Celery ragù, a Romagna recipe for vegetable ragù

My husband comes into the kitchen exclaiming, "What a wonderful smell of old-fashioned ragù." And he's right, because celery ragù, or vegetable ragù, is a forgotten recipe from Romagna that is well worth rediscovering. The recipe belongs to the peasant repertoire of sughi finti (fake sauces), where the adjective indicated the absence of an ingredient you…

ByMonica19 September 20250Comments

COURSES RECIPES Soups

Pastina soup (in vegetable broth). One of my childhood memories

Pastina soup, or minestrina in broth, is a winter comfort food from Italian home cooking. If you add a small piece of cheese, it makes the dish creamy and comforting beyond expectations. It's one of those dishes all Italians enjoyed as children, and it satisfies even adults, especially when combating fatigue and cold. Usually, pastina soup…

ByMonica12 February 20250Comments

COURSES INGREDIENTS Main Course Meat RECIPES

Veal stew with potatoes. Home cooking and family lexicon

Stew is a classic recipe from home cooking and Italian tradition. This dish belongs to the family of braised meat. Usually, for that kind of stew, you can choose a less expensive cut of beef, or lamb, cut into bite-sized pieces, browned in a pot with oil and butter, and then simmered over low heat with…

ByMonica3 February 20250Comments

COURSES First Course INGREDIENTS OCCASIONS RECIPES Seafood Sunday Lunch

Eggless potato gnocchi with clams. Cucina povera of Romagna

Online, you can find dozens of recipes for potato gnocchi with clams posted by as many Italian food bloggers. In this way, the recipe is everyone's and no one's. Yet, like so many other dishes, this one has its own history that no one remembers or that some people spread with mistakes attached, like the ones…

ByMonica14 January 20250Comments

Cheese COURSES INGREDIENTS OCCASIONS RECIPES Soups Sunday Lunch

Spoja lorda in broth (cheese stuffed pasta squares)

The cheese-filled squares of spoja lorda I put to dry on the pasta dryer look like puzzle pieces. In recent years, I have first scattered them on the table and then reassembled these pieces to create a new mosaic, more colorful and interesting, something in which I wanted to recognize myself again, feeling happy and proud…

ByMonica4 January 20250Comments

COURSES Desserts Gluten-free INGREDIENTS OCCASIONS RECIPES Sunday Lunch

Potato pudding, a recipe from cucina povera (without flour)

Sweet potato pudding is a recipe that belongs to my family's repertoire and to the cucina povera of Bologna and Romagna, an area where potatoes are a traditional product and were historically part of the food diet of the poor people. I can still hear my maternal grandmother's voice as she laces up her apron, remembering…

ByMonica28 December 20240Comments

Bologna Food Christmas COURSES INGREDIENTS Main Course Meat OCCASIONS RECIPES

Stuffed capon from Bologna, a home recipe for special events

The Christmas menu was a puzzle that, year after year, took shape and changed. Some dishes were untouchable dishes and others went in and out of the composition each time. Stuffed capon, in our house, also called galantina, was a Christmas dish of the second group. And if it did not take its place on the Christmas lunch…

ByMonica12 December 20240Comments

Bologna Food Breakfast and Merenda Cakes and Cookies Christmas COURSES Fruits INGREDIENTS OCCASIONS RECIPES

Sabadoni cookies from cucina povera of Romagna and Bologna

Sabadoni cookies are sweet, rectangular-shaped tortelli filled with chestnuts and a handful of other ingredients. They are a typical sweet from the cucina povera of Romagna, which we can find under the same name or under that of chestnut tortelli in an area that also includes Bologna and Ferrara. The name sabadoni comes from saba, the…

ByMonica7 November 20240Comments

Bologna Food Fruits INGREDIENTS OCCASIONS Preserves RECIPES

Mustard of Bologna (mostarda Bolognese): the recipe

Mustard of Bologna is a typical local product. It is a mixed fruit jam used to prepare some local cakes. For example, it is the filling of pinza (the traditional ciambella cake of Bologna), sweet tortelli, and raviole, the peasant cookies made on St. Joseph's Day. Or, as in the case of Panone Bolognese and Christmas…

ByMonica30 October 20240Comments

COURSES First Course OCCASIONS RECIPES Sunday Lunch

Artichoke lasagne. And time to cook

Artichoke lasagne belongs to the long list of dishes that have graced my family's Sunday lunch and a variety of other occasions such as, for example, Easter lunch or Easter Monday, above all, if it fell early, that is, in March, like this year. Grandma used to execute the recipe in her own way, cooking the…

ByMonica21 March 20240Comments