Italian Rice Salad – September Recipes and Links

Welcome, September. You are the gentlest month: a new beginning, a second chance and a quiet invitation to dream. Like January, you offer a fresh start, but in softer colours and warmer light. With mild temperatures you bring ripe figs, abundant grapes and the first crisp apples. It feels like the right moment to begin again — new recipes, new stories and small projects, and, I hope, some precious family time.

Below is an updated list of the recipes, books, shows and sounds that have been keeping me inspired since the last newsletter. I also include a favourite late-summer recipe: an Italian rice salad with quick-pickled vegetables — perfect for celebrating seasonal produce.

What I am cooking

As summer shifts toward autumn, I’m trying to make the most of the last of the garden and market produce. There is something incomparable about picking a tomato straight from the vine or choosing the ripest fig from a branch. Because of that, our meals lately lean heavily on vegetables: roasted peppers and eggplants, simple tomato salads and stewed green beans. I’ve also been preserving more — jars of pickled vegetables and sweet jams — and making condiments to keep on hand for quick rice salads. The recipe below shows how to assemble a bright, savoury rice salad using quick-pickled vegetables as the condiment.

What I am reading

Our mornings have acquired a new ritual: after Livia has had her bottle, she chooses a book and brings it to me. She’s at that lovely age of leafing through pages and pointing at pictures, and those quiet moments of reading together have become a small, treasured pause in the day.

I am reading slowly right now but have started Annemarie Colbin’s Food and Healing, a thoughtful look at how diet shapes health and wellbeing. I’ve also put Paul Pitchford’s Healing with Whole Foods on my list. Both recommendations came from a conversation about fermented foods with a friend and journalist; they’ve nudged me to explore food from a broader, more restorative perspective than I usually do.

What I am watching

We began the second season of Ted Lasso. I’m not a football fan, but the show’s warmth, optimism and cultural clashes between American and British sensibilities are irresistible at the end of a long day — it lifts the spirits in a simple, generous way.

What I am listening to

With a book deadline approaching, my background soundtrack lately has been film scores: The Last of the Mohicans and The Lord of the Rings are on repeat while I write. I’ve also resumed early morning walks as temperatures cool, and I’m catching up on a few favourite podcasts during those outings.

Where I am dreaming to go

At the end of the month we’ll celebrate our third wedding anniversary. I’m quietly dreaming of a short, romantic weekend in the mountains — our first trip there with Livia — even though the cookbook deadline looms. I still hesitate to travel abroad, but often find myself scrolling through honeymoon photos from Scotland and Ireland, enjoying the memories.

Italian rice salad with quick-pickled vegetables

Recipe developed in collaboration with Tenuta San Carlo

This rice salad is a late-summer celebration: fresh, savoury, acidic and pleasantly crunchy thanks to a homemade giardiniera-style condiment of quick-pickled vegetables preserved in olive oil. It harkens back to the bowls of rice salad many families kept in the fridge through warm seasons — a comforting, practical dish that tastes of home.

I chose an organic Ribe rice from Tenuta San Carlo for its firm texture and versatility. The condiment — the quick-pickled vegetables — can be made in advance and kept in the fridge for a week, so you’ll have flavorful seasoning ready whenever you want a fast, satisfying rice bowl.

Ingredients

For the cooking liquid

• 1 l water
• 1 l vinegar
• 100 g sugar
• 60 g salt
• 2 bay leaves
• 5 peppercorns

For the vegetables (quick-pickled condiment)

• 2 carrots, cut into sticks
• 2 celery stalks, sliced
• 1 handful green beans, trimmed and cut
• 2 zucchini, sliced
• ½ red pepper, cut into sticks
• ½ yellow pepper, cut into sticks
• ¼ cauliflower, separated into florets
• 1 red onion, cut into wedges
• ½ cup pitted olives
• 1/3 cup desalted capers
• 1 cup extra virgin olive oil

For the rice salad

• 480 g organic Ribe rice (Tenuta San Carlo)
• 4 hard-boiled eggs
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Fresh basil, torn

Method

Prepare the quick-pickled vegetables

1. Clean and cut all the vegetables, keeping each variety separate: cauliflower into florets, celery and zucchini into rounds, peppers and carrots into sticks, and green beans trimmed and cut into shorter lengths. Slice the red onion into wedges.
2. Combine the vinegar, water, salt and sugar in a large saucepan. Stir until the salt and sugar dissolve, then bring the mixture to a boil.
3. Blanch each vegetable separately in the boiling liquid for a few minutes until al dente. Remove with a slotted spoon and spread on a clean cloth to dry for a few hours.
4. When dry, place the vegetables in a bowl and cover with extra virgin olive oil. Add the desalted capers and pitted olives, stir to combine and transfer to a jar. Cover and refrigerate; the mixture will keep for about a week and develops more flavour over time.

Assemble the rice salad

1. Cook the rice in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Drain and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking and cool the grains.
2. Place the rice in a large bowl and fold in half of the prepared vegetable condiment, or to taste. Use the olive oil from the condiment to dress the rice; it will have absorbed the flavour of the vegetables.
3. Roughly mash the hard-boiled eggs with a fork and stir them into the rice to add creaminess without mayonnaise. Add torn basil leaves, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, and mix gently.
4. Cover the rice salad with cling film and chill for a few hours to let the flavours meld. Keep in an airtight container in the fridge for several days.