A gingery beef stir-fry and the lovely Sciacca

This time a new month means also a new year. I am still on holiday mode and probably not ready yet to commit the year past to paper. Quite frequently my thoughts need a noticeable amount of time to crystallize into a concrete expression of words and metaphoric images. It will come the time when my ode to 2012 will be ready for publishing but for the moment it is Secret Recipe Club time (not without a brief account of my holidays so far)!

The past two weeks have been quite unusual for me and my family; spending the holidays far from home but still in a home with a family, a large family not yet formally ours, have made these festivities something to remember.

Sicilian Pasta e Broccoli in Support for Sandy

Last week the New York area got hit by a terrible "hurricane" that crippled the city and the surrounding states. From this side of the Ocean, we couldn't help but feel the angst of the people getting ready for what was to come. Those who didn't have to evacuate were getting ready to live without electricity for a few days.
Being from Sicily, I am used to loosing electricity power almost at each storm that hit my town, but this never last more than a couple of hours. I can't imagine what it means to remap our life around camp stoves and charcoal grills with the fear that most of the food was spoiling away in a dark and warm fridge.
Furthermore, when trees fall not only the power lines are affected but also the telephone ones are and this is enough to send far-away siblings into fibrillation.

Top 24 recipes of 2011

And this year is gone and it is almost my blogversary too! Many (but not too many) are the recipes I have proposed you across the past 12 months and it was very hard to choose some that have stuck in my flavors library.

After skimming my picture catalog I have reduced them to a Top 24. With one new recipe every two weeks may this list help you bringing a little more happiness into your 2012.

Top 24 of 2011

Risotto with broccoli, poached prawns, roasted sesame seeds oil and dark chocolate shavings

Healthy Sicilian spring-rolls

Two months have passed since I last shared something with you and last time it was actually Nelly who gave us a glimpse of her baker's (actually frier's in that case) creativity. In this period not much has happened except the visit of my family and a lovely trip to London. First things first, in August my family payed me a visit for almost the entire month while my sister was following a language course here in Bonn. We had a lovely time all together, sharing the daily rhythms. Between one shopping spree and a restaurant to visit, the days flew by fairly fast without much of the feared stress. All went smooth also because the weather was quite mild, though as every good Italian would do, we didn't stop complaining it was either too hot and wet or too wet tout-court and duvet worth.

Broccoli for a long-awaited come back

It has been quite long time since my last post; it has been a long pregnancy but finally here I am.
Yesterday night I felt the need to get back to cooking for you all, creating new unusual and enticing dishes for your table, memories, dream (nightmares?).
When I came back from Sicily, last Saturday night, I bought a head of broccoli and few other things to be able to survive on Sunday. Half of it went into a reshaped classic: soupy broken linguini with broccoli, garlic, olive oil and parmesan; a soul food of my childhood that speaks to me of my mother and our meal together when I wasn’t able even to cut a slice of bread. The time of happy, free thoughts over a sparkling future, run in the grass with my neighbour friends, cry over a scratched knee after a fall, laughter watching my baby sister running on the hallway with her puffy diaper and head full of goldie locks.
We want to grow up; we do it eventually. We take the sceptre from our mothers preparing those simple meals that made us what we are.
Do not worry, this post isn’t about “pasta e broccoli” rather risotto with broccoli. Not any risotto though! Scavenging my freezer I found a bag of sweet prawns to use and…some Valrhona chocolate was still lying around.
Is that enough to entice your curiosity? Come on; say yes… you won’t be disappointed, promised!
Here I give you my:

Risotto with broccoli, poached prawns, roasted sesame seeds oil and dark chocolate shavings