Kate@ unabellamescolata

Pasta with Gorgonzola

Italian recipes often list quantities of ingredients simply as “q.b” –  q.b stands for quanto basta, literally – how much is enough, or it’s up to you.    For the learner of Italian cooking, those 2 letters “q.b” can be infuriating.  Especially,  if *all* the ingredients in a recipe have been given the “q.b” treatment.  When followed […]

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Artichoke Dip

One of my nephews is a major dips man.  Like many (everyone?), he loves to chill with a drink and salty snacks, but add a few dips, and our man is in his true element.  There are foods, and dishes that are like that (aren’t there ??) – that just seem to pair with certain

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Torta della Nonna

Torta della nonna is a gorgeous rustic tart made from two simple Italian classics: pasta frolla and crema pasticcera.  This looks like, lemony pastry cream sandwiched between two layers of crumbly, sweet shortcrust pastry, covered in pine nuts, and baked.  It tastes like … heaven. The name torta della nonna, literally “grandma’s cake” is a

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Lemon Delicious

You know when you use a name to describe something and you think everybody else uses it too, only to find out that maybe they don’t?  And, that maybe it’s just a name that your family uses, and come to think of it now, the name, while perfect to you, is sorta, kinda sounding now

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Peach, Lemon and Rosemary Cake

I’ve not posted anything for a good while.  The cause of the pause … the hot,  Ligurian summer.  While it delivers buckets of charm, the Italian summer  also has a way of stealing my desire to fire up the oven or  the computer,  to photograph, or  to write.  My summer mode is to idle on

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Rustic Cherry Tart

… actually, the Rustic Cherry Tart that I baked today was a *mostly* Rustic Cherry Tart.  It was also partly pear.  You see, we have a whopper of cherry tree that is currently chockers with fruit. Yesterday, we picked a bunch, and today, I thought I’d make some kinda sweet cherry tart, only to discover,

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Caprese Chocolate and Almond Cake

Torta Caprese, Italy’s beloved flourless chocolate cake, from the island of Capri, is a super-rich, not overly sweet, intensely chocolatey cake.  Also, it’s a bit of a fave.  It turns up regularly dusted with icing sugar for family parties, and with cocoa for swankier occasions.   It’s flourless-ness, is attributed to a mistake, an omission

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Pinched Almond Biscuits

Talk of the south of Italy had me thinking about almonds. About various slightly doughy, soft centered almond biscuits collectively called pasticcini di mandorle.  In essence, they are a simple combo of ground almonds and fine sugar held together by an egg.  Their size and shapes are varied, some with plain tops, others cracked, piped,

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Baked Calamari and Potatoes

You might have heard me mention that we have a food truck and that we sell fried fish.  It’s a pocket sized, Piaggio Ape (3-wheeler) and our menu is as equally small.  We sell calamari and anchovies –  the fish that our region of the Cinque Terre is known for.  For the most part, we’ve gotten pretty cluey when

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Spaghetti con Agretti

You know that sinking feeling you get when a tv series that you have been glued to ends and you’re just not ready to say goodbye?  When that sentiment strikes, I find myself googling for more info, a pitch of sorts, to keep what we “have going” alive – filming location, the story’s inspo, and

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Peperonata

A thick, slow simmered salsa from the south of Italy, peperonata or red pepper sauce is a hero of a dish.  A kinda cross between a chutney and a vegetable stew, it is fiery looking, and yet its flavour is surprisingly mellow and sweet.  How’s that for a sensory trick?  As a dish, it is mega

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Baked Cheesy Mushrooms

I know it’s truly outa vogue to talk about another season’s bounty, but a jolt back to colder weather today, had me thinking about baked, woodsy, mushrooms for lunch.  It is autumn (not spring) when the local forest is chock-full of mushroom foragers, and the market stalls are overcrowded with funghi.  But even today at

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Polenta, Lemon, and Almond Cake

I made this polenta, lemon, and almond  cake for the first time about 2 weeks ago.  I’ve already had to make it again.  My cravings for a repeat were louder than that of a hormonally charged pregnant woman.  Ditto my hubby and kid’s.  The racket was just so deafening, that I had to adhere, and

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Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

Having lived here for more than a decade, and with my Italian citizenship day fast approaching, I’ve been feeling the need to have “my own”,  go-to polpette or meatball recipe.  Comical, yes (am I secretly fearing  a recipe pop-quiz on the day of the ceremony?), but nonetheless, on my mind. If I was going to

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Jam and Grappa Tart

I‘ve a soft spot for crostata di marmellata.  In essence, it consists of buttery, short crust pastry, that is smothered with marmellata – the Italian word for all types of jam – and finished with pastry strips, usually arranged in a diamond pattern.  The look is very much, old-school and indeed, the signature lattice topping

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