Grilled pepper salad with capers, olives and lemon

When summer arrives and temperatures start to rise (even though, honestly, where I live temperatures are pretty high all over the year) we all prefer light and refreshing food, and also do not want to spend much time in the kitchen cooking and cleaning. Salads are a perfect solution for summer lunches and dinners: they can be served as a starter, as a side dish or even as a complete meal just by mixing up a balanced combination of tasty and nutritious ingredients.

And also salads do not necessarily have to be made with greens and leaves: many vegetables, raw and/or cooked, make great salads, with just few additional matching ingredients and the right dressing.
Like in the case of this grilled peppers salad with capers, olives and lemon, a tribute to Mediterranean colors and flavors. Quick and easy to prepare, it will make a good impression in several occasions: it can be a tasty solution for a family lunch along with some mozzarella or another fresh cheese and some bread to soak up all its tasty juices, and will be perfect also as a side dish for grilled meat or fish; but it will also go well in a spread of appetizers in a more formal dinner. As it keeps well, you can bring it with you in your lunch-box as well as for a picnic or a lunch on the beach. And if you have some leftover, use to make a rustic sandwich with sourdough bread (or another firm and crusty bread) and a slice of cheese (like scamorza or a fresh pecorino cheese).

Cake balls and cake bites: two ideas for using leftover chocolate cake

This month we went to many children birthday parties and, by coincidence, ten days ago it was also my son's birthday. As an obvious consequence, I saw and tasted a number of cakes and also made one for celebrating my son's third year with us.

To be honest I am not a fan of traditional decorated birthday cakes and, if not explicitly asked for, I will continue to make my kind of cakes as I did this year (but I don't know how long this would last).

This time I made one of my favorite cakes: a delicious three chocolate mousse cake with a chocolate pastry base. In particular for the base I made a so called chocolate marquise, a sort of sponge cake that is perfect for frozen and chilled dessert as it keeps soft even after chilling.

Unfortunately I didn't take any nice pics of the final result and couldn't post neither on Instagram nor here, but I'm sure I'll make it again and hopefully share the recipe!

I didn't have any leftover of the finished cake (that anyway couldn't have been reused) but the dose of marquise I prepared was excessive for the size of the cake I decided to make.

Sourdough breadsticks

Sourdough bakers, this post is for you.

If you are, like me, always looking for new recipes and techniques for using this amazing natural leavener and also don't like to throw away the part of sourdough you don't refresh, please go on reading.

Since I have been given some "precious" mature sourdough few months ago, I started reading and studying (books, websites, blogs and whatever I found) in order to use it at its best. And also experimented a lot to come up with my own favorite recipes. I have to say that I've already fine tuned the recipes for focaccia (and pizza too) and pita bread - when you make the same recipe at least once a week, you can say it doesn't need much improvement - while for bread I'm still in search for THE recipe - I'm pretty happy with a couple but the "wow factor" is still missing. I'm a perfectionist, so if the taste is good but what I make doesn't come out pretty all the times as well I feel that I still have to work.

Tartlets with (eggless) chocolate custard

The title of this post and the pictures talk about a recipe for a variety of tartlet.
And this is true, as I'm going to describe how to make delicious tartlets (or even a large tart if you prefer) filled with a egg-less chocolate custard. But here comes the focus and the very true reason of the post, since what I mostly want to share is the recipe for a really delicious chocolate custard that should be taken into consideration by all home cooks, bakers, amateur chefs as well as mums who like to feed their children and family on homemade food prepared with fresh, high quality ingredients and without artificial flavors, colorants or preservatives. And in fact this custard ticks several boxes.

Panzanella (Tuscan bread and tomato salad)

I always love trying new dishes and recipes, making variations on familiar ones, experimenting with ingredients, spices and techniques. But there are some traditional recipes that I consider almost perfect in their original, classical version and that I therefore like to make without any particular innovation or personal addition. And panzanella belongs with honor to this group.

Panzanella is a recipe from the Italian region of Tuscany; even if it can be found with small local and/or family variations all across the region and even in other Italian areas, the main ingredient for this recipe is stale bread soaked in water or in a mix of water and vinegar.  In fact panzanella is one of those recipes born out of necessity as a way to use old bread and make it appetizing with the addition of fresh vegetables and extra virgin olive oil.

Like many other traditional recipes, panzanella's origins are not totally clear, but are for sure centuries old and probably date back to the Middle Ages.

Some legends say it's a dish of rural tradition created by peasants mixing old bread (at that time bread was baked only once a week or less) and the veggies available in the field; others believe that it comes from the custom of old mariners from Tuscany and Liguria to soak their bread (which was dried to keep during their long travels across the sea) in sea water before seasoning and eating with their meals.

Saffron roasted cauliflower with olives and sultanas

For many years I thought I didn't like cauliflower, or to be more precise the most common white variety of cauliflower.

And the reason was that I usually had it boiled or steamed, like my grandmother used, and my mom still uses, to serve cauliflower most of the times, with plain extra virgin olive oil or a simple vinaigrette. But the cauliflower that my family usually eats is not - and never has been - the white one, but a green variety very common in the Italian region where I was born. Now my mom sometimes buys more "exotic" types like the Romanesco or the Sicilian (characterized by a purple head), but most of the times you will see her cooking, or better boiling, the green cauliflower and serving it as a side dish just with extra virgin olive oil.

When I started living, and cooking, on my own, far from my home town, I thought that cauliflowers were all pretty much the same.