THE fall cake: apples!!

In this time of the year, I really love apple pies. The apples are now tasty and juicy and apple pies fit so good the cold foggy days.

So, if you are a feed up with the Christmas preparations, you can enjoy this easy and fast apple pie. With a food processor you will need just 10minutes.

170g butter @roomtemperature

200g sugar

220g flour

80g potato flour

1ts vanilla sugar

1ts vanilla extract

2 ts baking powder

Grated lemon peel

2 ts

1 or 2 Apples (I used 3, but they were small organic apples)

Milk

1 ts Rum

Salt

For the finishing: cinnamon and powdered sugar

Cut some baking paper in the shape of the bottom of the tray. Fold the tray and leave the walls uncovered. Peel the apples, remove the seeds and cut 1/3 in small cubes, the rest in thin slices.

Pre heat the oven at 160°C.

Whisk the soft butter until it gets spiky. Then add the sugar and go on in whisking until the sugar is melted.

Add the eggs, but only one at time even if you use a food processor. Mix in the next egg only when the previous has been absorbed.

Now add a pinch of salt and all the flavors.

Mix together the flours and the baking powder. Add the dry mixture to the main mix in big spoons alternatively to a bit of milk (in spoons). Add only the amount of milk that you need to have a soft but dense dough, not liquid. You will get the right consistency when the dough can heavily fell off in a big amount from a tilted spoon.

Last mix in the apple cubes.

Pour gently the mix in the baking tray and cover the top with the apple slices. You can arrange them in a star or a rose shape. Just press them a bit into the dough.

Bake for approximately 40minutes in the middle level of the oven at 160°C. To be sure of baking process, at the end test the cake with a toothpick (if you pull it out dirty with liquid dough extend the baking time until dry).

When cold, sprinkle the powdered sugar mixed with a pinch of cinnamon. 

Some very healthy stuff: Passato di verdure

When I was a child I really did not like vegetables (surprising eh?) and there was a permanent fight during the meals between me and Mum because of this.

One of the most hated preparations was the vegetables soup. My Mum was smartly pureeing everything so that I could not recognize what was detail in my dish but this helped very limited because a piece of bean or half chard leave was always escaping to operation and floating in the dish. I was then refusing to go on in eating after the discovery. 

Only several years later I realized that a vegetable soup is in fact a very healthy food and that I was caring about healthy food. And that after few days of jag and revelry it is in fact a good idea. And that after all if I put in only the vegetables that I like in fact a vegetable soup does not taste so bad. 

This is one of the foods that I cook in a bigger amount and to store it for 1 or 2 more days in a fridge or deep froze for emergency times. Now in cold November evenings it is definitively a good solution for a warm dinner.

This recipe is also one which traditionally takes a bit of time to get ready. Because of this I find very convenient to make it in a pressure cooker.

Below I listed some ingredients, but the amount and the types are very indicative. You can put whatever you´d like or you have in the fridge according also the season. I just skip tomatoes because of acidity and potatoes because of high amid level. 

Ingredients below are for 4 persons

For me all of them are organic…

2 small or 1 big Zucchini

2 Onions

3 Carrots

2 clove of garlic

2 tbs Extra virgin olive oil

5 frozen cubes Spinaches or 1 Chard head

1 Broccoli

4-6 slides of bread (even 1 day old)

Salt, pepper and 2 ts Bouillon cube powder (I use organic monosodium glutamate free one)

Put the olive oil in the cooker and in the while it warms up start chopping in big pieces onions, carrots, zucchini and broccoli. Put them in the cooker, with 1 garlic clove too and let them quickly brown at strong heat.

Add the spinaches on the top. Then sprinkle with salt, pepper and bouillon powder.

Last add 2 or 3 water caps and cover. Cook under pressure for about 25minutes.

With the help of an immersion blender puree the vegetables.

Toast the bread and when still warm rub them with a garlic clove slightly crushed with the side of a knife blade.

Put 1 or 2 slices of toasted bread per dish and pour over the soup. Last finish with a bit of olive oil or spicy oil.

If you plan to serve it to young or older children not comfortable with vegetables a good trick is to sprinkle with parmesan or when still hot dip in small cheese cube which will melt. The cheese will tend to cover the vegetables taste and make it more acceptable. As you can guess this was one of my trials to eat the vegetable soup when I was a child.. 

Yummy lamb leftovers

When I cook a big piece of meat like roast meat or the lamb from the previous post, I always have some sauce left over.
In the Trieste area (the city where I lived for long time before moving to Austria) this left over sauce is used to cook some gnocchi or some pasta. It is so common, that is not only a way to clean the fridge at home, you can find it also in a restaurant menu. And it tastes good!

Here below is my version, for 2 people.

Meat sauce left over out of the fridge
2 ts Bread crumbs
150ml cream
250g pasta

Peel away the fat part of the sauce solidified on the top and make it melt in a frying pan.

