My Favorite Meal In Tuscany

We spent 10 days in Northern Italy and Tuscany for our honeymoon.  It was AMAZING.  We had a great time and ate so many wonderful meals.  My favorite meal of our trip was in a small hill town in the Chianti region of Tuscany.  We stopped in Montefioralle on our first day in Tuscany, arriving on a wind-y Tuscan road to the top of a hill where we parked near a vineyard and walked in to the town.  It is a small, sleepy town (we didn't really see any locals when we were walking around) with narrow stone streets with colorful doors and shutters.  So cute!  We walked around the town and noticed an open doorway with a menu displayed.  The menu looked simple and rustic so we decided to try it out.  It didn't open for another year so we walked around a bit more, took lots of photos of the amazing views and then walked back to eat.  

The restaurant was a typical enoteca in Italy.  We saw nonna (grandma) in the kitchen cooking while the rest of the family waited and served the customers.  The minute I walked down the hallway to the restaurant, I had such a warm and homey feeling from this place.  I knew it was going to be a good experience.  And our view was amazing! The open air restaurant overlooked a vineyard and the Tuscan hills were in the backdrop.  

OK- now to the food... we started with a bottle of Chianti Classico (we were in the Chianti region) and it was a great start and one of my favorite wines (and believe me, we drank ALOT of wine).  For antipasti we shared the special of the day, fresh figs from their garden and prosciutto.  The figs were juicy and sweet and worked so well with the saltiness of the prosciutto.  

For the first course I had a panzanella salad and Ryan had picci pasta with a traditional tomato sauce.  Panzanella has many different variations, but the common factor is day old bread.  My salad has bread, tomatoes, cucumber, sliced red onion and fresh basil.  They gave me olive oil and red wine vinegar to dress my salad how I wanted.  The panzanella was so fresh and light. The tomatoes were so ripe and gorgeous and the bite of the red wine vinegar brightened up the whole dish.  Ryan's picci pasta was so rustic and simple.  Picci pasta is similar to regular spaghetti, it is just a little "fatter" and I believe it is made with semolina instead of eggs, so it is a little heavier than regular spaghetti.  We had picci pasta several times in Italy and it was always cooked to perfection.   The tomato sauce that topped the picci pasta was simple and tasted amazing.  

We both chose very hearty dishes for our main course.  I chose Italian sausage with a side of Tuscan white beans and spinach and Ryan chose short ribs and a side of the beans and spinach.  My Italian sausage was amazing.   It is hard to describe but it was juicy and a little spicy.  The presentation was so rustic and authentically Italian.  The Tuscan white beans and spinach were also a lesson in simplicity.  Both perfectly cooked, they were seasoned with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and a little lemon.  

The meal was absolutely perfect, the view, the tastes, the wine, the family serving us.  Montefioralle was my favorite Tuscan town and I think this restaurant is a main reason why it holds a special place in my heart. 

Saturday Night Dinner in 30 minutes

Ryan and I made a great dinner on Saturday. I'm going to go ahead and take credit for the recipe because I went grocery shopping Saturday morning and picked up a few things and came up with this meal: Sweet and Spicy Chicken sausage with baked redskin potatoes, zucchini and squash over fresh spinach. yum!

I have posted the baked redskin potato recipe before (click here)and I mistakenly said they were roasted redskin potatoes, but they are, in fact, baked. Anyway, they have to bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, so we started prepping. I washed and scraped out the eyes of each potato and quartered them and put them in a large bowl. I usually make this with peppers and onions, but I thought I'd mix things up a bit and so Ryan chopped yellow squash and zucchini and added it to the bowl with the redskin potatoes. Ryan also chopped 1 and 1/2 white onions and added them to the bowl. My only tip for preparing this dish is to make sure all of the ingredients are chopped in to equal size pieces so everything cooks evenly. I coated the ingredients generously with olive oil and added a lot of diced garlic, salt and pepper, dried basil, dried parsley, and crushed red pepper. That went on a foil-lined baking sheet and in the oven at 425 degrees for about 2o minutes. Another tip for this recipe is to make sure the potatoes, squash, zucchini and onion are spread out on the baking sheet. Check after about 10 minutes and stir the ingredients a little so each side can be baked.

After we checked on the potatoes and vegetables and stirred them, Ryan started on the chicken sausages. We have had a variation of these before, and I think they are nice to have every now and then. There are so many kinds of gourmet sausages and it's fun to try them out. Ryan cooked the sausages on a grill pan for about 15 minutes until they were browned slightly on the outside and warmed through.

While everything was cooking I came up with the idea of serving the baked potatoes and vegetables over fresh spinach. To add another kick of flavor, I drizzled balsamic vinegar over the "salad" and also added some lemon juice. The sausages were incredibly moist and I really liked the sweet and spicy flavor. The salad was a nice surprise, the balsamic paired nicely with the potatoes and zucchini and squash. It was a great Saturday night dinner that only took about 30 minutes to make! Take that Rachael Ray...