Onions focaccia: football food and happy memories

Some foods are simply part of your life. You cooked them hundreds of time, your mum cooked them thousands of time and in the end is like they’ve always been there, linked to your past, your present and your future. This is certainly true for this onions focaccia recipe: I perfectly remember the first time I eat it, the people who were with me. It was a hot ans sunny summer and it was the summer of an incredible big event in Italy. 1990: I was in the transition between a child and a teen and the Football World Cup was held in Italy. Everyone was so exited!! I remember that days spent at the sea talking about football and even more the evenings, all together in front of tv with my beloved cousins. Of course I didn’t understand anything about football at that time, but I liked so much Nicola Berti, the most beautiful Italian player 🙂

Protagonists of that world cup are still around and I saw them on TV during the Brazilian event: Klinsmann, Matheus, Maradona… these incredible champions are so linked to our memories, mainly nice memories, that really it’s easy to think at them with a soft smile: like the onion focaccia seems like they’ve always been there, part of the postcards of our lives.

Coming back to the recipe: as you’ve probably already realized, this one is really linked to beautiful moments of my life, and I hope you will enjoy it and that will bring you the same happiness! Buon appetito!

Vegetarian pasta al forno (baked pasta): everyday is Sunday lunch!

Countdown: – 3 days! Yes, just 3 days and I will be back in Italy! My heart is running fast with joy. Visiting parents, walk in the city center, make some shopping, drink tons of cappuccino, … and the great thing: living faraway means that your mom is so happy to see you that will cook the best food she’s able to. You can request everything you want and she will spend time in the kitchen just for you, so I guess that we’re going to have almost 3 days of “Sunday lunch”.

I call it “Sunday lunch” because really in Italy, and especially in my family, Sunday was the day when mom had more time to cook and is the traditional day to eat lasagna, or home-made pasta al forno (baked pasta). I’m so happy to come home that I want to celebrate sharing my recipe for vegetarian pasta la forno with you! Hope you will enjoy it, buon appetito!!

 

Ingredients:

–          3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oils

–          1 onions finely chopped

–          2 pepperoni (1 yellow and 1 orange)

–          1 eggplant

–          1 zucchini

–          1 cup of frozen peas

–          2 bottle of tomato sauce

–          500 g rigatoni

–          Salt

–          250 g Appenzeller cheese (or mozzarella or Emmethaler)

–          Parmesan cheese (grated)

 

 

Pour 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a large pan, add the onion finely chopped. Cook for few minutes at low flames, till the onion becomes soft. Increase the heat and add the 2 pepperoni wash and cut in small cubes. Cook for about 5 minutes, then add all the other vegetables. Cook for 10 minutes mixing well then add the tomatoes sauce and adjust with salt. Let boil, then put medium flames, cover and cook for around 30 minutes. Meanwhile cook the pasta in salted boiling water, drain it al dente (meaning that it shouldn’t be too soft) and mix with your vegetarian sauce. Add cheese cut in small cubes and a generous bunch of grated parmesan cheese. Toss well and cook in pre-heated oven (180°C or 360°F) for around 30 minutes, till cheese is completely melted.

 

Days of fishing and picknicking: frittata with vegetables, cheese, bacon and sweet memories

Spring has always been my preferred season. After the long and cool winter months the sun returns, the nature wakes up again and, in my childhood, the trips finally started! Dad has always had a marvelous hobby: go fishing! A contagious one (also my brother fell in love with fishing and it’s beautiful, now that we are adult and some grey hair has taken place on dad’s head, to still see them joke on who has fished more) that has given us so many happy moments.

With spring’s arrival dad programmed the fishing days: alarm clock before dawn and everybody in the car toward the lake or the river. While they fished, the “not fishermen” played cards, caught the sun, read books or newspapers…the day before mother had already prepared lunch and in the car there was always a purse full of good food…We were a modest family, we have never been able to do great vacations (I perhaps remember 4 of them in all my childhood) but those marvelous days on a river’s shore, spent all together laughing and joking, never seemed to me the poor men’s holidays solution.

This story  is mine, but  is also the story of a lot of other families as mine that in the years of the economic boom lived with lightheartedness and delight, enjoying even small things…today, even if we can allow trips with lunch in good restaurants, it’s still beautiful prepare a picnic basket full of good food, like a frittata that, like life does, mix so many things together….

Ingredients:

1/2 onion diced
7 eggs
1 or 2 zucchini
7 or 8 cherry tomatoes
bacon
half a cup of mozzarella or other cheese
olive oil, salt and black pepper

Put 4 spoon of olive oil in a saute pan, add the bacon cut in small cube and cook it till it takes a good color. Take it off and in the same pan fry lightly the onion diced. Add grated zucchini and the cherry tomatoes cut in 2 parts. Cook for 10 minutes, add salt and black pepper and let cool down. Beat the eggs, add the cooked vegetables, bacon and diced mozzarella. Anoint an oven bakin-pan with olive oil and pour the mixture. Cook for 40 minutes in preheated oven at 180°C (350°F)