Showing posts with label Italian Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italian Food. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

3rd Annual Cooking Contest

This year "Rialto" (Luca's old apartment) held their third annual cooking contest. For the weeks leading up to the evening everyone was talking about what they were going to make, how good it's going to be, and how they're definitely going to win. 

There were 
9 people cooking, 
4 people preparing desserts, 
 21 people eating and voting. 
The evening always goes late, with a traditional late start, however this year everyone was much better with timing their dishes to come out pretty much right after the person before them. We started eating at 10 p.m. and didn't finish until until 2a.m. Everyone practically rolled out into the streets. 

The photos are never very appealing and I regret not taking more.
Luca prepared Pappardelle with a wild boar sauce
 Lorenzo prepared mini ribs- the photo doesn't do them justice but these were absolutely exquisite.
 Barbara prepared meatballs along with some stuffed potato cheese rolls
 Leo prepared pappa al pomodoro which is a mix of bread, tomatoes, garlic, and basil 
 Illaria prepared Eggplant Parmesan
 These are my mini chicken tacos 
 Vittoria prepared a gratin- potatoes with sausage
 And last but not least- Matteo made homemade pasta and cooked it up with pumpkin and bacon
For the "Salati" category Matteo won first place with his pumpkin bacon pasta. He definitely deserved it! He put in a ton of work making the pasta by hand, baking and carving the pumpkin. Second place was Leo's Pappa al Pomodoro, which despite the picture was actually incredibly flavorful and delicious. The eggplant parmesan came in third place, however everyone doesn't think it deserves third place and we think there was some biased voting going on. 

This year there were 4 dessert: 2 cheesecakes, 1 pie, and 1 chocolate cream cake. 
 The first picture is the Coffee Cordial Pie, then the New York Mocha Hazelnut Cheesecake and below a lemon cheesecake that was served with a raspberry sauce. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of Luca's Pan di Stella cake which was 3 layers of nutella, whip cream, and pan di stella cookies!
 Matteo also won the dessert category with his Coffee Cordial Pie, but he only won by a fraction of a point. My Mocha Hazelnut Cheesecake was tied and so we had go down to the decimal point. 

Counting up the votes!

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Festa In Collina

Last weekend we headed down into the heart of Tuscany for the "Festa in Collina", a whole town barbecue. 
We drove about another 30 minutes south of Siena until we arrived at this small, rustic, picturesque town- Casciano di Murlo, up in the hills. 
The whole center was lined with tables, ready for the hundreds of people that would come and gobble down sausage, steak, ribs, pasta, and drink local wine and artisan beer.  
In one of the piazzas there was huge grill set up, with raw meat handing down from the ceiling ready to be grilled up. 
 When your food is hot off the grill, they'd serve it on this big wooden tray and you'd go and find a picnic table open to enjoy the delicious food with live music in the background and the smell of meat wafting through the air. Mmmm! 

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Festival della Lasagna

Today Luca and I unexpectedly went to a Lasagna festival. It is the first year this festival was held in Bologna and it may just be the first of many.  Lasagna is one of the typical dishes from the Emilia Romagna region made with the classic and famous ragù.
The festival was held in Piazza del Mello on the North side of Bologna. We had to decide between 1 plate for 3 euros or 6 plates for 15 euros. We went with my friend Giulia and her boyfriend Brais and we decided to split the 6 plate option between the 4 of us. However we very quickly realized that it wouldn't be sufficient and so had to go back for seconds. 
There were some of the better known Osterias from Bologna with pans and pans upon pans full of lasagna being swapped in and out of the portable ovens behind them. There were great options like Pesto Lasagna, Traditional Lasagna, Octopus Lasagna, Mussel/Anchovy Lasagna, Red Lasagna, Green Lasagna, and even Dessert Lasagna! 


     This week is the first week that it truly feels like Spring in Bologna. So it was perfect being outside,   
                                   enjoying the sun, 65º weather, and eating great food.



Sunday, November 18, 2012

Chocolate Galore

It's that time of a year again, the Ciccoshow has come to Bologna. Every year in November usually around the 13- 18th, the main square, Piazza Maggiore, is filled with stands of well known chocolatiers from Italy. 
It attracts a large crowd, everyone carrying bags of truffles, drinking hot chocolate, or enjoy chocolate covered strawberries and waffles. 
The chocolate is good and unique, I enjoyed trying a honey and milk chocolate truffle, coconut, cinnamon, and bronte pistachios along with of course the good ol' dark chocolate and milk chocolate. After about 3 chocolates its enough to make you feel sick, but everything always looks so good!  

If you're lucky you might even get a few free 
samples.

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