It’s been ages I haven’t made soup for myself, I’ve had no desire for soups whatsoever. Maybe with winter coming this way and cooler weather, this will change.

Simple traditional minestrone is delicious, hearty, filled with vegetables, colors, etc… but as any dish, it can be modified a bit switching some ingredients and give it a little modern twist.

Some people might wonder why I used the provencal pistou instead of the Italian (Genovese) pesto since minestrone is originally from Italy. Pistou and pesto are probably related since Provence region and Genoa are not too far from each other, besides the ingredients are similar (but not the same!).

In France we have la soupe au pistou, a very famous soup from Provence made with lots of vegetables, that could be a relative of the Italian minestrone. Now let’s not argue on which one came first.

In this recipe, I decided to use a pistou whose ingredients are basil, garlic and olive oil  instead of a pesto which has those three ingredients in addition to pine nuts and parmesan cheese because of the shrimps. I have been taught by my mom to never use cheese with fish or seafood, so here I am, still following her strict rules. If you decide not to use shrimps, then a basic pesto will work fine….and if you want to use a traditional pesto to go with the shrimps, do so. My kitchen is not a dictatorship kind of regime! It’s just an idea box…so are you pistou or a pesto?

I substituted pasta with quinoa, but you could also use farro, wheat, barley, etc…I love the little grains of the quinoa, they keep me light for the day.

Ingredients for 2-3

• 1/2 onion, diced
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 garlic clove
• 3.52 oz (or 100 gr) cauliflower, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 potato diced
• 1 celery stick, diced
• 3.52 oz (or 100 gr) peas
• 1 leek, diced
• 1 cup kale, chopped (optional)
• 1 zucchini, diced
• 5.30 oz (or 150 gr) quinoa
• 2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
• 3.52 oz (or 200 gr) cooked cannellini beans or garbanzo beans
• 12 large shrimps
• salt and pepper

For the pistou

• 1 bunch basil
• 3 garlic cloves
• 150 ml olive oil
• 3 tbs parmesan (optional)

Preparation

In a large pan, heat olive oil, then add onion and soften. Add all the diced vegetables, quinoa crushed garlic. Cover with water and let cook until all the vegetables are soft, about 45 minutes.

In the meantime, saute shrimps in a pan.

Serve minestrone in bowls, divide shrimps on each bowl, and add one tbs of pistou on top. Stir and enjoy.

For the pistou

In a mortar crush garlic and salt until it turns into a cream, then add basil and keep crushing. Add oil progressively to obtain a smooth paste.

You might say that this is not real risotto since it’s made with brown arborio rice, so as with any brown rices, you don’t get the creaminess of regular arborio. Honestly I love the texture of brown arborio, it’s chewiness, nutty flavor and wholesomeness. Of course, you can use regular arborio rice if you prefer a more traditional risotto, or short brown rice if you cannot find brown arborio. Then of course, cooking time needs to be adjusted. Brown rice take longer too cook, so be patient. Usually, I keep the water where I cooked the broccoli to cook the rice, it will add extra broccoli flavor. In case your kids are reluctant to eat vegetables, you can try to hide them like in this risotto, it certainly will do the trick.

Ingredients for 4

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 1.6 cups (or 300 g) brown arborio rice
• 1 cup dry white wine
• vegetable broth
• 2 cups broccoli
• 3 tbs heavy cream
• 3 tbs freshly grated parmesan (reggiano)

Preparation

Start first by cooking the broccoli. Bring large pot of salted water to a boil, add broccoli and cook until tender. Drain and keep cooking water aside. Keep a few broccoli florets for decoration. Mash broccoli with potato masher until you obtain a very fine mash or puree, the texture needs to be somehow like a cream.

Put broccoli cream back at low heat and add cream . Mix well and adjust with salt and pepper. Keep warm.

Heat olive oil in a pot, add shallots and cook until tender. Add rice and coat with oil for a few minutes, then gradually add wine and broth and broccoli water. Continue process until the rice is cooked and tender but still firm.

