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Red meat has all kinds of health downsides and, we are not even talking about several other philosophical reasons to not eat meat. Still, steaks and ground meat have a lot of handy uses.

On top of that, eating steaks might be more fun than eating, say, beans, which means it is easier to make children eat meat than beans, which are much healthier.

Eating beans, together with some carbohydrates (like the ones in rice) can give vegetarians amino acids that are usually hard to find with a meat-free diet and is, generally speaking, a much healthier option than meat.

What might not be so obvious, is that beans can also replace meat in shape and not only in nutrients. They can be used to make Hamburgers, Steaks and even “Meatballs”, known in Italian as Polpetta.

The basic recipe would consist of just using cooked beans (you can use canned beans, although a purist cook would cook their own) and smashing them and mixing them with flour.

Because I can’t resist more complex mixtures, and to enhance both flavor and nutrition value, I cooked something equivalent to Trudy’s Ratatouille and mixed it together.

Ingredients

• 250g (9oz) of cooked beans
• 4 tablespoons of flour
• Roasted vegetables (Optional, you may need to add more flour if you use the vegetables)
• 2 spoons of olive oil

Directions

• Cook the beans, if you don’t have them cooked already
• Use the beans at room temperature
• Use the food processor, the blender or a potato masher to smash the beans
• Add the olive oil
• Put in a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon while adding the flour
• Let rest for about 5 to 10 minutes

Serving suggestions

• Make patties for hamburgers and serve with bread, just like any other burger
• Make steaks and cover with bread crumbs, cook in the oven slightly covered with oil.
• Make balls and stir fry to use as “meatballs” (Polpetta)

This recipe makes about 4 big steaks and can be stored in the refrigerator for a few days or frozen for longer periods of time.

And if you want, you can replace the beans with lentils, chickpeas or even a mix of your favorite legumes.

Sun-dried tomatoes were invented in the south of Italy to overcome food shortage during winter and difficult times.

Italian people cut tomatoes in halves and literally hung them in the sun to dry, so they could last much longer. Soaking them in olive oil not only makes them last longer, but also gives them a lovely extra flavor.

Personally, I love sun-dried tomatoes, and when I moved to Italy, one of the first things I did was my own conserve of sun-dried tomatoes.

One of the best things about sun-dried tomatoes is that they have a very strong flavor and, for this reason, I like to use them in sauces.

Last week I decided to mix sun-dried tomatoes with pasta sauce to enhance the flavor, and I added a bit of ricotta for a smoother texture and I just loved the results, so here is my recipe.

Ingredients

• 125g (4oz) of sun-dried tomatoes
• 125g (4oz) ricotta cheese
• 250g (9oz) of your favorite basic tomato sauce
• A tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil

Directions

• Put the sun-dried tomatoes in a food processor and chop them until they become almost creamy
• Add the ricotta and mix them together using the food processor
• Heat the plain sauce with a spoon of olive oil on a low heat
• Turn off the heat
• Add the mix of sun-dried tomatoes and ricotta
• Add it to your favorite pasta

If you find that spinach and ricotta are two ingredients I used together recently, then you are right. Anna is still away and in the meantime, I’m still more economic with the time I spend in kitchen, so I’ve been improving my ability to make gourmet dishes quickly and for a single person.

Since more often than not I have the versatile spinach and ricotta pate in the refrigerator, here is a dish I came up with this week: a delicious spinach and ricotta lasagna with bechamel sauce and topped with cheese.

Ingredients

• Sheets of pasta for lasagna
• The Versatile spinach and ricotta pâté
• 300ml (7 floz) of milk
• 100g (3.5oz) of grated Parmesan
• 1 tablespoon of flour
• A hint of nutmeg

Directions for the bechamel sauce

• Dissolve the flour in the cold milk
• Add the nutmeg
• Cook over a low heat, mixing gently until it starts to thicken
• Remove from heat immediately

Directions for the lasagna

There isn’t really a rule of how many layers of lasagna or how much filling you should have, but I used 7 layers of lasagna and used a layer of filling of about 3mm (0.1in), but feel free to choose your own measurements.

