In summer, zucchini can become a plague, if you are cultivating them. They produce enormous amounts- and frankly, they are excellent only eaten young. It is important to have a huge variety of methods to prepare them......this is from my series of zucchini recipes.

Recipe? Cut the zucchini into slices, and fry them with some spring onions in a pan until they get nicely colored.
Then put Pecorino cheese on it, let it melt and eat.
This is one of the few cases were butter might be superior to Olive Oil.

Lamb cutlet with string beans. As younger the beans are as better - and don't overcook them! With garlic, yes, olive oil, in this case butter is allowed :-)
The lamb is best from my local pecoraro, the wonderful Danilo Basili. "Unfortunately" for ecologically and economically reasons, the majority of newborn males cannot survive Easter, since humanity invented milk and cheese production from sheeps. I already booked my lamb for this year.
Stay tuned for more stories.

Aah: if your guests are really hungry, this pairs divinely with a potatoe gratin

Don't look to the glass of Rosè (Pinot Noir from Salviano Winery). It is an excellent wine, but it does not fit this dish.

"Misticanza con Fegatelli". You will not find Misticanza very often, it is a mixture of wild greens collecte in the fields, as many different there are as better it is!
As you find it not very often, I buy a lot when I can find it and then I have the processing problem :-).

Ok it will be boiled (not as gentle as in the case of Bieta o Ciccorione) in salted water, yes, yes salted water. Then the heavenly experience: I eat immediately some of the lukewarm Misticanza with the best Olive Oil I have on shelve. There is hardly something better.

The preparation on the picture is already from the next day. "Misticanza ripassata" in the Iron Wok with Garlic an Chilly peppers. I added a potato which was left lonely in the fridge.

Fegatelli you find more often, especially in Umbria. Pieces of pig liver surrounded by a fatty net with some Laurel. They are best panfried in an iron pan. I put some salt on the ground of the pan, but obviously no extra fat needed. After frying for 10 minutes, I chopped some spring onions into the pan. You see, they are not "well done". I don't like liver when it becomes too much cooked and hard.

It is nearly November. Autumn is the time of Chestnuts.
I collected the Chestnuts from my own tree at Buon Respiro.

Mushrooms is more difficult, better to buy them :-), but mixed mushrooms for the forest are the best for this dish. I boil and clean the chestnuts, fry the mushrooms with some charlottes and mix then with the Chestnuts.

Porkchops are one of the risks in cooking life, at least in North Europe. Most of them are unfortunately lean and they get hard after having just touched the pan. I always try to get the fatter ones and here in Umbria it is possible. Several butchers here treat healthy pigs. This time I only stopped at COOP supermarket, so chop quality was soso.

Young green string beans, these were from Ascea in the south of Naples were another ideal veggie with the chops, mushrooms and chestnuts.

On the shells? a homemade sauce from dried tomatoes, but another story.

It is end of October - Chestnut time, I have my own Chestnut Tree at Buo Respiro and it is really joyful to go there and collect the Chestnuts.

Chestnuts are mostly used for sweets, they are sweet. As I am very seldom prepare sweets I have to look for other combinations.

You can prepare delicious soups combining the chestnuts with pulses.
The classcial combination is a Chickpea Soup with Chestnuts
(http://www.inorvieto.it/it/scegli/da_vivere_assolutamente/ricette_orvietane_zuppa_di_ceci_e_castagne.html)
I tried with 2 different kind of beans, the little coloured one from the Trasimeno lake and big white one from Ascea, obviously cooking everything separately.

You see the result after mixing, Sweet, but very flavored.

This is a recipe that I found in various sources about cooking in the Italian "Mezzogiorno"

I like peppers, however they are prepared, but I have only two standard preparations in my repertoir. Very finely sliced an panfried until they are brown and very cooked, or cooking the only very little, keeping the crunchy and then adding fresh date tomatoes.

This is somewhat in between. The Peppers are initially panfried in Olive Oil for 15 minutes.
In the meantime I prepare the condiments, which ingredients are finely chopped dried bread, grated "Pecorino", Origanum, capers and garlic.

After the first 15 minutes of frying the peppers I add the condiment and go on frying until the bread is really crunchy! The original recipe wants you to have the bread nearly grated. I kept the pieces a bit bigger, 1 cm cubes, but not bigger, so they get wonderful crunchy.
I like this warm and cold. I like this dish too, because I never finish my bread as long as it is fresh....there is always old bread in my kitchen... the course of living alone.

Savoy Cabbage is an under-rated veggie. I cook it in various forms.

It is more elegant to boil it first for some minutes (I cut away the most hard pieces), You can panfried directly, but the taste will be very strong!

For this dish the slice cabbage is boiled in salted water to a likable grade of crunchiness and drained,

Butter is melted in a pan without frying it and the hot cabbage added. To this give immediately a handful of sliced Norcia prosciutto and/or the lonzino from Augusto,

If you have good aged cow cheese ( I hope "Gut Backensholz" delivers soon in Italy, grate it on this dish. Or try truffles as alternative.

I discourage from using Pecorino

Mix and eat.

There are principally two ways to prepare Chard in the Italian cuisine, "all agro" boiled, lukewarm, with Olive Oil and Lemon or "Ripassata in Padella, this means after boiling panfried with chillies an garlic.

I like to experiment . Some days ago I needed to process a good amount of hot peppers, Italian ones, but worse than the hottest Mexican up to now. They looked really harmless, like miniature bell peppers, but only looking them got your eyes burn.

I have a recipe to discharge such stuff, cutting into pieces, deseeding, garlic, food processor, Oil, sugar, cooking, gives a marvellous red cream. The problem remains, what to do with this burning devel.

As my Bieta was already from two days ago, I tried.