Add cream of broccoli to the rice and parmesan. Stir well and cook for a few minutes. Serve hot

Usually I would never think of making cheese, because in my mind, it was something too complicated, something only cheese makers knew how to do.

This changed my mind. Living in the US, it’s sometimes difficult to find imported cheeses, such as mascarpone. In the past, stores like Rainbow or Whole Foods carried various Italian brands such as Santa Lucia. In any European country, you can find Italian mascarpone anywhere. For whatever reason in San Francisco, they stop selling them, selling only domestic mascarpone, and with no offense, domestic brands are not good, either the texture is too solid, too yellow, too this or too that, making really bad tiramisù. So in my mind, I could no longer make good tiramisù, and I have to admit that I got a little frustrated and annoyed. Then I tried to find on the web some information of the fabrication of mascarpone, which I was curious to know why it was called cheese (it’s because of the caseine). And here we go, the easiest thing on earth is to make mascarpone with just two ingredients! Yes it is possible! I was amazed when this came out of the refrigerator.

One pint will give you about 250-300 gr of mascarpone (a little more than the quantity of the container you find in the store)

Morale of the story: Do not buy domestic mascarpone any longer if you want to make a killer tiramisù, make it yourself, it’s worth it.

Ingredients

• 1 pint of heavy cream (a great quality, I used Straus)
• 1 tbs of lemon juice (filtered)

Preparation

in a large pot, bring about 2 cups of water to a boil. Pour cream in a mixing container that could be exposed at high temperature (I used a pyrex one), place on top of the pot and lower the heat. Stir cream and let it reach about 80-90C, then add lemon juice. Keep stirring for about 10 minutes, at that point the cream will become thicker and coat the spoon. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Place a cheese cloth (the thick kind, not with holes) on top of a strainer, then pour cream in it. Cover with a cloth and place in the refrigerator for about one day (24 hours). Use withing the next few days.

Passatelli is a specialty from Romagna and Marche regions of Italy. It’s usually served in a broth (in brodo) or asciutti (dried) which means as a pasta dish and of course no broth. I grew up eating passatelli which was my mom’s favorite soup, but when you’re a kid you are not too excited eating soups. Over the years when going to Italy, I noticed they started serving passatelli asciutti (no broth) with all kinds of sauces and became ever since one of my favorite dish.

We were in Italy last month, and I got the chance to eat passatelli with seafood in the restaurant Da Tano (city of Fano) which is now my favorite restaurant ever. That was such an amazing dish, and since then I have been dreaming of Tano’s passatelli.

So after looking on the net for passatelli recipes and proportions, and getting so many different ones, I called my mom and got her recipe. I thought that would be closer to what I was used to, but I told my mom, the passatelli need to remain extra firm and not break or I will not like them (I really hate overcooked pasta to the point where I will not eat it), so you need to be precise and give me exact quantities of ingredients for extra firm passatelli.

The mixture needs to be hard otherwise the passatelli will break during the cooking process. The other tricky thing is to grate the bread and parmesan very finely in a mixer, so store bought bread crumbs will not work. You need to use stale bread (preferably country bread) and grated it extremely fine, like a powder. For the cheese it’s the same

I have another recipe of passatelli in brodo here, but this one is a little different and is perfect for this “dry” preparation.

You need this particular potato masher to make those little cylinders. I have seen it available in the US on the web.

If you are interested in some other passatelli recipe, and read Italian, here Sabrina and her blog called La creatività e i suoi colori.