• Spread a thin layer of the sauce on the bottom of the tray
• Spread the Spinach and Ricotta pâté on a layer of lasagna
• Position the layer on the tray, over the sauce
• Add a thin layer of the bechamel sauce
• Repeat the process until you’re done with the layers
• Cover generously with the sauce and make sure also the sides are covered
• Spread the grated cheese over the top and cook in a preheated oven at 200°C (390°F) for about 25 minutes

Now, the final secret. Lasagna cooks much better in a baking dish made of terracotta or other material that allows a slow cooking than a metal one.

I don’t know about you, but to me cooking has always had a social factor.

When I cook for people here in Italy I can spend hours in the kitchen doing things as complex as they can be. I can actually go through all the Italian courses — Primo piatto, secondo piatto, contorno, dolce, and I can bake my own bread to go along with it. But when I cook only for myself I tend to be more economic with the time I spend in kitchen. But, hey, I never meant to say I lower my food standards in any measure!

Since Anna is away and I’m by myself this week, in this post I’ll share a recipe that won’t take more than 10 minutes of your time and requires no skills at all, yet is the kind of food you find in fancy restaurants, and often at unjustified prices.

Got ten minutes to prepare today’s lunch? Let’s go then!

Penne Rigate alla Ricotta e Noci

The first thing to do, of course, is give the dish a fancy Italian name, like they do in restaurants. Penne Rigate alla Ricotta e Noci — so there you go. Penne are those small pipes of pasta and rigate means they are ridged on the surface.

This was my pasta of choice because I wanted the ricotta to be able to fill the penne and because of the rough surface it will adhere better on the outside as well, but you can use other varieties of penne, or fusili. Basically any short pasta.

Ingredients

• 200g (7 oz) of penne rigate, or your pasta of choice
• 150g (5 oz) of ricotta
• 30g (1 oz) of chopped walnuts
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Directions

• Cook the pasta in lightly salted water according to instructions on the package
• When the penne are done, drain, and immediately put them back in the same empty pan
• Add the ricotta and the olive oil and mix them gently
• Add the walnuts
• Optionally, if you like a stronger taste, you can add a some strong cheese, like a small piece of gorgonzola or ground pecorino or parmesan.

This recipe serves two, but another great thing is that just as simply you can cook for yourself alone or you can cook for a dozen — you will only need a bigger pan.

In Italian cuisine, the use of spinach and ricotta together is quite common, and this is a combination that I personally love. Unlike French cuisine, vegetables aren’t usually transformed into completely homogeneous creams in Italy, so a typical Italian dish with spinach and Ricotta will have the ricotta with tiny pieces of spinach.

I must confess that I do like some French-like creamy fillings, and when I found out I had spinach and ricotta on my refrigerator last week, I had to make this very versatile pâté.

Besides the rich flavor of this mix, an interesting thing is that ricotta cheese is relatively low in calories and fat, so it is a great creamy substitute for other cheeses and even mayonnaise, cream and other high fat ingredients.

Ingredients

• 1/2 Onion
• 300g (10 oz) of fresh spinach
• 4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 300g (10 oz) ricotta

Directions

• Wash the spinach leaves and dry well;
• Finely chop the onion and smash the garlic;
• Put the olive oil in a pan on low heat and add the onion and garlic;
• Cook until the garlic and onion are slightly golden, stirring occasionally;
• Add the spinach leaves, stir well, cover with a lid and cook in low heat until the leaves are tender, stirring occasionally;
• Remove from heat and wait until the spinach mix reaches room temperature, then pass it through a food processor until thoroughly mixed
• Still in the food processor, add the ricotta and mix until creamy

Serving suggestions

• Use it in pasta like you would use pesto. After the pasta is cooked mix it and serve;
• Use as a filling for crepes or pancakes;
• Use it as a topping for Bruschetta or simply spread it over toasts;
• Serve it as a pâté with appetizers;
• Use as mayonnaise substitute.

