Hey friends, we are writing this from an apartment in Barcelona. It will only be a short post today since we are on our way to the Gràcia neighborhood and we can hardly wait to get out the door.

Before we left, we shot this Italian potato salad for our friend Damaris’ blog Kitchen Corners. It’s 31 days of salads over there and we have definitely found a couple of new favorites, so check it out. We spent some time with Damaris and her family in Santa Cruz, when we were traveling in California last year. Since then, she and her family has moved to Brazil and we are so jealous of their beach life!

This salad is truly an old favorite of ours. Sometimes we add a dash of white wine vinegar to intensify the flavor, or some black beans to add some protein. It has this super fresh lemony taste and is a nice alternative to pasta salad for the spring picnics. Oh listen to us, it’s not even February and we are already talking about spring. It must be the Barcelona sun messing with us. And thinking about that, we really need to leave now. We’ll try posting some Gràcia photos on facebook, twitter and instagram. Ciao!

You know when you do something that you think you are pretty good at. And then you see someone else doing it a hundred times better, and you realize that you have been sucking at it the whole time. That is how we felt when we ordered a vegetarian pizza from a small ristorante on Sicily, a few years back. The way they put topping on a pizza, mama mia, that is how it was meant to look like (and taste!). Forget about the traditional vegetariana, with a few vegetables in pretty looking patterns. These pizzas were topped with at least ten different ingredients. And instead of arranging them in plain patterns, they were stacked upon each other in a big pile. There were tomatoes, onions, spinach, olives, big chunks of garlic, artichokes, mushrooms, marinated eggplant and zucchini, big pre boiled potatoes … and a lot more. The lesson we learned from that day, don’t be shy when you decorate a pizza. Just throw as many vegetables on it as you can fit.

These pizzas are inspired from that sicilian restaurant, but instead of making one giant pizza we made mini versions. It has probably been said a zillion times before, but this is a great thing to do for a party. Prepare all the ingredients and a big batch of pizza dough (you can prepare the dough the day before), then let everyone decorate their own pizza.

Regarding the dough. About a year ago we made potato pizza on a rye dough. That recipes was so good that we have been sticking with it since then. This time we used the same recipe, but switched rye for spelt flour, and it turned out just as good as the rye dough. We have tried a few different gluten free pizza doughs, but we never found one with the same elasticity as our dough. So if you have the perfect recipe for a gluten free pizza dough, please write it or link to it in the comment field, and we will try them out next time.

Vegetarian Mini Pizza
Makes around 8 – 10 small pizzas (5-inch) or 1 large

As we mentioned above you can use almost anything as topping, we have only written some suggestions. We marinate the zucchini and eggplant and make a proper tomato sauce ourselves, if you want to make it easier for yourself you can buy these things pre-maid in the supermarket.

Dough:
1 cup lukewarm water
2 tsp instant dry yeast
2 tsp sea salt
2 1/2 cup spelt flour (we used light)
2 tbsp olive oil

Tomato sauce:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp capers (drained)
a pinch of dried chili
1 1/2 cup of canned tomatoes
1 tbsp fresh or 1 tsp dried oregano
salt & black pepper

Topping:
4 pre boiled potatoes
250 g marinated artichoke hearts
100 g kalamata olives
1 zuchini (marinated)
1 eggplant (marinated)
4 brown mushrooms, cut in quarters
1/4 fennel, thin slices
300 g small tomatoes
2 small spring onions, divided in half
1/2 broccoli100 g goat cheese
salt & black pepper
fresh aragula, put it on after the pizza has been in the oven

Making the dough: Pour warm water in a medium size bowl. Add salt and yeast and stir around. Mix in 2 cups of flour. Gradually add more flour until the dough comes together enough for you to start kneading it. Knead for a couple of minutes, add additional flour if it sticks to your hands. Put the dough back in the bowl and drizzle it with olive oil. Work the dough until it’s completely covered in the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it in a warm place for 1 – 2 hours.

Making the tomato sauce: Heat olive oil in a medium size pot. Add onion, garlic, and chili and saute  for 2-3 minutes. Add capers and fresh tomatoes and spices and cook for 10 minutes, lower the heat and let it simmer for half an hour more under a lid.