Ingredients for 3-4

For the passatelli

• 3.52 oz (or 100 )g homemade very fine breadcrumbs
• 3.52 oz (or 100 g) freshly grated parmesan, very fine
• 2.82 oz (or 80 g) white flour
• 3 eggs
• nutmeg
• zest of one lemon
• salt
• 4 cups broth

For the sauce

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 small shallot, finely diced
• 1 tomato, peeled, seedless and diced
• 2 small fillet of sole, cubed (about 13/4 inch)
• 3/4 lb shrimps, chopped roughly
• 1 tbs fish fumet
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Heat olive oil in a pan, add shallot and let soften. Add tomato and fumet. Add shrimps and sole and let it cook until half of the water evaporates. Adjust with salt and pepper. Add extra olive oil if desired.

For the sauce

For the passatelli

Mix all ingredients together forming a thick paste. Let it rest for about 20 minutes. Bring broth (or bouillon cube) to a boil, then using a potato masher place half of the dough inside the masher and press to form long cylinder, proceed one more time using the rest of the dough, and cook in broth for a few minutes at very low heat (need to boil very slowly or the passatelli will break). Drain and carefully place the passatelli in a large plate. Pour sauce on top and mix carefully. Serve hot.

I tried many versions of split pea soup and this one is my favorite. You can keep it vegan if you don’t add the pancetta at the end, so it’s versatile. You can use bacon instead of pancetta, or just nothing at all…it’s all up to you. I usually don’t soak peas in water as some people do with legumes to soften them and decrease cooking time. If you don’t add salt to the water, the peas cook quite fast. I blended in this version, but you can serve it unblended too, which adds texture to it.

Thinking about it, soups are my favorite things to eat (along with pasta) and nothing better to eat during cold winter days. This soup is hearty and simple, quite nutritious too. You can serve it with grilled country bread and it’s a meal in itself. Split pea soups are popular in France too (soupe de pois cassés) and cooked with ham (petit salé) or sausage, usually with smoked meat. In Italy smoked meat is not too used (except for regions bordering Austria). So here you can just use your imagination and make your own version of zuppa di piselli spezzati!

Ingredients for 4

• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 celery stalk, chopped
• 1/2 leek, chopped
• 1 branch thyme
• 10.5 oz (or 300 g) split peas
• broth as needed
• 2 slices pancetta (optional), diced
• salt and pepper

Preparation

In a pot, heat oil, then add onion, soften them add garlic then add the rest of the vegetables and thyme. Cover with broth and let cook at slow heat for about 40 minutes or until the peas are tender. Cook pancetta in a pan until crisp. Adjust with salt and pepper and serve hot with pancetta on top.

This panna cotta recipe has been inspired from this wonderful Italian blog called Giallo Zafferano – It’s filled with delicious and inventive recipes that are mouth-watering. For coffee lovers, this panna cotta will be a real treat. This type of dessert is called “dolce al cucchiaio” meaning spoon dessert, basically a dessert that can be eaten with a spoon.

Panna cotta is a very easy to make dessert, and you don’t need to be a master chef to succeed at it. You just need right quantities of cream, sugar and gelatine sheets…but no specific technique is required, so don’t wait, make one…at least to treat yourself (I always do!). You need strong espresso, or coffee made in a moka machine (those manual Italian coffee makers), I see a lot of those sold in the US, and they’re mainly from the brand Bialetti. So I would say that the trickiest part is to get the right coffee, otherwise your panna cotta will be somehow flavorless.

For the gelatin sheets, you can use gelatin powder as well, so 8 g of gelatin sheets would be about one packet of powder.

Ingredients for 5-6 mini cups

• 5.3 oz (or 150 ml) strong espresso + 2.82 oz (or 80 g) for the chocolate sauce
• 0.28 oz (or 8g) gelatin sheets or 1 pack of gelatin powder
• 1 lb (or 500 ml) heavy cream
• 1 vanilla bean, cut lengthwise, beans scraped
• 1/2 tsp coffee extract (optional)
• 3.5 oz (or 100 g) sugar
• 3.5 oz (or 100 g) semi sweet chocolate

Preparation

Start getting your coffee ready. Soak gelatin sheets in water until they become soft. Bring cream to a boil with sugar and vanilla beans. Remove from heat and add gelatin sheets, mix well then add coffee. Strain mixture in a strainer to remove the small particles. Pour in individual molds. Let them cool, then refrigerate for about 4-5 hours.

