During these dark and cold winter days nothing warms you up like a home made chicken casserole. Especially if the casserole is beautifully enriched by fresh vegetables,  aromatic herbs and hot spices!

The vibrant colours of the dish washes away the grey shades of the shortening daytime and brings instant, fulfilling warmth. The recipe for my spicy chicken casserole however, is incredibly simple and is already established as a firm, winter-warmer favourite with the regulars at Del Sole.

Spicy chicken casserole with peppers and chickpeas

For ideal presentation serve hot with crunchy bread and a generous pinch of TLC…

Ingredients: (Serves 2/3)

• 2 free range or organic chicken breasts, washed, patted dry and trimmed of any fat
• 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 50g of unsalted butter
• 1 finely chopped red onion
• 2 finely chopped garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon of mixed sage, rosemary and thyme - chopped
• 2 tablespoons of flour, I use ‘00′ but plain is fine
• ½ tablespoon paprika
• ¼ tablespoon dry thyme
• ¼ tablespoon dry oregano
• 1 can of good quality chopped tomatoes
• 1 can of organic chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 large red pepper, de-seeded and roughly chopped
• 1 large orange pepper de-seeded and roughly chopped
• 1 large yellow pepper de-seeded and roughly chopped
• 1 finely chopped bird’s-eye chilli pepper
• salt and freshly milled black pepper

Instructions

• Chop the chicken breasts into chunky pieces.
• Mix the paprika, dry thyme, dry oregano, flour with a pinch of salt and pepper into a bowl.
• Toss the chicken into the bowl with the dry herb mixture and coat well.
• Use gentle heat to melt the butter with the extra virgin olive oil.
• Brown the chicken in the pan - doing this in batches if the pan it is not too big.
• Remove the chicken from the pan, set aside and keep warm.
• Cook the onion, garlic and fresh herbs in the pan for a few minutes then add the peppers and the chilli.
• After the peppers have softened put the chicken back in the pan, then add the tomatoes and chickpeas.
• Add 100ml of water to the casserole and let it simmer gently for at least 30 minutes stirring from time to time.
• Add salt and pepper to taste and serve with a warming smile.

Alternative for vegetarians

If you are vegetarian, just substiute the chicken breast with chopped butternut squash.

• Toss the butternut squash chunks into a bowl with the dried herbs, paprika, salt and pepper but omit the flour.
• Cook the onion, garlic and fresh herbs in a pan, then add the butternut squash, peppers and chilli.

Follow the recipe as above and enjoy!

After a summertime that has come and gone without the delivery of its promised sunny days, autumn is here!

I love this season because of the spectacular harvest bounty that it brings, as well as the wonderful colours that Mother Nature displays from her very own pret-a-porter wardrobe.

On trees she spreads an amazingly rich combination of reds, oranges and plums. On grass there are even richer and deeper green hues, all defined by a touch of brown. And she sets all these in the misty pale blues and grey tones of the first autumnal mists. Wonderful!

Much as I love Italy, I think that autumn in England is really quite a show.

Pears are part of this Autumn bounty and their versatility is just incredible. You can use them in a variety of savoury tarts, or develop their sweet soul by poaching them in rich wine, or baking them in a cake.

My ‘cinnamon and pear cake’ - that is wheat-free, gluten-free and dairy-free - is my own personal interpretation of what to do with such a delicious fruit.

Pear and cinnamon cake - wheat-free, gluten-free and dairy-free

Although this cake is very healthy, it won’t leave your taste buds disappointed!  It has been perfected over time using ingredients that are part of the Italian cookery tradition and that, without knowing it, are able to satisfy the dietary needs of the growing number of people with food intolerances.

For example, polenta and ground almonds give a wonderfully light and crumbling texture to the cake, while the moistness is provided by the use of a very light extra virgin olive oil. Cinnamon and clove tones add the necessary depth of aromas and enhance the flavour of the caramelised pears.

Fortunately, this is also a cake that’s very easy to prepare. And although its ideal for people following a strict wheat-free, gluten-free or dairy-free diet, it is also increasingly popular with my customers without such needs, but who love the idea of eating a wonderful cake that is so kind to their digestive system.

