Meatballs with cheese and eggs

This is  a typical Molise recipe. It is present in every town with little differences from a place to another. It is a very simple recipe but, at the same time, very delicious.

Quantity for 6 people

Cooking: 15 minutes

Preparation: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

For the meatballs

300 g of bread crumbs

150 g of cheese, 6 eggs

Parsley, salt

For the dressing

200 g ripe tomatoes

2 sweet peppers, 1 onion

Extra virgin olive oil, salt

Preparation:

Wash peppers, remove seeds, cut in small pieces, slice the onion, gathered all in a saucepan and fry with a little oil.Add the chopped tomatoes, salt and cook for a few minutes.

 Separately, prepare a firm dough with the beaten eggs, bread crumbs, grated cheese, washed and chopped parsley and a pinch of salt. Make balls with the size of a walnut, then dip them gently in the sauce and cook a few minutes. Serve the meatballs hot.

TIRAMISU’

Tiramisu , (Italian spelling: Tiramisù; lit. "pick me up" or "lift me up") is a very famous  Italian dessert. It is made of ladyfingers (Italian: Savoiardi) dipped in coffee, layered with a whipped mixture of egg yolks and mascarpone cheese, and flavored with cocoa. The recipe has been adapted into many varieties of puddings, cakes and other desserts.

There is some debate regarding the origin of Tiramisu. Accounts by Carminantonio Iannaccone and Nathan Lopez (as researched and written about by The Washington Post) establish the creation of Tiramisu by him on 24 December 1969 in Via Sottotreviso while he was head chef at Treviso, near Venice. 

Alternatively, it may have originated as a variation of another layered dessert, Zuppa Inglese  It is mentioned in Giovanni Capnist's 1983 cookbook I Dolci Del Veneto  while Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary gives 1982 as the first mention of the dessert. Other sources report the creation of the cake to have originated in the city of Siena. Some confectioners were said to have created it in honour of Cosimo III on the occasion of his visit to the country.

The translation of the name Italian tiramisù (tirami sù) means "pick-me-up" (metaphorically, "make me happy"). This may refer to the caffeine in the espresso and effect of cocoa used in the recipe.

Ingredients

•  Mascarpone (a typical Italian cheese)500 gr
•  Yolks 4
•  Bitter Cocoa 50 gr
•  Sugar 100 gr
•  Coffee Ristretto 6 cups
•  Lady fingers  1 pack
•  Egg white  3

Preparation:

In a bowl mix the mascarpone with the sugar and egg yolks (use eggs at room temperature), using a wooden spoon or a spatula for cakes

                       Whip the egg whites until stiff steadfast with electric           whips and mix everything.

                        Wet Lady fingers quickly with coffee and coat the bottom        of a rectangular pot (about 20 * 30 with them  taking care         not to wet them too much or little

Pour over a half of mascarpone cream and dusted with cocoa, dropped from a sieve. Make another layer with biscuits placing them in the opposite direction to the previous ones. Pour over the remaining cream and sprinkle with cocoa. Let the tiramisu rest in the refrigerator at least 12 hours.

LENTIL SALAD

LENTIL SALAD ( Georgia's )

INGREDIENTS

1 cup of lentil
1 red pepper
1 onion
tinned salmon
parsley
oregano
vinegar
salt
olive oil

Boil the lentils for 5' and change the water. Boil again until they are soft.Seive them and leave them to cool. Put them in a salad bowl, cut the pepper in pieces, chop the parsley, skin the onion and cut it in pieces, add them in the bowl along with the other ingredients, mix them, leave the salad for a quarter so that everything is well mixed and serve. ( you can replace the lentils with dry beans )

The Crop That Can Feed the World?

An enset farmer tends to his crops in Ethiopia.

(International Livestock Research Institute)

Enset is a plant native to Ethiopia that is often referred to as the false banana because, not surprisingly, of its resemblance to the banana plant. It is grown in the less arid highlands of the southwestern region of Ethiopia. Enset contributes to improved food security for approximately 15 million Ethiopians and, according to The Christensen Fund, there is potential for expanding consumption of the crop. Over the coming weeks, Food Tank will feature different ways in which the enset plant has significant environmental, social, and economic benefits for farmers and consumers.

