Rome Cooking Classes

Sunday, 8 December 2024

Italian Festive Season Gift Ideas - In Person and Virtual Gifts

With the Festive Season fast approaching you may be looking for something different, a personal gift, that you know your friends and family will really enjoy.

Guido and Sally have been offering in-person and online activities from their family home in the Rome countryside for the past 18 years. We understand that our guests enjoy something authentic and unique, direct from the heart of Italy. Something truly Italian that will give you a personal experience that you will fondly remember. Offering olive and winery tours, Italian cooking classes, 4 and 5 Day Italian culinary holidays to small groups means we can give you a more attention and you can relax and enjoy the whole experience. We also offer Private tours and classes that we can tailor to your needs. All of our activities are held in our family home, in the Sabine Hills, overlooking miles of uninterrupted views over olive groves, medieval hilltop villages and monasteries. It's breathtaking.

View from our family home over the Sabine Hills

Guido and Sally's offer our in-person activities all year round and our online virtual cooking classes from November to late February, so if you are looking for a Gift for a Special person this Festive Season (or any time of the year), please contact us for more information on info@conviviorome.com

Here are a list of possible gifts:

One Day Italian Cooking Class and Olive Tour Experience

Private In-Person Tours - Tailor your own Special Day with us

Online Italian Cooking Video Package

Italian Gift Ideas

Italian Hot Chocolate - Chef Guido's family recipe for 'cioccolato caldo'

Chef Guido wants to share with you, his special family recipe for Italian Hot Chocolate. The type of hot chocolate drink is sooooo thick you can stand your spoon up in it! Enjoy!

Italian Hot Chocolate: Ingredients (serves 6):
Half a litre (1.05 pt or 2 cups) of milk, 80 g (2.8 oz) of granulated white sugar, 20g (0.7 oz) of maize flour, 1 bar of dark chocolate (100g or 3.5 oz), 30g of cocoa powder.
Method: Put cocoa powder and maize flour into a pot and mix well. Start pouring the milk a little at a time to make a paste first, stirring with a wooden spoon. Add all the milk and place the pot on medium heat, stirring from time to time. When the mixture begins to boil, break the chocolate into pieces and melt into the mixture. Stir in the sugar. Once all the ingredients are perfectly mixed, the hot chocolate is ready to be served.

Buon appetito!

Online Italian Cooking Video Package

Italian Gift Ideas

For more recipes: Guido's FREE recipe e-booklet '5 Minute Pasta'

Sunday, 27 October 2024

Melanzane e Ceci (Egglant and Chickpeas) Recipe

Eggplants are still in season. As the weather changes and the days become cooler, this a perfect recipe for this time of year.

By this time of year, you are probably looking for a new recipe that includes eggplants, so I want to share my family recipe for Melanzane e Ceci (Egglant and Chickpeas). Melanzane e Ceci is a traditional recipe from the southern Tuscan countryside and can be served hot or cold. It’s usually considered ‘contorno’ (side vegetable dish), however it can be also served in small portions as an antipasto or as a light main course if topped with diced pecorino cheese and combined with simple olive oil and garlic bruschetta on the side.

Chef Guido's Melanzane e Ceci Recipe

Ingredients (serves 6):

400g (14.1 oz) of boiled and drained chickpeas, 2 eggplants, 6 ‘Piccadilly’ tomatoes or 10 cherry tomatoes, 5 tbsp olive oil, 1 clove of garlic, fresh basil, oregano, black pepper and salt to taste.

Method: cut eggplants (aubergines) into small dices and shallow fry them in olive oil with 1 bruised clove of garlic, while adding salt to your taste. Dice tomatoes the same size as the eggplants and put them into a bowl. Add a swirl of olive oil and salt to your taste and mix well. Discard the garlic. Once the eggplants are soft, add tomatoes and chickpeas. Check for salt and add black pepper. Add fresh basil and oregano at the end.

