Italy to me is a beautiful canvass, awash with colour, it's food is both bold..think pungent salty olives and anchovies, and delicate...wafer thin ravioli stuffed with butternut squash and ricotta and drizzled with brown butter.
The vibrabcy of Milan is where I worked occasionally in the 90's, spending days in fashion showroom (standing for 9 hours in 4 inch stilettos - the less glamorous side of modelling) and then rushing off starving to steaming bowls of pasta in crammed backstreet cafés. Or picking at the free bar snacks, called Aperitivo, over glasses of Montepulciano and espresso.
Sometimes, when guests visit, I love to put out big platters of snacks for people to pick at over drinks.
Ingredients
1llb plum tomatoes, sea salt, ground black pepper, 1 tbsp chopped rosemary, 3 red bell peppers, olive oil.
Cut the tomatoes in half lengthways and place evenly on a baking tray, scatter with a little olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary. Place in to a preheated oven at 50 Celsius for at least 4 hours, or ideally overnight until dried and sticky.
For the red peppers, turn the oven up high, to 200 Celsius and put the whole peppers in on a baking tray. Cook for 45 minutes or until the skin has blackened. Take out of the oven, wrap in cling film to sweat for 30 minutes and then use a sharp knife to scrape back and remove the skin. Discard the seeds and stalk and cut the flesh in to bite size chunks.
Arrange the tomatoes and peppers on a platter, and serve with some olives and perhaps some artichoke hearts.
I like to compliment this vegetable platter with a plate of Parma ham and salami.
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