A rather long title for this simple dish :), but really, those vegetable were the last last veggies I had in my fridge. I have been too busy with projects that I have not gone grocery shopping either going to the market. In fact, I will go directly after writing this post (the project finished yesterday!) You might find the ingredients a bit odd in amount, feel free to add more veggies as you like, but I found this composition quite perfect :) (more…)

Today is one beautiful Sunday, everything is so peaceful, sunny and a bit of soft wind. I have one pumpkin sitting in my kitchen, one I wanted to turn to some halloween food but I was too busy I did not have time. And today when Marco turned up in the kitchen all so hungry, this was the first thing came to my mind, a good excuse too to use that last batch of ricotta I made that needed to be finished :) (more…)

When hearing the name of this recipe: spaghetti ai cucuzzi e ricotta, I think you would not guess that I made it with one very-much-under-estimated vegetable called blonceng :) It is considered such an uninteresting vegetable that people here never really consider that it would pair nicely with pasta, nor that it has another ‘cooler’ Italian name: cucuzzi :) But for me I found it delicious and has a soft and abit sweet taste, I first experiment with cucuzzi (sicilian gourd) when I was in Italy, introduced by Pipo, my Sicilian vegetable seller at my usual tuesday farmer market, making soup and also use the leaves (called tenerumi) to make pasta.

Blonceng is so ridiculously cheap in Indonesia, we usually got one for 3000 rupiah, around 20 euro cents :) plus it is rather big that I could use it to make four times meals for four people. Imagine that! I made gratin two days ago with blonceng and mom was amazed to see this vegetable transformed into something looked…tres chic! :)

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The good thing about food in Italy is that every region really has their own specialty and character. Like now when I am just about bored with classic pasta-tomato sauce combination, the lunch today simply blew my mind. Marco’s brother who has just returned from attending wedding in Sardinia, gave us a bag of beautiful fresh Gnocchetti sardi, also called Ciciones, they are cute small Sardinian gnocchi that is made of semolina instead of potato in normal gnocchi. As the base ingredient is semolina flour, they are actually closer to pasta than gnocchi, but I don’t know why they are called gnocchi, next time I go to Sardinia, I will need to ask around about this :)

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Tenerumi is not my new friend, she is a new vegetable I discovered at the market this week, I think she has cute name :) It is basically the leaves of Cucuzzi, the Sicilian groud, I made a soup with it weeks ago. Finally today, I could make lunch with ease. It has been a hectic period for me, with projects pouring on me and travelling too. I was so tired, I did not even want to bring my camera with me. And if you notice, my photographs are a little different, I am using another lens now, bigger, heavier and I am still not used to it.

Back to Tenerumi, this is a typical dish from Sicily, that Pipo taught me (he and his family come from Sicily). Very simpe dish and if you don’t add the cheese in the end, it is a vegan dish. It is very simple but full of flavour (Tenerumi is very flavourful vegetable)

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It is around one o’clock in the morning and I am writing this post with a dim light, relaxing mood and listening to the cinematic orchestra’s latest album. I have been busy (new design project) and around (milan-florence-rome). During the travel, I ate good food in good places, but I missed home food, as always. I made this few weeks ago, before things started to get too busy and it was just so comforting. I will make this again tomorrow, and now I will just share it with you :)

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