briciole

focaccia alla zucca con formaggio / pumpkin and cheese focaccia

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] homemade focaccia and cheese on Hawaiian board on Italian linen (from La FABBRICA del LINO) In the fall, I hoard pumpkins and winter squashes: they keep well and are a source of nourishment and inspiration for months. One specimen, once roasted, yielded enough pulp for several dampers (Australian bread) and focacce (Italian plural of focaccia). I got the general idea from this recipe, then mostly followed my taste and my recent recipe for pear and rosemary focaccia. The pumpkin (zucca) gives the focaccia a nice golden color, the cheese offsets the pumpkin's... Read more →

focaccia alle pere e rosmarino / pear and rosemary focaccia

putting the new pear crop to good use Last June, I realized a wish I had held in my heart for many years: I learned to row (remare). Upon hearing of my new activity, one of my neighbors lent me The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown. She thought I would enjoy the book and she was right. It tells the true story of "nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 Olympic Games." The book trailer gives you an idea of the main story. The book sets that story within its historical context (the Great... Read more →

torta salata con cavolo riccio novello e crescenza / savory tart with baby kale and crescenza

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] ready for the plate Last week was a difficult one at briciole's headquarters due to the major disruption brought to TypePad, my blog service provider, by multiple distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. For several days, visitors could not access posts or pages and starting Monday, they would get an error message stating that the domain did not exist. It feels good to be able to write again on my blog. It was also a busy week for briciole's writer, as I attended a bread-baking class at the San Francisco Baking Institute, which was... Read more →

torta salata con pomodori ciliegia e formaggio / savory tart with cherry tomatoes and cheese

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] take some sun-ripened cherry tomatoes Consumption of tomatoes in our household is intense this time of the year. We receive a basket of cherry tomatoes every week in our CSA box, plus some larger tomatoes, and I supplement that allowance with purchases at the farmers' market. I like the baskets of mixed varieties, which allow a taste comparison. For this tart, which I have made four times in the last three weeks, I have used mostly Blush tomatoes. and some homemade Colby Colby, which I have made twice in recent months, using... Read more →

pizza

This month's challenge was difficult for me, because our trip to Italy, the preparation for it and the catching up after our return took up a good portion of the available time, so I found myself doing things in fretta e furia (in a rush) right before the deadline. I don't work well under pressure, so to avoid disasters, I decided to focus on the limited goal of making the recipe, pasta per la pizza (pizza dough), with the required sauce and topping, and left the acrobatics for a future date. But let's go in order. I like to start by... Read more →

torta al testo

If you ever visit my home town of Perugia or its surrounding region, Umbria, this is a dish that I particularly recommend you try. Although torta usually means cake, this particular torta is more like a pizza: a simple water and flour dough is flattened and baked on the testo, a round slab of refractory material that is put on the coals beforehand to make it very hot. This is very much a dish of cucina casareccia (family-style cooking) and different families have recipes with slightly different variations. The best way to eat the torta is right off the testo, cut... Read more →