Puglia, Italy- Stop Two- Valle d'Itria

We arrived to our second stop outside of Martina Franca in the Valle d'Itria. This was my second favorite stop in our trip in Puglia.  I liked it so much because it was very green, very relaxed and so charming with unique scenery.  You can read about stop One in Pogliano di Mare here.  

I've been enamored with these little trulli houses for some time, so when I found a cute and inexpensive one online, I booked it!

We spent under $100 a night for this one bedroom, one bath unit.  It does sleep 4, but I would recommend for two.  If you want the link, look for property 10776012  on VRBO.com   LINK .

We had a small pool too, but it was kind of cold in April, so it wasn't open yet.  We had such a great time relaxing here, we made dinner here every night and usually had great lunches out while we were sight seeing.

The kitchen was super small but had everything we needed.  We also had a welcome table of items for our stay including wine, fresh pasta, sauce, fruit, nuts, fresh basil and tomatoes and cheese!

Our place was off a quiet country road and had a few neighbors.  The neighbors next store arrived to work on their place doing renovation, but were also having a party on Italian holiday of Liberation Day when the Allies liberated Italy.  It is a major big deal in Italy on April 25th.  At first we were dismayed with the pounding music, but when 6 darling kids showed up at the door to invite us to the party, how could we say no?  They were so cute and had been told to bring us over! Only one guy, our host, knew English but he did a great job introducing us and having us try local specialties like the smoked cheese served melted over bread.  We also had some great homemade wine and enjoyed the festivities.

Alberello is a great but very touristy town of over 1,000 trulli homes. The streets are cute cobblestoned and the hills aren't too stepp for strolling and seeing the sites.  Prepare to take a lot of pictures.  My recommendation is to get there very earlier before all the buses.  We arrived about 9:15am and had no issue finding parking, but when we left about 11am, it was packed with cars trying to find parking. I had to jump out of the car to direct traffic so we could even back out of our parking space. I felt a little awkward, but it's nice that arm movements are universally understood and the guy behind the guy blocking our exit, got what I was trying to do. Plus, he was thrilled to get our parking spot.

There's a couple different parts of the town, and you should stroll up both sides as each has its merits. The side less traveled has the best panoramic views of the town. 

Trulli are often adorned with a painted symbol. Their origin is unknown but they usually have a religious or astrological meaning. Symbols may include astrological signs, the evil eye, the cross, a heart, a star, and others. 

Here's a little sign of some of the local symbols, a couple of them make sense to me and others leave me mystified.

This picture is from the less traveled part of Alberello. Watch for signs that say 'belvedre', which means view point! It was a great little garden park with different trails and areas to take pictures. 

Our trulli host recommended that we visit the walled town of Cisternino. It was a great day trip on our anniversary for a lunch in one of the highest rated local restaurants.

No Italian post would be right without showing some food, so here's the best pasta I ate in Puglia. We had a great lunch in Cisternino for our anniversary.  This  pasta was fantastic. 

T a g l i o l i n o b u rr o , p a r m i g i a n o , t a rt u f o * n e r o 

Fresh pasta cooked and thrown into a heated wheel of cheese and stirred until the cheese is incorporated into a sauce.  Topped with fresh truffles.  Link to the restaurant is here, Osteria Piatti Chiari. The truffles are priced separately, what's shown in the picture is about 4.50 euros.  They weigh the truffle before and after slicing it on your pasta so they know how much you were served.  You can see the girl has the basket with the truffle and the scale too.

We wandered around Cisternino and enjoyed the labyrinth of streets. 

Go ahead and try to get lost!  It's worth it.

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Puglia tomato friselle rusk bread - Traditional breakfast

I've always loved sliced tomatoes on toast, it was my pandemic breakfast of choice. Simply toast, a smear of mayo, sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper.... absolutely my favorite. Sort of a design of my own making, but maybe I saw it somewhere???

Getting to Puglia and waking up to the hotel breakfast on Day 1 was terrific.... cheese, meats, fruits (including one I've never seen, nespole- more on that later) and these yummy tomato toasts. 

Our host,  Elena, was telling us our choices for breakfasts.  She offered frisselle and described as tomato toast,  then said "5, maybe 6 would be right.... I think 6". I was a bit worried, then delighted, when I saw the plate and that they were small. In the photo,  you can see that there are 5... that's because I already put one on my plate and was tucking into a yummy bite. 

Here's my attempt at making it myself for the breakfast when we got to our VRBO a couple days later.

Our host had left us so many things as a welcome gift; fresh orecchiette pasta, jarred pomodoro tomato sauce, the frise (bread rusks), tomatoes, local olive oil, a fresh basil plant, fresh cheese and an assortment of fresh fruit.... oh, and local wine!