So… what are you waiting for? Why not follow the recipe here and bake this healthy apple and cinnamon cake for yourself?

Trust me, you’ll glow with guilt-free satisfaction knowing that food for the gods can be prepared so easily and with easy-to-find ingredients. How spectacularly rewarding!

Ingredients for cinnamon and pear cake:

• 1 lightly greased 23cm spring cake tin with base and side-lined with baking paper.
• 6 large free range or organic eggs.
• 400g of caster sugar - I use organic.
• 400g of ground almonds.
• 400ml of very light Extra Virgin Olive oil or good quality vegetables oil.
• 200g of fine polenta.
• 2 tablespoons of cinnamon.
• ¼ teaspoon of ground clove.
• Zest of 1 organic lemon finally grated.
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder.
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla extracts.
• 8 william pears, peeled and cored.
• 2 tablespoons of demerera sugar plus an extra pinch of cinnamon for decoration.

Instructions for cinnamon and pear cake:

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (gas mark 4).
• Beat the eggs and the sugar until the sugar dissolves, then add the oil.
• Mix the baking powder with the ground almonds and polenta and sift the mixture into the egg and sugar batter.
• When the flour has been incorporated well add the cinnamon, clove, vanilla extract and lemon zest.
• In the meantime choose the half pears that need to be put on the top of the cake by laying them on the base of the cake tin. By doing this you will make sure that you have enough then the rest can be cubed.
• When the cubed pears are ready fold them into the cake batter.
• Pour the mixture into the cake tin, making sure to keep it level. Let me warn you that this cake batter is quite thick and heavy so make sure you have a spatula around to help with the pouring.
• Top the cake with the reserved half-pears, sprinkle the demerara sugar on top and bake for at least 90 minutes or until a tooth pick insert in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
• This cake will take longer to cook so make sure that you turn it during its cooking time.
• When the cake is ready, sprinkle the reserved cinnamon on top, let it cool, cut and serve.
• Final tip: serve with homemade custard and let your heart sing!

A few months ago there I was, running an Italian food business, when all of a sudden I found myself with a new personal dietary requirement to eat no wheat, no gluten, no dairy, no meat, no yeast and no sugar for three months!

I thought I was never going to be able to survive, but its amazing how unexpectedly challenging times can often reveal a truly golden lining!

First of all I tried cooking my favourite recipes in the same way but with wheat and gluten free replacement ingredients.

What a disaster!

The results where so poor in terms of flavour and texture that instead of helping to maintain my focus on eating the proper food I needed to get better I felt that I was not going to have another decent meal for the next three months.

However, I refused to be beaten by these disappointing results. Armed solely with a deep conviction that there must be a better way I decided to change my approach and experiment instead with new flavours and intriguing, palatable combinations.

I was desperate to be able to eat a healthy, ‘earthy’ salad. A salad that could be eaten either warm or cold, that was full of goodness and yes why not, a salad with a hint of sweetness for those days when the evil sugar craving can really get to you and outside it’s raining again…

So, I started to combine ingredients that I was preparing for different dishes in the shop to see how they worked together. For example, I love roasted butternut squash and I was very pleased at the result of combining it with maple syrup-roasted sweet potatoes and nutty wild black rice.

So far so good. Everything tasted fantastic but this salad really needed some crunchiness as well to further develop the already present and intriguing sweet touch. At the precise moment while I was thinking about what else to use, my eyes rested on the very answer.

On the shelves of the dry ingredients section there was a jar of beautifully juicy, ruby cranberries, a container of colourful sunflower and pumpkin seeds and what is of course one of the most glamorous superfood ingredients of all, a tub of the prettily pink goji berries!

I immediately mixed all of these wonderful and healthy ingredients into the salad, but still something was still missing. My Italian heritage is never too far away in my mind, of course, and now it was screaming to be included.

Nothing epitomises the flavour of my country more than the king of all herbs - beautiful basilico.

So, after adding just a few little fresh basil leaves my superfood salad finally revealed its wonderful flavour combinations and finally my taste buds were delighted!