Preheat the oven to the highest possible temperature (450-500°F). Remove the plastic cover from the dough and start working it with your hands on a slightly floured work surface. Make 8 to 10 small portions. Stretch and flatten the dough until you get the desired size and thickness that you prefer and move it to a baking pan covered with parchment paper. Spelt flour doesn’t stretch as good as wheat flour but if you work carefully and flatten it with the palm of your hand you will get it right. Another trick is to roll them out directly on the parchment paper with a slightly floured rolling pin and then just move the parchment paper to the baking pan.

Brush the dough with 2 tbsp tomato sauce. Cover them with topping of your choice. Bake for about 10-15 min until the outer part of the topping and the edges are slightly burnt. Sprinkle with fresh goat cheese, a bit of olive oil, fresh aragula, salt and freshly grounded pepper. Serve immediately.

It has been awfully quiet around here lately. We are sorry about that. The reason for the silence is that our life outside the blog has been very hectic, but also lots of fun. Here is a short recap on what we have been up to, instead of serving new recipes for you.

First of all. We have started working together with two computer geniuses, on a project that hopefully will result in the Green Kitchen Cooking App for iPad! Pretty cool, huh!? It will take at least a couple of months before we are ready, but the plan is that we will create the best vegetarian-cooking app out there. It will feature some of our old favorite recipes, and some new and exclusive for the app. More on that as the project develops.

We have also been working on a guest post for Design Sponge. We will share one of our absolute favorite summer recipes there, so we will make sure to let you know when the post comes up.

Last but not least, we took a road trip to Denmark to visit Luise’s family. It is normally a 5 hour drive from Stockholm to Copenhagen, but with Elsa it took 10 hours. She is not too comfortable in the car these days, so we made a lot of stops at different places: a big playground, a moose park (yes moose!), an incredible flea market and a beautiful view. Nothing compares to Big Sur, but Sweden can be pretty beautiful too.

In Denmark we had 5 days of summer weather, barbecuing, friends and family. We visited the Aarstiderne Country Market, had dinner at Copenhagen’s new Raw food café Simple Raw and picked spring flowers. It was the perfect start of the summer.

At the Raw food café we tried a delicious zucchini spaghetti. The raw food version of zucchini spaghetti is very different than the classic Italian version, since the zucchini actually is the spaghetti. We have been making this type of zucchini spaghetti a lot since we brought a julienne peeler with us home from Thailand. And after our visit at the cafe we were reminded how perfect it would be on the blog.

So here we have created something that reminds of a delicious creamy Italian pasta, without using neither cream nor pasta. It has got a fresh fruity flavor and takes only a few minutes to make. Who said vegetarian/vegan/raw food was difficult? It can’t be much simpler than this!

Mint & Mango Marinated Zucchini Spaghetti
Serves 4 as a side dish, or 2 as a dinner

When we were in Thailand we bought a julienne like slicer. They use it for green mango salad but it works just as perfect for slicing a zucchini. You can find similar slicers on Amazon or try julienne’s big brother, the vegetable spiral slicer.

Raw Spaghetti
2 Zucchinis

Wash the zucchinis and slice them with whatever tool you have (read above).

Mint & Mango Sauce
1 mango medium size
4 tbsp olive oil (add more if you like)
15 leaves fresh mint
1 inch fresh red chili
2 inches fresh ginger
a pinch of salt & pepper
a handful of green pea sprouts and pistachio nuts, for garnish

Peel and remove the stone from the mango, add all ingredients in a mixer and mix until smooth.
Pour the mango mint marinade over the zucchini spaghetti and work it in by hand. Arrange the spaghetti on the plates and garnish with sprouts and chopped pistachio nuts.

If I say pesto you say … broccoli?! No, I didn’t think so. Like most people we are normally pretty conservative when we make pesto. For us, it might have something to do with the fact that it is one of Luise’s favorite things to eat. Why change a winning concept? A few days ago we felt like having yet another pesto dinner, but since none of us had the energy to go to the store, we ended up using what we had in the house; a big broccoli, some roasted chickpeas instead of nuts, fresh sage, garlic, lemon, oil, salt & pepper. Luise looked suspiciously at the broccoli-mixture, before giving it a try. We finished the whole bowl in one night. We have made this recipe two times more since then, experimenting with the ingredients. We have tried both basil and sage, they both taste good in their own way, choose whatever is easiest to find. Roasted chickpeas are fun to try in a pesto, but quite honestly, the hazelnuts give a better punch to the taste.

