Click beans!

Jai and Bee's wonderful event 'Click' is at its monthly deadline, and hopefully I can squeeze in my entry even though it's already past midnight, on Eastern time! The theme was 'Beans and lentils', although for some reason I thought only beans were involved, and so I chose to use only them as a subject... so, here is my picture!

Beans (and indeed also lentils) are one of my favorite foods, especially since I started being almost vegetarian. I love them in any way they're cooked. I particularly like garbanzo beans, and I recently discovered mung beans. While the former are commonly used also in Italian cuisine, the latter aren't. I love both of them, and I think a combination of them is delightful in soups especially.
In this case, though, I just wanted to taste them as naturally as possible. So I just boiled them. I boiled separately the chickpeas in one pot (soaked in water overnight at first, of course), and the mung beans and rice in another pot. Since I wanted to use whole wheat rice, which takes a little longer to cook, I started the rice and only after ~10 min of cooking I added the mung beans. When both types of beans and rice were cooked, I drained the water and mixed them together, and added some olive oil and herbs (finely minced oregano and thyme). I simply love these flavors together. It's the simplest dish ever, but it allows to clearly taste the delight of these legumes. You can eat it as a side or main dish, warm, or you can also add small pieces of tomatoes to it, and have it cold as a salad.

Click flour!

The theme of this month's 'click!' event is flour. Wonderful idea.. and so many possibilities! I really didn't want to miss this event, but I've been too busy recently in order to actually work on taking pictures. So I decided I'd make a collage of pictures I took in the past of my creations. What I'd like to underline by doing this is how amazing is the variety of things that can be made with flour. In the end, I chose to shrink the collage down to two pictures, representing the two most important things that can be made with flour, in my opinion: bread and pasta!

You can visit the gallery with the other amazingly beautiful flour-centered pictures here

Minestrina!!!!!

There are two events on the food-blog-sphere dedicated to some sort of comfort food these days: one is the 'Monthly Mingle', hosted by Meeta at 'What's for lunch, honey', themed in fact simply 'Comfort foods'; the other is the 'Click' event started by the Jugalbandi band, themed 'Liquid comfort'.
My decision is to present the food that has been the comfort food during all my youth, and still is. As it happens to be liquid, it goes greatly for both events. The thing is: it's really nothing fancy at all! But then again, otherwise it wouldn't be a true comfort food.. It's actually the fear of every Italian child, because it doesn't contain anything really super tasty, or sweet, or child appealing. But in my family, it has always been regarded as something really nice and comforting to have, and it reminds me of my mom and my grandma, who'd prepare it for all of us, especially when one was sick. I'm speaking of 'Minestrina' (lit. small minestra, which is kind of like a soup)! It's nothing but a very simple broth, with some small type of pasta in, and some olive oil and parmigiano cheese grated on top, if one needed to add some more nutrients to feel even better. It's been really hard to try to get a flattering picture of this really simple subject. This is the best I could come up with, and I'm going to present it to 'Click' in any case, although I realize it doesn't really compare to the other entries. :)

Minestrina
To make minestrina, you just need to have some vegetable broth (prepared with boiled onions and carrots and celeries, or simply with a vegetable bouillon), and boil some small pasta in it. The ratio of pasta to broth is all depending on your taste. I'm more for liquidy minestrina, but my dad likes more pasta, for example. Here you see stelline (little stars). Before serving, add some olive oil and parmigiano if you feel like. It needs to be eaten hot, and it will make you feel warmed up and comforted and loved!
It goes right to Meeta and Bee and Jai for their 'Monthly Mingle' and 'Click' events, respectively!

Tagliatelle ai funghi

I've been thinking about a both pretty and good noodle-dish to make for Bee and Jai's 'Click' event, and in the end I decided that 'Tagliatelle ai funghi' (Mushroom Tagliatelle) would do the trick! I still have to learn a lot about taking pictures, especially at home, where my ambiance lights are not the best at all, and I don't have any sort of small stand for the camera. In any case, this is the result!

Tagliatelle ai funghi/Mushroom tagliatelle
It's a very quick and simple and yet delicious dish to make. Buy some good mushrooms and you're basically done. I used these really good 'portabella' mushrooms:
To make enough sauce for a box of tagliatelle (1 lb), you'll need to double the amount you see in this picture (so about 4 big mushrooms). Then, you'll need a small bunch of parseley, two cloves of garlic and, if possible, some 'panna da cucina'. It's possible to find in the US, although not too easy. Here is how it looks like:
'Panna da cucina' means 'Cream for cooking'. It's indeed cream, but less fatty than heavy cream, and I don't think you could whip it. So, if you don't find it, substitute with half heavy cream and half low-fat sour cream.
To prepare the pasta: bring a large pot of water to boil, and in the meanwhile, wash and cut the mushrooms. Mince the garlic cloves and sautee them in 2 tbsp olive oil for ~30 sec, then add all the mushroom pieces. Add ~1 tbsp salt. Sautee, uncovered, for ~10 min, then cover and keep cooking. When the water boils, add salt (~1 tbsp coarse salt), 1 tsp olive oil, and then throw the pasta in. Mix up so it doesn't stick. Cover, making sure it keeps boiling but it doesn't overflow. Check the mushrooms. If they are tender (depends on how big your pieces were, it should take about 15 minutes total), add chopped parseley, sautee some more, and then add the panna. I used ~1/2 cup. You can add more or less depending on how creamy you like it. You can even go without and use more olive oil. Taste to check that the salt is ok. When the pasta is cooked, drain and pour into the mushroom mixture, sautee for 1 minute, add some black pepper grated on the spot and serve with a leave of parseley for decoration! If you want, you can add grated parmigiano cheese on top, but it doesn't need it.

So, this recipe and picture of course go to Jai and Bee for their 'Click' November event, and also to sweet Ruth for her weekly 'Presto Pasta Nights'!