Polpette di Melanzane

I had some old eggplants in the fridge, and since am finishing all the stuff in there before heading to our summer vacation,I decided to do something with them.I asked Elin if she's in the mood for having polpette for dinner, and she said yes. So I jumped on the occasion and decided to prepare Italian eggplant balls or polpette di melanzane.I made some tomato sauce with basil to accompany these polpette,the result? Heaven!


Polpette di Melanzane

Polpette(eggplant balls)

2 medium eggplants
1 egg
50 gr grated parmesan cheese
4-5 chopped basil leaves
2 Tbs chopped parsley
4 Tbs bread crumbs (grated)
2-3 slices of old bread
50 gr grated pecorino romano cheese
4 slices galbanino cheese cut into dices (optional)
Salt
pepper
1/2 tsp nutmeg
grated bread crumbs for coating polpette.

For the tomato sauce

3 medium tomatoes
1 Tbs toamto paste
1/2 onion cut into dices
basil
salt

Method:

Polpette

wash eggplants and pat dry then cut into small pieces, bring to boil for few minutes in a pot with water and salt.
In the meantime, cut slices of old bread and soak in some water to soften them.
When eggplants are soft, put in colander and let cool a bit.
In a separate bowl put the bread, eggplants,parmesan cheese, pecorino cheese, galbanino cheese , egg, parsley, basil salt and pepper. Add nutmeg and bread crumbs and mix , you might want to add more bread crumbs (grated bread crumbs) in order to have a more solid mixture.Put mixture in the fridge to firm for about an hour.After you've taken mixture out of the fridge,start to form medium balls and cover them with bread crumbs.
In a deep frying pan, put vegitable oil that is enough to cover the eggplant balls.When hot, start to fry the eggplant balls until light brown in color.Put on absorbing paper after frying them to absorb excess oil.


Sauce:
Sautè chopped onions with 2 Tbs olive oil, then add diced tomatoes and cook over a medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and 1/4 cup of water and continue to cook.This time over a low flame.Add salt and towards the end add some basil leaves and mix gentely with tomatoes ,just until falvoures are combined.

Serve eggplant balls with some of the tomato sauce.

Notes:

*You can make a meaty version of these eggplant balls, by omitting the pecorino and the galbanino cheese and adding 1-1 1/2 cups minced meat.

*Instead of Galbanino cheese , you can use Scamorza cheese which is smoked Mozzarella.

Endings and Beginnings

This Friday,Elin will finish her second and last year at the day care,so in order to thank her wonderful caregiver/teacher Laura,I decided to bake her some cookies.I asked Elin if she wants to help and she said :"Ok,But I am the one that holds the electric mixer" At the end we held it together and started to operate immediately.Elin drew a nice drawing for her teacher and decided that she was good enough to recieve some of her princesses' Stickers on the drawing :-)
For the cookies I decided to make the "double face cookies" a wierd name I know , but it comes from the fact that one side of the cookie is with pistacchio and the other one is with dried figs, with a chocolate filling in between.Cookies came out yummy.Please see notes below before making these cookies.I took the recipe from an Italian book called: Sale & Pepe

The process of making these cookies is similar to the process of making Macroons with some changes of course. So when you make them try to follow some steps for satisfying results:


1. use a piping bag with a tip number 4 or 5 to pipe little circles.When piping, use a small quantity as they tend to spread a lot.

2.work with mixture when still cold, it makes piping a lot easier.

3.To avoid sliping while Working, use a very small quantity of mixture under the four corners of the baking sheet in order to attach to the pan and stop from moving while piping.

Double face cookies

6 egg whites
240 gr confectioners' sugar
120 gr all purpose flour
120 gr butter
60 gr pistacchios,peeled and cut into small pieces.
100 gr dried figs,cut into small pieces
60 gr fine dark chocolate

Method

Mix egg whites with the confectioners' sugar using an electric hand mixer for about 2-3 minutes.
Incorporate gradually the flour and continue mixing for one minute more.Add melted butter and mix gently.Put in the fridge for 4 hours.
Cover two baking pans with paper baking sheets and start piping with a tip number 4 or 5 , small circles about 2-3 cm (it will spread on it's on) if not use the back of a wet teaspoon for spreading mixture circles.
Sprinkle on half of the cookies the pistacchios and on the other half sprinkle the cut dried figs.
Cook in a preheated oven (180°) for 5-6 minutes , or until they are golden in color.
Put aside to cool.
Cut the chocolate in small pieces and let melt in a bowl over a simmering water (bain marie).
Take chocolate off fire and let cool. Then take a tablespoon of the melted chocolate(while still warm) and spread it over the back of the pistacchio cookie.Let cool for ten minutes and cover with the fig cookie to form a sandwich.

