On the Table

Entertain, Food & Drink, Lunch, On the Table, Recipes
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Simone’s Super Bowl Snacks

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This Super Bowl Sunday, ditch the store bought salsa for some real food. These recipes from Chef Simone are an Italian twist on some classic favorites to keep you warm, full, and happy (no matter the outcome) this game day.

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And why not complete your foodie football day with some beers from Birra Perugia? Stop by our store in Georgetown to get your hands on the most unique imported brews and view the game in style.

 

POLLO ROLLO:

Ingredients: 

Ground chicken meat

Salt

Pepper

Parmigiano cheese

Oil

Garlic

Sundried tomatoes – chopped

Sundried tomatoes –  paste

Materials: Carta Fata Paper, available at Via Umbria

Instructions:
Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl, setting aside part of the tomatoes.
Lay out the Carta Fata on a table, put the meat in the middle of the paper. Press and spread the chicken out until is about half an inch thick.
Put the rest of tomatoes in the center of the chicken. Wrap the meat well until you have formed a tube.

Close the top and the bottom of the tube with string.
Boil for 20 minutes in hot water. The Carta Fata will not melt because it is magic!
After boiling, slice and serve with fresh salad by the side. Drizzle olive oil over the entire plate and serve!

 

MEAT BALLS WITH HOT SAUCE:

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Ingredients:

Beef ground 30% fat

Bread crumbs

Milk

Garlic parsley

Salt

Pepper

Parmesan cheese

Egg yolks

Tomato sauce

Garlic

Chili pepper

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Instructions:

Mix the meat with Rosemary and sage, and then the breadcrumbs, egg yolks, and parmesean. Start to make little ball.

In a pan, sauté the garlic and add the tomato sauce. Cook the sauce with salt and hot pepper until it thickens. Add the meat ball and go on to cook for 20 minutes.

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BEAN SOUP

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Ingredients:

Beans

Carrots

Celery

Onion

Garlic

Tomato sauce

Chili pepper

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Instructions:

Sauté the greens in a pan with the herbs too. When they are fragrant and cooked, add the beans (if using dried beans, they must be hydrated. The day before, put them in a bowl with water, and then boil them for 30 minutes and let stand). Sauté all of the ingredients little more and then add the tomato paste. Heat on low flame, simmering until soup becomes thick. Garnish with sour cream or Italian cheese and serve!

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— Via Umbria 

American Football with Italian Food Read more

This Super Bowl Sunday, ditch the store bought salsa for some real food. These recipes from Chef Simone are an Italian twist ...

Dinner, Dinner Parties, Entertain, Experience Italy, Food & Drink, On the Table, People
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I Came, I Sausaged, I Conquored

Sausage 007

Laws are like sausages.  It is best not to see them being made.
— Otto von Bismarck

With all due respect to the Iron Chancellor we couldn’t disagree more.  Maybe he’s correct with respect to law making, but certainly not with respect to sausage making.  It is better to make them yourself.

It is January, the beginning of the New Year, when thoughts turn to resolutions, diets and exercise.  It is also the time of year, for the past five years, that we welcome back chef Simone Proietti-Pesci for his annual US visit.  Yesterday marked the beginning of his return, a three week tour and tour de force that begins in the Napa Valley of California and will take him (and us) to Washington, DC, New York, South Florida, Boston and the Cayman Islands.  We’ll chronicle Chef Simone’s daily activities here on Dolce Vita for those of you who cannot get together with him in person.

Sausage 009
Our first activity, just hours after connecting with Simone at SFO (he having flown from Rome, we having taking the shorter trip from Washington) was to set up camp at our friend Pete’s in Napa Valley where Simone (and his able assistant Austin) will prepare an Umbrian dinner party this evening.  With nothing formal on the day’s schedule (other than dinner at Bouchon) Pete suggested that we organize a sausage fest, relying on our expert Umbrian sausage maker to help make Umbrian sausage and Pete’s family recipe from his Sicilian aunt.

