Sicilian Saturday @ Home
Sicilian-Inspired Dreamy Night In.
When you can’t go to Italy, or any country whatsoever, bring Italy home -the menu, the ambiance, the drinks, BRING IT ALL!!
For alliteration purposes, we themed our dinner ‘Sicilian Saturday.’ However it inspired me to go full Nonna mode and I went deep into Pinterest research.
It opened my eyes into the differences between Sicilian and traditional Italian food. Because of the southern proximity of Sicily, food is inspired by Spanish, Greek and Arab cuisines. Most of all, they LOVE vegetables -yay for me!
For table decorations, I noticed a lot of lemons, oranges, greenery, and citrus coloured flowers.
For dinner the key ingredients & dishes I wanted use were:
Tomatoes
Burrata
Mozzarella
White Fish
Limoncello.
It was a great Italian dinner, I loved everything from dressing the table, putting the menu together and dressing up Nacho in his little waiter outfit haha. Here are some highlights (including Limoncello Cheesecake Recipe)!
Eucalyptus Branches, Lemons & Fairy Lights.
Sicilian Table Setting
Recently I have been inspired by Athena Calderone from EyeSwoon and her use of flowers and greenery.
With some inspo from her and Pinterest, I decided to go for Eucalyptus leaves, lemons and bright yellow flowers for the table. No vases, just placed directly on the table cloth.
The finishing touch: Fairy lights, which were magical!
Here’s how to do it:
Make an ‘S’ shape with the Eucalyptus leaves from the top to the bottom of the table.
Cut half the stems of the yellow flowers and place in the middle.
Place some lemons in the middle.
Add white flowers to the sides of the lemons (cut more of the stems compared to the yellow flowers).
Weave the fairy lights around the flowers, play around with it, doesn’t need to be perfect!
With spare eucalyptus leaves place a branch in each napkin.
Tips:
Play around with oranges, lemons and limes.
Use small and thin fairy lights, not the big Christmas decorations ones.
Don’t be intimated by what you see on Pinterest, take it as inspo, find what works for you and start small (ie. I only used olive branches the other week for our Greek Night).
Dreamy Sicilian-Inspired Table
My basket of happiness 🥰
Entree
We had a mix of entrees and antipasto dishes, my favourite was the Burrata Tomato & Basil -which my boyfriend made (very well done)!
Some tips:
Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus
Lightly cook the asparagus in butter and garlic before wrapping it in Prosciutto.
After wrapping, cook in a pan for about a minute or two.
Burrata Tomato & Basil Salad
Cut up baby tomatoes work well for sharing platters.
Don’t be stingy with the olive oil! Also, a premium salt is a nice garnish (Maldon Salt is my go to).
Bruschetta
You can pre-make this earlier in the day, but don’t put too much olive oil or else the tomatoes get too soggy. Drizzle with extra olive oil when you serve.
Bread
We chose a herby focaccia to be on theme!
Cut, place, arrange, rearrange, experiment!
Menu for the night
Our Waiter: Bambino Nachito
Prepping the fish -lots of lemon, herbs and olive oil.
Mains & Salad
I was excited to find out Sicilian cuisine consists of fresh fish and vegetables -staples for the Mediterranean diet. My go-to method of cooking fish is to wrap it in foil and pop it on the BBQ. The only difference for this dish was the tomato-capers salsa.
Here’s what we served:
Fish + Tomato & Capers Salsa
Take any white fish fillet, cut grooves across it and season with lemon, olive oil and S&P. Wrap in foil.
Cook on the BBQ for 15 mins.
Tomato Salsa: Marinate some cut baby tomatoes and red onion, with capers, olive oil and pieces of basil. Cook in a pan for 3-5 minutes, then serve on top of the fish.
Lasagna
Made my Vegan Lasagna recipe, just with double the portions. It was a MEGA lasagna, so delish!
Roasted Figs & Mozzarella Salad
Cut figs in half, drizzly with honey and balsamic vinegar, roast for 20 mins.
Serve with parsley, tomatoes, hazelnuts and broken up pieces of mozzarella. Top with pepper and sea salt (preferably Maldon).
Vegan Lasagna, before baking.
Vegan Lasagna, after 40 mins in the oven.
Roasted Fig & Mozzarella Salad
A messy table is evidence of good food… that’s what I tell myself!
Dessert
Limoncello Cheesecake is an ‘adult’ dessert you need to try!
This is basically a Lemon Curd Cheesecake recipe, but with 1/4 cup of Limoncello added to the ricotta cheese mix.
Limoncello Cheesecake!
Limoncello Cheesecake Recipe
Base:
1 1/2 cup Crushed Biscuits (I used Arnotts Malt O Milk)
1 cup Desiccated Coconut
1/2 cup Crushed Walnuts
1/4 cup Vegetable oil
1/4 cup Melted Butter
Cheese:
Ricotta Cheese
Thickened Cream (blend in NutriBullet for 30 secs to thicken the cream even more for a fluffier texture)
1/4 cup Limoncello
Lemon Curd:
2 Lemons (Juice)
1 cup Sugar
1 Tablespoon corn flour
Vanilla essence
Even Nacho wanted a little bit of Limoncello.
Garnish:
Crushed pistachios
Dried rose petals
Slices Lemons
Method
Mix all the base ingredients and bake for 15 mins @ 180 deg.
Mix the cheese ingredients and place on top of the base. Bake for another 30 mins.
Heat up the Lemon Curd ingredients in a pan until it thickens.
Pour Lemon Curd onto cheesecake and bake for another 15 mins.
Refrigerate for 2-3 hours before serving.
To accompany the cheesecake, for digestif we had neat Limoncello and Amaretto.
Good company xx
Sicilian Saturday was such a fun dinner to make and host!
I loved experimenting with the table setting and playing around with the flowers, greenery and lemons. As for the food, we smashed the Vegan Lasagna and Limoncello cheesecake. However my favourite little addition was the Tomato Capers salsa we made for the fish. Will definitely make that again.
We had a lot of different drinks from Aperol, Chianti, Limoncello and Amaretto, which made it a little hard to wake up in the morning, but it was worth every sip and good laugh.
I love doing these ‘themed’ nights because I get to explore both food and design. Can’t wait to do the next one…. Spain next?
Nonna Lizzie xx