Summer Pasta

Ingredients:
Fresh Pasta
Veggies of your choice (here: zucchini, tomatoes and mushrooms)
pancetta
some cheese - I used "Stracciatella", a special cheese from Apulia in South Italy, a kind of liquidish mozzarella mixed with cream

Fry pancetta in Olive-oil, add veggies and spices (salt, garlic, herbs) as you like. Meanwhile, cook pasta. Cut cheese in small pieces or if cream-cheese, put in ball and stir well. Add fried veggies and drained pasta. Serve either hot or cold, it's good both ways.





Veggies and pancetta in pan












Stracciatella










Finished product :-)

Quick and Fake Watermelon-Strawberry-Sorbetto

Actually, what I'm about to post isn't a real Sorbetto. Hence the "fake". But it's an extremely good, mouth-watering, fruity low-calories Sorbetto, so who cares?


Take a nice piece of watermelon and cut it into little chunks. Make sure to pick out all the seeds, both black and white. Wash strawberries, cut in half. Blend both fruits together, adding a bit of lemon-juice and sugar - I had about 400ml of liquid and added only 2 tablespoons of sugar. I think the more sugar you add, the "sorbettier" it gets.




Pour into a low metal pan and put into freezer. Every half-hour or so, take the pan out, and go through the slowly freezing mass with a fork, disrupting all the forming ice-cristalls.




Take out, enjoy!

Summer in Italy

As in most of Europe, Summer came late even to Italy. BUT - it's here now, and with it lots of fresh and delicious fruit. Throughout the year I try to buy fruit according to season and which grows - if possible - in the same country. I'd never buy strawberries in wintertime or from Spain. I have to admit though, that I do buy them if they come from Sicily, even though that's almost 1.000km as well. So on my last trip to the local fruit- and veggie-store I bought watermelon, nectarines, cantaloupe and Nespole. I don't think there's a name for them in English, I don't even think you can get them out of Italy (at least, I've never seen them anywhere). They're as big as apricots and they taste like something between a strawberry and a lemon. Yummy Yummy!!!