I am sure you all know I am taking one-on-one lessons in Italian every week. We are now using a book called L’italiano per la cucina. It is at the B1 level and focuses on the traditional cucine of Italy.
Today’s lesson was on the traditional recipe for Spaghetti Carbonara. The legend goes that the origin of the dish was from when the American soldiers during WWII were occupying Rome. They had rations provided but to make them more interesting the soldiers gave them to local restaurants and asked they make a pasta using the ingredients. The rations had powdered eggs, bacon and cream. Carbonara was the result. The traditional recipe now does not include cream. [there are other legends about the origin of the dish, but this one is the most accepted]
I got so hungry during the lesson I was nearly drooling. SO…tonight I just HAD to make the recipe. It is super easy. Only four ingredients. Guanciale or pancetta, egg yolks, pecorino cheese and spaghetti or rigatoni. I whipped it up and it was delicious.
I bought some pretty greens for my next soup. They are called bietola here. When I put them in the translate app they say chard. But they also have what I call Swiss chard here, in red and yellow varieties which is different — chisa! Here is a picture of what I used. I am sure you could use the colorful chard as well.
I cooked a batch of dried cannellini beans yesterday. Today I used them with the greens. You can also use cans of cooked cannellini. It was a truly delicious soup. I will make it again.
Here is the recipe which I will also include on my recipes page.
Bietola and cannellini bean soup
2 carrots chopped 1 large stalk celery chopped 1 medium onion chopped 4 cloves garlic minced Handful of dried mushrooms (like porcini), soaked and chopped, saving the liquid 2-3 cans cannellini beans or cooked dry beans 1 sprig rosemary 1 bunch bietola, washed and chopped, including stems Water with 1 vegetable bouillon cube or vegetable stock Salt and pepper A little vinegar (optional)
Sauté carrots, onions and celery in oil until soft. Add garlic and sauté for 30 seconds. Add chopped mushrooms and their water, strained for grit, beans, rosemary, bietola, water or stock and/or vegetable cube and salt. Cook 30 minutes. Taste and adjust salt and add pepper. Off heat. Add a splash of vinegar to brighten it a bit if desired. Buon appetito!
On Saturday we had lunch with one of my long-time friends who was once my boss many moons ago. She and her husband are visiting Italy and are staying near Cortona. We met in the middle at a restaurant we have passed by a million times, but never have we eaten there. It is on the top of a mountain and has a view to die for of Lago Trasimeno. It is called Lo Scoiattolo which means the squirrel.
She brought me a couple of things from home — first, some always much appreciated ziplock bags. Between Shirley and other friends I think I am now set for a couple of years! But she also brought me a package of Alaskan smoked salmon which she had bought while on a cruise in Alaska. What a great thing to get! I haven’t had this for donkeys years, which, trust me, is a long time!
So, I decided to make a recipe I have been waiting to try. Pasta with pistachio ”cream” and smoked salmon. The pistachios are not a cream. They call them a pesto, but not a normal pesto to me. It is just ground up pistachios and olive oil, and a little salt and water. It becomes very creamy.
Pistacchio pestoThe salmonFinal dish.
It was yummy. It was also super rich. Feeling full!
For those interested, my knee is much better. Seems the olive harvest perked it right up! My calf muscles were sore, probably from standing on tiptoe. But the knee is pretty good now. YAY!
I make a good deal of Mexican food and Asian food. Limes are something that I use often. To me, they have a distinctly different taste from lemons. Italians seem to think they are interchangeable. In fact, I have a very difficult time finding lime juice too. Only a couple of stores seem to have it. The last two times I went shopping I spied piles of nice limes. Of course I bought some and both times I got fooled.
