My passion for scones is known.
This scones by Joy the Baker are just incredible! The first time I’ve them with almonds, as the recipe state, but then I switched to hazelnuts and they are as good as the original one!

Try them: you’ll never forget them!

Time to prepare and think about the first picnics!

This stuffed bread is simple, quick and it can be made in advance.

No quantities: use your eyes and if you have leftovers from the filling eat them like a salad.

Ingredients

1 big round loaf of bread

1 jar of grilled peppers, drained

Cherry tomatoes

Cherry mozzarelle

Capers, drained and rinsed

Anchovy fillets in olive oil, drained

Sun dried tomatoes in olive oil, drained

Fresh basil

• Lay the bread on a chopping board and cut with a long bread knife the upper dome part of the bread, 2-3 centimeters from the top. Reserve.
• Scoop out most of the bread crumb, leaving 2 centimeters on the side and on the bottom.
• Roughly chop the grilled peppers and the anchovy fillets, halve the tomatoes. In a bowl mix peppers, tomatoes, mozzarelle, capers, anchovy filets, sun dried tomatoes and basil.
• Transfer all inside the bread, cover with the cut upper dome.
• Let it rest for 15 minutes in the fridge and then for at least 15 minutes at room temperature before serving.

Sping!

Fresh spinach!

Wash them, very well.

Drain.

Heat 1 tbs of olive oil in a big pan, add 1 garlic clove.

Add spinach, cover.

After 5 minutes add raisins and pine nuts. Cover.

Cook for 5-10 minutes max, until volume is half of the original.

Serve.

I’m completely addicted to potatoes, and even more to potato salad! In its simplicity a potato salad can become the real protagonist of a meal. Although I love the simple pleasure of boiled potato dressed just with extra-virgin olive oil, salt and chopped parsley, over the years I developed a more complex (at least for an Italian) version of the basic potato salad.

Ingredients

Potatoes (I normally use 2-3 medium potatoes per person)

1 or 2 shallots, finely chopped

1 or 2 teaspoons salted capers, rinsed (if you cannot find them, you can use capers in brine, but rinse them very well)

3-4 anchovy fillets in olive oil, drained

For the dressing

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 teaspoon whole grain mustard

1 pot of yogurt (125 g)

• Boil the potatoes. I normally start with cold water and washed unpeeled potatoes: I lay the potatoes in a big saucepan, I fill it with water and put to boil. The cooking time depends of the size of the potatoes: the bigger the longest. Pick them with a knife to check if they are cooked.
• Once potatoes are cooked, drain them and let them to cool slightly.
• In the mean while chop the shallots, rinse the capers, drain the anchovies.
• Peel the potatoes and cut them in big mouth pieces.
• Add everything to a big bowl.
• In a little bowl mix yogurt, mayonnaise and mustard.
• Add the dressing to the potatoes and serve.

Note

Potatoes do not refrigerate well, so cook them on the same day you intend to eat them and dress them at the last moment.

Pesto = Genova, Liguria

Trofie = Liguria

Pesto + Trofie + runner beans + potatoes = liguria, summer, sea

Again, nothing more simple then this: Italian cuisine is simple and it’s all about great flavors made by great ingredients. Always try to get the best you get.

If you can’t buy fresh trofie (and I know how difficult it is to find fresh trofie), try at least to buy the best dry trofie you can find. Actually this recipe works fine with any short fresh pasta, but do not tell to people from Liguria .

Bring to the boil a big kettle with a lot of water, let’s say at 6-8 liters. Do you remember how to cook pasta?

Make pesto according to “recipe”.

Peel and cut potatoes in chunks 2 centimeters per side.

Clean the runner beans and cut them 5 centimeters long.

Once the water begin to boil, salt it and let it get back to boil.

Add pasta and veggies.

Transfer your pesto to a bit bowl.

Cook through pasta and veggies, drain but let it a bit watery and add everything to your bowl: toss it and stir it.

Serve NOW!

Pesto is not an exact science.

Pesto is simple but tricky: you MUST have at hand top ingredients!

You need the best Italian (better genovese) basil you can find, better home grown from seeds, the best pine nuts, the best pecorino, garlic and very good not too fruity extra verging olive oil.

Stated this it is pretty much how it looks in the picture:

- loads of basil leaves, freshly picked. By loads I mean several plants, stalks removed;

- 1 or 2 garlic gloves, depending on taste;

- Pine nuts, fresh and crunchy, 1 or 2 handful;

- Finely grated pecorino, medium aged, not too old and tasty, but to young either.

Whiz all this on pulse mode.

Beginning to add extra virgin olive oil, little by little, until you have a thick paste. Taste. Add more basil/garlic/pine nuts/pecorino/oil to taste.

Do not worry if it looks to thick: you can always diluted with some warm water form the pasta pan.

It doesn’t last long, as it tends to get darker. Make it while the water for your pasta is going to boil.

This cake it is as simple as it looks!

What do you see?

A layer of puff pastry, halved cherry tomatoes, slices of aged goat cheese (in this case a young Saint-Maure) few pinches of Herbs de Provence. Pop it in the oven, bake it for 25-30 minutes and voilà: done!

I watch a lot of cooking program: Top Chef, Master Chef, Hell’s kitchen…

In all a this cooking program the finish to cook the meat in the oven.

Even when the meat is just roasted.

Well, they are perfectly right!

I sealed the duck breast for 3-4 minutes on each side, beginning with a very hot pat and the skin side.

Then I move it, still in the pan (you must have a zero plastic skillet, not even the handle), in a hot oven, let’s say 120° C, for 10-15 minutes.

Perfect!

Inspired by Clotilde, this is my own version of her yogurt cake, with few added ingredients and baked many many times.

Ingredients

250 g full fat plain yogurt

100 g ricotta, or fromage blanc or quark

2 eggs

100 g melted butter

100 g sugar

250 g flour

1 chemical yeast for cakes

For a 24 cm cake tin

1. Pre-heat the oven at 180° C.
2. Mix all the wet ingredients: yogurt, ricotta, eggs and melted butter.
3. Add the dry ingredients (sugar, flour and yeast) and mix leaving few lumps.
4. Pour the mixture in a 24 cm cake tin covered with parchment.
5. Bake for 35 minutes or until golden.

Notes

You can add extra flavor to this cake, adding, before baking, apples, pears, or any seasonal fruit, chocolate chips.

You can use only yogurt (350 g in total) or invert ricotta and yogurt proportion (250 g ricotta, 100 g yogurt).

I know this blog is beginning to look like a chocolate blog, but with 2 little kids around me all the time, chocolate it’s just what you need (and crave) after a long exhausting day!

Ingredients

150 g chocolate

250 ml double cream

50 g butter

100 g petit beurre (or other kind of thin, dry, plain cookies)

60 g sliced almonds

100 g sugar

50 g cocoa

Serves 6 to 8 people

• Melt the chocolate with the cream and the butter. Let it cool.
• Crush the cookies in a plastic bag. Add them to a bowl with almonds, sugar and cocoa.
• Add the melted chocolate and mix well.
• Cover a plumcake mold with plastic wrap. Fill it with the chocolate mixture.
• Freeze it overnight.
• Serve straight from the freezer with a nice glass of whisky, possible Scottish.