copyright, 2009, Maria Liberati, The Basic Art of Italian Cooking 

My weekend was filled with pizza making in The Basic Art of Italian Cooking kitchen here in Italy, or should I say inside the kitchen and outside..as you can see, yours truly getting our new outside brick oven ready.. Nothing like the flavor of pizza cooked in a brick oven..

  Pizza makes great food for a lazy Sunday afternoon dish..But it also provided us with a great way to work with the locally produced ingredients here in Abruzzo-the locally produced Pecorino D’Abruzzo to the fresh mozzarella produced in the little (nearby) village of Rocca Di Mezzo. And a radicchio produced at this time of  the year in Treviso, Italy..a little far from Abruzzo but many local produce stores get theirs fresh from Treviso..makesa great topping for a pizza..

Italy rejoices in the pizza and has made pizza making an art as well..championships in pizza and many competitions in pizza making..to the World Championship pizza making team.. who would have thought that a food made by the poor  people in Naples to make us of inexpensive ingredients-flour, yeast, tomatoes and make something substantive would become such a world renowned food…

So many toppings, so difficult to choose from,,we chose to do an arugula with shaved parmigiano-reggiano cheese, then one with a tomato topping wiht the Vesuviana tomatoes from the Mt Vesuvio region (they are an interesting tomato and one of the few varieties that grow without water. As a matter of fact the lesser amount of water they have the better they grow) with grated pecorino cheese.

The Vesuviana tomatoes led me to the story told to me by my friend, Velia, who works with us at The Basic Art of Italian Cooking Culinary School in Orvieto..she told me that her grandmother used to use the Vesuviana tomatoes as an example of life ..they grow sweeter and better with the more hardship the soil around them experiences since they grow better with drought. These are a tomato that grow without any water, And she went on to explain how hardships in life grow your character, just like they grow the Vesuviana tomatoes..that with perfect soil conditions the Vesuviana do not grow successfully and are not as sweet and plump as they are when they suffer a drought or the hardship of not having enough water…a life lesson to learn from this delicacy and they are a superior tomato as well..not just your average tasting tomato..

Then there was Pizza Margherita for those that want the traditional tomato (using the Vesuviana tomatoes) basil and mozzarella tomato..and since truffles are also found in many parts of Italy this time of year-a scamorza and shaved truffle pizza… and lastly we had to make a potato with fresh rosemary pizza since we have an over abundance of fresh, organic rosemary here in the garden..

Pizza is best made  fresh and is worth the extra time it takes…If you put your mind to it you can make a ball of dough in the morning before you head out to work, cover carefully with a towel and place in a warm place to let it rise..when you come home it will be ready to place in a pizza pan or pizza stone stone and add  topping. 10-15 minutes in the oven (can be your own indoor oven) and you have a quick, healthy meal..

Pizza….can be used to teach healthy eating and a philosophy for life…a wondrous thing that pizza……

Find more pizza tips here: http://tinyurl.com/djd29w

Ahh the Italian countryside..beautiful and so rustic, quiet. But work still goes on… I have been getting so many emails from colleagues, assistants and more telling me how they wish they were here with me in Italy. Recently an ezine from Austarlia decided to catch up with me to ask me what life is  like living in rural parts of Italy. Here is the interview:
http://www.ourpatch.com.au/australia/users/hunterdundee/blogs/509-delicious-life-in-italian-countryside
 But coming to Italy  at least for me is another place I work at.  Just because I am in Italy does not mean I am lounging on the beach on the Riviera or doing the fashionable ‘passegiata’ everyday on the Via Veneto.  

I am well connected by internet, internet phone, portable office and fax. I am also doing some work on our farms here- that may mean assisting with picking the fruits and vegetables,conserving them and preparing them into dishes as well as continuing to experiment with them  in developing  new recipes.

Of course I would rather work out of my office here and be able to look out my window and see a view of the mountains of Abruzzo, it is inspiring.

Living rurally also has its’ benefits though of making it easy to pick up local produce  and locally produced products. pecorino produced here in Abruzzo is one of my favorite cheese but the process of making cheese from the sheep milk produced here is really unfortunately a dying art. So it is difficult to find this cheese from this region anywhere else.

