sage leaves and new, tender mint leaves in our organic garden. Besides we have to prepare a side dish to accompany steamed salmon. In the fridge two artichokes …
And so here it is the idea: frying these leaves and artichokes for a new, original dish. How tasty it is!

Fried artichokes together with fried mint and sage leaves

These are the instructions to make them.

Wash the mint and sage leaves. Pat them dry with absorbent kitchen paper. Prepare the artichokes and cut them into thin slices. Plunge them in lemon-flavored water.
Prepare a batter. These are the doses for an egg. Beat an egg with a tablespoon of dried or fresh chives. Add 3 or 4 tablespoons of all purpose flour and about 10 tablespoons of milk. We made a  batter with 2 eggs.

Fry every piece in abundant olive oil. Remove it with a skimming ladle and put on absorbent kitchen paper to remove the excess of fat.

Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta

Hi, this is the thirty third post about the art of cooking and tossing Italian pasta.
Today we want to tell you about another well known Italian dish:  Bolognese tagliatelle.
Outside Italy a lot of people think Bolognese spaghetti is an authentic Italian dish.
It’s wrong!
In Italy we haven’t the habit to toss spaghetti with Bolognese sauce.
We use Bolognese sauce for tagliatelle, cannelloni (you know it as manicotti, of course) and lasagna.
On the contrary there are a lot of Italian sauces to toss spaghetti. In the next entries we’ll show you the most common and famous.

Now let’s talk about Bolognese tagliatelle! You can read the authentic recipe on this page.
Below you can read more details about this recipe: the secrets of our original home cooking and the rules to serve this dish correctly.

Look at the photo below: this is a tasty dish of tagliatelle made at home and tossed with the  fantastic ragù (ragout) from Bologna (Bolognese sauce). Read more details to prepare the sauce and make egg pasta and then tagliatelle at home.

You can make the pasta sauce both with red wine and white wine. Choose the ingredients you prefer. In the photo you can see the sauce made with white wine.  We think this is the best sauce.

You can use the tagliatelle you prefer.  So you aren’t obliged to do homemade pasta,  you can also buy  ready to cook fresh tagliatelle or dried tagliatelle.

Bolognese tagliatelle and its sauce

Look at the photo for more details. This sauce isn’t rich in tomato as you can see in the recipe ingredients too! This is the first rule to serve Bolognese tagliatelle. You have to eat the pasta with its sauce not the sauce with its pasta.

Serve Bolognese  tagliatelle, already tossed, directly in the plate  as you can see in the photo. This is the second rule. We teach you why it is important to serve tagliatelle in this way.
Tagliatelle is a long pasta. The authentic tagliatelle strips are 1 metre (39 in) long.
Imagine to bring a bowl full of tossed tagliatelle to the table. What could happen  while you’re serving your guests and transferring such a long tossed pasta from the bowl  to the plate?
Another mistake is to drain tagliatelle, transfer it into a plate and put a ladle of sauce on the top. Every guest should mix the tagliatelle together with the sauce with his fork on the plate. First of all tagliatelle gets sticky in few moments and everyone could have more problems in tossing it. Besides, according to good manners, your guests must be at their ease. In this way they could get a sauce stain! Would they be at their ease in this way?

The third rule. Don’t sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese on the top of the pasta and don’t add Parmesan cheese tossing the tagliatelle. It’s better to put a little bowl full of grated cheese accompanied with a teaspoon on the table. So everyone can do what he prefers.

To finish we want to suggest a last detail that can be very useful if you have guests. If you make tagliatelle at home don’t cut them 1 metre long. Have you ever eaten such a long pasta gracefully? Cut them 50-60 cm long.

Are you interested in all our entries? You can find them on this page.

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Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta

Hi. It’s august, it’s time for ripe tomatoes.
They are ripe but firm, beautiful to see and tasty to eat.
But there are too many in our organic garden and so we are going to cook them to make our favourite sauce: tomato sauce.

We’re going to explain how to make pureed tomatoes.
Wash the tomatoes under cold running water,  quarter them and put in a pot. Quarter a couple of fresh young onions. Add some basil leaves and a little bunch of fresh chives, cut into 3-4 parts.
Then add half a glass of cold water and cook on a medium heat. The tomatoes will throw out their juice and so they will cook for about 15-20 minutes.
Switch off the gas and let the tomatoes cool. Then puree them with a food mill.
Look at the photo for the result.

Pureed tomatoes

This is the base for making a sauce, Italian – style. Pureed tomatoes can be used for cooking meatballs, for pizza or other recipes too. You can also fill some jars and sterilize them for about 30 minutes.
Pureed tomatoes are not the sauce for dressing pasta but the base to make the sauce!

Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta

Hi, we have started planning and making our organic garden before Michelle Obama and Queen Elisabeth astonished the world with their decision.
Before we had a lawn surrounded by some flowerbeds with a corner for acidophil plants, another for aromatic herbs and another one for perennial shrubs such as oleanders. But this year our lawn was growing  yellow, with difficulty. lt needs a radical treatment. “Let’s pull it up  and sow again!” – we thought at first. But the love of gerdening has make us change our mind. I (Loretta)  had a little garden some years ago and knew something about gardening. Carlo has never had a garden and no passion for gardening. But we both like organic foods.
So organic garden instead of a new lawn: it was the last decision. But … what a work! It was killing. Pulling up the lawn, preparing the ground, making the vegetablebeds, sowing, transplanting  … how many hours of hard work!
What a “beautiful” way to break our back!

But now … what a satisfaction! We have a garden beautiful to see (look at the photos) and with tasty organic food.

Now an example for explaining  what is the importance to have chemical free, vitamin filled, fresh, natural  foods to hand.  Have you ever think that the foods you buy from the supermarket may have been hanging around for days or even weeks before you buy them?
This morning we have picked a purple aubergine, a red bell pepper, a courgette, (zucchini),  a bunch of parsley, a couple of young fresh onions, some arugula leaves and two ripe  tomatoes. The perfect ingredients for pastasciutta, Italy-style: our lunch.
Put two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a pan together with  cubed aubergines, diced bell pepper and sliced courgette. Let all these ingredients fry lightly on a low heat, stirring often. Then add cubed tomatoes and parsley finely chopped together with onions and arugula. Cook for other 5 minutes stirring often and your sauce is ready!
Season to taste with salt and pepper, if you like. The sauce is so tasty that you give up the salt.  Cook 160 g (5 3/4 oz) of pasta al dente stage. Drain and dress with the sauce. This is the first course.
Then a seasonal salad made with lettuce, cubed melon and nasturtium. Yes, nasturtium: both leaves and flowers give a peppery flavour to the mixed greens. Dress with a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of aromatic vinegar, season to taste with salt and stir: it’s ready!  It tastes fantastic! All natural, low fat and healthy!
Both the recipes serves 2.
The last thing: all the kitchen waste are added to the compost. All is recycled, no garbage!

Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta