YUMMY AND SIMPLE

This is the simple and yummy menu I cooked for Easter.

1.CANNELLINI BEAN BRUSCHETTA

· 1 can of cannellini beans

· 5 fresh tomatoes

· 3 tbsp olive oil

· 1 garlic cloves

· sun dried tomatoes in oil, drained and finely chopped

· 2 tbsp finely chopped rosemary

· salt and ground pepper

· fresh basil leaves to garnish

· Italian-style bread

Put the tomatoes in boiling water for 1 minute, peel them and chop the flesh. Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the fresh and sun-dried tomatoes; crush the garlic clove into the pan and add the rosemary. Cook until the tomatoes are soft; add the cannellini beans to the mixture, season to taste and mix well. Grill the slices of bread and spoon the cannellini and tomato mixture on top of the toast. Drizzle with olive oil and garnish with basil.

HHHmmmm….enjoy it!

2.RIBOLLITA

· 3 tbsp olive oil

· 2 onions, chopped

· 4 carrots, sliced

· 4 garlic cloves, crushed

· 2 celery sticks, thinly sliced

· 4 large courgettes , sliced

· 400 gr. can chopped tomatoes

· 2 tbsp pesto

· 900 ml vegetable stock

· 400 gr. can cannellini or borlotti beans

· salt and ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onions, carrots, garlic and celery and fry approx for 10 minutes. Add the courgettes and fry for a few more minutes.

Add the tomatoes, the pesto, stock and beans and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for at least 30 minutes, till the veggies are tender. Season with salt and pepper.

Grill a couple of slices of Italian-style bread per person, put it on the plate and spoon the vegetable soup on top of the bread. Drizzle with olive oil.

This second dish is typical from Tuscany where they use a specific kind of cauliflower that I have not found here in South Africa. Still this variation is light, healthy and delicious.

In the next post I will write about the trick to make the perfect lasagna and the recipe of my pearl barley salad…

Bon Appetit

Copyright 2010LorenzaVerdini

SOUTHAFRICAN EASTER

We had a lovely Easter day at my best friend house.

She lives in a beautiful place in the nature, 10 minutes driving from my home. The way to reach her place is really countryside; it is incredible, in Johannesburg! The road skirts riding schools and horses browse on the meadows like kings of Life, untouched by earthly things and weather. It is a breathless landscape and while I drive to reach the destination I cannot help feeling that time stops and I am in such a state of bliss. I am listening to wonderful acoustic guitar music; the kids are quiet, also captured by the beauty outside. I relax, and although I know I have got to get there, I wish I could stay and whisper in the horses’ ears…

There is a nice smell of homemade cooked food in the car; I have been cooking since early morning for our lunch, not at all the typical Italian dishes that we eat for Easter, but still very Italian. My friend is Portuguese from Mozambique, a very Mediterranean special soul. She’ll be cooking baccalao the national fish dish in Portugal. We reach her property, 10.000 square meters in the nature, with the most incredible view, her golden retriever Rocco running happily to us and her twins, who are 7 and are my youngest daughter’s best friends since we moved to South Africa welcome us saying “ hey guys you know that Limbs has caught and killed the snake?” yes, this is real. We are in Africa, after all. They are talking about the snake that was hiding in the garden; a real spitting African cobra…brrrr I shiver ….. At least we know that today the kids will be able to run for the Easter eggs hunt without risk of meeting the non-invited snake…

So I set out for the kitchen, hmmmm I have the feeling I am going to spend quite a long time in here today but I am so glad I can have a privileged time with my special friend catching up about our busy lives in the kitchen.

How many feelings do we share alone or with the beloved ones in the kitchen? It is such a central place in our nests… So we start having coffee and, after a while, probably a long while, we realize that the other friends will arrive in no longer that half an hour and we still have to cook the vegetarian lasagna and the baccalao! I get my focus back to the béchamel sauce and all the rest, forgetting about the coffee, the dogs, the kids and I feel grateful that I decided to cook half of the things early in the morning. So the sauce for the bruschetta is ready, the ribollita (typical Tuscan vegetable soup) as well, and the barley salad too!!! Phew, they could be hungry! Somehow we manage to get everything ready, the baccalao smells so good but I am vegetarian since January so I’ll give up the pleasure of good champagne and this delicious fish.

Everybody arrives and, as a usual, we’ll be eating much later that we would think, so there is plenty of time to finish cooking and lay down the table with a nice table cloth, candles, small chocolate eggs oh no! I forgot my camera again!

The kids look like real warriors. There are three couples of 7 years old twins (six!) plus my kids and this is so special! But everything goes well, some boys fall into the pool, some others climb the trees, the girls are interested in stealing make up and wearing heels but when the never ending lunch is finished for them they polished their plates in one minute they start waiting for the highlight of the day: the Easter eggs hunt. I can say that the dads have lots of fun in hiding few kg. of chocolate in the huge garden, probably some of this chocolate finds the way of their stomach before finding a quiet corner to hide…

The hunt is like Katrina, the hurricane. And it last 3 minutes. I mean, I was in the kitchen, probably looking for the sugar, and it was OVER! The boys found all the chocolate in such a short time that we have to beg them to share it with the girls. Now the concept of gallantry is really “stinky” for 7 years old dirty and barefoot boys! So what? We appeal to the more popular “sharing is caring” till the moment when the twin sisters of the twin boys decide that it is time to fight.

So they all start running after the boys and, in the general stampede, some of the eggs fall from the boys plastic bags.

Happy warriors girls with the new spoils in their hands. It is time to put on a DVD, something cool and not too exciting.

I look at the landscape and I see the most beautiful sunset. I know this is the sunset that our kids will be enjoying in few years time and I know, again, that we are all ONE.

In the next post I will write about the menu and the recipes !

Bon Appétit

Love&Rainbow

Copyright2010LorenzaVerdini

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

I wonder what the real relationship with my cooking is.

I love cooking. I hate cooking.

Sometimes I feel like having a double personality, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of the kitchen.

Some days I am very much inspired, some others I‘d love to feed my big family using a magic wand and just being served and spoiled.

In those days, the inspired ones, I just open a cooking book and let myself go to the joy of creating a new dish. It is a successful attempt. I choose quick dishes to prepare, because in half an hour I want to be done, I cannot stand spending hours in the kitchen.

Always. Always Indian food. Or Thai. Which lead us to think, according to my theory of my past lives that I was there in previous times.

I also cook Italian, of course. The mastery of cooking pasta is just printed in my genetic code, as well as making the best Tiramisu’ in the world. Mmmmh and what an exquisite Panna Cotta…..

Most of all I love baking. I bake my own bread when I have the time.

I just find irresistible the aroma (or scent?) of freshly baked bread. I really love baking whatever can fit in the oven (my husband will never fit in) . I must say I am successful also at baking good simple cakes and tarts.

But baking is not cooking, it is completely another story.

The love for freshness in food, good quality and healthy food it is not negotiable. It is just the way I have always eaten. It is part of my culture. But I come from there, the Boot, where we do not only love food we mainly love feeding people. It is a kind of sensual pleasure seeing friends and guests eating my food. Offering, sharing. I always think it is never enough so usually, when friends are over I cook quantities of food that would be sufficient for a starving soccer team!

Drinking is secondary to food. We invite friends to eat and then drinks will follow. But the focal point of the evening is the fooooooooood.

I usually cook recipes I have never cooked before, because I love the thrill of the “unknown”, the mystery of unfamiliar food and ingredients. But I never tell my friends-guinea pigs because it comes out delicious, so why bothering them with superfluous anxiety?

Those are my creative days, where I do enjoy cooking and feel like a great Chef. Mr. Hyde in the kitchen.

Then Doctor Jekyll shows up in bad days, when I hate cooking because I rush the whole afternoon taxi-driving my kids at their sport and cultural activities, worrying about the idea what’s for dinner? Is there food in the fridge?. This makes a lot.

Because dinner must be ready by 6 pm in order to be in bed early.

And because my kids are never hungry “altogether”, at the same time.

So I often end up spending hours in the kitchen!

The focus is on the balance of my kids’ diet are they having enough proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fibers and vitamins? So those are the days when I wish I had a small Ratatouille cooking for me, where I would appreciate ANYTHING healthy already made! Broccoli, cauliflowers, spinach, whatever green exists in this planet. But already freshly cooked, waiting for me to grab a fork and wishing Bon Appetit a’ tout le monde.

I guess I‘ll be living with my split personality for a while, in the meantime who is joining for dinner tonight?

Love & Rainbow

Copyright2009LorenzaVerdini

I LOVE STORMS AND PASTA

In half of our planet it is going to be winter soon. As winter lover I will envy you a lot but… I am going to enjoy the sub tropical summer here which means: very hot temperature without sweating because Johannesburg is 1.700 m. above the sea level. The feeling is that your skin is burning but you don’t sweat. You become sun block addicted because the sunrays are very dangerous  (bronze medal after Australia and California) and spend half of your day looking for the shade at least myself. But Mother Nature gives us a treat. Summer is the time of the most raging storms I have ever experienced in my short life. They usually announce themselves in the evening, when it is time to water the garden I tell you Mother Nature is perfect and to start collecting the kids from the pool who play the game “mussel and rock: I want to live in the water”.

So, after the heat of the day, the sky starts to change colours. Big grey clouds elbow to come over us, ten minutes and there is no brightness in the sky anymore. And then…

The fury of the elements. Lightening in the sky have you ever seen horizontal lightning? I have, only here, tons of water sometimes mixed to hailstones come down from Heavens to our heads. It does not usually last long I guess it would destroy everything around between 10 minutes and half an hour but it is enough to:

 

1. Be grateful for what we have, mainly because we live in proper houses; nearby there are informal settlements where most people dwell in boxes of corrugated sheet iron, sized 2sqm by 2. They have NOTHING except what comes down from Heavens, including the lightning and the hailstones.

 

2. Thank Mother Nature because tonight the temperature has dropped down and we can sleep well without fighting for the best fan’s position.

 

3. Enjoy the show of the blossoming nature. After 5 months of dryness, everything starts to be green again and it is a pure joy for the spirit and the eye.

 

4. Realise that this is a blessed country, where the water is not really lacking unless the human stupidity plays its role

 

5. Feel that we are witnessing something special and primordial.

 

I love the rain so I know I am not impartial, and when there is no evening storm I look a little disappointed at the sky enquiring if I should have sung louder today.

 

My four children love these storms they are nuts like me and roam around cheerful and excited every evening, smelling what’s for dinner.

Pasta! I don’t feel like cooking Indian tonight. The storm inspired me for a winter lovely pasta recipe.

 

So it is going to be PENNE WITH DRIED PORCINI MUSHROOMS.

 

500 GR PENNE (consider 80 gr. per person)

LOTS OF ITALIAN PARSLEY

GARLIC (1 clove per person)

OLIVE OIL (3 table spoons)

250 ML OF COOKING CREAM

DRIED PORCINI MUSHROOM (2 handful)

 

Before explaining I want to tell you that I learnt this easy recipe from a chef.

 

Heat the crushed garlic in a pan with the olive oil but don’t let it burn. Add all the finely chopped parsley and let it warm up with the garlic only for a few minutes.

Add the mushrooms (cut them in small pieces with the scissors) that you have softened in a cup of warm water and keep the water on a side.

Switch off the stove and add the cooking cream, salt and pepper. Stir in well.

 

If you think the sauce is not liquid enough, add some of the mushroom water.

 

Cook your penne, AL DENTE please, season with the sauce and eat immediately. Something important in our culture is to honour your food eating it immediately. There is no point in cooking perfectly a dish of pasta if you park it for 10 minutes in the kitchen before serving it.

 

Let me know how it was…

 

Happy winter and happy pasta to everybody.

 

Love & Rainbow