spaghetti all'aglio, olio e peperoncino

This is the absolute easiest and quickest italian dish ever, and yet I find it so comforting and filling. The first dish to jump to mind after a long day at work.My kids always ask for pasta with il and parmigiano and this can be cooked right along their dish so...well...i won't hear complains about the amount of dishes in the sink....Oh yes... there is also really no measuring involved here. and not that many ingredients you will need.

Pasta, I chose Spaghetti Rigati, the ridges help the sause grab onto the pasta making each bite that much more flavorful.
Garlic, minced and about 2 to 3 cloves.
Fresh spicy peppers, traditionally we use Cayanne Pepper, however I like to mix different peppers to add flavors and colors...depending on what's ready in my garden, this time it was Fresno, Cayanne and a jalopeno.I love spicy foods so I used the al of them ,cut into very small pieces.Also I used a few minced parsley leaves,  to add a little extra freshness to the dish and enough Extra Vergin Olive Oil to allow all the ingredients to blend smoothly. Salt and black and Pink pepper to taste. The pink pepper just adds a little fresher taste to the black pepper.

VEGAN Beef bourguignon

There are a lot of great vegan dishes out there but this one...well I just had to try it for myself. Beef bouruignon is the definition of comfort food, especially for us European's. The Sunday night dinner you'd spent the whole day drooling over. And what could be better? Beef slow cooked in red wine scented with fresh herbs de provence....
So I was watching tv and saw this guy on the Martha Stewart show prepare his wife vegan bourguignon....with saitan instead of beef....but beside that, he followed a pretty traditional recipe.....and I needed to try to see if it really was as good as he said it would be. I do have to admit Saitan is my favorite vegan protein as far as consistency....and this dish, though I altered it a bit, for sure lived up to expectations.

I prepared my soffritto in a dutch oven pot. 3 sliced carots, 1 onion,cubed,( traditionally it is pearl onions but I only had white onions, and I'm not a huge fan of peeling little tiny pearl onions) 3 cloves of garlic, minced , and combined them all with 2 tbs of extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper to taste and fresh herbs from the garden, rosemary, thyme, sage and bay leaves.

I cooked them for a few minutes over medium heat while browning the 2 pakages of seitan in a frying pan.

Once the onion and the garlic absorbed the olive oil I added 1 cup of veggie stock and the Seitan, and cooked the mixture with the lid on for 20 minutes, keeping the heat on medium. I then added about 1 lb of fresh mushrooms, some flat leaf parsley and then 3/4 of a bottle of red wine, I went with a French ta

ble wine, just trying to keep the dish as traditional as possible.

The combined smell of the mushrooms, garlic and the wine was simply AMAZING! Nothing short of a traditional beef stew!

The freshly chopped parsley added such freshness to the dish.

I put the lid back on and cooked for another 20 minutes or so. I scooped the Seitan and the veggies out and placed them on a serving dish. I added 1 tbs of corn starch, 2 tbs of vegan butter ( spectrum is a really good one )  and 1 tbs of tomato paste to create a creamier consistency to the sauce. After cooking for a few minutes, once the cosnsistency of a gravy is reached,  I poured some over the seitan. It was delicious!

Heirloom tomatoes, hatch chiles and arugula quesadillas

Just fire up the Grill, and pour yourself a nice glass of VINO. This is easy and will only take a few moments.

Hatch chiles are only available for a few weeks out of the year but the are spectacular in their heat and smoky flavors combined. You can buy them fresh...or roasted. I got mine fresh...well what's more relaxing than cooking at the grill on a hot summer night?..NOTHING!

I washed my chiles and dried them with a towel, they cook better dry. You want to cook them on high flames till charred, once done place them in a Tupperware container and close it with its lid. The steam will allow the skin to be easily peeled off, and that's when they are ready.

Once cool enough to touch I peeled them ad cut them into small pieces. I opened 4 taco size flour tortillas and filled them with cheese and some chiles ( amount desired), I folded the tortillas in halves and placed them on the hot grill for a few minutes on each side until clear marks were created....

and yes, this dish is this simple and quite tasty, we each had seconds!