The top picture has small frise rusks and the second picture is the larger size. Both are great, but maybe the big ones take a bit more time to soften a bit.

Here's all we did:

12-16 large cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters or eighths

A bit of good olive oil, 2-3 tsp

A big bit of salt

Fresh basil, cut into slivers

A bit of pepper, if you like (and I do)

A couple teaspoons of water

*Some Frise Maltagliate... (dry, light "bagels, AKA "rusks" or bruschetta)

In a medium bowl, cut the tomatoes, drizzle with oil olive and salt. Add slivered basil and pepper.  Give a nice stir and get the 'rusks' ready to go on a plate. 

So our host, through interpretation through his 14 year old niece, told us to make the breakfast,  adding a sprinkle of water. My hubby heard that I should sprinkle the dry bread with water, but I interpreted it to mean that I would add a bit of water to my tomato mixture. I actually think my hubby was right, but honestly, drizzling the rusks with a bit of watery tomato oil also works deliciously too.

Let the rusk sit and absorb the mixture while you get the rest of the breakfast ready to go.  We drank quite a lot of espresso in tiny cups while we prepared our breakfast.

The rusks are in the package behind the bottle of olive oil.  There were more gifts from our host in the fridge: cheese and orecchiette. What a nice gift to leave, everything you need to make yourself a dinner, a snack and a breakfast.

*to make these at home it would be easy to use bruschetta toasts, or leftover French bread toasted/ dried in the oven.  It's supposed to be hard and dry,  hence the sprinkle of water. 

On day one,  here's a photo of our view as we ate breakfast. Not a bad place to start your day. 

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Paper Airplane Cocktail

 

Just about the easiest cocktail ever.  Equal parts of 4 things...

OK, so you do have to buy a couple special ingredients, namely the Aperol and the Amaro. There are dozens of types of Amaro, and technically Aperol is also an Amaro.  Amaro is an Italian bitter-sweet herbal mixture, sometimes sipped on its own, but I like to add it to other cocktails! Be sure to Google Amaro and read up on the many varieties available. 

I'd bought my Aperol when I came through Duty Free a couple years ago, and frankly I hadn't used it that much and it was staring at me in all it's orange glory.  Now I'm sure you're saying "why not an Aperol Spritz?".  Well folks, I am one those people who really do not like my wine mixed with Aperol and topped with soda water. Refreshing?  Yes! Still, it is not my favorite, give me a nice sauvignon blanc or a rose on a hot summer's day and I will be much happier,

My love of this cocktail and Amaro comes from a local Italian place called Amaro Bistro!  At our first happy hour there, I had the good foresight to order "the paper airplane".  This cocktail feels like a classic that's been around for a long time, but apparently invented by a NYC bartender in 2007.

P.S. I am sure you can see that we started this cocktail well before it was 5pm.... like they say, it was 5pm somewhere! It was the perfect Sunday afternoon Covid cocktail!

This recipe makes two small cocktails:

1 jigger amaro di Nonna (dark amaro)

1 jigger Aperol amaro

1 jigger of bourbon or rye

1 jigger of lemon juice

**Now a jigger is about 1.5 oz measure (like in the picture below), where I filled it up 4 times, once with each ingredient above. I added it to a ice filled martini shaker and shake, shake, shake, I added it to our cute little glasses.

*You can use any measuring device... a 1/4 cup measure would work well too and produce two slightly larger martinis (win, win!)

I chose to garnish with a sprig of fresh thyme (but rosemary would work too) and a little curl of lemon zest. Honestly? It doesn't even need a garnish...

Spicy Jambalaya Stew- Keto Friendly

Opportunity presents itself in different ways.
I found a pack of very spicy hot link sausages in the fridge. Where did these come from? LOL, I know my hubby cannot walk by a Hot Link at the grocery store when does the shopping (I love that about him), but he did complain that these were extra spicy. OK, challenge on... what to do with these?

I had a look in the freezer... chicken breasts, frozen cooked shrimp and mahi mahi.
OK everyone, dinner is in the house! I am now official inspired.

We were quite happy with the end result of this throw together meal. Brown the chicken, brown the fish, saute the onions/peppers, add the sausage and tomatoes. Add some seasoning and heat up.  Viola!  Dinner is served.
We're reducing carbs, so we ate it as a stew, but it would be wonderful over rice too.

