Pieve di Cerreto

is an ancient grain…

This NY Times article gives a good background to it. Most of Italy’s farro is grown in Garfagnana, where we are now! But I’d hardly call this a ‘relatively poor’ region… Just walking down to our village you pass through amazing villas and plantations of olive trees and vineyards. This area is very rich in agriculture.

I was thinking I wanted to make zuppa, but it turned into more of a stew… I boiled the farro in water with a little salt and chicken broth, and then sauteed in olive oil fresh rosemary and sage; a bit of very purple onion; red and yellow peppers, zucchini, and garlic. Added in some Beltaine from last night… and the leftover sausage and tomatoes from a few days ago. Added the vegetables into the grain and let it cook while I listened to my monday conference call. Stuffed the zucchini flowers with pecorino, prosciutto, garlic and a few of my sun-dried tomatoes.

Bella refused to try it though. But she really loved last night’s pesto!

Last week, I bought a kilo of peaches in Bagni di Lucca. Last night I still had over half of them and I thought.. mmmm pie. And then I said, ugh… I hate making pie crust. And my pie crust maker friends aren’t here… What to do with all these peaches? David Lebovitz saves the day with his timely post, Easy Jam Tart. The cake part of this is notable in that it doesn’t get rolled out, and you cream the butter instead of cutting it into the flour. And, it has polenta in it. AND, David suggests adding fresh rosemary! Well, I can definitely get on board with that. But jam tarts always seem like a fake dessert to me. Jam??? Come on folks… Well, as it so happens, I had bought a jar of 100% fruit wild berry jam for Isabella. She’s not going to finish it in a week, so I’ll use some on the tart and top it with peaches. The dough turned out much wetter than David described… I used exactly the right amount of butter, in fact a little less… I used exactly the right amount of flour and corn meal, and even used small eggs — and even just the yolk of one, just like he calls for. Oh well. The rosemary from our courtyard was a divine addition… oh, maybe i put a tad too much amaretto in it though… hmmm. It hardened up fine in the fridge and came out a few hours later ready to be pushed into the tart pan. Another suggestion was almonds… frangipane. What is that? I looked up a recipe, it looked good, so I made up something approximating frangipane: some finely chopped almonds, some powdered sugar, some sicilian almondmilk (mandorlata), and an egg. Well now, this looks like that yummy almond filling you find in bear claws and many german pastries. Eccellente.

I debated drizzling saba on top of it all, especially since I’m not a fan of big sugar crystals on my food, as David calls for. Bella suggested we use that for after its cooked, as a cooling contrast. I had thought the same thing when I debated pouring it on the peaches as well. Also, a dab of mascarpone would go really well too…

First though, dinner. Last week’s gnocchi with tonight’s homemade pesto: I chopped up a bowl full of basil leaves that Bella gathered from the courtyard. Chopped in several cloves of garlic, some of the chopped almonds (shh…) and a chunk of parmesan. YUM. Covered it with olive oil and let it sit.

For my salad, I’m using up the beet in this dressing creation: shredded beet, sage, almonds, garlic, gorgonzola, balsamic vinegar, pepper and some peaches. Yeah, this menu has a lof the foods I crave: almonds & peaches; sage, rosemary & basil; polenta; gorgonzola.

Tomorrow, we are getting up at 9 am and walking down the hill to go swimming before the crowds show up. Laps and laps, and then back up the hill!

Pasta: 100 g white flour
1 egg
olive oil, water

Bella’s filling:
Pecorino
Mascarpone
Pepper
Garlic
Basil

Mine:
Garlic
Beets
Sage
Apple
Red Onion
Parmesan
Pecorino
Mascarpone
Pepper

Salsiccia Toscana
Pomodori
Vino rosso nostrale

Green salad with beets, almonds, sage, peaches, tomatoes

The italian yeast I bought turned out to be not exactly what I thought it would be… It’s supposed to be just mixed with the flour and sugar, not with warm water first. So I wasn’t sure what to do. Bakeries in Europe must have some special line on yeast and baking powder because what they sell in stores doesn’t seem to be close to what we get in the US. I also haven’t found a really good recipe for this yet, but today I tried with this:

100 grams whole wheat flour
100 grams white flour
2 T sugar
1 package yeast
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup water

Mix everything together adding more flour until it feels right. Knead and let rise. Punch down, knead and roll out for pans. Add toppings — Bella used rosemary; I used basil and garlic; we both added salt, pepper and garlic. Let rise. Poke with fingers to make small indents, bake for 30 min at 170C. Actually I’m not sure how long it baked, and i’m not sure what temp my oven really is. It was probably less than 30 min though, I took it out when it started to become very fragrant in the apt. Mine turned out fairly moist, Bella’s was much dryer, like the last one I made at Leslie’s. Her’s was also on the bottom shelf of the oven, maybe that had something to do with it. It tasted fine, but hardened quickly. Any suggestions on how to make this are welcome!