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Some Italian treats for the summer

So a week in a beautiful Trullo in Puglia is over and I’m drooling over my photos of magnificent delights from the vegetable garden (not complaining, as I’m now sitting in a hotel overlooking the Bay of Naples, assuming Vesuvius isn’t going to chose today to start erupting again and wondering whether pizza for dinner might be a good idea).

I took the Trullo owners at their word and harvested aubergines, courgettes, tomatoes, figs and daily eggs from the chickens in the garden.

I don’t mind at all cooking on holiday but the produce in Puglia was so delicious it really didn’t need much effort from me, more just a question of putting lovely food on plates and seasoning it a bit.

We bought a generous portion of homemade mozzarella from a little shop in the stunning hilltop town of Altamura and a large bag of tomatoes from a man who wouldn’t sell us less than a kilo. So this kept us in tomato and mozzarella salad on a daily basis – a particular favourite of Missy B’s. Just dressed with salt and pepper and a slosh each of local olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

But there were many tomatoes in the garden too, so there was bruschetta at any opportunity!

It wasn’t all tomato-based. The aubergines from the garden were so lovely that all they needed was a drizzle of olive oil and a bit of seasoning. Perfect! Or at least the second batch was perfect, once I’d mastered the slightly ferocious cooker…

I forced fruit salad on the family every day, making sure to select the ripest figs from the garden – possibly the best I’ve ever tasted. Can’t upload that photo for some reason.

 

I’ll be happy to be back in my own kitchen at the Nunnery in a couple of days, but sad that all my garden can offer is a few herbs…