My recipe for wholewheat sourdough bread with mixed seed featured on MyHealthyDXB

Baking, and in particular making bread, is one of my passions - and to be honest also a personal challenge.

I love making bread for my family and friends and I am very glad when they appreciate my job. 

And I also like sharing my recipes, that's also one of the main reasons for which I decided to have a blog.

So, when the lovely Louise, author of MyHealthyDXB (a fabulous blog packed with useful information about eating, cooking and living healthy in Dubai) asked me to post one of my recipes on her blog I was more than happy.

And the recipe she has chosen to publish is probably the healthiest and most nutritious bread I've ever made: wholewheat sourdough bread with mixed seed.

You can find the recipe here.

I strongly recommend to bookmark Louise blog as you can find many pieces of information (recipes, articles, reviews, tips and more) for an healthy lifestyle in Dubai, and not only in Dubai indeed.

Thank you Louise!

Cakey chocolate chip cookies

Hands up who doesn't like chocolate chip cookies! Not many I guess...

But do we need another recipe for chocolate chip cookies?

I would say yes, in particular considering that I am not going to share one of those recipes giving the perfect (but what is perfect? what we like I think) balance of chewiness, softness and crunchiness, the combination of textures typical of the worldwide popular American - style chocolate chip cookies.

In fact the recipe I'm giving today makes another kind of sweet baked  good, having the texture of a cake, a crumby crust with a soft and light center...but small like a cookie: a sort of miniature chocolate chip cake.

Nearly the opposite of this chocolate chip cookie-cake that is the size of a cake and the texture of a cookie.

Pomodori gratinati (roasted crumbled tomatoes)

I have a special affection for this dish!

Because it is exactly what can be called a family recipe: in fact I learned how to make it from my mother,  my mother from hers and so back for generations. 

It is a classical in my mum's summer repertoire, as she makes it at least once a week when local tomatoes are in season - she is a fanatic of seasonal cooking and for no reason would buy a fresh tomato in winter.

Using the right products this dish actually has all the flavors and colors of summer: ripe tomatoes, herbs, garlic and not much more, just some olive oil, breadcrumbs and salt.

And it's one of those dishes that you can never be bored of, because it's simple but tasty like all the "peasant dishes" are, especially when born out of necessity (why throwing away a piece of stale bread, when you can make crumbs out of it?).

Roasted pepper dip - my take on Muhammara

It's incredible how time flies!
When I published my previous post, at the end of June, I was not feeling like on holiday yet, but on the contrary I had the intention of writing something else before heading to Italy for my summer vacation and, most important, saying a "see you soon" to all my readers and wishing a lovely vacation to those - as lucky as me - able to take a break for a while.
But - and to be honest I can't exactly explain how - I am here to say "hello" only on the 5th of September, more than two months later. And even today what I can do is just a short and quick post, because of several other things to do. Unfortunately no time to share something about my summer in Italy. And probably when I have the time and the right concentration, it will be too late to be of interest to anyone.
But if any of you is curious to know something more about the time I spent in my home country, you can check my Instagram account where I shared quite a few pictures from Italy. It was a period of rest, also from the kitchen. time spent with the family and many aperitivi - mainly Aperol spritz, as you can see from the pictures.

But before leaving my desk, I want to share a recipe that I had made and pictured before going on holiday, still waiting to be published.

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.