Cooking Courses in tuscany: some words that I couldn’t imagine how would have become important.

I started the cooking courses job 8 years ago with a friend of mine, Lella, that one with me in our company (Cuoche in Vacanza) logo image

At that time I worked as sociologyst many hours a day and it was very hard to grow 2 small daughters and staying with them just a couple of hours. I wanted to spend more time in family, but I had to earn some money to grow the girls.

And so, thinking to a “seasonal” job, I started this adventure of cooking courses in Tuscany, convinced that it would have not brought me many hours away from home.

I know it was a leap in the dark following my passions: cooking, meeting people, passing down my granny’s tips, speaking english; anyway I started this job with the spirit of a Hobby more than a real job, conscious that I had to wait before earning enough.

This was a real investment, a bet to improve the quality of my family life. During the first 2 years we didn’t work hard, no many people asked for cooking courses in Tuscany and I was very busy to introduce myself and staff, building the cooking courses menu and contacting the holiday home’s manager here in Tuscany.

After the second year we started receiving mails from abroad;

many people asked for our private cooking courses in Tuscany service and I got the Professional Chef Diploma  after attending the Italian Cooking Academy in Florence.

Now, after 8 years,  because of my job I’m spending many hours far from home.

The small company named “Cuoche in Vacanza (Cooks on Holiday)” is very busy from March to November.

We’re experienced in Private Dinners and Cooking Courses in Tuscany…anyway my daughters have grown up now 

Someone tell me that it’s a very hard job: driving far away, cooking and cleaning one day after another, but I love this job so much and I’d not change it with any other.

Well every year during Winter, when sun is no more shining and I can weekly write on my blog, I feel the lack of customers, students, I’d say friends. Yes, because it’s true that they pay to have a service, but in many cases we become friends and we keep in touch. Often we send messages each other and we spend time together when someone come in Tuscany again.

That’s why I liked making a gallery about our 2016 cooking courses in Tuscany;

I often see these images running continuosly on my Mac desktop to any hour of the day and then I think to the happy time spent together and to the incredible places and landscapes that I’m lucky to explore during our trips to the Holiday Homes in Tuscany where our guests and customers are on vacation.

Spring 2017 is knocking on the door, and we’re ready to meet new people interested to improve their way of cooking or just learning some tricks or secret from Tuscan cuisine. Anyway each year is perfect as it is, with flavors, people and smiles that are similar to fire:

always the same, always different.

I can’t forget any job season spent at the holiday homes of my students and guests, everybody bring me in a different location to meet people who like enjoy a cooking course having fun together with family and friends.

Everyone has a different job, a different way of life and experience, but there’s a strong even if thin thread which joins our memories: love for Tuscany, for Italian fresh handmade Pasta, for cooking and mostly for enjoing a lunch or dinner with those you love.

Hope this gallery makes the idea of our Cooking Courses in Tuscany atmosphere and if you’re interested in what I wrote on this post, please leave a comment below.

Are you curious about our Private Cooking Courses in Tuscany? Here are 10 FAQ and answers that would probably interest you.

Would you like knowing something more about Cooking Courses in Tuscany? Please contact us clicking HERE or mail us: info@cuocheinvacanza.it

Salva

Salva

Salva

Salva

L'articolo Cooking Courses in Tuscany 2016 gallery and Summer memories proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

My granny (like all the grannies here in Italy) used to say many proverbs and she often said: “Il fritto è buono anche in capo a un tignoso” that’s italian for: “fried food is good even if eaten on a dirty head”…how to blame her? If there’s something we don’t like,  we’ll probably like it if fried.

Probably that’s why Frati Toscani (Tuscan Doughnuts) are one of the most requested desserts in our Cooking Classes in Tuscany, mostly in our kids’ cookery classes, when there’s someone who like kneading and working by hands. Anyway ours are definitely all hands-on cookery courses on vacation and we often prepare Tuscan Doughnuts in our couple cookery courses with and for adults as well.

In Spring or Summer, when sun is high and a swimming pool is waiting for you, you can mostly enjoy your holiday learning to make a typical Tuscan Menu at your holiday home; there’s no bigger gift to me than see the smiles and happiness of our cooks-students together with their family and friends.

