Vegetarian delights for the holidays

I'm dreaming of a green Christmas

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Rocciata, a most comforting apple and olive oil strudel traditionally made for the holidays in Umbria (recipe)

Ninety five percent dust, five percent dreams

Hello my friends, I hope my message finds you well and as busy as you want to be.

As for myself, I have been crazy busy, sometime overwhelmed, and above all very excited as 5 weeks ago we have finally bought our forever home in Rome. For all sort of reasons, it took us more than 8 months to finalize the contract. Now we are the happy owners a beautiful apartment located at only 5 minutes walk from where we live now.

I am happy to present to you my new kitchen at the time of sale. Fortunately, the charming decor has disappeared already.

Here below, please admire its present status with me dressed like a penguin for an exceptionally cold day in Rome. After looking for a plumber and an electrician for a whole month, we have now new gas and water piping, yay!

The apartment also needs a new electric system which means digging all over the brick walls for the new wiring. My fabulous builder Mr.G. is working non stop on it. The cloud of dust gets larger and thicker every day.

Have you been through major renovations? This is my third time and every time I promised myself not to do it anymore. And yet, here I am again.

Compared to what we did with our farmhouse in Umbria, renovating an apartment is a joke, right?

I spend all my evenings on YouTube and home-decor forums. I miss Ruurd’s vast knowledge about construction, so I try to learn. I have had to figure out how floating flooring is installed and why I only want a German-made PVC profile for the new windows.

I’m now acquainted with all types of washable wall paint and I can calculate the wattage for a new heater. I’m still agonizing over the best way to change the awful tile floors. Whoever has invented diagonal floor-laying is a criminal.

Can a bathroom be any uglier than this? note the shutter belt installed inside the shower!!!

Also, I have obsessively planned the position of every piece of furniture and, accordingly, the position of every socket and light.

I know it’s a lot of work, but this is our way to do it at Madonna del Piatto. We must know everything and keep the situation under control. I’m keeping the tradition, wish me luck, please!

This month’s festive recipes

The Italian cuisine is profoundly linked to its rural traditions which are based most on vegetables. As a consequence it’s actually easy to dress them up for the holidays.

Here are my suggestions for plant based recipes that you can use for any party throughout the winter and will make everyone happy.

First course

For your special holiday days you can’t go wrong with a fresh pasta dish. For a small party, 3- 4 guests, I suggest the lasagna rosettes. They are delicate rolls of pasta sheets filled with ricotta, young cheese and baked with a touch of cream then served with a light drizzle of raw honey. They look and taste spectacular but they are actually quite easy to make if you have access to very thin fresh lasagna sheets or make your own.

For a medium party, 4 to 8 guests, you will delight and surprise with pear ravioli. Create the filling with diced pear lightly cooked in butter and lemon peel, then combined with ricotta and Parmigiano. Once cooked, tosse the ravioli with butter and finish with shavings of sharp Pecorino cheese. Finish a drizzle honey of aged balsamic vinegar.

Ravioli freeze very well so you can make them in advance and cook them (no defrosting!) just before you need them.

For a larger party, more than 8 guests, cannelloni are a fantastic solution as you can make the entire recipe in advance and freeze it unbaked. Defrost in the refrigerator overnight and bake 45 to 60 minutes before your meal. There are so many ways to make vegetarian cannelloni. For the holidays, I definitely recommend the spinach cannelloni, topped with tomato sauce and a béchamel and enriched with porcini mushrooms.

For a gluten free version of the cannelloni, make savory crepes as explained here.

Second course

The Italian tradition has a perfect answer for a main that does not look like a soup or a salad: the sformato. In fact, I don’t know why a dish that is so popular in every Italian kitchen is often overlooked and unknown abroad.

Recently I have been interviewed about gattò, a potato sformato (not vegetarian) which is made in Southern Italy. This is probably one of the best Italian potato based dish, but have you ever heard about it?

A sformato, is a vegetable bake somewhat in between a soufflé and a savory, crustless flan. It’s made with eggs, vegetables and cheese. The term sformato translates to “unmoulded” in Italian, because the dish is generally cooked in a mould. The sformato is named “sformatino” when served individually, like this one with broccoli, often atop a cream of Parmigiano.

The dish can also be made in a loaf pan, then unmoulded and sliced like the one below with potato and cauliflower. I like to serve it with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of black pepper (recipe at the end of this post). A simple salad of very fresh arugula, tossed with oil and lemon juice, makes a perfect complement to the creamy sweetness of the vegetables.

Dessert

I know, it’s so easy to buy dessert during the holiday. For me, a square of really good chocolate is all I need.

However, even if the house is piled up with panettone, torrone, panforte and every possible treat of the season, I can’t renounce a homemade dessert.

With all that cooking going on, pannacotta is ideal as it can be made one day in advance and takes minutes to assemble. Here is my version with chocolate which I like to serve with a lukewarm topping of diced apples glazed with brown sugar, lemon juice and a dash of brandy. Heat up the sugar and lemon juice, add the apples and brandy and heat only until the apple are shiny but not cooked through. Cool it for a few minutes to avoid melting the pannacotta.

PS. I published the chocolate pannacotta recipe a long time ago in The American in Italia Magazine. Since then I have learned to add one tablespoon of dark cocoa powder to make it more intense.

PPS. If you are making cookies, please check last year’s cookies list and the Sicilian sesame cookies I have published a couple of weeks ago.

This is all for this month, I hope you have enjoyed the recipes! also I hope you have become curious about making a sformato, please find the recipe below:

Potato, cheese and cauliflower sformato