No Fettuccine Alfredo here please

I am not very fond of Italian food. That is until I visited Rome and Florence. Italian restaurants here have so desperately tried to please, that salads are very complicated with salad dressing conjured up by someone trying way too hard, pasta soaking in creamy sauces crying for help and minestrone soup too light and too brothy and lacking the heart, strength and character and the beans it needs, and the wines are shocking fruit bombs in your mouth. Do I enjoy the wine or get hit on the head with a club of sugar.

Then enter a country meal from Florence.The salads fresh, light, and dressing nothing more than olive oil and balsamic vinegar that you mix at the table. Think, grated fresh zucchini with shaved Parmesan, a squeeze of lime and pine nuts. Or fresh baked artichoke and olive oil. The advantage they have is probably fresh vegetables that are not whipped into adulthood in a frenzy of efficiency.

The soups are next. I could write a thesis on them, thick, rich, hearty, exploding with beans, vegetables, meats, and bread. Pasta Figioli soup, with creamy borlotti beans, Ribollita a reboiled bean, vegetable, bread soup with black cabbage left to sit for a day before being served, earthy spelt or farro soup, with farro an ancient grain, in their menu since many centuries before Christ. The anti pasti decorated with such a wide variety of beans. The round yellow Zolfino from Pratomagno, silky smooth Sorano from Pescia.


And the vegetables so fresh and easy to enjoy with tomatoes, wild fennel, black celery, sweet red onions, artichokes of all shapes and sizes, zucchini flowers stuffed and baked, black cabbage, chicory, chard, added to the anti pasti, primi pati and secondo pati.

The pasta had no creamy sauces but just a few prized delicate ingredients. How about olive oil, truffle and porcini mushrooms. Or tomatoes, swiss cheese and chicory. Or saffron and fennel fronds and anchovies.

The bread salt less and unassuming that makes you adore the salty meats. And do the Florentine love their game? A bloody gastronomically gruesome and delicious mess of cow's stomach, cow's lungs, chicken kidney, liver and heart, pig's head, skin and tongue.

Well at home again, and how do you I keep it simple and remember what I have written before. Rearing children and cooking needs no pyro techniques. Just a lot of love.

The Wine:
Brunello. Tastes better with aging. Aromatic odor, elegant and harmonious in taste.

Pasta Figioli soup

Sauteed carrots, tomatoes, onion, garlic, and celery with many many cups of earthy, smooth, rich barlotti beans, soft moist pieces of bacon, petite egg shell pasta and olive oil all slow cooked make it the soup of character I wanted. It just got better and better as the week progressed and by Friday afternoon my lunch box  made 12.00 noon a rather exotic time of the day.


The Salad:
I used many different salad leaves, arugula, mache, and romaine. Made it interesting with pickled olives and capers. Dressing is sweet balsamic vinegar and olive oil.


The Pasta
I struggled a lot with the the pasta. Four different times and four different recipes. Then I remembered to keep the pasta itself the king of the dish. And Miss Butterfish's advise to boil the pasta in very salty water and removing it al dente helped.
I added dried porcini mushroom to hot water and a drop of the the incredibly delicate and rich truffle paste that I brought back home. Spinach goes in next on the pan followed by  pappardelle pasta boiled in extra salty water and removed al dente. Some olive oil and grated aged pecorino cheese on top and we are done. I think I created the 8th wonder of the world!

The dessert
Gelato of course!
And remember no cappuccino after 10.00 am. An espresso for any time of day or night.



                                                      Pasta e Fagioli Soup

Carrots, onion, garlic, celery and tomatoes

Diced carrots, celery, onion, garlic sauteed in olive oil.

Fresh flat leaf parsley

Chopped

The tomatoes and parsley go in next

Add some dried rosemary

Borlotti beans 

Into the pot of vegetables

4 cups of vegetable broth goes in next

1 cup egg shell pasta

In they go

Cover and cook

Add several tsps of olive oil

The soup of character

                                                         The Salad

Arugula and Romaine leaves

Mashe leaves

Pickled Olives

Capers

Sweet Balsamic Vinegar

 olive oil into the vinegar

Whip it up

Add to salad leaves, capers and pickled olives
Shave aged picorino cheese on top

                                                        The Pasta

Add caption

Pappardelle pasta 

Spinach

Dried porcini mushrooms

Truffle paste

Add a small dot of truffle paste to olive oil

Next the dried porcini mushrooms

Add 2 cups of water

Let it cook

Next the spinach goes in

Boil pasta is very salty water and take out al dente

Add pasta to pan with mushrooms and spinach

Aged pecorino is grated on top

The eighth wonder of the world.