Nicoletta Tavella

Als je van koffie houdt. ☕🤎

De leukste cadeaus voor liefhebbers van koffie en cappuccino We delen de mooiste cadeaus met koffie in een Italiaans tintje. Ideaal om je eigen verlanglijstje mee samen te stellen, maar ook perfect als geschenk!

🔵 Blue. The colour of calm, reflection, introspection.
Exactly what Autumn is made for.

Have a lovely Autumn weekend.

Easy peasy little recipe. 🍅🍅🍅
Photo by me.

🍝 I’m often asked how to recognise good dry pasta and for me there are a few very important signs that tell me a pasta is better than other ones.
If you can, buy pasta from small producers and avoid the ones by big names because they’re often made with wheat from the US, Canada and/or Ukraine. Especially northern Americans grains are full of glyphosate and other pesticides which are used a lot less here in Europe, and due to the long transportation times in big cargo ships and the bad conditions they’re stored in, they often tend to get mouldy. Moulds are really bad for our health.
Many small producers use local grains which have been grown and distributed in far better conditions. Organic ones are even better!

🍝 Colour is also a quality revealer: a very yellow pasta indicates short drying times at higher temperatures, which compromise the final quality. Lighter coloured pastas have been dried at lower temperatures (ideally not above 40 degrees C) which maintain the quality of the final product.

🍝Texture is also very important: a rougher texture is preferable to a very smooth one because it will give you a nicer mouthfeel and will “catch” the condiment a lot better.
If the package says “trafilata al bronzo” it means the extruders are made with bronze, which gives that special coarse texture.

🍝Hope this helps with choosing the best pasta for you!

Left: big producer, right: small producer (thank you ! 😘)

🍆This Tuscan combination is divine: roasted and marinated aubergines paired with a flat chickpea pie named torta di ceci. It’s a classic from Livorno called “5 e 5”, a reminder of the time when you could order a sandwich stuffed with chickpea pie by asking for five liras of bread and five liras of pie. That was a long time ago! The sandwich would always be enriched by these melanzane sotto pesto, which don’t include the green sauce we all know but are marinated in garlic, vinegar and chili.

🍆Would you like to learn how to make this? You can! Come to our workshop on the Tuscan cuisine on August 24 or October 12 and we’ll teach you this and many more wonderful Tuscan dishes!

Link here: https://www.cucinadelsole.nl/the-tuscan-cuisine/

Photo by me. And kudos to my cousins and for bringing me to one of the best “5 e 5” locations in Livorno where I was able to try this wonderful combo for the first time! ☀️