Hello, I'm an Italian person.

In this column I will be writing easy, quick recipes, using what you can find in every supermarket.

I won't bother you with strange and "exotic" food like "mortadella", "zucchini's flowers" or "soppressata".

I'll leave to talk about them to all those people who want to sell you a "lifestyle"!


And by the way, I apologise for my "chewed English"!

Antonella Caputo

All you need it's love…

Be honest, how many San Valentine's date you have had in your life? If you are not a super top model or the child of oil magnate, I guess you have spent a lot of San Valentine's evening watching program about San Valentine. Doesn't matter if you are boy or a girl, San Valentine's day is one of the tests you have to face every year in your teens. If you can have a date with that girl/boy glanced for a couple of months, your social life will improve. If you have been dismissed with a friendly "I'm sorry, but I have just an appointment. Really I am so sorry…you are so kind…" you will jump in the social Hell.

When you grow up, you think you are out of this game…No way! You will be always bombarded by ads, in which glamorous, gorgeous, shining people meet each other, love each other and, above all, they haven't any "human" problems.

I don't know who was that genius who invented San Valentine' s day -- by the way the "real" San Valentine is not linked with any "love affair" -- I suspect it was a Swiss chocolatier .

Now, if you are in position to have a date with someone, please don't show it off. It's not fair. Don't grin at the face of your single friend, underlining that you are busy on San Valentine's day. Remember those times in which you were single.

If you are single, don't rush in a pub looking for someone to spend the evening with. There will be hundreds of San Valentine's day, and be positive you will have lots of them.

I can give you recipes to enjoy with your lover, if you have one or, more important, enjoy yourself if you are single. And please avoid films like "Love story".

Cocktail "Rossini"
Serve 1
4 /5 strawberries
dry spumante

Wash and dry the strawberries. Put them in a food blender. Mix them. Put the juice in the fridge and let to cool off. Serve in a flute (tall glass) in this proportion: 1/3 of strawberry juice, 2/3 of dry cool spumante.

Rice with strawberries
Serve 2
200 gm rice for risotto
50 gm of butter
200 gm of strawberries
2 tbs of sherry
half Ltr of vegetable, chicken or beef stock (warm)
2 tbs. of parmigiano

Melt 25 gm of butter, add the rice and, stirring, fry for one minute. At this point turn up the heat and add the sherry. When the liquor is absorbed add 2 ladles of broth and add 100gm of chopped strawberries. Stir. When the broth is absorbed, add another ladle's worth. Keep adding broth if the mixture gets too dry. After 10 minutes add the other strawberries (leave a couple of strawberries to one side for decorating). After 15 minutes, test the rice. Seasoning with salt if it needs. Stir. When the rice is ready, add the butter and the parmigiano. Leave a couple of minutes before to serve. Decorate with the left over strawberries.

Shrimps with sesame seeds
Serve 2
400 gm of shrimps
150 gm of mushrooms (chopped)
4/5 tbs. of oil
parsley
2 tbs of sherry
1 tbs of lemon juice
2 tbs of sesame seeds
salt

Warm up the oil, add the chopped mushroom and leave to cook for a couple of minutes. Add the shrimps and the sesame seeds and a pinch of salt. Cook for 10 minutes. Add the sherry and the lemon juice. Before to serve dust with parsley.

Vegetable "au gratin"
Serve 2
200 gm of potatoes
200 gm of tomatoes
200 gm of aubergine
2 slices of bread
extra virgin olive oil
thyme
salt and pepper

Slice the vegetables, roughly 3mm of thickness.
Butter an oven dish, put the slices into it (for a nice effect put the sliced vegetables in a spiral way starting from the centre of the saucepan, alternating the colours)

Make the bread into breadcrumbs. Mix the crumbs with thyme, salt, pepper and the oil. Sprinkle the mix on the vegetables and add the oil. Put in the oven at 200 degrees C for 30 minutes.