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Archives for July 2015

Sicilian Caponata

July 25, 2015 by Barbara Leave a Comment

caponata with eggplantIMG_1619

 

I love caponata but I don’t eat it much as my family considers eggplant to be one of the seven deadly vegetables.   Eggplant is a well-traveled vegetable.  It apparently originated in tropical Asia and headed to the Middle East via India.  Arab settlers brought it to Spain and southern Italy but no one knows exactly when.  There is no record that the  Greeks and Romans knew eggplant (my husband considers them lucky) but it arrived in southern Italy before explorers brought the tomato, potato and pepper from the New World.

Eggplant territory begins in Naples, or so they say.  That the farther south you go, the more important it becomes to local cuisine.  Caponata is a classic Sicilian dish that provides an explosion of flavors once it hits your taste buds.  While there are many variations of caponata (with eggplant the main event), the dish almost always includes celery, tomatoes, capers and olives.  Some recipes include raisins…not mine. The distinctive taste of caponata comes from its subtle sweet-and-sour flavor the Italians call agrodolce.

 

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Filed Under: italian food recipes, Recipes Tagged With: anchovies, antipasto, capers, caponata, eggplant, eggplant salad, Mediterranean, olives, pine nuts, Recipes, sicilian, sweet and sour, tomatoes

Spaghetti L’Estate

July 23, 2015 by Barbara Leave a Comment

 

Spaghetti l'estate is a quick, fresh no-cook spaghetti sauce that can be prepared in minutes.

While there’s still some tomatoes and basil left growing outside, try this wonderful, easy, no-cook pasta dish–Spaghetti L’Estate. Estate means summer in Italian and, truthfully, it’s a quintessential summer dish. Truthfully even more, I forgot to post this recipe at the end of summer. But as long as there are still  tomatoes on the vine and basil in the garden, this dish is good to go.

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Filed Under: Recipes Tagged With: basil, mozzarella, spaghetti caprese, spaghetti with tomatoes, summer spaghetti

Three Herb Pesto

July 15, 2015 by Barbara Leave a Comment

 

image
Quick!  Someone eat this before it collapses altogether.  This will teach me to get artsy before I have the camera properly set up.  This is really insalata caprese with it’s geometry changed.  It also shows one of the many dishes to which you can add pesto.

 

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Filed Under: Recipes Tagged With: basil, caprese, mint, parsley, pesto, Recipes, summer salad, three herb pesto

In Vino Veritas

July 7, 2015 by Barbara Leave a Comment

I recently remembered a small restaurant in Hollywood I used to go to years ago…okay, decades ago…with friends.  I cannot remember its name but I can reproduce the wine list from memory and here it is:

WINE LIST

  1. Red
  2. White

Please order by number.

If anyone remembers this place too, please let me know.

Filed Under: Life Italian Style

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Hi. I'm Barbara Francis and I hope you like authentic Italian food as much as I do. It's simple, fresh, seasonal. What's not to like? And it's part of my heritage. So join me in the kitchen of Italian Food Made Simple. Just step right over the dog, she won't move even if you ask her.

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