Italian Vegetarian Cooking....che meraviglia! (Lesson 1-Term 3)

New class and new challenge! This time with a vegetarian cooking course... When I was asked if in the italian cooking tradition there are vegetarian dishes, I was really amazed... thinking of how many there are!!!! All pasta sauces, ravioli, gnocchi, the beloved pizza... risottos... and so so many! I can't really imagine my cooking without vegetables, pulses, dried fruits and different kind of flours... and a sea of good extra virgin olive oil... :-) At home we do cook meat and fish, but most of the times I invent with the seasonal ingredients I find here. When possible organic or direct from the garden! (I am working at it...)

A new class is a new challenge and for the first lesson we prepared three pasta sauces recipes... one very typical of southern Italy with broccoli, raisins and pine nuts and two classics: pasta with tomatoes and pasta with oil, garlic and hot chilli!

Pasta with broccoli, raisins and pine nuts

Ingredients for 4 serves:
400gr of dried pasta
approximately 6lt of salted boiling water
4 tablespoons of olive oil
1 whole broccoli or more if you like
2/3 cloves of garlic
2 handful of soft raisins
2 handful of pine nuts
salt
pepper
grated parmesan cheese

Prepare a pasta pot with enough salted water to boil the broccoli till they are very soft easily "squashable"!. Dice the garlic and fry it with the olive oil till it is soft. Add the broccoli, the raisins and the pine nuts. At this stage cook all ingredients till the broccoli is so smooth like a sauce.

Put the pasta in the salted boiling water and wait till they are "al dente". Add the cooked pasta to the sauce. Adjust the salt and the pepper and add some grated parmesan...

Pasta with simple tomato sauce

Ingredients for 4 serves:
400gr of dried pasta
approx 6lt of salted boiling water
4 tablespoons of olive oil
2 cans of crushed tomatoes
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
1 celery stalk
oregano
salt
pepper
parmesan cheese

Slice the onion, the celery stalk and the garlic. Put the olive oil in a pan and add the vegetables. Let them soften for about five minutes stirring a bit. Then add the crushed tomatoes. Cook for other five/ten minutes, then add salt and pepper. Add the sauce to the cooked pasta and serve with grated parmesan cheese.

Last but not least....

Pasta with oil, garlic and hot chilli


Ingredients for 4 serves:
about 400gr of dried pasta
approx 6lt salted boiled water
4 tablespoons of olive oil
2/3 cloves of garlic
hot chilli…as much as you like
fresh parsley

Put the oil in a pan, add the diced garlic. Let it soften, but be careful not to burn it! Add the cooked pasta and then spread the chilli powder on it. Adjust the salt. And then add a little bit of fresh parsley and serve. NO PARMESAN CHEESE ON IT! :-)

Sooo... three easy but very tasteful sauces... sometimes it is so easy to cook something tasteful!