Gazpacho provinciale

Medditerranean cuisine is an inspiration for a number of recipes that fit a balanced and tasty vegetarian diet, perfect also for the hot summer season. One of those is the Spanish gazpacho, a cold soup of bell peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers, filling, refreshing and low-calorie. This version mixes the traditional recipe and the flavours of the Italian provincia, a bit more delicate compared to the Spanish ones. For this not-to-be-cooked recipe the freshness of the ingredients is essential.

Freshly picked sun ripened tomato 

Freshly picked bell peppers
Extra virgin olive oil

Salt

Herbs provinciali (thyme, savory)
Extra virgin olive oil with chilli

Cucumber

Mill the bell peppers and the peeled cucumber to create a liquid cream, grind the tomatoes (with the grinder) to separate the seeds and the skin. On a side prepare a mince of herbs provinciali and regular and chilli spiced extra virgin olive oil. Mix all the ingredients, salt, refrigerate for at least one hour, serve with savory flowers.

 

©2010.2020

Cucumbers and yogurth salad

If you like the fresh flavour, cucumbers are a real resource for the vegetarian diet, with almost 0 calorie, no fear of gaining weight, depurate the organism and have a high concentration of certain vitamins such as K, C and B6. Perfect also for cosmetics are the main ingredient of tasty and refreshing Mediterranean recipes.

Freshly picked cucumbers
Greek or home-made yogurth
Salt
Extr virgin olive oil
Fresh peppermint
Fresh pennyroyal

Freshly crushed black, green and red pepper

Wash and chop the cucumbers in cubes, if from certified crop do not peel them to keep the K vitamine. In a bowl cream the yogurth, the minced peppermint and pennyroyal, PDO extravirgin olive oil, salt.  Add the cucumbers, stir  and sprinkle with pepper, settle in the refrigerator for a couple of hours and serve garnished with peppermint and pennyroyal tops.

©2010.2020

Aromatic cabbage

When starting a vegetarian diet, you start noticing the number of calories, and the satiety index (or fullness factor), to obtain a balaced diet not forgetting to keep fit. Cabbage is a low-calorie ingredient, just 20 Kcal/100gr, with a high sense of satiety. Delicious raw, it is possible to eat it in great quantities, even if often is savoured in the cooking process with fats that nullify the low-calorie element. A good advice is to use extra virgin olive oil instead of butter, preferring low-alcohol wines, trying to use as less as possible, savour with spices and herbs more than using vegetable stock cubes or other preparations.

Red or white cabbage

Fresh onion (very little)
Salt

Extra virgin DOP olive oil
White wine for the white cabbage and red low-alcohol for the red cabbage

Spices (cardamom, caraway seeds, ginger, curry, etc.)

 

Brown the minced fresh onion and  the tiny sliced ginger in oil, add the cabbage cut into strips, salt, cook untill winted, add the wine  and the spices, evaporate the alcohol, cover and cook at a low-heat. Instead of wine it is possible to use beer, possibly a diet beer, adding caraway seed instead of ginger.

©2010.2020

Salad of cereals and legumes with lemon and herbs 'provinciali'

Salads are a great resource in hot summer days or for a light but nutritious lunch during a long day, and can also be a good solution for quick supper, and a perfect choice at the restaurant to avoid the usual grilled vegetable and pasta with fresh tomato sauce easy to find almost everywhere in Italy. To keep a good protein balance, it is possible to prepare salads with eggs, cheese, or tofu, or eventually combine cereals and legumes as in this recipe that mix American and Mediterranean flavours.

Red kidney beans, boiled or canned
Maize, boiled or canned

Fresh tomatoes
Oranges

Home grown lemon grind
Salt
Herbs provinciali
Dried tomatoes

Chop the orange and some tomatoe in cubes, add the beans and the maize, mince the herbs, soften up the tomatoes and wash generously, then shred, grate the lemon grind, season with oil and salt, eventually add an apple chopped in cubes immediately before serving.

