A Taste of Italy: 15 Recipes for Summer

Pork Loin Spiedino with Pine Nut, Garlic, and Currant Soffritto

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The theme of the month, here at The Kitchn, is Escapes! We are dreaming about getting away to Italy, eating gelato in the city or fresh mozzarella in the country. We are thinking about all the great foods of the world that we have yet to try, and new things we'd like to experience. Today we're kicking off this month of Escapes with two recipe roundups: one from Asia, and one from Italy!

We love the fresh, improvisational nature of much Italian cooking. It always seems so right for summer, so fresh and vibrant. Here is a look back at 15 Italian-inspired recipes from our archives.

TOP ROW
• 1 Pork Loin Spiedino with Pine Nut, Garlic, and Currant Soffritto
• 2 Homemade Thin Crust Pizza
• 3 Spinach, White Bean, and Taleggio Pizza
• 4 Easy Ricotta Gnocchi
• 5 Basic Tomato Sauce (with Optional Zing!)

MIDDLE ROW
• 6 Eggplant Caponata Sandwiches with Mozzarella
• 7 Paul's Uova In Purgatorio
• 8 Spaghetti with Mascarpone, Meyer Lemon, Spinach, and Hazelnuts
• 9 Velvety Broccoli and Feta Pasta
• 10 Caprese Salad

BOTTOM ROW
• 11 Orange, Olive, and Fennel Salad
• 12 Panzanella
• 13 Il Buco's Ricotta Fritters with Saba
• 14 Back to Basics Cherry Pie
• 15 Italian Jam Crostata

(Images: See linked posts for full image credits)

Comments (3)

I´d like to add two more Italian summer classics to the list:

Prosciutto e Melone - Slice and remove the rind of a canteloupe, wrap a thin slice of Prosciutto di Parma.

Deep Fried Zucchini Flowers - Make a batter of about 1/2 flour and 1/2 COLD beer with a little salt. Dip and fry the flowers until golden brown - you can fill them with mozerella and/or anchovies if you like.

and while you are frying....

Venitian Apple Treats - Core and slice an apple horizontally so you have little rounds with a hole in the middle. Make the same beer batter as above but add sugar instead of salt. Dip the apple slices, fry and serve with a light coating of powdered sugar.

Buon appetito from Italy!
http://lapsushumanus.blogspot.com/

I really wish the Italy would manage to forbid to use the word "Italian" for any dish that looks a bit Mediterranean...
Foreign cooks would than have to use a bit more fantasy to sell their recipes.

e.g. "Spiedino" means skewer. So no skewer, no spiedino.

Soffritto is the base and the beginning of almost any Italian dish and, as the name suggests, is fried on a small heat in a fry pan. In the soffritto you are supposed to gently roast your dish. If you are grilling obviously you don't need a soffritto and you will be already using a marinade to flavour the dish.

Feta is from Greece and not from Italy.

Beans on a pizza? (°_°)
(Well at least you spared me the baked beans pizza)

Pazzaglia recipes are actually the original thing.