Last Summer we run a Private Cooking Class for a family of 4 that came from U.K.; they were here in Tuscany on vacation in a beautiful B&B among olives trees, between Pisa and Lucca: La Lucertola. The parents like cooking and kids are used to read culinary books and try recipes, anyway they were curious how to prepare Tuscan Donuts and Tortelli Maremmani and their cooking class was focused on these.

Tuscan Doughnuts are very simple to make, but (as everything simple) it needs to be respected each step; in addiction to this, I’m passing you a small trick from my granny: using fresh heavy cream in the dough, to give an amazing soft and light texture.

The name is “Frati” (italian for monk) because of the “ring” of hair that monks have on their head.

If you prepare them without the “hole” in the center, here in Tuscany they are named Bomboloni (Italian for Krapfen) and you can fill them with a Chocolate Cream or Custard…I leave you to imagine how they’re amazing.

Here in Tuscany we used to prepare Frati Doughnuts during Carnival festivity, together with other fried delicacies sold “on the road” during country fairs. In fact nowadays you can find these doughnuts in every season of the year, but they’re still sold as a street food, or prepared at home from mothers and grannies.

Like everything “easy to taste”, Tuscan Doughnuts are perfect at any time of the day: snack, lunch or dinner time; the left doughnuts from our cookery lessons in Tuscany (we often prepare a lots) are perfect as breakfast for the day after.

My granny’s tips:

1. Use heavy fresh cream
2. Be sure having set all you need handy when you’re frying
3. Use the handle of a wooden spoon to thread it into the hole of the doughnut and get it spinning while frying
4. Put in the caster sugar immediately after drained in oil absorbing cooking paper; they’ll be very hot, but it’s important that they’re in contact with the sugar just when they’re still hot

Click the links below to read, share or print some other recipes in our Cooking Classes in Tuscany:

• Fresh-Handmade Pasta and Italian sauces
• Bruschetta 
• Chocolate Salami or Tiramisu

Salva

Salva

Salva

Salva

Salva

Salva

Salva

Salva

Salva

Salva

Salva

Salva

Salva

Salva

Salva

L'articolo Tuscany: Enjoing Cooking Classes at your Holiday Home with Frati Toscani (Italian for Tuscan Doughnuts). Here’s my Granny’s authentic recipe! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

You know we go all around Tuscany for Private Cooking Classes and Dinners and we often have to face a long way, up to 2,30 hours by car.

Finally, last time they call us just 10 minutes from where I live…alèèè! A beautiful villa near Lucca named villa del papa, located in a Santa Maria del Giudice a small village with many shops where buying all you need.

I already knew the customers who I was looking forward to meeting, they had a “Private Couple Cooking Class” with us, Cuoche in Vacanza (Chefs at your Holiday Home) about 3 years ago and the liked having another class together with their daughter and her boyfriend.

I was so thrilled when they contacted me, we were keeping in touch on our facebook-page and I’ll never forget when, right in the middle of their cookery course, we’ll decide to stop for a while and they taught me to prepare the Real Scottish Porridge!

Like most of our customers and students, they love Fresh Handmade Pasta and like making it for their family and friends. Therefore, with a special Italian sauce, fresh Pasta is one of the most amazing meals you can offer to everyone that you love. Despiting what they say (time-consuming…) you can prepare your pasta and store it for a while;

if you make a not filled pasta (ex: Tagliatelle):

1) you can store it over a tray at room temperature covered with kitchen paper (consuming by 6 days)

2) you can store it in the freezer (put it in a plastic-bag) once dried it at room temperature

if you make pasta with filling (ex: Ravioli, Tortelli…):

1) you have to eat it by 2 days (there’s often ricotta cheese inside)

2) you can store it in freezer in plastic bag: first you put the pasta in freezer over a tray for 30 minutes, than you can take the “semi-frozen” Ravioli and put them inside the plastic bag and store in freezer up to 3 months.

Coloring Pasta with only natural ingredients is possible and funny!

My special customers choosed to learn making:

• Fresh Handmade Pasta ORANGE Ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese and fresh Basil and seasoned with Rocket (Rucola) Pesto Sauce and Pinenuts. You know you can “colour” make fresh handmade pasta with many ingredients…here’s the link for black tagliatelle!
• Panzerotti suffed with mozzarella cheese and fresh chopped tomatoes
• Pummarola sauce
• Chocolate Salami

Here’s your recipe about this amazing Italian First course that you can make at your home for your friends and family.

Salva

Salva

L'articolo Chef in Tuscany at your Holiday Home and Cookery Course: Fresh Orange Ravioli and Rocket Pesto recipe! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Sorry guys if I didn’t write for many days, but I was in a really secluted, quite and “lost” place. I spent my time around the Appenino Modenese, near Sestola.

 

Over there, between the woods, the iced rivers, the snow and the mountains, we are lucky enough to have got (and a bit wild) stone-house. It’s in a very small village…10 people in total…and…One of these people is…“ta-daààààà”: the only, the great, the one and wonderful chef: Adriana.

She tought me to prepare an old and traditional dish of this land, the incomparable: TORTELLINI Emiliani!

You need to be patient and to have time (it takes around 3 hours).

Tortellini, the original Recipe

Recipe by Erika Elia (CuocheinVacanza.it)

Prep time: 2,50 hours
Cook time: 8 minutes
Total time: 3 hours

Ingredients
The filling 

• 7 oz (200gr)minced meat (beef)
• 2 oz (50gr)mortadella (typical italian cold cut) or sausage
• 2 oz (50gr)raw ham (Parma)
• 4 oz (100gr)grated parmesan
• 1egg
• to tastesalt and pepper
• 1 lb (500 gr)00 flour
• 5eggs

The Fresh handmade Pasta

• 1 lb (500 gr) Flour 00
• 5 eggs

Cooking Directions

1. Mince the mortadella and the ham, add them to the beef meat and mix together.
2. Add all the other ingredients and work to amalgamate with the tip of your fingers, kneading all together.
3. Knead the “pasta” ingredients (follow my tortelli Maremmani recipe).
4. When you obtained the “sfoglia” (a sheet of thin-dough), cut the sfoglia in many strips (horizontal and then vertical) to make some very little squares. If you want to obtain the real Tortellini Modenesi, you need only 2 cm side! Otherwise you can try with an about 5cm…it’s easier
5. Pic up the meat (large as a pearl) and put it in the center of the square.
6. At this point you have the most difficult task: close two opposite corners and roll up the other two sides around your forefinger; now close them: the Tortellini have done!

• Quantity: 5 oz (150gr) per person (if the dough is fresh), 3 oz (80gr) per person (if dry)

• Cooking time: 8/10 minutes

• Suggested sauces: Ragu, fresh cream and ham (the best for me and your children!), pummarola, gorgonzola cheese and fresh cream…

Salva

Salva

L'articolo Cooking Classes at your Holiday Home: I TORTELLINI EMILIANI, Recipe and Video proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Family Cooking Classes in Tuscany: Authentic Spaghetti & Meatballs

A great season has begun, and we couldn’t miss sharing one of our most loved recipes: Spaghetti and Meatballs. This dish is a highlight of our Family Cooking Classes, perfect for adults and kids alike.

Meatballs Italian Sauce

This recipe comes straight from my Nonna, who taught me to respect every single step to make truly perfect italian meatballs.— ideal for Spaghetti, Pici or other long pasta. Small meatballs are the secret: they soak up all the pummarola (tomato sauce) and deliver the full flavor in every bite, unlike the oversized meatballs you often see abroad.  

Once you return home from your holidays in Tuscany, cooking this sauce will bring back memories of:

• a sunset dinner by the seaside,

• relaxed evenings with friends after a swim in the pool,

• all the warm emotions that summer in Italy brings.

Tips for perfect meatballs:

• Small is best: authentic Italian meatballs are small to pair perfectly with the sauce and pasta.

• Let them rest: after cooking, leave your meatballs in the sauce for at least 20 minutes. The longer they sit, the richer the flavor.

