Recipes from La Cucina Del Garga

Okay, I promised the recipes from the cooking class that FHFB and I took in Florence in my last posting.  I even figured out how to scan them from the little cooking booklet that Sharon gave us at our class. 
Woo Hoo!!!  Big Time!!! Really - I'm still struggling with getting photos from my camera to Picassa.  Some days I am extremely fluent in it and some days it's like I never did it before.  Does that ever happen to you with technology??

I'll be posting the appetizer recipe today - yesterday's posting was a little too long and I don't want to just list one recipe after another.

And I think each one of them deserves their own post. 

Our first course was a delicious bruschetta, made with small, fresh, insanely ripe organic Sicilian tomatoes. 



Sharon and I halved the tomatoes and spread them right onto a cookie sheet.  She was so delightful to work with, always smiling and giving great advice and sharing little tidbits of information about the food we were working with along with interesting facts about Tuscan cooking. 

So, so yummy!!

The red pepper flakes used in this recipe are from tiny little dried peppers that are just crushed and added to the tomatoes - not from a jar of crushed red pepper flakes. FHFB and I purchased a little bag of these peppers last year (mainly because I thought they were so cute) and put them into a small Mason jar once the cellophane bad was opened - you can see that I saved the label and taped it to the outside of the jar. 

We ate this appetizer while we prepared the rest of the dishes and drank the white wine - Pomino Bianco from the Frescobaldi vineyards.  I have more information about ithe wine and a picture of the bottle in my last post. 

So, if you can find some ripe Sicilian tomatoes give this simple rustic appetizer a try.  If Sicilian tomatoes aren't available at your farmer's market or grocers try some large organic grape tomatoes - we roast them all of the time here at Frog Hollow Farm and serve them on top of goat cheese on a crostini or on top of fresh ricotta cheese.    Here are two links to recipes from my collection that include roasted tomatoes:

Goat Cheese and Roasted Tomato Crostini
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/goat-cheese-roasted-tomato-crostini-10000002013001/

Ricotta and Roasted Tomato Crostini
http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/ricotta-and-roasted-tomato-crostini-00000000048772/index.html
This particular feature in Real Simple featured 10 different ideas for crostini - all yummy.

See you next time with the recipe and photos for the Pasta Magnifico recipe!

Ciao, bella!

~~~A produce stand at the Mercato Centrale in Florence~~~

Joining Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum!