Soul cakes

Ingredients:
360 g corn flour (in Italy fumetto type)
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
a large pinch of saffron
125 g lactose -free milk
100 g margarine
100 g fructose
2 yolks
For the glaze:
1 beaten yolk
raisin and /or almond cakes to garnish

Preparation:

I stir flour, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt.
Apart in a pan over a low flame I heat saffron, then I add the milk and I wait to be yellow and warm.
I beat the margarine up to be soft with fruit sugar, then I add the yolks, one by one and then the spicy flour.
The dough is dry and crumbly so I add a spoon a time the warm milk, stirring quickly.
When it is soft, I roll the dough and I cut with a round cookies cutter, my soul cakes.
I  finish garnishing them, cross-shaped with raisin  or almonds flakes and I brush with beaten yolk.
I bake for 20 minutes at 180°(low temperature).

So I made happy my friend Paola who asked me a sweet recipe for Halloween.
With soul cakes recipe I participate to the contest (my first contest, amazing!) of Parole di zucchero.

Not so sweet cake

Ingredients for 9 cakes:

100 g corn flour

50 g buckwheat

50 g corn starch

50 g unsweetened cocoa powder

 50 ml sunflower oil

150 ml soy milk

grated lemon zest

1 miyagawa juice (it's like a clementine)

3 tablespoon of caffeine-free coffee (espresso)

1  very ripe banana

icing sugar fruit (I blend normal sugar fruit up becoming superfine)

Preparation:

I mash the banana with a fork.

Apart I beat with electric whisk the soy milk with oil.

Drizzle in miyagawa juice, coffee and mashed banana.

Little by little I add the dry ingredients, cocoa powder, corn and buckwheat flour.

I pour the dough in silicone moulds and I bake  at 180° (low temperature) for 30 minutes.

I put always some ice in the bottom of the oven to make the room wet/moist.

After that I take them out from the oven and I let them cool down.

Then I sprinkle with icing fructose.

It's a not so sweet cake.

I dunk it in a cup of tea...and it seems a snack that I used to eat when I was a child.

A good and familiar taste.

Spaghetti with pumpkin and smoked ham sauce

Ingredients for two:
160 g corn flour spaghetti
100 g pumpkin pulp (peeled and without seeds)
100 g speck (type of Italian smoked ham)
50 ml soy milk
50 ml soy yogurt
1 tablespoon marjoram
1 fourth of a medium onion
salt
extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Parmesan cheese

This is one of fast and tasty sauce for pasta that I create , as often happens, with that I find in the fridge.

Preparation:
I cut the onion up and I sweet it in a pan with a drizzle of oil, then I add thinly sliced pumpkin and I let it stew for ten minutes, adding some tablespoons of warm water.
Later I add speck strips, marjoram and I let them flavour for other 5 minutes, then I add soy milk and yogurt and a tablespoon of tomato paste.
I let the sauce cook for 10 minutes more up becoming a cream.
I pour the spaghetti in a pan with boiling water let them cooking the time indicated in the pack (usually 10-11 minutes).
Two minuted before the complete cooking I drain the spaghetti.
I pour pasta in a pan and I cook it until is creamy for the remaining cooking minutes.
I serve spaghetti with a sprinkle of grated Parmesan cheese.

The nice thing about cooking, I can always make something different and unique and if I'm lucky even good.

Rustic pie with broccoli and sausages

It's a gorgeous single course that I feel the need to make when first cold evenings arrive.
Rustic taste comes from buckwheat flour and it looks very tempting,isn't it?

Ingredients:
300 g corn flour (fumetto type in Italy)
200 g buckwheat flour
100 g potato starch
Salt as much as is needed
a pinch of fruit sugar
200 ml lactose free milk
1 head of broccoli
200 g sausage au naturel
100 g emmenthal cheese
50 g grated Parmesan cheese
extra virgin olive oil as much as is needed

Preparation:
I put in the bread machine to knead only flours, starch, salt , fruit sugar and milk and I let knead for about 20 minutes.
Then I  let it stand in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Apart I cook broccoli in lightly salted boiling water.
I drain it still firm and I pan-fry with extra virgin olive oil and pieces of sausages without skin.
Later I add Parmesan cheese out of stove.
I roll the dough (no so thin, as the filling is very wet) and I pour the filling on it.
I add emmenthal cheese slices and a drizzle of oil.
I bake for 30 minutes at 220° (high temperature).
Last five minutes just to cook au gratin.
I cut it after ten minutes resting out of oven.