Guido's Tip: This delicious Tuscan side vegetable dish can be completed by topping with shaved or diced pecorino cheese.

For more recipes: Guido's FREE recipe e-booklet '5 Minute Pasta'

Saturday, 26 October 2024

Note of Thanks for your Support over the Pandemic period

Sally and Guido

Guido and Sally have been running Convivio Rome (offering Culinary Holidays, Italian Cooking Classes, Olive Tours and Winery Tours) from their family home in the Sabine Hills, in the Rome countryside for over 18 years. We have enjoyed every minute of it, and continue to enjoy showing our guests around our beautiful area and giving them a personal and genuine experience that we hope will give them fond memories for years to come.

Running our own business and working together as a husband and wife team, is like dancing: taking one step at a time and in harmony with each other. Working in tourism in a non-touristy area has always presented it's challenges, but none more than in 2020 and 2021 (and even into the beginning of 2022) when the Pandemic hit. International boarders were closed and almost all of our in-person bookings were cancelled.

Initially, we thought, like everyone else, that the restrictions would not last for long, a month or so, and then everything would return 'to normal'. When we realised that this was something more long term (and again we had no idea of how long it would be) we saw that our family business that we had built for years needed to change, and quickly. We needed to earn some money 'to put food on the table' and petrol in the car (when they let us out).

As Italy closed down, we knew that we needed to take our in-person business, online.

Taking our business online - Guido's Cook Club Monthly membership

And this is the point of this post, that Guido and Sally wanted to say a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who supported us during this time. We received a lot of support, from past clients and guests who also became friends, from family and friends in Australia and England, and from people whom we had never met before, who just wanted to help out.

People from all over the world joined us on Facebook Live and Zoom and supported our online Business: our online cooking classes, Guido's monthly cook club membership, online cooking video packages, our cooking workshops, team building classes and more.

Guests also returned to Italy to join us in person, as soon as it was possible.

Again, we just want to send you our appreciation for all your support over past years, through the years of the Pandemic, and your continued to support us today.

Grazie mille. Thank you all.

Sally and Guido

Convivio Rome - Italy

For more recipes: Guido's FREE recipe e-booklet '5 Minute Pasta'

Saturday, 17 August 2024

Guido's Family Recipe ‘Pomodori col Riso’ (baked rice-filled tomatoes)

Guido's family recipe for Pomodori col Riso

‘Pomodori col Riso’ (baked rice-filled tomatoes) is a classic Italian Summer dish with variations in different regions. This is the roman version, that my nonna and mamma used to make, with roast potatoes added to it. Traditionally, it’s served at room temperature and enjoyed at picnics on the beach.

Pomodori col Riso

Ingredients (serves 6): 6 large ripe tomatoes, 500g (17.6 oz) of potatoes, 1 clove of garlic, 6 tbsp ‘arborio’ or ‘ribe’ uncooked rice, 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, salt and fresh basil to taste.

Method: Cut off the ‘top cap’ of the tomatoes and put it aside. With a teaspoon, carefully scoop out the tomato pulp. Put the tomato shells upside- down onto a plate to draw out excess liquid. In the meantime, cut the tomato pulp very fine into a bowl and keep 3 tbsp of it aside. Add olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh basil and rice to the tomato pulp.

Turn on the convection oven at 170ºC (338ºF). Dice potatoes to your favourite ‘roasting’ size and then place them into an oven dish with a swirl of olive oil, salt to taste, 1 whole clove of garlic (skin on) and the little tomato pulp you already put aside. Put the emptied tomatoes in the dish among the potatoes. Put just a tablespoon of rice mixture in each tomato. Cover each tomato with its cap. Top with another swirl of olive oil.Bake for 40 to 50 minutes until rice is aldente and tomatoes are slightly caramelised.

Serve hot, cold, or at room temperature. Great to take on a picnic or to a friend's home to share. Enjoy!