I love eating. Even more than I love cooking. My Mum got this thing into me, being a working woman with two kids and still managing to put a two course dinner on the table for us every day. My meals are a lot simpler, I cook for two, with Florian being my most devoted fan and audience. There is nothing more rewarding than a nicely turned out meal. There is nothing more enjoyable that a great plate of food in a decent restaurant with a glass of great red in a nice company. Hence this blog, to share ideas and joy of good food.
Bon Appetit.
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.
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!
So many things to get used to. I said goodbye to my spacious, comfortable kitchen in Winchcombe, where everything worked, nothing leaked, there was lots of space and it was spotless, including all appliances. Before I write any more – Florek would say- anymore moaning- I know this is a temporary place to live. But still, when on the same day I realize the sink is still leaking, the washing machine the landlord left for us is filthy and only 1 programme works decently and there is no way I can clean the mould off the shower cabin ( mould inside the glass, so to speak, even my trusty Dettol is helpless), it was hard to keep the straight face. So I had a quick and intense meltdown and it helped. We went to Brickocenter the next day and the sink got fixed. We dug deep and ordered a nice, new, awesome washing machine, another Samsung like the one left in the UK, but a new generation. The next thing will be a coffee machine- yes, we did the unthinkable and had to leave our beloved Krups behind, we gave it to Keava and Simon as it simply did not fit in the already full car.
Shopping for food here is a delight. Filling my own fridge ( so many people back in the UK thought I was insane taking my fridge to Italy, I love it!) with things like guanciale, now available anytime we fancy carbonara, like delicious Italian yoghurt, Sicilian grapes, truffle sauces from around the corner in Via Fillungo, this feels great. Izzie helped making truffle bechamel and then sat at the table and ate the pasta coated in it straight from the pot, that’s how chuffed she was!
Carbonara had to be made, no brainer. Also, when making a nice tomato sauce for gnocchi I fried some guanciale and when crispy, chucked fresh, skinless tomatoes in and cooked them down in this wonderful, flavoursome fat. Miky told me a few days later that amattriciana sauce is made that way, only a good handful of pecorino romano cheese needs to be added too and black pepper.
And at Grumpy’s recently I went for pizza Capricciosa, with the most amazing, soft and delicious artichokes and black olives.
Having written all that, the scales actually is quite kind to us both! We eat less, as it’s hot, but also carrying shopping onto the third floor and moving a lot more really helps. Good stuff!
My mom is a big fan of veal, I never have been, but this is about to change. In the UK it’s mega expensive and I’m not sure if worth it. But having chatted to Michele, my food buddy from Ubon days I felt like polpettini and Miky said veal is the way to go.
I bought some ground veal, added some grated parmesan, an egg, lots of chopped parsley, a grated clove of garlic, a white bread roll soaked in milk and seasoned it well, before combining. While the simple tomato sauce was bubbling away I quickly pan fried the meatballs and then finished them off in the sauce. Served with penne, as per Izzie’s suggestion, less messy than spaghetti and cooks faster!
All went down a storm with some local Vermentino- another winner, 6 euro for a bottle of wonderful, light, Italian wine. Thumbs up!
We have done it. We have sold the house, packed what was left into Tesla ( a painful experience) and drove to Italy. We’ve spent 4 days without the fridge, while waiting for our stuff to be delivered. But now it all resembles home. We’re rediscovering our favourite food places, so had to start at Piazza Anfiteatro and I must say that Grumpy now treats us like regulars and even addresses me as “cara” (!!). Grumpy’s real name is Marco, he seems to work in that restaurant 24/7 and when he happens to have a day off, this really is an event. And it turns out he does smile sometimes, he is grateful when complimented on their fantastic focaccia and has a nice, sharp sense of humour ( flipping a middle finger at one of the piazza’s regulars while taking order from customers :-).
Spaghetti alle vongole at Grumpy’s for me is one of the All Time Favourites. It is simple. They don’t bother with tomatoes or other seafood. Plus they fry the garlic to the point when it’s nearly burnt, but it’s not. The sauce is seafoody, with lots of parsley, simple and wonderful. A plate of vongole and a small cold beer is 10 out of 10. And the best thing is, we can now have it anytime, 10 minute walk from via di Poggio, where we now reside, until Casa Banks is found and purchased, hopefully sometime next year.
Izzie asked this morning if she could have a treat from the local bakery after school. Gingerbread men and iced buns are what she normally goes for, so once I got home having dropped her off, I quickly flipped through mojewypieki.com and found exactly what I needed. A cross between sweet buns, a muffin, but made of yeasty dough, like for doughnuts.