 

Pete had prepared in advance, laying on provisions, including ground pork (for the Umbrian variety) and ground pork and veal (for the Sicilian).  He also trotted out his new toy, a LEM sausage packer that looks like a cross between Pinocchio and the Tin Woodsman.  This gadget would make Chancellor Bismarck particularly happy, packing the sausage filling seamlessly and without mess into the casings that are loaded onto the spindle.  Having watched Julietta, our local butcher in Cannara hand pack sausages at a cooking class earlier in the year, we even more appreciated the crank it and forget approach afforded by the LEM.

Much weighing of ingredients and calculations of salt percentages were made by Pete and Simone and the ingredients mixed and massaged by hand.  Help was enlisted from Pete’s parents and the rest of our assembled group and then magically, from a mass of ground meat and simple spices emerged from the LEM not Neil Armstrong, but an unending array of dirigible shaped delicousness.

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Houston, we’ve got a sausage.
Close your eyes, Bismarck!
Close your eyes, Bismarck!
While many of the links will be consumed at Simone’s Saturday Umbrian open house in San Francisco, we did sample enough, including a generous portion added to a pizza Pete threw together, to attest that home made sausage beats store-bought any day of the week.

Including (if not especially) Wednesday, the day we started Simone’s three week US adventure.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy

Behind the Scenes of Sausage Making Read more

Laws are like sausages.  It is best not to see them being made. -- Otto von Bismarck With all due respect to the Iron ...

Dinner, Entertain, Food & Drink, On the Table, Recipes
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Simone Proietti’s Pasta

On January 13th we will have the opportunity to host a few weeks of food events with our favorite chef Simone. Here is one of his classic Italian recipes; simple, easy, and thoroughly delightful. In the past he has cooked us Osso Buco, lentil soup, Crescionda Spoletina, and eggplant.  We keep on coming back for more.

We are lucky enough to have Simone joining us for free pasta making classes in-store the next two Wednesdays from now. Join us at Via Umbria from 5-6 and learn from the our friend and master chef. The fresh pasta will take this recipe to gourmet status! RSVP here.

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Cook time: 30 minutes (with pre-made pasta)

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

500g pasta

5 cups arugula

2 cups cherry tomatoes

4 garlic cloves, minced

1/8 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup grated fresh parmesan

1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil

Thyme and basil, to taste and chopped

Food IMG_2569 ©2014 Eric van den Brulle

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

Bring water to boil for pasta.

Toss tomatoes with olive oil and bake in the oven at 300F until soft and wrinkly.

Let cool slightly and toss with salt, basil, and thyme.

Add arugula to boiling water for 1 minute. Remove and immediately put in a bowl of ice to cool.

Add pasta to boiling water and cool to al dente.

Add drained arugula to blender and blend with salt, pepper, olive oil, walnuts, and parmigiana until smooth.

Drain pasta and mix with tomatoes in a large bowl.

Stir in arugula pesto, mixing well. Shave some more parmigiana on top and serve!

 

Food IMG_2560 ©2014 Eric van den Brulle

Buon appetito!

— Via Umbria

Pesci's Arugula Pesto with Roasted Tomatoes Read more

On January 13th we will have the opportunity to host a few weeks of food events with our favorite chef Simone. Here ...

Adventure, Entertain, Experience Italy, Food & Drink, On the Table, Tastes of Italy, Uncategorised
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A Work of Art

Day 10 015

 

Our return to Umbria was a day of new beginnings and new adventures.

A new tour group of eight soon-to-be ambassadors of Umbria
A first visit to Testone, a new restaurant featuring an all-torta al testo menu
A visit to and tour of Assisi the day before the Peace March from Perugia
Dinner at the villa prepared by Maria Pia

Stepping off the early morning flight from Paris to Rome made one thing abundantly clear. While autumn has arrived in France, in Italy it is still summer. Hot temperatures and clear blue dry skies greeted us on our return and the long sleeves we donned in Paris seemed most unnecessary.

