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Simone’s Butternut Squash & Sage Tortelloni

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We were lucky enough to have Simone in the store with us on Wednesday, to teach us how to make delightful fresh pasta with butternut squash filling. See our previous tutorial on how to make the fresh pasta here.

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INGREDIENTS

• 1 egg per person • Extravirgin olive oil

• 100g 00 flour

INSTRUCTIONS

• Weigh the flour and place on a wooden board in a pile

making a well in the middle.

• Break the egg into the well and stir into the flour slowly

using a fork.

• Add a drizzle of extravirgin olive oil.

• Mix the dough into a ball.

• Knead the dough using the ball of your hand until it is

smooth, soft (not sticky) and springy.

• Wrap in plastic wrap and let sit for 15-30 minutes

before rolling.

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FILLING  FOR TORTELLONI

INGREDIENTS

Butter

Sage

Parmigiano

Nutmeg

White pepper

One whole butternut squash

INSTRUCTIONS

Peel the squash and cut into cubes.  Sauté in oil until lightly roasted.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add water, lower heat and cover.  Cook until very soft.

Purée squash with 1 egg yolk and grated parmigiano. Season with nutmeg to taste.

Once tortelloni is made, garnish with sage and serve!

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For the real treat, join Simone on his home turf for a cooking tour with Via Umbria. Cucinapalooza will be happening April 18 – 24, 2015.

Or for an experience close-to-home, join Simone next week on Wednesday as he makes oricchiette with broccolini, from 5-6 at Via Umbria. See you next week!

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— Via Umbria

Chef Simone has done it again! Read more

We were lucky enough to have Simone in the store with us on Wednesday, to teach us how to make delightful fresh ...

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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.

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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 ...

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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 ...

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Lucky Lentils

Umbria scenery_MG_1804 ©2014 Eric van den Brulle

The most difficult time for a small business is typically after the holiday season. So while we don’t wan to worry, we will be angling for all the luck we can get. A delicious, Italian tradition is the eating of lentils on New Years Eve to bestow financial health and general good luck in the coming year. See this article  for a brief history on why and where these lentils are eaten, and then pop over to the Barilla Academy for another variation on the recipe. Maybe this tasty dinner will help us in the New Year?

Here at Via Umbria we hope that your New Year involves health and stability, and we wish you all the best in 2015.

 

— Via Umbria

Happy new years! Read more

The most difficult time for a small business is typically after the holiday season. So while we don’t wan to worry, we ...

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Ravishing Ravioli

There is something about ravioli that is so appealing right now: simple enough to be a weeknight meal, with endless customizations ranging from pumpkin for the holidays to truffle for those days when you need a little richness. And ravioli freeze very, very well, making them the perfect holiday meal to serve with the appearance of slaving all day in the kitchen but the delight of a 10 minute prep time.  Just dab some flour on your head to add to the “I’ve been ravioli-ing all day!” effect.

Yesterday we had the delight of making ravioli pasta in-store with Dorrie Gleason of The Silver Fig Cuisine. You can find our previous tutorial on Tagliatelle here, where we explore the basics of pasta making.

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To begin, we make our basic pasta:

Homemade Ravioli

INGREDIENTS

• 1 egg per person • Extravirgin olive oil
• 100g 00 flour
INSTRUCTIONS
• Weigh the flour and place on a wooden board in a pile
making a well in the middle.
• Break the egg into the well and stir into the flour slowly
using a fork.
• Add a drizzle of extravirgin olive oil.
• Mix the dough into a ball.
• Knead the dough using the ball of your hand until it is
smooth, soft (not sticky) and springy.
• Wrap in plastic wrap and let sit for 15-30 minutes
before rolling.
Buon appetito!
(Recipe courtesy of Dorrie Gleason – The Silver Fig Cuisine )
And now, the filling!  Dorrie used a recipe adapted from Ernesto’s restaurant in Umbria, home to many an adventurous cooking class.
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Homemade Ravioli Filling, for 12 ravioli or two people
INGREDIENTS
• 1 cup fresh ricotta • 1/2 cup grated parmigiano
• 1 apple peeled/diced • 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• Crushed walnuts
INSTRUCTIONS
• Saute apple in 1T butter with cinnamon and clove
until tender.
• In a separate bowl combine ricotta and parmigiano.
When apples are cooled, add to cheese mixture and
gently stir until blended.
• Roll out pasta dough until paper thin, add cheese
mixture and cover.
• Cook in boiling water 2-3 minutes until ravioli rises
to the top of the pot.  Serve immediately with melted
butter and crushed walnuts.
By the time we were done creating the unconventional filling the creative wheels were turning with ideas for fabulous future stuffings. Plans for a ravioli dinner party where everyone brings a different filling were formed.
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The stars were very fun to punch out, and we have snowflakes and hearts here at Via Umbria as well. How thoughtful would it be to make ravioli in the shape of hearts for someone you love?
Thank you Dorrie for teaching us the ways of the expert pasta maker, we will be coming back for seconds!
—Via Umbria