Ingredients (serves 2):

• 1 butternut squash, preferably organic, cored and chopped into chunks
• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped into chunks
• 150g of black or wild rice
• 100g of mixed pumpkin seeds, sunflowers seeds, golden and normal flaxseeds
• a bunch of small basil leaves
• 50ml of maple syrup
• 50ml of extra virgin olive oil plus 4 extra tablespoons
• 50g of dried cranberries
• 50g of goji berries
• 1 cup of hot water
• salt and pepper
• freshly-grated nutmeg

Instructions:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C.
• Cook the rice in salty, boiling water, making sure not to overcook it.
• Drain, mix with a couple of tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, set aside and keep warm.
• Mix the chopped butternut squash with 2 tablespoons of oil, add salt and pepper and a quarter of a teaspoon of nutmeg.
• Pour the squash into an oven dish and roast in the oven for 20/25 minutes or until golden. Set aside and keep warm.
• Combine 50ml of olive oil with the maple syrup. Mix well with the sweet potatoes, add salt and a quarter of a teaspoon of nutmeg.
• Pour the mixture into a baking dish and roast in the oven for 20/25 minutes or until golden. Check the potatoes while cooking to ensure they are cooked evenly, gently stirring them a couple of times.
• Soak the goji berries in the cup of hot water for 5 minutes, then drain.
• Mix the rice in a bowl with the mixed seeds, goji berries, cranberries, roasted squash and sweet potatoes. Make sure you include the juices of the butternut and sweet potatoes to enhance the richness of the flavour.
• Serve with basil leaves scattered on top and a pinch of freshly-grated nutmeg.

Now enjoy a truly delicious and guilt-free meal!

If I am honest I have to admit that the attraction of Mediterranean spices, herbs and aromas can easily complement my family’s Bolognese culinary origins.

Since I was a little girl I’ve been very curious about different ingredients. And I loved all the new discoveries I would make whilst going food shopping with my grandmother at Bologna’s Mercato delle Erbe.

My beautiful childhood memories are full of the hustle and bustle of that market and its sweet, inviting smells of freshly baked bread as well as the pungent and overpowering aromas of mature cheeses and freshly roasted coffee beans.

I know that I drove my grandmother crazy by insisting on being let loose to go and browse everywhere by myself. While I was completely mesmerised by the thriving life of the place I remember my grandmother calling and looking for me. She was fretting with her shopping at the same time, dreading the idea that this time she had really lost me. But she always managed to find me and tell me, in typical melodramatic Italian fashion, that that was the last time she ever took me with her. Fortunately, the following week everything was ready to start all over again.

I remember once I was attracted to a small but neat market stall run by a North African man. There were colours everywhere, even his hat was full of them. He had beautiful, deep, rich-coloured mountains of spices on display and I just wanted to buy them all. It was challenging to convince my grandmother to buy some of these things that she didn’t really understand, but they were much cheaper than a Barbie doll, so I always managed to come back with a tiny parcel of spices wrapped in brown paper. I used to smell them on the bus home, hoping to learn how to cook with them one day.

So, after reading many cookery books, tasting dishes and experimenting in the kitchen (and guided only by my own intuition) I’ve put together an aromatic salad that has a balance of Mediterranean flavours as well as Bolognese DOC traditions.

I am sure that if my nonna was still alive she would say: “Grazie a Dio non ho speso quei soldi per niente!” (thank God I didn’t spend that money for nothing!)

Ingredients: serves 4

For the harissa and yoghurt chicken

• 4 chicken breasts
• 100ml Greek yoghurt
• 1 tablespoon of harissa paste
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• Freshly ground pepper

For the baked spicy ricotta

• 250g of crumbled ricotta
• 2 good pinches of saffron stamens
• 2 tablespoons of hot water
• 1 tablespoon of liquid honey
• 2 teaspoons of harissa paste
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

For the roasted summer squashes

• 2 small summer squashes
• 1/2 teaspoon of paprika
• 1 teaspoon of carraway seeds
• leaves from 2 sprigs of thyme
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• half a grated nutmeg
• pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the salad base

• 200g couscous
• 200g fregolone sardo
• 100g dry sultanas
• 150g black pitted kalamata olives
• 1 handful of fresh mint leaves
• 1 jar drained sunblushed tomatoes or even better 200g of homemade slow roasted Roma tomatoes
• 100g toasted almond flakes for decoration

Instructions:

The best way to prepare this dish is to start by marinating the chicken, preparing the squashes followed by the ricotta and then put all of them in the oven together. While these are cooking prepare the couscous and the fregolone.

