Yes, I' m alive.

Yes, I'm alive, even if I don't write often.
To tell you the truth it's not my fault...
It's because I'm pregnant!
It's a big happy news, me and my husband (and the whole families and friends) are very very joyful and we feel so blessed!
Anyway pregnancy has got it's own side-effects...
I can't even think about food and recipes, even in abstract, because I suddenly feel so sick so I can't really face to update a food related blog :P.
I'm also quite tired and listless, I suppose it will gettin' better soon, I hope you don't stop checking this page!
With love,
Claudia

Onion soup ( Zuppa di cipolle)

Maybe it's because the cold is slowly coming, maybe it's because I feel in need of comfort food but I'm here with a soup recipe again. :D

It' warm, creamy, tasty, cheap: anything better?

Don't worry about your breath, cooked onions don't make it smell!

For 4 serves you need:

2 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

15 small blonde onions

salt and pepper

4-5 cups meat (better) or canned broth

1 cup fontina cheese chopped in dices

1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan

8 big slices of rustic Italian bread, thick and stale

Heat in a big pan oil and butter, add finely sliced onions and let them stirfry mixing often.

Keep them on fire untill they're soft and golden.

Add salt and pepper.

In individual soup bowls put a dipper of meath broth, then a piece of stale bread, then cover with onions and add some fontina cubes.

Cover with another layer of bread and onions, add another little dipper of broth, spread a generous part of grated cheese.

Cover with an allumionion foil and put in preheated oven (around 375F°) and cook for about half an hour.

Check if the soup needs a little more broth, keep off the alluminium foil and cook 10 minutes more untill the grated cheese is brown, remove from the oven, let it rest for few minutes and serve hot or at least warm.

P.S.: You can use Pecorino cheese instead of Parmesan and another stringy cheese instead of Fontina if you can't find it.

Porcini mushrooms soup ( Zuppa di funghi porcini)

Nice recipe to use one of the most delightful gift that come with the fall season.

I love mushrooms, any kind of mushrooms, porcini of course are favourite but not the only ones.

For 4 serves you need:

1 blonde onion

1 lb. cleaned porcini mushrooms

1 garlic clove

2 1/2 cups meat broth or canned broth

1 cup fresh milk cream

2 tablespoons butter

salt and pepper

fresh chopped parsley

rustic Italian style bread in slices

Mince onion and garlic, put them in a pan with butter and fry lightly.

Add porcini sliced in tiny slices, add them in the pan, let stew for a while.

Add broth and let it cook for about 10 minutes, add salt and pepper and parsley.

Remove 3 spoons of mushrooms from the pan, put what left in a mixer, add cream and mix.

Heat the soup you've obtained, puor in dishes, add the mushrooms you previously removed and serve with toasted bread slices seasoned with a little garlic and extravirgin olive oil.

Homemade chocolate and hazelnuts cream ( Nutella fatta in casa).

Today I'm going to post the recipe of a famous Italian chocolate and nuts called "Nutella".

Of course this receipe will give you the chance of making it at home, tasty and healthy, sweetened as you want and witha great hazelnuts flavour.

The recipe is easy and quite quick, the only thing you must pay attention to is nuts whisking: you must obtain a smooth cream and it takes quite long, even half an hour with electric mixer.

You need:

5 oz. whole toasted hazelnuts

3 1/2 oz. milk chocolate

7 oz. dark chocolate

3 1/2 oz. sugar

1/2 cup whole milk

1/3 cup peanuts oil

vanilla seeds from a fresh vanilla bean

Put hazelnuts and sugar into the electric mixer and start whisking: whisk untill you have a greasy cream (it's nuts' oil) then add the two kind of chocolate in tiny pieces and whisk again.

Add milk and peanuts oil then vanilla seeds then mix well once again.

Put on fire, cook in a bain-marie for about 15 minutes, untill you have a thick cream, well amalgamated.

Let it get cold then pour in glass jam jar.

Store in the fridge, use within about 2 months.

It's great in the morning on fresh bread, every child in Italy eats it, I think you can compare Nutella to the American peanuts butter.

