Mangiamo!

  We are really (really, really) looking forward to hopping a plane and heading to our beloved "Nut" in Umbria.

I assume if you are reading this, all 7 of you....including my folks....and Johnny...  I assume you know that we call our little home away from home "The Nut". It already had a name, "Il Noce" which translates to "The Walnut".  There is a big walnut grove on the property. We just ran with it.

  We are pretty much good to go...

  The house and garden here are in good hands, thanks to Pedro, my garden guru, and our favorite house sitters in the world, Anna & James. We just have the last minute details to do, and then off we go. 

  Of course, we've been watching our girlish figures, so we can indulge when we get to Italy.

  Like always...so....

   I can't wait to have time to shop, and cook and eat all our favorite dishes. And we can't wait to visit some of our favorite trattorie and osterie!  I thought I'd just throw a zillion photos of tasty food up here to get me salivating.

  Care to pull up a chair and join me?

  We are vegetarians, and we love simple, good food. Though I love to cook, my 'repertoire' is rather tiny. Tasty, but not much variation.

  That being said...here are some very typical lunch and dinner moments over the past few years:

I love adding any type of beans to a salad.
I also love going 'savory' with ricotta...almost never sweet.

Oh, man.....

A dinner salad with left over roasted veggies.
Grilled toast with olive oil and pecorino...not bad at all.

More of that yummy ricotta.

  We like grilled bread with good olive oil, tomatoes and various salads...and cheese. We love our ricotta, pecorino, parmesan reggiano...you get the picture...

I always have a package of breadsticks on hand.
I like the rosemary kind.

I love egg salad, too. Mmmmmm.

One year we got into seeds. Lots of seeds!
(it's lookin' a little seedy around here...)

Vegetarians eat well, man.

Super simple lunch.

I want to get more of this cheese...baked ricotta. We bought it in Rome.
It turned into the meal below...

Yes, please.

We often eat on the terrace. We have our new marble-topped table now.
This was from last year.

The question is...
Poached eggs or mozzarella?
I honestly don't know.

I am so happy our landlord put in an oven for me!
Roasted veggies( potatoes here) are a favorite of ours.

Roasted potatoes and artichokes? I think I will.

You get the theme here, yes? Roasted veg, fresh salads, good cheese....wine, always wine...

I love making panzanella salad with old bread.

My version of shakshuka.
Eggs are good protein for us.

This was an odd mix of leftovers.
Baked beans from our dear landlord, scrambled eggs and pan roasted broccolini.
Why not?

My grandma always made new potato and green bean salad.
Perfect with onion and sage 'pizza' and tomatoes.

Yes. Avocado toast.
Well, when there are avocados available....

A little caprese style salad.

  Tired of food yet?

  We've only scratched the surface, my friends...

  We love to find odd places to have lunch. We have a few favorites, mostly small truck stop types of eateries. We love them. Lunch only, Monday-Friday. Lots of worker dudes at the tables. Good, honest food...for a nice price.

  Always the same menu, just differences in the tasty sauces...We order pasta or risotto, mostly.

You can tell the pasta is hand made.

Fancy!

Gnocchi with a sun dried tomato sauce.
It was delightful.

More of this sort of yumminess.

I can't tell you.
I mean, how good this was...

Found this in a little hill town way out there.

Creamy and garlicky!

Spring vegetable risotto is a favorite.

I remember this...Farro risotto with a sauce in the style of 'cacio pepe'.

Ravioli with pecorino and fave beans.

  

Don't get me wrong, I like to make pasta at The Nut, too. Sometimes by hand!

This ....

...became this.
I made that pasta!

There's always a jar of good pesto and a bag of good pasta in the cupboard.
An easy dinner. Just add salad!

I grilled some radicchio to have with rice and peas.

A simple onion and garlic risotto at home.

Polenta with buttery leeks.
You can't go wrong.

When it's so cold in March, I like to make soup...leftovers turn into
'ribollita', a sort of bread soup.

I love grilling veggies, of course.
This was for a pot luck with pals.

One day, there were shoshito peppers at the market, so I had to get some.
Pan roasted until charred, a squeeze of lemon, good flakey salt...
And pecorino. Just because.

Also for a pot luck, these marinated and roasted onions.
Yeah, they were that good.

 With veggies in mind, I can't resist ordering them when they are on a menu...

What we get when we ask for veggies...sometimes.

A vegetarian antipasto works as a main dish for me!

This was in Venice. There are loads of places that serve cicchetti, small bites, and
sometimes they have all sorts of wonderful veggie dishes to choose from.
They'll just make you a mixed plate. Or two...to share.

Grilled vegetable plates are almost always wonderful.

  I swear, we're almost done.

  Thanks for hanging in there.

  Johnny loves his bread, and especially in Umbria, where you have the best olive oil ever.

Just a little treat with a glass of wine.

Simple bruschetta with loads of olive oil and rubbed with garlic.

Heaven on a platter..
Part of a luncheon we enjoyed after helping pals harvest olives.
Mmmmm.

  I think that the only other thing Johnny loves as much as bread, is cheese.

  He says "it's the main meal of an artist. Bread, cheese and wine." 

  I can't disagree.

You don't get any simpler than really good mozzarella served
with really good Umbrian olive oil. And a hunk of bread.

Cheese plates in Italy are simply amazing.

  Back at The Nut, my version of bread and cheese...

Mmmmmm...I grilled the oozy one.

  Bread, cheese and wine are the simple life, no doubt about it.
  But for me, when I dream of being back at The Nut....I kind of dream of this.....