I used 250 g of plain flour, 12 g of fresh yeast crumbled in, 50 g of sugar and vanilla sugar and a pinch of salt. 125 ml of warm milk, 2 large egg yolks, a zest of half a lemon. All this was working nicely in the kitchen aid, I then added 25 g of melted and slightly cooled butter and continued until the dough was smooth and lovely. Left to prove on the front window sill for about 2 hours and proceeded to pack my daily amount of boxes. 17 degrees today, scorching British summer, but not to worry, we have less than a month and there will be no more complaints about summer being rubbish!
Once the dough more than doubled in size I have flattened it and divided in 12 pieces, formed into balls, each with a spoonfull of good jam inside. Placed each in a muffin case and left to prove again.
Finally it was time to bake them, 180 degrees, less than 14 minutes. Sticky orange glaze completed the job. Floro and I destroyed a couple between us, the head judge will come home in a hour, we shall see. For me a definite keeper of a recipe.
Youtube flashed this video at me this morning, I happened to have all the ingredients needed, there were no excuses. I first made some pesto for Floro and Iza, I knew they would not be interested in what I was about to be cooking.
Started with some chopped spring onions, some chopped ginger, a sprinkle of sea salt and pounded it into a nice chunky paste in my mortar. Heated up a little bit of oil and sesame oil and when it was hot, I poured it onto the spring onion mix, it sizzled and smelled amazing.
While the spaghetti was cooking, I got cracking with a generous handful of prawns. Onto the oiled pan went some chopped garlic, then prawns, a sprinkle of chili flakes and salt. A drizzle of soy sauce. Oyster sauce. A little cooking water from the pasta to loosen it. In went the pasta, it all got tossed together resulting in a dark, beautiful and very promising dish. To finish, the spring onion mixture, some mixed in, some on top.
When I asked Florek this morning what I should bake, he said -something lemony. So I flipped through mojewypieki.com, went to the garden to reduce the amount of rhubarb growing there and proceeded to make a cake. Such a good cake, in fact, that it deserves to be blogged and made again.
I creamed 120g of soft butter with 150 g of sugar and vanilla sugar, a zest of the whole lemon, 3 whole eggs, then slowly added 220 g of plain flour, 1,5 tsp of baking powder, 60 ml of lemon juice, combined it all quickly and got into a lined round tin. On top went about 250 g of fresh, chopped, unpeeled rhubarb and a handful of leftover blueberries. The cake baked in 170 degrees for about 45 minutes. Once baked and cooled I added a bit of lemon icing on top. Excellent with a good cup of tea. 🙂
I fancied something a bit more special yesterday, something maybe a bit more challenging. I saw these little beauties on mojewypieki.com and decided to have a go, although I knew that whatever I’d make would be ready to eat the next day.
I’ve made half a portion from that recipe – the idea of using 500g of butter made me put up 3kg just thinking about it! I ended up with about 11 pastries. So, yesterday I measured out 100ml of cold water, to which I added 7g of salt and dissolved it. 200 g of plain flour, 35 g of melted butter plus that salty water was made into a quick dough, while the remaining butter of 250g piece I had, softened and rolled out into a neat square, wrapped in cling film and chilled in the fridge for 2 hours alongside the dough. Then the dough came out, rolled out onto a square twice as big as the butter one, butter went on top and I folded the pastry on top of it to make it look like an envelope. Rolled it out away from me to make it into a rectangle, folded three ways and into the fridge it went for 1,5 hour. I repeated this process 4 times yesterday, this morning once more and I was ready to use my French pastry ( puff in England, French in Poland we call it).
Today I made a filling of finely chopped apple, some raisin and cranberries, cinnamon, vanilla sugar, lemon juice and a dusting of plain flour. Rolled out my pastry, cut into squares, filled with apples, a little brushing of egg white on the edges- and some of them still opened!-closed with a help of a fork, more egg white, 3 little slashes on top of each pastry so that steam could escape and into the oven for 20 minutes in 200-220 degrees.
Once out and still very warm I applied a bit of glaze and that was that.
What I’ve learned is that French pastry is not difficult to make, it’s time consuming, but it is definitely worth every single fold and chill it took. The pastry is flaky, buttery, light and flavoursome, filling not too sweet, and excellent little treat to go with a cup of tea. I had 2 and left the kitchen before snatching another one. Will wait at least until the afternoon. 🙂