This recipe will make you lick your fingers! Read more

There is something about ravioli that is so appealing right now: simple enough to be a weeknight meal, with endless customizations ranging ...

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Pasta Making for Dummies!

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Pasta is one of life’s simple delights. Most pasta only has two ingredients: eggs and flour. If you have never eaten fresh pasta before, it is time to give it a whirl, because even dummies (aka our own Bill Menard) can make it successfully, and the taste difference is incredible.

On Wednesday, Bill taught us how to make tagliatelle. For the next two Wednesdays, November 12th and 19th, we will make chitarra and ravioli – come join us by RSVPing through Eventbright: //goo.gl/PdqNNk. We also have recipe cards explaining the whole process with measurements in-store, come grab your 00 flour and a card soon!

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To make pasta properly you really must use 00 flour — it finer than normal flower and makes the texture of the pasta smooth, not dough-like.

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After measuring out the correct amount of flour, you make a little nest for your darling egg. Then smash it with your hands!  This is a step that we all wanted to do as kids and is very fun yet mildly gross as an adult.

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Then the egg is whisked into the flour, kneaded, and formed into a ball. We let the ball rest for 15 minutes while examining our flour-ed cloths and wishing we remembered an apron. During this time you can also get your pasta sauce started.

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Next the rolling technique. Bill shows us the correct Italian technique, which he has learned from the Italian masters and a lot of practice.

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We roll out the dough, fold and slice it up, and then wait for it to dry about 20 minutes. This is the perfect time to return to the sauce you started to make and finish it. Then we boil the pasta for about five minutes. We topped ours with our spicy arrabbiata sauce.

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Fresh pasta is more tender and delicate and almost buoyant on the tongue than the packaged stuff. We could get used to this.

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— Via Umbria

Step by Step Read more

Pasta is one of life's simple delights. Most pasta only has two ingredients: eggs and flour. If you have never eaten fresh ...

Dinner, Dinner Parties, Entertain, Food & Drink, Recipes

Auguri!

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Today we have a guest post from back in Georgetown, as Bill and Suzy continue on their Italian journey. The following comes from Elsa, the Social Media and Marketing assistant at Via Umbria. 

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Two years ago I ushered myself into my 20’s in Florence, with a profiterole at Gilli’s, a gratitude session on the Ponte Vecchio, and a late night stroll past the silent Duomo.

Last Friday I entered my 22nd year, still celebrating Italian-style.

Continue reading Auguri! →

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Home Cooking

Why is it that we tend to make friends in Italy so often with chefs and winemakers? It must have something to do with the question posed to Willie Sutton about why he robbed banks. “Because that’s where the money is.” Continue reading Home Cooking →

Of course with Ernesto! Read more

Why is it that we tend to make friends in Italy so often with chefs and winemakers? It must have something to ...

Dinner, Food & Drink
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There’s a New Chef in Town

It was an epic beginning to an epic battle. A battle for the ages. Chifari contra Gilocchi. And it all began in a little agriturismo in a little farming village called Cannara on April 3, 2012. Continue reading There’s a New Chef in Town →

Chifari contra Gilocchi Read more

It was an epic beginning to an epic battle. A battle for the ages. Chifari contra Gilocchi. And it all began in ...