Eggless potato gnocchi with clams. Cucina povera of Romagna

Online, you can find dozens of recipes for potato gnocchi with clams posted by as many Italian food bloggers. In this way, the recipe is everyone's and no one's. Yet, like so many other dishes, this one has its own history that no one remembers or that some people spread with mistakes attached, like the ones…

ByMonica5 days ago0Comments

Cheese COURSES INGREDIENTS OCCASIONS RECIPES Soups Sunday Lunch

Spoja lorda in broth (cheese stuffed pasta squares)

The cheese-filled squares of spoja lorda I put to dry on the pasta dryer look like puzzle pieces. In recent years, I have first scattered them on the table and then reassembled these pieces to create a new mosaic, more colorful and interesting, something in which I wanted to recognize myself again, feeling happy and proud…

ByMonica4 January 20250Comments

COURSES Desserts Gluten-free INGREDIENTS OCCASIONS RECIPES Sunday Lunch

Potato pudding, a recipe from cucina povera (without flour)

Sweet potato pudding is a recipe that belongs to my family's repertoire and to the cucina povera of Bologna and Romagna, an area where potatoes are a traditional product and were historically part of the food diet of the poor people. I can still hear my maternal grandmother's voice as she laces up her apron, remembering…

ByMonica28 December 20240Comments

Bologna Food Christmas COURSES INGREDIENTS Main Course Meat OCCASIONS RECIPES

Stuffed capon from Bologna, a home recipe for special events

The Christmas menu was a puzzle that, year after year, took shape and changed. Some dishes were untouchable dishes and others went in and out of the composition each time. Stuffed capon, in our house, also called galantina, was a Christmas dish of the second group. And if it did not take its place on the Christmas lunch…

ByMonica12 December 20240Comments

Bologna Food Breakfast and Merenda Cakes and Cookies Christmas COURSES Fruits INGREDIENTS OCCASIONS RECIPES

Sabadoni cookies from cucina povera of Romagna and Bologna

Sabadoni cookies are sweet, rectangular-shaped tortelli filled with chestnuts and a handful of other ingredients. They are a typical sweet from the cucina povera of Romagna, which we can find under the same name or under that of chestnut tortelli in an area that also includes Bologna and Ferrara. The name sabadoni comes from saba, the…

ByMonica7 November 20240Comments

Bologna Food Fruits INGREDIENTS OCCASIONS Preserves RECIPES

Mustard of Bologna (mostarda Bolognese): the recipe

Mustard of Bologna is a typical local product. It is a mixed fruit jam used to prepare some local cakes. For example, it is the filling of pinza (the traditional ciambella cake of Bologna), sweet tortelli, and raviole, the peasant cookies made on St. Joseph's Day. Or, as in the case of Panone Bolognese and Christmas…

ByMonica30 October 20240Comments

Breakfast and Merenda OCCASIONS RECIPES

Bread of The Dead (piada dei morti). A typical fall recipe

The bread of the dead (piada dei morti) is a typical autumn cake from Romagna, particularly from the province of Rimini and the municipalities of San Mauro Pascoli, Gatteo, and Savignano sul Rubicone in the province of Forlì-Cesena. This piada, which, despite its name, resembles a focacia, has a sweet dough and is typical for the…

ByMonica26 October 20240Comments

COURSES First Course OCCASIONS RECIPES Sunday Lunch

Artichoke lasagne. And time to cook

Artichoke lasagne belongs to the long list of dishes that have graced my family's Sunday lunch and a variety of other occasions such as, for example, Easter lunch or Easter Monday, above all, if it fell early, that is, in March, like this year. Grandma used to execute the recipe in her own way, cooking the…

ByMonica21 March 20240Comments

Christmas COURSES Gluten-free INGREDIENTS Main Course Meat OCCASIONS RECIPES Sunday Lunch

Veal with tuna sauce (vitello tonnato). A classic dish of Italian cuisine and my home

I just finished arranging the decorations on the veal with tuna sauce, capers, and fresh parsley leaf when I take a picture and send it to my mom. The reply is quick. She write me that I made her think of Christmas. She refers to Christmas lunch, veal with tuna sauce never missed, and many other festive moments. This…

ByMonica11 March 20240Comments

Herb-stuffed pork loin recipe: ho to make it

Christmas COURSES INGREDIENTS Main Course Meat OCCASIONS RECIPES Sunday Lunch

Herb-stuffed pork loin recipe: how to make it

Loin, tenderloin, and loin with bones are three distinct parts from the same part of the pork. The tenderloin is the part near the thigh, the loin with bones is the part with the ribs, and the loin is the final part of the back of the pig. The pork loin is a lean and valuable cut…

ByMonica6 December 20230Comments