Raw broccoli might sound repulsive to some of you, but it is in fact very good in salads. We often make a super tasty raw broccoli salad with mayo, onion, raisins, sunfl … wait a minute, let’s save this recipe for another post ;-) Here is how you do the pesto.

Broccoli Pesto
2 cups of pesto
We left out cheese to keep it vegan. If you are not a vegan, a few slices of pecorino works great here.

1 large broccoli (around 2 cups)
A couple of stems fresh basil or sage
1/2 lemon, juice
1/2 cup hazelnuts (roasted chickpeas if you’re allergic)
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tbsp water
salt & pepper

Throw all the ingredients in a blender or food processor. Pulse for about a minute. Taste it. Add more olive oil or water if it feels too dry, and salt & pepper according to taste.
Serve with pasta, in a salad, on a sandwich or in a wrap.

Luckily Elsa loves vegetables (she always makes her ahmmmm sound whenever we pass the vegetable department), but if you are having problems getting your child to eat greens, pesto is a good trick.

We have moved a couple of blocks. It turned out that living with a lousy kitchen was too hard for us. So now we are spending our last week in San Francisco in the Castro district. With a real kitchen to cook in and a small garden to eat in. It’s perfect! And we immediately started cooking.

We haven’t posted many pasta recipes on this blog. It’s simply because we rarely eat pasta at home. But when we do, we try to use a good whole wheat or gluten free pasta (Doves Farm is one of our gluten free favorites).

This recipe started with this bag of black mission figs that we spotted in the Bi Rite Market on 18th street. The figs looked so perfectly soft and ripe that we almost expected them to burst as we were looking at them. We immediately started fantasizing what we could do with them. And as we were walking around inside the food store, we came up with a pasta dish with roasted walnuts and goat cheese, a squeeze of a lemon, spinach, garlic and some white wine. It sounds good, right? We bought all the ingredients and rushed home to make this pasta while it was still fresh in our heads.

We started cooking. Put the water to a boil, roasted the walnuts, tasted the wine while looking for the bag of figs … the bag of figs … the bag of figs! Oh no, as we had been walking around dreaming about this fig pasta, we had forgotten to buy the figs that started it all.

So we had to prepare the dish as we had imagined it, but without the figs. And as we were eating it we were constantly closing our eyes, imaging the taste of those soft and sweet mission figs.

The day after we went back to the store, bought the figs and made the same dish all over again. And this time we didn’t have to imagine anything.

Fig & Walnut Spaghetti
Serves 2

whole wheat spaghetti, for 2 persons
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 cup white wine
1 small lemon, juice and zest
1 big bunch of fresh spinach
125 g goat cheese
100 g walnut halves, roasted with salt in a dry pan or in the oven
salt
5 fresh ripe figs, cut in quarters

Boil the spaghetti al dente, according to the instructions on the package, and set aside when done. Add olive oil to a large frying pan on medium heat. Add garlic and let it sweat for about 30 seconds before adding 2/3 of the wine and the lemon juice. Stir around, add spinach and goat cheese while stirring (save a small piece of the goat cheese for later). Let it simmer for three minutes before adding the spaghetti and the roasted walnuts. Stir for 30 seconds, taste it and add salt if needed, make sure that the spaghetti is covered in the goat cheese/wine/lemon cream then turn off the heat. Add the figs and gently fold them into the pasta. Serve on a big plate or in a bowl with the rest of the goat cheese and lemon peel sprinkled over it.

In just a couple of days Green Kitchen Stories turns 1 year. During this year we have made 75 posts, and we must say that we are pretty happy and proud of every single one of them. We have actually prepared, cooked and been taking pictures of many more recipes, but for different reasons they never made it the whole way. As we were going through this pile of rejected recipes we found one that actually is one the best dinners we’ve had during these last couple of months. So we decided to post it anyway, even though we (David) didn’t think the pictures were good enough at first. And that’s pretty ironic considering there were three photographers in our apartment on the night that we first tried this dish. We never planned to take pictures of it that night, but with all those photographers in our small apartment that proved to be impossible …

Involtini di Melanzane is one of those recipes that you should save for a weekend when you invite friends over for dinner. It is a little bit complicated to make but it is absolutely worth the effort, and you can make most of it in advance. It’s kind of similar to a lasagna, but fresher since it’s made without the lasagna noodles. The secret that makes this recipe taste so great is the filling – pistachio, feta cheese, capers and bulgur are just amazing together. And if you add some cinnamon to it, it will be perfect for Christmas as well.