Melt chocolate in microwave or in a water bath, add coffee and mix well to obtain a smooth texture but not too liquid.

Remove the panna cotta from molds using a small knife it it sticks to the sides of the mold. You can also place bottom of panna cotta in hot water for a few seconds to help with the removal.

Place in a plate and decorate with chocolate sauce.

I was not sure how to translate coppa in English other than use the word cup…I am pretty sure there is a more accurate word for it…but nothing better came to my mind. I realized today that my English is getting worse while we were at a Chinese restaurant with my neighbors. They invited us to this new dim sum place that opened recently down the street, and while I was trying to tell a story, I had a difficult time finding words.

The problem is that I rarely speak English now, I mostly speak French or Italian (I don’t really see my clients) and my English is getting worse. How awful!!

Anyway, this lovely dessert has been inspired by tiramisù…but looks like a triffle. So here we go with Triffasù. The mascarpone cream is the same than in tiramisù, the difference comes from the cookies used. Instead of using ladyfingers I use used some Italian cookies called  “cruschelle“, made with wholewheat flour. You can use regular shortbread too, anything that can be easily crumbled, but these “Frollini Integrali” are available in the US, Balocco brand is widely available here, and they are truly delicious, light and not greasy.

The cookies are roughly crushed and are not supposed to be soaked, they remain somehow crunchy.

The strawberries are mixed with some of the raspberry coulis and the mixture of the mascarpone cream and juicy berries is absolutely divine.

Of course, you can use just raspberries or only strawberries but I thought the combination of both had a unique character to this light dessert.

This dessert is extremely fast to prepare, definitely less than 30 minutes and does not need to be refrigerated for one day like traditional tiramisù, so when you have guests and no inspiration and no time for a dessert, this is will make the trick.

Ingredients for 5-6 cups

For strawberries

• 1 lb strawberries, cut in small pieces
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 12 cookies, preferably butter cookies

For the coulis

• 3/4 lb raspberries
• 2 tbs sugar (or to taste)

For the mascarpone cream

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 lb mascarpone (preferably imported from Italy)
• 2 tbs powder sugar

Preparation

Mix strawberries with sugar and set aside. Blend raspberries with sugar and pass through a sieve, to remove the seeds. Add 3 tbs of the coulis to the strawberries.

For the mascarpone cream, separate whites from yolks. Beat whites to a stiff consistency. Mix yolks with sugar until the mixture whitens. Add mascarpone to the yolk/sugar mixture and mix thoroughly until the cream is smooth and homogenous. Add whites to the mascarpone mixture.

Using a deep cup, add two tbs strawberry mixture, add some coulis. Add crumbled cookies, then add mascarpone cream. Add more strawberries on top and coulis. Refrigerate for one hour.

I wish I could take the credit for this amazing soup, but unfortunately I cannot. I did change proportions of some ingredients but that’s the extent of my contribution to the recipe. One day going through my thick Mediterranean cookbook, my attention got caught by this interesting and colorful soup. The creator being Daniel Ettlinger, a famous French chef, originally from Alsace (as his name sounds very Alsatian), but settled down in Nice most probably for its smoother climate. He also worked in Milan so, Italy has contributed to his culinary influences. Winters are rough in Alsace-Lorraine and most people are attracted to move to the Southern part of France just to enjoy the Mediterranean climate.

Of course, polenta is definitely an Italian ingredient, most regions of Northern Italy consume it on a regular basis, but many dishes from Nice do use it too. Nice being not too far from the Italian border, many similarities are found in the local cuisines of the towns close to the border.

I never really used polenta in a soup, and I was a little curious about the texture of the soup. I thought the polenta would absorb the liquid and turn it into a thick texture. It did, but you just have to add broth or water, and adjust the consistency.

