Italian dinner for a weekend and our Sicilian nostalgia…

This weekend is our first since we came back from our holiday in Sicily. Quite privileged to be able to runaway for a week, we enjoyed it fully with walks, swims and eating (as well as cooking!). For me, one of the best way to go back to a place is to eat the food I once eat there…

On our second visit to Sicily, we treat ourselves to a cooking class with Maria and learnt how to cook few very traditional dishes like panelle, homemade pasta alla Norma, Sicilian meatballs and Genovese.. We spent quite a few hours in the kitchen before we can eat these delicious bits and I could not wait to be back and recreate some of it in our home in Lancaster.

What’s more, I came across a mouth watering recipe from Parmigiana Whisperer and was convinced that the Italian dinner it is that I am cooking this Saturday!

Hidden gem of Bagheria (Sicily) beautiful food and peo

For the start, I made simple bruschetta, because why not 🙂 And for primo, I tried to recreate a very simple dish that we had in one of Bagheria’s trattorias which was light and delicious, namely Aglio e Olio.. Simply slice some garlic, and cook gently until soft with some olive oil. Add finely chopped parsley, a bit of chilli flakes to taste and mix with al dente spaghetti and add a little bit more of olive oil if you want… I made a little pan to leave some space for our secondo 🙂

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One of the best if not the best pre-made tomato sauce…

And for secondo, we recreated the meatballs (polpette) with a little bit of a twist from Maria’s recipe, adding some pine-nut and raisins to the mix…

I then proceeded with beautiful recipe from Parmigiana Whisperer, using a tomato sauce that we brought from Italy…

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And here there are, beautiful meatballs… Thank you so much Parmigiana Whisperer!

We thought we’d have some leftovers for Sunday but nope, we finished it all and accompanied it with red wine that we also brought from Sicily.

Highly recommended 🙂

We certainly felt like back to our travels. Important as well for me was to slow down after I finished cooking. I often rush to prepare table, eat so fast that I barely enjoy my own creation… Taking some time to finish off in the kitchen, lay out the table, sit down and talk makes such a difference…

In this colder days, creating a meal of few dishes felt like one of the best thing to do to warm up. I also really love the idea of primo and secondo and can say that meatballs taste so much better when presented as a separate dish.