First time I proved it , I was tempted to close with other roll of dough on it.
But I like a lot that green of broccoli that I leave it open and with the remaining dough I can prepare another smaller savoury pie or as you can see in the photo also salted heart-shaped biscuits with a brush of beaten egg and a sprinkle of oregano and salt.

Shortbread-Lorraine's recipe

This is the recipe of Lorraine Pascale 's shortbread.
It's a little bit changed, as usual.
She is so clever and every dish seems easy.
Actually this Scottish short crust pastry is truly simple to do.
I'm speaking to Italian people mostly...who haven't it tasted yet.
And it is delicious as far as it is easy.
I  can guarantee, stuffings of shortbread on sofa watching TV!

Ingredients:
130 g room temperature margarine
60 g fruit sugar (if you like it, you can add extra fruit sugar to drizzle on with citrus fruit zest and or cinnamon powder)
130 g superfine corn flour (fumetto type in Italy)
60 g rice flour
a pinch of salt

Preparation:
I put in my faithful bread machine (kneading function only) margarine with fruit sugar, making a cream.
Then I add the flours and salt.
I let dough for 5-10 minutes.
I roll the dough in a cake pan, helping with a little ball of dough to push on the edges, giving its typical scallop shape.
I cut the shortbread in slices and I make holes with a fork on the surface.
I bake in pre-heated oven at 170 ° (low temperature) for 30 minutes up making golden and the colour of the edges is typical biscuit one.
I let it cool down out of the oven and I cut with a knife again on slices to divide in rich crumbly triangles.

Chestnut cannoli with cocoa powder

I'm a cooking blog-goer.
During a visit at my countrywoman Claudia's blog (scorzad'arancia) I discovered the healthy initiative of Salutiamoci, who asks to participate to it with a recipe with chestnuts.
Even if it seems easy, many  common ingredients cannot be used.
There are a lot of limits and I'm used to.
Though being a novice at blog and contest...I launch myself into it and here you go, a very  alternative but no doubt gorgeous cannoli version.
I hope that Sicilian pastry-cookers don't hold it against me!

Ingredients ( all biological) for 7 cannoli:
100 gr chestnut flour
100 gr superfine corn flour (fumetto type)
50 ml soy milk
1 egg
20 gr unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon grated cinnamon
2 tablespoons cold pressed sunflower oil
20 ml apple juice
a pinch of salt




Preparation:
I knead the flours with the remaining ingredients and I let it stand in freezer for 15 minutes.
Then I divide the dough in 7 pieces, I roll every single piece and with a round pastry-cutter I make it round.
I wrap the pastry around the cannoli mould and I close the two edges together after brushing with soy milk.
I bake cannoli for 10 minutes in pre-heated oven at 180° (they should be fried, but baked it is a more healthy choice).
Then I let it cool down and I remove it carefully and slowly from the mould.
Ingredients (all biological) cream:
500 gr cooked pumpkin
70 gr unsweetened cocoa powder
100 ml apple juice
100 ml soy milk
a pinch of grated cinnamon
I put all in a blender up becoming a cream.
I fill cannoli with cream using a pastry bag or a teaspoon and I put on the two ends pieces of steamed chestnuts.
Last I sprinkle cocoa powder.

First time I tried, I wasn't sure they were good...but they are not only good, they are simply fabulous! A full of endorphins and health.

***********

With this recipe I participate to "Zucche alla riscossa" by Staffetta in cucina

Tagliatelle pasta with salmon and fennel souce

Ingredients for two people:
4 corn pasta nests (tagliatelle type)
a pack of smoked salmon (250 g)
a fennel
half a onion
natural unsweetened yogurt jar
a teaspoon of thyme
extra virgin olive oil

I sweet the chopped onion, I add the chopped fennel and I salt lightly (as the salmon is salted).
I let it cook for 15 minutes at not so high flame adding some hot water.
Then I add salmon strips and thyme.
I let flavour for other 10 minutes and I add yogurt and I let cook over a low flame, stirring from time to time.
I pour tagliatelle in boiling salted water and I cook them for about 8 minutes.
I pour in the pan with the sauce and I stir, serving them hot and steaming.

That note of thyme goes perfectly together with salmon.

