Rosemary focaccia bread

It's been a very very long time since I've last posted a recipe. Not that I haven't prepared or eaten any food, I just couldn't make myself to take time and write down on the blog. But here we are, a new recipe and hopefully more recipes will be posted in the months to come.

This is the recipe for the italian focaccia. It's not the proper recipe, if you want to try the proper one, just replace the splet flour with wheat flour. Let's proceed.

Ingredients:
250 gr - white wheat flour
100 gr - wholegrain spelt flour
200 ml - water
14 gr - brewer's yeast
1 potato (about 150 gr)
2 teaspoons salt
100 ml extra virgin olive oil
fresh rosemary
coarse salt

First boil the potato with the skin. Let it cook for about 20 minutes (check with the fork if it's ready). Then peel it and mash it in a large bowl. Add flour and mix well.
In the meantime let the yeast melt in the water (heat it a little bit before adding yeast).
Add salt and oil to the flour and slowly add the water with yeast. Mix well with your hands and form a ball with the dough. Cover it with a wet cloth and let it rise for 45 minutes.
Stretch the dough on a baking tray, covered with greaseproof paper. With a fork make some little wholes on the surface, put some olive oil on the top and sprinkle with coarse salt and rosemary. If you don't have fresh rosemary the dried one will work fine as well.
Let it grow 15 minutes and afterwards bake at 180° C for about 30 minutes.

Wholewheat farfalle with home-made pesto

Do you love pesto? I adore it! It's very easy to do at home and there are tons of different ways to do it. The important is to have basil, any kind of nuts and some kind of cheese that is similar to pecorino cheese.
The recipe I'm showing is with the ingredients I had at home, so it's not the original one, but still very tasty! 

Ingredients: 

60-70 basil leaf

40 gr parmesan cheese 

65 gr walnuts

1-2 cloves of garlic

salt

5 tblsp of olive oil

wholewheat pasta (approximately 90 gr per person)

 Wash the basil leafs and put them in the blender (it's better to do it manually, but if you don't have a lot of time, the blender should also work fine), add parmesan cheese, garlic and walnuts and start blending. When you have a thick paste, add salt and olive oil until you have a smooth paste. Your pesto is now ready! (You can also put it in the freezer: put it in a jar, cover with some olive oil and freeze. When you'll need it, it will take only 5 minutes to have it ready to use.)

Cook the pasta according to your taste (I prefer pasta al dente). Mix the pasta and 1 or 2 spoons of pesto well and serve still hot!

Another idea to serve pesto is as an appetizer. Use small bread slices and spread a teaspoon of pesto on the top. You can also scratch a clove of garlic on the bread before adding pesto, it will make it so much tastier.

Parmigiana

Ingredients:
3 eggplants
5 big tomatoes
1/2 onion
1 clove of garlic
250 gr scamorza smoked cheese
salt
oregano
basil
olive oil






Cut the eggplants in thin slices, put some salt on the top and leave them on a plate for an hour, afterwards dry them with a paper tissue. Grill them in a non-stick pan, if you want it very light, don't use oil.
Chop the onion and garlic and fry them in a little bit of olive oil until golden. Add the tomatoes cut in small pieces. Cook for some time, until you have a tomato sauce.

In a casserole put some of the tomato sauce first, then make a layer out of eggplants and cover them with scamorza cheese. Add again some tomato sauce, eggplants and scamorza cheese and cover the top with a little bit of tomato sauce.

Put the casserole in a preheated oven on 180°C for about 25 minutes and serve still hot with some fresh vegetables.

Zucchini and peas risotto

Ingredients:
300 gr rice (roma)
4 small zucchini
1/2 onion
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 fresh chili
olive oil
salt
200 ml tomato sauce
oregano
basil
water (as needed)
parmesan cheese

Cut the onion and fry it on the olive oil. Add the cut chili, zucchini and peas. Mix from time to time and when the zucchini are a bit softer, add the rice and mix. Add the spices and the tomato. Mix well and add some water from time to time until it's ready (continue stirring in the meantime). Cook for approximately 15 minutes (but check the instructions on your pack of rice).
Serve hot with some parmesan cheese on the top.

Pizza with sesame dough

The summer just doesn't want to show up and I'm getting more and more stressed, but at least I can do some creative work in the kitchen. This time I've tried to bake a special pizza.

Ingredients:

Dough:
250 ml lukewarm water
13 gr salt
13 gr sugar
200 gr wholewheat flour
100 gr flour type 500
100 gr flour type 400
20 gr yeast
30 gr olive oil (approximately 3 spoons)
30 gr sesame seeds (approximately 3 spoons)

200 gr mozzarella for pizza
200 ml tomato sauce
1 tblsp olive oil
oregano
salt
6 cherry tomatoes
a few leafs of fresh basil

Melt the yeast in the water and add it to the flour that you've previously mixed. Add salt, sugar, olive oil and sesame seeds. Mix everything in a bowl, then cover it with a tea towel. Leave it aside (you can put it inside your cold oven) for at least 2 hours.
Roll the dough in the baking tray. Mix the tomato sauce, olive oil, oregano and salt in a bowl. Put it all over the dough (from this recipe you'll get dough for two trays). Bake in the oven at 180°-200°C, after 10-15 minutes add the mozzarella cheese, that you've previously cut into pieces. 5 minutes before it's ready, add the fresh cherry tomato cut into half.
Serve with some fresh basil on the top.