It’s been too long since our last risotto, so I bought a piece of pumpkin this morning ( what a lovely idea that you can buy them in pieces) and made us a lovely, creamy risotto this evening. I might have chucked in a few ingredients too many ( a handful of sweet peas for Izzie and 2 girolle mushrooms for the balance, I didn’t want it too sweet), but I took my time and it was worth it.

Started with roasting off the zucca, alongside a shallot and a few garlic cloves, while repotting a few plants. Then, for the risotto I first opened a bottle of white Santa Cristina and poured myself a lovely, chilled glass. Chopped a shallot, those girolles and sauteed them. 200g of arborio rice in, then, after a few minutes, a glug of wine in. Usual procedure, some wine, some chicken stock, I kept adding that roasted zucca and shallots, then the peas. Once I was happy with the texture, grated parmesan went in, a small knob of butter and we were ready to eat. Pumpkin soup next, sometime soon. 🙂

I ran back to that small grocery store this morning and sure enough- they had some lovely mushrooms for me. Not cheap, not cheap at all, but hey, I was deprived of this pleasure for 20 years while living in the UK, plus I won’t be buying them every day. I bought 6 large lovely ‘shrooms, one went to the freezer, 2 sliced up and dried on the windowsill, one made us a small bruschetta for lunch and 2 were turned into the most wonderful sauce in the evening, to accompany gnocchi.

For bruschetta I simply panfried a small chopped shallot, added thinly sliced mushrooms, generously seasoned with salt and black pepper and when on the bread, sprinkled some of that lovely fresh thyme I got given in the shop. An absolute delight.

In the evening I took a bit more time with the sauce, I’ve been wanting to do this for months. Chopped shallot, some garlic, butter, mushrooms. Chicken stock, lots of seasoning. Some fresh cream. Once cooked down, gently blitzed in, so that the texture was soother, thyme and gnocchi in.

Izzie kindly gave it 8,5 out of 10, for me it was a knockout.

A very good day in the kitchen. Yum!

Quite simply! What my mum grows in her small greenhouse on her allotment is also a force to be reckoned with, but the abundance of tomatoes I have here makes me very, very happy indeed. I took my time in Esselunga and had a good look at what Mutti have to offer to the lucky Italians and found this –

Wonderfully sweet datterini tomatoes that make a sauce out this world.

While in Garfagnana we had a supper of Conad’s lasagne with veal ( wow!), which then inspired me to run back for some minced veal to make ragu. They had none minced, sadly, so I ended up getting 4 small veal burgers and made my usual ragu, but- with fresh tomatoes and those datterini. Exceptional and will be made again very soon.

Ron has booked his tickets for early November, with lasagne being his most favourite thing to eat, I do wonder if he will love the veal version too.

Now it’s September and I’m looking out for fresh porcini mushrooms. First thing I’ll do when I get some will be mushroom sauce with some gnocchi, some porcini will be dried, a few will be frozen. The chap in a grocery shop in Via Santa Croce told me to come back tomorrow morning and I might be in luck. Fingers crossed!