Tag: recycled

Polenta pizza: the easy and delicious recycled dinner – Italian Cuisine

An idea to reuse the leftovers of polenta or for a "fake" pizza also suitable for those who are intolerant to gluten. Here's how to prepare it

When it comes to Pizza we Italians always know one more than the others. We are talking about the original pizza, but also about those, let's say, "fake", like the Cauliflower pizza or the pizza of polenta that we are going to discover here.

Although the association may seem quite strange, in reality, the Polenta Pizza it is a very tasty dish, simple and quick to prepare and excellent for a "recycle dinner“, Perhaps using the polenta left over from lunch, and prepare a meal that will make even the little ones happy and those who, for example, are intolerant to gluten.

Of course if you do craving for pizza of polenta and you don't have any leftover polenta, you can prepare it for the occasion with our recipe or resort (for those with less time and desire) to a snapshot.

Polenta Pizza

How to make polenta pizza

Ingredients

To prepare the polenta pizza you will need: 500 g of cooked polenta, 200 ml of tomato sauce, 150 g of mozzarella (or smoked provola), extra virgin olive oil, oregano, salt and black pepper.

Method

The preparation of polenta pizza, as mentioned, is really very easy and fast. The first thing to do is to lay the polenta on a baking sheet as if it were pizza dough, thus forming a uniform layer without holes.

After having seasoned the tomato puree with a pinch of salt, black pepper and a generous spoonful of extra virgin olive oil, spread it evenly over the polenta.

At this point, put the polenta pizza in a preheated oven (180 °) for about 15 minutes. After this time, add the well-drained mozzarella and cook for another 7-8 minutes and in any case until the cheese is well melted.

Polenta pizza should be eaten hot and stringy.

Sicily: the panettone is recycled and meets the sea – Italian Cuisine

With Marco Ambrosino the panettone becomes a spice, crosses the Mediterranean and marries the mission of zero waste

Of Raffadali we had already spoken to you about the pistachio. But we had not yet told you that, still in this small town among the Sicans, three brothers produce panettone of various flavors, including one obviously also with pistachio. When it came to wanting to enhance one's product, which we could dare to define as “Mediterranean panettone”, they could not turn to better chefs than Bianca Celano is Marco Ambrosino. The two have created various dishes that are anything but simple, bringing together the Di Stefano panettone with the sea of their origins. All in a no waste perspective, zero waste, because even the panettone doesn't throw anything away. Not even the year before.

Mediterranean panettone

While remaining strongly linked to his hometown, it has long been the case that panettone is no longer just a Milanese issue. For years, in fact, great panettone also arrive from the south; just think of the Lucanian of Vincenzo Tiri or ad Alessandro Slama of Ischia. This time, however, we are in that marvelous area that is the Sicani Mountains, the most intimate and pure essence of Sicily, a precious and still little known oenogastronomic field. Here, in 1986, the brothers Vincenzo, Settimio and Benvenuto, together with their father Paolo, gave life to this small family-run pastry shop, where everything is artisanal: from the processing with local raw materials to some limited edition plates and tin packages, by the Sicilian artist Domenico Pellegrino. The result is a panettone that knows of Sicily both inside and out. Accomplice, also the Mediterranean climate, which makes the area particularly suitable for the cultivation of plants such as citrus fruits, apricot, pear and pistachio, which we find then in the various flavors of panettone, as in that one carob, orange and chocolate or in the line fruit in purity. And if we talk about the Mediterranean, we can only call into question Marco Ambrosino, who created ad hoc dishes to make a panettone meet his sea. And with its fermented (as you may already know, few have its expertise in the matter).

Panettone as a spice

Only with Marco Ambrosino the panettone could become an ash to be used as a spice in combination with mullet and fermented barley. To create this dish it triggered a forced oxidation that blackened the panettone without burning it, maintaining the necessary humidity. The process was anything but rapid: it took a good 21 hours, the same as (minimal) for a similar dish being processed, where stale bread will replace panettone. In this way, Marco Ambrosino, who with both leftovers from the panettone and bread, recovers a gap by pulling out at the same time the soul and the deeper flavor, in dishes that are always complex, studied, sought after more than ever. In this new creation there will still be white fish, which will change depending on the season, starting with the mullet between December and January, an extremely poor marine family, which for this reason is very close to his heart. With Bianca Celano, on the other hand, the leftovers from the Christmas cake first became a crunchy of olives with anchovies, tomato jam and oil ice cream, for a true hymn to the flavors of the Mediterranean; and then a powder to the anchovies to sprinkle in a first with liquid broth buttons, squills and fennel. In short, all dishes where the panettone has really met the sea.

Last year's panettone

In this dessert Marco Ambrosino has really passed, managing to recreate a sort of "spirit of the past Christmas". In fact, it seems to be inside the story of Dickens, to retrace all the births experienced through the flavors of the panettone eaten. The purpose was just this: to age the panettone through various processes such as oxidation, mold maturation and, of course, fermentation. Also in this case, a recipe that is far from simple. The secret? In addition to the respect of time, we must consider the panettone as a single body and not as the set of ten or more ingredients. But for those who know his restaurant, 28 Posti, he knows that it is the same procedure as a dessert on his menu, Bread and Cereals. So, we just have to wish you to spend a Christmas as no waste as possible and to remind you of that too of the panettone nothing is thrown away: could serve you for next year.

In the Philippines he inaugurates a park of tulips made of recycled plastic – Italian Cuisine

In the Philippines the fight against waste is proclaimed creatively, thanks to an enchanting garden whose 30 thousand colored tulips are made of recycled plastic

In this historical period, as perhaps never before, the climate change it is a hot and widely debated topic. While politics and the global media try to understand how to reduce their effects and how to cope with the problem of waste and environmental pollution, there are so many green initiatives and projects that come to life and that deserve to be known and supported. One of them is the Forever Tulip Garden, recently inaugurated in the city of Lamitan (Basilan) in the Philippines, or a charming garden of tulips whose flowers have been made with recycled plastic.

The anti-waste garden with 30,000 recycled tulips

The Philippine sea has the sad distinction of being one of the most polluted in the world and has, unfortunately, also recently recalled the attention of the world press due to the discovery of a dead whale with 40 kilos of plastic waste in the stomach. And yet, recently, something is beginning to awaken, and in some local communities initiatives have been started to environmental awareness, including the offer of a kilo of rice in exchange for a kilo of plastic.
The last eco-friendly project, as laudable as it is creative, is a tulip garden made entirely of plastic waste and recently opened in the town of Lamitann, in the province of Basilan. The park, called Forever Tulip Garden, is reminiscent of the famous Keukenhof gardens of the Netherlands, but its 30 thousand colored tulips are made of plastic. These beautiful flowers have in fact been made with about 30 thousand plastic bottles collected from 45 surrounding villages, then recycled, reshaped and painted of yellow, blue, red and pink. Other bottles have been mixed and mixed with sand and cement to give life to the paths and paths of the garden.

Forever Tulip Garden, tourist attraction of the Philippines in 2020?

This unique garden in the world was strongly backed by the local government, led by Mayor Rose Furigay, currently engaged in one awareness campaign to reduce the use of plastic in the city. Although Basilan is among the poorest provinces of the Philippines, the local population appears to be motivated and interested in this new original initiative and many have attended the inauguration ceremony. The Forever Tulip Garden is already attracting a large number of tourists and the government is ready to bet soon it will be one of the most popular tourist places in the city, if not in the country.

Photo: Image via City Government of Lamitan_Reuters Media