Skip to main content

Posts

The Torta Verde Process

Have you ever heard of Torta Verde?  That's Italian for "Green Cake".   I always crack up at the idea of a "Green Cake" when it actually has nothing to do with cake at all and is in fact a savoury vegetable pie.   I've also heard it called Torta Pasqualina, or "Easter Cake" and that version has whole eggs dropped in to the pie so that when you cut through you get slices of hard baked egg in the middle of your pie. There are probably about a million different versions of this pie out there.. and I think the reason lies in the word Easter - a pie made traditionally at Easter time which would be Spring in Italy and when the first young, tender veg would be harvested. Which is why Swiss Chard makes an appearance in this recipe as it over-winters well and puts on a final flourish  in early Spring just before it heads on to seed later in the season.  Wild herbs like Nettles and Dandelions would also be added, and you can still find recipes ar
Recent posts

I Channeled My Granny!

Yesterday the girls were off sick with a cold, and I can't say I was feeling 100% either.  My energy was low and when my eldest asked for soup for lunch, I admit, I did an internal sigh. I went to the cupboard and grabbed a couple of potatoes and an onion.. and that is when it happened.  That is when I began to channel my Italian Granny!  Seeing the potatoes and onions and thinking.. what else? What other something could I add to the soup to make it, well, soup. It was then I had a recollection from my childhood, a flash of an image, a forgotten smell, of a soup made up of the lowliest ingredients, that tasted so good, was warm and comforting and embodied everything a soup should be. My Granny's rice soup. By some twist of good fortune I had some left over rice in the fridge.  And as I searched through my memory the tantalising images came flooding back of Swiss Chard and perhaps, celery? So I set out to make it.. and as an afterthought, grabbed my camera to photog

Gingerbread Houses 2013

Last year I made some Gingerbread houses for my girls to take in to school as a Christmas treat.  Well it seems I may have started something because they both "demanded" a gingerbread house each this year and of course I had to indulge them! Thank goodness I'd saved the templates and recipe I used from last year as that saved me a lot of time!  I'm not usually that organised...  well if you call said recipe and template stuffed into a plastic packet gathering dust at the back of my baking cupboard, organised! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves here.. I don't think there's much I can add except to say I made the biscuits on the Thursday, glued it all together on the Friday and decorated the WHOLE of Saturday and Sunday.. well you know, like from lunch till evening time (read midnight!). People have asked me how much patience I have... honestly, I didn't even notice doing it as what better excuse than to have a Christmas movie marathon at the

Christmas Ornaments

I was on Pinterest a few months ago and came across this really cool crochet edging for a blanket.  Being close to Christmas I immediately thought - wow - would that work as a garland for my tree? You can check out  my inspiration  here. It didn't take much to turn the stitches from a beautiful edging to this cheerful garland.  The whole garland is something like 6 metres long - I used a whole 100g ball of red el cheapo acrylic yarn.  I really love it and glad I made it! So a week before Christmas all the decorations go on sale in the shops here...  I bought this tiny tree for 1 whole euro! I also picked up some cheap little baubles.. not perfect in size but good enough.  I consider this new tree a work in progress!  And so I couldn't resist crocheting a garland for this little cutie too! This time I used some green cotton yarn - being a novice crocheter I've no idea what the proper name is - just that standard thin crochet cotton...  My husband t