Serves 4
Ingredients

2-3 Tbsp olive oil 1 chicken breast, cut into 1" cubes
1 8 oz mahi mahi, or other firm fish, cut into 1" cubes
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 bell pepper, diced

1 tsp garlic, chopped
8 oz prawns, cleaned (cooked or uncooked)
1 hot link, sliced
1 15 oz can of petite diced tomatoes 
1-2 tsp Italian seasoning
Salt & pepper to taste

Over medium high heat, add some olive oil and brown the chicken, removing it to another plate while you brown the fish. Remove the fish to the plate with the chicken. In the same pan, saute the onions, bell pepper and garlic. When they are starting to soften and just starting to brown on the edges, add the sliced hot link and continue to cook until the hot link gets a little color/crispness.  Add the petite diced tomatoes, reserved chicken and mahi mahi (plus accumulated juices), seasoning and the frozen or fresh cleaned prawns.  Bring gently to a boil, adjust seasoning with salt and pepper to taste and serve at once.

We ate this for lunch the following day and we were thrilled with how good it was after reheating.

Easy Eggplant Parmigiana

I always think I hate eggplant.
I usually say it tastes like a sponge.
Now, there's a good reason for that, and it's because a lot of people prepare eggplant wrong and frankly, it can have a spongy texture.
Every time I'm hating on eggplant, my Mom points out that I DO like eggplant, because eggplant parmigiana used to be one of my favorite dishes as a kid.

So, what's a girl to do? Make Eggplant Parmigana!  This also endeared me to my husband, as he loves it. I'm glad to say, I was totally wrong, and this is a wonderful dish to make.  I've made it twice in the last couple weeks, it was quite popular and it tasted great reheated for lunches too.

The first time we made it (I had help in the kitchen) we used leftover spaghetti sauce, but canned marinara sauce, or even tomato sauce would work too.  My hubby helper always does the slicing on my mandolin, as it always scares me to death to use. I'm attached to my finger tips, you know?  He tried it 1/4 inch slices the first time, and 3/8 inch thick slices the second time.  I'm leaning towards 3/8 inch for future preparations.

I need to tell you I swapped out the shredded mozzarella for regiano parmesan instead! Also not pictured is Cavenders Greek Seasoning, but any seasoning salt would work.

Makes 4 servings
Ingredients

1 eggplant, sliced cross ways in 3/8 inch slices
1 cup marina sauce
2-3 oz of fresh mozzarella
1/2 cup of shredded Parmigiano reggiano
Olive oil
Salt/Pepper or seasoning salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Prepare a baking sheets with sides, as there is some moisture in the baking process!

Slice the eggplant, and season with salt and pepper, or a seasoning salt. Using a bit of olive oil, fry each side until a bit of color appears.  The eggplant does seem to soak up quite a bit of the oil, so be ready to add more as needed. Add the fried slices to the baking sheet.  Fry more slices until your sheet is full, or you have enough portions for your meal.

Top each fried round of eggplant with a couple tablespoons of sauce, adding mozzarella and parmigiano cheeses.  Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes. If the cheese isn't bubbly and brown yet, cook for another 5-8 minutes.  

*Don't be too worried if there is a lot of moisture on the pan in the beginning.  That will evaporate and dry off.

It makes a bit of a mess on your pan, but it comes clean easily!

Dinner is served... not the prettiest dish, but absolutely delicious.

Baccalà Mantecato- Venetian Appetizer Spread

I'm still dreaming of a trip we took a couple of years ago to Venice.  I was prepared for a stinky, crowded tourist trap city, but was wonderfully surprised and delight with what we saw and experienced there.  I wrote about our food walking tour of Venice here, and this was one of the surprises that we tried at one stop. 

This is a Venetian specialty of whipped salted cod served on slices of bread or polenta.
I'm embarassed to say that I've had this recipe in "draft" mode for over a year, but decided to finally finish it up and post it.  I know that most people won't go to the trouble to find the dried cod (you can order it on Amazon though!) and make this, but it was so delicious and not fishy!

We had a couple's party after the trip and we all brought small plates of tapas to share.  This is what I made. We had a great time and shared our memories of a great trip.

Serves 6 - 8

Prep Time: 3 days

Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

1/2 Pound of Dried Cod
2 Cloves Garlic

1 Bay Leaf

Salt & Pepper

Good Olive Oil

To Serve:

Cracked Black Pepper

Cut the cod into pieces and place them into a pan full of water.

Leave it in water for 2 to 3 days, changing the water twice daily.

After soaking, change the water again and place the cod and water, along with a bay leaf and cook for 30 minutes on low heat, removing any foam that comes to the surface.

After 30 minutes, remove the cod from the pan and place in a container with high sides.

Remove the skin and the bones from the cod and add 2 gloves of garlic.

I used my food processor to mix this, slowly adding the olive oil to get the desired consistency.  It should be soft and fluffy when it's ready. The quantity of the oil will depend on the cod itself.Continue mixing until the cod turns light and has a whipped, mousse-like texture. Taste and add salt if required.

