Tag Archive for 'noci'

Polenta and ricotta cake with dates and pecans

polenta and ricotta cake with dates and pecans

polenta and ricotta cake with dates and pecans

I’ll start by confessing I didn’t make this cake. Technically my husband made it, although, to be fair, he was largely executing orders with me standing over his shoulder. The reason why we made this cake together was that he had promised his colleagues at work he would bring a cake in made with his own fair hands. We had ricotta in the fridge as well as the most gorgeous Palestinians dates. Bingo! I found this recipe on the Delia Smith’s blog.  I wasn’t sure about it at first as it has no eggs in it. Also when it first came out of the oven after the recommended 1 hour and three quarters I thought I had overcooked it. However I needn’t have worried. I really liked it, and so, apparently, did my husband’s colleagues. So success all around. And in truth: how could Delia be wrong? Impossible! This is a cake I’ll definitely make again. Continue reading ‘Polenta and ricotta cake with dates and pecans’

Baklava

baklava

baklava

These incredibly rich, gooey, sweet pastries are definitely not for diabetic people or anyone on a diet, I am warning you. HOWEVER, they are delicious and a little piece of them goes a long way which makes them ideal to share with a group of friends. They are made with  layers of buttered filo pastry and contain lots of chopped nuts. What holds them together is honey or syrup. So you can imagine the high number of calories that these little beauties possess. Even an hour of Zumba I am not sure would be able to shift them. Anyway, the inspiration to make baklavas came from my holiday to the Greek island of Paxos, back in September, where they seemed to be sold everywhere (Oh happy, sunny days! If only I could be back there. Autumn is definitely upon us now :-(….). I understand, however, that they are Turkish in origin. Making baklava was also one of the challenges on one of the episodes of the Great British Bake off programme, which has just finished. So I had to have a go, didn’t I? The recipe I used came from the BBC Good food website, slightly adapted. I checked other recipes online and they all seem to be very similar. Unlike in the GB Bake off competition I most certainly did not make my own filo pastry. Come off it!  Life is too short for that! Anyway, they were very nice and made some colleagues at work happy. Continue reading ‘Baklava’

La salsa di noci

Certo che dopo la passeggiata siciliana è ben difficile non postare almeno un bel dolcetto a base di mandorle o di pistacchio! Ma ligia al sobrio volere di Lucina ecco qua un sughetto per la pasta che uso spessissimo perché è veloce e gli ingredienti possono essere sempre tenuti in dispensa per salvare la situazione quando arriva un ospite improvviso. Inoltre ormai tutti conoscono le virtù degli omega 3 (e se volete di più fatevi davvero un giro per il bellissimo e utile blog di Gunther Karl Fuchs, Papille vagabonde che si imparano tante cose) e le noci sono una buona soluzione se non sempre c’è una pescheria sottomano.

Ma bando alle ciance (o meglio, ciando alle bande, come diceva mio papà), ecco la semplice ricetta (che viene dalla Liguria) come la faccio io. Continue reading ‘La salsa di noci’