by Danica | Aug 7, 2020 | Featured, GloKitchen
Salad to a picnic? That’s too elaborate, some might say. However, salads are super easy to prepare and nutritious! Sure – a fork and a plate will need to be carried around with you on your day out – but how much better would your lunch be out in the sun with some crisp and fresh leafy goodness? Gone are the days of having a picnic with ready-made supermarket sandwiches and run-of-the-mill plastic tray salads trapped in artificial air!
For this flavourful dish, mixing leaves with roasted vegetables, such as peppers, tomatoes and courgettes, transform a mere side salad into a main course. Best done with a vegetable peeler, Parmigiano-Reggiano shavings make an elegant garnish for this salad and add unique umami flavour coupled with saltiness to the subtlety of lamb’s lettuce and the slight bitterness of rocket. Tuck in – and don’t forget your fork!
Ingredients:
For 4 portions
1 mid-sized courgette
150g mini vine tomatoes
1 large red pepper
70-100g rocket
70-100g lamb’s lettuce
75g Parmigiano-Reggiano shavings
Olive oil, approx. 1 tbsp. for the salad, and extra for the roasted veg
Juice from ½ lemon
Sea salt and pepper to taste
Balsamic vinegar (optional)
What you’ll need:
Chopping board
Large kitchen knife
Baking tray with non-stick baking foil
Tablespoon
Vegetable peeler (to use for the Parmigiano-Reggiano)
Large salad bowl for serving
Method:
- Preheat oven to 180°C (fan or fan with grill, middle-rack)
- Wash the vegetables. Cut the courgette in half and then each half lengthways. Cut the pepper into large strips and remove all seeds. Put all vegetables, including the mini vine tomatoes, on a flat baking tray covered with non-stick baking paper. Drizzle olive oil over the veg and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake until soft with some browning (if you prefer the veg to develop blackened edges, use the fan and grill option on your oven, but make sure to not burn the food too much).
- In the meantime, wash the lettuce and rocket thoroughly. Take the block of Parmigiano-Reggiano and a regular vegetable peeler and carefully shave off bits to add to the finished salad later.
- After 30-40 minutes in the oven (grill option reduces the baking time), let the vegetables cool off. Then slice them into smaller strips.
- Arrange the salad by carefully adding the baked veg strips to the salad leaves. Add juice from half a lemon, drizzle some olive oil on top (the veg will already be oily, so don’t overdo it), use sea salt and black pepper to taste. Finally, add the Parmigiano-Reggiano shavings. Feel free to round off this salad with a balsamic vinegar drizzle.
- If you plan to take this salad along to a picnic or barbecue, don’t add oil, vinegar and juice yet. Instead, combine them in a small airtight container, glass jar or bottle and add the sauce just before serving, otherwise the salad leaves will wilt too rapidly.
(Credit to: Castelli/Parmigiano for these beautiful recipes)
http://www.castelli-uk.com
by Glotime | Aug 4, 2020 | Competitions Expired
WIN A £50 CURRYS/PC WORLD GIFT CARD
To enter, just fill In the form below, sit back, cross fingers
For additional DAILY Entry just Re-tweet on TWITTER
More entries = more chance on winning
Gift Card valid in-store only
GOOD LUCK !
There are FOUR prizes up for grabs.
View Giveaway
Any images used under fair use permissions under IPO regulations
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/intellectual-property-office
by Glotime | Aug 3, 2020 | Featured
As I savour another spectacular artisan wine from Wines With Stories, I am intrigued to find out more about the charismatic couple Sherril and Thomas Solomon who are at the helm of the enterprise, and how it all began.
Thomas Solomon had lived and worked in Venice for 20 years before he met Sherril, who was over on a visit from her native Northern Ireland where she lived.
Thomas & Sherril
The magic of Venice combined with Thomas’ knowledge of some of the City’s most enchanted secrets, was a recipe for success and was the beginning of their own love story. Sherril and Thomas have now been married for over ten years and have a thriving artisan wine company www.wineswithstories.com where they share their love of wine with a supreme understanding of fine dining.
Sherril is passionate as she recalls the first time she savoured the unforgettable experience of the real Venice, away from the tourist traps and the adventure of dining with the locals against a backdrop of history, art and ancient architecture.