©2010.2020

Seitan and tofu stew with pears, cinnamon, savory and potatoes

Before turning vegetarian I elaborated a number of meat-based recipes that, with some imagination can be readjusted, replacing for instance a veal stew with seitan and tofu cubes. It won't taste the same, obviously, also because meat flavours the other ingredients pretty much, but it will still be savory, highlighting unexpected tastes. .

Seitan

Tofu

Potatoes

Fresh pears

Cinnamon

Shoyu

Sesame

Onion

Chilli spiced salt
Sparkling white wine 

Extra virgin  PDO olive oil
Fresh savory

Lightly warm a part of the finely chopped onion in oil, add the seitan stew and the tofu pre-seasoned in shoyu and sesame seeds in cubes,  brown, add the pears chopped in cubes, the savory  and the cinnamon, lower the flame, salt, raise the flame and add wine, evaporate the alcohool, lower the flame, add potatoes previously peeled and chopped in small cubes, salt with the chilli spiced salt, cover and cook on low heat stirring from time to time. When the potatoes are ready, raise the flame, add wine and other spices or serve garnished with pear slices and  savory branches.

©2010.2020

Lasagne ortolane bianche

Lasagne are one of the Italian traditional dishes that can, with some variation on the main meat based recipe, be adapted to the vegetarian diet. For vegans it is possible to prepare a sfoglia with semolina and water, even if it might be more difficult to prepare than the one with eggs. A summer version of this holiday Italian supper is the one with kitchen garden season vegetables and the almond cream, that is the same as the milk based one but with a much lower number of calorie and fatty acids, creating a nourishing and quite light dish. Ortolane in Italian is referred to the seasons vegetables that could be found in a well organised kitchen garden, bianco (white) or rosso (red) is referred to the tomato sauce, while white is with bechamel, cream and similar ingredients.

Sfoglia regular (6)

Zucchini
Bell peppers

Oregano

Almond cream

Butter

Onion

Chilli

Extra virgin DOP olive oil
Herbs 'provinciali' (savory, thyme) 
 

Light brown in a pan some onion and chilli, add the zucchine chopped in cubes, the bell peppers in tiny slices, cook at medium heat. On a side prepare the sfoglia, make it dry but not too much, parboil in hot salted water (for a few seconds, dip and out), oil a bakery pan and prepare a layer of sfoglia, add the bell peppers and the zucchini to the almond salty cream and, on the layer of pasta pour a layer of vegetables than alayer of sfoglia for 2 or 3 layers, the latter of sfoglia, almond salty cream and  some butter (or margarine for vegans).

©2010.2020

The 'sfoglia'

La Egg fresh pasta is the secret ingredient of many 'national' Italian dishes, from cappelletti to ravioli, from fettuccine to lasagne, the  pasta all'uovo è il segreto di molti piatti 'nazionali' della cucina italiana, dai cappelletti ai ravioli, dalle fettuccine alle lasagne, the 'sfoglia' (dough used to prepare egg pasta) is the main ingredient of holiday recipes and of traditional menus with some kind of fresh pasta on the table. There are as many possible variation of 'sfoglia' as the culinary tradition of eaach family, this is the one handed down for generations in my family and it's a good recipe to elaborate the basic 'sfoglia'. Clearly the dough, the quantity annd the quality of flour change depending on the weather, the humidity in the air and the size of eggs.

Eggs (approx. one egg per person)
Flour (as needed)

Make a well in the centre of the flour, break the eggs within the well, stir energically with a fork till incorporating all the flour, when the dough is tiffer than the dough for the white bread but still soft, work with the hands and a movement that starts from the wrist till obtaining a pat well thick and omogeneous. Slice it in 2cms slices, spread out with the rolling pin or preferably with the pasta maker to obtain a 'sfoglia' as thick as desired, in a pasta maker with bottons from 1 to 7, pass it 3 times in the 1, then 2 times in the 2,  then once in the others till 5 for malttagliati, pizzoccheri, sagnette, 6 for fettuccine, quadrucci, lasagne, filled pasta (ravioli, cappelletti, etc.), 7 with fine fettuccine and capellini.

