Sfincione and a quick dinner

I spent the day in Palermo on Tuesday doing some shopping and walking around the city. I got a quick lunch at a panificio near Teatro Massimo that has really good sfincione. Traditional sfincione is thick focaccia bread topped with a little tomato sauce, onion, anchovy and maybe some grated cheese (usually caciocavallo). Some bread shops make more than just one type and the toppings can vary widely. It's very basic Sicilian street food and you really can't go wrong ordering it. It's also served a lot in bars as an accompaniment with a cocktail during aperitivo time. They usually cut it up into small squares and you can munch on it with your negroni before dinner. This is one of my favorite things about living in Sicily: the overwhelming presence of well made negronis and salty snacks before dinner...

Most sfincione I've had in Sicily is good, in fact, I can't EVER remember having a bad one, but some bakeries just do it better than others and this place is one of them. I walked in with my heart set on a slice with prosciutto, arugula and parmigiano...but they were all out. I settled for olive and tuna and found a bench in a little square about a block from the shop. The focaccia was dressed with a very light coating of tomato paste, olives, tuna, mozzarella and a few leaves of parsley. Perfect.

I got home late that night and Scott had been to the market already to buy some things for dinner: bread, fennel, carrots, thinly sliced chicken breasts and a bottle of wine. Side note here: clearly, Scott purchased this chicken because I hardly ever buy chicken breasts. I'm much more of a thigh girl. Braised chicken thighs are my favorite. I'm getting hungry for it right now as I type this.

Back to Tuesday night: we were hungry, it was getting a little late and we didn't feel like messing with a lot of things in the kitchen. I turned on the oven, scrambled an egg, got some breadcrumbs out of the freezer and drizzled some olive oil on a sheet pan. The chicken was dipped in egg, then breadcrumbs and placed on the pan, I drizzled the top of it with a little more oil and then it went into the hot oven for about 15 minutes. While the chicken was in the oven Scott made a fennel salad: thin slices of fennel, shreds of carrots, golden raisins, parsley, a pinch of cumin and a splash of olive oil and red wine vinegar. We also whisked together a little sulla honey and dijon mustard as a super quick and seriously tasty sauce for the chicken. Think of it as a healthier version of chicken fingers with honey mustard. There's also the added bonus of having less to clean up after dinner and you can't beat that.

We finished off the meal with a ridiculous amount of camembert and bread - which of course cancelled out the lower calorie version of the chicken. Whatever - I am who I am and that means I will probably never turn down an oozing piece of camembert on crusty bread. I refuse to apologize for that!

A vegetable tart fit for a carnivore

I know it looks kind of like a pizza from this angle, but it's not.

I was sitting in the kitchen the other day listening to my usual round of NPR podcasts and out of nowhere something popped into my head: pie. Before I knew it I was digging my hands into butter and flour and making some pâte brisée. I wasn't sure at that point what it was going to turn into, but I figured that by the time I pulled the rested dough out of the fridge I would have an idea. I remembered seeing a recipe in Gourmet last winter about a mushroom and farro pie. Conveniently, I had farro and some dried porcini mushrooms on hand. I love it when dinner happens like this - you know, when you try to make something out of the ingredients you have in the kitchen. It's like putting together a tasty puzzle. Projects are fun.

I cooked the farro, soaked and drained the porcini then opened up the fridge to see what else I could throw in. This is what I scrounged up: roasted red peppers, onions and garlic from dinner the night before, a little red sauce I made for a pizza 2 days prior, a little passata (tomato puree) that needed to be used up and some chopped celery leaves. I combined all of this with the farro and mushrooms and then added a little balsamic vinegar, some of the porcini liquid, salt, pepper, a touch of cocoa and cinnamon, and an egg. After resting the dough for a few hours I pressed it into a pan and par baked it. The the filling went in and I showered the top of it with some parmiggiano.

I popped the tart in the oven, put on a Fresh Air podcast, poured a

glass of red wine, grabbed a People magazine (it's my thing, let it go) and retired to the couch. At any point during all of this did I look for the Gourmet recipe? Umm, no. Here's where I should explain something about myself.

I rarely follow recipes, meaning actually measuring ingredients out and following rules. I tend to follow recipes more when I'm baking, but I have to admit that even then I sometimes make little changes. My usual thing is to just take ideas from a recipe and go with it. Also, I have an obsession with trying to use up what's in my fridge and cupboard - I'm an obsessive recycler. So I'm all for substituting ingredients and spices whenever I need to. My aversion to rules is working to my advantage right now while living in Italy. I'm convinced that Italians think some rules are specifically made to be broken. Stopping at red lights, waiting in lines, customer service...Italians hate all of these things. Thanks to my ancestors I have that same rebellious streak in me. I'm sure it can be traced back through my bloodline. But that's neither here nor there.

I served the tart with a simple fennel and celery salad: fennel and celery sliced very thin with olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice and zest and some more chopped celery leaves (a Bittman inspired recipe you can find here). The tart was so filling and honestly tasted meaty, and that's not a word I throw around lightly. I NEVER say things like that about vegetarian dishes, but this was something special.

Here's a link to the Gourmet recipe Mushroom and Farro Pie. It looks delish.