BANGERS AND.....

"You're going to cook sausages with apples and almonds?!!" exclaimed my Sicilian friends with that incredulity which they manifest whenever a mixture of sweet and savoury is proposed [unless the hapless foreigner's intention is to cook coniglio [rabbit] in agrodolce, which for some reason doesn't feature on the "prohibited dishes" list].  Anyway, I made the dish of sausage roasted with apples, almonds, sage and lemon juice and the result was very good.  For those of you in Italy, the recipe is in the March edition of the Conad supermarket chain's free magazine.

A SIMPLE SUNDAY LUNCH

Well......

My favourite - roast artichokes!

It wouldn't have been a Modican lunch without scacce.

There had to be arancini, too!

Did you think there wouldn't be pasta?

And here comes the main course!

Now for a nice siesta......

TUESDAY PIZZA

Circumstances of high tension in my life have brought pizza night forward from Friday to Tuesday this week, on an "I deserve" basis.  One of my favourite combinations is that of sausages and peppers and what better way to enjoy them could there be than on a Modican pizza?

SAUSAGE STEW WITH A KICK

The recipe for a sausage and vegetable stew in the November edition of the Conad supermarket chain's Bene Insieme magazine turned out well:  the stew contains mushrooms, carrots, tomato pulp, rosemary [only I didn't have any so flavoured it with sage], onion, vegetable stock and, as you would expect, sausages. I added some pumpkin and potatoes [unpeeled] because I had them. The recipe tells you to add some white wine and rum but I didn't have any rum and can't stand the taste of it in any case; I did, however, have some Calvados in the cupboard so chucked a drop or four of that in. I found it did the trick!

AN INVENTION AND A SICILIAN BARBECUE

A couple of weeks ago I had some bought pasta sfoglia [puff pastry] left after I'd made my "beauty parlour dessert" to take to a barbecue in the Ragusan hills.  This is the idea I came up with to use it:

Mashed potato parcels

Mash some potatoes with butter, a little nutmeg, a tablesp of grated ragusano or Parmesan cheese  and stir in some cumin seeds.

Next, line a baking tray with foil and then baking paper and lay the puff pastry on it. Cut the pastry into squares.

Sprinkle a little pane grattugiato [fine fresh breadcrumbs, which we can buy in packets in Italy] on each square and then dollop about a teasp of the potato mixture on each one.  Draw up the corners of each square to form little parcels, press the edges together as best you can and then brush the parcels with beaten egg.

Bake at 180 C for 20 mins.  Serve warm rather than hot or at room temperature, sprinkled with a few more cumin seeds.

I thought you would like to see the rest of the barbecue food:

Spring rolls made by a Japanese friend.

Where there's my friend Roberta, there are yummy sausage rolls!

There were quiches

and several varieties of rice salad

plus a colourful couscous salad.

There were grilled aubergines.

Focaccia is always good but when it's hot and made by Grazia,
you know it's going to be extra-good!

There was also piping hot pane condito.

It wouldn't be a Sicilian party without chicken cotolette

and a barbecue means that there will be Sicilian sausages.
These were flavoured with red wine and fennel.

Now for the dolci:

There were several crostate

along with this delicious concoction.

There was cheesecake

and, of course, tiramisù.

You've got to be quick if you're photographing food at a
Sicilian party and this choux pastry creation
 was half-gone before I managed it!

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you -  my "mashed potato parcels" were popular!

A SORT OF COTTAGE PIE - WITH A MYSTERY INGREDIENT

This recipe, a sort of Italian cottage pie, is from a book called Cucina Low Cost. Only garlic and onion are cooked in olive oil prior to adding the meat but, in addition to the mince - in this case, a mixture of beef and pork but it could be mince of your choice - there is an ingredient I had never heard of before, pasta di salame. I was rather irritated with myself about this but was comforted by the fact that none of the Sicilians I asked knew what it was either.  I did an internet search and, although I found some recipes requiring this ingredient, none of them told me what it was. "From the best supermarkets", said a note in one of these recipes but no one had heard of it in the local supermarket.  By this time, I had begun to suspect that we were probably talking about a sausage mix and at my next stop, the butcher's, this was confirmed.  My butcher seasons his sausage meat with fennel seeds, sage and red wine so some of this to put in the dish seemed a great idea to me!

One thing I don't miss about Britain is most British cheese and I cannot stand cooked Cheddar cheese, so I was happy to sprinkle a mixture of ragusano and grana cheese over the top of the dish.  Oh, and some 'strattu was stirred in with the meat, onion and garlic, too.

I was pleased with the result and will definitely be making this again.

LUNCH AT THE CAVA

Yes, I was lucky enough to be invited to yet another feast on Saturday, this time a gathering of friends at the Cava d'Ispica.

The Sicilian countryside has a beauty all of its own

despite the cables:

Can you spot the wild asparagus?

I hope this poppy wasn't feeling too lonely:

I'm glad this mill wheel has been preserved:

And now to the food!

There were home-cured olives and sun-dried tomatoes

and perfect homemade pane consato

flavoured with olive oil and origano:

:

There were freshly picked grapefruit, oranges and cedri, the latter best eaten just as they are, with seasalt:

There was asparagus risotto

and spaghetti al limone:

Meanwhile, a fine fire was blazing

helped by these:

Soon it was time to add these

and, a little later, to eat them

with simply cooked, delicious chicken:

Then there was cheesecake

and sponge cake

and I took along some rather imperfectly formed Welshcakes:

But the star turn was undoubtedly this tray of perfectly formed, mini cassate siciliane.  It is, after all, nearly Easter!

Grazie per la festa, amici.