Pasta with asparagus and speck

This is extremely tasty and easy to prepare recipe. I have to say, this recipe is not for the diet)) 

So, you'll need 

80-90 grams of pasta for one person (I took 180 grams of whole wheat pasta)
200g of asparagus 
100g italian speck (I took it thin sliced​​, but it is more convenient to take one thick slice, then you can sliver it) 
25-50 grams of cheese Grana Padano or Parmigiano 
small onion 
olive oil, salt, pepper 

So, put on fire two pots of water - one for pasta, one for asparagus. Clean and cut Asparagus, then boil it for 5 minutes about. Do not forget to salt thw water slightly. 

While the asparagus is boiling, chop the onion finely and fry till it became golden brown in olive oil. Then add about half or two thirds of asparagus from the pan. Fry is about 5 minutes. 

If you have purchased already grated cheese, it's good) I bought a piece and ground it in a blender. 

Add the asparagus with onions from the frying pan in the blender and a bit of water from the pan with asparagus and make the cream. 

Can be done, by the way, on the contrary - first boil a whole asparagus, then slice it. In this case, in the blender you will put thicker and stiffer bases and we leave gentle tops for second part of the sauce) 

Fry the speck. 

Speck can, of course, be replaced with the bacon, but it will probably be even more difficult to digest and heavy dish, because the bacon is more fat. It is possible in this case to drain oil from the frying pan abter frying the bacon. 

Now add the rest of the asparagus to the speck in the frying pan and fry a little. 

Put the sauce from the blender into the pan and mix everything. 

Cook pasta as it is written on the packaging. But of course we are preparing like all italians, "al dente" - that is when it gets stuck in the teeth a little. 

So, when the pasta is ready, "al dente", drain it and mix it with the sauce. Turn the fire off, leave for a minute and serve on a plate.

How to cook italian pizza

In my last post, I promised to share how to cook pizza. Here we go!

First of all, you'll need pizza dough. Well... Usually we buy it ready to cook in “pizzeria”, but this time it was closed. So we went to our friends, and asked them to help us with the dough since they know how to make it, and actually they do this pretty well.

So you'll need:
2 kg (around 4 lb.) of flour
50 gr (1.76 oz ) of yeast
0.5 litr (16.9 fl.oz ) of water
2 teaspoon of salt

Thes ingredients are for 27 pizzas! So if you don’t need so many, just take less ingredients.

Pour water in a pot, and put there salt. Warm it just a little, until salt is dissolved. Put flour on a table, and make hole in the middle. Melt the yeast in the warm water. Pour some water in the hole, and mix the flour with water. Add more water and continue to kneed. If the dough is sticky, it needs more flour. Add it! When the dough will become needed condition, knead it other 5-10 min. It should become smooth. When the dough is ready, divide it to small pieces. This photo shows you the size:Place all pieces on a tray powdered with flour. Cower it with a kitchen towel, and leave it to rest for 2-3 hours. After 3 hours:
While the dough is rising you need to prepare toppings.

If you have shredded mozzarella, you skip next step.
Cut mozzarella to the small pieces like on the photo:Leave it in the colander to drain. If you don’t do, this mozzarella will contain too much liquid and pizza will be not good.

Pour 3-4 bottles (1-1.5 l - 30-50 fl. oz.) of “passata di pomodori” – tomato souse - in a bowl. Cut one onion and some basil.Put it into the pot and also some olio and salt. Switch on slow fire. When it begins to boil, let it boil for 5 min and switch off the fire. Remove the onion from the pot.

This video explain the process how to roll the piece of dough for pizza. It must be very thin:

We had a lot of ingredients for stuffing. Now you have to decide which stuffing you want.

* Grilled vegetables
* Raw ham - Prosciutto
* Boiled ham * Salami piccante – piquant salame
* Scamorza affumicata – cheese scamorza smocked * Olives
* Capers* Anchovy * Tunny* Cream (non liquid)
* Cutted tomatoes
* Cutted garlic
* Cutted onion
* Gorgonzola * Ruccola
* Origano dried
* basil
* Olio
* Salt

Traditional Italian pizza is Margherita. It’s only with tomato souse, mozzarella, olio and salt. When it cooked you can put oregano or basil. Margherita is the base for most of other pizza. Thes photos explain how to prepare Margherita:For cook pizza we used stone oven, but you can cook it also at home oven.

1. Diavola
Put tomato souse, mozzarella, salame piccante, sale and olio.
2. Crudo e panna
Put tomato souse, mozzarella, cream, sale and olio. Cook pizza. Put raw ham.
3. Ortolana
Put tomato souse, mozzarella, grilled vegetables, sale and olio. Also you can put olives and capers.
4. Prosciutto cotto
Put tomato souse, mozzarella, boiled ham, sale and olio.
5. Napoli
Put tomato souse, mozzarella, anchovy, capers, sale and olio.
6. Tonno e cipolla
Put tomato souse, mozzarella, tunny, cutted onion, sale and olio.
7. Crudo
Put tomato souse, mozzarella, sale and olio. Cook pizza. Put raw ham.
8. Gorgonzola
Put tomato souse, mozzarella, gorgonzola, sale and olio.
9. Crudaiola
Put sale and olio. Cook pizza. Put cutted fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, ruccola, oregano.
10. Rustica
Put tomato souse, mozzarella, scamorza smocked, garlic, capers, sale and olio. You can find your own tipe of pizza! Only experiment!