Involtini di Melanzane (adapted from Nigella Lawson)

2 eggplants, thinly sliced (1 inch/2 cm)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt

Use a pastry brush to cover the eggplant slices in a thin layer of olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and grill in the oven on high temperature until soft and slightly burnt. While they are in the oven, prepare the tomato sauce (but don’t forget the eggplant slices in the oven, then they will be burnt and impossible to roll. Yes we have tried that a couple of times …).

Hot Tomato Sauce:
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 red onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp dried chili
2 tins canned tomatoes
freshly chopped basil
a pinch of sea salt and black pepper

Heat the olive oil in a pan, add onion, garlic and chili. Let it stir for a couple of minutes, then add canned tomatoes, basil, salt and pepper. Let it simmer for at least 20 minutes. While simmering, prepare the stuffing.

Good stuff(ing):
200 g wholegrain bulgur (can also be replaced by couscous or quinoa)
1 tsp dried oregano
50 g pistachio nuts, finely chopped (save a little for topping)
200 g goat feta cheese, crumbled (save 75 g for topping)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 large spring onion, finely sliced
2 tbsp capers, (drained of vinegar)
1 egg

Cook the bulgur according to the recipe on the box. Add the rest of the ingredients – except the egg – and stir around with a fork. Add the egg, use your hands to kneed it together with the rest of the stuffing.

Tasty Topping:
75 g goat feta cheese, crumbled
a dash of olive oil
a pinch of fresh (or dried) basil
some chopped pistachio nuts

Place the grilled eggplants, one by one, in front of you. Add a couple of spoonfuls of the stuffing at the bottom of it and roll up lengthwise away from you. Put them on a slightly oiled baking pan. Pour over the tomato sauce and the crumbled feta, drizzle with oil and sprinkle with fresh or dried basil and bake for 30 minutes at 350°F. Remove from the oven and let it rest for 15 min. Sprinkle some chopped pistachio nuts before serving.

Elsa had her first meal of solid food a couple of days ago! Luise made her potato mash with a splash of oil and water. It was a big day for her and also for us, now we can start to make her our own all-good baby food. Although it seems like everybody have their own opinion on what kind of food is good for babies and children.

– Surely you will give Elsa normal food, a friend recently asked me. And with normal she meant meat, dairy products, gluten and sugar. She is not the only one. Another comment that we heard a lot of lately is that children doesn’t like vegetables but love meatballs and hot-dogs, so we would have a lot of trouble raising her without eating meat. I have just recently realized that most people actually believe that the way they eat is The Right Way. And our way – not eating meat, focusing on whole foods with a low intake on dairy products, gluten and sugar – represent some kind of diet that is good for you for a while, but not in the long run. Well, we believe that the way we eat is all-good for our bodies and that everybody probably would feel better cutting down on meat as the centre piece of the dinner and focus a little bit more on whole foods and vegetables.

With that said, it would make us feel very strange not giving Elsa the kind of food that we believe is best for her. Call me naive but I believe parents who complain that their kids won’t eat whole foods or vegetables have a lot to blame on their own eating habits. But if we fail I promise that I will be the first to admit it. And if Elsa some day decides that she wants to try a hamburger with her friends, we will be totally fine with that.

Maybe this could be mistaken for a convert-to-our-way-of-eating speech, it’s not. We have no problems with other people eating meat or not giving their kids vegetables, everybody must live after their own beliefs. Just as we do.

This soup is not for Elsa, not yet anyway. We were inspired by the Tuscan bean and bread soup Ribollita, and wanted to make our own version of it, replacing the bread with barley and the cannellini beans with these beautiful borlotti beans. When the soup was done we had changed so much that we decided not to call it Ribollita. But it is just as good, and more nutritious. Scroll down for the recipe.

Barley & Bean Soup
Serves 4

3 tbsp olive oil
2 spring onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3 small carrots, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
2 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped
2 bay leaves (can be replaced with sage)
juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 glass white wine
8 cups vegetable stock
1 cup pearled barley
1 zucchini, cut in quarters
10 cherry tomatoes, divided in half
2 cups fresh green beans
1 cup fresh borlotti beans, removed from pods and preboiled for 20 min.