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
  
• Prepare the chicken marinade by mixing together the harissa paste, yoghurt and olive oil.
• Wash the chicken breasts, pat them dry, then make deep slits all over and coat with the spicy mixture.
• Leave to marinate for 30 minutes. Then place in a non-stick oven tray, add freshly ground pepper and cook in the oven for 15/20 minutes. When cool, shred into small pieces and set aside.
• Prepare the spicy ricotta dressing by soaking the saffron in hot water for at least 10 minutes. Add liquid honey, olive oil and the harissa paste and stir well.
• Place the crumbled ricotta on a large baking tray coated with oven paper. Drizzle the spicy dressing evenly on the ricotta, adding a sprinkle of cinnamon, then bake for 20 minutes or until golden.
• Chop the summer squashes into big chunks, then toss in a container with the other ingredients, coat them well and place on a non-stick baking tray. Cook in the oven for 20/25 minutes.
• Cook the couscous and the fregolone, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and mix them together.
  
• Add the shredded chicken followed by half of the squashes, half of the ricotta, half the jar of sunblushed tomatoes, sultanas, black olives and fresh mint then mix well.
  
• To serve spoon the salad onto 4 plates and top with the remaining squashes, ricotta and sunblushed tomatoes then sprinkle the toasted almonds.
  

What a wonderful, deliciously flavoursome salad! It seems that our customers can never get enough of it.

Is this due, at least in part, to it’s wonderful versatility?

My aim is to constantly improve and fine-tune the flavours of the food that I cook. And what I am always looking for are the most breathtaking combinations.  

That desire has helped me to create a salad here that, with its combination of lentil heartiness, agrodolce (literally ’sour-sweet’) caramelised red onions and goat’s cheese, has many different twists!

The butternut squash can be substituted by pumpkin when in season. Depending on what kind of flavour I am looking for the butternut squash or pumpkin can both be roasted with a either mixture of Mediterranean dry herbs, garlic and smoked paprika or with the sweet aromatic note of cinnamon and the soft edge of nutmeg. They produce very different final results but both are equally delicious.

Furthermore, garden peas or fava beans can be used instead of soy beans, and the creamy goat’s cheese from Lombardia I used can be replaced by a more pungent goat’s cheese from France. If you don’t like goat’s cheese, don’t worry, you can even use feta or baked ricotta.

If you want to learn how to cook an easy salad that with just a few simple twists will adapt to all tastes and seasons, then this is the one!

Recipe

Ingredients: (serves 4)

• 300g of puy lentils rinsed under cold water.
• 3 medium size butternut squashes, preferably organic, washed, de-seeded and roughly chopped.
• 400g of goat’s cheese roughly crumbled.
• 1 bag of frozen soy beans.
• 1 jar of good quality caramelised red onions, I make my own and I’ll publish the recipe soon.
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce.
• 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg.
• A pinch of salt.
• A few sprigs of thyme.
• A few sunblushed tomatoes for decoration.

Instructions:

• Turn on your oven to 180 degrees.
• Cook the puy lentils in boiling water, making sure to drain them as soon as they are al dente. Be careful not to overcook them.
• Once drained, pour in a container with 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and 1 tablespoon of soy sauce. Stir well and set aside.
• Put the chopped butternut in an oven dish.
• Mix 2 tablespoons of extra vigin olive oil with cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
• Pour the mixture on the butternut making sure it is evenly coated.
• Put the butternut in the oven for 25/30 minutes or until golden. Check every 10 minutes and stir the butternut to ensure an even result.
• Pour boiling water onto the soy beans to defrost them. Rinse them and set aside.
• Mix the soy beans with the puy lentils and a few sprigs of thyme. Mix well and adjust the flavours to taste.
• Pour the lentil and bean mixture onto 4 plates.
• When the butternut is ready, leave it to cool then add on top of the lentils and soy beans.
• Add the crumbled goat’s cheese and top the salad with a generous spoonful of caramelised red onions, a few sunblushed tomatoes and serve!

How easy is that? Enjoy!