Yesterday night I had a blast. I had the great opportunity to cook with 8 amazing 9 years old girls. We prepared ricotta gnocchi together and had lot of fun (recipe in bio). They were engaged and curious. One of the girls, Sarah, asked me what inspired me to start this career. The answer is that cooking makes me feel at home. As many Italians, I grew up in a kitchen and cooking is for me a moment of joy. I hope to inspire more family to take time to cook with their kids as I

It's a very special pasta, even for Italians. You can find it in a small area, Lunigiana, between Liguria and Toscana. I know them very well since I was little because, driving back from Tuscany, after the summer spent at my aunt house, we would always stop and buy a couple of Testaroli to take home. Since I cannot find them here and my family is in Tuscany at the moment, I decided to try to cook them and somehow feel there with them. This will be the dish for our next IG cla

I am experimenting easy recipes for the free IG classes, "A Journey Through Italy". It is not easy to find a recipe that: can be cooked in 1 hour, doesn’t need special equipment, is vegetarian so that everyone can have it and doesn’t need too much ahead preparation. Yesterday's class was Trentino, northeast of Italy, the Dolomites home, a region that I love but I am not particularly familiar with. I just have very good memories of a skiing week between Trentino and Alto Adige

Today I went back to my IG Live with Italy. I missed them so much! I took the chance to have fun cooking with my lovely mom and her Argentinian best friend who taught me an easy and fresh, summery recipe: Salmorejo. It is actually a Spanish dish, traditionally made adding Serrano ham and hard-boiled egg. Today we made it with an Italian touch adding Burrata (a mozzarella shell with stracciatella and ream heart). It was delicious! INGREDIENTS: (2 servings) 350 g cherry tomatoe

Milan, Milan, my beautiful city. I miss it so much. The vibe, the mix of history and modernity, the amazing restaurants and bars, its people... I can't wait to go back home. In the meantime, I bring home to Knoxville cooking the Milanese dish for definition, the Risotto. INGREDIENTS: (2 servings) • 200g Carnaroli rice or Arborio • vegetable stock (1 carrot, 1 celery stick, half onion, herbs you like) • 40g Parmigiano Reggiano • 40g Butter • the rest of half onion you used for

This pasta is typical from Val d'Orcia, Tuscany. It's a fresh homemade pasta, similar to thick spaghetti, made with flour and water. Very approachable even if you have never made homemade pasta, you don't need any tool to make it and it is very fun, perfect to cook with your kids. I love simple things, that's why my favourite version is with tomato sauce. They are very good also with Pesto but you can really personalize the recipe as you like. The texture is the best part, in

INGREDIENTS: (12 CREPES) 5 eggs 500 ml vegetable milk (I used coconut) 150g brown rice flour 50g fresh spinaches 12 basil leaves salt pepper coconut oil INSTRUCTIONS: Blend the leaves with the milk Beat the eggs and add the "green" milk Add salt and pepper and the rice flour The batter will be liquid Make it rest in the fridge for 30' or more Grease you pan with oil, mix the batter again as flour tend to go on the bottom of the bowl and pour one ladleful of crepes batter I co

Normally you serve soups in the winter and salads in the summer but... I love soups so much that I am still cooking them; from cold Gazpacho to this warm Pea and Mint soup served with a creamy Burrata. A simple dish with lots of flavour and feelings of comfort. INGREDIENTS: (2 servings) 2 cups of peas 1 blonde onion 1 medium potato 4/6 leaves of fresh mint 4 leaves of fresh basil salt pepper water or veg broth EVO 1 small burrata INSTRUCTIONS: Put your diced onion into a pot

It was a long time I didn't prepare Ravioli. I finally got the KitchenAid pasta roller attachment so it was time. This made a huge difference, so much easier compared to my manual Imperia pasta roller (that I left in Italy as too heavy). I forgot how nice it is making them, and how hard... I completely lost my dexterity (manualita'). By the end I made some nice ones at least. These specific ones with pumpkin are from Mantova area (2 hours from Milan) and they call them Tortel

I bought so many radishes yesterday and had so many leaves that I decided to try to make a pesto with them. I loved it! I will make a lot of it and freeze my mini pesto. Jace won’t be very happy as he hates pesto😂 I do traditional pesto with a mortar but in this case the leaves were big and not as soft as the basil ones so I used a mixer. I didn’t weight ingredients so I can’t give a very precise recipe but you can have an idea and adjust it to your taste. 2 SERVINGS: 2 cups

It looks easy but is not. Simple recipes are the most difficult to cook. In this one the perfect balance between each ingredient is key and you have to be quick enough to keep the Pecorino creamy and smooth. 2 SERVINGS: 200g Spaghetti/Bucatini/Rigatoni (I used Benedetto Cavalieri Pasta I brought from home but there is Pasta Gentile at Fresh Market that is amazing too) 100g shredded Pecorino Romano 6g Black Pepper Salt INSTRUCTIONS: Toast the pepper in a pan medium heat 3/4' G

OMG... I made it with Elena yesterday during our IG Live and I had to compliment myself ahahaha. I mean I cooked this dish before but it has never been as good. Maybe Knoxville's eggplants :-) There are so many versions of this recipe. Sicily and Campania compete for the ownership of this dish but is very common to eat Parmigiana also in Puglia. And not only regions but also each family has its own version: some add ham or Mortadella, some boiled eggs, some fry the eggplants,

This gnocchi are different from the ones I usually make as I was trying to decrease the amount of gluten in my diet. They are really almost all pumpkin pulp that's why also the consistency is different. You will not be able to make cylinders and cut them, you will make your gnocchi as quenelle. 2 SERVINGS: 800g pumpkin (weight raw with skin) 80g flour 2 spoons of egg pinch of salt INSTRUCTIONS: Bake your squash into foil paper at 355F/180C for 30/40’. It's ready when you will

One of my fav dishes. So many variations: potatoes, pumpkin, ricotta cheese, chestnuts, alla romana. So simple and so good, so many memories behind them... the Thursday lunch at grandma(why Thursday I don’t know but we respect Italian traditions). Today I talk about potatoes gnocchi. There are a few tips to make them perfect: The choice of potato is key. Old potatoes are the best ones as they lost big part of their water. In this way the texture of the gnocchi will be more co

4 SERVINGS: 320g Carnaroli rice 1 lemon (juice and zest) 1 carrot/1 celery sick/1 onion for 500ml vegetable broth 30g butter 30g Parmigiano Evo salt 1 bunch of green asparagus 8 fresh scallops INSTRUCTIONS: Start your vegetable stock 1 hour upfront. Take out the coral (red part) of the scallops and cut the white part into small cubes. Season them with 1 tsp of lemon zest, 1 of lemon juice, salt, pepper and oilCheck the cooking time of your rice Boil or steam the asparagus. Ke