I loved this soup and will make it again. In the original recipe, Daniel Ettlinger added fried onion rings. He cut onions very thinly, toss them in flour and deep fried them, they were added at the end on top of the soup, but I decided to leave them out.

You can use paprika, piment d’espelette or hot chili. Since I just ran out of piment d’espelette, I used paprika. Paprika is definitely an essential ingredient and should not be left out.

Ingredients for 4

• 3 scallions, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped roughly
• 3 tbs olive oil
• 1/4 cup (or 50 g) medium grind polenta
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 20 shrimps, peeled and deveined
• 1 pinch paprika
• piment d’espelette
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Heat olive oil in a pot, add onion and saute until golden brown. Add polenta and stir for about 5 minutes until the polenta has browned. Add vegetable stock and simmer for about 15-20 minutes. If by the end of cooking time, the soup gets too thick, add more broth.

Heat the remaining olive oil in a skillt, and saute shrimps until cooked on both sides. Add garlic and scallions. Add paprika and/or piment d’espelette.

Arrange shrimps in a bowl, and pour polenta-broth mixture on top. Add a drop of olive oil.

Who said that polenta only needs to be eaten in savory dishes? I was so excited about this dessert, that I have been thinking about it for days. Let’s also enjoy the peaches while they last, soon they’ll no longer be available. I cannot believe it’s already September.

In France, we have some semolina based desserts like this one (gâteau à la semoule) that the kids usually love (well adults too). So I somehow decided to play with polenta. You need a medium to fine grind. I don’t like to use the coarse kind that much. This polenta has such a fragrant vanilla and milky flavor, I could not stop eating it from the pot. The peach is roasted in honey and rum, which makes every bits a real delight. If you combine on your spoon some polenta cake, peach, mascarpone and run sauce, you might end up being addicted to it.

The peaches need to be ripe but still firm so they don’t overcook quickly while in the oven.

While I was playing with my dessert, I got caught on the phone for a short time, I did not realized that someone was stealing my crumbs. My dog Enzo is as obsessed with food as I am. Of course, a dog being a dog, his obsessions limit themselves too eating food rather than preparing it. I think if I were a dog, I would be just like him. While distracted on the phone, I did not see Enzo, open the kitchen cabinet, and steel the breadcrumbs jar. He opened the lid, left the lid laying on the kitchen floor, took the bread crumbs jar in “his room”, spreading the crumbs on the rug before eating them, and of destroying the jar in pieces. Then after his fight with the crumbs, he hid underneath the bed to hide, knowing he was in trouble.

When I saw his moustache I could not stop laughing, schnauzers have funky moustaches that get easily dirty.

Ingredients for 4

For the polenta cakes

• 200 ml milk
• 30 g heavy cream
• 1 vanilla bean cut lengthwise and beans scraped
• 50 g sugar
• 65 g polenta
• 2 tbs golden raisins
• 8 dried apricots, unsweetened and cut in small pieces
• 3 tbs rum

For the roasted peaches

• 2 large yellow peaches, peeled and cut in half and seed removed
• 1 tbs honey
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 1 tbs sliced almonds, toasted
• 4 tbs mascarpone

Preparation

For the polenta cakes

In a pot, combine milk and cream, sugar and vanilla bean. Bring to a boil. Add polenta gradually while stirring. Keep stirring for about 20 minutes (you can also use express polenta). Add extra milk if the polenta gets too thick. Add raisins and apricots pieces. Mix well. Spread in a flat surface keeping the thickness to about 2 cm. Let it cool. Using cookie cutters, or rinds, cut 4 circles.

For the roasted peaches

Grease a  baking dish with butter. Place peaches halves (flat part down). sprinkle with sugar and honey and cook in a pre-heated oven at 400F for about 15 minutes, then turn the peaches on the other side. Let them cook for another 10 minutes, then deglaze with rum (the soaking rum). Put peaches back in the oven for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven let them cool a little.

