Category: Appetizers
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Panissa From Liguria
What is panissa anyway? I’m glad you asked that. I didn’t know myself until we went to visit the seaside village of Noli a couple of months ago. I have eaten the Piedmont version of panissa many times, and I discovered that it is a completely different dish to panissa from Liguria. Panissa from Piedmont…
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How To Cure Your Own Olives
How to hit an olive tree I’ve talked before about how hoards of wild Southern Europeans roam around the countryside banging trees with sticks and raking their leaves with big wooden combs at this time of the year. This year we decided to join them, as the olives that grew on our few…
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Bruschetta With Radicchio And Speck
A delicious way to use up stale bread What do you do with your leftover stale bread? It feels wrong to just throw it out, right? If you have chickens or pigs, you don’t need to even worry about this issue, but as our cat is not very partial to stale bread, and…
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Crostini With Figs, Ricotta And Honey
Aperitif time is my favourite meal of the day One of my absolute favourite “meals” is the aperitif time. I just love having lots of different snacks to choose from, all of which can be eaten with your fingers or a spoon. If I were elected President of the World, I would propose…
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Grilled Tomatoes And Feta Cheese
Hot weather, magpies, and a fabulous grilling recipe It’s hot up here in the Northern hemisphere; so hot that you could just about cook an egg by cracking it on the terrace outside our house. It would be covered in dust and bird-poo, so maybe wouldn’t be that great to eat. By the…
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Black Olive Tapenade
It’s the season for tree-beating Over the last month, in the fields all over Southern Italy, and on the Cote d’Azur in France, people have been whacking trees with sticks. This may seem like strange, and relatively cruel treatment for some poor trees who did nothing but stand there and help to prevent…
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Spanish Tapas: Bean Salad With Red Peppers
It’s all about the tapas So, here we are in the last week of Spanish Tapas Month on Italian Kiwi, with Part IV! I hope you’ve been enjoying the change of scenery for a month and had a look at the salmorejo soup , the tiny fried fish and the roasted peppers. This bean salad is the…
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Spanish Tapas: Roasted Peppers
Amazingly easy to make To celebrate Spanish Tapas Month on Italian Kiwi this week, I’d like to introduce you to one of my favourite tapas that I ate when we were down in Andalusia in April: green roasted peppers. It’s one of the most simple tapas to make, as you’ll see when you…
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Spanish Tapas: Tiny Battered and Fried Whole Fish
Tapas are the best way to eat! This month of July, I’m kicking off the first post on Spanish Tapas Month! Tapas are small amounts of various dishes that are put on the table to share. They are perfect for the hot weather, and for all the barbeques and buffets that you may…
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Russian Salad From Nonna Pierina (Insalata Russa)
The secret ingredient to make Russian Salad special This post on Insalata Russa is a very special one, as I am writing about it to honour a great woman who passed away this time last year. Pierina, my husband’s grandmother was a powerhouse of food production. She would make a huge bowl of…
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Prosciutto e Melone (Raw Ham and Cantaloupe)
Italian prosciutto and cantaloupe melon: a favourite at our place! We’ve just been away for nearly a month on holiday in California, Utah and Arizona. Fabulous, fabulous places! It was wonderful to get back to my old stomping grounds for the first time in nearly 10 years and catch up with long-lost friends,…
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Bruschetta (Italian Tomato and Garlic Bread)
The strawberries had a better party to go to this year Well, maybe you all actually know how to make bruschetta, but even if you do, I hope that this post will remind you of it since there are loads of wonderful tomatoes and basil coming into season right around now…..well, at least there…
