Summer was filled with barbecues and the occasional sagra. Some of them, quite frankly, aren’t worth going to. But the absolute best summer food to be had in Abruzzo, and Luigi’s all-time favorite, are arrosticini. Arrosticini are basically mutton on a wooden skewer, but don’t think of the traditional shish-kabob with big hunks of meat. [...]
Posts under ‘Flavors’
Roasted Vegetable Salad
It’s that time of year again when fresh vegetables are abundant. Although the ones in our garden are far from ready, there are still plenty at the market or greengrocer. I can’t resist the shiny red peppers, mottled green zucchini and deep purple eggplant (those would be courgettes and aubergines to any Brits out there). [...]
Orecchiette with Calabrian Pesto
While I’ve been, as always, experimenting and trying new recipes, I haven’t posted any for a while, so I’m way overdue for a new one. This is actually a dish I tried in Vasto at a Tuscan restaurant. And yes, it does seem rather ironic eating a supposedly Calabrian dish in a Tuscan restaurant in [...]
Sweet Potato Gnocchi
I know I’m in a food lover’s paradise, but there are some things I still wish I could find easily here in Italy. Now, I’m not talking about things like peanut butter or tastykakes, even though there are times when I would like some. No, one of the things I had really started to crave [...]
Time to make the sausage
One of the things I like best about living here is how tied we are to the seasons. Everything should be done at the right time – and that includes making sausage. O and his family would usually buy a whole pig (years ago they raised it themselves), have it slaughtered and make sausage, sopressata, [...]
Gimme a little quiche
I have to admit it, I love eggs, no matter how they’re cooked – scrambled, poached, hard boiled, sunny side up, in a frittata or an omelet…. Well, you get the picture. So, as you can probably imagine, when those “in the know” came out and said that eggs aren’t as bad for you as [...]
Percocche
One of the things I love about living here is hearing the various vendors go by hawking their wares. Well, ok, to be honest sometimes it can get annoying…especially the guy who sells chickens. But, most of the time I find it, dare I say, charming? Over the past month there have been lots of [...]
Berry picking
When I was growing up, late summer was the time to go blueberry picking. We would head off into the woods armed with buckets and covered in insect repellent. Of course, we knew where the big bushes were that would give us the biggest yield. Returning home with buckets full of blueberries, we would then [...]
Crispy Oven-Baked Zucchini
Several years ago, I worked as an IT Call Center Manager. Many of you may not realize it, but it’s actually a very stressful job or, at least, it was where I worked. Our calls ranged from the mundane to the critical where we had a store with all of the registers not working and [...]
Crispy Risotto Croquettes
I promised a second dish made from my leftover tomato and pepper risotto. First though, I have to give credit to my inspiration. There are two different dishes that consist of fried balls of rice here in Italy. One is the supplì and the other is the arancino. The supplì is more of a football [...]