Add the bread and roast at strong heat. If you have also a bit of meat left over, you can cut small stripes and add it to the sauce, it will taste even better.

Add the rest of the sauce and reduce the heat.

When homogenous mix in the cream and let it get thick.

In the while cook the pasta in hot salted water according time on the package.
Strain the pasta, add the sauce and blend with parmesan.

The amount of sauce and cream are related. If you have a lot of meat sauce you need only a bit of
cream. If you have just few sauce string it out with more cream. But do not be too strict, it is a left over recipe, it has to be flexible :)

Yummy Lamb

Last week I saw some organic lamb meat at the supermarket which was looking just gorgeous. I am not a meat expert, but in this case was easy to understand.

And the meat was also not pre-marinated, like I normally see lamb meat for sale here in Austria where I live.

So I brought home a couple of packages and this is what I did. Result has been gorgeous. The meat was tasty and juicy and extremely soft!

For 4 people I prepared 4 steaks (lamb ones are pretty small) and 6 ribs. Do not exaggerate with portions because lamb meat is pretty fat and after few of it, especially if you plan also some appetizer, you are fine. I recommend also to serve some salad for side dish to help to remove the sense of fat.

Ingredients amounts are indicative, you do not need to follow it strictly.

Ingredients for 4

Lamb meat (eg 4 steaks and 6 ribs)

2 ½ onions

White wine 250ml

1 garlic clove

Rosemary

Thyme

Salt, pepper

Meat spices mix

Bouillon powder

5 potatoes

Olive oil  

Chop half onion in small pieces. Cover the meat with spices: rosemary, thyme, pepper and a bit of meat spices mix.

Take a big enough plastic bag (eg the one for deep frozen) and pile the meat with the onion inside the bag.

Pour gently white wine in the bag until the meat is almost covered. Close the bag and for safety place it in a bowl.

Store the meat in the fridge for some hours. The beast would be over night or even 24h marinating. From time to time shake the bag to uniform the marination.

At the end of the marinating time take a large frying pan and warm up a couple of spoons of oil. When the pan is hot place few meat pieces per time and brown them on both sides at strong heat.

When you are done with the meat, boil in the same pan half of the marination for few minutes.

Cut 2 onions in thin slices. Add one spoon of olive oil in the pressure cooker and pile layers of meat and onion slices.

Add some rosemary and the boiled marination and 2 cups of water. Sprinkle with 1 tbs of bouillon powder.

Cook under pressure for 60minutes.

(If you do not use the pressure cooker I think you can cook the meat in the oven covering the tray with aluminum foil. Cooking for few hours (3h?) until the meat is soft. Add further liquid if evaporating too much. Do not let the meat dry)

Pre heat the oven at 200°C. Wash the potatoes and cut them in 4mm slices.

Cover a baking tray with baking paper and fat it with 1 tbs of olive oil. Align the potatoes slices. Drop some of the meat sauce over the potatoes to give lamb taste. Bake for 30min.

Remove the meat from the pressure cooker and align it over the potatoes. Take care in this step and use a couple of tools because now the meat is very soft and will fell in pieces, eg the ribs meat will slide away from the bones.

Wet the meat in the tray with some spoons of the sauce out of the pressure cooker and bake again for other 15-20min until the meat will start to brown.

In the while process the sauce with an immersion blender and boil it softly.

When the meat is ready serve the tray on the table with the sauce on the side.

This is  the only picture I managed to take during the dinner.. we were too busy :)

Fall pasta: sausage and leek

I just noticed that so far I have never posted a recipe related to pasta. I could just not believe it because we are Italians and we have pasta almost once a day!! So it is time to start, here we go!

A combination that I like in this season it is sausage and leek. And it fits well also with whole wheat pasta (so it makes me feel like i cook something healthy in spite of the fat sausage).
Unfortunately this recipe is only for a few. In fact outside from Italy it is not easy to find fresh sausage. Even me, that I live just a few km away from the border, I can not find it in the regular stores.

If you cannot find any fresh Italian sausage you can use simply minced meat (mixed beef and pork), but even if still ok it will definitely not taste the same.

as usual ingridients are for 2

1 Fresh sausage

1 glass White wine

Half onion

1/3 leek (some of the white and some of the green part)

200ml Cream

250g organic whole wheat Pasta (I recommended fusilli shape)

Start heating the salted water and when boiling add the pasta and cook according time and procedure on the package.

Peel the sausage and get rid of the skin. Chop the sausage filling in big pieces and place it in a frying pan at strong heat. Smash the meat with a wooden spoon.

When start to brown add the wine and let the alcohol evaporate (the wine will reduce the sense of fat from the sausage).

Chop the onion in small pieces and add it to the sausage.

Reduce the heat. Wash the leek and cut it in rings. Add them in the pan.

Cook with gently heat until the onion is transparent. Then add the cream, adjust with salt and let become thick. If it gets too thick adjust with a couple of milk spoons. When finished add a generous amount of fresh grinded black pepper.

Strain the pasta and blend with the sauce.