Global temperatures are expected to rise 4°C above pre-industrial levels within this century, which will likely harm agricultural production and increase hunger and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to a recentreport from the World Bank. In fact, warming of 1.2-1.9°C—which is expected to occur by 2050—is projected to increase undernourishment in Sub-Saharan Africa by 25-90 percent from present levels. 

Enset (Ensete ventricosum), also known as the false banana plant, is a relatively understudied crop, but it may provide a solution to the agricultural challenges of a warming planet. Enset supports 10 million people in southern Ethiopia and is known as the tree against hunger, due to its resistance against drought and soil erosion. In fact, interviews conducted with Ethiopian farmers suggest that enset-dependent populations have never suffered from a famine. 

Enset’s resistance to the agricultural stresses of a warming planet is largely attributable to the fact that enset fields do not experience soil erosion. The accumulation of litter from the enset plant creates heavy mulch and soil organic matter, which increases the fertility of the soil. Additionally, enset’s perennial leaf canopy improves soil quality by decreasing soil temperatures, and, in doing so, decreases rates of organic matter decomposition. Research from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) suggests that enset fields are far more sustainable in the long run than the fields of annual crops in Ethiopia, and, because of their ability to improve soil quality, enset fields can have be continuously productive for decades, if not centuries. 

Additionally, once enset is established, it can tolerate occasional years of drought or a short rainy season. In fact, enset fields have survived droughts that damaged annual cereal crop fields. Also, enset fields require almost no tending once they are established, further contributing to the crop's long-term sustainability. 

In addition to this long-term durability, enset fields are also able to sustain high population densities, which is increasingly important as the world population grows. The number of people living in developing countries is projected to rise from 5.9 billion in 2013 to 8.2 billion in 2050 and to 9.6 billion people in 2100, according to the U.N. Population Division. The use of land for enset production is commonly regarded as a response to higher population densities, due to enset’s high carrying capacity. While the human carrying capacities for different cropping systems are difficult to compare due to a lack of data, researchers speculate that the carrying capacity of enset is greater than other crops for the same agroecology and inputs. In fact, a study by Dr. Tadesse Kippie Kanshie at Dilla University reported that the carrying capacity of land planted to enset is around 0.2 hectares for a household of seven people, opposed to 1.5 hectares of land with annual grain.

Enset currently feeds some of the most densely populated agricultural communities in the world through a sustainable and reliable process. More research is needed in order to determine if this crop can be grown in other environments and climates in order to alleviate malnourished communities around the world. 

by Katherine Theiss

GREEK SALAD

                                                          GREEK SALAD
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

                        
 INGREDIENTS

 2 fresh tomatoes
 1 cucumber
 1 red pepper                                     r
 1 green pepper
 1 small onion                        

 feta cheese
 olive oil
 salt
 oregano
 some olives

In a bowl, cut the tomatoes and peppers in slices, skin the cucumber and cut it in slices,too. Skin the onion and cut it in pieces, mix the ingredients, add the feta cheese in cubes, the olive oil, the olives and the oregano.

             

 VINO COTTO       -      COOKED WINE

The cooked wine tells the history of Molise territories: it is a product that can melt in a charming set of flavors: the environment, the vines, the history, the tradition and culture of our land.
The production is still strongly linked to tradition, handed down from father to son over the centuries. In the past  to every child born was assigned a small barrel of mulled wine, not to be consumed before reaching the age of majority and but in particular happy occasions, such as weddings.

In addition, the mulled wine, for each family represented the sign of hospitality. He was always on the table in the best deals and frequently used as a remedy in the treatment of many diseases such as colds, coughs, sore heart.

Today this production has allowed the preservation of  biodiversity wine and it is used as a normal table wine, but is most often used as a dessert wine, and has a high alcohol content. We distinguish a dry type and a sweet one for the presence of residual sugar.
It varies in color from red to amber red, intense and characteristic smell, the taste is full-bodied, with perception of caramel in the sweet version.

Preparation: The must, from any of several local varieties of grapes, is heated in a copper vessel where it is reduced in volume by up to a third. The must is not to undergo fermentation before it is heated. Once reduced and allowed to cool it is aged in storage for a few years. 

Less sausages to live longer