You would think they were too, wouldn’t you? Well, it turns out that they are…
Yep! Tangerines. Green tangerines. I looked them up and they are Miyagawa mandarines. They are successfully cultivated in Italy in the citrus groves of Sicily, Basilicata and Calabria. Originally thought to be from China and/or Japan they thrive here. They ripen in September and October so they are the earliest of the citrus fruits. I don’t know why this is the first year I have seen them, but they are everywhere. They are sweet and good. It is not that I don’t like them, but they don’t work in my salsa or my chili.
🎶 And to top it all off, now I have that old song stuck in my head…you remember? ”My green tangerine 🎶 ” 😉
Short post – not much going on in Umbertide. One of the bars out in the piazza was closed this past week so it was quiet. The weather has been spectacular. One of the best Octobers I have seen here. The light has gotten that beautiful slant which makes the autumn so beautiful.
We went out to the market today. There were fresh porcini mushrooms so I had them for my lunch. Scrambled eggs with sautéed mushrooms.
We have finished a number of the chores on our ”to do” list. We still have a number of things to get done. We had our caldaia (heating system) inspected, mandated by law yearly. We still wait for the stufa (pellet stove) cleaner. We got our booster vaccines this week. We did some financial stuff. We need to buy a new light for our bathroom. And we need to see if we can get two screens replaced. This week we expect the gutter cleaners back to finish the job. I think they will build a scaffolding in the street to get to the top of the house. I assume they will need police permissions to block the street. I will report on the work as it continues.
The weather is fine and warm right now. Highs at 25C which is 77F. Nice! Now that it is October it’s time to think about harvesting the garden. Another last in our casa in the sky. Our last garden. It was a good one this year.
Basil, mint and tarragonSweet peppersPiccante peppers.
The basil was very prolific this year. Carefully harvesting throughout the year before it can bloom keeps it growing. But alas, the time has come to use it all before it frosts.
That can only mean…it’s pesto time! It isn’t difficult. You probably know that Pesto Genovese originated in Genoa. To make it in the traditional way, you use a mortar and a pestle with which you grind all the ingredients into a paste. I use a food processor as most people do. Someday I may try to make it the traditional way. Here are pictures of the ingredients I used.
I fill the bowl with basil leaves packing them in.A few cloves of garlicParmigiano, Grana Padano or aged pecorino cheese and olive oil.Ground nuts. I use all different kinds, not always the traditional pine nuts. These are hazelnuts.
I also add a little water if I want the pesto thinner without using too much oli. I prefer it not too oily. The final product. I divided it and froze part of it for the wintertime for a taste of the summer during the bleak months.
And finally, some of the flowers are still pretty.
Today I want to showcase two new products being produced here in Umbertide. We had heard of one of them from friends, but still had not visited. The other we just learned of from our recent dinner guests. I decided to showcase them both here.
First the cheese shop. Caseificio which means dairy is painted on the building. The shop is Fattoria Palazzo Rosa – Famiglia Monni. It is on the small road that crosses the river to Montecorona and the Abbazia di Montecorona which is run by the monks of the Eremo di Montecorona. So it wasn’t surprising to have a monk drop in to buy some cheese while we were there. The Eremo is a hermitage with a number of working monks. They take care of the Abbazia. The Eremo is in top of the 700 meter high mountain behind the Abbazia.
The back room, which you can see through a glass window is chock full of cheeses being aged. We bought a Pecorino peperoncini and some butter. The butter was not made here but I love trying new butter. The cheese was piquante but not too spicy. They had cheeses from other areas as well such as a creamy Gorgonzola. One of my favorites. This was an excellent find.
Then we decided to visit the Pauselli pasta fattoria. Our friends Joseph and Paul brought us three boxes of the pasta last week as a hostess gift. So generous — a box of Gemelli, Penne Rigate, and Linguine Ruvide. It is all made from artisanal grains grown in the area.
We followed the directions they gave us and found the negozio, but it was closed. I checked the hours. They are open 5-7 Wednesday and Saturday.