Arepas...a corn sandwich

What do we have to invent in order to prepare a sandwich or something similar.
A while ago I discovered arepas recipe.
It's a typical recipe of  Venezuelan cooking but used also in other Latin-American countries.
And I make it my way.

Ingredients:
200 gr precooked white corn flour
300 ml warm water
a pinch of salt
20 gr margarine

Filling:
turkey meat lactose, gluten, sugar free hamburger
rocket
mushrooms
gomasio (Asian mix of salt and sesame, in biological shops)
extra virgin olive oil

Preparation:
I pour white corn flour in a bowl and I add salt, softed margarine and last water stirring well up total absorption.
I hand-knead the dough for five minutes and then I let it stand for other five.
I take  some dough and I shape balls that I put them between two greaseproof paper sheets.
Then I flatten 1 cm thick.
I cook arepas in a nonstick oiled and preheated pan, 3 minutes per side up making golden.
At the same time I cook the hamburger with a sprinkle of gomasio and "champignon" mushrooms.
I cut in the middle my sandwich-arepa and I fill with hamburger, some rocket leaves and grilled and extra virgin olive oil dressed mushrooms.
Filling can change, I put also lactose free mozzarella slices and raw ham and it is necessary to put again on stove the arepas until the cheese is melted.
Try arepas with filling you like most,they won't disappoint you.

Tapioca plum-cake with orange and vanilla aroma

In this experimental cooking that I'm inventing, each well done test is a over-the-top success.
Better if the test is a double test!
It was a long time that I wanted to try making a yeast-free plum-cake and using tapioca flour in a cake...
I was finishing cookie for breakfast, so I went on Internet and I visited the other blogs all around the world and I changed a normal recipe in alternative, mine.
But I wasn't alone in this try.
My husband during football match on TV(I'm cruel, I know it) helped me thanks to his experience with sponge-cakes.
He really shines and his mother and I are a little bit envious is yeast-free sponge-cake.
The trick is that he beats the eggs very very long.
So I thought that it could be ok making in the same way a plumcake?
It works (thanks goodness!)
Ingredients:
150 g superfine corn flour (fumetto type in Italy)
50 g tapioca flour
3 eggs
70 ml corn oil
250 g whole  natural unsweetened yogurt
100 g fruit sugar
vanilla aroma
orange aroma
a pinch of salt

Preparation:
He whip with electric whisk the eggs for about 30 minutes (more increase the volume, better it is) with fruit sugar and a pinch of salt.
I drizzle the yogurt and the oil, then I add some vanilla and orange aroma and last the flours, a tablespoon at time.
I pour the mix in a mould and other mini moulds for plum-cake previously oiled with margarine and sprinkled of corn flour.
I bake in pre-heated oven at 180° for 40-45 minutes in middle position.
I put as Lorraine Pascale suggests some ice in the bottom baking sheet in order to create a wet environment.
We look growing and blowing up  without EVER opening the over.
We start open it just a split only ten minutes after we switch off, then after other ten minutes we take them out and we cover with a dishcloth resting for a lot of time (better a night, so it is easy and safe taking them out from the moulds).

First time we did it , we tasted  surprised of such wonderful taste and satisfied as it was the result of a scientific experiment that will save the world.
They made me happy and they still make!

Arnold's pancakes

How many times I saw Arnold (a  TV situation comedy)  eating pancakes prepared by Mrs. Garrett...mamma mia ! goodness! how felt hungry watching them.
In those days (not so long time ago) pancakes recipe wasn't so known ...it seemed a so gorgeous dish but out of reach.
It's never enough for me to make pancakes...I had to make up for all times I was left empty-handed in front of TV.
Here you are one of the thousand ways American do it...reinvented of course my way!

Ingredients:
200 g superfine corn flour (fumetto type In Italy)
50 g rice flour
25 g fruit sugar
250 g whole unsweetened yogurt (a jar)
120 ml water (to reach it, use soy milk instead of water or a mix of them)
60 ml corn flour
1 big egg

I start with liquids, then I beat egg and add yogurt, fruit sugar and a tablespoon at time of the two mixed flours.
I take a nonstick pan, I oil it with margarine and I heat it over a low flame.
I spread out the spoonful mixture with a tablespoon.
Once I see some little bubbles on the surface, I turn upside down until making golden.
I serve them pouring on maple syrup.
Yum and yum again! What a breakfast.

Linzer tart with khorashan wheat

Think a dinner at friends' home...that like my cooking experiments.
Think that I'm quite clever with tarts.
Think that I never tried this very old austrian recipe...
Result: a success...it seemed so, there wasn't any left.