Can you smell it ? breathing in the ocean

Seafood is something I was raised around. My father loved seafood, shellfish in particular and growing up in Milan, in a valley, closed to lakes and sweet water fishes,but far from the seaside and crustaceans, we learned to truly savor those summer at the seaside, where seafood was almost part of our daily diets. We were taught the difference between fresh or frozen seafood, our palates trained toward the right choices, fresh and local. Nothing else would do, nothing else should really do. I remember my father explaining "if you can smell the fish, you should not eat it, it should just smell like the salty clean water, that's how you know it's good!"...And I have to say, the only two times I did not smell my seafood before cooking it I got sick......and bad seafood can really hurt, if you haven't experienced this, please take my word for t!    And shellfish in particular, it holds a lot of bacterias, clams and muscled are bottom feeders, they need to be perfectly fresh, tight when bought, kept cold and washed thoroughly before even being cooked......kind of a pain...but totally worth it!!!!! 

The muscles I got are local to Carlsbad....and they looked amazing....so good I got 3lbs of them. After scrubbing them clean I ran cold water over them while i made my soffritto. 1 onion, thinly sliced, 4 to 5 cloves of minced garlic, 1/2 red bell pepper cut in small dices  and a fennel bulb cut into four pieces. I cook them together in a dutch oven pot with 2tbs of extra virgin olive oil for a few minutes then added 3/4 of a bottle of white wine. I wanted something somewhat sweet to compliment the fennel so I chose a french white table wine that sells at wholefoods for $11.99, Vallee Loire - VOUVRAY -  Chenin Blanc...and it worked perfectly!

I turned the heat off and let everything simmer and combine for 20 minutes before turning the heat back on and adding the muscles and 1/2 cup of chicken stock. 

I cooked the shellfish in the soffritto and wine for about 7 minutes, occasionally stirring but mostly keeping the lid on to steam all of the muscles open. I turned the heat off and added about 3/4 of a stick of butter. I allowed the butter to melt, added the juice of one lemon and freshly chopped flat leaves italian parsley. make sure you SERVE ONLY THE MUSCLES THAT HAVE OPENED,DISCARD THE REST. Enjoy

fresh hairloom tomato caprese pasta salad

Summer, summer ,summer indeed!
This is a perfect dish to cool off with during those hot summer days. I saw this on the cover of " living" magazine and simply had to make it myself. It just looks stunning, nothing is brighter and cheerier than the colors of ripe heirloom tomatoes. And nothing quite sweeter.
For the pasta I chose curly lasagna sheets simply because they look pretty. I boiled in water for 11 minutes according to the direction on the package....(whole foods brand ) then I ran them under cold water in a colander to stop the cooking process.
In the meantime I sliced a colorful assortment of tomatoes and placed them on a serving plate with some organic capers, organic fresh mozzarella disks. Once the pasta felt cool to touch I cut the sheets  into square pieces and put them on the plate with the other ingredients. I sprinkled some salt, a little black pepper, some extra virgin olive oil and of course some freshly sliced basil......
Light, Refreshing...and certainly pretty.

Honeydew and vodka soup...

This is the perfect way to start any Summer Dinner. A nice mixture of  soup and  cocktail, did I mention is super quick and easy? You can impress any guests with the vibrancy of its colors and elegant presentation.....and it won't take you more then 5 minutes to make it!

All you need to do is take one honeydew cut into pieces, 2 TBS of extra fine sugar ,the juice of one lime and 1 shot of vodka. Combine all the ingredients into a blender and pulse until smooth and evenly combined. pour into a soup bowl, garnish with Cantaloupe ,fresh mint and creme fraiche. I suggest serving with prosciutto wrapped grissini.

Quesadillas Italiana

What I love about tortillas is that they are so versatile. They can help turning any dish from just about any cuisine into a virtually mess - free perfect dish. Available in corn, flour, and now so many flavors, they are the perfect tool to turn any old fashion dish into a mobile perfectly hand sized creation.
This is another very simple dish that plays on the contrast of sweet and savory using one of my favorite flavor pairing, Figs and Prosciutto. If fresh figs aren't available you can always substitute for a fig spread although, the playful texture and natural sweetness of figs can't be copied.

A taco size flour tortilla, filled with one slice of prosciutto di parma, one fig( thinly sliced ) , a smear of Caprino cheese, a creamy Italian Goat cheese, and 1 slice of Monterrey Jack cheese  grilled on each side for about 2 minutes or until clear grilling lines are formed. I chose to serve it whole as a main dish, but it could easily be cut into 4 triangles and served as an appetizer.