We tried the Gemelli last night. The name means twins. and each piece of pasta is made up of two pieces. Hence the name. The pasta is slightly darker than usual wheat pasta because of the grain. it has a rough texture and this shape is good for catching sauce in it’s crevices. I served it with a tomato, red and green pepper, onion sausage sauce, with a little sour cream added in. It was delish.
I am happy to live in a place with so many people producing such excellent products. They are just very poor at marketing. I think they could benefit from coming to the Saturday market and maybe even opening a temporary storefront to test the waters. At any rate, we will support them by buying their products. I hope they thrive.
What a beautiful day. We are in a lull in our summer heat. We are totally enjoying it! Last night we had thunderstorms in the wee hours and nice rain. I woke to very cool temperatures — 61 F. And fog hanging in the valley. Refreshing. Here is a picture of the super moon rising over our Piazza.
Yesterday we took a trip down to Etrusco, our favorite butcher. We don’t get there often so we buy a lot when we go. We bought a beautiful Tomahawk steak, two fillet mignons, a flank and a skirt steak (I think? I am never sure), two tomahawk pork chops, sausages and hamburgers. He brought out big tubs of shrink-wrapped meat for us to see. For each piece of meat I bought, the butcher went to great lengths to tell me how to cook it. Mostly it involved holding the fatty edge on a hot griddle or pan and letting the fat sizzle and melt. Then cook one and a half minutes on each side in the rendered fat. He also was super proud of his lamb. I am excited to try it because he explained the lambs were two years old and castrato. This is a lot older than most “Lambs”. Perhaps it is the castrated part…I don’t know. He again told me how to cook it, even to giving me a big piece of fat to use. I know this butcher well. He only sources from local farms and knows that they were raised humanely, and treated well during their life. I prefer to buy meat like this. He wished a buon Ferragosto! Happy feasting.
The Saturday market was abuzz with activity. It’s high summer now and the produce is abundant. I probably got a little carried away. I bought a ton more of the wonderful tomatoes, green beans, baby zucchini, arugula (super bitter to go with the steak tonight), sweet new red onions, a pepper, friggatelli, eggplants and a melon. I visited Angelo to buy prosciutto crudo to go with the melon. A feast for a festa! This picture is only some of the bounty! I love our local market and am really happy I will still be able to walk to it from our new apartment. Not many towns have a market like this. I feel blessed.
I will take a picture of my dinner tonight if I remember. Here is a picture I took of my Rocky-cat helping me out while I am preparing dinner. I am constantly stepping over him or around him. He is very helpful!
Finally, an unbelievably beautiful sunset a couple of days ago.
The weekend was REALLY hot. We made it through it. Sunday dinner was a salad medley. I bought borlotti beans yesterday at the market and cooked them this morning while it was still cool. I also cook hard boiled eggs in the morning. Always good for protein. I bought a sweet cantaloupe which are just coming into season. Luther had gotten prosciutto crudo to put with it. I got some mozzarella, and of COURSE tons of tomatoes. That was our dinner. All cool and delicious. Perfect on a hot summer night!
Thats 102.2 in Fahrenheit. We are hunkered down. To make it worse there are fires. Most in Umbria are small (so far) but there are big ones in Tuscany, Lazio, and Trieste. The ones in Tuscany are said to be arson. I don’t get why someone would do that! It has made it so hazy you can’t see very far. Yesterday when we were driving back from Spoleto the mountains were just shadows.
Tonight we had a salad for dinner. I cooked the eggs, beans and potatoes in the morning while it was relatively cool. It was a perfect dinner. New potatoes, amazing tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, pickled onion (a new thing I tried), hard boiled eggs, avocado, olives and feta cheese. To finish it was drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with sherry vinegar and torn basil leaves from my plants. My idea of a perfect summer dinner.
We eat outside and then stay out and watch a movie. Once the sun sets it starts to cool. Every evening massive flocks of rooks fly over us to roost for the night like clockwork at nine pm.
I hope everyone is staying cool. We have no plans for the upcoming weekend, other than the Saturday market. Ciao for now!
