Light Lunch: Vegetables and a slice of good cheese

Sometimes in Italy we don't feel like cooking elaborate things.
Sometimes a slice of cheese is more then enough to build a balanced lunch.

I always try to have some of my favorite cheese around. Right now I'm having a love affair with this Sheep Cheese (Formaggio di Pecora) that I bought on Supermarket Italy, an online import of italian goods. It's called Gioioso, it's a Primo Sale, meaning that is a lean kind of cheese that didn't season for a long time.

You can choose to use it in many different ways, I have a video on a salad with cheese, green apple and pistachios on my channel, if you want to check it out.

But today it's cold, I want to use my oven to warm up the house and  make some awesome roasted veggies.

Ingredients:
Carrots
Peppers
Zucchini
Eggplant
Potatoes
Garlic

Cut the carrots, zucchini and peppers in thin strips (julienne) and lay them randomly on a baking sheet covered by oven paper (the correct english word is escaping me right now). Cut the eggplant and the potatoes in thin slices and also put them on the same baking sheet. Oil, salt, minced garlic. The cook for 10/15 minutes on a medium temperature oven, depending on the kind of oven you have. I like them particularly well cooked, sometimes I even leave them in there for 20 minutes risking to burn them. Don't do that.
Pictures coming soon! Probably after lunch time, american eastern :-)
Enjoy!
Valentina
RealItalianKitchen

Italian Fast Food: Rainbow Trout and Baked Vegetables

This is a healthy fast food, but nonetheless super FAST! Did I mention is cheap? Oh, and one more thing: totally restaurant worthy..!

Ingredients:

For the Fish:
-You can buy a Rainbow Trout at the fish market for about $6. Mine was a little over a pound fed two people. I always have them clean it for me, gutting fish makes me dizzy, I must have been a fish in my past life...
-Salt
-Rosemary (if you have it, I didn't have it today)
-Garlic
-EVO (extra virgin olive oil)
-a splash of white wine

For the Veggies:
-1 large potato
-1/2 zucchini
-5/6 cherry tomatoes
-EVO
-Salt
-chopped garlic

Oven temperature: 350 F, 180 C

Preparation:

Rinse the fish, put it in an oven pan with some olive oil under it and on top. Clean a clove of garlic, slice it and put it where the guts of the fish used to be, along with some salt and rosemary. Salt the outside of the fish too. DO NOT MAKE CUTS IN THE SKIN.
Add a splash of white wine. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for about 10 minutes.

The veggies: slice thinly the potatoes, the zucchini have to be cut a little thicker (so they have the same cooking time as the potatoes and you don't risk burning dinner), half the tomatoes and sprinkle them on top. Salt, oil, the chopped garlic mostly on top of the tomatoes and on the zucchini.
Bake for about 20 minutes.

TIMING TIPS: put everything together in the oven. The fish will be done before the veggies but you'll have to clean it. With a spoon and a fork remove the skin, remove the meat starting from the center and gently pushing towards the outside, following the direction of the bones. If you use this technique the meat won't have any bones by the time it hits the plate. Trout has very large, long bones, it shouldn't be a problem to spot them.
By the time you're done cleaning the fish, the veggies will be done cooking and you can go eat!

Baked Rainbow Trout during cleaning process

Baked Vegetables

How to serve it: 

Serve one side of the fish per person, put it on a plate and with a spoon gather some of the broth at the bottom of the baking pan and put it on the meat. Set some vegetables on the side.
Serve with a good glass of chilled white wine. And for dessert? A serving of your favorite seasonal fruit: I had an orange today, it that was as sweet as candy :-)

Enjoy!
Valentina
RealItalianKitchen