Enjoy this recipe and bring a taste of Tuscany to your kitchen — a perfect memory from your Family Cooking Classes.

Italian Meatballs Sauce for Spaghetti or “Pici”

Recipe by Erika Elia (CuocheinVacanza.com)

Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Total time: 55 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 lb (450 g) minced beef
• 5 oz (140 g) mortadella (typical Italian cold cut) or 1 Italian sausage or ham (Parma)
• 2 oz (60 g) one-day-old bread
• 1 egg
• 2 oz (60 g) grated Parmesan
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 bunch parsley
• 1 glass (120 ml) white wine
• 1 bottle (750 ml / 75 cl) Passata Tomato Puree
• 1 garlic clove
• 4 tablespoons (60 ml) extra virgin olive oil
• 6 basil leaves
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Cooking Directions

1. Roughly chop the mortadella and bread.
2. In a food processor, mix together: mortadella, bread, garlic clove, and parsley.
3. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and add: egg, Parmesan, salt, and pepper.
4. Mix all ingredients by hand, squeezing the meat thoroughly.
5. Taste and adjust salt if necessary.
6. Take a small portion and roll it into a small ball (~2 cm / ¾ inch). Press lightly to ensure compactness.
7. Heat olive oil in a large pan with the halved garlic clove.
8. Once warm, gently add the meatballs.
9. After 3–4 minutes, carefully turn and cook until golden (~3 more minutes).
10. Turn up the heat and pour in the white wine. Cook until the aroma disappears.
11. Reduce heat to medium and add the Passata Tomato Puree, covering meatballs evenly.
12. Add salt and pepper to taste.
13. Cook for about 15 minutes (cover with splash guard if needed).
14. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

Your amazing Italian Meatballs Sauce for Spaghetti or Pici is ready to enjoy!

L'articolo Family Cooking Classes:The Best Meatballs Sauce for Spaghetti to remember your Holidays in Tuscany! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

We come all around Tuscany to run Cooking Classes

Salva

Salva

L'articolo #Hong Kong, Lititz,Tromsø here in Tuscany: Cooking Classes after a dip in the pool! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

In my job (Tuscan Cooking Classes and private Chef directly to your home), can’t miss the PICI!

A bit of history

The history of the pici seems to sink its roots in Etruscan times. From the town of Viterbo, then the pici would arrive in Val di Chiana, and from there in all of Tuscany.

In our Tuscan Cooking Classes directly at your holiday home, we like talking about the story and origin of a recipe. On Winter (free from the hard work) we often study the culinary world of Tuscany.

That’s why we discovered that together with pappardelle, Pici share the record and represent a trademark of Tuscan gastronomy. Throughout the Siena and Maremma territory, it is possible to taste the unmistakable flavor of this pasta.
This pasta does not present a great variety in the form and in the dough. Anyway, you can season it with many different sauces.

A poor-kitchen dish

Running Tuscan Cooking Classes means to start from scratch. usually few ingredients: flour, eggs, water. The flavors often belong to the poor-kitchen tradition.

Well, the pici are a “poor” dish, typical of the rural reality, for the simplicity of the ingredients.

The egg is absent. In fact, it was present at the tables of the rich ones or used only in moments of celebration. Only water, flour, and salt (we add oil to give elasticity).

L'articolo Tuscan Cooking Classes: Pici, Fat Spaghetti to impress someone you love with an amazing taste of #Tuscany! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Toronto, Oslo, Perth, New York, Houston, Instambul … I do not know if I’m going there, but definitely a piece of these places came inside me and will not come out more on.

Summer is ending and I’m already rearranging memories and pictures of cooking classes and private dinners, clicking HERE you can watch a video .
This year I met many new people coming from distant  and charming countries; I discovered ways of thinking different from mine, this year too. Thanks to the words of my guests I managed to see places, feel the tastes and smells. I managed to dive in the habits of countries that I still have never visited, but I will soon, I hope.

Thanks to all of you, if you were students of our cooking classes, or guests in our private dinners; the adventure does not end here, I know … the sun still shines in the land of Tuscany, yet so many days of work ahead.
Inside of me I feel, however, already the melancholy of this season 2014 that is going to greet us; enjoy a few pictures from this summer and I would recommend: keep in touch !!

