Quick & Creamy Pine Nut Pasta Sauce

This is no alfredo sauce!! This quick and creamy (yet light enough for a hot summer day) pine nut sauce pairs perfectly with homemade pasta. After all the hard work of rolling your dough and making ravioli or cavatelli (or orecchieti, etc.) why drown your delicate pasta in a rich heavy sauce?!

Quick Pine Nut Pasta Sauce
Serves 6

handful of pine nuts (about 100 g or 4 oz) - you don’t have to use pine nuts, any nut of your choice
4 glugs of extra virgin olive oil
1 clove of garlic
150 ml or ⅔ cup of cream
small handful (about 30 g or ¼ cup) of grated parmesan
salt & pepper
pinch of nutmeg

Preperation
In a blender or with an immersion blender puree the cream, salt & pepper, nuts, nutmeg & cheese until its thick and mostly smooth.

In a pan on low flame, heat oil. Place in garlic glove browning on all sides. Once the pasta is cooked, strain the cooked pasta into the pan. Remove the pan from heat and pour cream mixture over. Toss and adjust the consistency with pasta water and taste.  Place into serving dish and top with a few extra pine nuts.

Cavatelli Pasta - Semolina Dough

This is one of the easiest pasta dough's to make and it doesn't need a machine or any fancy equipment - just your thumb or a pearing knife. Cavatelli pasta (or little caves) is traditionally from Molise & parts of Puglia.  It is very similar to orecchietti (little ears), another pasta made with semolina (ground durum wheat or grano duro). In southern Italy is where you will find most of these types of pasta made with semolina and no egg in the dough. 

The recipe for cavatelli varies greatly from region to region, village to village. Below is the recipe that has yielded the most consistent results for us - a soft delicate pasta that's not gummy.  After all your work in making fresh pasta you'll be happy to know that it freezes wonderfully! Now on a random Wednesday night just pull out your homemade fresh cavatelli, make a quick sauce and dinner is ready!

This pasta pairs perfectly in the Spring with peas, borlotti, sage & tomatoes in the Fall and norcina (sausage & cream) in the Winter!

You can find videos on youtube all day on the technique for cutting & forming the pasta. Below is a simple explanation. Stay tuned as we'll film our own demo soon!!

Cavatelli Pasta Dough
serves 4

200 grams/ 1.5 cups of semolina or ground durum wheat/ grano duro
25 grams / 1/4 cup of regular flour or soft wheat flour
pinch of salt
125 grams or 3/4 cup warm water

In a bowl mix the salt & both flours together, add in warm water and mix with a fork. Dump onto a board and begin kneading. Adjust the consistency as needed. The dough should have a firmness to it, not mushy, however not as hard as a ball. Continue kneading, until you have a nice smooth springy dough (8-10 minutes by hand). Wrap it in plastic and allow to rest at least an hour.

Now go online and find a video!

Make a snake about the width of a pencil.
Cut into segments as long as your thumb is wide. …..
Now you can either use your thumb or a knife for this next step.

To begin shaping cavatelli, stick your right thumb up and then turn hand so thumb is pointing left. Maintaining even pressure, use thumb to push a piece of dough forward and up, like an airplane taking off. The dough should spring up and form around the curve of your thumb.

Use a bench scraper or knife to transfer cavatelli to a baking sheet covered in parchment paper and sprinkled with semolina, making sure no pieces of pasta touch. Continue until all dough is used. Let pasta dry slightly, 30-45 minutes. (You can then freeze in a single layer. Once frozen place in plastic freezer bag and will keep about a month.)

In a large pot, bring lightly salted water to a rolling boil and drop in cavatelli. Boil the pasta. It should take about 4-6 min depending on the size of your cavatelli. Just keep taking one out and testing!  Serve with the sauce of your choice.

No Bake Dessert: Poached Peaches with Rosemary in White Wine with Mascarpone Cream

A gorgeous oven-free, gluten-free, no-bake dessert perfect for those hot summer nights!  This dessert has become a classic in our kitchen and cooking classes throughout stone fruit season. It's light & fresh, and even after a long Italian meal, everyone has room for a little peaches & cream! 

