Castagnaccio - Tuscan chestnut "cake"

Chestnut flour is still an unusual ingredient in our kitchens, unfortunately.
To mill chestnut into flour, they are first dried over wood fire and this imparts the resulting product with a delicate and distinctive smoky aroma that make this flour pretty unique.
Being a nut´s flour, it doesn't contain gluten and so it is an useful ingredient for gluten-free pantries.
In Italy, chestnut flour is a traditional ingredient of the center-north portion of the peninsula. In Tuscany, notably, chestnut flour is used in a savory-sweet cake called Castagnaccio (castagna being the Italian for chestnut).
This cake is usually enriched with flavorful extra-virgin olive oil, pine nuts and rosemary but the main variation point in local recipes revolve around the use of cocoa powder in it.
Chestnut flour, with its deep rich sweet and smoky aromas, is just a perfect companion to chocolate and the use of a little cocoa powder in the Castagnaccio can only do it good, in my opinion.
I personally, simply adore rosemary in my Castagnaccio. When baked to crispy perfection, this herb lends its heady green-field aromas to this earthy densely satisfying cake; a perfect reminder of Tuscan sunbathed fields.
Try it once, and you will be hooked. You have been warned!

Autumn thoughtfulness and CreativeLIVE

Autumn is the season of change. From the vibrant electricity of Summer days we slowly transition toward a sleepy November. The skies often mirror our moods and our woolly cloaks. Mornings are dark  the blankets become our best friends.
The sun isn't disappeared from our lives, it shyly emerges seldom from its blankets in the dark blue sky bringing a warming smile into our daily routines. Somehow this season always makes me more introspective and focused toward the future, the light at the end of a cloudy day.

Buckweat-Quinoa veggie muffins with lime-vanilla cream-cheese frosting

August is here and so is the middle of summer, not only that actually; August usually brings my whole family to Bonn for a little summer vacation.
My family has been visiting me regularly since I moved to Germany; a subtle way to keep an eye on my doing as well as experimencing new places, people and realities. The days of their visit are though punctuated by visits to some of our canonical restaurants of different extractions and traditions, often joined with some of my friends, but these days ar essentially a continous shopping-spree for the ladies of the family. By now, after more than 7 years, they are rather used to Bonn and so they do not need much attending from my side so I can continue my work as usual.

Lotta-Garlic chicken and a Conference

July is here.
With its finnicky mood this summer feels more like an early autumn. Sunny and melting days are followed by gloomy gray mornings. Every now and then though, there are days with a perfect balmy temperature; the sun shines through the patches of puffy clouds swimming in an ultramarine sky and the sparrows are chirping.
Autumn can be the best season of the year when it wants.

This year I am quite looking forward to the actual autumn since this year I will finally manage to attend again the Food Bloggers Connect conference in London.

Mom Francesca's eggplant and onion casserole

Traveling always improves our lives; a rich baggage of memories and images can change us more than we can actually realize.
Oral stories sung by bards and grandparents have left the place to printed works and the ominous prescriptions of altarpieces and religious friezes.
Printed and visual experiences continously pull and push us around like little creatures on our shoulders whispering in our ears words of alternate realities populated by far away but somehow familiar beings. Invisible silken threads connect us nowadays in ways almost unimmaginable to our immediate ancestors.
"Practice makes us perfect" they used to say, practice is all they had to learn by, to improve, to debunk myths and legends, when they weren't meant to accompany us in the sweet kingdom of Morpheus.

Cooking classes and my Tomato sauce

March is starting to look like a pretty busy month. Long time has passed since I had so many deadlines and possibilities to earn some money.
Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I have started giving cooking classes in my town, Bonn. It took some time for the city (represented by the Volkshochschule) to realize the need of offering public classes in English but once they started I was right there to offer my contribution.
Nothing better than some tasty Sicilian food, right? So I decided to offer two classes delving on Sicilian cuisine (one of them for vegetarians) and so far the answer has been excellent!

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

Meatloaf o the Rant

Time passes by faster than we realize and it is July already.

Half year has slipped through my fingers with probably nothing concrete to show that I have made the most of it. The past days have been pretty gloomy in this side of the world. Weather has turned itself into November mood as did I.
Closed as a clam shell, surrounded by a silent and quiet sea of apathy I find myself cornered in dark places. It is hard to escape reaching for the surface. No baits or fisherman plunging his hands into these waters to bring me to a different future and I can't swim.
In these days of senseless sadness I just wish to retire under the blankets and sleep, hoping for dreams depicting a better reality, a more meaningful one perhaps.
Eventually the sun comes lurking out of the clouds warming up our bodies and hearts.
Today the sun is out.