P.S. : this is the real Nutella in its packaging:

http://www.buttalapasta.it/wp-galleryo/pandoro-alla-nutella/la-nutella.jpg

Treviso's radicchio lasagna (Lasagne al radicchio di Treviso)

Of course abroad the most famous kind of lasagna is made with white sauce and meat sauce but it's not the only kind of lasagna you can make.

You can serve vegetarian lasagna made with white sauce and vegetable ragu' just for istance; today I'll give you an idea for a very refined dinner or lunch, a kind of lasagna that you maybe can't find usually in Italian restaurant worldwide (or maybe yes, I don't know, but making it at home is better ;) ).

For 4 serves you need:

1 lb. treviso radicchio (or a red radicchio-chichory)

10 oz. fresh pasta for lasagna

3 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 oz. butter

1 oz. bacon

1 small white onion

2 garlic cloves

salt and pepper

freshly grated Parmesan

For the white sauce:

1/2 cup whole milk

5 tablespoon butter

2 1/2 oz. flour

salt

nutmeg

Take the radicchio and cut it in thin stripes, then wash and dry it well.

In a big pan heat oil and butter with onion and garlic cloves, add bacon in stripes and let it fry for few minutes then add radicchio, salt and pepper, cover and let it cook untill it's stewed.

To make white sauce melt in a pan the butter, add flour little by little, mixing: when you have a sort of thick cream add milk, salt and nutmeg, cook on low heat for 3 minutes after it comes to boiling point.

Boil pasta sheets in hot salty water, spread some butter in a oven-proof dish then pour white sauce, stewed radicchio, pasta and grated Parmesan in layers, finish with a generous spread of radicchio, Parmesan and white sauce: put in the oven for 40 minutes, if it becomes too brown cover with a sheet of alluminium.

You can prepare it a day in advance then put in the oven just in time for the guests arrival or even prepare it then freeze: it last for 2 month.

It's a great thing to avoid the pressure of cooking everything last minute!

Grilled squid with potadoes and lemon aromatic sauce ( Seppia con patate e salsa al limone aromatica)

Easy recipe I did just last evening, it's tasty and light and squids are a kind of seafood that don't cost that much.

The photo you see is mine, I'm trying to getting better with food photographs but it's not easy at all.

For 2 serves you need:

2 squids, cleaned and without tentacles

1 lemon

salt and pepper

2 big potadoes (or more, up to you)

extra-virgin olive oil

chopped parsley

Stew potadoes untill they're soft, pell them off and slice.

Open the squids and cut them in 3 pieces each.

Make diagonal cuts on the pieces with a knife, being careful not to cut too deep: they are just a way to avoid squid curling during the cooking; make the cuts the way to obtain a nice grid.

In a little bowl squeeze the lemon, pay attention to seed of ourse.

Add extra-virgin olive oil, chopped parsley, salt and pepper and mix energetically, let it rest for about half an hour.

Grill the squid slices on a hot griddle 3 minutes on each side, put the sliced potadoes on the serving dish, add squids and pour the sauce after another energetically mix.

Enjoy your seafood!

White veal stew (Spezzatino di vitello in bianco)

 Back with a recipe today.
You could say it's good because for too long I missed my duty. ^^
This recipe is good to warm the first chilly autumn days, I love it so much!
Be sure to have bread enough to mop up the sauce from the plate!

For 4-6 serves:

3-4 pieces of veal for each serve

4 carrots

4 potadoes

1 glass white wine

flour

2-3 sage leaves

meath broth (canned one is ok)

2 oz. butter

salt and pepper as you like

Peel and chop carrots and potadoes in pieces big enough to avoid melting douring the cooking.
Pass the veal pieces in the flour, in a big pan melt the butter, add sage then meat.
Brown the pieces, add the wine glass, let it evaporate then add carrots and potadoes too.
Pour two dipper of meat broth, cook untill it's absorbed then add two more.
Continue untill the meat is ready and the vegetables are soft.
Pay attention: don't let the sauce too liquid, it must be thick; if needed let it condense on fire at the end of the cooking, taking off the meat and vegetables.
Serve hot with a plain salad or, even if it's not an Italian tradition at all, with steamed rice.
I prefer salad and bread of course! ;)