It's not only easy to make, but the ingredients are flexible; use white, rosè or red wine (finish off that bottle of white that's been sitting in the fridge for the last 2 nights...) The same with aromatics - rosemary, thyme, lemon, lavender...whatever you've got on hand. (This is why its so important to have an herb garden!)

Poached Peaches in White Wine

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 firm peaches or nectarines (mature fruit will fall apart)
2-3 spoons of sugar
white or rosè wine
1 sprig of thyme
1 sprig of rosemary
zest of ½ lemon (use ANY aromatics you like)
homemade whipped cream or mascarpone cream if you like

With a paring knife cut the fruit in half and remove the stone. If the stone will not come away easily, make a shallow incision around the stone and it will fall away once cooked.

Place the fruit cut side down in a pan or pot that fits the fruit snugly. Add in the aromatics with the sugar and top with wine until halfway up the fruit. Cover with baking paper (parchment) and bring the pan up to a medium simmer for 8-12 minutes total depending on the size of the fruit. Give the peaches a turn on their backs after about 5 minutes and they are done when a knife slips easily into the thickest part of the fruit.

Once the peaches are cooked, remove from the pan and place on a plate to cool. Return the pan to a low flame and reduce the wine until it becomes a syrup. Give it a taste - if its a little tart, add a spoonful of sugar. Be careful not to let this burn. Strain the syrup into a bowl and allow to cool.

To serve: Quarter the peaches and carefully remove the skins. Arrange on the plate and drizzle atop the white wine syrup and a dollop of cream.

Video Recipe: Crostata - Rustic Tart

Rustic Tart or Crostata: Traditionally made with marmalade, this rustic tart is found kept under a kitchen towel in most homes in our area. With strawberries in abundance this time of year, we use fresh fruit instead of jam.
This recipe is enough to make two 9-in/22cm tarts with lattice. Use what you have for the tart pans, we use round pizza pans.

Full Recipe can be found here: http://latavolamarcherecipebox.blogsp...

"Taste of Italy" is our webseries of shorts (under 2 min.) of life on our farm in Italy, the food, cooking classes, garden and more! 

Video Recipe: Cooking Class, Beer Batter for Elderflowers & Squash Blossoms

 On a warm Spring afternoon we added Fried Elderflowers or fiori di sambuco fritti  to the menu - these edible flowers when fried in a beer batter create a light, crunchy, aromatic antipasti/appetizer!

Serve with the same beer you used in the batter, in our case, local craft beer from Apecchio's Collessi Brewery. The flowers have a floral-lemony flavor that pair perfect with Prosecco as well.

The key to this recipe is keeping all the ingredients - including the bowl & whisk in the fridge!! It is a very light/loose batter that becomes nice & crispy!

 

 

Here is a short 2 minute video taken during a May Cooking Class just the other day - on the menu: Fried Elderflowers, Homemade Ravioli stuffed with Greens & Ricotta in a 'Sugo al Momento' or Sauce of the Moment and 2 Crostata's: Fresh Strawberries and Fig Jam with Pine Nuts. It was a lovely lunch but the elderflowers stole the show!

Beer Batter for Elderflowers and Squash/Zucchini Blossoms

*It is very important to have all the ingredients as cold as possible, including: flour, bowl, whisk/whip, etc.

Serves 4
12-15 flowers (sambuco/elderflower or squash blossoms), it is important to keep the stem long to use it as a 'stir-stick' when frying.
bottle of beer (or seltzer water - but it won't be as crispy)
flour
sea salt (for sprinkling on top before you serve)

Add a couple of handfuls of cold flour to a cold bowl, with a cold whisk add cold beer steadily mixing until you develop a light thin batter without lumps that will coat a spoon. (Think of a thin crepe batter.) - Watch the video for an example.

Once at desired consistency, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for about an hour.

Heat oil to 350 F / 175 C - be sure to use a thermometer.

Clean your flowers. Elderflowers: give a little shake and check for bugs. Squash Blossoms: remove the pistil & stamen.

Dip the flower in the batter holding on to the stem. Allow access batter to drip off. While holding the stem of the flower, place in the hot oil in a slow swirling motion thru the oil. (This avoids clumping).
Fry for 20-30 seconds, until golden brown. Be sure to maintain the temperature of your oil.
Place on the fried flowers on brown paper and sprinkle with sea salt and serve immediately!

Serve with beer or prosecco - something bubbly!!