Serve on fresh cut bread slices or grilled slices of polenta.

Sprinkle top with some cracked black pepper.

Below is a picture of a plaque in the fish market, that shows the standard sizes that the fish must be.  I believe our guide told us that the sign was hundreds of years old. 

Just outside the fish market, you can catch a gondola ride across the grand canal. Sigh, what a great trip.

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Chocolate Salamé

Easiest Italian "no bake" cookies around!
Plus, what fun to fool your guests with this around the holidays.
There are many versions of chocolate salami, some including nuts and dried fruit, but I liked this simple version taught to me by a darling Italian exchange student, Giulia. She gave me the recipe in the grams, which is easy enough to do with a kitchen scale.  Measuring by weight is much more accurate than measuring cups, so if you have a scale, give it a try.

This is a crunchy fudgy goodness to enjoy.

Makes 1 roll about 10 inches long
Ingredients

2 cups (300 gram) biscuits (plain butter cookies)
2/3 cup (150 gram) butter
1/2 cup (100 gram) sugar
1 cup (200 gram) cocoa powder
2 egg yolks
Dash of rum
Powdered sugar for dusting

Break the biscuits (cookies) into little pieces.
Melt the butter.
Separate the eggs, you will use the yolks only.  Save the whites for something else...
Put the biscuits, the sugar, the butter, cocoa powder and yolks into a bowl.  
Mix all together
Shape and roll your salamé into a long tube.  Chill for about 1 hour.
Dust with powdered sugar
Remove from fridge and let sit for about 30 minutes before slicing and eating.

NOTE- This recipe is traditionally made with uncooked egg yolks, much like tiramisu.  Do don't feed this to the very young, the very old and anyone who is pregnant to be on the safe side, who can all be at more risk to salmonella.  However, you can buy eggs pasteurized in the shell, as the USDA says, “In-shell pasteurized eggs may be used safely without cooking."

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Murano and Burano- Super Day Trip from Venice

Island Hopping!

We were still a little jet lagged having arrived in Venice the afternoon before.  The day we arrived was really grey and rainy, not the kind you'd like to imagine yourself wandering small confusing alleyways with your luggage trying to find your hotel.  After finally having success and finding our darling hotel, we'd freshened up and hit the canals to wander and see some sights.  

The next morning  the sun was up and blue sky and puffy clouds suggested that we ought to hit the islands, Murano and Burano, before more rain came our way.  
A map in hand, we wandered to the location shown to catch the #12 waterbus to the islands.  We had no idea where we were going but a general idea of the direction we needed to head.  The four of us were staying in the same hotel and were meeting two others staying at a different hotel.  We hadn't connected yet in the city, so it was very joyous to meet in the right place, at the right time and just in time to get tickets and board the boat for Murano, our first stop. It took about 25 minutes and a couple of stops at our islands before we saw our destination.

Above is the "Grand canal of Murano".  I have no idea if it's called that, but it was by far the biggest canal we saw on our visit.

All of us ladies had shopping on our mind for Murano. Glass?  Did someone say glass? Of course, we stopped at the first shop we saw, and then almost every other one after that. Much to the guys chagrin.  As you wander the streets and squares, you will eventually come across some more canals, just like the canals of the island of Venice "proper".  Murano is small, and quaint with all of the charm of Venice, on the more personal level. 

After the proper amount of time shopping, we all sat in the sun at a canal side cafe and had a refreshing beverage, or two.

Before you knew it, it was time to meander back to our water bus stop and figure out how to jump to the next island, Burano.

Burano is known for it's colorful houses and it's lace making industry. Only 1,800 people live on Burano and there are no hotels, so essentially this is a good place to visit for the day. They are also known for their Go fish risotto, but more on that in a bit.

Immediately we were smitten by the views of the gorgeous houses and small town vibe.
Okay, okay, there were a 100-200 other tourists milling about, but we are were enchanted by what we were seeing.

We ate in a little outdoor cafe, and below is the view of the courtyard behind us. 
LOL, I especially like the mop in this photo (which I never noticed until today).  

We had wonderful fresh seafood including Go fish risotto (a speciality) and Bussolà Biscotti (at left), which I will have to blog soon.  They were some of the best cookies I've had in a long time.
The waiter told us to dip into our prosecco.
OK, why not?  Like we needed a reason. Ha.

The houses were all different colors, but the shutters, doors, awnings and light fixtures were all colorful too.























I especially loved seeing the laundry and how it beautifully accented the houses.  Later, I wondered if it was strategically chosen to highlight their house...?
Nah, I don't want to believe it.

It was a beautiful day on the Islands.  Don't miss these gems when you visit Venice, it is completely a different vibe.  Very relaxed and quaint.

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