Italy Puglia cooking vacations and wine tours

Puglia is one of the best regions to go to if you love fresh, tasty and delicious tomatoes.
From June to the end of September, at any market or any street corner in Puglia, you see all the local farmers selling their own fresh and organic tromatoes.
You can buy fresh tomatoes by the kilo or, if you plan on making the traditional tomato sauce preserved in jars for the winter, you can also buy the whole basket. In this case, you will certainly receive a price discount!

If you are an early morning person, you can also go to the countryside and pick the fresh tomatoes yourself or together with the farmer.

How nice is it to eat the fresh tomatoes that you picked yourself a few hours earlier?

This year, also I and Marika experimented with planting tomatoes at our parents’ garden. We had a small production, but it is so nice to make a salad with the fresh and organic tomatoes that we planted ourselves! And we have to say that it is so relaxing!

This is our favorite and very easy tomato salad, perfect on a hot day when you don’t feel like cooking:

INGREDIENTS

1 lb fresh and red tomatoes
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp dry oregano
1 tbsp capers
1 pinch sea salt
20 leaves wild rocket (arugola)

PREPARATION
Wash the tomatoes and cut them in halves.

Cut the rocket arugola leaves in small pieces.

Put the tomatoes and rocket leaves in a salad bowl, together with the oregano, capers and sea salt. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.

Leave to marinate for one hour before serving.
Accompany with a bruschetta toasted bread, with a frisella or with rice.
Enjoy!

What is your favorite tomato salad? how do you make it?

In three days the World Cup starts and everybody in Puglia is getting ready for it with lots of good luck rituals!
You may know that in Southern Italy we are very superstitious.
I and Marika will make this simple and delicious recipe to support our Italian team!
It is made with rice, potatoes, zucchini and tomatoes.
We chose this recipe because it has the Italian flag colours (white, green and red). We chose a blue plate like our Italian team’s t-shirt!

The deal is that if we win the first match on June 14th, I and Marika will be making and eating rice, zucchini and tomatoes on all the following matches …..until the final on July 11th!

RECIPE

4 servings

INGREDIENTS:

- 5 small potatoes (small size)
- 3 zucchini
- 7 oz rice
- 15 cherry tomatoes
- 1/2 white onion
- pinch of sea salt
- a few mint leaves
- pinch of black pepper
- 1 3/4 oz cacioricotta goat cheese
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (intense fruity)
- 1 carrot
- 1 small onion
- 1 celery stalk
- water for the vegetable broth (as necessary)

PREPARATION:
First, prepare the vegetable broth, by pouring water in a pan and adding the carrot, onion and celery. Bring to a boil.
In a baking pan place a layer of potatoes, very thing sliced.
Add a layer of sliced zucchini, the mint leaves and the half onion, very thin chopped.
Add a layer of rice, the black pepper and the sea salt.
Top the rice with the halved cherry tomatoes.
Cover everything with the vegetable broth.
Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 350°F.
Once it is ready and still warm, add the grated cacioricotta goat cheese on top.
Serve adding the intense extra virgin olive oil on top.

And you, what recipes are you making for the World Cup?

In Puglia, to have fresh tomatoes when it is not the season we prepare the so called Pendola tomatoes. In the summer we pick the tomatoes with the vine. We hang the tomatoes with the vine on a rope and store them in a cool environment. The skin turns hard but the juice stays inside! Then in the winter, we simply roast them: the skin breaks down and the tomatoes release all the juice and the taste of the sun!

Do you have any other way to suggest to preserve vegetables and tomatoes?