If you ask me what is the single thing I like to cook the most, I’ll answer in a blink of an eye: Bread!

It might be because I’m a full time home based web designer and software developer and just like bread, my work needs its pauses which are perfect to bake bread along the day, but it could as well be because bread has essentially only 4 ingredients and has the ability to enrich itself with almost anything under the sun you can put on it.

Bread exists in practically all cultures around the world, is staple food in many, and has some very interesting nutritive properties. Whole wheat bread is even healthier and, when properly done, absolutely delicious.

Contrary to popular belief, bread is easy to make and is not time consuming if you can alternate it with other tasks. An excellent bread might take hours to make well, but most of the time, you don’t need to do anything, you can just turn your back to your activities and come back to it when it is done. The truth is that all added up, making a fine bread can take less than 30 minutes of your time.

The secrets of bread

• Bread is made of four basic ingredients: Flour, Water, Salt and Yeast. There is no need to put in anything else, but it is possible if you want;
• Bread grows better with cold water than warm water because it grows slowly and this help to increase the strength of its texture;
• You need a pinch of salt even for sweet bread because the salt helps create elasticity for the dough;
• You need about 600ml of water for every 1Kg of flour. Although you might be tempted to put extra flour because it is easier to work, a very moist bread dough makes better bread.
• You don’t need sugar at all in any bread, unless you want to make it sweet. The yeast can get all the sugar it needs breaking the flour into it.

Home made Whole Wheat and Bulgur bread

This recipe will take about 4 to 5 hours to be completed, but you don’t need to work more than about 30 minutes on it, the rest of the time the dough will be resting or cooking. You must prepare the bulgur the day before and we are going to use extra water for the bulgur.

Ingredients

• 1kg (35 oz) of whole wheat flour
• 1 cup of Bulgur
• 25g (1 oz) of salt (aprox a teaspoon)
• 900ml (30 floz) of water
• 25g (1 oz) of fresh yeast or equivalent measure of dry yeast

Directions

• Boil 600ml (20 floz) of water with the salt, turn off the heat, add the bulgur and leave overnight with a cover;
• The following day put 150g (5.2 oz) of flour with 100ml (3.3 fl oz) of water and the yeast in small pieces;
• Mix well but gently until it starts to become sticky and less liquid, you can use a wooden spoon or your hands here;
• Cover with a wet cloth and let it grow for about 30 minutes, until doubles in size and becomes fluffy;
• Use the wooden spoon or your hands to mix it again
• In a big bowl (or in the table, if you want to be traditional) put the rest of the flour as a mountain and make a hole in the center;
• Add the rest of the water to it (300ml or 10 floz) and the mix of yeast;
• Work it gently but firmly for about 5 minutes by stretching the dough and folding it again, add the soaked Bulgur in the process;
• Put in a bowl and cover with a wet cloth, let rest for about an hour, it should more than double in size;
• Work the dough again, make the loaf, put on a bread tray (or any tray that you like);
• Make deep cuts to the surface to allow it to expand as it grows and let rest for another hour;
• Bake in pre-heated oven at 170 oC (340 oF) for 40~50 minutes.

A word of caution

Although very moist, by working the dough, it should become extremely elastic and reduce its stickiness to the hands and everything else. In fact, you shouldn’t even need to grease the tray because of it, but if you are new to bread baking, you might want to lightly grease the tray before putting the bread on it. Until you feel you’ve learned to make a dough that is very elastic.

Making bread is easy, the thing with bread that scares people is that great bread requires a bit of instinct and you need some practice to become a master baker, but getting some bread done is fairly easy. The sooner you start, the sooner you will become a master baker.

Have a lot of fun and bon apetit!