Enjoy!

As good as it gets

Last weekend I met a friend at the california bakery for a saturday brunch in Milan.Seeing all the baked goods and all the cakes you could just dream of, made me feel like going home and prepare a big , thick ,fatty cheese cake. On the way home I told my friend that I heard a scandenavian woman once say: "I never ate a good cake in Italy" and that just made me think cheese cake!

Well, there are plenty of good cakes in Italy, but I could hardly find a place that makes a real good cheese cake, except the california bakery of course.
I started to look arround and I found this simple cheese cake recipe on the coo.kie fairy
I skipped the glazing part at the end and I left the strawberries without any glaze.It would be a good idea though to glaze the strawberries in order to maintain their freshness .I didn't need that since cake was diminished withen a day and a half :-)




Cheese cake with strawberries

Ingredients

For the crust

250 gr biscuits (like graham crackers)
120 gr butter
1/3 cup brown sugar

Filling

600 gr cream cheese (like philadelphia)
200 gr sugar
3 Tbs lemon juice
2 1/2 ts vanilla extract
1/8 ts salt
3 Tbs all purpose flour
5 eggs

Coating

2 cups sour cream
3 Tbs sugar
1/2 ts vanilla extract
2-3 cups fresh strawberries
1/2 cup strawberry or raspberry jam


Crust:
Preheat oven to medium heat 160° and put all dry ingredients of crust in a food prossesore until you get a sticky crumbs. Stick the crust to the base of a ring pan (24 cm) and on the sides and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.Let cool aside.

Filling:
In a large mixing bowl, mix together cream cheese,sugar,lemon juice, vanilla and salt just until incorporated.
Add flour and mix a little bit.Then add eggs, one at a time, and mix until combined.
Pour the cream cheese mixture over the biscuit crust and bake for 55 minutes until surface is light gold and some light cracks have formed.
Leave to cool for 10 minutes.

Coating:
Mix together all coating ingredients and pour on top of the cake,bake for 5 minutes until coating on cake is stable.
Cool for 10 minutes then separate the cake from sides of ring pan and chill in the fridge over a night.
Cut srawberries and arrange on a cake in circles. Heat the strawberry jam with 3 Tbs water and after cooling a bit ,pour thinned jam on the strawberries.

Enjoy!








Note: In order to keep the crust crispy and in order to avoid falling down the sides during baking, freeze the crust with the pan half an hour in the freezer before baking.

Am back!

It's been a long long time since I last updated this blog, I know. I took a long break because many things have happened in my life recently ,and the most important event is that am pregnant with our second child :-)

Well, for a whole five months I was a nausea and vomit victim so I couldn't even think of cooking or writing about food , such a pitty , since food is my biggest passion. So now am back , with new recepies and new enthusiasm hoping to provide you with things I like to cook and bake and not only...
Summer in Italy and particulary in July is very very hot.So we find ourselves often looking for new recepies trying to refresh ourselves during these hot months of summer.Although I know it might not sound so fresh for a summer , I find it a light recepie that can be eaten hot or cold. I found this recipe on one of the italian cooking magazines , it is a spinaci with Cherry tomatoes and Pecorino cheese quishe.You can change the pecorino and put feta cheese which is more appropriate for summer, but then mind the salt because feta is very salty.


Spinaci Quishe

Ingredients:

1 ready to use puffpaste

500 gr spinech

3 garlic cloves

1 medium onion

10 cl oil

1/2 teaspoon nut meg

250gr cherry tomatoes

250 gr cream cheese

3 eggs

50 gr black olives

100 gr pecorino cheese

50 gr emmental cheese.

salt and pepper


Wash spinach, peel garlic cloves and onion then cut them finely, Put some olive oil in a skillet and sautè garlic and onions then add all spinach in.Season with Salt, pepper and nut meg.

Put sauteed spinach in a colander to drain excess liquids.Wash tomatoes and cut in halves. Preheat oven to 210c°
Pass the pie pan under the tap cold water.pat dry and place the puffpaste inside the pan.Use a fork to form some holes in the bottom of the puffpaste.

In a large mixing bowl, put cream cheese and eggs together and mix gently , then add to the spinach.Add mix into the pie pan covered with the puffpaste.Add the tomatoes and the black olives on top.

Cut the pecorino cheese into small cubes then add them on top, finish by sprinkling the grated Emmental cheese and some drops of olive oil. Bake for 45 min.