Ricotta & pumpkin verrine, a farm & a love story

Hallo world, seems that the great pumpkin season has started! For me this vegetable has never been such a special ingredient until, around one year ago, I had a very nice moment while eating a pumpkin! I was pregnant and both me and my brother  were back in Italy, so my father organised a lunch in a restaurant. This place isn’t of course a simple restaurant, but it’s an old farm, the farm where my grandma and my grandpa fell in love. It’s really difficult to find the right words to describe the emotions that  I felt listening my father telling how my grandpa walked 7 km long just to see his loved, and how he was actually the second boyfriend, because the first grandma’s fiancé died during the war. How they spent long time separated because also my grandfather had to go to war and how, while he was fighting far away from home, the Nazis often went to the farm searching partisans. Luckily, like in every Hollywood movie, they had their happy ending and get married and  had 4 sons. All this happened in Franciacorta, one of the most beautiful countryside in Italy. You can only be enchanted by the mildness of the hills and the vineyards that produced some of the best Italian wines.

Since that special day, pumpkin is one of my favourite vegetables and often I search different way to use it, This verrine is the result of an attempt to create a light and “nice to see” appetizer. Hope you’ll like it!

Ingredients: (serves 4)

- 500 g of ricotta

- 500 g of pumpkin

- 25 g of pine nuts

- 50 g of pecorino cheese (grated)

- 4 tablespoons of milk

- salt

- 4 sprigs of rosemary

Put ricotta, pecorino cheese, a pinch of salt and the pine nuts in a mixer and blend until creamy, adding milk a bit at a time. Meanwhile cut the pumpkin in small cubes and cook them using a steaming basket until they are soft. Then take a nonstick pan, pour the pumpkin and cook for few minutes with 4 rosemary sprigs, add a pinch of salt. Let cool. Pour the cheese mixture in 4 small jars, remove the rosemary and mix the pumpkin then pour it over the cheese. Decorate with rosemary, put in the fridge and… wait until dinner time (if you can!)