Heat olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pot and add onion and garlic. Saute for about 5 minutes. Add carrots, celery, rosemary, bay leaves, lemon juice and white wine and cook, stirring often, for 2 minutes. Add vegetable stock and let it cook for 30 minutes. Add barley, zucchini, tomatoes and let it cook for another 25 min. Then add green beans and borlotti beans and let it simmer for 10 more min. Remove the bay leaves and add salt and pepper. The soup is done when the barley and the beans are done. Serve with olive oil, lemon juice and fresh herbs.

Photos by: Johanna Frenkel

Ciao, we are writing this post under the Tuscan sun. We have olive trees on the left side of our house, grape plants on the right, and rosemary, sage and lavender fields in our garden. And after one week here I think even Elsa’s got a scent of lavender coming from her skin.

We promised that we would blog from here, and even though the Italian P’s (Pasta, Patate, Pizza & Pane) have made our trip a little less wholesome than we are used to, we try to keep most of our dinners simple, with fresh vegetables on the bbq and different dressings and sauces.

Last night we finished our dinner with this classic Italian dessert, a macerated fruit salad with our own version of a honey zabaglione. The Italians vary the fruits according to season, we used different stone fruits and Cantaloupe melon. What makes the Italian fruit salad special is that it’s tossed with lemon juice and sugar (we used honey) and left it in the fridge for a couple of hours to let the juices and flavors come out.

Macedonia di Frutta
Serves 4

25 cherries, pitted and divided
6 apricots, cut in quarters
3 peaches, cut in thin boats
1/2 cantaloupe melon, cut in thin boats
juice and zest from 1 large lemon
2 tbsp honey

Honey Zabaglione
5 egg yolks
3 tbsp honey
1/3 cup dry white wine
3/4 cup yogurt
fresh lavender flowers

Making the fruit salad: Combine the fruit in a large bowl. Pour lemon juice, zest and honey in a small bowl, stir around with a spoon and pour over the fruits. Toss gently, taste, and add more honey and lemon if desired. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Making the honey zabaglione: Whisk egg yolks with honey until blended in a large stainless-steel bowl. Set the bowl over simmering water and whisk until the mixture lightens in color and thickens, about 3-4 minutes. Add the wine and a couple of lavender flowers and continue whisking constantly until the mixture is pale, thick, and has expanded in volume, about 10 minutes. If the mixture curdles it’s too hot, remove it from the heat whisk it off for a few seconds.
When the zabaglione is light and fluffy, move the bowl to a larger bowl filled with ice water to cool the zabaglione quickly. When cool, fold in the yogurt. Use immediately or cover and refrigerate for up to 2 days.

To serve, divide the fruit in 4 glasses or small bowls. Put a spoonful of zabaglione alongside. Sprinkle a couple of lavender flowers on top of it.

Potato pizza has a special place in my heart. This simple rustic pizza made with just a few basic ingredients (no tomato sauce) is pretty impossible to find in Swedish restaurants. So the only time we eat it is when we make it ourselves, and it always makes me think of Rome. There you can get it in almost every restaurant but they taste best bought from any of the many hole-in-the-wall ovens. They bake them incredibly looong and you buy a slice of it by showing with your hands how big piece you want. Normally they are baked with lots of olive oil, wheat flour and parmesan cheese, we have made a little healthier version of this recipe from the lovely blog The Italian Dish, by using less olive oil, rye flour and goat cheese. The rye flour makes it a little bit trickier to knead, but you end up with a very crunchy and tasty crust.

We have a special reason for posting this right now. By the end of next week we are going on a family vacation to Tuscany (I know, we are traveling a lot at the moment), and we have decided to bring camera and computer. So if we can just find an internet connection we will give you a couple more Italian favorites.

Potato Pizza with Goat Cheese (Adapted from The Italian Dish)
Makes 1 large pizza, 16 small slices

Dough:
1 cup lukewarm water
2 tsp instant dry yeast
2 tsp sea salt
2 1/2 cup rye flour (we used half light, half dark wholegrain)
2 tbsp olive oil

Filling:
3 medium size firm potatoes
2 tbsp salt
4 tbsp olive oil
2 small spring onions
2 tbsp fresh rosemary, roughly chopped
100 g goat cheese
salt & black pepper

Pour warm water in a medium size bowl. Add salt and yeast and stir around. Mix in 2 cups of flour. Gradually add more flour until the dough comes together enough for you to start kneading it. Knead for a couple of minutes, add additional flour if it sticks to your hands. Put the dough back in the bowl and drizzle it with olive oil. Work the dough until it’s completely covered in the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it in a warm place for 2 hours.

