Mint, an extremely versatile herb

Mint is an important ingredient in health products and beauty, especially for hair and oily skin. It also complements dishes both sweet and savoury.
It has the ability to bring freshness to any dish you may prepare for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Mint tea is said to aid digestion. Use it fresh to make this delicious mint tea recipe. It’s incredibly easy to make.
You will need 1 oz (15-30 g) of fresh mint.
Put the leaves in a tea infuser. Heat 3 cups of water to boiling. Then pour the boiling water over the leaves and into the pot. Let fresh leaves steep for about 3-4 minutes.
Now, drink and enjoy the taste of a relaxing summer sunshine in a cup.

Sage, beautiful in the garden, good on the plate

Walking in my garden I admire the borders of sage and I pick a few leaves. Immediately an intense aroma is released into the air. Well, they will be perfect for seasoning ricotta and spinach Tuscan ravioli (gnudi) that I made this morning.

Ingredients:
4 ½ pounds spinach
16 oz ricotta
3 eggs
a little flour
4 oz butter
10 sage leaves
6 spoons of parmesancheese
nutmeg
salt

Wash and boil the spinach with a little water salting lightly. Drain, leave to cool and chop finely.
Put the trhee whole eggs into a bowl and mix them with the ricotta, a pinch of nutmeg and salt.
Add the parmesan cheese and the chopped spinach and blend well. With this mixture make little ovalshaped rissoles and flour them. Boil some lightly salted water and drop in a few the “gnudi” at a time. As soon as theyrise to the surface, take them out of the pan with a perforated spoon and put them on a wide serving dish. Season them with melted butter that had been previously heated to which were added the sage leaves and plenty of parmesan.

Rosemary, the Mediterranean taste in the kitchen.

With its extremely fragrance Rosemary in the kitchen is what it is all about. It makes a wonderful addition to vegetables, fish, roasted meats and to prepare a delicious focaccia. Roasted potatoes also benefit from its use. Here below my personal recipe.

Rosemary roasted potatoes

1 kg potatoes
3 rosemary springs
4 cloves garlic
5 tablespoonfuls extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 180°C. After peeling the potatoes cut them into chunks and put them in cold water for 1 hour. Put the potatoes pieces into a wide rectangular baking tin, together with the roughly chopped garlic cloves, salt, pepper and the fresh rosemary leaves. Drizzle with the extra virgin olive oil and bake for nearly 2 hours until they are deep golden brown.
Here it is a simple but extremely tasty side dish.