She shares a taste of food relished by the locals and a glimpse of the mysterious Piazza San Marco at night, with the mist rising from the lagoon, and the dazzling spectacle of dancing in the square from the local community.
Us at Piazza San Marco
‘You are now in Venice – so what are you supposed to try if you want to eat like the locals? Cicchetti with an ombra in a bacaro, of course!
What are cicchetti, ombra e bacaro?
Cicchetti: these are small snacks, similar to Spanish Tapas, even though they are not quite the same!
Cicchetti
It is a centuries long tradition of the city of Venice, which has now extended to the rest of the province and even in some other parts of the region.
From the Latin “ciccus”, the word literally means small amount.
Venetians eat Cicchetti before lunch or dinner sipping a glass of wine or a Spritz, as an aperitif.
You start with a small egg with an anchovy on top and a glass of white wine, then you take a bit of polenta with baccalà mantecato and another glass and so on.
Cicchetti
Ombra: walking in Venice, you will often run into a group of Venetians saying: “Andemo bèver un ombra” (Let’s go and drink a shade).
Follow them and you will see them enter in a bar and order little glasses of wine.
What does Ombra mean?
It means shade and it is a typical Venetian word, used for centuries. It was born in Saint Mark’s Square, Venice’s top meeting place.
People loved to stand in the square just to talk. But standing in the square under the sun made them thirsty, so local wine sellers offered small glasses of wine from their stalls!
To keep the wine fresh and in the shade, despite the summer heat which suffocated the whole city, they used to move their stands around the Bell tower, following the shade of the Campanile.
Hence the name Ombra. So try an Ombra di Bianco (a glass of white wine) o di Rosso (red wine) and grab yourself a selection of fish or meat cicchetti. You really can’t go wrong with wine in Venice, as the island is surrounded by one of the finest wine production zones in the world. Those in the know, would ask for a ‘vino buono’ for a bit of an upgrade, but whatever they serve you will be good locally produced artisan wines.
Bacaro or Osteria is the name given to the small bars selling Cicchetti and Ombre.
Cicchetto
The origin of the name has been lost in time, but I like the most common idea which links the word “bacaro” to the word “Bacchus”, The God of Wine, since these were the places where Venetians could buy and drink lots of wine.
Many closed during the 80/90s, but now, since “andar per bacari” (our equivalent of going on a pub crawl) has become fashionable again, more and more small little taverns have opened everywhere around Venice and our Paladin and Bosco del Merlot wines feature very strongly in a great many of these places. Our Paladin Raboso Fiore sparkling red wine served chilled, is a big favourite in Venice. It’s a lovely dry Brut style with aromas of Morello cherries and wild violets, but it pairs perfectly with chocolate, so when in Venice try it with their chocolate salami.
We love to stop in at a few Osteria for cicchetti and vino buono, before dining at a restaurant owned by one of Thomas’s friends such as Trattoria Al Gazzettino a 4 minute walk from Rialto bridge, for really authentic Italian fare made by Reda’s Venetian wife in the tiniest kitchen we’ve ever seen.
Our destination after dinner is always Piazza San Marco, to enjoy a final aperitif of beautiful DOCG Prosecco in front of the historic Florian Café, which Napoleon once called ‘The finest drawing room in Europe’. We sit in the square and listen to the supremely talented musicians playing in their soul stirring café-concert style, known also with the name of café-chantant, with classics such as the Vie en Rose through to rousing operatic arias.
Cicchetti and wine in a venetian cicchetteria
In the winter months, when the tourists have virtually all returned home, Piazza San Marco is an even more mysterious, often with the mist rising off the lagoon then rolling through the square and tiny streets. Very often, you can hear the click clack of stiletto heels like an acoustic effect in a Hollywood movie, before you ever see the wearer. The ethereal atmosphere in Saint Mark’s Square is further enhanced, as people begin to leave their tables at the Florian and Quadri Cafes to waltz in the middle of the square along to the music. Most Italians grow up learning professional ballroom dancing, so this is really quite a spectacle to behold.
We were lucky enough to have some of the Florian Café musicians, play at our wedding celebration on a boat that left the Grand Canal and toured the Venetian islands for the day.’
https://wineswithstories.com/product/paladin-raboso-fiore-brut-spumante-sparkling-red/