©2010.2020

Lasagne parmigiane

Lasagne are a distinctive trait of Italian cuisine. If abroad we were not to be known as 'maccheroni' or 'pizza, mafia, mandolino' we would probably be nicknamed lasagne and fettuccine. Just think of a holiday, any Italian family has its typical traditional recipe handed down for generations with some variations that make any dish asbsolutely unique. My granny has at least three recipes, the classical, meat based, and two elaborated upon request: with mushrooms and with artichokes. When I was not a vegetarian I elaborated several recipes, from the one with shrimps to the one with porcini mushrooms and Italian 'salsiccia', or with radicchio and South Tyrol speck. Actually it's a versatile and can be cooked in many vegetarian variations, among which one that mix three traditional dishes, lasagne, aubergines parmigiane and the 'pasta alla norma' 

Cherry tomatoes
Sfoglia 5
Rounded aubergines/eggplants fried
Dried tomatoes

Onion

Fresh basil

Chilli
Salt

(Ricotta salata al forno)

(Mozzarella)

Extra virgin PDO olive oil

Prepare a light tomato sauce browning a mince of onion and chilli in oil, add the cherry tomatoes chopped in three or four, cook at high heat for a few minutes, when almost cooked, add fresh basil. On a side wash and slice (less than 1 cm) the aubergines, put on a tray, salt and cover with a heavy something (e.g. a pot full of water) for at least one hour, squeeze, dry on a cloth and deep fry in olive oil, dry on paper, rpughly chop and add to the sauce. On a side prepare the sfoglia or buy the ready to use in pasta shops and supermakets asking for the 'sfoglia grossa', not the thin one.  Oil a baking tray, pour the sauce, add pasta, then sauce. If using ricotta salata al forno and mozzarella, grate the ricotta, chop the mozzarella in cubes and add a layer of cheese. Then a layer of sfoglia, one of sauce, eventually one of cheese, for approx. 3, 5 layers of sfoglia, the latter being of sfoglia and a dipper of sauce and some fresh cherry tomatoes chopped in two, three, basil leafes and some piece of aubergine. Bake in the warm oven (400°F/200°C) for about 30'.

©2010.2020

Pomodori col riso * Rice filled tomatoes

Oomodori col riso, rice filled tomatoes, are one of the great resources of Italian summer cuisine. Delicious and relatively low-calorie, always keeping in mind that rice has a high quantity of calories so it's perfect especially because it's rich in nutritious but if on a diet controlling the quantity is a good habit, great eaten cold, tepid or just out of the oven. The most tasty aspect of the rituals to cook the typical holiday dish is in the preparation. Eating till the last spoon of sauce needed for the filling is one of the must-do at least once in a lifetime. All the preparation, from choosing the tomatoes till the oven becomes even nicer if using kitchen garden tomatoes or if going to 0miles markets at the sunrise to have a first choice. Wonder of wonders, it's  a completely vegetarian recipe, if excluding the regional variations with minced meat, that non purists nostalgic can always replace with soy granular rehydrated with spicy vegetable broth.

Parboiled Rice
Tomatoes for rice, big, rounded and a bit large

Potatoes

Salt

Extra virgin PDO olive oil
Parsley (a lot of)

Basil (a lot of)
Garlic

Carefully select the tomatoes, cut the upper part that will be used as a lid, empty the inner part paying attention not to cut the external walls mince the internal with the grinder to eliminate the seeds. Chop the basil and the parsley with the two handled chopping knife on a chopping board generously pre-wiped with garlic, Add the mince to the raw tomato juice obtained with the internal part of the tomatoes. On a side, boil approximately one spoon of rice per tomato (depending on how big they are), better a bit more than a bit less, in salty water for a few minutes, approximately 4'-5' if the cooking time is approximately 12'-15', .Drain, put under cold water and pour the rice in the tomato juice seasoned with the mince, salt, and extra virgin olive oil, Fill the tomatoes lightly salted internally, cover with a leaf of basil and the lid, indulge in the joy of eating the remaining rice. Peel, wash and chop in a clean cloth potatoes and put them in the oily baking tray with the tomatoes, Cook in warm oven at about 430°F220°C for about one hour. Serve with the potatoes garnishing with fresh basil flowers.

©2010.2021