Salva

L'articolo Toronto, Oslo, Perth, New York…meet Tuscany during Cooking Classes and Private Dinners. Thanks my friends, you’re far away, but you gave me a “piece” of your countries! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Wild Edible herbs have been a great discovery for me.

My cuisine would not be the same without the colors and aromas encountered in the Tuscan countryside. My walks are always dedicated to the collection of edible herbs and edible flowers.

2 opportunities!

I am pleased to inform you that if you come to Tuscany you have two possibilities:

1. Come to my Dolce Vita Bed and Breakfast and Cooking School near Lucca. It will be fun to go for walks together and collect herbs to cook them at the school.
2. Take a course in the Pisan hills of a nature trail and cooking edible herbs and flowers. You can read all details here: Herb Gathering Course

Bruschetta and Wild edible flowers

Collecting Wild Edible flowers and herbs in Nature

Every time, during this cookery course, we’re learning something more about this world that many people don’t know.

What we did the last time

Once arrived at an old country house, or better ancient (it’s aged 1760) inside the wood, we prepared our lunch with herbs and flowers collected and we enjoyed the fruit of our labor.

Cooking and Eating what you can easily find in nature is an indescribable satisfaction: you don’t have to go to the supermarket, but just have a walk in the countryside, you don’t have to pay anything, just leave the roots and respect nature and its rebirthing process. And what’s more important: your life will be healthy because of lots of mineral salts and vitamins with which you feed yourself!

Well, what about our lunch?

• Bruschetta with extra virgin oil, garlic, and wild spicy flowers (amazing)

• Organic Pasta, tomatoes (the garden is just behind the house), and wild fennel

• Baked Panzerotti with wilds edible herbs collected (sorrel, sowthistle, naked weed, dandelion…) and tomato sauce

• Ice cream (custard and cream) sprinkled with mashed blackberries we found along the way and sugar.

Everything obviously, “washed” by an organic delightful white Tuscan wine!

Pasta and wild fennel

Panzerotti with cheese and wild herbs filling

Wild Flowers Bruschetta: 

INGREDIENTS (6 people):

• 1 pound (500 gr) unsalted bread, possibly one day old. Here in Tuscany, it’s with a crunchy crust and a compact crumb
• 1-2 sprigs of Lesser Calamint. This is perfect, but any other herb you have will do just fine)
• 1 small bunch of edible flowers
• To taste Salt
• 3 Garlic cloves
• To taste Extra Virgin Oil (very good quality to obtain an amazing bruschetta)

1. Cut an unsalted bread (slice: 1/3 inch thick and 2-3 inches long; 1cm thick and 6-7 cm long) and count 2 slices for a person.
2. Put 5 or 6 slices in a pan and put them on the fire. Be careful because they burn in a moment.
3. Turn the slice to the other side and wait until they become dry and golden. Continue in this way with the others.
4. Rope the slices with garlic (just one side)
5. Cut some sweet tomatoes (Piccadilly, san Marzano…) into very thin slices.
6. Put some extra virgin olive oil in a pan with some “nepitella” (lesser calamint) leaves and, as it’s starting frying, turn off the fire
7. Season the bread slices with salt, this amazing flavored oil, and the tomatoes
8. Garnish with some cress flowers
9. Bruschetta is ready

Click on the following links to read more about our Wild Edible Herbs Trail and Cooking:

Herb Gathering Cooking Course

Cookery Nature Trail Wild Edible Herbs

Calci (Pisa) discovering and cooking wild Herbs in Tuscany

Here is the ARTICLE by Cathy Wilson about the Wild Herbs Course:

Salva

Salva

L'articolo Crespina: cookery, nature trail, wild edible herbs for a very nice family from England to Tuscany…and our Bruschetta recipe! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Butter and Sage

You have given us many happy memories to bring home to Ireland.

Thanks again

Mary Paul Ha Thi and Danh.

Potatoes Velutè and Ravioli Filled with Chard and Asiago Cheese

Salva

L'articolo Cooking Class in June proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.