EASTER IS COMING....

Easter is for me a magic time!
It's when nature starts awakening and weather warms up...I just love it!
My kitchen gets busy renewing the old Italian tradition:
fiatoni di bietole (swiss chards), fiatoni alle uova e formaggi
(eggs and cheeses),
frittate (omelettes), torta pasqualina (spinach and eggs tart)
pastiera di grano (tart filled with cooked wheat grains and ricotta).
Today I have prepared "fiatoni di bietole", a sort of calzone filled with
swiss chards, and I'm going to share the recipe with you!

FIATONI DI BIETOLE

Ingredients for 9/10 fiatoni:

to make pizza dough:

500 g (or 3 cups) of bread flour
1 cup of warm water with 1 tsp yeast and a pinch of sugar
2 cups of warm water
1 TBS olive oil
3 tsp salt

In a bowl mix flour with salt, add the water where yeast
has been melted with sugar, and start mixing.
Add more water and the oil and keep mixing till you obtain a soft,
homogenic dough.
Let it rest covered with a cloth for 1 hour.
Then knead it on a wooden board, cut it in small pieces.
Knead each piece, form a ball and let it rest
covered with a cloth, for half an hour.
With a rolling pin flatten each ball in a fine round sheet.

To prepare filling:

4 bunches of fresh swiss chards
1 pot of anchovies
2 TBS capers
1 clove of garlic
2 TBS chopped green olives
a pinch of pepper flakes
olive oil

Wash chards and blanch them in salty water, drain, and let them cool down.
Squeeze out all excess of water from the chards, chop them finely and put
them in a bowl.
Add capers, olives, anchovies, garlic, pepper flakes and a bit of olive oil,
then mix well.

Fill in the fine dough with 2/3 TBS of chards mixture, close in half moon shape,
brush top with olive oil and bake at 475 degrees for 10 minutes or till golden
brown.