Meanwhile, you prepare the potatoes. Slice them thin with a mandoline or with a knife. Place the slices in a deep plate, drizzle them with salt and cover with cold water for about an hour. Drain the water, rinse the potatoes and pat them dry on a towel.

Preheat the oven to the highest possible temperature (450-500°F). Remove the plastic cover from the dough and start working it with your hands on a slightly floured work surface. Stretch and flatten the dough until you get the desired size and thickness that you prefer and move it to a baking pan covered with parchment paper. Rye flour doesn’t stretch as good as wheat flour but if you work carefully and flatten it with the palm of your hand you will get it right. Another trick is to roll it out directly on the parchment paper with a slightly floured rolling pin and then just move the parchment paper to the baking pan.

Brush the dough with a thin layer of olive oil. Cover it with potato slices, onion, rosemary, 3/4 of the goat cheese, salt and freshly grounded black pepper. Drizzle the rest of the olive oil over the pizza and bake for about 15-18 min until the potatoes are golden and the edges are slightly burnt. Sprinkle the rest of the goat cheese over it and serve immediately.

To tell you about this plate of pasta I need to take you back a couple of years. Back to when I was living in Rome, Italy. I had moved there to learn how to speak Italian, and I rented the most beautiful tiny tiny one bedroom apartment right in the centre of Rome, just around the corner from Campo de’ Fiori. My bedroom was my living room, and my living room was my kitchen … and it was a really small kitchen.

I didn’t have any fancy kitchen appliances or large set of spices, just the very basic: one frying pan, one pot for the pasta, one knife, one small little fridge, salt, pepper, chili flakes, olive oil and a pot of fresh basil in a glass jar in my window (the jar fell down on the roof of a car on my last day in that apartment, but that’s another (very expensive) story). The strange thing with this small kitchen is that I cooked some of the best meals in my life there.

Like this pasta. It is the most simple and basic pasta recipe I know, but it is also my favorite. All you need is a couple of fresh vegetables, some garlic, a can of Borlotti beans and some fresh basil. There are a couple of tricks that make this dish special: 1. Use the best vegetables you can find (make sure the tomatoes smell tomato). 2. Chop the vegetables in large chunks. 3. Don’t let the vegetables saute too long, they should just be tossed around a couple of times in the hot frying pan. 4. Use a lot of olive oil to bring out the flavors.

By the way. I did learn Italian and that made me so proud (even though I have already forgot half of it). I also met Luise there during my last month. Half a year later she moved to Stockholm and now we have a baby girl together.
That is the strangeness of life. I moved to Rome to become Italian and ended up having a baby in Stockholm with the most beautiful danish girl I have ever seen.

Now, let’s eat!

Linguine della via di Grotta Pinta 45
Serves 4

linguine for 4 persons (nowadays we use a gluten free buckwheat linguine)
olive oil
1 onion
2 cloves garlic (chopped)
1 zucchini
10-15 mushrooms
5 large tomatoes
2/3 cup of Borlotti beans
1/3 cup olives
fresh basil
salt and black pepper
parmigiano-reggiano (or pecorino if you prefer that)

Prepare the linguine according to package directions, but set it aside one minute too early. Chop the onion, zucchini, mushrooms and tomatoes in large pieces. Chop the garlic and divide it into three small piles. Saute the onion and zucchini in a large frying pan with some olive oil and some of the garlic at high heat for a short while (around a minute), then pour it over to an empty plate. Without cleaning the pan add some more olive oil, some of the garlic and the mushrooms, saute for about a minute then pour it over to the plate with the zucchini. Add a little bit more olive oil to the pan, the rest of the garlic and the tomatoes. Saute for no more than a minute and then add Borlotti beans, olives, fresh basil, zucchini, mushrooms and the linguine. Stir it around. Add salt and pepper and let it all stir together for another minute. Serve immediately with some grated parmigiano.

Photos by: Johanna Frenkel