On our drive from Rome we caught up with Wendy and planned the upcoming week and the following week’s tour, our conversation joyously covering all of the adventures that awaited our guests during their journey of discovery. We can’t wait!

Day 10 001We arrived at Testone, a modern Umbrian version of fast food restaurant tucked in a corner shopping center on the edge of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Testone is less fast food than it is singular food, each traditional torta al testo, the typical Umbrian flatbread baked over fire on a circular testo hand made and filled with freshly grilled sausages, sliced meats, local cheeses and various greens. It is simple food that is simply delicious and the enthusiastic young staff of waiters and managers provide a magnetic atmosphere that in short is fun. This was our first visit but won’t be our last.

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Day 10 003A two hour walking tour of Assisi acclimated our guests to the lore and lure of the town’s native son, St. Francis. The usually busy city was positively bursting with humanity, adding to the festive atmosphere on this unusually balmy fall day.

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Day 10 006But the highlight of the day, as it most always is, was the welcome dinner at the farmhouse prepared by the ever popular Maria Pia. Looking back through my photo archives I noticed it is difficult to find many pictures of Maria Pia and last night showed why. A veritable whirlwind of activity, when MP makes and serves dinner she is never the spotlight, her food is. She charges out with a bowl of pasta bigger than her head, serves it around and disappears back into the kitchen to finish up the next dish, which this night was the rarest of birds, roast chicken that unlike its American counterpart, has flavor to savor.

Aside from welcoming our guests for the beginning of their adventure the evening had an even more special purpose, wishing our dear friends Arlene and Arthur Cohen congratulations on their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Over the years we have made countless friends introduced to us through Via Umbria (and its predecessor Bella Italia) and in many cases those acquaintances have blossomed into true friendships. Such is the case with Arlene and Arthur and so with the assistance of Maria Pia and her signature meringata cake, festooned with Roman candles, we celebrated our friends’ milestone. Looking up from behind dessert Arthur exclaimed to the assembled friends, old and new, “I can’t think of a place I’d rather be to celebrate.”

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We agree, Arthur. We agree.

Tanti auguri e cohen-gratulazioni.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy

(and Arlene) Read more

  Our return to Umbria was a day of new beginnings and new adventures. A new tour group of eight soon-to-be ambassadors of Umbria A ...

Adventure, Culture, Entertain, Experience Italy, Food & Drink, On the Table, Tastes of Italy
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Table of Contentment

Day 4 004“You are people that want to learn about other cultures, that enjoy meeting people and getting to know about them and where they come from, who are curious to see more than what you can see from a tour bus.”

“We love to welcome people in and show them what we love to do.”

“You make us very happy and proud that you want to learn from us. To listen to us.”

“No, the pleasure has been all ours. What an incredible experience. What a wonderful day.”

And so went the nearly all day love fest that we called a cooking class with Stella and her son Maurizio, owners of the Excelsior Parco Hotel, our home in Capri for the past three nights. Continue reading Table of Contentment →

“We love to welcome people in and show them what we love to do.” Read more

“You are people that want to learn about other cultures, that enjoy meeting people and getting to know about them and where ...

Comings & Goings, Entertain, On the Table
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Oil in the Family

Saturday night marked the first installment of “Olive Oil Tasting – the Bella Italia Way!” Our inauguaral group of 18 guinea pigs squeezed themselves around our makeshift tasting table, placemats set out with a dozen cups of extravirgin olive oil for tasting, drizzling and slurping. It was a tight fit at the table, but with a little EVOO slathered on our guests, everyone was easily able to slip up to the table. Continue reading Oil in the Family →

First of Many to Come Read more

Saturday night marked the first installment of “Olive Oil Tasting – the Bella Italia Way!” Our inauguaral group of 18 guinea pigs ...