Ingredients:

100 g  grated thinly almonds (in the original recipe there should be roasted hazelnuts)
150 g khorashan wheat flour
50 g rice flour
50 g potato starch
125 g margarine
125 icing fruit sugar
2 eggs
10 g unsweetened cocoa powder
 a pinch of grated cinnamon
a pinch of salt
a pinch of grated cloves (I use nutmeg instead)
grated lemon zest
Raspberry , currant or cowerry jam (I use often apricot jam of my garden,being in any case slightly acid)

Thanks to my inseparable bread machine...she kneads so well...I put all inside.
That is grated almond, khorashan wheat flour, rice flour, potato starch, margarine, fruit sugar, eggs..I think it is clear.
After some time she works..20 minutes (whee!), I wrap the dough in a plastic wrap and I put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Then I roll the dough in a tart pan previously oiled and sprinkled with flour.
Pressing well in the edges and leaving a piece of dough for strips.
I pour the apricot jam,I put my not so perfect homemade strips.
I bake for 45° minutes at 180° (low temperature).
I finish with icing fruit sugar.

What can I say...it's always a great success.

Even with recipe I participate to Contest “Le mandorle” by Un tavolo per quattro

Amarguillos

The name is similar to Italian "amaretti"..but this spanish recipe, is a little bit different from Italian recipe.

The ingredient which makes a difference is sweet potato (white inside).

I love it and I love all recipes and all version with it.

I can stuff me so full...

The final outcome seems to be so similar to pastries prepared in Messina.

Flavour is so delicate and soft.

Ingredients:
150 g boiled sweet potato
250 g finely chopped almonds
150 g icing fruit sugar (put it in the blender and becames icing)
1 egg
juice of half lemon
whole almonds to garnish
icing fruit sugar to garnish

Preparation:
I mash sweet potatoes with a fork, I add the egg and the lemon juice and I beat all a bit.
I add almonds flour and fruit sugar, a tablespoon a time.
If the dough seems to be too soft, I add a teaspoon a time of (very little) rice flour just to thicken.
You can use pastry bag, but I prefer to use a tablespoon. It works always.
And I use a fork also to garnish.
Then I put on an almond each.
I bake in a preheated oven at 200°, on a baking pan with greaseproof paper, for ten minutes about (as they are golden , they are ready. Pay attention to the bottom,it could burn if they cook too much).
As I take out of the oven, I sprinkle with icing fruit sugar.
Pastries are a problem ...because I prepare them for breakfast, but I eat them also as break, as after dinner snack ...and after midnight snack!

Keep safe so they will last more...

With this recipe I participate to Contest “Le mandorle” by Un tavolo per quattro

Zarzuela (fish soup)

If I could, I ate fish every day, and when I stayed in Messina surely I ate it more then now.
During the week I cannot always, but during weekend it is a must.
This is a fish soup, according a Spanish recipe.
Spanish people eat fish as much as us.
This is my zarzuela.

Ingredient for two people:

Very fresh mix of fish for soup (ex. two pieces of conger eel, a tub gurnard, a codfish, two mullets,clams,mussels,calamari rings,prawns).
700 g Tomato pulp
half glass of Wine to reduce and simmer (red or white is the same)
Malvasia wine (very little, only a drop; it's fine also brandy)
chopped parsley
a pinch of red pepper
extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
a teaspoon of sweet paprika
fish stock (a stock made by simmering fish,in water, wine, or in both, often boiled down to concentrate the flavor and used as a flavoring).

In a large pan (like wok type it is better) I put garlic, oil red pepper and paprika. I let all fry for a while,
then I simmer and reduce the wine.
I pour the tomato pulp and a pinch of salt (being some fishes very tasty, it 's better to start with little , and then adding if needed).
I let the sauce for 5 minutes,then gradually,I add fishes (first biggest up to the smallest ones).
Step by step, mussels and clams already opened apart (cooking them in an empty pan with a lid only just the time to let it open over a low flame). calamari rings and last the little prawns.
I add a drop of Malvasia wine and I let reduce the sauce for 10 minutes over a medium flame with lid.
Other five minutes without.
Then I put the chopped parsley and I let the soup stand out of stove and with the lid on.
I serve it with corn flour flat bread.
What soup is if you cannot sop up!

I keep quiet savouring it...as a mystical experience.