Place one polenta cake in a plate. Add half peach on top. Add mascarpone on the side and sprinkle with rum sauce.

I am going back to my roots with this dish. Once in a while, it feels good to go back to old and traditional ways of cooking even if it it can be time consuming. Cooking being therapeutic for me (like for most people who love cooking), when I am stressed, I cook, and the longer, the better. Sundays are perfect for these rituals.

I am in love with my new pasta cutting tool called chitarra. Eventhough it produces a different kind of music, it’s just wonderful lyrics to my ears. Due to its shape and strings it has the same name as the musical instrument guitar (chitarra in Italian means guitar) due it its strings. Spaghetti alla chitarra is my favorite pasta, anytime I am in Italy I buy it and eat them during a whole week. Those are a specialty from Abruzzi and the neighboring regions further South. Basically the strings of the chitarra are the cutting tool. You can either use the rolling pin or your hands to press the pasta sheet on the strings. The two particularities of this pasta is first, you need to have a pasta thickness, similar to the width of the guitar strings, second it’s an egg based pasta.

When using a chitarra, the texture of the pasta is really different, more rugged and thicker since the width of spaghetti is supposed to be the same size as the depth, basically you get square spaghetti.

Chitarra is available in the US at Sur La Table, so for those who are passionate about pasta and want to experiment old ways of making and cutting it, I suggest you try it out.

The dough has 80% farro (or spelt) that’s why you get a darker and golden color and the sauce is vegetarian. The traditional spaghetti alla chitarra from Abruzzi region is made out of a lamb ragù. Of course, you can use your creativity and taste as far as the sauce is concerned. I am still on some vegetarian funk lately, so this worked beautifully for me.

Ingredients for 4

For the pasta dough

• 100 g white flour
• 200 g farro flour
• 3 eggs
• water

For the sauce

• 6 medium size tomatoes on the vine, well ripe, peeled, seedless and chopped
• 1 carrot, peeled and sliced
• 2 zucchini, diced
• 1 small eggplant, diced
• 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 small yellow onion
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 2 tbs olive oil
• hot chili pepper (peperoncino)
• basil or oregano
• 4 tbs ricotta
• 1 tbs chopped olives (optional)
• salt and pepper

Preparation

For the pasta

In a working surface mix flours together, add eggs, and gradually incorporate flour. Add a little water if necessary (if dough is too hard) and knead for about 15-20 min to obtain a round and smooth ball. Wrap in a plastic film and let it rest for about 30 min.

In a flat surface (preferably wood, such as a spianatoia, the Italian flat wooden board to roll the pasta dough), using a large and not tapered rolling pin, roll dough to obtain a thin sheet. You can use a pasta machine if you have not mastered the art of rolling dough. The sheet should be thin but not overly thin, something like 2 mm thick.

When the sheet is ready, take chitarra to cut strings. Place sheet on top of strings and using the rolling pin, roll it from top to bottom of the pasta sheet. The spaghetti will fall into the chitarra, and you just have to remove them. Proceed until you have finished with the sheets.

For the sauce

In a pan, heat olive oil. Add onions and brown them. Add the rest of the vegetables, salt and pepper. Cover with lid and let cook until tender but still firm.

In another pot, heat olive oil. Add garlic and stir to get flavors out. Add oregano (or basil) and tomatoes, and cook until the tomatoes are starting to form a thick sauce (about 10-15 minutes). Add chili peppers, salt and pepper.

When the vegetables are cooked, add to the tomato sauce and mix well. If you decide to add olives, add at this point. Add extra olive oil.

Bring a pot of salted boiling water to a boil, add spaghetti. Cook for a few minutes, or until spaghetti come at the surface. Remove from stove and drain.

Place spaghetti in a large pasta dish, pour sauce on top. Serve in dishes with ricotta on top and sprinkle with either oregano or basil. Serve hot.