 But my recipe for today is one that contains pecorino cheese but the pecorino cheese that is easier to find in the rest of the world. It is a pecorino romano-which has a sharper taste. This dish like all traditional Italian dishes is simple but delicious, healthy for you and has some historic significance since it is connected to Pecorino Romano cheese which is an artisan process that dates back to the medieval times in Rome and Lazio.

Here is one of my favorite pasta dishes. It makes for the best and simplest combinations of cheese and pasta you can find.:
 Cacio & Pepe

*1 lb of spaghetti (made from durum wheat)

*1/2 cup pecorino romana cheese freshly grated

*dash of freshly ground black pepper

*Extra Virgin Oilve Oil

Cook the past in lightly salted water. The cheese you will be using is salty so in this case you only want to lightly salt the water and don’t want to give the pasta an overly salty taste. It will disrupt the balance of the taste combination of the pecorino and spaghetti. Cook spaghetti for time indicated.

Drain pasta, but reserve a few tablespoons of the cooking water. In a bowl add some of the reserved cooking water (a little at a time ) to the grated pecorino cheese. Stir till you get a smooth sauce  and cheese is melted.  Toss in the pasta. Top with a dash of freshly ground black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil and your dish is ready. Please serve hot!

For more recipes and tips get your copy of the best selling book at The Basic Art of Italian Cooking at http://www.marialiberati.com

I wine, I saw I conquered.. I think that any trip to Italy could best be described in these words.   Each day has its own special wine and I attempt to pair every day’s lunch with a new wine. I am partial to light white wines like Trebbiano D’Abruzzo and Fallenghina and the favorite of the ancient Romans- Est!Est!Est! However, I have a new favorite white wine- Pecorino. It is an heirloom wine produced from an heirloom grape. Pecorino is also the name of a cheese that comes from the same region in Abruzzo.The name Pecorino refers to sheep. The milk of the sheep is used to produce the Pecorino cheese here and flocks of sheep dot the landscape here. However, wine from the Pecorino grape was produced in the past and then phased out.  But the art of producing Pecorino has been revived. The Pecorino grape is found in Abruzzo and Le Marche regions of Italy.

Pecorino is produced in small quantities. I have not been able to find it in the US yet.  White wine is my favorite ingredient to add to risotto and Pecorino makes and excellent risotto.  And is a great wine to pair with risotto.  Pecorino has a slight  citrus flavor and goes especially well with seafood-risotto, seafood and pecorino together   in a recipe make an indescribably delicious delight!

Today for ‘pranzo’, lunch was a sublime  ‘risotto a la pescatore’ -(risotto with seafood). Pecorino made a great ingredient. See recipe below, but here are some websites to check out for info on Abruzzo and Pecorino

http://wikitravel.org/en/Abruzzo

saveur.com/wine/wine-reviews/farnese-terre-di-chieti-abruzzo-italy-pecorino

http://www.agriturismo.abruzzo.it/Z_Sito_ING/Home2.htm

 And if you are interested in wines and wine tastings, see the interview I recently did in

  A Wine Storyhttp://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/01/09/003128.phphttp://www.AWinestory.comThursday’s ‘Risotto a la Pescatore’Risotto A La Pescatore

copyright, The Basic Art of Italian Cooking 2007,2008, Maria Liberati4 tblsps. 

(2-3 servings) 

2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 lb of cleaned squid rings
1/2 lb of cleaned shelled shrimp
5 mussels, scrubbed and cleaned
1/2  onion, finely chopped
1 cup of Pecorino wine (if not available use a dry white wine)

2-3 cups vegetable broth  

Place oil and  onion in a saute pan, heat just until  onion begins to  become golden.
Add white wine and reduce by half.
Add  1/2 cup vegetable broth and squid, cook for 5 minutes or until liquid almost dissipates. Stir in rice, place shrimp and mussels . Add broth to cover and stir unti liquid evaporates. Add in liquid, constantly stirring and repeat until cooked -about 18 minutes  Serve with Pecorino wine or another dry white wine. If you can find a bottle of Pecorino, it will be  worth the effort.Ciao for now!! 

 More recipes like this can be found in the best selling book The Basic Art of Italian Cooking by Maria Liberati. Order at http://www.marialiberati.com  and receive free shipping and $5 off retail price..